I’m spending the weekend preparing for ALA next week. Here are the sessions I am presenting:

Friday, July 10, 2009 8:30am-12pm
Making it Stick: Designing, Delivering, and Surviving Presentations Sold Out
McCormick Place West W-476

Saturday, July 11, 2009
Cultivating a Culture of Learning
Hyatt Regency McCormick Conf. Ctr. 10 a/b

Sunday, July 12, 2009
CLENERT Training Showcase
McCormick Place South S106

If you are at ALA please stop by and say hello. See you in Chicago!

I am so happy to see this announcement from the ALA Web site:

For the first time since its establishment, the Emerging Leaders program will accept non-MLS library workers. Library support staff personnel are encouraged to apply to the program and will have an opportunity to be considered for sponsorship through the ALA Library Support Staff Interests Round Table.

Applications are now being accepted for the 2010 ALA Emerging Leaders Program. The deadline to apply is July 31, 2009. You can view the complete announcement here: http://www.ala.org/ala/newspresscenter/news/pressreleases2009/june2009/elapplicationsopen_hrdr.cfm

Way to go ALA!

Brandon Hall regularly offers free webinars related to training, learning, development, and e-learning. In July they are offering two webinars that look like great sessions:

Managing Virtual Teams: an online roundtable and clinic(Free)
Wednesday, July 1 — 1:00 p.m. Eastern Time (U.S. & Canada) (GMT 5:00)

Learning Management Systems: Trends and Issues (Free)
Wednesday, July 8 — 1:00 p.m. Eastern Time (U.S. & Canada) (GMT 5:00)

You can view the schedule and register for these sessions here: http://www.brandon-hall.com/webinars/webinars.shtml

I had a lot of fun putting this together. This was supposed to be my Plan B in case the live feed from my office did not work. But after putting it all together last night this morning, I decided it really would work better as a video rather than live session.

In the spirit of learning here are a few details about how I did this. I always seem to wait until the last minute with presentations. I came up with the title Wednesday night and began working on the PowerPoint Thursday around 5pm. First I did a title and notes for each slide so I would know what the framework would be. Then I used Flickr to find supporting Creative Commons images. It took hours to find the right photos. In all it took about 3 hours to create the PowerPoint.

Sometime during all this I came up with the idea for the opening scene. I tried recording the opening scene with a webcam but the quality was bad…even with a good webcam. My husband, who happens to be a brilliant video editor, asked me why didn’t I use our digital camera. After kicking myself in the head for not thinking of that I set off to find a flashlight and hat. It took about 10 takes to get the flashlight and handheld camera effects right.

After recording the opening scene I used Camtasia to narrate the PowerPoint. This took forever but I consider some of the takes as rehearsal! Next time I will record one slide at a time or a few slides at a time.

Once the PowerPoint narration was done I imported the video from my camera, added a title slide, transitions, and some spooky music. Anyone recognize the tune?

Then I produced the Camtasia project to default Internet settings and uploaded to YouTube. In all it took about 9 hours which comes to about 90 minutes of development per minute of presentation. I would say the norm is about 60 minutes of time per minute of e-learning material.

What does all this mean? When you compare development time of e-learning to face-to-face learning there is a much higher front end investment for e-learning. But once the development is done, you are done. The content is there for your learners to access at any time and you can move on to other projects. However when someone tells you to “whip together a quick tutorial” keep in mind that there is nothing quick about it!

You can read more about e-learning development time on the following sites:

http://www.elearningguild.com/pdf/1/time%20to%20develop%20Survey.pdf

http://www.nwlink.com/~Donclark/hrd/elearning/myths.html

p.s. Just for the record. The words of wisdom did not actually come from “Pete” or anyone else in recent years. I think it actually came to me from an episode of the Brady Bunch.

This Friday will be the first Pres4Lib in Princeton, NJ where library speakers and trainers will share tips, tricks, and techniques about presentation skills.

For those of us who can’t make it to Princeton there are several options to participate virtually. You can view details about virtual participation here: http://pres4lib.pbworks.com/Virtual-Participation

I’m looking forward to presenting and participating from my office in Charlotte, NC. Hope to see you there!

Here is a great opportunity for anyone in libraryland to learn about teaching online:

Learn how to teach online on your own time! WISE Pedagogy offers an open-access training experience for its Introduction to Online Pedagogy workshop. Learn effective teaching practices anytime, at your own pace, without the necessity of enrollment in a program or adhering to a semester schedule. Interact with other learners/instructors via linked forums for pedagogical discussion, course development exercises, and continuing your education in new developments for distance learning.

A Certificate of Completion is available to those who finish the workshop and participate in each exercise.

Introduction to Online Pedagogy is a free resource for LIS instructors, students, and professionals from beginners to seasoned instructors looking for new ideas in online instruction.

Click here to access the on-demand website: http://introductiononlinepedagogy.pbworks.com/

For more information, please contact Anne McKinney at amckinn@illinois.edu.

Here is a different take on “Death by PowerPoint.” I’m not sure of the source of this cartoon as someone left it in my mailbox a few years ago, but it serves as a reminder that PowerPoint does not equal presentation.

Do you have tips for using PowerPoint as a tool in presentations? If so please leave a comment below. I’d love to include your thoughts and ideas in the preconference Paul Signorelli and I are doing at ALA on how to give good presentations.

Mike Abrams asks, “What makes a trainer ROCK!?” in his post Twitter Contest: What Makes a Great Trainer. The deadline for the contest is this Friday 8pm Pacific.

By the way…if you are not submitting your own idea, please visit the site and vote for mine.

If you missed last month’s WebJunction webinar Technology Competencies in Your Library you can view the archived webinar, related links, and discussion here: http://www.webjunction.org/competencies/articles/content/57702385.

It’s hard to believe that just a year ago, I was ready to boycott ALA. Shortly after writing that post, I received a phone call from Pete Bromberg who encouraged me to be part of the change that needs to happen within ALA. I received the same encouragement from many other people…too many to name, but you know who you are.

And now it is with pleasure that I announce that I have been elected to serve on the board of the CLENE (Continuing Library Education Network Exchange) Round Table of ALA.

Thank you CLENE members for electing me to represent you on the Board. I am excited about the opportunity especially having just completed a PR and Marketing Campaign proposal for CLENE. During the next year I am hoping to widely publicize not only CLENE but the benefits and value of continuing education and lifelong learning. It’s my hope that we can increase the status of our profession so that we are seen as leaders and key decision makers within libraries and to ensure that learning continues to be valued.