The conference

Next Friday is a very exciting day for me because I will be presenting my instructional design and eLearning development work at a conference for the first time. The conference is the Canadian eLearning Conference and it will be held in Toronto on July 18 and 19. For more information, check out their website or follow their Twitter account (@cdnelearning).

If you’re thinking of going, but haven’t decided for sure, maybe this will convince you: the keynote will be presented by none other than The eLearning Coach herself, Connie Malamed! To learn more about this impressive woman, check out her website.

My passion for presenting

While completing my graduate degree in Medical Sciences, I presented my work at conferences around the world. I loved every single one of those experiences (yes, even that one time when I completely choked!). In fact, giving talks at conferences was probably one of my favourite things about my graduate student experience.

After switching careers and becoming a teacher, I kept up my habit of giving talks – sometimes at smaller professional development events, and other times at large conferences. In fact, I gave my first education talk was while I was still a Bachelor of Education student. That experience was quite intimidating because the audience was a room filled with the principals of the schools in my region. Luckily, the talk went well and I had multiple principals offer to give me a future job on the day I graduated.

I’ve now been firmly planted in the field of learning experience design for a little over two years and I am looking to get back into the practice of speaking at conferences. I got my feet wet by presenting my instructional design graduate work at an online showcase for exemplary work in January 2018. And now I’m really looking forward to giving my first conference talk at the Canadian eLearning Conference.

The presentation

I’ll be presenting in the Show and Share portion of the conference. This event is a rapid-fire set of presentations that each describe an instructional design problem and how it was solved using eLearning and technology.

My talk is called ‘Opening Up Confined Space Training’. This is how I’ve described the talk in the conference app: ‘Imagine your learner analysis showed that some of your learners are already experts, while others know next-to-nothing about the topic. Yet you are told to create only a single course, and everyone must take it. What do you do? That was the problem solved with this Confined Space Pre-entry course. Constructed using a concept attainment strategy, the course personalized the content delivered to the learners based on their success navigating through an interactive video-based activity that tested their prior knowledge. Not only did the course give learners credit for what they already knew, but the interactive videos delighted learners and kept them engaged.’

For a taste of the experience that the learners had, click the image below to check out the demo.

Come to the conference

If you’re interested in finding out how successful my strategy was in dealing with a varied audience of learners, come to the conference. You’ll also learn about topics such as xAPI, UX/UI, visual design, branching scenarios, live online learning, learner personas, and more. See you there!