If only engaging the adult learner was as easy as posting a Puppy Cam!

I just took a quick look at my most recent addiction: the Shiba Inu puppy cam. More than 15,000,000 hits! If only it was as easy to engage our learning audiences! That having been said, I think the most important thing that I’ve learned about learning technologies this semester is how to better approach and organize the design and development process for different learning technologies. While I have been designing and developing interactive education programs for years, I learned much by trial and error, by reading and by learning from others on the job. So it is nice to have a knowledge base that is supported by academic research and practice! The end result will be a more organized and structured process in my workplace, programs with engagement more strongly tied to learning outcomes, and I think most of all, much stronger assessment processes and tools that will be more meaningful for the user and more measurable for the client. While I felt I already had a pretty good grasp of the technologies themselves, I did not have the development frameworks, structures or processes for the learning technologies down at all. This class has certainly provided me with invaluable insights that I am already applying and will continue to apply for as long as I am involved in this field!