This post was originally combined with yesterday’s post, could you imagine? Too much. It has been an eventful year though, so it’s only fitting that I have two eventful posts.

On With The Show

I’ve made the last two months of the year an extremely prolific writing two months (for me).

The reason I made it more prolific? I was well behind where I wanted to be for number of posts for the year.

My goal was to write at least every two weeks which would have put me at 26 posts for the year. I wouldn’t have done 26 but my last minute decision to split these final two posts into two did it. Really they should have been separated to begin with though.

I didn’t make that number last year although making small steps towards it has helped me get there. Twenty-six posts is a hard number, but one post every two weeks isn’t so bad even though they’re the same thing.

I did have a large gap in posting of over a month but I will make it a goal next year to not let that happen again. If I foresee a problem with my next post due to scheduling of events then I’ll have to write it ahead of time.

Now for reflecting. I’m going to link to each of my posts then write a brief summary of what I remember of that post and the key highlights for it. I’ll try to stay brief and simple.

Second Screen Revolution – January 6

I’d had this idea on my list of things to write about for a long time and I started out the year with it. Good way to start the year really.

I’m still using two screens, sometimes three and dealing with distractions is still part of everyday life. Rather than fighting the screens and failing, embrace them and find a way to work with them.

Tweet Your Way to Conference Success – January 20

I’ve been an advocate for live-Tweeting and such for a long time. No surprise I had to write about it.

There’s nothing better than to instantly take notes, share with the world, and teach back to co-workers than to live-Tweet a conference.

It’s a win-win if you go about it the right way and then there’s no loss of information. I can’t think of a better way to spend a conference experience.

Mobile Performance Support – Make It Simple! – February 24

As I was trying to gain traction with mobile help overlays in my organization, I also was thinking about their importance in the overall L&D community.

Beyond mobile performance support, I think there’s a clear message everywhere that everyone should be doing everything they can to simplify everyone else’s job. If L&D can have a part in bringing clarity to the workplace, a great service has been done.

Stop Trying To Predict Mobile Users Needs – March 12

The initial move to a broader mobile audience had a lot of research saying that mobile apps and sites should only cover the most likely information to be used while mobile. I say that’s impossible.

Mobile Life is huge now and there is a vast audience of people that don’t just want to do certain tasks in mobile, they want to do it all. I’m one of those users and there’s nothing more annoying than having to go to a computer. if there’s a competitor that offers me everything right on my smartphone, I’m going there.

Search Is The Center Of Learning – March 25

When I want to learn something new, I don’t go hunting through topics, or categories, or web pages. I immediately open that page with a great big search box on it and type something in.

Whether it’s YouTube or Google I want to find it quick and easy without erroneous results. That almost definitely rules out the SharePoint search functionality.

Where Do We Go From Here? – April 8

I remember this one very well. I was on a mini-vacation and read Jonathan Kettleborough’s post about alignment requiring clarity. It brought a vivid image of a steering committee in a dark room coming out and telling their reports to move forward and spread their word.

The problem is there is no clarity in that way of sending a message through the company. It becomes a game of telephone and sometimes the lines above you never even call!

An enterprise social network is a great way to send a message forward immediately to everybody and without the loss of clarity.

So, it’s leaders responsibility to make sure everybody knows what the goals are so that everybody can align. Nobody can separate themselves from the business goals, especially L&D.

Reflecting on the National eXtension Conference (#nexconf) – May 16

This was a great experience at the conference, and an even better one going over my Twitter notes and rehashing them into a great reflection piece on my experience.

I still have an idea on my list to explain my process on how live-Tweeting these events is the absolute best way to take notes, spread the message, and share with others all at the same time.

I have my whole workflow worked out and it worked flawlessly here at this conference.

A Self Imposed Barrier – May 21

Writing is a challenging thing when there are no deadlines and it’s up to you to do it. I wanted to bring forward some of my barriers that I’ve consciously recognized and try to help myself recognize others.

This was recently brought back front and center to my mind by Tanya Lau who recently commented on it and some good discussion occurred on those things that keep us from doing the things that help us the most.

First step is to recognize a self imposed barrier, second step is to find ways to remove that habit and keep pushing forward.

MOOCs Have a Long Way To Go – June 23

After completing my second MOOC, I decided I needed to document my thoughts on the experience. While there’s some great information in MOOCs and much to be learned, it’s also easy to get lost in the sea of information and lack of motivation.

More interaction is needed to increase motivation and give MOOCs a more personal touch. It’s too easy to skate through them without ever coming into contact with anybody which also makes it easy to skate right out of it and drop the course.

How I Got Here – June 30

We all have our story of how we got to be an Instructional Designer, eLearning developer, etc. This is my tale of how I made it to where I am and got interested in doing what I love every day.

I’ll keep pushing forward and innovating in any way I can. Innovating is just taking each thing you see everyday that can be improved and making it a little bit better.

That’s how I see it.

Expand Your Skills – August 14

Just coming off my month hiatus with not a single post in July, I started back up with something that’s been on my mind a while.

How can you stay inside a silo and not look to external influence and still do good work? I don’t think it’s possible. These are some of the places I look to for inspiration, although I also keep myself open on social media to people of all types of backgrounds and interests.

The Biggest Fad of L&D – August 20

I could talk about the topic of MOOCs forever. There’s so much there and it’s always irked me that the “creator” of the modern MOOC said they were a failure. Well, maybe for his goal but to say they’re a failure is the biggest lie of the century.

Who cares if people drop out? They get what they want! Companies will start picking them up as a viable option for workplace learning too! They’ve been an amazing success and while there’s much to be desired, they’re a great start.

Work Out Loud on Colors Storyline Template – August 25

The post brought my highest traffic to my website ever due entirely to Articulate being such an active community. While not an all time high traffic post, it’s done well over time.

Nothing much here but a template I created in Storyline and shared it with the community. I enjoy sharing my work. There’s no joy in keeping it all locked away. I’m even sad when a course goes into an LMS, it seems like such a waste.

Mobile Help Overlays – Ultimate Performance Support for Mobile Apps – September 22

I still hope to see L&D become a larger part of this type of performance support.

UX Design is the big owner of this currently and I think L&D given research and thought and not doing the same-old is well positioned to bring this to more apps and do greater things with it.

I hope the many bad examples I’ve seen doesn’t have L&D behind it. Although to be fair I don’t think the great examples have L&D behind it either. This is something that seems a bit too cutting edge for your typical L&D department today.

What Will Learning Look Like In 2024? – October 6

We will have super brains that we can plug information into sort of like the Matrix. Okay, not what was meant.

I saw this in reality of how things probably will be, and the way I’d like to see it look, they’re very different.

People will still be calling people who took a course their learners though! Sad.

First Thoughts on Learned Helplessness – October 16

The topic that has been dwelling on my mind ever since had to originate somewhere! Here it is. I recalled a story that I still recall to this day about at teacher who sadly never even tried to learn or play to learn. This was the norm rather than the exception.

I’m still mulling on these ideas and how L&D can play a role in empowering people to learn and explore rather than controlling it.

Ten Things That Make Me Cringe – October 29

L&D is a great place to be for me, but a backwards place at times too. This was an answer to an eLearning Challenge posed on the Articulate eLearning Heroes challenge.

The most important thing that I think annoys everyone? Compliance training! It’s absolutely useless and isn’t going to save your butt in the case of a lawsuit anyway. Everyone’s time is wasted and upper management (the one’s who really need to take it) don’t take it.

Social and Learned Helplessness in Learning – November 3

Along with all the thoughts on how Learned Helplessness is a disease of learning as much as anything else. I also thought about how L&D was helping to promote that disease rather than cure it by controlling the learning experience.

Being social and sharing experiences seemed to be a great way to become less reliant on the training event and more self directed in seeking out answers from others.

They’re not learners, they’re people – November 12

This post was based off of a Tweet I made a while ago after seeing excessive use of the word learner and the phrase “my learners”.

People learn, everyone learns, nobody belongs to you and you can’t assume they will learn anything from what you’ve done. So, I still see learners everywhere but this remains one of my favorite posts.

Recipe For Disaster – November 20

It’s impossible not to see the obvious mistakes of the process an application (usually enterprise) was created using. It usually ends with a product that’s IT centered, not human centered.

Well, I had to recreate the process that leads to these horrible applications, courses, anything really. It’s usually the same process of silos, miscommunication, lack of information sharing, withholding the product until the end (or alpha), then being stuck with it until an attempt is made to fix it then the process happens all over again.

Generation Mobile – November 26

This one somewhat stems from a post earlier in the year about predicting mobile users needs. Stop it! Still.

There’s no such thing as gen X, Y, Z, etc. and all the wrong that goes with that. There’s a generation that’s going mobile and it crosses all age groups, financial groups, and cultures.

Turn The Curiosity Back On – December 10

Thinking back on my experience in the DevLearn backchannel this year and my new interest in Learned Helplessness of Learning. Neil Degrasse Tyson spoke a little bit about kids being scientists before we steal the curiosity from them.

Well, everybody has had every bit of curiosity taken from them through years of being bombarded by formal learning. You can only learn in a classroom between these hours, that’s what we’re told.

I wanted to put a name to this and understand that it’s L&D’s role to turn the curiosity back on, not lock it behind bars.

Learned Helplessness of Learning #chat2lrn – December 17

This was my first experience into the other side of #chat2lrn which I have been participating in for almost two years.

It was a great experience and one I will not soon forget. Also, on a topic that I will not soon stop writing about. Who knows, it may end up being its own category on my blog I like it so much!

Rethinking The Holiday Rush – December 22

I don’t know if this one requires too much reflecting on as it was so recent, but I’m still going to make this my last one.

Just before the big end of year holiday rush happens I changed gear and was in a different type of rush. I was finishing up my course on Udemy called Catapult Your Career: Building Your Website Portfolio. It’s done and up and I’m proud to say I did it all in less than 30 days while still maintaining at least a slight amount of quality 😉

See You In 2015!

It’s been a great year and I’m proud to say I’ve accomplished more than I could imagine. There’s still a lot of work to be done though.

I look forward to 26+ posts next year and I’m already trying to think of my next topic for a Udemy course, how I can improve my current one, and what great things this year will bring into my life.