Interview with Leah S. Piatt (New Series - Life in the E-Learning Organization)

Welcome to a series of interviews with e-learning and distance professionals. This week's interview is with Leah Piatt, Duke University, who is involved in corporate training and adult education.

What is your name, and what is your involvement with e-learning?
Leah S. Piatt. Relatively new to corporate training and adult education, I've been leading the way in our departmental work with e-learning. I've worked with Elluminate. I'm eagerly awaiting the day when I will get to actually moderate a class using this tool.

How did you get interested in distance education?
Some of our participants live and work an hour or more away from our training facility. We're really trying to alleviate travel and time obligations. I anticipate that e-learning will also help with the number of instructor lead classes we teach and bring about a more blended learning approach.

What is your favorite new trend in distance education?
I love the idea of continuing education via distance education. This could open up the amount of guest speakers we have both by eliminating travel time for the speaker as well as allowing someone who'd missed the session to hear the recording and view the presentation later.

What is your favorite technology?
Elluminate

What kinds of instructional materials do you use in elearning?
Power Point, Word, clip art, Snag-It, Captivate (soon, hopefully).

How do you use textbooks in e-learning?
We don't use textbooks, rather participant guides and job aids. These can be emailed before the session begins or converted to power point.

What is your favorite quote? or, what's a book that caught your eye recently?
quote: "While you teach, you learn." -- based on the words of Seneca the Younger, 4BC-65AD

book: The Primal Teen: What The New Discoveries About the Teenage Brain Tell Us About Our Kids --- Barbara Strauch