Strategies for Repurposing Content to Build High-Value Online Educational Offerings

One of the best methods for building revenue and sales for technical products and services is to provide education and training. However, it’s not always easy to organize the training, or to know what to offer. There are advantages and disadvantages for each form of education. They can be standalone, and they can also be bundled to create online units that can be place in sequences to help master a topic, or to provide review for those that require complementary skills or content.

Assuring the Best Granularity / Building Block approach
--Training and professional development content
--Identify purposes
--White Papers
--Podcasts / Audio
--Webinars
--Training manuals
--Stand-alone assessments (test your knowledge, etc.)
--Stages and sequences – tie to individual’s career development
--Types of content and how to match to products

sketch by susan smith nash

Steps for Selecting the Best Speakers/Instructors and Subject Matter Experts for Your Program

·    --Identify what you want to accomplish

·      --Is this a one-off or part of a series?

·      --How advanced are your learners?

·         --How technical is your instructor?

·               -- Match-making: your instructor, the style, the assessment, the materials
          _Use a Guru! 

·               -- How will your SME perform?  How will the “face” deliver the content?

·               -- It is a lot more than content: sequence, style, clarity, charisma, chunking, scaffolding, assessment, mastery learning, and more

     How do you plan to market your course? The best of the best?

·         --Guide on the side? Self-Directed? Independent “Discovery” learning?

·         --Fail-safe your experts: Backup texts and assessments

How to Select the Best LMS or VLE for your Organization  

·        --Learning Management System? Or, Virtual Learning Environment?

·        -- What’s the difference between an LMS and a VLE?

·         --What are you using your e-learning for? What are your goals and overall purpose?

·        -- How many people will be using the training?  Students?

·        --How much input will the internal administrators, SMEs, etc. have?

·        -- What do you have to show credentialing or regulatory bodies in order to achieve compliance?

 
Concluding Thoughts 
Course and curriculum needs change. Careers, jobs, and skills paths change. The person who was learning to program Ruby on Rails and Java yesterday for a shopping cart application could be cryptocurrency mining for Bitcoin tomorrow. Make sure that your approach is flexible.

Using Web 2.0 in Online Courses: Creating Mystery & Engagement with a Collaborative Story Line

One interesting way to engage students is to put together a PowerPoint presentation that can be shared via social media, and which gives the opportunity to create a response presentation, and which includes a mystery / adventure story line.

In this case, which was for a basics of petroleum geology course, I created a six-slide PowerPoint presentation which I shared using Slideshare.  The story is based on a real-life class action suit in Oklahoma that had to do with the underpayment of oil and gas royalties. 

The learning objective was to discuss royalty payments on oil and gas production. 

To build the presentations, I used photographs I took in Istanbul as background graphics. I used cutout figures from eLearningArt.com, and I modified graphics using PicMonkey.com.  

I then uploaded it to SlideShare.com, and I shared the link via an email announcement in the course, which uses Blackboard. I encouraged students to post responses in the Discussion Board area.

http://www.slideshare.net/beyondutopia/underpaid-royaltiesconv

Here’s the concept and call for collaboration:

Incident in Istanbul: The Secret Files & the Case of the Underpaid Royalties 

Zounds! Maria has stumbled across secret files – they have information that shows that a midstream transportation company has been underpaying royalty owners by deducting line charges.
This could be one of the largest class action suits in her state’s history. But, she needs to explain the situation.

Help her explain what is going on and how oil and gas royalty owners are paid for production.
    Who is involved?
    Who pays the royalties? How much?
    How are the payments (and the deductions determined?
    When are they decided?)

We need your expert help! Please create a presentation that helps a royalty owner, or potential jury member (in the case of a Class Action lawsuit) understand what has happened, and also what kind of information Maria needs to collect.

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This example was also used in an Instructional Design Certificate program (Rollins College) to provide an example of how simple storyline presentations can be used with Web 2.0 tools, and to boost engagement and collaboration.