My Blog Posts about mLearnCon 2010

On Twitter: @jenisecook

June 14-17, 2010, in gorgeous San Diego, California, The eLearning Guild hosted and facilitated their first annual conference on mobile learning, or mLearnCon. I registered to attend several seminars, plus a full-day workshop on Monday, “Think Different: Getting Your Mind Around mLearning Design”, facilitated by Dr. Clark Quinn, @Quinnovator on Twitter.

The week was filled with exciting seminars. If you attend mLearnCon in 2011, I strongly suggest you go with several colleagues, schedule seminars in advance, and then share notes. I made some hard choices that week on which seminars to attend…there were many good ones available.

Everyone felt that we are at the point of seeing mlearning take off exponentially in the next few months and years, and yet, there are many issues to discuss and resolve…particularly how to track and report mlearning in the various Learning Management Systems (LMSs), and data security issues.

For your enjoyment, here’s a list of my mLearnCon 2010 posts:

1) Bill Brandon’s Recap: First Annual mLearnCon

On Twitter: @billbrandon

http://ridgeviewmedia.com/blog/2010/07/mlearncon-2010-recap-the-elearning-guild/

2) B.J. Schone: 20 mLearning Tools in 60 Minutes

On Twitter: @bjschone

http://ridgeviewmedia.com/blog/2010/07/mlearncon-2010-b-j-schone-20-mlearning-tools/

3) Joe Welinske: iPad Panel – iPad App Resources

On Twitter: @jwelinske

http://ridgeviewmedia.com/blog/2010/07/mlearncon-2010-ipad-joe-welinske-resources/

4) Featured Panel Discussion on the Apple iPad

http://ridgeviewmedia.com/blog/2010/07/mlearncon-2010-ipad-panel/

5) Patti Shank: Your First mLearning Initiatives

http://ridgeviewmedia.com/blog/2010/07/mlearncon-2010-patti-shank-mlearning-initiatives/

6) Tomi Ahonen: Keynote – Mobile in Learning

On Twitter: @tomiahonen

http://ridgeviewmedia.com/blog/2010/07/mlearncon-2010-tomi-ahonen-mobile-in-learning/

7) Qualcomm’s Mobile Learning Journey

http://ridgeviewmedia.com/blog/2010/07/mlearncon-2010-qualcomm-mlearning-journey/

8] Richard Clark: Surviving without Flash

On Twitter: @rdclark

http://ridgeviewmedia.com/blog/2010/06/mlearncon-2010-richard-clark-surviving-without-flash/

9) Mimi Ito: Keynote – What the User Wants in mLearning

http://ridgeviewmedia.com/blog/2010/06/mlearncon-2010-dr-mimi-ito-what-user-wants-mlearning/

On a Personal Note…

On Monday afternoon, while in Dr. Clark Quinn’s workshop, my husband texted me some very sad news. His mom died that day. My mother-in-law Donna had suffered a long, hard battle against lung cancer, won the battle, but had lost to COPD. We knew we’d have her for this year only, but her death came sooner than we expected and it was a shock.

I notified members of The Guild, drove home (we live near San Diego), and was able to return to the conference on Tuesday and forward at my husband’s urging Monday evening. His mom had made advanced preparations and arrangements, so we had no tasks to attend to that week.

The eLearning Guild staff not only host amazing conferences, they also, during very hectic conference days, take time to be human. I cannot express enough thanks to those staff members who reached out to me for a few minutes with their kindness and compassion. I specifically want to call out Brent Schlenker, whose concern and thoughtful words meant more to me than I can ever express.

Thank you, eLearning Guild.

The American Cancer Society helped Donna through some very hard times. If you can, help me pay it forward through donations of either time or finances. Thank you.

iPad Resources from Joe Welinske

Featured Panel: iPad – Game Changer or Just Another Tablet?

Joe Welinske, President, Writers UA, provided a one-page sheet of iPad design and development resources for those of us who attended the featured panel.

On Twitter: @jwelinske

iPad Resources URL

http://bit.ly/iPad-Resources

or, same information located at:

http://www.writersua.com/seminars/iPad-Panel-Tips-mLearn.htm

Here’s my recap from Joe’s handout!

• iPhone Dev Center (join for free and download Xcode and iPhone SDK)
• Use Automator to Publish iPad Content (It’s on my MacBookPro…)
• iPad Human Interface Guidelines (usability, etc.)
• HTML and CSS support on Safari (currently the only browser on the iPad)
• iPad/Flash articles
• Apple Online Help Model for the iPad/iPhone

I cannot wait to “geek out” on all of the resources Joe has provided.

Wow! If I thought the e-learning world was exciting and fun as an instructional designer, I am thrilled with what I am seeing for mobile learning.

For a few weeks, I left the previous post “first-page visible” for my nephew and his colleagues in his school district. And, while they checked out those wonderful online resources, I had time to contemplate my blogging navel.

“Always Learning”, I realized that a dilemma diligently dogged my approach to this blog:

The “Content vs. Design Dilemma”.

Intrigued by the opportunity to improve my CSS skills and learn PHP, I neglected content. Now, inside my WordPress Admin panel rest over 20 unpublished drafts of blog posts!

Sheesh.

So, I’m returning to content, and I’m excited about that! I mean, what’s a blog without content? Design still awaits me as a project, and I look forward to changing the look of this blog. Plus, I need to update to WordPress 2.5.1, and plan to do that this weekend.

However, beginning today, my focus is on content, first, then design.

Yes, I’m “Always Learning!”

Currently, it may seem like I’m obsessed with WordPress while I set up my blog. I’m not, really. No, I’m not. I’m not! Seriously, what fiddling around in WordPress helps me with includes practicing my basic CSS skills, and encouraging me to learn PHP.

My local public library loves this. I’m requesting books like crazy from throughout the library system. When I go to my local branch to pick up the books, I’m charged a 25 cent handling fee for each book. I enjoy supporting my public library system, so no bother about the fees.

However, what has bothered me is something about my blog: The post titles were not left justified. Finally, I found the style element I needed to edit:

h2.pagetitle {
margin-top: 30px;
text-align: center;
}

<< || Changed to: || >>

h2.pagetitle {
margin-top: 30px;
text-align: left;
}

I’m happy, now, and can move on to further customizing the Kubrick theme, claiming it as my own.

As more of my writing and instructional design projects continue to move to the Web, I’m grateful to WordPress for giving me a great sandbox to play in and improve my CSS, JS, and PHP skills, and to keep me “Always Learning”!