Welcome to my corner: a little introduction

Let's see... I have been involved with elearning since 2001. What had happened was that my company grew in products and services that it was impossible to train everyone in such a short time (usually in a few days) and nationwide launches. We had 23 branches from the north to the south and from the east to the west. Even if I had worn red underwear and red cape, I would not have been able to train everyone in the time frame given and to the level of effectiveness. So I had to improvise or die trying. That's how I got involved in elearning. I thought that if I could put all the product information in to a webpage then I get others to just read from the page. Yeah I know, it wasn't the ideal way to train but it would do the 2 things I needed to get done plus I get the consistency of information delivered.

Over the years, I was learnt how to implement Learning Management Systems, create web based courses and any other learning content delivered electronically. Let me also say that I am not trained in systems or programming skills. I picked them up along the way. And there weren't any other company or people that I knew of were into this method of learning. So I hope to blog about my journey, maybe it will help people, maybe I will can get help (besides having to be institutionalized), maybe we can learn together and that is what I m on to now- collaboration learning via the web.

I just came back from a training course which was organized by FiK Sdn Bhd and conducted by one of the people I know who to be a guru in this particular field, Bryan Chapman who is the Chief Learning Strategist of the Chapman Alliance. It was 2 days, the first day was conidered something we had already done so it was a bit dry for me but I still learnt a few things. The most important thing I learnt is I needed a strategy. All I had before then was I had a problem then I solved it. But if I were to move on with the elearning intiative of the company, I needed a plan. I remember once someone preaching a sermon and he said this "If you aim at nothing, you will definately hit it". So when I came back to the office, the first thing I did was not to come up with a plan but to see where we are currently with the elearning intiatives- Where were we now? What have we accomplished? Where did we fail? Now that I have that answered, I went on to plan for the next couple of years, this excited me and sold the idea to my boss.

The second day was more exciting, Bryan was going on about what other elearning initatives were implemented like wikis, blogs (which is why I m blogging now), podcasting, 2nd life and so on. So I will be blogging about my journey to what is called elearning 2.0.