If you had been in my kitchen one Thursday afternoon in March you may have wondered why I was hopping up and down, clapping my sweaty little hands and squealing with glee. Luckily this silliness lasted but a few minutes before my usual calm serenity returned.
You see, I'd just found out in a roundabout way that I had won a LearnX award, to be presented at their April 2009 conference. Considering the fact that I had only entered the previous week, a day before the deadline, the win came as quite a surprise but a pleasant one to be sure. I hadn't even intended to enter, but was encouraged to do so by a delightful man from Symmetree.
Some time last year I persuaded my employer to fork out a tidy sum so that I could get my greedy paws on the fantastic CodeBaby animated avatar software - don't ask me how, they must have just come back from a long lunch. We purchased said software through the Australian supplier, Roland from Symmetree.
Over the following few months Roland would contact me about program updates and interesting bits and bobs (helpful chappy that he is). During one conversation I mentioned how I was using CodeBaby to create an online course in comic book format and he was intrigued. I promised to send him a copy of the finished project. I did. He was quite impressed. In fact, he sent it to the CodeBaby boffins and they were equally impressed. How nice, I thought.
At the time, he made mention of the Awards and that he thought I should enter. 'Pshaw!' I said. (Actually, I think I tittered and said 'Really? Oh well, I'll think about it' and promptly thought no more about it). That was, until Roland called to say that he thought my course was so good that he'd persuaded his company to pay my entry fee if I agreed and would prepare the submission. What a nice fellow!
So, in the end I did enter, I did win the platinum award for my category and a shiny crystal trophy is now gathering dust on my desk. Huzzah!
Wanna See The Course?
You will be able to quite soon because the CodeBaby people, rather happy that their software was a major reason for the win, asked if they could host my files on the Showcase section of their site. They also actually really liked the content and how I had incorporated CodeBaby in a unique way - taking still shots of the characters to create the comic book effect. In the words of their product managers, "It was so interactive and engaging, we didn't want to stop until the very end". Nice.
They are also using it 'on the road' as a nice demo example of how their product can help a developer autonomously create quite a sophisticated elearning experience.
So stay tuned and I'll post a link and a bit more about how I created the module when it's up and running.
Sunday, May 03, 2009
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2 comments:
Such a creative, cool, and engaging piece of eLearning work. We're blown away by how good it is. Wendy, you deserve all the accolades you get on this. Can't hardly wait to see your next project.
Interesting… I might try some of this on my blog, too. It’s quite interesting how you sometimes stop being innovative and just go for an accepted solution without actually trying to improve it… you make a couple of good points.
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