New England Learning Association

Event Date: June 14, 2006

Do you have an elearning story to share? 

NELA will be hosting a session on June 14th, 2006 entitled “The NELA Choice Awards – Users Sharing Stories” — Best Practices and Lessons Learned.

You are invited to present lessons you learned or best practices you discovered, for example:

• in a program launch
• while marketing your elearning program
• while developing a Return on Investment evaluation
• while developing or implementing the content in your Elearning program

Some other ideas are described in the details below by clicking on (more…) below.

Benefits of presenting

• each presenter will receive free admission to a future event
• the overall winner will receive a prize
• you will significantly contribute to the advancement of the elearning community

Guidelines

• keep it brief, compelling and to the point: stories should be 5 minutes or less
• vendors are welcome but keep in mind that attendees are looking for practical useful tips: no sales presentations

Action

• if you are interested in presenting, please read the details below by clicking on (more…) below and send a submission by June 1 to PatNELA@PatrickOMalley.com
• call 617-PATRICK (that’s my phone number, no kidding) if you have any questions or would like to discuss anything related to the session.

Details

Anyone can participate (including vendors), but the emphasis is on real world solutions, tips, war stories, and examples.  If too many presentations are submitted, we will choose the ones that will provide the most value.  The audience members will vote on the best presentations, and prizes will be awarded.

Please send a brief description of your presentation by June 1 to PatNELA@PatrickOMalley.com which contains:

• A title and a 10-20 word description, if the title isn’t self explanatory
• A brief outline
  * 25-100 words about what you plan to discuss, and why you think this talk will be of benefit to the NELA members
• a few PowerPoint slides if you plan to use them

FYI, these summaries may be placed on the NELA blog for further discussion or for post-presentation access to reference materials.

Rules

• Presentation ideas should be submitted to PatNELA@PatrickOMalley.com by June 1st
• Anyone can participate, including vendors, but sales presentations are not allowed

Benefits of presenting

• each presenter will receive free admission to a future event
• the overall winner will receive a prize
• you will significantly contribute to the advancement of the elearning community

Ideas for presentations

Stories and presentations that would interest our members most are:

• A successful elearning program launch, focusing on a couple of key success factors or lessons learned.
• An elearning program or development where something went wrong.  What were the assumptions or problems, and what did you do (or would you do in the future) to overcome that problem.  (Names can be changed to protect the innocent
  * This could also be called “Here’s a mistake you don’t want to make…”
• An elearning program that changed something in the industry, established a new best practice or industry benchmark.
• A new way you marketed or promoted your elearning program to get learner buy-in or community excitement.
• The top two benefits you used to convince your company to fund your new elearning initiative.
• The ROI (return on investment) study or cost-benefit analysis you used to gain funding for your elearning initiative.
• The evaluation process you used to show that users actually learned and the company benefited from your recent elearning project.
• A new Elearning technique that you developed or used
• An innovative instructional design strategy or simulation you used in your elearning program.
  1. why you felt it was successful
  2. how others could do use this technique

This is a new type of session for NELA, but one that will be different, interesting and productive for our members.  Since we are trying something new, we welcome comments about how it should be implemented – the emphasis is on learning from others in a fun and informal session.

Feel free to call me at 617-PATRICK (no kidding) if you have any questions or would like to discuss anything related to the session.