M-learning, E-Learning, and Technical Communications

Thanks to @drchuckd for finding this gem. Agile and ADDIE are the content strategy of e-learning, so why wouldn't we use more than one way to achieve that goal? 

--techcommgeekmom

Fantastic article found by @SkipperAbel. I wish I saw more fellow women in IT! This is partially why I promote STEM for girls and women...so much to contribute, but not enough of a presence still. 

--techcommgeekmom

And you thought regular translation and localization work was hard? Check out this article.

--techcommgeekmom

This is another good article, courtesy of LinkedIn, that easily follows up the article I posted about companies not looking at the resumes of the long-term employed. 

One of the things that I recommend, based on my own experiences, is that if you are unemployed, try to get at least a part-time job. It might not provide the benefits or pay that's needed, but it makes you employable. It helps to keep your skills and mind sharp, and shows that you are at least trying to make things work. I know how it feels to have that feeling of being stuck in that part-time job. It used to be that if you were someplace long enough, the company would eventually bite the bullet and hire you. I've had several instances in my last two jobs where I was part-time or a consultant (otherwise known as a technical temp, in my eyes), was promised that I'd be made a full-time employee, and ended up on the unemployment line instead. I've learned not to trust such things--I'll believe it when I see it. Even the position I have now could easily blossom into something else. I hope it does, but I'm not counting on it. You never know what's going to happen at a company. The last time I almost became an employee, it was something where one week, I was just one signature away from having an approval for the full-time position, and then three weeks later, they told me that they were letting my contract run out in a few months, and other consultants were being let go sooner. So...yeah. Even so, it was part-time jobs that helped me gain some new skills and maintain some of my current skills. 

Part-time or consulting work, despite everything, can be a viable in-between solution, from my experience. It's a "something is better than nothing" solution. 

--techcommgeekmom

As a person who does curate content for her various websites, this seems like a handy guide. I personally use Scoop.It!, and I'm aware of a couple of others, but who knew there were so many? Thanks to Darin Hammond for this one.

--techcommgeekmom

Darin L. Hammond has done it again! He posted this excellent article that he wrote about things that should be included in a blog. I think I follow all of these--or at least I try. Nice guidelines!

--techcommgeekmom

An excellent article for Mother's Day. I also know lots of other tech comm moms and geekmoms who might not be leaders of industry, but are still influential in their field. 

--techcommgeekMOM

This is a really interesting article that seems to be going--or has gone--viral. In reading it, it brings back memories of one of the last courses I took in graduate school titled, "Technological and Cultural Change" (although that name is a new moniker for the class, but the objective was the same).  I still remember having to read Sherry Turkle's latest book, "Alone Together", as well as Ihde's "Bodies in Technology" and Hayles' "How We Became Post-Human." Many online debates and discussions centered around our connections with technology, and how much of it was how society was becoming increasingly dependent on technology for intercommunications rather than personal communications, and how was society's perception of interaction was changing. When telephone, radio, and television were first becoming mainstream, society thought that it would change human interaction. It did, but not necessarily in a bad way.  I see things the same way as the author of this article. Yes, I can unplug, but ultimately--at least for me--it is the internet that keeps me connected to the outside world.

Being an Aspie, I have found it MUCH easier to start and develop friendships and personal relationships using the internet than without it. My whole world opened up once I had internet connectivity. Heck, I met my husband online, well before any of these online dating websites, and I don't think I would've met him otherwise. We realized at that at one point, we lived in the same apartment complex and probably shopped at the same supermarket, and yet we never noticed each other.  With the Internet, I've reconnected with friends with whom I'd lost touch literally decades ago, and rekindled those old friendships into current ones. I'm almost old enough to be the author's mother (okay, maybe his aunt), and I've been connected online almost as long as he's been alive. My world wouldn't be the way it is now without the Internet. The trick is understanding how to use it effectively, and that's what I think this guy needed to understand--the Internet's true value. 

I know there are things I still don't do, like Skype my brother and his family who live almost 500 miles away, for example, but I'm still connected via Facebook and other social media. We're not big phone people, but I always felt that one of the reasons I loved email, texting and social media was that it didn't always have to be real-time conversations. It just had to be conversations. And I'm okay with that. A connection is still a connection. 

--techcommgeekmom

Thanks to +AaronBradley for posting this on Google+. One thing I have learned over the past ten years or so is that technology moves so fast that you need to keep up. Before I was a stay-at-home mom, I was a content project manager. When I decided to go back to work several years later, I couldn't find a project management job to save my life. I had to take a few steps backwards into web publishing, which brought me back forward, but into a different direction. I also went back to school because I knew there would be things that I would need to either refresh in my mind or learn. Keep up your continuing education! This article is proof!
--techcommgeekmom 

Connie Giordano of TechWhirl writes an excellent article here about how wearable computing will possibly affect technical communications. I've been thinking of writing a similar article, but I think she's beat me to it with this well-researched article.

I think it's obvious that wearble devices will affect tech comm. We are still in the midst of getting technical communicators to fully understand how to write for mobile first with smartphones and tablets. Wearable items, such as Google Glass, makes it necessary that the strategy for writing for these devices is different than even writing for mobile devices of today. If someone is walking down the street, he or she can't browse the web the same way as if he or she were scrolling through a mobile app on a smartphone. These wearable devices will have to be more intuitive, and thus the tech writing needed for that will be crucially different. 

--techcommgeekmom

I'll admit--this is something that I'll need to work on! I have a personal Pinterest account, but I've not really used it much. I supposed I should get a better handle on it and flex its muscles a bit...

--techcommgeekmom

Found this through LinkedIn. It's interesting, because I've read something along these lines before, and it's something that is just...disappointing. And, if you think about it, it's discrimination. I had one friend who was unemployed for about two years! She had a highly reputable job until her company downsized, and she couldn't find work due to the economy, meaning that despite how good she is at what she does and how experienced she is, because she commanded a higher salary from all that experience and know-how, they were afraid to pay her top dollar. She made ends meet another way instead--through consulting, which helped her resume in the long run, as at least it showed that she stayed viable during her full-time unemployment run, but it was TOUGH. I experienced the same thing last year. It was part-time jobs that got me through. This is a topic I touched upon in my STC-PMC presentation last month. Lots of talented people are not being given a chance because employers don't want to be bothered to do a little bit of training to get someone who has the right foundation to get up to speed with "their" system.  It's a real shame...and by being so discriminatory for something that's not in a person's control completely, that just damages the economy--and lives--even more. 

--techcommgeekmom