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WAVELENGTH – The ID Newsletter of India – November 2007
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Dear friends,

Welcome to this edition of Wavelength.

November is a lovely month. It still isn't cold enough to
make us shiver so it gives us time to plan for winters.
Around us we see everyone and everything preparing for the
winters. The squirrels eat what they can, and they bring
doggy-bags for what they can't; the plants are shedding
those extra leaves and trying to retract into their roots;
even the dogs are curling themselves up to recycle their
body heat. When winters finally arrive, we will all be ready
with our stores of food, heat, and energy in place. We
would've prepared ourselves!

As individuals we always prepare and plan. When we go on
journeys we select and budget for what we wish to carry
along. When we buy something, we look at our budget, we
review our need for the product, and we determine how and
where we will use it. When we want to watch the
India-Pakistan test match, we plan for completing our work
early and leaving in time. Unfortunately, as organizations
we often end up procrastinating the planning exercise, and
this leads to dire conclusions.

If you are planning to outsource your content development
requirements and you want the process to be smooth and
wrinkle-free, the Wavelength article,
"Outsourcing eLearning Development" will provide you a
starting point. This article first lists the things that
often go wrong with outsourcing, and then provides a
planning-aid, which will enable you to proceed with
eLearning outsourcing in a pain-free manner.

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5-Day Instructional Design & Content Writing Workshop
(Jan 14, 2008 - Jan 18, 2008, 8 hrs./day)
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If you've been wondering about the next Instructional Design and
Content Writing workshop, I am happy to tell you that we have a
chance of meeting in January 2008. These 5-Day workshops are
ideal for you, if you want to learn instructional design through
an instructionally designed compact but no less robust workshop.
Write to us at connect@vibrantwavelength.com with your enquiries.

Please visit: http://www.vibrantwavelength.com/instructionalDesign_trgworkshop_jan08.htm

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Instructional Design for Senior Professionals (IDSP Online)
Certificate Course (Starting Jan 01, 2007)
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The IDSP Online's first session is in progress. The second
session begins on January 01, 2008. If you are interested in
an enthralling learning experience, enroll for a course that
recognizes your seniority, experience, and abilities; and
addresses them accordingly. The IDSP course doesn't put you
through the pains of doing what you've already done a hundred
times; it equips you with the power to analyze - why you did
what you did, and how you could've done it better!

If you want to be aboard on the next session for IDSP Online,
write to us at idsponline@vibrantwavelength.com. Our course
coordinator will get in touch with you.

Visit: http://www.vibrantwavelength.com/idsp_online.htm

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Instructional Design & Content Writing (IDCWC Online)
Certificate Course (Starting Jan 01, 2008)
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The seventh session of IDCWC Online begins on January 01, 2008.
The impact of this course is now being felt not just within but
also outside India. If you want to join this course and connect
with Wavelength's ideology of "feeling instructional design in
your veins," write to us at idcwconline@vibrantwavelength.com

Please visit: http://www.vibrantwavelength.com/idcwc_online.htm

The IDCWC and the ASDC contact courses shall begin their next
course groups on December 23, 2007. If you want to enroll for
either of these courses, or for the Flash Certificate course,
call us at 9810324284/0120-4315505.

I now leave you with the newsletter and also with my thoughts.
I thank you all for subscribing to Wavelength and for inspiring
us to continue working towards our goal by overcoming the
difficulties and hurdles that we came across. Personally speaking,
the one thought that always kept me going in the past and which
shall always continue to energize me, is the thought that I have
your support. Thanks for writing in, for subscribing, for awaiting
the newsletter, for suggesting the direction for Wavelength's new
courses and trainings; thanks for everything!

Keep smiling and keep laughing!

Bye!
Thanks and Warm Regards,
Shafali.

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Table of contents
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From the Editor's Desk
Mystery of the Month
ID Section
Technology Section
Media Section
Site of the Month
Views
Laugh-a-little
Innoken Games
Signing Off...

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Events Calendar
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--------------------------NEW!----------------------------------
5-Day Instructional Design & Content Writing Training Workshop:
(Jan 14 to Jan 18, 2008, 8 hrs./day)
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The 5-Day Instructional Design & Content Writing Training
Workshop shall be held from January 14 to 18, 2008. Read
details at http://www.vibrantwavelength.com/instructionalDesign_trgworkshop_jan08.htm

If you are interested in registering for this workshop, please
write to us at connect@vibrantwavelength.com.

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Online Courses:
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1. The 7th session of IDCWC Online (Instructional Design
& Content Writing Certificate Online) course begins on
January 01, 2008. Read details at: http://www.vibrantwavelength.com/idcwc_online.htm
Please send us your queries at idcwconline@vibrantwavelength.com

2. The 2nd session of IDSP Online (Instructional Design for
Senior Professionals Certificate Online) course, begins on
January 01, 2008. Read details at: http://www.vibrantwavelength.com/idsp_online.htm
Please send us your inquiries at idsponline@vibrantwavelength.com

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Contact Courses:
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1. Classes for the Instructional Design & Content Writing
Certificate (IDCWC Contact) course begin on December 23, 2007.
Registrations are on for this group. Read details at
http://www.vibrantwavelength.com/idcwc_details.htm

2. Classes for the next Flash ActionScript 2.0 Developer
Certificate (ASDC) course group begin on December 23, 2007.
Registrations are on for this group. Read details at
http://www.vibrantwavelength.com/actionscript_certificate.htm

3. Classes for the next Flash Certificate (FCC) course group
begin on January 20, 2008. Registrations are on for this group.
Read details at http://www.vibrantwavelength.com/flash_certificate.htm

4. Classes for the ActionScript 2.0 with Object-Oriented
Programming (AS2OOP) course begin on December 9, 2007.
Registrations are open for this course group. Click on
http://www.vibrantwavelength.com/actionscript2_oop_details.htm

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From the Editor's Desk
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http://www.vibrantwavelength.com/editorial.htm

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Mystery of the Month
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Is your organization outsourcing eLearning content development?
More importantly, are you part of the outsourcing process?
Those who've been there will tell you that it is a journey
fraught with uncertainties and risks. Fortunately we can reduce
the risks involved in outsourcing, by designing a customized
process for selecting and managing eLearning vendors.

The article for this month, "Outsourcing eLearning Development"
provides you an unobstructed view of what usually goes wrong
with eLearning content outsourcing, and what can be done to
ensure its success. Click http://www.vibrantwavelength.com/elearning_outsourcing.htm
to read this Wavelength article.

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ID Section
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ID Concepts
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We all know that constructivism speaks of the interpretation
or meaning that each one of us constructs as we go through
different experiences. Align your thoughts on constructivism
with the social constructivist theory, through a quick
introduction to Vygotsky's theory of ZPD (Zone of Proximal
Development.) This theory will give you an instructionally
sound reason for spending more time with your child. Click
http://www.learningandteaching.info/learning/constructivism.htm
to read "Constructivist Theory."

http://viking.coe.uh.edu/~ichen/ebook/et-it/social.htm is
another excellent, highly informative mini-portal for those
who are interested in furthering their understanding of
Vygotsky's theory of social constructivism.

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Language & Culture
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When you are an instructional designer or a project manager
in an eLearning company, you become culture-sensitive. While
you write, greet, speak; and even when you send emails, you
are conscious of the need to make your communication
culturally correct.

Here's a neat little article by Kathryn King. This article,
"Writing English for an international audience," available at
http://www.expatica.com/actual/article.asp?subchannel_id=159&story_id=16464
opens our eyes to cultural differences that are not very
obvious - the unspoken and the unconscious cultural
differences!

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Writing Style
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Do you write Picasso-style or Jazz-style? In
"How to Write With Style" Kurt Vonnegut says,
"Pity the reader," for "They have to identify thousands
of little marks on paper, and make sense of them
immediately." It does make lots of sense. The readers
have a tough job to do, and if the readers are learners,
our responsibility increases many times over. Read this
"sensible" article at http://www.peterstekel.com/PDF-HTML/Kurt%20Vonnegut%20advice%20to%20writers.htm

Click http://www.gooddocuments.com/techniques/invertedpyramid.htm
to become acquainted with the inverted pyramid style of
writing where we mention the gist of the content first! This
is also called newspaper style writing. A link on this page
takes you to an example of this writing style. Click
http://www.gooddocuments.com/techniques/summaryexample.htm
to view the example.

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Technology Section
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Learning Content Management Technologies
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For all those who are still grappling with the multi-function
systems called LCMSs and wondering about their how & whys, here
is beautifully written article, "Making the case for content"
by Clive Shepherd.

This article, which can be read at http://www.fastrak-consulting.co.uk/tactix/features/lcms.htm,
introduces you to the LCMS, tells you what it does, and then
walks you through two case studies.

Speaking of LCMSs, I do agree that they result in
cost-effectiveness and that often re-creation of the content
is unnecessary. On the other hand, I've personally witnessed
the enthusiasm that is generated by inter-connected, thematic,
and of course non-reusable content, and I remain a passionate
subscriber of customized content. At the most, I would vouch
for selective, manually modified, audience-specific reusability.

I do agree with the usefulness of the LCMSs in presenting
completely procedural content to the expert learner, who logs
into the system, learns what is required, and turns back to the
floor for application. For higher level learning, the cost of
customized content is a small price to pay for a motivated learner!

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Media Section
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This section is now part of Wavelength's Media Newsletter. For
the content of this section and for many other interesting
media-related resources and activities, click http://www.vibrantwavelength.com/subscribe.htm
and subscribe to Wavelength - The Media Newsletter!

Please click the following link to view the June issue of
the Media Newsletter.
http://www.vibrantwavelength.com/media_nletter_ut57h9_nov07.htm

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Site of the Month
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The site that wears the crown of Site of the Month for
November is: http://www.agencynet.com

There are a lot of people in this site and they seem to be
quite busy doing their work...in other words, creating more
sites like this one, as agencynet is an interactive agency
and creating websites is one of their main businesses.

Here are my reasons for liking this site. Please click
http://www.agencynet.com, so that my comments become more relevant.

1. My first reason for stopping at this site, instead of
passing it by is - it looks different. I've seen some other
sites that display different rooms that relate to their
different functions, but this site uses the rooms differently.
The rooms are very real, they are very neatly organized,
and they are all strung together to create the theme,
"work is fun."

2. Scroll either left or right to get an overview of the
whole site. In a moment you will realize that the entire
site is a navigational menu. The rollovers are nicely
implemented in form of a diffused light. So, let's go
clicking.

3. I began by clicking the reception area. Wendy (if I heard
her right) introduces the site to you. To come back to the
home page, click the little icon at the top right corner.

4. I took Wendy's advice and began exploring the hotspots. I
found two of them especially interesting. Clients and News!

5. The clients list displays the logos of their various
clients magnetically fixed to a metallic board. Move the
logos around and see what happens.

6. The News link takes you to an electronic newspaper
display. The panels and the buttons are all very good, but
what really caught my attention was the old newspaper! The
old newspaper is accessible through a link at the bottom of
the electronic newspaper. I would like you to focus attention
on the page turning behavior exhibited by the old newspaper.
I've never seen such realistic page turning before. It is
simply superb!

7. In addition to the above, I liked the inhabitants of the
various rooms. The incessant talker, the stretching designer,
the tensed CEO drumming his fingers, the crazy gamer, the
bored visitor, and even the dart-thrower; they keep you
tied to their site.

Each good site is a learning experience. I hope you
discover a lot of good things about gaining and retaining
the audience's attention from this one. Which one?
http://www.agencynet.com, of course!

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Views
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1. IDCWC Online Course Participants' Views:
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Click http://www.vibrantwavelength.com/trg_participants_views.htm#idcwconlineviews
to read what the course participants feel about the
Instructional Design ONLINE course (IDCWC Online) and Wavelength.

2. IDCWC (Contact) Participants' Views:
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Click http://www.vibrantwavelength.com/trg_participants_views.htm#idcwcviews
to read what the IDCWC Contact program participants feel
about the Instructional Design course (IDCWC) and Wavelength.

3. ActionScript Course Participants' Views:
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Click http://www.vibrantwavelength.com/trg_participants_views.htm#asdcviews
to read what the ActionScript Course participants feel
about the ActionScript course (ASDC) and Wavelength.

4. Reader's Views:
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Click http://www.vibrantwavelength.com/views.htm to read
what readers feel about Wavelength.

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Laugh-a-little
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Have you made your resume yet?
Shhhh....
What?
Not so loud...
Okay...I understand...and I think everyone else does too!
I've seen the resumes of your colleagues at a job portal!
Click http://www.slimeland.com/original/fresume.html for
reading some don'ts of resume creation!

Read the "Humor Maze" of resumes at:
http://www.pair-of-dice.com/luke/maze/resume.html

And then read some more about resumes at:
http://www.newcanaancats.org/a_little_humor.htm

You aren't taking all this seriously...are you? Please
don't...they are just jokes. For some serious tips,
click http://www.humorbin.com/showitem.asp?item=414

Keep laughing...that reminds me of the orbit advertisement,
and also the procrastinated-for-as-long-as-possible trip to
the dentist. Ouch!

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Innoken Online Games
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http://www.innoken.com/games

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Signing Off...
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I hope you enjoyed this issue of Wavelength. I shall be here again
next month...and I will try my best to bring the newsletter to you
before the last day of the month.

Until then, goodbye and keep smiling!

Shafali

Shafali R. Anand
Editor & Publisher, Wavelength the ID Newsletter
Director, Wavelength eLearning Consulting and Training Pvt. Ltd.
shafali [at] vibrantwavelength [dot] com
Wavelength, Link House, 2nd Floor,
C-4, Sector 10, Noida-201301, India.
Ph: 9810324284 / 9810412297 / (0120)4315505
http://www.vibrantwavelength.com

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Feedback: Write to me with your views on Wavelength at shafali [at] vibrantwavelength [dot] com
with "Wavelength Feedback" written in the subject.

Suggest Links or site for "Site of the Month": Publish an article in Wavelength or suggest links– Check out http://www.vibrantwavelength.com/contribute.htm

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