From the Editor's Desk - February 2007                                         Previous Editorials >>>

Welcome to this issue of Wavelength, your Instructional Design Newsletter.

In Delhi and around, February began with a promise of a relatively warmer spring. The plants that had struggled to stay alive during winter had begun to sprout little new leaves; the squirrels and the does had stopped puffing their fur and feathers to keep out the cold; humans had begun to put away their woolens; and the woolen garment retailers had started advertising their “50% off on Woolens” sale! Then February turned with a flourish and brought on the rains. It drizzled, it rained, and then it poured…and along came the cold. I was caught unawares and now I sit here guzzling gallons of tea with tulsi, ginger, and pepper added to help me get my voice back…yooohoooo (squeak)…can you hear me?

If you can, let me tell you how everyone in India is waking up to the need of instructional design. The universities, the colleges, the BPOs, the NGOs, the GOs (ahem!), the eLOs, the PSUs, the AOOs…everyone everywhere has suddenly discovered that instructional design is important. This is cool news for the instructional design community. There is of course a flip side to it. Those who’ve completed the IDCWC course too are growing in the market and so the expectations of the market are also growing. You got that? If you did, you are bright…if you didn’t…well!

If you ask me, “Which is the single most important factor that contributes to effective learning?” I would say, your knowledge of your audience. Even if you know all the innumerable theories and models of instructional design, you may not be able to design an instructionally effective course/training, if you don’t map your content delivery to your audience. Oh yes, there are a hundred concepts that crowd the instructional design discipline and that tell us all about learning styles and learner motivation, yet even if you know every concept by heart, it wouldn’t help if you don’t know what you need to know – who is your audience?

This month, we try to explore audience analysis, through the Wavelength article, “Audience and The Master Key!” This article tries to outline a simple approach to audience analysis, which I prefer to call the Holmes-Poirot approach. This approach is not at all different from the existing approach of “gathering data” and then “analyzing data”, it is the same approach but tempered with the age-old concept of separating the grain from the chaff. This article tries to shift the focus of “data gathering” and “data analysis” from “information” to “useful and valid information”. I am hopeful that the Wavelength readers who work in the training functions of their respective organizations will find this article useful.

I would also like to mention that January was a very interesting and fulfilling month for us. The FREE workshops that Wavelength organized in January saw good participation from the cross-section of BPO, eLearning and web-development industries. The Instructional Design for Trainers workshop, through which Wavelength addressed the practicing trainers, was attended by training professionals from organizations such as IBM, Max New York, EXL India, eFunds, Wipro BPO, and so on. We also conducted another corporate training program for one of the leading BPOs of India.

Wavelength shall be conducting another FREE workshop “eLearning for Trainers” on March 11, 2007 (Sunday). If you are interested in attending this workshop, please register now.

Registrations for the Open Spring training programs have closed now, but those individuals and organizations that had evinced interest in the 5-Day ActionScript 2 (with OOP Module) workshop after the closure of the Spring registrations, will have another opportunity to participate. We shall hold a 5-Day ActionScript training program from April 16 to April 20, 2007. The details of this workshop are available at
http://www.vibrantwavelength.com/AS2withOOPModule_trgworkshop.htm

I would like to thank all those who have placed their trust in us for the Instructional Design & Content Writing Certificate (IDCWC Online) course. I am also glad to inform you that the registrations for the IDCWC Online course are climbing up with each new session. If you are interested in joining the IDCWC Online session April-June 2007 send your queries to idcwconline@vibrantwavelength.com. Your applications for the April-June 2007 session should reach us latest by February 28, 2006. Click http://www.vibrantwavelength.com/idcwc_online.htm for the details of this course and the application process.

The next course group for the IDCWC contact course as well as the ASDC course shall begin on February 25, 2007. For the AS2OOP course, classes will begin on April 07, 2007. If you wish to enroll for any of the above courses, call us at 9810324284/9810412297/0120-4315505 or write to us at connect@vibrantwavelength.com.

I would like to thank all of you for everything – for subscribing, for inviting your friends to subscribe, for writing to us and inspiring us, for joining the Wavelength family, and for being with Wavelength. Take care and keep smiling.

Warm Regards,

Shafali R. Anand.
(Editor & Publisher - Wavelength)

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