My Thoughts so far (11)

All of the training tools that I reviewed could be very valuable to training developers. This semester I was exposed to training tools that were new to me, as well as training tools that I had never considered to be training tools before.

Twitter is another tool that I still feel slightly uncomfortable with but its capabilities in training are very strong. It is a real-time way to create a learning environment and share information among trainees. 

Captivate is a very useful tool for both novices and professionals to develop interactive training courses. I really enjoyed using this tool and I hope to use it again within my career. It is not the most user friendly out of the rest of the training tools I reviewed, but with a little practice it is easy to use.

 Pinterest is a tool that I love to use, but I had never considered it as a training tool previous to this class. It is a highly visual and organized way for a training facilitator to encourage learning, and find new strategies to make training successful.

 I had never really thought of YouTube as a training tool before this class either. It is user friendly, widely accessible, widely accepted, highly versatile, highly visual, and...I really like YouTube. In fact, before this project even started, one of my favorite phrases was, "Let's YouTube it." 

 I really enjoyed working with all of these training tools, with the exception of LinkedIn, simply because I am still familiarizing myself with it. However, LinkedIn is a really great tool to be able to link training facilitators with other facilitators as well as link training facilitators and SMEs to their trainees.

It is not just amazing to think about how much technology has changed the way we live, it is even more amazing to me to think about how technology has changed the way we learn. 

(10) LinkedIn

I have always gotten invitations to LinkedIn before this project, but I always ignored them. It wasn't that I was opposed to using LinkedIn, in fact I was well aware of the networking capabilities associated with it, I just did not feel any urgency for joining another social network.
I just joined. It is an interesting website. The interface seems to be pretty user friendly although I do have a small amount of awkwardness while navigating through it. It is pretty interesting to be able to "connect" with such a wide variety of professionals, ranging from one of my best friends who is a middle school teacher to my boss at the restaurant I work at.
LinkedIn could be a great way to facilitate learning. An organization could have its top trainers or SMEs be available on LinkedIn to aid in coaching trainees. LinkedIn accounts can be linked to Twitter, Facebook, and even sent through email so they are very accessible. LinkedIn could definitely be used to create a more friendly learning environment by encouraging leaders, trainers, and SMEs to be involved with trainees.

(9) YouTube

Generation Y is a generation of Youtubers. We are very technologically capable and are always creating and taking advantage of new content. A lot of the time, YouTube is used to watch ridiculous people do ridiculous things but it also has a lot more capabilities than just pure entertainment.

YouTube allows any individual or organization to be able to post videos that they have created. YouTube has been around for quite some time, but before YouTube was a widely accessible website, people were not able to share multimedia content so easily. YouTube can be used for training and educational purposes quite easily. For example, a fashionable men's clothing store may want to teach their employees how to tie an eldredge knot. A trainer could film the instructions (taking advantage of both visual and auditory learning techniques), post it on YouTube, and the employees could have free access to this video to watch repeatedly until they have perfected the new skill. This YouTube author not only has this Instructional video on YouTube, but he also has a link to his website where you can view an instructional diagram of the eldredge knot.

YouTube can also be used to facilitate learning in classroom environments or added to E-learning modules to give a detailed explanation of the task to be learned. YouTube videos can easily be embedded into blogs, websites, PowerPoints, and eLearning development software such as Captivate. 

For example, this YouTube video could be embedded into a Captivate eLearning module that instructs lifeguards on the different methods of CPR. 

Youtube (8)

I am pretty familiar with YouTube because I have been using it for a long time. Whenever someone says, "Hey, do you know how to do this?" or "Hey, check out this cat video!" they are more than likely referring me to YouTube. I did not know the history of YouTube before this, but that is besides the point. When I was about to write a post about YouTube, I thought "Hey, I bet YouTube has a video about this!"
I would say that this is the best thing about YouTube. There are copious amounts of videos to choose from, whether you want to look up how to braid your hair...

...or if you need a beginner's guide on how to use Excel.