>> by Sylvia Miller, SIG Membership Manager <<

Meet other members and learn what they do!

Welcome to a brand new column of the newsletter! In each newsletter we will welcome new members and recognize the accomplishments of other members. You could call this the IDL SIG's gossip column.

New Members | Member Profiles | Accomplishments

New Members

The following new members joined the IDL SIG since the last newsletter:

These 53 new members hail from 18 states in the U.S., plus France, Germany, Ireland, and Canada. Welcome to all of you! If you have not yet received a Welcome letter from me, please email me at sylviamiller@woh.rr.com. I hope you're already taking advantage of the listserv to network with other SIG members.

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Member Profiles

Our members are busy! Here are a few that emailed me.

George Ardell

George has more than 14 years of experience as a technical writer but is making great progress toward becoming a Web developer. He has one Web site with an online store and will soon be adding a second online store. He's using PHP, MySQL, CSS, and HTML to build his sites, and plans to add Java and Javascript to his development toolbox. He has a B.S. in Journalism and an MBA with plans to finish his B.S. in Computer Science very soon. You can email him at gardell1015@MyE.net.

Vincent E. Lasnick, Ph.D.

Vincent is an instructional designer/Developer & Knowledge Architect. He has written the following article:

Lasnik, V.E. (in press). "Developing Prescriptive Taxonomies for Distance Learning Instructional Design." In Patricia L. Rogers, (Ed.): Encyclopedia of Distance Learning (Volume 1: Distance Learning Technologies and Applications). Scheduled for publication in spring of 2005 by Idea Group Publishing.

The following is an abstract of his article:
One of the central problems and corresponding challenges facing the fields of distance learning and instructional design has been in the construction of theory-grounded, research-based taxonomies for prescribing what particular strategies and approaches should be employed when, how, and in what combination to be most effective. This article addresses the critical issues involved with understanding the nature and function of prescriptive educational taxonomies for improving instructional design solutions within the burgeoning field of online learning and distance learning environments.

For more information, visit http://www.idea-group.com/encyclopedia/.

Jane Smith

Our own IDL President is one of those very busy folks! Jane has more than 18 years of experience in instructional design, and in 2003 was designated a Certified Performance Technologist by the International Society for Performance Improvement (ISPI).

Over the next several months Jane will facilitate "Developing E-Learning Courses" in Phoenix, San Francisco, Chicago, and Baltimore. For STC members Jane is offering a $100 discount. Go to http://www.jemcommunications.com/Crs-DevELrng.htm for more information.

Lee S. Tesdell

Lee presented his paper titled Converting Technical Communication Courses to Online Delivery: Learning Objects, Software Tools, and Delivery Media in an E-Learning Environment at the 2004 International Professional Communication Conference (IPCC) recently held in Minneapolis, Minnesota. IPCC is organized by the Professional Communication Society of IEEE and publishes the conference papers in a volume of proceedings. Lee is an assistant professor at Minnesota State University, Mankato where he teaches technical communication courses online. Check out his Web site at http://www.intech.mnsu.edu/tesdel.

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Member Accomplishments

Have you noticed the excellent articles by our IDL SIG members in recent issues of Intercom?

• "Come Play! Using Games to Teach, Motivate, and Engage" by Karen Baranich (September/October issue)

• "E-Learning: When and Why" by Jane Smith (September/October issue)

• "Instructional Design: Choosing the Proper Authoring Tool" by Gene Holden (November issue)

Other good instructional design articles have also appeared in recent issues of Intercom. Hats off to these folks for taking the time to share their knowledge with all of us!

You can see that you have a wealth of experienced folks whose brains you can pick at conferences and to whom you can post questions, issues, and challenges through the listserv.

While you're patiently awaiting the next IDL SIG newsletter, remember to send me information about your recent accomplishments. Send them to me at sylviamiller@woh.rr.com. (Be sure your email editor doesn't correct "woh" to "who.")

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