Learning Sessions

March 5, Mumbai

On March 5, 2005, content developers and Instructional Designers from leading e-learning companies attended a workshop on Instructional Design (ID) by Ms. Punam Medh at the Industrial Development Center (IDC) IIT Mumbai. Punam Medh is an e-learning consultant.

Punam splendidly started the session with a story from Panchatantra that encompassed all the aspects of Instructional Design. She proceeded by talking about learning theories that describe how we learn, and briefly discussed some well-known learning theories including Behaviorism, Cognitivism, Constructivism, and Social Learning theories.

Punam explained a generic ID framework and how learning theories influence ID theories. She then elaborated on how ID theories provide explicit guidance and help people to learn better.
She then spoke about the Instructional Systems Design (ISD) model used for designing elearning courses. The ISD model comprises of five stages - Analysis, Macro design, Micro design, Development, and Evaluation.

The post-lunch session turned out to be highly interactive. It included discussions on Bloom’s Taxonomy and its different levels - Knowledge, Comprehension, Application, Analysis, Synthesis, and Evaluation. The attendees were engaged in various group activities.

The workshop concluded with a question and answer session. The STC learning session had a memorable impact on the participants and left them craving for more in-depth information.

(Compiled by Minal Pujari)

April 10, Bangalore

Novell hosted a learning session in Bangalore with two presentations on "Improving Documentation Quality through Feedback" and "Documentation in Open Source" on April 10, 2005. Presenting on the first topic, Darrin VandenBos, Documentation Manager at Novell Inc, Provo, Utah, US., demonstrated various ways in which Novell continuously improves their technical documentation using the feedback they receive from the various stakeholders through different channels. Presenting on open source documentation, Preeti Hattangadi, Senior Technical Writer at Novell, Bangalore, gave the audience an overview about open source software and documentation and shared the best practices of working on open source documentation. The Novell documentation team conducted a quiz based on the day's presentations and presented gifts to the winners.

(With input from Akash Dubey)

April 17, Hyderabad

Uday Chava made a presentation on Graphic File Formats at Computer Associates International, Inc., Hyderabad. In the presentation, Uday explored the basic characteristics and behavior of graphic files. The presentation also covered a few popular and emerging graphic file formats that are of relevance to technical communicators.

(With input from Vasant Vaidyanathan)

April 23, Mumbai

If you wanted to know how to save time and money on your projects and get some tips on how to effectively communicate using visuals, you should have attended the learning session on the 23 April, 2005 at Savvion India Ltd.

This time around there were two speakers - Kaustubh Shejwalkar from Savvion India Ltd. and Ravee Panjwani from GE.

You must have often found yourself asking the following questions:

While working on documents I am always worried about the increasing file size as I add more and more images. What can I do to make my documents smaller in size?
My manager wants me to reduce the number of pages - especially those that have images - so that the company can save on printing costs. How do I decide which images to keep and which to discard?
I am always wondering how to make user guides more useful for the users. I have heard senior technical communicators saying that a document rich in visuals is more useful. How true is this?

Kaustubh answered the above questions as he spoke on “Visuals in User Documentation”. His presentation also included types of visuals and pros and cons of different image formats and points to consider while taking screen captures.

In the second half of the session, Ravee captivated the audience as he demonstrated the use of the software ‘Macromedia Captivate’ to create recorded simulations and demos. Can you imagine that a software simulation - of about five minutes – that earlier took two days to create by two people (one writer and one graphic artist) can now be created by one person in less than an hour and that too without any coding? Imagine the cost saving for your company as you save time. Now you can do more than 10 five-minute simulations/demos in two days and that too alone. Ravee’s presentation also included best practices while creating simulations and was rich with a number of case studies.

In between the presentations, the participants discussed points to consider when using images in documentation for the visually impaired persons and the need to be culturally sensitive while using colors for audience from different cultural/ethnic backgrounds. Towards the end of the presentations the participants recalled the old adage, “a picture speaks thousand words” and went home equipped with information to save thousands of bucks.

(Compiled by Vidyut A. Sonde)

May 7, New Delhi

Technical Writers in NCR region gathered in Solidcore Techsoft Systems India Pvt. Ltd., New Delhi for an STC learning session that included two presentations and an open house. Gurpreet Singh, an experiened freelancer based in New Delhi presented on "Using Adobe Photoshop 7 - an Overview." Gurpreet Singh, CEO of Sukhmani Software, presented on "Freelancing Opportunities in Technical Communication."

(With input from Ashok Appu)

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