An effective learning journey needs to have a clear destination and a clear origin. Without these, it’s more or less impossible to make decisions about the sequence of learning interactions, modes and experiences a learner needs to move through in order to reach their goals.
In this post we share the stages of our Learning Design process that we go through when helping someone design a digital learning experience or course.
In these uncertain times, we want to contribute by sharing our digital learning knowledge and experience – and encouraging everyone to do the same. We’re creating a video series under the hashtag #RemoteTogether to bring us all together, brainstorm, discuss and share how we as learning professionals can respond to the challenges we’re facing. Every … Read more
Anyone can make professional looking videos with the help of their mobile phone, but it’s not always that easy. Read on to find out 6 top tips to make sure your video game is up-to-scratch!
Since 2013, ELTjam has evolved from a blog to a learning agency, but what got us fired up to start in the first place was our interest in tech, startup culture and new ways of working, and how these could be brought into ELT. One example is Agile – the standard way of running software projects and developing tech products – but in our experience still not used much in ELT materials development when done at a large scale. This post is about how we recently used Agile in a large ELT course development project.
The accessibility, individuality and flexibility of online tutoring is pulling more and more language learners away from face-to-face modes of learning. But what does this shift away from the classroom mean for teachers, learners and the ELT industry?
In 2015, content is no longer king. At best, it’s a minor royal. So in the era of content as a commodity, what’s taken its place on the throne? What do users value instead?
This is the third in our series of round-ups of self-published or small press ELT books … and this time we’ve been able to add fiction to the list as well as books for materials writing and teacher resources.
Over the last couple of years, the blog has covered a lot of topics of interest to ELT authors so we thought it might be useful to look back at them and collect them all in one place.
Since our last round up, more self-published and small press books have been released. It’s not an easy route, especially in terms of getting your book out there and into the path of teachers and students, so check out these titles. Manage Human Resources in English by Simona Petrescu This is a course of English … Read more
The acronym MVP, or Minimum Viable Product, seems to be popping up in conversations with ELT publishers all over the place right now; and that’s odd, because up until about 2013, I’d never heard a publisher mention it. For those of you unfamiliar with the term, an MVP is a tactic used in product development to gauge customer interest in a new product or product feature. The idea is that you don’t build the whole thing; you just build enough to see whether people might be interested in what you’re proposing. What many people seem to actually be doing with their MVP is applying the Pareto Principle. Otherwise known as the 80–20 rule
Founded by Karen Spiller, Karen White and best-selling ELT author Sue Kay (Inside Out, Reward Resource Packs, Focus) to help connect writers with publishers. It also publishes training ebooks.
Getting into digital materials writing is still a goal for many. Good luck if you’re one of them and here are some tips to help. While not comprehensive, the list is the real deal and reflects the big changes happening right now in ELT publishing as a result of the rush to digital. It’s aimed more at those trying to get in as new writers, rather than established authors.
We’ve given a fair bit of space in the past few months to ELT Entrepreneurs, but there’s another kind of entrepreneur who deserves some attention. The materials writer turned self-publisher or indie press. This is a round up of some of the books that are out there that have made it through the process without the help of a major publisher.
Sunday saw a first for MaWSIG (IATEFL’s materials writing special interest group) — an online festival that could be attended by anyone, anywhere. Via three streams, participants were able to interact with editors and experts from Edtech as well as ELT and mainstream publishing. Three webinars, a Twitter chat and a Facebook panel chat ran, one after the other, with breaks in between for “switching rooms”.
For the second post in our ELT Entrepreneurs series we take a look at Paul Emmerson’s recently launched site BehereBethere. It’s a free and fun eLearning website for Business English where students can watch videos and learn about business from business professionals while improving their English. The site caters to three different levels and works on vocabulary and pronunciation.
We’ve been watching Marcos Benevides and his team at Atama-ii Books for over a year as their series of Choose Your Own Adventure Graded Readers went from an idea to a crowdfunding success to an actual out-now-and-buyable books. This is the first in what we hope to be a series of posts looking at what happens behind the scenes to ELT Entrepreneurs during their journey.
You need more time to commission or write the next ELT blockbuster. Or just to share pictures of your lunch on Facebook. But where to carve out time from a hectic day? Microsoft Word. Documents start off in Word for most writers, editors and, sometimes, tech-forward start up founders. Here are some efficiency tips even … Read more
My friend’s dad gave her some advice once that I took to heart.
What your job is called matters more than what your job is.
I always agreed so what I’m about to say seems like a contradiction.
I don’t see the problem with being called, or hired as, a Content Creator if that’s what the job requires.
If you haven’t already read Nick Robinson’s excellent post on ELTjam about book piracy and the lively conversation it’s started, go check it out. To sum it up, just about every ELT textbook that’s ever been published (including mine) have been ripped off by pirates and put on innumerable free PDF download sites all over the Internet. The conversation has branched off in many directions: Is piracy really that bad? Is copyright law generally a moral thing? Are authors totally screwed? And so on. One thing I think hasn’t been addressed fully is what we can do to limit piracy or make it work for us. Expanding on suggestions I’ve made in comments on the original post, why can’t some of these things be done?
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