agile Archives - LearnJam

Agile publishing: a case study

March 25, 2021May 30, 2019 by Laurie Harrison

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.

ELTjam at IATEFL 2019

February 3, 2020March 26, 2019 by Tim Gifford

We are delighted to announce that we have three sessions at IATEFL 2019. We’ll also be taking part in a panel discussion. Come and find out more in our latest blog post!

Does Agile work in ELT print publishing?

January 30, 2020November 2, 2015 by emc design

Two years ago, ELTjam asked whether it was possible to produce an ELT course book using Agile workflows in the strictest definition of the term, creating lots of discussion. At emc design, we’re starting to see our clients use many different approaches to new courses, some using agile-inspired techniques. But can traditional ELT print publishers take ‘true’ Agile on board sustainably? Is it possible to approach a print product in exactly the same way as we approach digital products? Or are they just too different?

The ELT publishers’ collection: tools and trends

January 30, 2020September 1, 2015 by Blog Editor

Over the summer, we’ve been doing collections of past posts – so far, for ELT authors and EFL teachers. To round things off, here’s one for the ELT publishing people.

Applying the Pareto Principle to ELT Publishing

January 31, 2020March 29, 2015 by Nick Robinson

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

Loyalty vs. Royalties: Is There A Place For Royalties In Agile ELT Publishing?

January 31, 2020January 30, 2014 by Nicola Prentis

Are writers’ attitudes to royalties realistic? Or have they simply got used to a system that is actually very strange?

Move Fast and Break ELT Things

January 30, 2020January 14, 2014 by Tim Gifford

I feel we’re sticking to the same old ways of working, producing similar content for a similar publishing industry, thus confining learners to a similar path.

Powering iterative publishing in ELT – Knewton interview, Part 3

January 31, 2020December 30, 2013 by Laurie Harrison

One of the promises of digital publishing is the ability to improve and update a product on a continual basis. For that to work, you need to know which parts of your course are working well and which are failing to meet their objectives. In part 3 of our interview with Knewton, they explain how they believe data analysis can provide the insights needed to refine and improve ELT courses, going beyond what even the most knowledgeable and experienced author/editor team could do.

Agile ELT (or, How to publish an ELT course in three months, Part 1)

January 30, 2020July 1, 2013 by Nick Robinson

Making ELT products takes time. A lot of time. Too much time. And in the current climate, we can no longer afford to think about product development in terms of years; the rest of the world is moving too quickly for that, and if we don’t catch up, well …