"Junior Professionals of Instructional Technology"

I liked the terminology Dr. Kapp used at the Corporate Advisory Council (CAC) banquet, that we are all now "Junior Professionals". So I would like to first congratulate those of you whom have complete the RFP for Dr. Kapp’s class of Managing Multimedia Projects. Everyone looked outstanding in their Sunday’s best! The “learning exercise” was truly and outstanding and exhausting experience that went from dry research to adrenaline pumping competition.

For those who are in Dr. Byer’s class focused on grant writing, I hope the experience is as rewarding and as well, looking forward to the completion of the projects.

SECRET! No wait, anonymous!

I think the hardest part of any RFP or when writing a grant is how to quickly address the vague set of guidelines and goals atop of NOT KNOWING WHAT THE COMPETITION IS WORKING ON or as my colleague so wildly used, “secret”.

This week, Dr. Kapp had each team give a run through of their presentation of their proposed solution to see different perspectives and gain a better insight into the proposed solutions, something that is not practiced in "the real world" as it is so commonly referred to. Each team had similar types of solutions in the most basic sense focusing primarily on the evaluation of a Risk Management’s existing stand up training sessions. The challenge seemed to be how one team can stand apart from the others when we have all taken the same classes and been educated on similar models of evaluation. Furthermore, it is just as difficult to think “outside the box” on how to conduct evaluations or the methods used to collect the data and then present it in an exciting fashion to a group of Risk Management business representatives.

And the winner is.....

So, I would like to further congratulate team CLARUS consisting of Brian and Sara Boyce, Tony Blusius, Sara Peters and Hong Yan Yuan (hope I did not misspell any names) for their outstanding solution in regards to the RFP. I am perplexed as to how they were able to present this dynamic “roadmap” of evaluation in the limited twenty minute time line. It seems they took BARM members on a sales trip using a GPS, compass, map, tour guide and anything else under the sun. Their solution was well thought out focusing heavily on the conduction and delivery of evaluation as well as the validity of the data that was to be collected and reviewed. They included all of the essential elements of BARM’s request and even developed customized models of evaluation that seemed to focus evaluation of training to help the learner, something that many companies tend to over look. But team Clarus, where was the prototype??? (Just kidding!)

I would even further congratulate group representatives from DigiCore, Born Digital and of course my team members of eVoyage. For the sake of CAC, there must be winners and to sound as corny as I possibly can, there are no winners or losers. It is what we have all taken out of the class, good and bad. The friendships made with team members and class mates is the essence that truly make this more than just writing and speaking, it is the heart and soul of the IIT and Instructional Technology, networking and TEAMWORK!