sharonh.com

Wiki Swag -- The wiki's success was measured in part by how quickly staff integrated the software into the deparment's daily life. To help with this process I designed training souvineers intended to sit on a desk as a constant reminder of the wiki's presence.

Wiki Cheat Sheet -- MediaWiki proved to be a complicated product. Reducing the training information into an attractive quick reference guide was quite a challenge.

Grade Columns -- When Blackboard 8 premiered GradeCenter, my institution had to train several hundred faculty in a very short time frame. In response to the budget and time constraints I spent two weeks creating and narrating ten online tutorials.

Post-Training Support -- My current institution upgraed their in-house LMS in early 2009. Since I'm an experienced face-to-face trainer, I was tapped to develop content for the face-to-face training sessions and serve as lead instructor. This web page, which includes a few simple Flash objects, is one example of the post-training support I made available to trainees.

OSI Model -- I served as technical lead on a partial redesign of the OSI Model Flash object. Specific contributions are recording the opening narration, creating the crossword puzzle following the narration, and various changes to the Application layer including adding closed captions to the Virtual Instructor, designing a new animation for the Real Life Example, and embedding a Captivate quiz in the Test Your Knowledge section.

Second Life -- The most complicated and sprawling multimedia environment I have ever been involved with is the virtual world Second Life. I first worked with Second Life as faculty, using the world for projects for my web animation students. I also served on the brand-new DCCCD Second Life committee, which made initial decisions about how to use DCCCD island. This image is from the DCCCD groundbreaking ceremony. I’m the blonde, and my student assistant wears the wings.

Second Life-- My current institution completed their Second Life island purchase shortly after I joined the team. I was the island's chief developer. It was very challenging -- Second Life taxed my knowledge of graphics, programming, and animation at every turn. We had a $600 development budget, which allowed us to buy literally hundreds of objects including buildings, plants and furniture. I tracked all the assets and developed a backup plan to protect my institutions digital property. This image is our main ampitheater, which I built from scratch.

Second Life -- The island apperance was an important project outcome. Many beginning Second Life worlds look flat and bland. An immature-looking island was not acceptable to the university committee overseeing the project. I researched landscape design, spent hours shopping for well-crafted digital furniture, and more hours customizing and tweaking details. This image is our classroom in the woods. The building features a lounge area is downstairs, a lecture hall on the second level, and a dance floor on the roof.

Second Life--While I found Second Life to be fascinating and absorbing, I freely admit its high learning curve and large time investment make it an unsuitable teaching medium for most instructors. This last image is the interior of our administration building.

Green ScreenI'm currently working on a scenario involving a hurricane making landfall outside San Antonio. The scenario is capitalizing on social media to increase its realisim, and placing green-screen videos on YouTube is one of the many social media 'hooks' we're placing in the scenario.

Relative Links Tutorial -- This tutorial-and-quiz applet teaches students how to create relative hyperlinks. A quiz with randomly-generated questions checks their knowledge.

Multimedia Presentation Basics -- This article inlcudes two presentations created using the PPT-to-Flash tool iSpring. The presentation explores trends in modern slideshow design and encourages faculty to drop the "five to seven bullet points per slide" in favor of a more engaging presentation style.

Maslow's Fair -- This image depicts the learning journey from the base of the pyramid up to the pinnacle. The graphic, developed during a conference session at Evergreen College, was concieved and executed in under two hours. In retrospect I should have gone with a roller coaster!!

LT Logo -- TLT Logo::While I love the logo for the Teaching and Learning Team, I can't take full credit for it. The image is a symbol from the TrueType font set Tribal. I can, however, take full and delighted credit for seeing the symbol and realizing it could depict for many things, all of which our group personified, including the sun (ideas), a wheel (journey), a learning circle, and a gear (building).

Classroom Clickers -- I designed several flyers for NLC's Teaching and Learning Team. This one, promoting a session on clickers, is an example of too-good design. Most faculty thought this was an event hosted by a publisher; not an in-house session lead by their peers.

Active Learning Planner -- This planner is a by-product of my continuing efforts to bring Active Learning into my class. Spontaneously introducing Active Learning doesn't work well for me -- I have to carefully consider its place within the framework of the course content.

Cybersecurity Report Cover -- In 2009 I was able to design a report my institution authored for a prestegious Beltway consulting firm. The professional apperance of the report was praised by administration and by the client.

RSS Feeds -- This article explains the basics of RSS (rich site syndication) and explains how faculty can use RSS feeds to easily include fresh news headlines on specified topics in their classrooms.

Video Game Promotion -- When NLC started a video game program I advertised classes using actual video game boxes.

Video Game Promotion -- Enthusiastic students stole many of the boxes, mistakenly thinking games were still inside.

Video Game Promotion -- CD jewel cases proved to be the easiest to work with, and were also the least desirable.

Pysanky -- I enjoy decorating eggs using an updated form of the Ukranian technique pysanky.