Naming a Course

What's in a name? That which we call a rose.

Shakespeare

I wish it was true for course names too; but am afraid not. Coming up with relevant and striking names for courses has been one of the challenging tasks.

One of the common ways to get to a name is to make it content and level specific, like a course on business communication for trainees could be Communication 101.

But there are times when we struggle to name a course. For example, a course on tips for all people on where to go in the city they are visiting; would you name it Travel 101 or Destination or relate the name to the reason behind the course like 10 Best Places in or just a very jazzy name which gives no clue to whats being taught but is jazzy enough to get the learners go and take the course like DeTraBest (short form of Delhi Travel Best) ... see what I mean, I could build another course on the meaning of DeTraBest :)

Well the search goes on... but as per my experience, the basic is to have a name that the learner can relate to and understand what he/she will learn when going through it.

2007 Recap

I know, I know its a bit late to do the recap, which I should have done in December; but better late than never. So here we go!

Started the year designing and managing information and task oriented one pagers, known as job aids in the industry. I was a bit apprehensive about getting into an area that was totally new to me. However, after an extensive research on Internet, e-learning guild and other learning sites, I got a little hang of what they are, types of job aids, and how they are supposed to be designed. I got to know when to use scenario based job aids and when to use question based ones. I could go on and on about job aids , but that would make this post a long one... so I will cover the details in future posts.

Next came the course, which would be part of my Hall of Fame for courses that I have worked on, a real-time online process-oriented course. What does this mean? Well, I would say that the course design is in such a way that learners not only get to know but also apply the steps while going through the course. I was amazed to see the affect of this course not only on the learners, but also on the client, as it was the first time we had designed keeping in mind the impact on client logistics.

Another area which I must mention is managing the reviews of our courses. The best thing about this, apart from the fact that I re-designed the process, was to read the comments and feedback from the learners. It really helped me gain insight into how effective our courses were in terms of design, content, and interactivity.

All in all, 2007 was the year I ventured onto different aspects of being an instructional designer. I moved from being a traditional ID, only catering to designing and creating courses, to actually design other learning approaches that give a wholesome learning experience.

Looking forward to whats in store for me in 2008. Happy New Year!