Multimedia Here I Come

I work at a small rural college, that given its size and location it is surprising that learning technology has been so widely embraced. We use Moodle as our LMS and while come fall offer over 100 courses fully online.

I have been fortunate enough that the people at the top of this college want to move forward. Finding instructional designers that are willing to come to a small Northern community is tough, I just happened to be married to a local guy. I think however my decision to leave K-12 and come to the college was perfect timing.

It was almost serendipity but it looks like multimedia development which is my passion will now be my future. I volunteered to develop a corporate training course on diversity. Our executive initially wanted to explore Second Life, which given the target audience I did not believe was the best approach. They were looking to be more forward in the design but really did not know what was available. What they really wanted was a somewhat immersive and interactive environment.

I have been lucky enough to suggest and lead the way on what we should get for software, how to outsource development such as animations and 3-D modeling, and the work on the design of a Flash interface to drive our product development. We are a small college and I know it sounds like a lot of money, but really it is not. We are purchasing programsthat allow for animation development without a programming background. We are looking for ways to play with the big boys without the big boy dollars.

I am just feeling happy today that my career move is taking me in this new direction.... maybe when I am well into it with a zillion deadlines I might feel otherwise!