Intermountain Chapter, Society for Technical Communication » Events

June e-Learning Event

Paul Pehrson — Tue, 01 Jun 2010 19:09:36 +0000

June 18, 2010
11:30 am	to	4:00 pm

For our June chapter event, rather than the usual evening presentation, we’re holding a half-day event during the afternoon focused entirely on e-learning. If you create video tutorials, screencasts, or other multimedia formats for your instructional content, or you want to learn how to develop e-learning content, this event is for you.

The afternoon will include three presentations. The first presentation will be a webinar from the STC Instructional Design and Learning group on e-learning tools. Joe Christensen will follow the webinar to present about creating e-learning tutorials. Following Joe’s presentation, Tom Johnson will present on developing a personal voice in audio. Descriptions of each presentation are below. Let us know if you plan to attend by adding a comment to this post.

Date: June 18, 2010, 11:30 AM to 4:00PM
Cost: $15 (lunch provided)
Location: 5215 Wiley Place, Salt Lake City

11:30 to 1:00 pm: Which E-learning Authoring Tool Should I Use? (webinar)

by the STC IDL Special Interest Group

Do you ever wonder what authoring tools to use for developing e-learning? In this webinar, three experienced users will demonstrate authoring tools, showing features as well as giving pros and cons. You’ll learn about Captivate, Articulate, and ProForma.

During this webinar, the Instructional Design and Learning SIG will present an e-Learning Authoring Tools panel, providing a 15-20 minute demonstration of each tool followed by a Q&A session. Read here for the features and benefits that will be demonstrated and general questions that will answered.

1:15 to 2:30 p.m. E-Learning Tutorials: More than Just a Video

by Joe Christensen, Intermountain Chapter Member

Chapter member Joe Christensen will present about how to create e-learning tutorials, taking you from concept to final production. In this session, you’ll learn the following:

Undertaking the Project Analysis Phase (including metrics)
Developing a Project Plan (or Outline)
Developing a Template
Keeping Components Small
Storyboarding a Component
Creating Your Unique Graphic Content
Producing Audio (very brief relating to metrics)
Recording and Editing a Component
Defining the Relationship to Written Documentation

2:45 to 4:00 p.m. Developing a Personal Voice in Audio

by Tom Johnson, Intermountain Chapter Member

Chapter member Tom Johnson will present on how to develop a personal voice in audio. You’ll learn how to create video tutorials with a friendly, personable voice by implementing several audio techniques common to professional voice talents and sound engineers. In this session, Tom will cover the following audio strategies:

Finding an acoustic environment
Sounding natural
Setting up your microphone
Controlling your breathing
Avoiding rambling
Rehearsing the script
Imagining a scenario
Dealing with mistakes
Post-processing the audio
Improving your voice

This event provides chapter members a perfect opportunity to develop their e-learning skills and knowledge. Please pay in advance for this meeting by using the PayPal link below, which constitutes reserving your spot.

Select the number of guests

Select membership

Names of attendees

May BBQ and Social Event

Paul Pehrson — Fri, 07 May 2010 22:22:59 +0000

We are having our annual May BBQ and social on Friday May 21st at 6:30 PM.

Location:

Walden Park
5425 S. Murray Parkway Ave (1070 W)
Murray, UT (map)

When: Friday, May 21, 6:30PM

Please join us for our May social. We will be having a chapter BBQ at Walden Park in Murray. The chapter will provide meat, buns, drinks, and utensils. The rest of the food will be pot-luck.

All are invited. You do not need to be a member to attend. Please invite your friends and co-workers that have an interest in technical communication. The event is free for everybody, and we hope you bring your family. The park has a playground, BBQ pits, electricity, and sand volleyball.

Please RSVP using the link below:

http://www.evite.com/pages/invite/viewInvite.jsp?inviteId=YDLUROXEVXELNUKMVDNR

If you have questions, please call chapter president Paul Pehrson at 801-938-8391.

Intermountain Town Hall Event (May 2010)

Paul Pehrson — Fri, 07 May 2010 20:21:46 +0000

First STC-Intermountain Town Hall held May 26

Hey Intermountain STC chapter members! The chapter has scheduled the first Intermountain Chapter Town Hall, and we invite you to attend.

This is your chance to interact with your chapter leadership. Ask the chapter board any question you want. We’ll do our best to answer it. Come with a problem that you are facing in your work, and see if others on the call have a solution to the problem you are facing.

We plan to hold these town halls regularly. Feel free to comment on this post to say how frequently they would be useful to you. Would you like to see an open forum like this on a monthly basis, or on a quarterly basis?

Please join us on Wednesday May 26th during lunch (12:00 MDT) to discuss whatever it is that you want to talk about.

Please register for this meeting by entering your e-mail address in the form below. You will receive a personalized invitation to attend the meeting, which will include the call-in number and participant code for the meeting.

There will also be a recording of the meeting available for those of you who can’t attend in person.

After you have registered, don’t forget to add this meeting to your calendar so you don’t forget to join us. We look forward to hearing from you.

Photo courtesy of Duplicon on Flickr

September Board Meeting

Ben Minson — Fri, 11 Sep 2009 23:05:46 +0000

September board meeting conference call

We met this month using our usual mode: a telephone bridge provided by Quest Software, one of our sponsors. Our main topics of discussion were the October and November chapter events, a tentative program for the year, and polling the chapter members so that we can get your input into what’s happening in the chapter and what we do this year.

October Event

Marj, our programs coordinator, is chasing this one and will have more information for us as she hears back from the organization that we are inviting to speak to the chapter.

November Event

Scheduled for Saturday, November 7th, this event includes several sessions on creating an online presence, something that is increasingly useful (and even expected) in our field. Details will be coming soon.

Tentative Program

Out of our brainstorming in August, we have created a tentative program going through 2010. It is a work in progress at this point (see the next item). We hope to allow well known but distant leaders in tech comm reach us through webinars. This type of event would also allow more members to participate in events. Webinars are often costly for attendees, and we want to mitigate the expense to members as much as possible to allow more participation.

Polling Members

We will soon be sending out a questionnaire to the chapter to find out what you want out of STC and the Intermountain Chapter. The officers have our ideas, and we have a tentative plan for events, but we want to know what your ideas are. This will be your chance to make your voice heard and affect our events. What types of events do you prefer? What topics are of most interest to you? What are some good venues? We would like your answers to questions like these.

Our chapter events will also include brief evaluations. This isn’t to add drudgery to the events or make them look more fitting for a professional association; rather, we plan to actively use the information you give us through these evaluations to continually make our events more beneficial to you.

August Board Meeting

Paul Pehrson — Tue, 04 Aug 2009 17:53:43 +0000

At the chapter's strategic planning meeting, we brainstormed ideas using post-it notes

At the beginning of August, the Intermountain Chapter board meeting met to discuss plans for the coming year. As part of the brainstorming session, we put our ideas about member value and needs on Lisa Ferrera’s fireplace using Post-it notes.

Here are a few notes from the meeting:

Action Items

Put out a notice that people can join STC in October and get membership through 2010. (Tom)
Finalize the 2009–2010 budget to send to STC. (Ben and Marj)
Launch new website. (Tom)
Solicit participation of previous competitors in competition this year. (Marj)
Create outline of 2010 program. (Ben)

Member Benefits

Discussed benefits of being a member of STC, and a member of the chapter. Need to sell benefits to prospective members.

Events

Discussed member meetings/events that we can hold in 2009 and 2010. Discussed rotating events in 3 main counties: Utah, Salt Lake, and Davis.

Budget

Discussed budget for 2009 and 2010. We will not get any funding from National STC through 2010, so we will need to survive on the money we currently have in the bank, and any money we can raise through competitions, sponsors, site advertising, etc.