Episode 6: Interview with Joanne Scouler (Transcript)
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Announcer: SyberWorks podcast. Learn any time, any place.
Mary Kay Lofurno: Welcome to the next edition of the SyberWorks LMS e-Learning Implementation Podcast Series where we take a look at actual learning management system implementations and e-learning program rollouts. My name is Mary Kay Lofurno and I am the Marketing Director here at SyberWorks and I am your host today.
In this edition, we will be talking with Joanne Scouler, e-Learning Specialist for Telelogic about their use of the SyberWorks Hosted e-Learning Solution to provide online customer and vendor support training.
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Mary Kay: And now we begin our interview with Joanne Scouler, e-Learning Specialist for Telelogic, Inc. Good afternoon, Joanne. Thanks for coming to talk with us today.
Joanne Scouler: Thanks for having me.
Mary Kay: Joanne, tell me about yourself.
Joanne: Well, my specialty is the design, development and deployment of technical e-learning courses. My goal is to make complex topics about the Telelogic Software Solutions, abstract, or simple and engaging. This way our new and existing users of the products can gain efficiency in using them.
Mary Kay: You know, Joanne, what type of software does Telelogic sell?
Joanne: Well, Telelogic is the leading provider of solutions for automating and supporting best practices across the enterprise. That sounds like a lot but I am actually in the modeling solutions product division and what we do is we provide a model-driven development environment for systems and software development and it is used for testing, as well. So our product enables the user to first specify the systems and software design graphically and then simulate and automatically validate the system as it is being built and this results in their ability to produce full production code from the model for an embedded system. So these are mainly embedded systems and software developers. It sounds pretty complicated but our e-learning courses make it very easy to understand.
Mary Kay: Can you give me a brief overview of who is using the SyberWorks Hosted e-Learning Solution at your company?
Joanne: Sure. We have users in a lot of different roles. We have customers of our products as well as our own internal employees and we have learners all around the world using the SyberWorks system which is why I like to include a lot of visuals in the courses.
Mary Kay: Can you tell me about the online courses that you provide to your customers and vendors through the SyberWorks Hosted e-Learning Solution.
Joanne: [clears throat] Our courses cover a variety of topics including introductory courses on standard modeling languages as well as courses covering the add-on products to our core product which is called Rhapsody. Our courses are short. They are only one to four hours in length.
Mary Kay: Ok.
Joanne: And, basically, we want to get the learners started with the new technology or product and I try to make the courses very engaging and highly interactive. Luckily our users are very motivated so it has been great. I made it a goal too, to talk to the users of the products directly about their learning goals and needs so I can make the courses learner centric. I work with the subject matter experts at our company and I try to glean information from them to put in the courses. I am really lucky in that I am working with experts on systems and software modeling in the industry not just in our company.
Mary Kay: Well that sounds great. Can you tell me a little bit more about your instructional design and planning process you went through in designing these online training courses?
Joanne: Sure. It is a market-driven, learner-centric development process and what that means is we gather information from various sources about our customer course needs. We get requests from internal employees including those in the field that work with the customers directly as well as the customer themselves. All of our courses go though a thorough review process which is the same process our product documentation follows so the courses get fine tuned and then they are ready for customers. We also get customer feedback through the SyberWorks survey feature and we include a survey at the end of the course. This detailed feedback has fostered several enhancements to the courses and even some new courses, so it has been very useful.
Mary Kay: Well that sounds like a good use of the survey. I agree with you there. What about the course development tools that you use to construct your online courses. Can you tell me a little bit about those?
Joanne: Yeah, the SyberWorks Web author that's the development framework that we use and it has the flexibility to incorporate interactive elements in various formats. So I have created demonstrations of our product using Captivate. I have also created rollovers showing our product interface and I have done that in Flash. I have used Dreamweaver when I want to edit HTML code directly. So I use a host of products to create interactive course assets and these I have inserted into the course using the SyberWorks Web Author. So in terms of interactivity, I try to create exercises so learners can get hands on experience actually using the tool and we call these “You try it” exercises. And, of course, we also include in lesson as well as post test review questions to reinforce important concepts. One of the things we found helpful about the in lesson review lessons is we can give the learner a hint in case they didn't get the question correct that time.
Mary Kay: That sounds really good. Can you tell me about your customer experience with SyberWorks and its Hosted e-Learning Solution?
Joanne: Sure. We are users of the SyberWorks Web Author tool as well as the SyberWorks Learning Management System and the Learning Management System is hosted by SyberWorks. Our company, we chose the SyberWorks Solution because it is flexible as well as cost effective and we also wanted to work with a local company and you are right down the street from us which is great. That's why I am here today.
Mary Kay: Yeah that is true. You are. We are right down the street from you. Is there anything more that you would like to share in terms of working with SyberWorks to develop your e-learning program?
Joanne: We are looking forward to working with SyberWorks as more and more learners become engaged with the Telelogic e-learning and we may look into developing a certification program for our customers down the road and we hope to leverage the investment in the SyberWorks Learning Management System.
Mary Kay: Well that sounds great. Joanne I know you're really busy. So thanks for joining us today.
Joanne: Thank you for having me.
Mary Kay: It was great to have you. This is Mary Kay Lofurno, Marketing Director at SyberWorks. I wish to thank you for listening to our interview with Joanne Scouler, e-Learning Specialist from Telelogic Inc. on the SyberWorks LMS e-Learning Implementation Podcast Series. Talk with you next month.
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Announcer: SyberWorks Podcast. Learn anytime, anyplace.
