Shelley A. Gable

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I recently learned about the National Cowboy Poetry Gathering from a friend. From what I've pieced together, it sounds like a one-week event in which real cowboys from all over the country gather to share their love of poetry, music, dance, and perhaps other forms of expression.

It's a week of poetry readings, shows, and educational events. And, it's an exciting opportunity for someone like me, who has an appreciation for the arts but is relatively clueless about the cowboy way of life, to get a glimpse into another perspective and way of life.  I CAN'T WAIT!!!

Well, that's my take anyway. If you're interested in a more official description, you should probably visit their website.

Because we people love lists, here's a list of five reasons why (in no particular order) I'm looking forward to the National Cowboy Poetry Gathering.

1. It'll be fun to meet people that I'd otherwise be unlikely to cross paths with. We're hoping to spend a day volunteering at the event, so that should help. And we have plans to meet up with some local folks we came across on couchsurfing.org.
     
   
2. I love hearing writers read their work. Audiobooks read by the author. Poetry readings. Artists performing their own music. It really brings the piece to life.
     
   
3. I love learning about a group's culture. Whether it's national culture, regional culture, organizational culture, or another category entirely. It's all interesting to me.  Bring on the cowboy and ranching culture!
     
   
4. It's an excuse to get out of town and go somewhere new. Who doesn't enjoy a weekend getaway? I've never been to Nevada.
     
   
5. Inspiration. An event like this must be oozing with inspiration! As a budding writer, I'll take all the inspiration I can get!

Well, there you have it. If I wanted to think about this a while longer, I could probably expand this into a list of ten. But for the sake of getting back to what this distracted me from, I'm willing to be satisfied with five.

I'm writing a series of articles for the InternetCE blog about how to learn from online learning courses. Click here to access my latest article directly, Avoid Forgetting What You've Learned from Online Learning.

The article is hinged on the three simple reasons people forget things. It's not rocket science. In fact, I had kind of a "well, duh" reaction after reading about this for the first time in my learning psychology textbook (Psychology of Learning for Instruction, by Marcy P. Driscoll). Of course, more complex explanations are out there for those who like to dig into the details of cognitive psychology and brain function.  But for most of us, boiling the logic down to three really simple reasons works just fine.

For some basic info about InternetCE and this particular writing gig, read what I posted after writing my first article for them.

I just posted an article called Is eLearning As Credible As Classroom Training? to the ILS blog. Click here to access the article directly.

I've started getting into LinkedIn discussions. Discussion boards can be hit or miss, but I think I've managed to find a few groups that get some good discussions going. A discussion about the credibility of eLearning was the inspiration for my latest contribution to the ILS blog.

It's fascinating to see the spectrum of perspectives in the field. On this topic, attitudes seem to range from "eLearning can accomplish anything" to "eLearning alone really can't give learners what they need." Personally, I tend to be about 3/4 of the way through the continuum toward the first position...which is the perspective I supported in the article.

"accomplish anything"-----ME----------------"can't give learners what they need"

Practical Tips for Using Online Learning Technologies is the second in a series of articles written for the InternetCE blog. The purpose of this series is to offer readers suggestions on how to get the most from online learning courses. Click here to access the article directly.

This article provides tips on how to use an online course from a basic technical perspective. To write it, I reflected on the online courses I've taken through various organizations and made a list of the features that most of them shared. Besides moving forward and back, what navigational options were available? What tricks have I employed to move through a course more quickly? And as usual, I collected ideas from training peers as well.

At first, I wasn't going to include a section on navigational tips in the article...I thought it was too basic. But after talking with a few of my friends about their e-learning experiences, I was surprised to find that some were unaware that you can do more than just move forward and back. I guess it's easier to catch on to these tricks when you design this stuff for a living.

For some basic info about InternetCE and this particular writing gig, read what I posted after writing my first article for them.

I regularly contribute to the Integrated Learning Services blog.  My latest contribution is called Aligning Training to Performance Objectives...We All Do This...Right?. Click here to access the article directly.

I've been contributing to this blog for a couple of months now, and I'm really enjoying it. Writing about the foundational principles of instructional design takes me back to my graduate school days. And really, no matter how much experience you have in a field, it never hurts to refresh yourself on the basics.

I'm writing a series of articles for the InternetCE blog about how to learn from online learning. The first is called Are You Taking Full Advantage of Online Learning’s Advantages? and was posted today. Click here to access the article directly.

What I'm enjoying about this gig is that it challenges me to think about learning psychology from a different angle. I have plenty of practice discussing adult learning theory and instructional design with my peers who work in training. However, this puts me in a position to reframe that knowledge in the form of advice for learners.

This is a perfect example of one of the things I love about writing - it prompts me to consider a familiar concept from a different perspective.

InternetCE offers online Continuing Education courses (e.g., insurance continuing education). The company's blog is written for practitioners in the fields served by the company.  It offers industry updates, professional advice, and content related to continuing education.

Welcome! This website was just created and posted today. As you can see, it is still very much under construction; and therefore, very bare bones.

It will probably remain quite minimal for several weeks. My hope is to slowly build it up over the next few months and have something more developed by spring. In the meantime, I'll attempt to post updates to this news/blog page with some regularity.

Thanks for visiting!