Jennifer Valley

Friday, January 2, 2015

Blogging for a Year and What's to Come in 2015

I can't believe I missed my blogiversery. Oh the woes of starting something over Christmas break! As of 12/22 this blog is officially one years old. I want to thank each and every one of you who check out my blog weekly, talk to me on social media or even the one who occasionally wanders in.

I started this blog as a way to learn more about the field of online education/learning and development/corporate training/adult learning/elearning or whatever you call it and ended up making some great friends and allies, learning about new companies and products, and learning new things about eLearning and myself as an Instructional Designer. What more could a girl ask for? I wanted to share some quick stats with you and hope that you share in my excitement.

Total number of views: 9,300+
Total number of posts: 54 (some where not about eLearning and later removed)
Average views per month: 780
Highest number of views in a month: May 2014 with 1,439 views
Traffic Sources:

Audience by Country:

#1 United States
#2 United Kingdom
#3 Australia

Top 3 Posts with the most views:

28 eLearning Heroes Challenges completed
23 Examples added to my Portfolio
Maintained a 1.7 or higher engagement rate on Twitter
Added 800 Twitter Followers
Largest Twitter impressions: October 2014 19,700
Tweeted over 1000 times
Have 222 average daily viewers on Pinterest (in the last 30 days)
With 4,238 impressions on my White and Nerdy (elearning) board (in the last 30 days)

Thank you! Thank you! Thank you!

I will definitely continue to blog through 2015 and I'm hoping to eventually bump up my posting frequency to twice a week. Here are some of my 2015 goals that have to do with my journey in eLearning and this blog:

Build "own" email campaigns (Mailchimp, why are you so intimidating!)
Change blog and social media style/branding (responsive? flat?)
Switch site providers (Wix, Squarespace, Weebly)????
Create and distribute at least one eBook
Do more product reviews
Do book reviews
Finally write this massive article I've been collecting resources and silently thinking about the structure and subject matter of for months!
Incorporate software tips and tricks into a series (this is my chance to start making Youtube videos)!
Dump Blog's Facebook or start engaging on there more
Get a Bachelors degree???
Attend a conference
Clean up Pinterest boards
Guest blog
Submit an article to one of the eLearning magazines
Stay top contributor on my favorite LinkedIn group as much as possible
Publish an article to LinkedIn

What are you planning on doing on our blog or in your life this year? Comment below or catch me on Twitter @jvalley0714

Thursday, December 18, 2014

2014 Meeting Tool Match Up

Does your meeting tool do what you need it to? I was recently asked to review the features of the top three ranking virtual meeting software providers: Citrix Go to Training, WebEx Training Center and Adobe Connect.

The question:

Do we have the right tool?

The Answer:

WebEx Training Center was the obvious choice. It boasts multiple platform sharing, robust video, clear audio and anyone who has used the software can attest to the ease of "passing the ball". In general it had more tools, chat options, and an easier to use whiteboard and polling system. One of the major bonuses is the ability to record, edit and save you meetings within the software in an easily post able format while maintaining quality (MP4). It has the easiest to use Mobile App and is the best in class for use on an iPad. It was the easiest to use, learn and was technically sound.

So the question is, what are you using? Does it do everything you want? Feel free to comment below or tweet me (@jvalley0714).

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