I’ve talked in public before about my “squiggly” career path. In broad strokes, I’ve been a writer of educational and technical content, a desktop-publisher, an online help developer, an eLearning developer, a video producer, a facilitator, a presenter, a coach, and an instructional designer.
With so much experience, why did I go back to school now? I started thinking about it in 2016. At the time, I decided not to pursue graduate studies. I was very interested in focusing on Customer Education. And I could find no formal programs with practical exposure to customer learning as a business strategy. Since then, several factors have led me to reconsider. Over the past six years, I've put what I learned on my own into practice. I helped a few clients build their customer learning academies. And I worked on the foundations of an education program at a hypergrowth company. After losing two family members in 2022, I took some time for reflection. Like many others, my reflections on what I'd lost helped me reconsider my future. I've come to realize the impact that graduate degrees can have on my options to make an impact. The impact I'm looking for in my future is to teach others to be great Customer Educators. I see so many examples of learning experiences that lack good instructional design. I'm happy to evangelize the potential good from Customer Education for people, their skills and careers, and businesses. Customer Education shares much with other niches in instruction. But the differences warrant unique study. For example, customers have different motivations than students and employees. What if Customer Education was available as a major or minor in Business school? What if computer science majors could observe how others learn about the problems they solve with technology? Customer Education is in an ideal position to teach potential and existing software customers in two ways. They teach the software-specific tasks. But they also teach the competencies and skills related to the problem the software is solving. With that in mind, I decided to focus my degree on teaching and learning with technology as my major. I hope to continue in the PhD program to do more research in the field of Customer Education. And I'd like to launch more academic learning opportunities for future customer educators.
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AuthorMichele Wiedemer has worked in software as an "accidental instructional designer" for many years. She is currently completing the MS in Learning Technologies at The University of North Texas. This blog represents reflections on specific assignments in the coursework. Archives
February 2024
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