Virtual Open House MS in Learning Design and Technology Transcript

George Mason Online Admissions: Welcome, everyone, to the Master’s of Arts in Learning, Design Technology, virtual open house. I am an enrollment specialist, on behalf of George Mason, so, today as well, I know that some people were using, like, Mojis, which is awesome. There’s also a chat function if you guys have the questions that we want to save to the end. As the slides are going on, you can ask the questions. That will save to the end. Or, you know, whatever you want to do. At the end, I’ll also send in my contact information, so if you are interested in applying, we would be happy to assist you throughout the application process.

Doug Wilson: Yes, go ahead.

George Mason Online Admissions: I don’t know if you wanted me to take this over.

Doug Wilson: Yes, go ahead.

George Mason Online Admissions: Okay, awesome. So, the agenda is going to be going over people, the presenters, career outlook. Why choosing George Mason’s Learning Design Technology program? We’ll go into the program details, individual coaching and personal attention. Go into those curriculum details as well. Graduates in demand, and then admissions requirements, like I said, we would be assisting with that portion, and then the question and answers for the end. And again, that’s the chat functions you can use. You can raise your hand, I believe we have that function, but again, that’ll be at the end, if you want to raise your hand, or if you want to ask questions in the chat before the end.

Doug Wilson: All right, Ted, I’m gonna pick up the conversation now, and let’s get started. Welcome, everybody. Todd, Deidre? Ocean? Welcome, it’s great to see you. So… This is the slide I like to start with. These are some recent alums from our program, graduates, who finished either the eLearning Certificate or the master’s degree. And when I talk with other instructional designers or learning design and technology specialists. there’s a tendency, of course, to delve into the technology and the tools and artificial intelligence and extended reality, and all of those things, and training problems, all critical to this industry and to your career at George Mason, but fundamentally, to my mind, others may disagree with this, instructional design and learning design and technology field, it’s about people, it’s about you. And what our field allows you to do with training is… have an impact on people’s lives, have an impact on organizations. In fact, have an impact on the world. So what do I mean by that? So, I’m not going to drill down into all of these students, many of them I know, but In this group that you see on the screen, students developed all different manner of training. One of the students on the far right developed English language training for the Saudi Arabia military. And he did that remotely, from Saudi Arabia. And so it was really a thrill to see that particular student at graduation, and to talk about his training that is actually out in the world now in Saudi Arabia. The military is using that to learn English. We have another student on the screen here who developed organ transplant tissue typing training for the largest organ transplant entity in the state of South Carolina. And so the important thing for you to know here is, in addition to understanding that instructional design and LDT, as we call it, it’s about people is that these trainings that I just described briefly were developed in our program. I supervised those trainings and guided students. I didn’t actually tell them what to do, but I coached them and got them to where they needed to be so that they could implement their training out in the world. So it starts here at George Mason in a class, and then in short order, boom, it goes out into the world. We even had a student who developed training for embassy security guards at United States installations overseas. To help security services protecting embassies. work with their local counterparts in law enforcement to make sure that when there are suspicious packages and those sort of things that can happen in today’s modern world, that they speak together in the right language of the destination country, in this case, Russian. So. It starts here at George Mason, with you, the people, but then quickly it goes out into the world. And Chris Ballone, who’s joining us, an alum of our program. Is going to be able to address some of that personalization that we have, and how it starts here, and then the training goes out into the world, and it has an impact on people’s lives. So, these are some of our program participants. My name is Dr. Doug Wilson. Most folks call me Dr. W, or Professor Wilson. I’m the Academic Program Coordinator in Learning Design and Technology. And you can Google me at GMU and see my background and read my bio. I’ve been teaching for over 20 years in various capacities. And then we have Dr. Lisa Giacomo, who is an associate professor. in learning design and technology. She’s our user experience expert, and so those of you who have an interest in that would be taking classes from Dr. Giacomo. And then we have, Chris Ballone, who is, an important alum of our program, and he is at the United States International Trade Commission, where he is an Instructional Systems Specialist. Now, I want to kind of save Chris for the end of the presentation and the Q&A, but, Chris, is there anything you’d like to share before I get into the meat and potatoes of our short presentation this evening for the students, potential students you think they should know?

Christopher Bellone: So, Deidre, Ocean, what I… all I could say is that, it made a huge impact on my life. It was truly life-changing, and the experience was wonderful. You’re able to see different types of ways of learning, and from my perspective, it was great to see the… the practice, and then the theory behind it. Been practicing for years, and then being able to take that theory into practice out into the national landscape, so… It definitely is much more than just, you know, theory. You could actually… you could put something into action, like, you know, the English in Saudi Arabia.

Doug Wilson: Chris, thank you so much for that, and real world, right there. And so, we’ll talk a little bit more about the evidence-based nature of our training. and the theory Chris talked about, but then how you apply that. So I’m going to proceed with the presentation. I’m going to move pretty swiftly, but just put your questions in the chat, and then we’ll get them answered when we’re all done here in just a few minutes. It won’t take long. So, speaking of careers, I mentioned instructional systems specialists. You can leave our program and aspire to work as a designer or developer. That’s one of the big categories here in the upper left. You can see the jobs that are available. Instructional designer is one of them. That’s my background, instructional design. And then we also have students who don’t want to go to work for anybody, they want to start their own consulting firm. And so, in the Washington, D.C. area, or perhaps if you’re not from the DC, Maryland, Virginia area. And you’re in California, or you’re in Germany, as some of our students are, or Saudi Arabia, you may have a local opportunity where you can make money and have a career as a consultant. And so, one of the benefits of being in the LDT field is that there’s almost no organization that does not have some type of training capability or needs to onboard new staff and train them up in what that organization or what that entity does. So, we have students who work as consultants. And then, if you’re already doing work of the type that you see on the screen, either instructional design, UX designer, social learning designer, learning strategy consultant, and aspire to a management role, the master’s degree certainly is something that you want to look into. The certificate could get you started down that road, but most people who take on a managerial role, they’re gonna have an MS and LDT. It’s not always the case, but it’s mostly the case precisely because of what Chris was talking about. The evidence-based nature of what we do and the theory behind what we do that’s going to help you succeed as a manager with a bottom line on your training, right? You want to have return on investment, and you also want to make sure that your training works. So, those of you who aspire to management. We have courses that you can take, many of them from me, where you will get to some insights into that level of training and professionalism in the career. So, what makes our learning design and technology program unique? I think the… personalities and the people are focused on the human-centered side of what instructional design is. And, here are some other things that I’ve just touched on briefly. We have an e-learning graduate certificate that’s built into the program, so what does that mean? Well, when you enroll in LTT, the first sequence of courses you take, 15 graduate credit hours, it’ll take you about 12 months. Those credits, once you earn the eLearning certificate, automatically roll over into the master’s degree, and so then you would do another year to earn the master’s degree, and there’s very limited paperwork that you have to do. In fact, right now, it’s one form, and that’s going to become a digital form very soon. And so those credits automatically transfer, so you get the certificate, so you can use that as a credential as you’re applying for jobs or getting promoted within your organization, and then those become the first 15 credits of your master’s degree, and then you take another 15 credits, and then you earn your MS. And so the credentials, the eLearning Certificate, and the MS are stackable. So, we have a part-time online format, that is flexible for you, and it means that you can take our courses and our program from anywhere. So, since I’ve been at George Mason just about 5 years now, I’ve had students beam into the program from places like South Korea, Germany? I had one year where a student was coming in from Peru, student from Italy. And basically from all over the world. And one of the beautiful things about our program is that our instruction is set up in a way that you actually get to meet these people, certainly asynchronously, not live. Where you are engaged with them, in, instructional design studies and posting to discussion boards, but typically, we also have synchronous sessions. Where students get together, And we talk about some things maybe that aren’t in the course specifically, or aren’t… written down, or maybe based on my experience, or Chris’s experience, or Dr. Giacomo’s experience, because what this really is, earning a master’s degree or certificate, it’s becoming part of a community. You’re not just taking courses to learn facts. And to study theory, those are very important, but what’s critical is some of the networking that happens with our students, and the friendships that they form, and the jobs they learn about from classmates who hear about things that maybe are not published on Indeed.com or LinkedIn. And so, you become a part of a community, and the key facet about that is, is that when you leave us. You’re thinking like a designer, so this is not just courses, you actually are, as Chris said, starting out, it changed his life. It’s a… it’s a perspective, an approach. That you develop and work on, that you take with you into the world, which essentially, to my mind, others may disagree with this. I’m confident those students that you saw at the beginning of this presentation Leaving our program, Chris is one of them, can parachute into literally any situation, any design situation, and figure it out. And that’s the application of the theory. What do I do in this problem space that nobody really has dealt with before in the organization where you will end up working, or if you’re a consultant doing consulting work. So, part-time format. Also. Our College of Education is ranked 67 out of 456, according to U.S. News & World Report, so it’s a quality program. We just moved from Blackboard Learning Management System to Canvas. Some of you may be familiar with that. That’s really smoothed out the experience of taking online courses, in our program, so that’s a very cool thing. And then we also, on the lower right-hand side, have a competitive tuition that makes our program, top-rated that it is, available to more students. And so you’re gonna hear from Chris, and from Dr. Giacomo, who’s joined us, but this is a student testimonial, so give that or read… I’m just gonna pause a moment so you can read that. So… after tonight, and you leave us, and you’re wondering whether or not the program is for you, and whether instructional design or learning design, UX design, XR design, extended reality design is for you. Think about those words on the screen and what Chris says. The program can be life-changing if you put the effort into it. And, Dr. G. Kumo and I are here to, you know, not beat you over the head, but to facilitate and guide you toward the goals that you set, and in essence, that’s really what instructional design and learning techno… learning design and technology is about. Setting goals and achieving them. It’s not all about that, but that’s a big part of what we do, and that points to the evidence-based nature of our field. We understand a lot about how people learn, and so it’s your job as an instructional designer to build that into the interventions that you will develop in our program. So, talked a little bit about courses, And so here they are. That top one is, Dr. Gio Kumo’s course. That’s called Web Accessibility and Design, and so, if you work for government as an instructional designer like Chris. Or you work in a school, typically. There are a lot of legalities involved in how you build training and rules of the road, so to speak, and policies that you have to meet in order to be legal. With your online, e-learning, hybrid courses that you would develop, once you are working in the world. And so web accessibility and design is all about that. Some HTML in there, some cascading style sheets, and some other things that some other packages that Dr. Giacumo is bringing. And I’m not going to read through each list of these courses and detail them all for you, but that’s one of the important ones. And then, I’m going to talk briefly down in the middle of the screen, you see Edit 705. instructional design, that’s the starter course. That’s the course that I teach. And that’s where we focus, in a traditional way, on what you would probably know as the ADDIE model. Analysis, Design, Development, Implementation, and evaluation. And you write up an instructional design document That’s an intervention where you develop the goals, you develop the learning outcomes, you write a problem statement. And then you do some analysis. We ask you to get people on the phone, or to set up web conferences with subject matter experts, where you have to ask them questions about the project that you’re designing on a team with other students, so it’s real world. Where you’ve gotta set a time, you have to meet, you have to work through problems, you have to navigate Sometimes different cultures, different personalities in order to get to the end of the course and have a deliverable that you can be proud of that can go in your portfolio. And then I’ll mention briefly, this is also Dr. Giacomo’s course, Analyzing the User Experience in Learning Design and Technology. That’s a unique course because, it’s coupled with another course called 752, essentially user experience design, and so we have quite a number of students who are interested in entering this area, so Dr. Giacomo can, when we get done. answer questions about that. And then that last course is the Virtual Worlds course, so I teach a course that I developed on extended reality, and so we could talk a bit about that as we move forward. So, back on this most important subject of what can you do with your eLearning certificate or with your MS degree, these are some of the places where our students work. Smithsonian, National Geographic Society, Booze Allen Hamilton, which is a big consulting firm in the DC, Maryland, Virginia area. They have offices other places, but I know them as a DC company, do a lot of military work. SAIC Battelle. Sometimes, these, these companies, they’re known as Beltway Bandits, so you’ve probably heard that if you live in the DC, Maryland, Virginia area. So, these are some of the places that you can aspire to work, and there’s other places that are not on this list. We have students working, former students working for AI companies, for example, developing artificial intelligence. and developing training about artificial intelligence. Some of our students are doing that right now. I get students Who currently are at Homeland Security, or the Department of the Army, so it’s really… and then we have former teachers, civilians. So it’s a really great mix of personalities that I think reflects The real world, especially when you consider that some of your classmates literally could be from anywhere in the world. And they can become your friends and your partners. Okay. So that’s a quick take on our program. This is where the rubber hits the roll here, the admissions process. So what’s involved with that? So here’s a brief setup, and we have our admissions rep on the phone, excuse me, on the call. Who can maybe talk through some of this once we get to the Q&A and the next slide. Excuse me. Official transcript, we need that. Resume, we need that. Two letters of recommendation, preferably from an employer, so we like it when students have some level of work experience and aren’t coming straight out of undergraduate. Because it matters, that context, that you have seen some of the world, you’ve been working places, and you’re aware of what that’s like. And then a personal statement. This is one of the most important pieces of the puzzle, to me in applying, because this is where you set your goals and you explain to us If… you join LDT, what you want to do with it. So, Dr. Giacumo and I like to read those personal statements and see in them that you have either attended one of these sessions like this, or that you researched us online, you know what her area of research is, you would write into that personal statement that, oh, I’m interested in Dr. Wilson’s extended reality course because da-da-da-da-da. And, and, and so that would show me and Dr. Giacumo, that you’ve done some homework And that you’re prepared, and that you really are committed to this, and we like to see that. We call it alignment. Alignment, that’s a good instructional design word, right? We like to see that your outlook and your perspective aligns with what we do. We don’t want you coming into the program, spending time with us, spending your treasure with us, and your personal goals don’t necessarily align with what we offer. We want to see that alignment. And of course, make sure there’s no misspellings or typos or anything in there, like that. And so that’s how you apply, and so we’re going to make it even easier for you here in this next slide. And if you have your phone handy, You can, zoom in on that. QR code, and it’ll take you right to the application. And you can start filling that out. Now, our deadline for Spring 2026 is December 15th, so you have a month, give or take, if you really like, what you’re hearing right now, and… go ahead and get that application, and there’s a phone number on the right-hand side of the screen. You can write that down and talk to our admissions folks, and we do have Casey on the call here who can maybe answer some questions, and then, of course, there’s our masononline.gmu.edu, where you can read about the program and start doing some research on us to make sure that you are informed and make an informed decision about your application and what you want to do. And so with that, let’s see, I talked about 20 minutes? That’s pretty good for me. And I’m going to open it up for questions or comments, and, I think since we have, Chris Ballone on the call here. You may want, as an alum, to direct some questions toward him. He’s an advocate for the program, I am an advocate for program, Lisa is definitely an advocate for program, but Chris went through it. And has, risen in the ranks as an instructional designer, and we’re quite proud of him. So, I’m gonna turn it over to you all. And… have at it. Talk to Chris, talk to me, talk to Dr. Giacomo, ask your questions, and we’ll clarify what we can. So I’m gonna look down here in the chat. Okay, Casey’s information is in there. I see the Mason grad site.

Lisa Giacumo: But Dr. Wilson, I don’t know if they can chat, if they can write anything in there, because I can’t. I’m not allowed.

Doug Wilson: Oh yeah, I see it says chat disabled there, okay.

Lisa Giacumo: Yeah, yeah, and I just wanna, build…

George Mason Online Admissions: I changed it. Can we… Can we see if that works now? Okay, perfect, awesome.

Lisa Giacumo: Awesome, thanks. So yeah, so you can raise your hand and speak out loud or write a question in the chat. Just to build on what Dr. Wilson was mentioning, If, If you see an opportunity where you are excited about a potential career path or jobs type or role within an organization that you know that we can, prepare you for, that’s… that’s a great thing to put into your… your personal statement. And just in case you can’t… you don’t understand my research, I’m happy to… to help people learn about it when they come in the program. I just wanted to throw that out there.

Doug Wilson: Thank you, Dr. Giacumo.

Lisa Giacumo: Yeah.

Doug Wilson: Alright, so we have our first question from Ocean Jones. Go ahead.

Oshun Jones: Hi, first of all, I just wanted to, to say I’m, I’m very impressed, Most people cannot say my name on the first try, and, you did a very good job, so, Just wanted to say that. My question has to do with the program options. Can you go into the differences between the MS in Learning Design and Technology and the other two, just kind of giving me an idea of what I could expect… and one versus the other, and when I might choose one versus the other.

Doug Wilson: Sure, I can do that. I’ve been talking for 20 minutes, though, so if anyone else wants to tackle that question, please do so. Otherwise, I will do so. Okay, so one of the biggest differences is the time commitment. And, time is money, right? So, if you don’t have a background already in learning design and technology. The certificate might work for you. It gives you a real insider’s look at what instructional designers do, and what learning design and technology specialists do. It’s 15 credit hours. And so, without getting to details on the finances of it, that’s gonna be a lot cheaper than 30 credit hours. And because the credential is stackable. Those 15 credit hours would roll over into a master’s degree, so we have, I’m gonna say, more than a handful of students who come in not quite sure if this is for them, they take our classes, they get to work with me and get to work with Dr. Giacumo. And they develop friendships and partnerships and work on some really neat projects, right? With maybe somebody from National Geographic, or Homeland Security, or the United States Trade Commission, International Trade Commission. So, the time commitment would probably be the first thing that I would think of. And so time is money. Also, getting a snapshot of the program in a year, about a year, which is what it would take for you to earn the certificate, is going to inform whether or not you need to do more, right? If you want to be a manager. In an organization typically, in the instructional design field, that’s going to require… it doesn’t always require it, right? But most folks who are leading other instructional designers, or teams of instructional designers, or learning specialists, or educational technologists, they’re going to have a master’s degree. Not always, not in every case, right? Steve Jobs, is not a design… an instructional designer, but he was a college dropout, right? So… It can be done. But, that would be another distinguishing a feature of the master’s versus the eLearning Certificate, that it positions you to be a manager. And then courses like the UX course, that’s a… That’s a master’s level course. And so that’s, a skill set that is, heightened is not actually the right word that I want to use, but… That’s a skill set, that you would have in the master’s program that somebody, taking the certificate would not have. So I think I’ll stop there. I hope I answered your question. If anybody wants to… if anyone else wants to jump in there, please do so.

Oshun Jones: Yes, you did. Thank you.

Christopher Bellone: Great, so… I’ll go. I see Deidre, So, I often… let me give you a little background. So, I’ve been, teaching in one way or another pretty much my whole career. Started out in the United States Navy, hospital corpsman. I was, in charge of, a lead corpsman in an emergency department, and everybody went to Desert Storm, except I didn’t get the chance to go. And what I ended up having to do is, is, teaching reservists that get out of the service and maybe went into a non-medical field, but then they got called back. So I started there, and in the Navy, it’s… it’s as simple as do one, teach one, or see one, do one, and then teach one. So I started there, and then I worked my way through emergency services. After I got out, and then I got this opportunity to work in emergency management for about 7 years, and during that time, I worked, with grants, and I worked with planning, and I worked with, developing a training center in a region. Going back to training. So I knew all about training, and then I got this opportunity to work for FEMA. I worked for FEMA for 15 years, and then COVID hit, and I had been teaching for a long time, and I kind of was, kind of burned out on teaching. You teach so much, and then you teach the same thing over and over, and then COVID hit. So I had the opportunity to work from home more, and had more time rather than travel. Which I traveled about 3 quarters time. So I listened in on one of these programs, and I decided to join the program. And after the first couple courses, it struck me, the why. I’ve been doing all of this teaching for years, and I put in the chat the word affordance, and that was, like, one of the biggest aha moments for me. When you’re teaching, there’s certain things, affordances, of certain technologies. And I would… I would also add and argue that, not only there’s affordance in technology, but there’s also affordance in different types of instructional, specific techniques. And then even the, like, you know, Dr. Wilson mentioned earlier, the human aspect of, teaching and instruction. You learn all of that, you learn the whys behind user experience, why people, react a certain way, or don’t react to a simple setup on a slide, or a complex setup on a slide. And from there, in 2022, I graduated, and from FEMA, then I received a promotion to a higher level, and my goal is to do more of the management and maybe a chief learning officer at a federal agency one year. So, that’s what I mean by I did the practice and the theory, but really, the theory helped my practice.

Doug Wilson: That’s wonderful.

Christopher Bellone: That makes sense.

Doug Wilson: Oh yeah, to me. I, I affectionately, would call Chris Doc, so if you know anything about hospital corpsmen… You know that they oftentimes get called dock by the troops out in the field, so Chris is a great student. He did some great projects. He, I was impressed by his, dosimeter, or dosimetry. Training, radiological testing, And, I spoke at FEMA one time, thanks to Chris, and so I get there, and then I see this website and the training that he worked on during his time in LDT is there on the FEMA website, right? And I’m talking to all the people who are using this training, and they’re not caring really what I’m saying. They’re like, where’s Chris? It’s so…

Christopher Bellone: I appreciate it.

Doug Wilson: Thank you for sharing that, Chris.

Christopher Bellone: You’re welcome, and if there’s anything else, you know, just… You know, my approach to learning is laid-back, so, I’ll even drop my number in the chat. You could text me, call me, and I’ll send you my personal email. We could chat if you have stuff that maybe comes up after this that you may have questions, and the same thing with Ocean. Just coffee.

Lisa Giacumo: So we have a few… I was a few minutes late, my apology. I was on another call with a group of students, but I do virtual synchronous office hours. Dr. Wilson mentioned that we offer our work asynchronously, and we do that for sure. Never are you required to join synchronously, but we do also offer those optional opportunities, so that you can get real-time answers and meet who meet us and talk shop with us from time to time. I do that regularly in my courses. I know Dr. Wilson does, too. And another thing I want to tell you is that when you join our group here at George Mason, you get to build those network relationships, and those are relationships that will carry you into great organizations throughout the rest of your career. They’re valuable, and if you know anything about our industry. You know that, most of, the job opportunities come through network contracts. You can certainly get hired off the street, it happens. But all of my job opportunities since graduate school have come through my graduate coursework and degree program. I show up. I help others, I try my best, I put my best foot forward, and people will reach out to you and help you along your career in a lot of different ways, and so that’s a value add, I think, of the LTD program, are the people and the relationships that you’ll meet. And I’ll put my LinkedIn profile into the chat. You can, if you have any questions, you can certainly, send me a message through that platform and connect. And I’ll be happy to answer other questions as they might arise. Also, if you Google my name and GMU, you’ll find my phone number and email and all that, too.

Doug Wilson: All right, so I love hearing these stories, and this is where… again, the rubber meets the road. It’s these real-time conversations with real people, and I think there are programs out there, likely successful programs, but you won’t necessarily get that attachment. To a community the way you will in the Learning Design and Technology program at GMU, and to Dr. Giaculum’s point. Opportunity these days, despite all of the great technology that we love, that we use… It comes down to old school. Talking to somebody, showing up, right?

Lisa Giacumo: him.

Doug Wilson: Those things still matter, and I would argue that they’re more important now, because I oftentimes see technology driving a wedge between that normal Usual, old-school human Connection that’s supposed to happen. Where people just talk to each other. I spend a lot of time on screens, and I always notice that when it’s time to be, out in the the physical space out in the world like we used to do before COVID, there’s a… there’s a gap there, as I remember. Oh, I should wave at that person and say hi and engage with them. So we don’t want to forget those things, because they… Again, to Dr. Giacomo’s point.

Lisa Giacumo: Now.

Doug Wilson: That’s how the opportunity comes to us, but it’s also important when you’re designing training to walk in the shoes, sometimes, of the people for whom you are designing training, and get their experience, which helps inform the instructional design that you do.

Lisa Giacumo: Yeah. Did our, attendees introduce themselves and share a little bit about their background and their goals at all yet?

Doug Wilson: No, they haven’t. That’s a great.

Lisa Giacumo: I’d love to meet the people who are here.

Doug Wilson: Alright, so…

Lisa Giacumo: Ocean. Yeah, this happens. Deidre, Kim…

Oshun Jones: Start.

Lisa Giacumo: Yeah, thanks, Ocean!

Oshun Jones: Hi, so, my name’s O’Shawn Jones, and, I am in IT. I graduated many, many, many, many, many years ago, undergrad, with a CompSci degree. I do not… develop anymore. I am a… I guess I would call myself a business analyst or a systems analyst, if that makes any sense to anyone on here. And, I am just… exploring different, master’s programs, if you will, and, someone I met is an instructional designer, just, you know, off the bat, and I just wanted to get to know more about the degree, more about the classes, what, you know, types of jobs people get afterwards. And it… and really to understand if it’s a good pivot, career for me, since I’ve been in IT my entire career. And that’s really where I’m at, so I probably would reach out to, you three, just to kind of have a conversation, understand a little bit more in detail of what I could expect, you know, during the graduate courses, and what to expect afterwards. So, thank you.

Lisa Giacumo: Awesome, thanks for sharing. What do you like… what do you want to do more of?

Oshun Jones: I really… I enjoy the analysis and the actual creating of, products. So, I see myself, you know, doing a lot of that actual creating, I guess you would call them instructional courses, or that sort of thing. But I’m not sure, since I’ve never done it before. Except maybe your average PowerPoint training users and that sort of thing.

Lisa Giacumo: And I can tell you like technology because of your formal training.

Oshun Jones: Correct, and I’m still sort of in it, so yes, I do.

Lisa Giacumo: Yeah, so I think that’s a great marriage of interests and goals, that align really well with our program, and who we are, too. We do like… most of us really like technology, not all of us, it’s not a requirement. We do actually do some, performance analysis. Probably from a slightly different perspective, we do that in the L&D, context, and so. And looking for ways to, improve organizational performance and team performance and group performance through learning and development, or process change, or…

Oshun Jones: Huh, okay.

Lisa Giacumo: Yeah, business management consulting is a line of work that sometimes our folks go into, if they have some background in human resource development, as well as learning and development. And so that’s an exciting opportunity. You know, it’s funny, I just was, hosting two webinars over the last few weeks with, one with one of our graduates, who’s now a Chief Learning Officer. Fast forward 15 years later after graduation, and the other one is, a manager… has a manager instructional design role. She was one of my former students. And, we talked a lot about how sometimes our advice is not to build training, because it’s so expensive. And so when you come to us, we can help you learn about when it is appropriate to build training and when it’s not, and how to add real value to organizations from a performance standpoint. So I think you would fit in really well with our team and enjoy our colleagues, you get to learn how to build some stuff, and keep building that stuff, and also do some analysis, and focus it on learning and development. So, thanks for sharing.

Oshun Jones: Thank you.

Lisa Giacumo: Yeah. Deidre, Todd, Kim, where are you guys at? What do you want to do?

Kim Griffin: Hi, can you hear me?

Lisa Giacumo: Yes! Welcome!

Kim Griffin: Hi. So I’m actually currently an instructional designer. But I sort of fell into the position. And I’ve been learning on the job for the past 3 years.

Lisa Giacumo: Yep.

Kim Griffin: and… I’m really enjoying it. I’m, I was a technical writer.

Lisa Giacumo: And I’m enjoying the…

Kim Griffin: The creativity, and… Yeah, like, the more freedom to it, I suppose. And so I am enjoying it, and so it is something that I would like to stick with. However, I’ve thought about how, if anything were to change at my current company. Because I don’t have that formal education on learning and development, I don’t know if I would be able to do it anywhere else. So that is my concern.

Lisa Giacumo: Yeah. And so that’s why I’m exploring.

Kim Griffin: Like, some continued educa… education.

Lisa Giacumo: Yeah, I think that’s… that’s a real valid concern, and we have actually a lot of people like you in our program who just kind of, accidentally fell into learning and development and instructional design, and they have some applied workplace experiences, but they come to us seeking to kind of broaden their horizons and see more possibilities about what’s out there. And I think you’re right, right now, our economy, you know, it expands, it shrinks, it expands, it shrinks, it’s always like that, right? It goes through cycles, and at the moment, it’s, it’s smaller than it has been recently, so it definitely helps to have that formal credential on your resume, and I find that employers, they love to see these new sparkly credentials added. It helps with getting those interviews and your foot in the door, and so I think these are really good reasons for you to consider our program, and I think you would find great company here with a lot of people who have some background, but maybe a different context, and they’re… they’re here just ready to learn more and grow their skill set and grow their worldview, if you will. In the L&D space. Actually, we even have people that come back to us where they’ve already earned a master’s degree, but they earned it, you know, earlier in the career, maybe 20, 30 years ago, and they’re getting ready to retire, and they want to build a private consulting business after retirement. And so they come back to get upskilled and reskilled and reintroduced to the new ways of working and thinking that if you have been in an organization for 20 years that you just might not have, or if you’re in only one organization, right, you might not have had the benefit of seeing all the different possibilities that are out there today. So you’d, yeah, I think you’d fit right in, too. And I’d be super excited, to see you come in and also learn from your experience as well. Where are you currently… what are you doing now? What kind of L&D work, or instructional design work, are you working on?

Kim Griffin: I work for a software company in the revenue enablement. Area, so, like, go-to-market sort of thing, so, so sales enablement, pre-sales, some admin. Work, so.

Lisa Giacumo: Yep.

Kim Griffin: So… so yeah, a little bit of everything.

Lisa Giacumo: And super fuzzy. Yeah. Not process and procedures. But definitely not procedures.

Kim Griffin: Yeah, and it’s, we have a very small team and high expectations, so it’s really, you know, slap something together as quickly as possible, not a whole lot of, Not a whole lot of oversight, yeah, it’s just, I would like to learn how to do it the, you know, quote-unquote, right way.

Lisa Giacumo: Well, I don’t know if there’s one right way, but…

Kim Griffin: You know what it is.

Lisa Giacumo: Apparently, a couple different wrong ways, right?

Kim Griffin: Right, I would like to, like, an effective way, so that, like, my learners are actually getting something out of it.

Lisa Giacumo: Right, right, yeah. Yeah, that’s an interesting, I think, opportunity that we all run into is, negotiating for resources, and also finding the organizations that will give us permission to use our skill sets on the job, right? I think when you’re just coming into L&D, a lot of times, you are… you kind of just accidentally fall into it, right? Inside of an org that, maybe doesn’t know the possibilities or, hasn’t considered the kind of ROI that we teach you how to calculate and demonstrate the value, right, to the organizations. And so one benefit of coming in to a formal program like ours is that when you exit, you can speak to decision makers in ways that maybe you couldn’t before. A lot of people know how to use the tools, right? We all have seen PowerPoint examples. Just because you can use a PowerPoint doesn’t mean that it’s the greatest for learning and development, although maybe it’s gorgeous artwork, you know? So, when you… when you come to us, we’re gonna help you, figure out that value proposition. And get you access and opportunities to grow your career into organizations that hopefully value your offerings and your expertise in ways that allow you to, you know, move towards that Aston Martin. Now, I’m not going to tell you that if you get our degree, you’ll always get to purchase the brand new, shiny Aston Martin and go to the grocery store and style every day, so to speak, right? You still might have to build a use for it every once in a now and again, because that will still get your learners what they need, but the organizations that our students, graduates get into tend to be, pretty high quality. Pretty high-end, right? They’re going to… they’re looking for, to hire individuals that can make actual change and deliver the desired results, and so that’s kind of a… a great reason to consider upskilling, right? Because then, when you upskill, then all these new doors open for you.

Christopher Bellone: I’d like to add to that, two points. I can say personally, my master’s degree helped me get my promotion. from… and moved to a smaller organization. You know, and then the second point I would like to add on to is, you know. I’m able to now speak to the senior leadership in a way that I align: like, learning and training, we… we were, I’m lucky to be in a learning organization. They love learning, and their… their challenge was, is, is, to align it with their mission. So right… And that’s right from one of the, Dr. Van Rooj’s course, business course. I can’t remember the numbers, I don’t remember all the numbers, but… You learn that, and I’ve, I’ll be honest with you, when I interviewed for my current position, I not only used, that technique that I learned in her course, but I also used AI to build a case summary, and after I interviewed, I had… I gave them a white paper And I’m currently working that project. And it’s because what I learned in the master’s program.

Lisa Giacumo: You wrote your ticket.

Kim Griffin: Nope.

Lisa Giacumo: Quite literally. Literally. Get your promotion.

Christopher Bellone: I wouldn’t have done it before, but I’m like, okay, well, this makes sense, because that’s… she wrote a book on it, and I’m reading her book now, so… it’s great.

Kim Griffin: That’s great. That actually, you mentioned AI. I do have a question about, you know, AI is changing the field so well, it’s changing everything. And so, is that… incorporated into the program at all? Is there talk about that?

Christopher Bellone: A little bit, probably.

Doug Wilson: Just a little… just a little bit.

Lisa Giacumo: A lot. Like, all day, every day.

Kim Griffin: Yeah, okay.

Lisa Giacumo: I just had, one of our recently retired professors, Dr. Debeck, email me earlier today, hey, have you heard of generative UX? And I was like, students are handing projects in on that right now! So, yeah, we’re, we’re grabbing the bull by the horns, we’re tech-forward, and we’re not afraid of it. What you’ll find… one of the opportunities you’ll find in my course is, I actually tell people to go use it. I want you to go find a tool, here’s a list, or find a similar one. And do the things, and then tell me… share… share what you find, or share the results, right? And let’s… let’s look at this holistically. and decide where the value is, and where the time sync is, and what we can use it for appropriately, and how we can get the most value out of that. Because I don’t know if you’ve started to see those articles appear on LinkedIn. I guess you, by now, you know I’m a big LinkedIn user. That’s where I do a lot of my own personal learning, because I don’t have the benefit of courses anymore. Is, work slop, that’s a new word. I don’t know if you’ve heard work slop before, or it’s a new one, but, it’s just when… You know, when Jen AI first came on the scene, you’ll… you would have seen a lot of executives tell people, oh, we’re gonna, you know, reduce our workforce by such and such a percentage, and all the jobs are going away. This is just the next disruption, though, because what they’re finding, I just actually talked with the CLO, like I was saying before, last week, and he confirmed my suspicions as well, that everyone has now realized that, actually, it can run up your operating costs like no other, and faster than ever. So, if you don’t know how to use it, you’re a liability. And so we’re making sure that we’re, incorporating that into our courses here, and preparing people to not just use the tool, but excel again and demonstrate value.

Kim Griffin: Okay, great. Thanks.

Lisa Giacumo: Yeah, I see Deidre chatted, Hi everyone, I can’t turn on my mic, I’m joining from my phone in a busy spot. I am Deidre Lee, I’ve been in higher ed for about 20 years, and I earned a professional certificate in instructional design a couple of years ago. I want to go forward with an MS, so I’m really interested in this program. Well, welcome, Deidre. Like I said, I think, you might be possibly in sort of, a similar situation as Kim. You have some ideas, you have some experience, you’ve been around learning, so you come in with familiarity, in that light, and you’re just looking to grow your career. And, we have a lot of people in your shoes that are here, and have some experience, and just looking for those opportunities that an MS will offer. And I know… are you in NOVA, Deidre, by the chance? What I’ve seen, because I’ve lived a little bit around the country, Over the… my career, and this area really values education and training, even more so than others. I think Seattle values it. Richmond, I’m sure, anywhere here where… did you call them the Beltway Bandits? Organizations, and Richmond houses quite a few of these organizations that are… working for the government, contracting for the DOD, and the… the people there, as Chris, I’m sure, will tell you, and as he told you already, actually, that they value expertise, they value people who can speak learning and development, who are formally trained, who are ready to go out and lead the way, and show, how to achieve results, that others before them have not been prepared yet to do. And they’re looking for that leadership. So, there’s tons of opportunities, especially for people with master’s degrees and graduate degrees here, while maybe there’s fewer jobs that… to say they require a master’s degree in this area, although many I see do. Over… on a national level, there’ll be less that require a master’s degree. I can tell you from my experience working, though, to support as graduate students obtaining, certificates and master’s degrees, in, in SIMAR programs across the country. They… that’s your market differentiator, right? Like, they may only ask for a bachelor’s degree, but you know who gets hired? Is the people who can demonstrate results and, have the background, to produce, you know, regular, contributions to meeting business goals, right? Strategic business objectives. And that’s something that you don’t necessarily get at the undergraduate level, but you will get here. And so that’s why we’re hired. Even if it’s not required, it’s, it’s a… it’s a market differentiator, and it’s a value add to the organizations, especially in this larger Virginia and Maryland, geolocation. Similar in Seattle, similar in Phoenix, similar in Silicon Valley, right? Wherever you find those high-end High-profile, high-quality, import… very important societal, contributors, you’ll find highly educated people, in the workforce, and you’re competing against them, so… I think that’s a really great reason to consider a graduate degree. And of course, I’m biased, we’re the best.

Doug Wilson: So, thank you for that, Dr. Giacumo, and we have one more. I want to be mindful of our time. We’re about 2 minutes after the hour, and I want to make sure Todd has an opportunity to share what he wishes to share. And then we’ll close it out. Todd.

Todd Gemskie: Thank you. I just wanted to say that, Well, I’ve been a trainer most of my professional career. I was an instructor in the Navy, instructed at a nuclear power plant, and I had the pleasure of working with Chris Ballone. in the Radiological Emergency Preparedness Program, and I always thought that he was one of the best instructors that I’ve ever had the opportunity to work with. And when he went through your program. He only got better, which very much impressed me. Because he was very good, as I worked with him, and he continued to improve, which I thought was phenomenal. So your program is very effective just from watching his growth and the way he, conducted himself through your program. So it, I thought it was an interesting program, and I appreciate the presentation.

Doug Wilson: Excuse me. That’s awesome, Todd. Thank you for sharing that. And, Chris has a lot of friends. And a lot of great co-workers, and I need to watch what I say around Chris.

Christopher Bellone: Yeah, new friends here, Kim, Deidre. Ocean, just call me, you know, let’s chat.

Lisa Giacumo: So, Todd, did you come here as Chris’s, fan club?

Christopher Bellone: I do.

Todd Gemskie: Oh, if I could put the heart thing up, I don’t know, I’d have to figure that out, how to do that. But Yeah, I’m part of Chris’s Fan Club. And, no, he’s a very phenomenal instructor. I learned a lot from him, and as he went through this program, I learned things from him. And I’m kind of an old horse, so I didn’t expect to learn any new tricks or anything like that, but I certainly learned some new things from him, and I appreciate what you guys do here.

Lisa Giacumo: Well, awesome, thanks for coming and supporting us, and we’d love to see you join us as well!

Todd Gemskie: You say that now.

Lisa Giacumo: Oh, I mean it. Challenge accepted! Let’s do it!

Doug Wilson: Well, thanks. That’s a really good, comment, Todd, to, to wrap up this wonderful conversation, this exchange that we have. This is the sort of thing that we do often in the program, certainly in our courses. And, more and more externally in other venues, and so you can look forward to more of this type of interaction should you join us, and we’d love to have you join us, either as a certificate student or as a master’s student. And so, we’ve shared our contact information with you, and we’re at 5 after the hour now, so I do want to be respectful of everyone’s time, thank you for being here. Thanks to our guest, Chris Ballone. And, appreciate you very much being here, and you did great work on the program, and I think you really added to this… dialogue, this conversation that we’re having this evening, and I also want to thank Casey from the online admissions for running our program this evening, and Dr.

Giacumo for being here to add, you know, her take on what it is we do and what she brings to the equation.

Doug Wilson: in LDT at GMU, and of course, thanks to all of you for joining, and then reach out to us Should you have any questions, or about admissions, or about LDT. And, I think we’ll close it out now, at 5 after hour. Thank you, everybody.

George Mason Online Admissions: Thank you.

Christopher Bellone: Bye.

Kim Griffin: Thank you.