Artifact: Manual
Date: Nov. 2007
Course: e-Coaching practicum
Competency: Applies principles of instructional design

As one of the projects for the practicum I had to create a WordPress manual to supplement the current e-Portfolio. I had done some technical writing in the past although with very little guidance. Completing the manual was an exercise in trial and error. How could I write a manual that the teacher candidates could easily follow?

I began by only describing paths and instructions:

To Write a Page: Dashboard>Write>Write Page

Click on the write and then write page tabs. A page view will appear. Fill in the title and the page content in the visual editor. Click save.

However after exploring examples of instructional manuals I realized I needed to also present the information visually. I asked around at work and figured out how to use Alt Print Screen to print screens. Then I opened them in paint and used the paintbrush tool to describe the process. The quality of these images really lacked.

Finally when playing poker a friend of mine suggested using the program Snagit to take screen shots. It produced clearer images and was a invaluable in the process. That’s how learning networks work. Here is guide that I produced. This is the rough draft that is meant to show the early stage of the process before copy editing.

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