Lisa Giacumo, an assistant professor in the Department of Organizational Performance and Workplace Learning (OPWL), is offering the instructional design/learning and development community a three-part webinar series on building, expanding and leveraging professional networks to accomplish personal career development goals.
The webinar series has how-to tips as well as insights and recommendations from OPWL students, graduates and faculty that are professional peers in early, mid and late-career journeys. The webinar series can be joined live or watched later via the OPWL website.
The first webinar of the series, “How to network into freelance ID/LX/HPT jobs and maybe more permanent positions too,” was offered May 1 and can be viewed here.
The second webinar of the series, “OPWL Networks: Relationships matter in your ID/HPT career,” will be offered 5-6 p.m. Thursday, May 21. In this episode, OPWL alumni and current students will share their networking experiences, strategies, and outcomes.
The third webinar of the series is “Aspirational networking; faculty marathon stories: How did we do it, why, and what’s next?” In this episode, a number of OPWL faculty will share their networking strategies, outcomes and goals for the future. They will also be available for a live Q and A session at the end. The final webinar in the three-part series will be offered some time this fall.
Giacumo provides curriculum guidance on and teaches courses offered in the OPWL M.S., Workplace Instructional Design (WIDE), and Workplace E-Learning and Performance Support (WELPS) certificate programs. A popular course, Rapid E-Learning Development, addresses e-learning development using Captivate or Articulate Storyline with a completed e-learning module as the final course outcome. Another popular course covers E-learning content design which identifies a number of free tools to storyboard a course using an interactive form of learning, scenario-branching. These skills are highly desired and valued in the workplace, with the final course deliverables excellent portfolio pieces.
Giacumo has worked internationally as an instructional designer, trainer and manager for businesses, universities, non-profits and non-government organizations. Her passion has grown to focus on strategic innovations in learning and development as well as improving organizational systems. When not teaching, she consults for mid-sized to large businesses and nonprofits across the globe, to improve learning and development functions, strategy and organizational performance. Her research interests focus on the use of instructional design and digital tools for marginalized populations, global workplace learning, e-learning and performance improvement. She joined the OPWL department in the fall of 2015.