Project Abstract

The Business & Finance unit of the Basic Camp Director’s Course (BCDC) has, until now, been delivered exclusively in a week-long training conference. The course is offered four times per year, but there is always a waiting list for sessions. Because the logistics and expense of a week-long training session are increasingly challenging, Dr. Gwynn Powell , a member of the ACA National Board of Directors, has asked to create an online version of the unit.

We will develop this module as a prototype that the ACA can then use to develop similar online versions of the other 13 units in the training session.

Client Profile

The client for our project is The American Camp Association as represented by Dr. Gwynn Powell and Kat Shreve. Dr. Powell is an Associate Professor in the Recreation and Leisure Studies Department in the College of Education at The University of Georgia. She is also a volunteer for the American Camp Association, specializing in curriculum development and research application. She will serve as the liaison between Genesis Learning and the American Camp Association. Ms. Shreve is an ACA national staff member with nationwide responsibility for training. She will provide content and ongoing input to help us design this unit in a way that will be most practical for the organization.

The ACA Web site describes the organization as follows:
“The American Camp Association (formerly known as the American Camping Association) is a community of camp professionals who, for nearly 100 years, have joined together to share our knowledge and experience and to ensure the quality of camp programs. Because of our diverse 7,000 plus membership and exceptional programs, children and adults have the opportunity to learn powerful lessons in community, character-building, skill development, and healthy living — lessons that can be learned nowhere else.
“As a leading authority in child development, the ACA works to preserve, promote, and improve the camp experience. Our association is committed to helping our members and all camps provide:

• Camp communities committed to a safe, nurturing environment
• Caring, competent adult role models
• Healthy, developmentally-appropriate experiences
• Service to the community and the natural world
• Opportunities for leadership and personal growth
• Discovery, experiential education, and learning opportunities
• Excellence and continuous self-improvement “
(http://www.acacamps.org/about/profile.php)

Adapted with permission from http://www.nov8tivedesigns.com/

Thursday, January 31, 2008

Genesis Learning 15/5 Jan3108

This has been a busy and productive week. We have completed and gotten client sign off on both the Scope Document and the Needs Assessment, so we’re feeling good about the project and looking forward to digging in on the task analysis and objectives, the real meat of the project.

The Needs Assessment in particular was a real team effort, with Radcliffe pulling it together, Roman doing charts and graphs and Melinda and Myra handling writing and editing chores. Donna had completed our “letterhead” before leaving town so we had that for both documents.

In addition, we had our fist exchange of documents with our client and it went pretty smoothly, with only one tiny change from her side. The only real problems were with UGA’s e-mail system, which seems to be doing strange things with some attachments.

I had a brief phone conference with Gwynn and we reviewed progress and process, clarified a few points about the latter and looked ahead at next steps. We need to adjust a few delivery dates because both Gwynn and Kat will be at the ACA national conference from February 9-16. Our timeline is due that week, but we are not confident we can complete it before they leave, so will be a little behind on that. She has offered to meet with us next Thursday to discuss content.

Our meeting tonight will focus on objectives and task analysis. After talking with Roman, who has the lead on this task, I sent a couple of sample pieces that we hope will help us move more efficiently through this process. He has a good grasp of what’s required for this.

Finally, because of my health problems, we are prepared for Melinda to temporarily assume Project Manager duties next week. We seem to be having some challenges with the project activity log format we agreed to next week and I’m thinking of just posting a running log in Google Docs so people can complete theirs there.

Posted by Myra Blackmon at 3:30 PM
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