Sahana Chattopadhyay

Current

Senior Consultant (Instructional Design) at Zensar Technologies

Past

Senior Specialist, Instructional Design at Tata Interactive Systems
Strategic Business Unit Head, i-osmosis at Cactus Communications Pvt. Ltd.

Education

University of London

Connections

185 connections

Industry

E-Learning

Websites

Sahana Chattopadhyay’s Summary

An instructional designer with 10+ years of experience in the field of teaching, I started out as a classroom teacher teaching English to high school and college students. I moved to a setup where I facilitated and designed courses for virtual, asynchronous teaching of English to adult Japanese learners using Moodle as the plaform. Thereafter, I moved on to “e-learning” proper, i.e., designing customized courses for corporate organizations in my role as a Senior Specialist in Tata Interactive Systems.

Currently, as a Senior Consultant with Zensar Technologies Ltd., I act as a consultant to organizations analyzing their current training scenarios, designing the one most suited to their infrastructure, business goals and learning needs, and facilitate the best of informal learning as well. The latter is becoming increasingly important with the shelf-life of knowledge decreasing rapidly. Reflecting this change within the purview of formal training is and will increasingly become a large challenge that as a training “solutionist” I hope to be able to factor in into my designs.

Sahana Chattopadhyay’s Specialties:

Consultancy:
1. Analyzing an organization’s training needs
2. Mapping the organization’s business goals to training requirements
3. Mapping training solutions to individual learning needs and career paths
4. Creating strategic implementation plan, where required, to help user adoption and stakeholder acceptance

Instructional Design:
1. Analyzing organizational infrastructure and readiness
2. Designing the “training-scape” to suit the infrastructure

Sahana Chattopadhyay’s Experience

Senior Consultant (Instructional Design)

Zensar Technologies

(Public Company; Information Technology and Services industry)

December 2008 — Present (1 year )

My work includes designing Performance Support Solutions, technology-enabled Training Programs, blended learning models, and almost everything that comes under the huge umbrella called e-learning.

Since a majority of the training programs are directed at adult learners, my instructional strategies encompass adult learning concepts that go to make a training successful--i.e., result in the desired behavioral change.

I have had the opportunity to create training programs for a widely diverse group of learners ranging from welders to software application users, programs that had a generous budget allowance to ones that were on a less than shoestring budget...

All of this has provided me with a rich experience in different design concepts, delivery modes, and most of importantly, optimal use of time, resource and effort.
Senior Specialist, Instructional Design

Tata Interactive Systems

(E-Learning industry)

2007 — 2008 (1 year )

As a senior specialist in TIS, I had the opportunity to lead and manage a new team starting out on a very large Enterprise Application Training (EAT) project related to telecom. It was an intensely satisfying experience where I could provide my input in the creation of project guidelines, train people coming on board, and generally enhance the overall process over and above the regular role of an ID.

I also got to interact with and learn from the best in the industry and was exposed to widely varying projects from EAT to business simulations. This gave me opportunities to conduct needs analysis, performance measures analysis, and user adoption thinking across diverse learner groups, contexts, and content.
Strategic Business Unit Head, i-osmosis

Cactus Communications Pvt. Ltd.

(Privately Held; Writing and Editing industry)

November 2004 — October 2007 (3 years )

I started out as an English instructor teaching English to adult Japanese learners through the web. We used Moodle as the virtual training platform and conducted our asynchronous learning sessions purely through written communication. The experience provided me with ample scope to carry out learner and needs anlysis. This led to successful brainstorming sessions that culminated in many more courses and thus business opportunities. Eventually, I went on to head the SBU wherein I was responsible for not only managing the team, but also analysing the impact of the new courses, the ROI, and the profit and loss.

Sahana Chattopadhyay’s Education

University of London

M.A. , English literature

Having Prof. Bart Gilbert Moore as my course director was an immensely satisfying experience.

Additional Information

Sahana Chattopadhyay’s Websites:

Sahana Chattopadhyay’s Interests:

eLearning, instructional design, informal and formal learning, corporate training, personal knowledge management, reading, blogging, researching subjects of my interest, daydreaming...

Sahana Chattopadhyay’s Groups:

eLearning Guild, Instructional Design and E-learning professionals group, e-Mind, Learning, Education and Training Professionals, E-learning Forum of Inida

Interaction Design Association
An elearning platform
Learning, Education and Training Professionals Group
E-Learning Forum of India
Nole Connections: The FSU ISD Community
eMind - eLearning Professionals
e-Learning Ideas
ASTD National
Web 2.0 Mapping and Social Networks Meetup Group
Twitter
(E-)learning network
Instructional Designers
Tweeple
Training&Development
The eLearning Guild
Instructional Design & E-Learning Professionals' Group
e-Learning Professionals Network
TED: Ideas Worth Spreading
E-Learning 2.0
twitter innovators Innovation & Creativity Network of Tweeters
eCube, Forum for Learning, Education and Training professionals
Learning 2.0
Game Based Learning
UltraLearn
Web 2.0 Innovations in Learning
eLearning in India
e-Books for e-Learning
Social Media, Social TV, Monitoring, Mobile Social Networks, Marketing, Web 2.0, Enterprise 2.0, PR
Web Site Design, E-learning & Interactive Technologies: Strategies & Best Practices
Instructional Designers Community of India
Articulate - Rapid E-learning (Rapid elearning)
Social Media School
Professional Bloggers
One Source eLearning
a group for those who would like to use Social Learning effectively