Breakthrough eLearning

Demonstrate Your Value

2009-01-18T19:09:00.009-05:00

The training blogosphere has been buzzing lately with a great deal of agonizing, soul-searching and prognosticating about what the recession means for the industry. As with recessions that have come before, there are concerns about huge cuts to training budgets, loss of training staff through down-sizing, and a general retrenchment in training operations.

Many point to eLearning as a possible saving grace among all the doom and gloom. They rightly note that eLearning provides many savings and efficiencies over traditional training methodologies in terms of reduced travel costs, reduced back-fill costs to cover for the physical absence of trainees, and increased reach by being able to train large numbers of people in a short time frame.

For many executives and senior managers, however, a more efficient and cost-effective training function may not be enough to save the training area from serious down-sizing in tough economic times. In good times, they may give the training operation the benefit of the doubt that training interventions are having positive impacts on the organization. Bad times require proof. If, as a training manager, all you can offer is savings over the way you did things before, senior management may decide that the greatest savings would be to cut your operation all together.

So, by all means, do all you can to streamline your training efforts. Use eLearning wisely to reach more and more learners for less and less money expended per learner over time. But you need to go beyond this to demonstrate training's value to the organization. You need to address some pain the organization is experiencing and make a positive contribution to alleviating this through training.

Whether this pain is a need to increase sales, improve customer retention rates, or decrease defect rates, you need to position your eLearning efforts as part of the solution to this problem. You need to work with the relevant business unit to devise a training program that addresses the pain, and to collect metrics that demonstrate the intervention is working.

This is how you can move the training function from an expense line that is easy to cut, to a valued contributor to solutions. Of course, you should be doing this in good times as well as bad.

Lessons from Wii Fit

2009-01-06T15:06:00.009-05:00

We visited some friends over the holidays and they were lucky enough to secure the Wii Fit balance board. Nintendo, the makers of this device, have been having difficulties keeping up with the demand for this nifty game. It plays with the Wii console, hooks up to a TV, and allows users to perform various physical exercises on it (e.g. balance games, yoga, aerobic, and strength training) and see their results on the screen.

Six adults managed to spend an entire afternoon engaged in various activities on this device. Instead of the usual holiday pursuits of over eating and imbibing, we were exercising and having a ball. As we headed home later that night, I started thinking about the genius that lies behind Wii Fit and the lessons it can teach those of us in the business of eLearning.

Personalized and Goal-Based

You enter in your own personal information (apparently I am a little short for my weight), set your own goals around fitness, and can monitor your progress over time.

There is built in motivation as you can earn "Fit Credits" which allow you access to even more activities as you progress.

You can compete against yourself (trying to meet your own goals) and/or compete against others for added motivation.

Coaching and Immediate Feedback

There are virtual coaches who explain how everything works and provide immediate feedback on your performance, along with some encouragement along the way.

Flexibility

You can spend as much or as little time as you would like on the various exercises, investing time as you have it.

Simple, Intuitive Navigation

Six adults in their 40s and 50s did not have to once ask a child how the system works. A simple screen layout, along with helpful audio and visual prompts throughout, made for an easily-understood interface.

Hard Fun

The activities are fun, but not necessarily easy. They push you to perform. In fact, as you progress and earn more points, the activities become more challenging. This is as it should be as you begin mastering any task.

Of course, most of us do not have millions of dollars in development money to spend on our eLearning projects. However, that is not the point. You may not be able to equal the production value of the Wii Fit, but there are real lessons to be taken away regarding how to make learning personalized, motivational, supported, flexible, intuitive, fun and challenging.

Focus on Action in eLearning Design

2008-07-14T18:57:00.012-04:00

My job involves coaching and mentoring a great many instructional designers - both within our own eLearning development projects and as a service for many of our clients. One of the biggest challenges I face in this regard is getting designers to get to the essence of a training challenge and cut out all extraneous content that detracts from the main learning objectives. Less is indeed more when we can get from A to B in a short, straight line.

I recently came across an excellent technique called "action mapping" that I will start using to help focus eLearning on intended outcomes based on desired actions. Cathy Moore, in her very informative blog (Ideas for Lively eLearning), lays out succinctly how action mapping can work in this slideshow:

SlideShare"> | View | Upload your own

Moore advocates an approach to eLearning design that works backward from the intended business goal (expressed as an action). This avoids the trap of a linear information content dump and piling up irrelevant information that does not really help learners get to the desired goal. Action mapping is a four-step process as follows:

1. Identify the business goal.

2. Identify what people need to do to reach that goal.

3. Design activities that help people practice each behaviour (the "to do's" noted in #2).

4. Identify the minimum information people need to complete each activity.

By starting with a clear goal and focusing on required actions to reach that goal, we can provide a great deal more focus to our learning design and avoid the information dump that unfortunately characterizes much of eLearning today.

Rule #1: Respect the Learner

2008-05-11T14:46:00.014-04:00

Our Certificate in eLearning Management is based on principles of experiential learning. In other words, instead of just learning about eLearning, we have learners doing various facets of eLearning to demonstrate competency attainment. The last competency deliverable in our Engaging Your eLearners course is for learners to actually facilitate on online session, receive feedback from participants, reflect on their experience, and produce a list of facilitation best practice principles.

One program participant recently lead a 10-day asynchronous online discussion as her facilitation competency exercise on the topic of "What advice would you provide for a novice learning designer?" The topic really forced me to think about what I considered to be the most important thing to keep in mind when designing learning experiences, especially with respect to designing eLearning.

The conclusion I came to was that it was most important to respect the learner. Learning Designers should:

Respect the Learner's Needs

We too often cram way too much content into eLearning experiences, not all of it immediately relevant to what targeted learners need to know and need to do. We have to be the filters / editors between what subject matter experts (SMEs) think is important and what is most important to learners.

Respect the Learner's Time

This is closely related to the first point. Adult learners are time-starved. You need to get to the point quickly, divide learning into digestible "chunks," and create intuitive and easy-to-navigate learning experiences.

Respect the Learner's Intelligence

Acknowledge that learners have brains and are willing to use them. Do not make tasks / assessments so mind-numbingly obvious or easy that they insult the learner's intelligence. Challenge them, make them stretch, and let them fail if need be. The best lessons are hard-won.

Just like Aretha Franklin, all that learners want is a little R-E-S-P-E-C-T.

Update on eLearning is Green (March 2nd Posting)

My last posting on the green benefits of eLearning generated a lot of response, including these resource links from reader Andy Lang:

http://www.terrapass.com/buy-carbon-offsets/

http://www.footprintnetwork.org/

eLearning is Green

2008-03-02T19:57:00.013-05:00

In the course of helping a company devise an eLearning strategy, we were interviewing a number of key stakeholders in the organization. These interviews are an important part of the process of gathering information on the best ways of better integrating eLearning into the organization's training mix.

When we asked interviewees why the company wanted to better utilize eLearning, we heard many of the usual and quite predictable answers: they need learning on demand and at the point of need; they need to reach a highly dispersed workforce; they need to keep up with the rapid pace of change; they need a consistent approach to training across the organization, etc. However, we also heard from two Vice-Presidents who said that replacing a lot of classroom-based training with various eLearning approaches (e.g. online courses, webinars, knowledge repositories, online communities, etc.) will help them meet their strategic focus of becoming an environmentally sustainable company.

This was something of an "aha" moment for me. It is so obvious now, but I never really stopped to consider it before. eLearning is a green industry! They talked about reducing their "training footprint." These two VPs could see how more eLearning meant less carbon expended on planes, cars, taxis, training rooms (to ferry and house trainers and trainees across the country) and fewer trees expended on three-inch thick training manuals (which seem to be de rigueur for in-person training sessions).

I'm not the expert on environmental questions, but I am sure there must be some formula out there for calculating an organization's carbon footprint, and the amount that their current training efforts contribute to this. If anyone has seen any literature out there on this question, please pass it on.

So, if you are looking for more potential benefits to list when convincing decision-makers to invest in eLearning, be sure to mention its green nature. This, however, cannot be the only reason for doing eLearning, or the only measure of success. If you reduce your organization's training footprint, but fail to provide training that is focused on real value creation for the organization, you are not really any farther ahead. You may end up helping save the planet a little in the short-run, but lose the company in the long-run.

Let's Broaden the Training Conversation

2008-02-10T21:26:00.001-05:00

I really enjoy Donald Clark's Plan B Blog. Clark is an Englishman with loads of experience in the training field. He has an acerbic wit and writes about training in general, and eLearning in particular, with a refreshing candor. You may not agree with everything Clark says, but there is no confusion about where he stands. One of his recent postings about the blandness of training magazines really resonated with me. I myself stopped all my paid subscriptions to training publications a long time ago and only flip through the free ones quickly in the off chance that there may be something interesting and of value. There usually is not.

Clark thinks that training magazines are so dull, boring and predictable because they rely on an advertising model for their existence. Therefore, they go out of their way to be non-controversial, non-critical, non-offensive, and full of puff pieces about how rosy everything is everywhere in the world of training.

Certainly, the advertising model has something to do with this blandness. However, I also think that part of the problem is the very insular nature of the training field itself. Articles in training magazines are, for the most part, written by training professionals (consultants, academics, vendors, CLOs, training directors, instructional designers, etc.) to be read by people just like them. It's much the same phenomenon at training conferences - training folks talking to training folks.

This is why so much of the dialogue is self-congratulatory and a little delusional. Every thing's fine. Everyone is great. There are no problems. All training is of good quality, useful, effective, and, of course, well worth the investment of time and money. It is those nasty people not in the training function (executives, managers, business unit heads, etc.) who don't understand the inherent value of training and don't give it the respect and resources it deserves.

Well, working in the "eLearning trenches" every day, I can tell you that it is not as pretty a picture as is painted in the training magazines, or presented at training conferences. It is hard work producing quality learning experiences that meet real needs. Not everything produced by our field is of great quality, and results can vary tremendously. Some things work, and others don't, and we are still figuring things out as we go. It's messy business.

I think we should be more self-critical and be honest with ourselves about the state of our field. It is only when you recognize and openly admit problems that you can begin to work toward real improvement. The training field could really benefit from some lively discussions, debates and disagreements about what we do and how we do it.

Another way to broaden the training conversation is to invite non-training folks into the discussion. We should be giving a greater voice to our clients (executives, managers, directors, and learners) and listening to their needs and their concerns. We should be hearing more from these folks in our magazines and at our conferences, and a little less from each other about how wonderful we are. It can be a real eye-opener to see yourself as others see you.

Broadening the training conversation will not only improve the quality of our magazines and conferences, it will improve the quality of training itself.

Tap Into Your Organization's Tacit Knowledge Pool

2008-01-27T12:51:00.000-05:00

The training / learning model embraced by most organizations can be characterized as top-town, centre-to-periphery, and decidedly one-way. In other words, training is pushed from the centre, out to a dispersed audience of learners to be passively received in isolation. Not only is this usually not a very productive or enjoyable learning experience for trainees, this one-way "push" model of learning completely fails to leverage the treasure trove of knowledge and organizational memory residing in the brains of those in the field.

In other words, all the tacit knowledge about how things work, what does work and does not work, lessons from past experience, etc., that individuals have remains unshared with others across the organization. Technology can make this tacit knowledge sharing a very efficient process, but, unfortunately, most organizations do not take advantage of such technologies.

Two items that have found their way into my email inbox in recent weeks really help to illustrate the importance of changing our organizational training models to more closely reflect how people learn in the age of Google and social networking.

Firstly, Janet Clarey of Brandon-Hall Research provides this excellent slide show that contrasts the multitudes of ways that individuals learn and interact online in their personal lives versus the very linear, isolating, and ineffective ways that learning is often organized in the workplace.

Secondly, Intel corporation set up an internal wiki, titled Intelpedia, that captures and shares knowledge across the organization. Anyone within the organization can post and edit content on this wiki. In its first year, Intelpedia had more than 5,000 pages of searchable content and had garnered 13.5 million page views. Talk about leveraging the tacit knowledge stored in your peoples' heads!

Remember, not all learning need be in the guise of formal courses (whether in-person or online). Sometimes, for many just-in-time, on-the-job learning challenges, the best thing you can do is facilitate an easy way of communication and knowledge sharing and get out of the way. Such an approach recognizes that most useful learning within an organization is informal and happens on- the-fly and as needed.

Trim the Text

2007-12-16T18:08:00.001-05:00

I was at a meeting last week when someone commented on a thick file folder I had brought along, bursting with papers related to the project at hand. When asked about it, I replied that I am of the generation that does not like reading a lot of text off a screen. My eyes get tired easily, I feel I cannot read as quickly or accurately on screen, and I end up printing off the relevant information and reading it and marking it up off-screen.

I suppose on-screen readability will improve as technology improves. Amazon, for example, contends that its new Kindle digital book technology has overcome these limitations noted above.

Kindle

However, the comment on my printing habits, along with the following things I have come across in the last couple of weeks, has lead me to reflect on how much I rely on text in the eLearning I produce, and whether less text and more visuals and narration would be more effective. To wit:

Tom Kuhlmann, who runs the user community for Articulate, outlines in this demo how you can present a concept much more effectively via the use of graphics and narration. The demo shows four different ways that you could teach someone how cell phones work.

Cathy Moore, in her Making Change blog, shows how you can create more effective eLearning by trimming copy, showing rather than telling, and letting learners explore rather than being spoon-fed.

There is a whole conference (VizThink) now dedicated to the art and science of visual thinking.

There is sub-field of architecture, transportation and urban planning called wayfinding, that focuses on how best to help people navigate their ways through cities and buildings as intuitively as possible (i.e. via good clean design, creative use of symbols, and an economy of words).

There are lessons in all of these examples about delivering messages and enabling learning with more than just flat, one-dimensional, and often overly long text.

I think I tended towards an over-reliance on text in eLearning in the past because I began in this field in a post-secondary environment wherein text is revered. It is the bedrock of scholarship after all. As I move farther from the university environment, I am relying less and less on text. And not just for the practical considerations of ease-of-use. Rather, I do so because:

Most of the adult learners being served by the eLearning I produce are time-starved and do not have the time or the patience to read great tomes (online or otherwise), and;

Using a variety of approaches (text, narration, graphics, animation, video, etc.) makes the learning more engaging and memorable, and accommodates different ways of learning.

Creativity Should Precede Technique

2007-11-06T20:05:00.000-05:00

Our daughter wants to be an animator. She will be going to university or college next year and has been checking out various computer animation and digital media programs. Interestingly, none of these programs really care about the applicant's computer programming skills. They are looking for talented and creative artists. They will help them hone these skills and then teach them how to channel them appropriately in a digital environment. In fact, we heard from some that students will be free hand drawing and doing story boards for a long while before they ever touch a computer.

What's this got to do with eLearning you ask?

I think eLearning professionals can learn from the approach used in the animation industry. As I have written many times in the past, I think the eLearning industry places far too much confidence in technology (e.g. authoring tools, learning management systems, content management systems, learning objects, etc.), and not enough on the human ingenuity and creativity required to make these tools sing.

As part of her research, our daughter checked out the Pixar site, her holy grail of possible future employers. They have a very interesting FAQ section for budding animators. Many of the things they say they are looking for in their animators are the things we should be looking for in those who design and develop eLearning. Here are some snippets from the Pixar site, followed by my take on how these principles apply to an eLearning context.

Pixar: "Pixar places the technology of computer graphics firmly at the service of the art of animation, not the other way around."
eLearning Context: "We should place computer software firmly at the service of the art of learning, not the other way around."

Pixar: "What Pixar looks for first and foremost in animators (is that) we want you to be able to bring the character to life, independent of medium."
eLearning Context: "What we look for first and foremost in eLearning designers (is that) we want you to be able to bring the learning to life, independent of medium."

Pixar: "A common question is, "What software should I learn?" The answer is....software doesn't matter; learning to animate matters."
eLearning Context: "A common question is, "What authoring tool or learning management system should I learn?" The answer is....software doesn't matter; animating learning matters."

Pixar: "Realize that whizzy technology is not great art."
eLearning Context: "Realize that whizzy technology does not, in itself, create a great learning environment."

Pixar: "Computers don't animate. People do."
eLearning Context: "Computers don't teach / educate / train / engage / enlighten. People do."

In the animation process, it is only AFTER the creative effort of animators working up characters and a strong story line is completed, that the idea for the movie, TV show, game is passed on to technical directors whose job it is to make this vision a realty. In much the same way, eLearning programmers and technicians should only start their work after an eLearning designer has constructed the creative vision for the learning experience.

Animators ensure that that the characters they create are interesting and that their story lines are compelling. Likewise, eLearning designers should ensure that the learning environments they envision are based on principles of active learning, interactivity, realistic stories, and are in the proper context for the targeted learners.

Technology doesn't magically create engaging animated stories out of a vacuum. Nor can it magically create engaging eLearning environments. Both processes require the intervention of creative human beings who understand the end goal and bend the technology to their will (not the other way around).

Context is King!

2007-10-09T20:49:00.000-04:00

I received an email invitation today to join a webinar to be led by Ed Cohen, the Chief Technology Officer of Plateau Systems, titled "The Future of Learning Content." It promised that I would "learn about the important trends that are shaping the development, deployment and management of learning content," and discover "how content can be more effectively purchased, deployed and managed" (presumably using Plateau's technology). I took a pass. I did so because I think that gathering, tagging, storing, sharing, manipulating, and managing good content is the easy part (whether using Plateau or any other content management system, including customized databases). However, what is sorely missing in the world of eLearning today is CONTEXT.

During the dot.com frenzy of a few years ago, when there were mergers of content providers and those that controlled online distribution channels, one often heard the phrase "content is king." The idea was that the ones owning the "pipe" needed something with which to fill it. You can see some of the same thinking among those developing eLearning programs for companies, associations and educational institutions. There is this obsession with filling the eLearning "pipe" with static content. Hence , there is so much eLearning today that amounts to little more than online books which nobody really wants to read. (Note: I am not innocent in this regard, I have had a hand in such projects.)

In the age of Google, when one can find content on just about any topic imaginable in a matter of seconds, we have to move beyond this obsession with content in eLearning. It is time to focus on context. In other words, we must move past the presentation of content to the creation of context wherein learners can can apply and reflect upon the new knowledge they encounter. It is a matter of moving beyond "knowing" something to being able to do something with this new knowledge (e.g. make a good decision, solve a problem, improve a process, resolve a conflict, etc.)

There are a number of ways to put good content into context in the aid of learning, including:

Creative Learning Design

Encourage active and applied learning via immersive cases, games and branching scenarios
Challenge learners, allow them to fail in safe environments and to learn from failure
Provide learners with opportunities for self-reflection

Enabling Community

Connect peers and allow them to learn from each other
Connect experienced pros with novices in mentorship relationships

Facilitate Learning on Demand

Nothing puts learning into context better than allowing learners to access it at the point of need and then use it immediately

Doing eLearning right is much more than just creating a huge and tidy repository of lifeless content that can be sliced and diced innumerable ways. It is about creating effective learning environments that allow learners to learn in a context that is real and meaningful to them.

I attended a reception last week put on by ExperiencePoint, a Toronto-based company that produces online learning simulations. They announced that early in 2008 they will release tools that will allow others to create their own simulations, with their own content. Now this is interesting - more of a Context Management System than a Content Management System. Perhaps there is hope after all.

eLearning Lets it All Hang Out

2007-09-26T19:22:00.000-04:00

I just read a report that came out in June titled Laboratories of Reform: Virtual High Schools and Innovation in Public Education. Published by the Education Sector, an independent education think tank in Washington, the paper provides an overview of online education at the high school level across the United States. Not surprisingly, the results are mixed; some jurisdictions are doing a fine job of providing alternative access to secondary education, and in others the quality is just not up to snuff. However, what I found more interesting in the report was that eLearning efforts often precipitate important re-examinations of teaching and learning practices (eg. increasing student participation, fostering self-reflection and independent learning, etc.), and that experiencing online teaching often motivates teachers to improve the ways they teach in the classroom. The report also highlights how administrators and parents are appreciative of the transparency of actually seeing what happens in online classes and can more easily monitor quality. It is in these ways that virtual classes act as "laboratories of reform."

This has long been a bug bear of mine: that it is widely assumed that what happens in the in-person classroom is sacrosanct, yet distance education and eLearning efforts have to consistently prove that they are as good as the classroom experience. Not withstanding the "no significant difference" studies between various forms of education, non traditional approaches have always assumed a greater burden of proof. Having been in the distance ed and online fields for a dozen years, I can attest to the fact that the work I have been involved with faces far more scrutiny and is held to higher standards than what happens in the classroom.

The irony of all this is that there is no hiding in any case with respect to eLearning. Everything is available for as detailed examination as one wishes to undertake. One can very easily assess the quality of:

learning content and activities
learning objectives
learner direction and supports
structure and sequencing
interaction
teaching presence
feedback to learners
learner assessments

Because it is "all out there" in eLearning and a permanent record is created, it makes it far easier for stakeholders to know exactly what is transpiring in the virtual learning environment. It is therefore much easier to assess quality against expected standards, to hold course designers and facilitators accountable for their work, and to initiate continuous improvement programs. Whether in secondary education, post-secondary education, adult continuing professional development, or corporate training, there is too much that happens in physical classrooms that occurs in an unexamined vacuum.

Does the World Really Need More Lectures?

2007-09-13T19:18:00.000-04:00

I did some quick mental math and came to the conclusion that I must have sat through many thousands of lectures delivered by hundreds of lecturers in my lifetime. And through all of this - primary school, middle school, high school, undergraduate studies, graduate studies, and innumerable professional development courses and conferences - I could probably point to a small handful of lecturers who were totally enthralling and provided a meaningful and memorable learning experience. There are two reasons for this. One, genuinely good public speaking and presentation skills are scarce. Two, straight information presentation is not a good way to learn anything at other than a surface level.

What brought on all this reflection was a notice I received that Lectopia, a lecture capture system developed by the University of Western Australia, had been acquired by a company called Anystream. The newly combined entity is now known as Echo360. Their mission is to supply universities and colleges with this technology that allows for the capture of live lectures to be played on a browser later, allowing the user to see and hear the lecturer via a small window, and to see the lecturer's notes / presentation in a larger window. The idea, as far as I can tell, is that learners could replay the lecture later for review, or the captured lecture could be "dumped" into a course management system for inclusion in online versions of courses.

After viewing some of the sample lectures on the Echo360 site, and remembering other similar examples using other technologies, I can definitely say that I am not impressed. Most lectures are bad in person, but they are even worse when replayed later online. You cannot really see the lecturer (window very small), the sound quality is crappy, many of the graphics used are difficult to read, and you cannot interact with anyone or anything. Everything about it reinforces the impression that you are not there and not part of it.

If the idea is to merely present information for easy anytime access online, why not produce this professionally in a controlled environment (not the chaotic echo chambers of huge lecture halls), where you can ensure that sound, pictures, graphics, animations, etc. are all in synch, of good quality, and working as intended? Not to mention editing out all the "ahs," and "ums," and "where was I now" comments. You can then use the in-class time for meaningful interactions beyond information transfer (e.g. debates, case studies, role plays, etc.) and deeper levels of learning.

Recording lectures to replay online reminds me of the very early days of silent films. Directors filmed stage plays. Then someone realized that having this new technology (the camera) meant that they were not bound to the stage, that they could take the camera and go on location and film virtually anything anywhere. We still haven't had that "aha" moment yet with respect to the ways that technology can free us from the lecture hall and the mind-numbingly boring way that we continue to educate and train. We are still walking backward into the future.

Let's Junk the Jargon

2007-09-05T19:33:00.000-04:00

A recent Chief Learning Officer magazine electronic newsletter carried a press release about Thomson Learning and Tata Interactive Systems collaborating on a new project called the Thomson Learning Lot. According to the press release,

"Tata will...develop systems for content-creation work flow, as well as for publishing and archiving objects, then rendering the learning material on the portal... The project involves combining such technology as LAMS, DSpace, Fedora, Zoomla, uPortal and so on...This is another example of the Web 2.0 software-as-a-service (SaaS) approach where various open-source softwares are used."

Huh? After reading the entire announcement top to bottom, I still have no idea what the Thomson Learning Lot is, why it exists, who's lives it will improve, or why I should care. This is because the entire message is presented in impenetrable jargon.

I realize that every field has its own language and is prone to jargon. However, I think the eLearning field takes it to a new level. If you want proof, just go to the website of an eLearning software vendor, or attend an eLearning conference, or read an eLearning magazine or journal. The speech or prose is often laden with jargon that is exclusionary of those not on the "inside" and makes eLearning seem much more mysterious and complicated and costly than it need be.

I think that such exclusionary language works against the interest of the field because it scares off those we may be asking to invest in eLearning projects. We would be much better off speaking to potential clients or key stakeholders (i.e. those controlling the purse strings) by using plain, straight-forward English (or French, or Farsi, or Chinese, etc.)

In the meantime, however, there are ways to cut through the jargon. I offer the following translations of key eLearning terminology for the uninitiated.

"We offer a robust, stable, and fully-scalable enterprise-wide LMS solution to facilitate competency development across the organization."

Translation: We hope this newest version of our eLearning software does not crash and burn when it has more than five users on it at time.

"Our plug-and-play open architecture approach facilitates interoperabilty and is based on industry standards for Web deployments (XML, SOAP or AQ) and supports major learning standards (AICC, SCORM, IMS, and IEEE)."

Translation: Our eLearning software plays well with others.

"Our product is an integrated, field-configurable, shrink-wrapped application."

Translation: To be honest, I haven't figured this one out yet, but I think it must be well packaged.

So the next time someone tries to snow you with eLearning jargon, ask them to translate it in such a way that your grandma or grandpa would understand. If they can't, don't do business with them. Because, if we cannot get past the jargon, we cannot focus on what is truly important. And sometimes the jargon hides the fact that the person using it has nothing important to say.

Can You e-Learn at Your Desk?

2007-07-24T20:07:00.001-04:00

Elliott Masie is constantly polling readers of his Learning Trends online newsletter on interesting questions related to workplace learning. His latest asked "Can workers really e-Learn at their desks?" In other words, can they fit eLearning into their daily tasks at their workstations without having to do it at home, or before or after the workday, or in some quiet designated eLearning space in the workplace? Masie got some interesting responses, with opinion divided, and many responding with a "depends," and then listing those conditions in which it generally will or will not work.

The "pro" side arguments tended to be centred around the following points:

We all multitask all day, every day, why couldn't eLearning fit into this mix?
We tend to learn best in small chunks anyway, and can fit this into our working day while at our desks
Finding time to squeeze eLearning into your schedule is simply a matter of making an appointment with yourself and putting everything else aside while you do it

The "anti" side arguments tended to be centred around the following points:

There are far too many distractions (e.g. email, phone, instant messages, pagers, bosses, co-workers, etc.) in most workplaces to be able to concentrate on deep learning while at your desk
There is no such thing as "do not disturb" in the modern workplace, you are "always available," so forget about the "schedule time for yourself" argument
You need quiet time away from all the noise, distractions, and interruptions of your workstation to make real progress with eLearning

Myself....I tend to side with the "depends" crowd (leave it...it's too easy). Some eLearning is clearly meant to be accessed on-demand, as needed, at the desk. Things like just-in-time embedded electronic performance support systems (e.g. mini tutorials on how to use certain software, or how to conduct certain business processes) are clearly designed for at-your-desk learning.

However, I really do not think that learning that requires a great deal of thinking, reflection, discussion, and competency development works while you are trying to squeeze it in among phone calls, reading and responding to emails, and having chats with whomever happens to come by your desk. Any learning wherein the objective is to change attitudes or behaviours or develop complex competencies, really works best when there is a chunk of time dedicated to it, and when it is done away from the chaos of one's workstation. We work in a culture of hyper communication and hyper activity that is not conducive to deep learning, self reflection and practice.

I have seen many great eLearning initiatives come a cropper because someone in charge thought that the targeted learners could squeeze it in while juggling a dozen other projects during the workday. We think nothing of giving people a number of days away from their desks to attend conferences where they are merely talked at for three days straight, yet find it strange to carve out a few hours of quiet time for them to complete some interactive and self-reflective eLearning.

Two Ships Passing in the Night

2007-06-13T17:30:00.000-04:00

I'm in the unique position of straddling the for-profit and not-for-profit sectors and seeing the way that each approaches eLearning. I have worked in both sectors. I now serve clients in both sectors, and speak to prospective clients in both sectors. And what a study in contrasts this presents. It is like observing two absolutely different cultures, and two completely different ways of approaching a problem. In short, they are so different that it is like watching two ships passing in the night.

Corporations (for-profit sector) tend to approach eLearning as an IT problem that needs to be solved. There is an inordinate focus on software systems (e.g. learning management systems, learning content management systems, etc.), software tools (e.g. course authoring, content creation, testing tools, etc.) and technical standards (e.g. SCORM, AICC, etc.). Every day my email inbox is inundated with the latest studies directed at corporate training departments about which LMS or LCMS is rated as "best of breed," or which content creation tool will cut eLearning development time in half. In all of this, it seems that there is an assumption that if you choose the right technology, everything else (including learning) will take care of itself. I liken this to a sort of techno-fetishism.

By contrast, most educational organizations, professional associations, advocacy agencies, etc. (not-for-profit sector) tend to approach eLearning as a way of solving a particular learning challenge (e.g. meeting defined learning or competency objectives, increasing reach, providing more flexibility for targeted learners). They tend to start with thinking of creative ways of solving learning challenges, and then work back to the types of technologies that will help them achieve their goals. Because of this, they are more open to looking at alternatives to expensive software expenditures such as build-your-own approaches and open source solutions. Because they generally have tighter budgets than the for-profit sector, they have to be more creative in finding solutions. This can be a good thing.

We recently met with a professional association about their eLearning efforts. They apologetically mentioned that they do not use an LMS, and that their eLearning was very basic. They created a rudimentary HTML template for the organization of content and tacked on a link to very basic discussion board software. However, their eLearning was good because they took care to ensure that it is based on principles of active learning and learner engagement. They invested a lot in learning design, and very little in technology.

Many corporations invest a fortune in complex eLearning technology, only to under utilize it. For example, they may use a tremendously expensive and complex software suite to post static content, test on it, and record who has competed what. It is much like buying a Hummer for trips to the corner store. At the same time, I have seen not-for-profits hammer together a beater with used parts, yet drive it across the country.

Of course, these are generalizations based on personal observation. There are always exceptions both ways. However, my experience shows me that not-for-profits are spending less on technology, yet getting better results from their eLearning. In other words, they are profiting more from their eLearning investments than the for-profit sector. Ironic, no?

Kicking the RFP Habit

2007-06-05T15:16:00.000-04:00

Two weeks ago, in a moment of weakness, I almost submitted a response to a request for proposals (RFP). It was for an eLearning development project for which I knew our firm could have done a terrific job. However, I remembered an earlier vow that I had made to myself never to put myself and my colleagues through "RFP hell" again, was resolute, and I ignored the invitation.

Don't get me wrong, I am not expecting work to land on our doorstep, and I know you have to prove yourself and compete for work every day. I have won and lost my fair share of RFP competitions in the past. What has turned me off the RFP game is that far too many times I have invested precious time and resources in responding to such competitions that had ill-defined or unreasonable expectations, did not have transparent evaluation criteria by which to judge proposals, were for projects that never materialized, or wherein the "fix" was in (i.e. a favourite vendor was already selected and the RFP process was a bureaucratic necessity to prove "due process").

Here's my list of RFP pet peeves (in no particular order).

Information Extremes

Some RFPs expect you to base an entire proposal on two or three pages of ill-defined generalizations regarding project purpose, goals, deliverables, etc. On the other extreme, some RFPs outline project deliverables, submission rules, bureaucratic procedures and associated legalities in such infinite and prescriptive detail that it takes you the better part of a day just to read the document, by which time you have lost focus on the actual purpose of the project.

Project Vaporizes

Twice in the last couple of years we have put many days work into responding to RFPs only to find out some time later that the projects were not going to go ahead. No apologies, no sorry you wasted half your life, nothing.....urgh.

Unreasonable Expectations

You know the story....they want learners to develop and demonstrate 10 key competencies, but they only have a half hour per person to devote to learning. Oh, and by the way, they want this online course up and running by Tuesday.

Cone of Silence

You are not allowed (under penalty of death) to talk to anyone "on the inside" about the project, or to toss around ideas with them about approaches that might work. It is very hard in such situations to meet client expectations when you can't even talk to them. The reason stated for such rules is that this may produce an "unfair" advantage. Well, if someone shows that kind of initiative maybe they should have an advantage.

No Transparent Evaluation Criteria

RFPs often do not have clear and transparent criteria or processes by which they will judge proposals. This means that it is based entirely on the whims of whomever is making the call. This makes it difficult to know what points to stress in your proposal. Worse yet are those situations when they say they will be judging proposals on A, B and C, and then say you didn't get it because you didn't have X. When did X enter the equation? If I knew you needed X, I wouldn't have bothered.

Moving Goal Posts

We responded to an RFP for an eLearning development project not too long ago and were told we were the only ones to have sent anything in. We met all the stated criteria, and were within the budget of $X that they had set for the project. I thought great, the project is ours. Not so. This organization re-issued the RFP with a budget of $X + 160% (not kidding). We thought, fine, they want something a bit more elaborate, so we will included many more Flash animations in our second proposal and pegged our budget at $X + 140%. Needless to say, we didn't get the job and, to top it off, were criticized for increasing our budget to such a degree over the first proposal. Huh? They could have had an excellent product for $X if they had given us the job in the first round. This led me to think that the "fix" was in (see below).

The Fix is In

I have no hard evidence, no smoking gun, but I am pretty sure that a lot of RFP competitions are fixed. The client knows exactly which vendor they want, but because of internal purchasing rules, they have to get X number of bids. This is really frustrating if you are one of these sacrificial lambs. If ensuring value for money is the goal, why don't folks just find another way to do this without wasting every one's time? For example, why not submit your preferred vendor's quotation to some disinterested third party expert review?

It is for these reasons that I resist the RFP urge. How do we get business, you ask? Luckily, we have existing clients that keep coming back to us for our services and who recommend us to others. And we also get business the old fashioned way....we contact those we think have needs for the types of services we offer (eLearning strategy, design, development, evaluation, etc.) and see if we can get a foot in the door to learn more about potential clients, have a conversation, and make a pitch. If there is interest, we will produce a work plan and budget for a specific project.

If you are someone who regularly issues RFPs for eLearning work (or for anything else for that matter), and you are noticing that there are fewer responses, it may be that other vendors have also sworn off such processes. Karin Albert, the author of the eLearn Campus course titled Maximizing the Value of Your eLearning, offers these tips about preparing RFPs.

Be specific and precise: the more you can clearly explain exactly what you want, the easier it will be for the vendor to provide an accurate estimate of costs and time lines.

Be conservative: don’t give the vendor an exaggerated or overstated picture of the opportunity you are offering them.

Be realistic: don’t minimize or understate the negative side of the opportunity.

Be complete: don’t leave anything out that you know will affect the project.

Be succinct: ask for only the information you need to make a decision.

Be straightforward and honest: if you don’t really know something, say so.

Words to live by.

Can I say for certain that I will never ever respond to an RFP again? No. It is hard for an addict to promise this. Maybe it would help if there were some sort of support group for those who have "gone clean."

I'm interested to hear what others have experienced with RFPs....from both sides of the fence (vendor and vendee(?)). Is the process always painful, or I have just been very unlucky?

Client eLearning Re-visited

2007-05-30T15:57:00.000-04:00

A few weeks back I lamented the paucity of good examples of eLearning for clients / potential clients, and then posted some examples of client eLearning that folks had sent to me the following week. And then recently I was sent an email from the bank (Scotiabank) I criticized in my original posting on this subject, noting that they had changed their online client education efforts quite substantially. Their new initiative is called MyVault, and it certainly is an improvement over what they had done previously (i.e. sending me to sites that were collections of PDF downloads very similar to things they had already sent me in the mail).

They had obviously been working hard on improving their client eLearning efforts long before I leveled my criticisms, so I cannot take any credit for the turn-around. But what a turn-around it has been. MyVault provides users with an array of online resources to personalize their own financial education, and online interactive tools with which to make key financial calculations and decisions.

Specifically, MyVault is organized around five key areas as follows:

My News

You can select which general and financial news sources you wish to access
You can sign up for RSS feeds you wish to be delivered to your "vault"

My Plans

You have access to a personal calendar, to-do list, cash flow tool, and links to various documents that you have saved while navigating the site

My Library

You have access to all issues of the bank's newsletters, various financial articles, podcasts, and a financial glossary
You can read advice from financial advisors and submit topics you want them to cover

My Community

You can join online discussions on a number of financial topics (e.g. investing, borrowing, home ownership, taxes, etc.)

My Tools

You can use a number of interactive tools to do various personal financial calculations (e.g. retirement savings plan, net worth, optimal mortgage payment schedule, mortgage comparisons, rent vs. own calculations, manageable debt load)

MyVault goes way beyond the digital brochure approach that most organizations use for their client education initiatives. It allows the user to personalize their learning experience and to better understand complex financial processes by interacting with easy-to-use online tools. This is a great value-add and has the effect of engaging both existing and potential clients much more deeply than just reading standard and static marketing materials. On top of this, Scotiabank has created an attractive, colourful and easy-to-navigate interface for MyVault (very non-bank like....see above).

Think about this approach for your organization. Are there ways that you could provide a more personal, interactive and educational experience for your clients and those you wish to attract as clients?

Beware the Technology Police

2007-05-16T16:07:00.000-04:00

I remember doing a pitch to some potential clients once, showing them how they could really bring their eLearning to life by including some rich, multi-media, case-based scenarios. They seemed genuinely impressed by some examples I showed them and I thought we were making real progress. They said they would like to have their eLearning follow a similar path, but that there was one little problem. It turns out that someone had decided that it would be a good idea to have Flash removed from all computers within this organization. I can't remember the exact reasons why, but it had something to do with concerns about preventing employees from playing games or wasting time on other diversions / entertainments while "on the clock." After I picked my jaw up off the floor, I said thanks, it's been real, and quickly found the nearest exit. At the time, and ever since, I have thought that the technology police within organizations are using such short-sighted technology bans to cover up a lack of actual management, not to mention foresight and imagination.

Since that encounter of the "Flash ban," I have come across many other examples of similar technology-limiting edicts that are equally as silly. In my mind, if people are wasting time, or are not productive, or are not meeting objectives, this is a performance issue, plain and simple, and it should be addressed as such. Banning computer technologies that can be used for very productive purposes because some people are abusing the privilege, is not a smart move. It is akin to:

bricking in windows because some people are staring out of them while day dreaming on the job;
cutting off all phone lines because some people are making too many personal calls; or,
not allowing conversations among employees because some people are too chatty and waste others' time.

These are, of course, extreme examples. However, I think it is equally silly to deny all of your employees the potential benefits of information and communications technologies that can enhance learning, build community and enable personal and professional growth because someone does not want to manage those who are not responsible.

Recent news stories tell me that the technology police are flourishing. In the last few weeks I have come across stories about school boards banning cell phones from school property and government departments banning use of Facebook, the social networking site, by government employees.

With respect to the first story, yes, it is highly disruptive to have cell phones going off in class, and this should not be allowed. However, part of the stated rationale in banning the cell phones was to stem cheating (enterprising students were, apparently, text messaging test answers to each other). I do not condone cheating, but perhaps the bigger problem here is that schools are still giving memorization tests in an age of instant access to information. Why not give the students some real challenging questions to answer that cannot be condensed to yes or no, true or false, 1812 or 1867? And then encourage them to surf the net with their phones and to text message each other (even reaching out beyond the confines of the school), collaborating on some big and meaningful problems. This will more closely resemble the world into which they will be entering.

With respect to the second story about government employees "wasting time" on Facebook, why not encourage them to establish Facebook contacts with public sector workers across different departments, and across different governments around the world? What could be learned by hearing about how others are tackling public policy issues? What kinds of connections could be made? What kinds of sharing and learning could take place?

If people are slacking off / goofing off / not doing their jobs, by all means manage this. But having the technology police make across-the-board bans is not managing. It is pure laziness. Worse than this, it is forsaking the tremendous benefits that such technologies can bring because one does not wish to manage performance.

Story-Centered eLearning

2007-05-09T15:17:00.000-04:00

Everyone needs a touchstone. Something or someone you turn to when trying to determine what is authentic, what is a good decision, what is the right thing to do. With regard to how people learn, a question I grapple with every day, Roger Schank is my touchstone. His advocacy of a story-centered curriculum (SCC) really resonates with me and I try to introduce such an approach, whenever possible, into the eLearning projects on which I work. SCC is based on the idea that people learn best via direct experience (aka "learning by doing"), and that we should provide learners with realistic scenarios and projects that can facilitate such experiential learning.

Roger has a long and distinguished career in academe, and was the founder of the Institute for the Learning Sciences at Northwestern University. He also has a long and distinguished career in railing against the prevailing education system that is based on passive memorization and regurgitation through testing. Roger founded Socratic Arts, a company that helps its clients develop story-based curricula, and also founded Engines for Education, a non-profit organization developing a story-centered high school curriculum.

In a high school environment, for example, a story-centered curriculum may have students learning about the principles of physics by building a bridge or designing a sail boat for speed. Likewise, they may learn about certain ethical principles by participating in a mock legal trial. The idea is that the traditional approach of compartmentalizing everything into "topics" to be "covered" has the effect of fragmenting knowledge and stripping it of its context (not to mention making it as boring as watching paint dry!).

I first heard Roger speak at a distance education conference in Wisconsin back in 1996. He can be bombastic and abrasive, but he is also what I consider a breath of fresh air. Roger says that although the world has changed radically in the last century, the traditional model of education (from primary school through graduate school) has remained fairly constant. As he puts it, "Professors talk, students take notes, then there is a test." Not surprisingly, many students are not very engaged at school at all. They may go through the motions to "get the marks," but they see it as a game, something to be endured to get the sought-after piece of paper, not necessarily an experience that truly motivates them to grow, experiment and learn.

Likewise, I think much of what passes for workplace training is an equally passive and unengaging experience. Only in this case, it is trainers talk, trainees take notes, and there is a test. And this is as true of in-person training, as it is of most training programs delivered via eLearning. However, a story-centered approach can work equally as well for training as it can for education.

So next time you are approaching an eLearning development project, think of the various creative ways that you can bring the learning to life by wrapping it in a story. For example, have:

Salespeople learn the sales process through experiencing realistic virtual sales situations;
Employees learn about correct emergency procedures by placing them in virtual emergency situations and having them make choices and seeing the immediate results of those decisions;
Managers learn how to properly manage harassment complaints by placing them in the middle of realistic, emotionally-charged scenarios and having to react to these.

Stories facilitate active learning. eLearning developers often start with the idea of gathering a bunch of related topics end to end, presenting these, and testing on this. Instead, maybe we should think of ourselves as script writers creating realistic situations in which learners can immerse themselves. They can make choices, screw up, try again, and learn the key lessons without consciously realizing that they are learning. That's when learning is the most fun and the most effective. And, after all, that's how we learn in the real world.

Client eLearning Examples

2007-04-26T09:38:00.000-04:00

Three weeks ago, I lamented the fact that I could not find good examples of eLearning applications that help an organization's clients or potential clients figure out how to use their products or services. Well, faithful readers have come to the rescue and sent me a few examples.

Not surprisingly, two of these examples are from the telecommunications field, and are designed to help clients use cell phones, wireless mobile email devices and MP3 players. This makes sense, as these are technologically complex devices that can take some time to master (for codgers like me of course, not teenagers!).

Sony Ericsson

The Sony Ericsson website in the UK has a Learn About section where its clients can click through various tutorials on how to perform tasks on its cell phones and other mobile devices, such as downloading music, transferring files, synchronizing, sending text messages, etc. What I like about these tutorials is that they are story-based. They have characters in defined situations wanting to perform certain tasks with these communication devices, and learning from others (often friends or family) how to do these.

There are clean, simple graphics and users often click on different parts of images of the devices to get the results they want. In this way they mimic how to use the actual device and are more likely to remember the steps. In fact, users could go through these tutorials while simultaneously doing the tasks with the actual device.

These tutorials could be improved, however, by better and more extensive use of audio. They were eerily silent for the most part. Strange, given that people are learning how to use devices that transmit voice and music.

RIM

Like the Sony Ericsson site, Research in Motion has a site that has a numerous Blackberry 101 multimedia tutorials on how to use their mobile phone / email / Internet devices.

These RIM lessons follow a much more lock-step (do this, then do that, then do this, etc.) pattern than the Sony Ericsson tutorials. They have, as you would expect, great production values, but I didn't find them as interesting or compelling as the story-based, situational Sony Ericsson approach. And, in contrast to the Sony Ericsson approach, the RIM tutorials use a lot of sound. Too much so, in my opinion. It was a relief to have the option of turning off the pulsating and grating background music.

I think the ideal approach is somewhere between the more engaging story-based approach of Sony Ericsson and the sharp production qualities of the more boring and traditional lock-step RIM approach.

Instructables

While not an example of "client education," a reader pointed me to a site called Instructables. Here, anyone can post a tutorial (with text, pictures, call-outs, highlights, etc.) that guides one through how to build something as simple as invisible bookshelves, aluminum computer tables, or solar heaters for your garage, to more complex projects such as wind turbines and jet engines (not kidding). Readers can post reviews of and comments about these different projects, and ask the author questions.

I think the Sony Ericsson and RIM tutorial sites could have been improved by having users post questions and having them answered right there, much like the Instructables site. If one person has a good question, odds are that there are many more who would benefit from the answer. And these questions from real users could be used to improve subsequent versions of the tutorials.

Possibilities are Endless

We are just beginning to scratch the surface of what I would call online "self-service" learning. The possibilities are nearly limitless. I really see great potential for organizations providing more and more opportunities for clients to help themselves. This makes good business sense. As a consumer, I prefer helping myself whenever possible (as long as you make this easy, interesting, and fun for me to do this). It certainly beats reading manuals written by engineers, or wasting my life away listening to muzak while on hold for the help desk. And, as the provider of a product or service, having good online learning supports will increase your client satisfaction levels, while at the same time lowering your client support costs (the best of both worlds).

eLearning for Client Education

2007-04-04T18:37:00.000-04:00

A friend, knowing that I work in eLearning, recently asked "what kinds of courses are you working on lately?" Well, I certainly am working on developing courses for some clients, but most of my current project list is centred on creating electronic performance support systems, or online job aids for clients. These involve creating embedded tutorials that help staff understand how to use both customized and off-the-shelf software applications.

I have talked about the advantages of such approaches previously. Learners get exactly the support they need, on the job, at the point of need. They are therefore motivated learners and more likely to remember what they learn because they are applying it right away. These embedded supports save organizations a lot of time and money in organizing and running one-size-fits-all in-person training sessions. It is much like having a colleague at your side who can guide you through a process as you do it.

This got me thinking. Why couldn't these same approaches that are used to support staff training also be used for client (or potential client) education?

There have been many occasions lately when I thought that my experience as a consumer would have benefited greatly from eLearning. Here are three examples.

The Three Pound Manual

Why does anything come with a manual anymore? These things are usually written in dense, lengthy and impenetrable technical jargon that few can understand and fewer still have the stamina or time to get through. I usually make it to page 6 by the time I nod off. Why not just create easy-to-understand online tutorials, rich in graphics and animations that walk users through a step-by-step process of getting their newly purchased appliance, computer peripheral, cell phone, camera, etc. to work as it should?

Energy Economics 101

We have experienced some de-regulation in the energy sector (Ontario, Canada) over the last few years. I have had a parade of people coming to my door trying to convince me that their fixed-rate plan for natural gas or electricity was the way to protect myself from the vagaries of floating prices. There are real problems with this approach. #1) The people they generally send around to do this are singularly unprepared to really explain, in a convincing fashion, the benefits of their approach. #2) My doorstep is not the place I like to make these kinds of decisions, particularly as I am shivering while someone goes into a rather lengthy pitch. If one of these energy providers really wants to make their case, send me a link to a well-thought-out online tutorial that clearly lays out why you think your plan is the best, is backed up by some independent research, and has some actual case studies and testimonials to prove your point. And why not add in a little interactive tool that lets me compare various scenarios as commodity prices go up and down? Then you just may get a sale.

Retirement Planning 101

I received an email from my bank recently warning me of the dire consequences of not setting aside enough for my retirement. They provided a link back to their website, saying that I would find all the answers there to the "real facts" of what was required to ensure that my twilight years are spent in comfort and not squalor. What a disappointment. The link took me to some static web pages and a few downloadable PDF files that were really no different from the printed material they sent me previously in the mail that I threw away. What a wasted opportunity. Why not provide interactive tools that let me determine my financial net worth and do calculations on various financial scenarios into the future? This is how I will learn about retirement planning. And, in doing so, I very well may be predisposed to buying some of your financial products. But don't just send me links to digital versions of what I have already received from you. You're wasting my time.

If anyone has come across really good examples of online client education, please let me know. I would be really interested in seeing these, and sharing these with some of the companies trying to win my business.

(And if you are looking to use eLearning for your own client education initiatives, you know where I am.:))

Context + Control + Community = Learning

2007-03-29T13:42:00.000-04:00

A couple of weeks ago I noted that I was beginning to learn Mandarin Chinese via ChinesePod. Based in Shanghai, ChinesePod broadcasts daily online audio lessons. These are free of charge. For a fee, however, learners anywhere with an Internet connection can also get access to lesson transcripts, dialogue breakdowns, vocabulary expansion examples, exercises, tone charts, a grammar bank, etc. On top of this, all learners are linked via an interactive online community and can share experiences, ask questions, and learn from each other as well as the experts at ChinesePod.

I generally go on to the ChinesePod site once a day. If the day's lesson is at the "newbie" level, and it interests me, I will have a listen. If it is not, I will go into the lesson archive and search for a topic in my beginner level that appeals to me. After downloading a transcript of the dialogue, I will listen to the lesson, making notes on the dialogue script and sounding out words as I go. I then work through the dialogue breakdowns, expansions, exercises, check the discussion about the lesson to see what other nuances I can pick up, and then I add the new vocabulary to my personalized online vocabulary bank.

I can report that I have progressed in my Chinese more in the past two weeks this way, than I did in many previous efforts that involved taking a course at a local community college and supplementing this with language programs on CD. My previous experiences at learning Chinese followed the old drill and practice memorization approaches that tend to suck all the fun out of learning. This is not the case with ChinesePod, and here are the three main reasons why I think it works so well.

1. Context, Context, Context

Don't believe anyone in the learning business who says that content is king. The world is awash in content. Almost any information you need to find (including Chinese language resources) is available at your fingertips via a quick Google search. What is missing is context. This is what ChinesePod provides. Their audio lessons are always based on a certain common daily-occurring scenario and are delivered in a friendly, informal first-person voice. The lessons provide oodles of cultural references and anecdotes regarding why certain words and phrases are used the way they are and how this is entirely appropriate given that particular cultural context. They also throw in some humour along the way (who said learning had to be a humourless chore?). There is drill and practice if you want it, but only after you experience a realistic and contextual application of the language.

2. The Learner is in Control

I can do the lessons I want to do, when I want to do them, in the order I want to do them, and at the pace I want to do them. I am entirely in control of my own learning. By choosing topics that interest me, or for which I have an immediate application, I am a much more motivated learner. I don't have to sit through endless repetitions of things that mean nothing to me. It is conceivable that two learners, over time, could end up at the same place (competent in basic Chinese), but arriving there from totally different directions. This is not possible in a classroom, but is via self-directed eLearning.

3. Community: Learners Contribute to the Learning

Learners can participate in the learning process in a multitude of ways on ChinesePod. There are discussions attached to each and every lesson where learners ask questions, provide their own anecdotes, provide related vocabulary, etc. Also, there are active discussion forums on specific topics of interest for those looking for more detailed interchanges about grammar, tones, reading, writing, etc. In these ways learners help set the agenda for what ChinesePod covers in their lessons, and learners also help each other with their mutual challenges.

This type of approach need not be limited to language learning. If, for example, you wanted to provide learning resources for a distributed sales force, you could take a similar approach by podcasting short lessons on product knowledge, as well as sales strategies and techniques. Your sales force could choose from archived lessons to listen to when they had specific needs, and they could complete short online exercises to test their understanding of the material. Finally, all sales staff could belong to an online community of practice that shared strategies, tips, and stories of what works best from the field.

I signed up for ChinesePod because I want to learn Chinese. But I also signed up because I don't want to forget what it is like to be a learner. As an eLearning professional, I think by experiencing eLearning yourself, you are in a better position to design good eLearning for others (this is the entire premise behind our Certificate in eLearning Management). This is the same reason that chefs should eat their own cooking, and CEOs of phone and cable companies should be forced to call their own help desks once in a while. It keeps you grounded.

Wikinomics and Learning

2007-03-23T10:15:00.000-04:00

I just finished reading Wikinomics: How Mass Collaboration Changes Everything. Authors Don Tapscott and Anthony Williams do a good job outlining how the World Wide Web moved from its first stage as a static "digital newspaper," to its new incarnation (Web 2.0) as a "shared canvas." This transformation has a massive impact on how knowledge is created and shared, and how innovation and value creation now happens. People are no longer just consumers of information and knowledge, they are active participants in creating and sharing it.

Mass, online collaboration has created open source software that is widely used throughout the world today. Whether talking about server software (Apache), operating systems (Linux), web browsers (Firefox), or learning platforms (Moodle), there are many examples of freely available software that has been collaboratively created by people worldwide sharing source code and constantly improving the product.

As Tapscott and Williams point out, this model of open collaboration is now finding its way into all kinds of problem-solving exercises. Goldcorp, a Canadian-based mining company, posted to the web all of its geological information for a gold mine in Northern Ontario, seeking input on where the most gold would likely be found. Those who submitted the best analyses that led to gold being found shared in the profits. Likewise, many research-intensive companies submit challenges to a site called InnoCentive, offering rewards for solutions to specific problems.

Smart organizations realize that knowledge and ideas within the organization are often compartmentalized and inaccessible to most. They are finding ways to expedite knowledge sharing within via collaborative online tools. And really smart organizations also realize that internal knowledge is finite, and are finding creative ways to tap into the vast knowledge afforded by Web 2.0.

What do these trends mean for learning? When reflecting on this question, I think of the many IT folks I have worked with over the years, such as systems administrators, web masters, and programmers. These individuals were fully engaged in Web 2.0 before it became a buzz word. Think about it. When someone in IT is faced with a problem (e.g. server down, web pages not loading properly, missing data, database malfunctions, etc.), the clock is ticking and they have to figure things out quickly. They don't have time to take a course to learn something new. These folks go online and through searches of websites, databases, FAQ sites, and, most importantly, online communities of peers, they find the answers. They are learning like this each and every day.

Of course, IT people have a predilection for learning in this way. They are very much at home on the web. But why couldn't we all learn this way? Perhaps the most valuable training we could provide within our organizations is teaching people how to be web literate (e.g. how to research, discern quality, learn and collaborate online). It's like the old fable of teaching people to fish, rather than giving them fish. We could do worse than teaching people how to learn, and contribute to the learning of others, in a connected world.

It's a Small, Small, Small World

2007-03-14T17:42:00.000-04:00

I have been having many of my own personal "world is flat" moments lately. We have taught folks as far afield as Syria and Turkey about eLearning. And through our courses, blogs and webinars, we have initiated conversations and consultations about eLearning with people from the U.K., Australia, India, China, Sri Lanka, Africa and a host of other places. The Internet really is making the world a smaller place and I am seeing evidence every day that highly industrious and creative people are using it to advance learning in all kinds of interesting ways.

Here are three examples:

Tutor Vista

Based in Bangalore, India, Tutor Vista offers real-time web-based one-on-one tutoring in a range of subjects (e.g. math, English, various sciences, etc.), as well as for college entrance examination preparation. With only a headset, microphone, and whiteboard, high school or college students can receive unlimited tutoring assistance from a highly educated and qualified Indian tutor for $100 a month.

InterLangua

Similarly, InterLangua hooks up qualified language instructors from Guatemala with individuals interested in learning Spanish. It uses a combination of webcam, voice and synchronous chat to connect Spanish language tutors with students anywhere there is a web connection. Learners can purchase ten sessions for $200.

ChinesePod

Based in Shanghai, ChinesePod provides a rich immersive online environment for learning Mandarin Chinese. They use a creative mix of daily podcast audio lessons, interactive exercises and tools, and a diverse world-wide online community who support each other in their mutual learnings. Learners can choose from a variety of approaches ranging from audio lessons and transcripts only ($60 a year) to intense eight-week sessions with daily practice calls from tutors ($400). I will be trying out ChinesePod myself....I'll let you know in a later post how it goes.

Distances and barriers between people, ideas and learning are being obliterated. The web is connecting people with shared interests and allowing those with special expertise to reach a world-wide learning market efficiently and economically. I point to the examples mentioned above when clients in corporations, government, or non-profits tell me that their constituencies are not ready for eLearning, or that they are still examining the feasibility of web-based learning environments. My message: that train has already left the station!

Plug-and-Play eLearning

2007-03-08T17:18:00.000-05:00

Back about 12 years ago a colleague introduced me to Mosaic, an early web browser. After playing with it for an hour or so, I remember thinking that this would change the world. I was excited and wanted to create a web site right away. Silly me; I thought I would bring up a blank page on my computer, write and format something, click a button, and be up and running. Unfortunately, I discovered that one had to be able to use the arcane language of HTML (all those damnable brackets, slashes, and short forms!). Even with the advent of user-friendly HTML editors, you still required some IT support and guidance to get something up on a web site that worked and looked half-decent.

Well, we have certainly come a long way since then. Today, you do not have to be geek or a code-monkey to be able to quickly and easily publish to the web and interact with others in the virtual world. There are a plethora of free (or nearly free) tools and services out there that remove the middle-man (aka technical experts / gatekeepers) from the equation. From blogs and wikis, to social networking software, to online messaging, to voice-over-Internet applications, to web widgets and mash up software, it is becoming increasingly easy to publish and interact with others online. Most of these tools, usually hosted somewhere else, have intuitive and easy-to-use interfaces and templates that allow users to create the kinds of web environments that only web-heads could in the past.

This trend has major implications for eLearning. We come across many organizations - particularly smaller professional associations and non-governmental organizations (NGOs) - that feel that technology (access to it, knowledge of it, cost of it) is still the big barrier to getting started with eLearning. Sure, there are open source learning management systems such as Moodle and The Sakai Project that bring the cost barrier down. But these still require some technical and IT infrastructure to support. There are all kinds of simpler options open for smaller organizations just starting out and finding their way with eLearning.

Suppose, for example, that an NGO wanted to do some leadership development training for a geographically-dispersed group of its representatives. Using free and widely-available web-based applications, the organization could take very different approaches to this challenge, as follows:

Coaching / Mentorship Model

A blog (via Blogger, Word Press, etc.) is set up for a leadership coach, who posts best practice leadership principles, stories and anecdotes, audio recordings, RRS feeds from top leadership sites, etc.;
Participants post remarks, questions, feedback in comments section;
Coach provides one-on-one mentorship to participants via synchronous online sessions with Skype or Elluminate's vRoom.

Collaborative Model

Create a wiki (e.g. SeedWiki) where all participants can collaboratively build a leadership model for the organization, under the direction of a skilled facilitator;
Participants complete self-assessments and interview each other on how their competencies compare to the organization's leadership model;
Personal leadership development plans are submitted to the facilitator and the group for comment and feedback.

Community of Practice Model

Using social networking software such as Ning, create a leadership development site that includes postings, personal profiles of participants, resource links, guided discussions, videos, etc.;
Participants provide on-going support to each other via an online community of leadership practice.

Of course, with any of these approaches, you still need to pay attention to principles of good learning design, facilitation and support. However, the biggest barrier to eLearning is no longer the cost of buying and supporting technology. There are so many plug-and-play options available today. The only barriers are the limits of your own creativity and imagination.