“Row, row, row your boat…”
Lots of new tidbits up on the Kineo website for the month:
If you missed our latest newsletter, you can find it all on the Kineo newsletter page!
We had fun at DevLearn last month giving some sneak peeks of the new Totara LMS. If you missed us on the stand, now’s your chance!
It includes a wide range of features designed to meet the specific needs of corporates, including competency management, staff development plans, team management, individual and corporate dashboard reporting, and the management of classroom events.
The new Totara distribution of Moodle is open source and available on a subscription basis which provides ongoing support and enhancements.
Totara officially launches in January 2011.
The nine webinars will take place on 15th, 16th and 21st December. There will be three webinars each day to cover Pacific, European and US time zones.
The webinar covers:
To register for the webinar: Totara LMS.
Oh, the humanity! Is your e-Learning turning out more like a horror show for zombies than a program that actually helps, gasp, people?
Three tips for stopping the horror and putting the humanity back in:
For more of the meat on this one, read the full top tip on our website: Tip 44: Where’s the humanity?
And be sure to check out more top tips, including the latest: Tip 45: Video – bring out your inner guerilla
Wednesday, November 10, Kineo hosted a live workshop in New York on rapid eLearning in the Enterprise.
We started the morning with introductions, asking people to share their burning issues. Here’s some of what people shared:
The New York workshop included short sessions from Kineo’s Mark Harrison, me!, and Tom Kuhlmann of Articulate. Here’s a quick rundown of what we each talked about:
Kineo’s Mark Harrison on Learning Models:
How often do you need to have an interaction? The myth of needing an interactive exercise every 3-5 screens. That is often the closest to a learning model that most interactive designers get. (A very simple model).
We need models to help stop the stream of consciousness writing. These structures are crucial to building better elearning and can actually help you speed up the process.
Mark tells the story of a 3 hour certification program he had to take before he could travel to a country abroad. He had to pass the test before the ticket was issued. His solution? Screen grabs of the entire program that he then referred to as he took the test. Is this what your learners are doing? Maybe you need to rethink your programs…
So let’s take a closer look at those models:
Knowledge and Skill builder (a variation on Gagne’s 9 Events):
See Kineo Design Hour: Learning Models presentation for more details.
AIDA: Attention, Interest, Desire, Action (see the Kineo Top Tip: Learning from the Ad Men)
Cammy (that’s me!) on tone and writing for elearning:
Five guidelines:
See the Kineo Design Hour: Tone of Voice presentation for more details.
Tom Kuhlmann The Rapid eLearning Story
Many of the people Tom talks to are one/two person eLearning shops. As we evolve in our eLearning journeys, we often follow this path:
1. Convert the course
Provide a structure for the course. When you’re just getting started, this structure can work well: welcome; instructions; objectives; section of content – intro, object, content, wrapup; assessment; summary
Basic graphic design principles:
CRAP: Contrast, Repetition, Alignment, Proximity
Using graphics to craft meaning (it’s not just eye candy)
If you want to be able to create more interesting PPT presentations, you need to learn more about PPT.
You’re developing meaning as you put things on the page.
Great resources from Cathy Moore:
Take a company policy and build it the typical way, then apply “dump the drone” – before and after
Create your own eLearning style guide – and then tell the marketing department that’s what you use for eLearning.
Working with SMES: SMES don’t care about learning theories. Show them before and after.
2. Make it look better
If it looks good, people will be more interested. the aesthetic is important.
Visual design creates meaning. We direct the learner’s attention through layout and what we put on screen and where.
Visual voice – imagine a western movie poster. It has a “voice” – probably a bit dusty, frayed, font is in that “Wanted” style.
Give your course a visual voice.
Tom describes a mind mapping process they use to create a visual identity for a program
3. Make it interactive
Some rapid ID models you can follow to assemble your course:
Information & Interaction
one track that gets information in linear mode OR one track that gets right into the interactive mode
(See Christian Aid course example that Tom and Dave Anderson built for Lingo’s -- on Tom’s blog)
RSI – Rapid Situational interaction
Place your content in a relevant situation – you get all of your content in this route, but it’s presented through the situation.
The Usual Suspects
Have a situation (some context),…interviewing or surveying some choices – see Tom’s blog for examples.
Wrapping it up
All in all it was a great event – although it went by in quite a blur! Thanks to all of you who attended and I just wish we’d had some more time for chatting at the end.
And now we’ve got something totarry cool to announce. I mean totally cool…
…the formation of a joint venture company to develop a distribute an open source Learning Management System for the corporate sector.
It’s called Totara.
Read the Totara press release here.
And if you’ll be at DevLearn in San Francisco in November, be sure to stop by booth #100 where we’ll be giving sneak previews of Totara!
My love affair with Kineo began back at issue # 1 of the monthly newsletter—lots of sharing of tips and trick and industry wisdom.
So have you signed up yet? It goes out in the next few days, so don’t miss out!
And if you want more ways to connect, check us out on Facebook.
Today I presented a webinar through MyKineo: Power to the SMEs! Empowering subject matter experts to help create better eLearning.
It’s an interesting topic and one I’d like to dive into more with all of you…but what I really wanted to share was my presentation creation process!
I’ve been reading Cliff Atkinson’s Beyond Bullet Points. Well, I started it but then didn’t get beyond the first few chapters – realized I really needed a project to try it out with as most of the book is the how-to-do-it part.
I pulled my project together yesterday in about four hours – included hammering out content, figuring out the BBP storyboard template, grabbing graphics, and learning how to use PPT beyond the basics that I know. I’m proud to say I mastered Slide Masters last night!
Here are some initial thoughts on the process and the outcome.
The BBP storyboard template
The storyboard template – really an outline tool – helped me sketch out the overall presentation first and organize my thoughts.
Unlike my usual presentation creation style – I actually thought about it first and mapped out my ideas before vomiting them all over PPT! (True confessions of an ID turned presenter…)
The structure
You start with an overall introduction – five slides that set the scene, identify the audience, introduce the challenge, present the hoped for outcome, and state the call to action (if you look at my deck, the call to action is “Help the SMEs see the forest and the trees with three key strategies”.
Next you create three key points to support the call to action. Each key point gets three explanation slides. An explanation slide then gets three detail slides which get into the nitty gritty details.
Each slide gets a unique headline. Gone are the bullet points. And because you’re writing these at the outline stage – before you even get to your PPT, you can quickly see the structure and see where the gaps are.
Adding a visual theme
On my slide deck, I used slide masters to apply a distinct visual style to each of these three layers – the detail slides have a leaf in the corner, the explanation slides have a light shade of green, the key point slides are dark green with an image of a tree.
The idea of this layer of visual design keeps the audience in tune with where you are, driving home that organizing vision. And as a speaker I found it really helped me know where I was in the presentation.
Here’s a snapshot of part of the deck in slide sorter view – you can quickly see the structure
It’s a start…
OK, it’s not perfect. I pulled this together in about four hours – but nothing like figuring it out as you go along.
I did NOT sketch out the slides in advance when it came to adding visuals, although this is a key part of Atkinson’s process. It was getting late and I needed to get it done.
I also did a half-ass job writing out the detailed content – my “transcript” so to speak. Ideally, you write your script out so it’s all in the PPT Notes field. If you’re look at my deck, you’ll miss all of the stuff I said, but perhaps you’ll get the idea.
In a few sections, I added more detail slides, blowing the whole holy trinity thing out of the water. But it needed to be done…
Because it was an online webinar, I added a few questions here and there to increase audience participation. That’s not part of Atkinson’s model.
I added some initial slides and some slides at the end to provide a final recap and some additional resources. Not sure if that’s allowed in this system!
Check it out and then share your feedback!
Here’s a really slick PPT template Sasha has created (and he’s even giving it away – what a guy!)
Check out Sasha’s e-learning blog!
I generally leave conferences both exhilarated and exhausted, and sitting on the flight home from three days in Chicago at the ASTD International Conference and Expo, I realize this one was no exception.
(What I would give right now for a foot rub. Anyone?)
Three days of booth babe duty at our lovely Kineo stand with my colleagues Steve Lowenthal, Steve Rayson, Mark Harrison and Gabe Rosenberg.
There was a lot of energy this year, overall felt like a lot more bustle and excitement than at last year’s ICE. As Ron Burns of Proton Media said, “what recession?”
I had no time to attend any sessions, but did imbibe much learning and connections nonetheless:
Moodle
On the stand, we had lots of interest in our corporate Moodle LMS offering. I’ve asked before whether the corporate Moodle is at a tipping point, and the strong indicators are, yes. Yes, indeed.
Companies want the flexibility and freedom of an open source model. People are frustrated with ongoing licensing fees, lack of good customer support and responsiveness from traditional LMS vendors, and slow time to implement.
I heard a lot of, “I’ve been looking into Moodle and we’re really interested...tell me more.” (If you want to know more, be sure to read some of the case studies on the work we’ve been doing in the corporate Moodle space).
Hanging out with Mr. SCORM himself
What I like most about Aaron is that he can talk about these really technically confusing things like metadata and metaparadata and the semantic web and I sort of get it.
Aaron and I talked about his vision for the new SCORM. Expect to see some exciting changes to SCORM in the next bit.
Getting social
I didn’t have a lot of time to cruise the expo hall (man, there were a lot of vendors!), but I did make a point of checking out Bloomfire and their Collaborative Social Learning Community. Josh has a great vision of helping groups put out user generated content in an easily accessible way. Bloomfire (@Bloomfire) even has a built in screencasting and video recording tool, making it super easy for people to share informal bits with each other.
Talking leadership
I love connecting face to face with people I’ve known online and I really enjoyed meeting Terrence Wing. (@TerrenceWing) Terrence does leadership training and is very involved with ASTD (he was on the conference committee!) I like his approach to training, “We create leadership packages – tools and resources for 
Talking content
As always, it was great to connect with Thomas Stone (@ThomasStone) of ElementK and hear what they’re up to with off-the-shelf content and LMSs. He’s possibly the most sincere person in the eLearning biz. And I mean that most sincerely.
Meeting the legends
I’ve known Professor Karl Kapp for y
Great to catch up on his book (Learning in 3D continues to be a top seller!) and he even brought around Ron Burns of Proton Media to share a what’s happening in the immersive learning space.
Be sure to check out Karl and Ron's video tour of ASTD!
Top tips
Our own Steve Rayson was on the prowl with his flip cam, recording eLearning top tips from the likes of Mark Harrison of Kineo, Tom Kuhlmann of Articulate, Karl Kapp, Allen Partridge of Adobe, Ethan Edwards of Allen Interactive, and yours truly. Check out all the new additions to the Kineo TV channel.
Here’s a few to get you started:
All in all, a great show! Thanks to all of you who stopped by our booth and look forward to seeing you next year!
With over 8,000 attendees expected, the expo should be hopping.
Stop by booth #1103 and check out what we’re up to at Kineo in terms of custom and rapid eLearning, tools and capability building and Moodle LMS.
Be sure to let me know if you’ll be on the prowl at the show. I love meeting people face to face.
Some highlights of the year, in no particular order:
Instructional Design
As a personal mission, I’ve been reading lots of book this past year in my never-ending quest to get an informal Master’s Degree in Instructional Design. Maybe one day I’ll get an honorary degree…
Range of Projects and Amazing Clients
I think it’s possible that I’ve worked on more different projects in the past year than combined for the previous ten. OK – maybe that’s an overstatement. But I’ve gotten to work on some exceptionally cool stuff for some really great clients– from educator sexual misconduct to behavior in the workplace for financial institutions to the structure of hair and how hair color products work. (Have a question about getting your hair colored. Ask away!)
Speaking Gigs & Online Webinars
This stuff really floats my boat. I’ve presented at the eLearning Guild’s DevLearn and Learning Solutions Conference, presented an ELearning Guild Online Forum, and hosted numerous Kineo Insight and Design Hour website. I’m honing my presentation skills every day and now aspire to be an eLearning Talk Show Host. Connecting with people and sharing knowledge is the bomb. Ask Ellen Wagner, who can tell you that I like to incorporate interpretive dance numbers in my sessions whenever possible.
Audio Interviews
I like chatting people up and feel very fortunate to have had the opportunity to chat up some great people: Tom Kulhman, Brent Schlenker, Karl Kapp, Will Thalheimer and Ellen Wagner. Who else should I be talking to?
Writing
Although my blogging efforts have been a bit sporadic, I have continued to do a lot of writing – not just project work – but also articles and eLearning Top Tips for the Kineo website.
Rapid eLearning!
Creating quality eLearning in a matter of weeks is indeed possible. And I have lived to tell the tale!
New Tools
I now speak Articulate and Moodle (neither fluently, I must admit).
Telecommuting
Can’t beat the commute and I love that I can pick my kids up at the bus most days.
There are challenges, for sure, and I’m learning how to set better boundaries – including locking the door while on client calls or webinars.
Fortunately, there are lots of great tools to support the virtual worker including Skype and Yammer. And of course, where would I be without my Twitter community?
People
I feel so fortunate to work with such a great group of talented and creative eLearning professionals. Not only have I started incorporating words like “mate” (as in, “Thanks, mate!”) and “keen” and “brilliant” – but I’ve also learned a lot about good instructional design, tools, working with clients and managing large scale projects.
Many thinks to all of you at Kineo – US and UK colleagues included!
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I’m sure I’ve missed a few things of note. I know I have loads of room for improvement, many areas about which I want to know more, and unknown challenges to come. Bring it on!
Photo credits:
Kineo has just deployed a Moodle/Joomla learning portal for Tesco, the world’s third largest retailer. For those of us in the US who haven’t heard of Tesco it’s like the Wal-Mart of the UK.
The initial rollout will go to 15,000 with plans to roll out to the global staff over two years -- that's potentially 400,000 users! The eventual scale of the project will make it one of the largest ever implementations of the Moodle platform in the corporate learning space. Now that’s an enterprise Moodle!
Join us next week, April 28th, for another free Kineo Insights webinar: Aligning eLearning with business goals.
From the press release:
Is your organization contemplating any of the following questions: Is our learning aligned with corporate priorities? Is it having the impact it should? How can we improve its impact?
Many organizations face challenges in getting learning and business goals aligned, and Kineo, the leader in learning solutions, is inviting training professionals to join a free webinar with industry experts to discuss what’s worked for them.
Our free Kineo Insights Web Panel is on April 28th at 4pm UK time / 10am CST.
The panel will include:
Participants will have the opportunity to discuss their learning challenges with the group and put questions to the panel in what will be a lively discussion on how to maximize the impact of learning.
Back in June, I asked if the corporate Moodle was at a tipping point? People were on the fence.
So is Moodle still gaining traction in the corporate market? Surely seems to be.
Last week over 200 attendees joined in the Learning Technologies Moodle seminar which Kineo helped out with – How Companies are Making the Most of Moodle.
A few articles have come out of that session that I think are must reads if you’re wanting to learn more about Moodle and how it fits in to the corporate LMS landscape.
So where is the corporate Moodle going? Time will tell, but we’re keeping ourselves busy!
Join us at the Learning Solutions Conference & Expo 2010 in Orlando, March 24-26. We’ll be showing Moodles demos at booth #208!
(Be sure to check out the video on the Learning Solutions main page – see if you can spot me! *blush*)
Join us for our next Kineo Insights webinar:
March 11, 2010: eLearning Insider: Challenges and Best Practices for Internal Development Teams
8:00 AM Pacific/10:00 AM Central/11:00 AM Eastern/4:00 PM UK
- Rory Lawson, Instructional Design, Manager Learning Design, Learning HSBC Group Management Training College (UK)
- Anne Marie Laures, Principal at Laures Consulting, former Director Learning Services at Walgreens
- Ellen Wagner, Partner Sage Road Solutions, former Sr. Director Worldwide eLearning Adobe Systems
I’ve been having a lot of fun contributing articles and tips to the eLearning Top Tips section of the Kineo website.
This is me gaining more insight into our practice, but I must admit that theory always turns me off a bit. I’m a practical person; I like to know what works, I don’t want to get too bogged down in the theory and abstractions. But it really is good for me, a little shot of theory really does make me a better person – a better ID!
Check ‘em out and let me know what you think:
Why a Shot of Theory is Good for You
A Shot of Theory – Elaboration Theory (Charles Reigeluth)
A Shot of Theory – Keller’s ARCS Model
C’mon. It won’t hurt at all. Maybe just a tiny pinch.
Did I miss anything? Any suggestions for future topics?
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Photo credit: hypodermic needled IMG_7418 by stevendepolo
Last week at DevLearn in San Jose, Stephen Walsh and I presented to a packed room: "Yawn-proof Your e-Learning without Busting the Bank"
It was Friday morning and everyone was quite exhausted. Before we got started, I joked that we'd know we'd been successful if no one yawned.
I think people were quite engaged and I didn't catch any yawns, so I'd say we hit the mark.
Here are slides from our presentation. I'm sorry I can't share links to all of the demos we showed, but you can find some live examples on the case studies section of the Kineo website. Enjoy!
Yawn Proof Your e-Learning without Busting the Bank
View more presentations from cammybean.
| I'm hanging out in Times Square right now, looking forward to our seminar here tomorrow morning. New York is so exhilarating. The lights! The tall buildings! I feel like such an awestruck country bumpkin. Here's where I'll be: Kineo hosts e-learning conference in New York on Nov 20th |
The workshop will be held at 745 7th Avenue 4th Floor, New York, NY. Continental Breakfast and Networking from 8:00 – 8:30 and Workshop from 8:30-10:30. |
