What should elearning look like?

What do today's learners expect from an online learning experience? What do you expect?

I pinged my PLN and came up with these descriptors. What would you add?

http://www.wordle.net/show/wrdl/4082634/Personal_Learning

Read ‘em and weep elearning

I had a conversation today with someone who was still trying to get senior executives in his organization to buy into the whole concept of elearning. 

He said they’d all just had to go through two hours of state-mandated Sexual Harrassment training.  Endless text on the page. Boring, boring, boring.  What I call “Read ‘em and weep elearning”.

 

Read ‘em and weep. Is this how you want people thinking about the stuff you create? Can’t we do better?

How about instead we:

• Focus on what we want people to DO instead of cramming them full of information that they’ll immediately forget?
• Provide opportunities to practice?
• Immerse someone in an experience and get them to react ?

What are you doing to stop the tears?

Photo credit: Crying baby by bbaunach

Buckets of Content

“Buckets of rain, buckets of tears, got all them buckets coming out of my ears…buckets of moonbeams in my hands.” ~ Bob Dylan

Us Instructional Designers like buckets. Neat little containers. Helpful for sorting things out. Good for pouring.

I’ve been thinking lately about buckets of content.

Most of the elearning we seem to create in the corporate space primarily falls into these buckets:

• Softskills
• Procedures
• Induction/New Hire
• Product Knowledge
• Awareness/Communications

Does this list seem right to you? What am I missing?

Photo credit: “Buckets of rain” by Cammy Bean

Cathy Moore on Saving the World from Boring eLearning

Adobe Connect session hosted with Allen Partridge, Adobe eLearning Evangelist

“The extraordinary, the radical, the amazing Cathy Moore…”

How does one navigate this field and become a professional in this space? How did you arrive here, Cathy?

When I started out there was no ID degree (in the early 80’s). Job was to help people in libraries who needed to learn how to use computers.  Was a technical writer, tech support person…(while she was a student)…eventually got into elearning for k-12.  Bachelors degree in English and that is it! ID training is on the job and self taught through the wonders of the Internet – reading theory and research online. 

Cathy is big on self-taught.  “I learned by observing what worked and didn’t. I was highly motivated to write instruction that would keep people from calling me.”

Also spent some time as a copyrighter and being a marketing consultant – about communication…

http://blog.cathy-moore.com/

How can we save the world from boring elearning?

Boring experiences that make people suffer isn’t going to change anyone’s behavior. 

Moving from information dumps to more problem solving formats.

Giving people a safe place to fail.

Stuffing information into people doesn’t make them learn it!  (And yet we have an obsession with delivering information.  Instead we need to focus on what the learner need to do with it?)

Is lack of knowledge really the cause of the problem? What can we do to give the learner the experience to learn through success and failure.  We learn by: experiencing things, drawing conclusions from the situation, so we build a “case” in our own minds.

As IDs, we need to find the courage/strength/political power to push back on clients who want us to just push the information. Instead ask, “what do we need the learners to do?”  We need to redefine our roles in organizations from converting infomration in a course to becoming performance consultants.

If we evaluate our elearning and see if actually changes performance on the job.

Make more examples available of experiential elearning.  So that the default ID of what elearning is (screens full of elearning quizzes) broadens to include other things…(the default elearning course that’s info screen, info screen, quiz question…)

What is Action Mapping?
1. The Strategic Goal. Start with a measurable goal for your project.  Why does this elearning deserve to exist? How will the org benefit in a measurable way? (the bulls eye)

2. Real world actions people need to do to reach this goal. (the green triangles)

3. Practice activities – to practice what people need to DO. (the orange hands)

4. Crucial information needed for that activity. (the blue dots)

(You should only put in the course that which the learner needs to use – everything else should go in the job aid!)

At the beginning ask “Why does this project need to exist? What do they need to do? What do they need to practice? What information do we need to include?”

Allen mentions the gated corporate environment that most IDs have to work in – the lawyers who want this, the compliance officer who wants this, etc. – all of these stopping mechanisms…

Get all of the stakeholders and subject matter experts involved from the inception of the idea – so they’ll work together for a common goal.

Action Mapping is a way to brainstorm the activities.  Then you can use whatever delivery format works best for those activities – could be face to face or online.  Ideally, what we end up designing feels like a series of activities rather than an information dump.

Low text scenarios – one scene scenario with a compelling, complex questions.  You see feedback from your decision.  You see someone get bloody because you passed them the scalpel in the wrong way.

So how long does this take?

The hardest part is identifying the strategic goal and what you need to do.   Those first two rings are the most challenging – but you can do it in a two hour call. 

You often end up producing less because you put the information into PDFs, etc – less time making boring information look slick.  More time on creating activities.

“But I’m really a fan of the low-tech scenario.”

Look at examples of problem-based learning and case-based learning.  (Search on Cathy’s blog for multiple choice questions)

Have Instructional Designers and eLearning developers become doormats?

Stakeholders, clients come to IDs with a pile of PPT slides and say “turn this into a course.”

To raise our profile in the organization – to become like the marketing dept which no one wants to live without – we need to understand how what we do fits in with the strategy of the organization. 

Are you providing value or are you a servant to this experience?

Don’t get distracted by the graphics, the bells and the slick – instead focus on the content.

Trina's Elearning Freebies

Trina Rimmer has shared some really nice PowerPoint page layout designs and templates that you can use:

http://trinarimmer.com/freebies/

Wasn't that nice of her? Use 'em and thank her!

Kineo Top Tips iPhone App

Apparently it’s elearning iPhone App week!

We’ve just released our very own iPhone app which you can download for free in the iTunes stores.

Check out the latest tip (gossip, gossip, gossip) and our large collection of practical advice. 

Read more about the app on the Kineo website or just go download it yourself to see what all the fuss is about.

Top Resources for Instructional Designers

So where do you send new practitioners for ideas and inspiration? Here’s a list I recently compiled for some new members on my team.

Allen Partridge Adobe Captivate Blog
For those of you who work with Captivate, you can’t miss Allen Partridge’s blog -- practical know-how with a spark.
http://blogs.adobe.com/captivate/author/allenp

Articulate’s Online Community
Lots of sharing of templates and ideas in the user community.
http://community.articulate.com/

Cathy Moore
Cathy Moore is a smarty-pants in the elearning community who’s got a bit of Kineo flair to her style with a real focus on “doing.” She has a process she calls “action mapping”.
http://blog.cathy-moore.com/

Clark Quinn
Clark is a man of passion and principle, admonishing us to avoid committing ID Practice and calling out the hogwash in the industry.
http://blog.learnlets.com/

Connie Malamed “The eLearning Coach”
Connie writes a lot of posts that use the word “cognitive”. She helps translate theory to practice and has also just created a great little iphone app of useful ID terms.
http://theelearningcoach.com/

ID Guru iphone App: http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/instructional-design-guru/id452974687?mt=8&ign-mpt=uo%3D4

Judy Unrein
Judy’s a big geek and I love her for that. She knows about things like HTML5 and 508 Compliance. And she’s big into tools (even has a new podcast with Brian Dusablon in which they drink beer while talking about tools: The Toolbar).
http://onehundredfortywords.com/

Kineo Website
And then there’s our very own website, chock full of case studies, interviews, free guides and loads of elearning top tips.
http://www.kineo.com/us/elearning-tips/
Be sure to subscribe to our monthly newsletter: http://www.kineo.com/us/kineo-newsletter.html

Screenr
Need design inspiration or how-to-tips for creating that really cool PowerPoint effect? Check out the screenr gallery and my personal favorite: Dave Anderson of Articulate: http://www.screenr.com/user/elearning

Tom Kuhlman’s Rapid eLearning Blog
Tom is the VP of Community at Articulate and quite a rockstar.
http://www.articulate.com/rapid-elearning/

Will Thalheimer
Will helps bridge theory and research to practical application -- keeping us on our toes and inspiring us all to better practice. Although he’s been a bit quiet in the blogging world of late, rumor has it that Will is actively at work on a new book that takes a look at the research and translates it into information you can actually use.
http://www.willatworklearning.com/

Want more?
Explore Jane Hart’s ever-growing list of bloggers and tweeters.
http://c4lpt.co.uk/connexions/wpl.html