Creating engaging e-learning - Patrick Dunn

Check out this link to see how Patrick Dunn's view in creating engaging e-learning.

Ultimately it’s line managers that determine the success of L & D - Clive Shepherd

A week or two back I attended an interesting presentation, Great employers need great line managers, by John Purcell, Strategic Academic Adviser, Employment Relations for ACAS and a part-time Research Professor at Warwick University. Here are some notes I took:

• There is a gap between intended policies and actual practices. What matters is not the policy, but what employees actually experience.
• There are big variations in employee perceptions of the quality of line management behaviour in terms of people management.
• Most employees have close ties with their managers; for many, their manager is the organisation.
• In recent research, 44% of employees say their manager never or rarely coaches them; less than half of employees say their manager provides them with feedback on their performance.
• In a report this year by the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development (CIPD), assessing employee attitudes to the recession, only 35% said they trusted senior managers, only 36% have confidence in their managers, and 46% report growing stress.
• There is so much that managers can do to support l&d: arranging buddies for new employees, organising job enrichment and rotation, providing coaching and guidance, organising secondments, identifying external technical training and conferences, knowledge sharing and running their own briefings and discussions.
• In another CIPD survey, 44% of employees felt their managers were not very effective at l&d.

John didn't include in his list the important role that line managers play in supporting formal l&d interventions. I was reminded of research often quoted by Charles Jennings, the source of which I have unfortunately mislaid, which showed that the contributions that managers played before and after interventions were much more important in determining success than the contributions of trainers or of learners themselves.

The lesson from all this evidence is quite clear. Unless you recognise that line managers are your most important stakeholder and ensure their commitment to your l&d strategy, you stand little chance of success.

Read the original post here with the comments

New Skills for Learning Professionals - Sahana Chattopadhyay

This month's Big Question from LCB has received a huge response. I have pasted the question here:

"In a Learning 2.0 world, where learning and performance solutions take on a wider variety of forms and where churn happens at a much more rapid pace, what new skills and knowledge are required for learning professionals?"

This is not a very new question and has been doing its rounds in different forums. My colleague and I had begun a similar discussion on our "explore learning solutions" forum as well. We also have a fair idea why this question is cropping up in various forms...Today, the role of learning professionals have undergone and are undergoing a paradigm shift. The main reason is of course the shifting, evolving technology and a flatter world with organizations spread across the globe.

As I read through the different responses to this month's Big Q, I saw that most of the major points had been covered.

Therefore, instead of trying to make the same point using different words, I thought I would synthesize my learnings from the different posts. I have not yet been able to cover all the posts but from what I have read, I have made the following jottings for myself. As I read the rest, I intend to add to this list.

The interpretations are mine and so is the synthesis I have arrived at. The original writer's intent may have been different.

While the key trends I have spotted so far focus on a learning professional's ability to:

Keep learning: Professionals have to become constant learners to be in tune wth the ever increasing flow of knowledge

Be a knowledge networker: Be a knowledge networker capable of identifying patterns and make connections

Solution provider: Use the best solutions and be able to bind different learning ecologies

Be tech savvy: Be comfortable with technology, especially the tools that can be used to create a "learning ecosystem or end-to-end learning solutions" at organizational levels (talking of organizational training here since that forms a large part of our "business")

Be adaptive: Be adaptive enough to see the link between theories of andragogy to present day technological innovations.

Be a social networker: Be good at networking and connecting with the "right" people because there is no way one can know everything. The only way to keep up with the rapid pace of tech development is to share and participate in online conversations.

Don't think of yourself as an expert: Be aware of the vanishing concept of "expertise". Today, everyone can easily gain expertise with access to information and the tools available to share and disseminate.

Have a sound grasp of theories: Linked to the previous point>> this puts a lot of pressure on learning professionals to constantly "innovate" and be the creator of sound instructional design. Only way we stand out is the design/form/structure/format that we present the learning in. Hence, it becomes even more critical to know the theories of learning in depth and apply these in course designs if we have to still make a case as to why organizations should spend in asking us to create a training program.

Be open to criticism and be courageous: Have the courage to put up one's understanding and perspectives out there for all to read, respond, criticise, disagree with, argue, rip apart...This can preferably be done via blogs which is also a platform that allows one to synthesize and analyze one's thoughts. Without this kind of "putting oneself on the block" attitude, it will not be possible to learn.

Understand business drivers: Be a consultant and be able to talk to Line-of-Business managers and grasp the true need of the training. This means being able to ask the right questions and not only focus on the "learning" but the end need of the learning. What is the gap that is impacting the bottom line? That is all that matters to an organization.

All of this means that it is well neigh impossible for an individual to develop on one's own. The whole in this case is way greater than the sum of the parts and knowing how to acquire the necessary information is as if not more important than the specific information itself.

The list of posts I have read so far are:

# Mohamed Amine Chatti - New Skills for Learning Professionals
# Harold Jarche - 2008 article on Skills 2.0
# Clive Shepherd
# Jay Cross - Informal Learning blog.
# E-Learning Curve Blog: Learning Professionals’ Skills 2.0
# Natalie - What Should Learning Professionals Know Today?
# Gina - Adventures in Corporate Education
# Jane Bozarth - New Skills for Learning Professionals
# Harold Jarche -Skills for learning professionals
# Clark Quinn: Web 2.0 Learning Skills

Read the original post here

From click next to the next level -The eLearning blog

An informative post on making e-learning interactive.

The promise of rapid elearning has for many ended up with a deluge of page turners. What went wrong? Many training honchos thought SMEs could learn the tools in a day and then they could eliminate an entire industry of instructional design out of the production process. So most rapid elearning ended up without instructional design and more importantly, without industrious design.

Page turners, by definition, are devoid of activities-practice and assessments. Without activities, learners miss out the feedback loop of interactive communication. Minus the practice activities, learning is at the mercy of the Ebbinghaus curve of forgetting and the only way memory decay can be staved off is by regular repetition or the old school rote memorization.

When instructional designers create page turners, they do more than just create presentations. For many, the fashionable-to-deride Click Next is a turn-the-page signal. For the discerning designer, it is the least minimum divisor of curriculum structure and sequence.

Of all the clicks a learner will make, Click Next is the most empowering as it links information consumed with information awaited. This link also seeks to replicate itself in the information hierarchy developing the learner’s brain. Page turners are not ineffective because of Click Next but because developers regard it as doing nothing but scroll function.

What’s on each page and how it’s represented impacts memory more in a page turner than in any other elearning. Content chunking “do’s and don’ts” and media principles for use of text, images, and audio exert a considerable impact of memory encoding. Works of Fleming, Levie, and Mayer remain the foundation of design of instructional message. Without application of these, it doesn’t matter what level of courseware you create—the learner is saving the information to a soon-to-be-deleted temp file! Application of the media principles enables the user to save information to his ready-to-be-accessed “See” drive.

Besides content design, a rapid elearning designer cannot afford to neglect the Component Display Theory. Component Display Theory maintains that to achieve higher levels of mastery, generalized content such as concepts, principles, and procedures need to be elucidated using a divergent range of examples and non-examples. This repository of examples and non-examples is the real interactive element of any learning.

Armed with a range of examples and non-examples, instructional designers can present the information using the inquisitory (Ask-then-reveal) method rather than the expository (Show-to-tell) method. Usually, it is the limited range of examples and non-examples that forces designers to rely of the standard rule-example sequence of presentation-activity-feedback routine. With more examples, presentation and feedback become integral to the learning activity.

To make your training more interactive, focus on the content development efforts for developing more examples and non-examples of the generalized content. What gets touted as Level 1, Level 2, Level 3 and Level 4 courseware is nothing but a description of the quality of examples embodied in a course. The more detailed and enriched an example, the closer it is to a reality-like simulation. Scenario-based practice and assessments utilize examples with the relevant details accentuated to make learning decisions possible.

To summarize, Click Next is not the culprit. To make rapid elearning more engaging, you need to work assiduously with the SMEs to develop more examples. Examples create opportunities for activities and activities yield better learner performance.

Article courtesy: http://tinyurl.com/mrncq3

It's not enough to be a professional, you also have to act like one - Clive Shepherd

The following post by Clive Shepherd focusses on the right attitude of a learning professional.

You wouldn't hire an interior designer only to inform them that you've already chosen all the colour schemes and furnishings; you wouldn't engage an accountant and then explain to them the way you wanted them to process your figures (unless of course you worked at Enron); you wouldn't employ a fitness trainer and then tell them what to include in your workout; you wouldn't buy a dog and then insist on doing all the barking.

So why, then, do we continue to encounter situations in which line managers tell the guys from l&d exactly what they want in terms of learning interventions, with the expectation that the they'll simply take those instructions and run. You'd like a 6-hour e-learning package to train customer service staff to sell over the telephone? A 2-day workshop to teach every detail of a new company system to all employees, regardless of whether or not they will be using it? A one-hour podcast to teach manual handling skills? No problem. That's what we're here for, to meet your requirements.

Hang on a minute, you’re probably thinking. This isn't an encounter between a professional and a client, it's simply order taking.

When asked to jump, a professional doesn't say "how high?” They say, "Let's talk about this a little, because jumping may not be the best solution in this situation." If this tactic doesn't work and the professional is told in no uncertain terms that jumping is the only acceptable option, he or she has two choices: either they resign and get another job where their role as a professional is valued; or, because resigning is not such a good option in the current job market, they agree to go ahead, but only after having expressed quite clearly in writing that jumping is against their best advice.

Learning and development isn't common sense; it isn't intuitive. If it was then experts wouldn't lecture at novices for hours on end; they wouldn't insist on passing on everything they know, however relevant, however comprehensible. That's why we have l&d professionals, so they can explain, in terms that the lay person can clearly understand, how people acquire knowledge and develop skills, and how best to support this process. If the customer doesn't hear this advice, they will assume that the people in l&d are just the builders, not the architects; and, if no-one seems to be offering architectural services, they'll do it themselves.

I've heard far too many feeble excuses from l&d people about the reasons why their courses are so dull and unengaging. "Don't blame me", they say, "it's what the management wanted." OK, but you've taken the courses in order to obtain the qualifications that enable you to put those magic letters after your name. You've obtained professional status, with the associated salary and status. But, I'm sorry but that's not enough. To be a professional, you also have to behave like one.

Read the orginal post here with the comments.

Skills for Learning professionals - Harold Jarche

Harold Jarche's take on what skills a learning professional should have in today's market.

In a Learning 2.0 world, where learning and performance solutions take on a wider variety of forms and where churn happens at a much more rapid pace, what new skills and knowledge are required for learning professionals?

That’s the LCB big question, and my article on Skills 2.0, written one year ago, addressed this very question. So when this question was posed I had to make sure that I hadn’t changed my perspective in the interim. My basic premise was that working and learning in networks is an important aspect of professionalism:

That’s the LCB big question, and my article on Skills 2.0, written one year ago, addressed this very question. So when this question was posed I had to make sure that I hadn’t changed my perspective in the interim. My basic premise was that working and learning in networks is an important aspect of professionalism:

Today, active involvement in informal learning, particularly through web-based communities, is key to remaining professional and creative in a field. Being a learning professional in a Web 2.0 world is becoming more about your network than your current knowledge.

I said that the main skill needed by learning professionals is attitude, especially being open to continuous learning and opening up your learning to public view in order to collaborate with other professionals. I’ve called this life in Beta.

In the past year, I’ve found that an open attitude is becoming more important. The people who blog or connect on Twitter can get things done quicker, find answers, get advice and can be more effective for their organizations. While working for a client this past week I used my online networks to quickly get advice that was important for the project. But you can’t do this without a network and it takes time to build trust. People usually have to know something about you before they help you out. Without some persistent point of presence (blog, Twitter, podcast), you’re invisible online unless you’re already famous.

Putting yourself out there as a learner first means that you may need to check your attitude before going online. People who pontificate or don’t help others may not be able to build a trusted network. This is even more evident on Twitter with its asymmetry, where people you follow don’t have to follow you back. Having no followers may be a sign that you don’t have much to give back to your network. That could make it more difficult to get information and advice when you need it. Twitter has amplified many aspects of blogging. You can follow more people, send out more (short) messages and get really quick feedback. This amplification will likely continue with future social networking technologies.

Last year, I concluded:

If we limit our conversations to only those in the same office, we’re missing out. People with larger and more diverse networks have an advantage as learning professionals and in dealing with change. This constant flow of sense-making through conversations in our workplace networks makes the idea of learning as a fixed event in a specific place look obsolete.

This year, I would add that it’s not just an advantage to belong to diverse professional networks but that the situation has tipped so that it is now a significant disadvantage to not actively participate in social learning networks.

Check the orginal article here.

The ROI of e-learning By Claire Schooley

An excellent article that explains the benefits, discusses potential costs and analyses the risk involved in implementing e-learning in organisations.

Online learning can earn companies a positive return on investment (ROI), and it can do that quickly. Smart companies provide employees with learning opportunities to keep skills and knowledge razor-sharp so employees produce quality work. In the past, employees typically learned in classrooms led by expert instructors. But that scenario has changed.

While face-to-face instruction offers the opportunity to interact in person with the instructor and classmates, and may be the first choice of most people, it is not realistic in today’s fast-paced global environment—technology opens up new learning options.

Self-paced learning, virtual classrooms, videoconferencing, informal learning through social networks and virtual worlds make up a dizzying array of environments for learning. Some are more instructor-led, and others are totally learner-driven. They are also cost-effective once the technology is in place and the company culture embraces other learning patterns.

Key benefits

Organizations implementing e-learning can expect several benefits that help drive business forward due to knowledgeable and well-skilled workers. Those advantages include competency speed, flexibility, consistency, repeatability and travel reduction. Learning directors can quantify the scale, timing and duration of those benefits by considering one or more key metrics and then calculating the value to the organization of improving those metrics over time.

Self-paced e-learning allows learners to assimilate content at their own speed—often 20 percent to 50 percent faster than in a classroom. If they understand a concept well, they can skim online material. If a module is difficult, learners can slow down, review material a second time or access online help. Search allows employees to find just the content section they need to reach competency faster and start producing sooner. Employees in global offices can fulfill course requirements in days rather than months using e-learning because of the reach and scalability of the technology.

Another benefit is that employees can learn at home, in a coffee shop, on an airplane or at any spot around the globe. Because of the ubiquitous nature of the Internet, they can access learning any time that fits into their schedule. For many employees, determining their own study time makes learning possible because their life circumstances don’t allow a traditional classroom approach. In fast-paced environments, learning on the go gives learners the flexibility they need.

The consistency of e-learning always delivers uniform content. Subject matter experts and instructional designers create content using adult learning principles, graphics and interactive media to provide the best learning experience and achieve learning objectives. And with e-learning, there’s no question as to whether a group at one location received the same learning as those at another location. All learners receive the same consistent content. Translations also provide content in learners’ native languages.

Also, although e-learning’s upfront costs are high depending on production values, content reuse makes it very cost-effective. Even with updates, XML technology enables developers to change specific learning objects, leaving the rest of the content untouched. Learners download course material, eliminating hard-copy duplication. Self-paced learning and recorded virtual classroom sessions are under user control, so learners can repeat sections they did not understand. This wouldn’t be possible in a classroom lecture where learners hear content once and hope they have taken good notes.

And finally, travel reduction provides additional savings. Auto and air travel with hotel and meal expenses for instructors and participants are prohibitive. Facility rental, technology connections and materials costs add more expense to face-to-face training. Some travel is necessary depending on circumstances, especially in a blended training, but the travel is less frequent and for shorter durations.

Key costs

Organizations that implement e-learning can expect certain costs, especially as they begin to ramp up the e-learning program. Those include additional technology infrastructure and new applications, in-house course content creation, acquired content vendor courses, additional staff and a PR/training program for employees so they understand and feel comfortable using the new learning approach.

The learning management system (LMS) is essential to manage e-learning. Today many organizations use a software-as-a-service (SaaS) e-learning implementation. That means the company pays a yearly fee for the LMS based on the number of users. The LMS resides with and is managed by the vendor. The yearly LMS cost includes maintenance and most upgrades. Organizations configure rather than customize their business processes because extensive LMS customization is not part of a SaaS strategy.

Each organization selects from a handful of virtual classroom vendors. In some cases the LMS vendor or content vendor offers a virtual classroom application. An organization can also use its existing Web conferencing provider if the application offers enhancements for virtual learning. The cost is based either on a fee for each named organizer (instructors) or on the number of concurrent users who will receive virtual classroom instruction at any given time. The virtual classroom application and the SaaS LMS connect through APIs.

Outside of subject areas where face-to-face interaction is necessary, recent research indicates that no significant differences exist in the effectiveness of learning through classroom, online or self-study. However, it is important to focus on a few key communication media and tools to ensure that this is the case.

Carefully developed graphics and visuals can help better explain new concepts. Visuals, graphics, simple simulations and even short videos contribute to a more visual approach to understanding concepts. That, combined with the instructor’s audio help, ensures good learning. In fact, some animated sequences in e-learning would be difficult to duplicate in the classroom.

Interaction through blogs, wikis and discussion boards can help learners see other points of view. The danger of isolation of online learners is mitigated by a plethora of interactive tools used to reinforce the learning. Although those tools are just beginning to be "wrapped around" existing formal learning, expect future informal learning to play an important role in corporate learning.

And, be sure that content is available to review multiple times. The opportunity to access specific sections of the learning content as many times as necessary to grasp key concepts provides a better overall understanding of the topic. Also, choosing the best time to learn puts the learner in a better frame of mind to learn.

While it may be tempting to assume a shift to e-learning is only about cutting costs, an over-reliance on the financial ROI justification risks compromising the current learning program’s effectiveness. Companies must objectively evaluate the financial impact on business when considering the adoption or avoidance of e-learning. E-learning can help address many critical business problems like supporting global employee learning, decreasing travel and expenses, and increasing productivity in a competitive environment. But companies need to do a careful assessment of the nature of internal and external learning at all levels of the business, especially the benefits, costs and risks.

Production tools allow in-house content development. In-house content production includes repurposing existing classroom content for online use and authoring new content specifically for e-learning. A potpourri of Sharable Content Object Reference Model (SCORM)-conformant authoring tools provides e-learning authors flexibility in the depth and variety of content they can create. Those include the easy-to-use, rapid e-learning development tools and the more traditional tools that require more in-depth knowledge and authoring experience.

Another cost occurs when content vendors provide off-the-shelf e-learning content that organizations license on a yearly or multiyear basis. Generally, organizations choose to license libraries of content like IT, business skills or desktop skills. They decide how many employees will access specific libraries and contract for that number of users. Those vendors also provide customizable print materials, mentoring and the ability to customize some of the e-learning course components.

Organizations engage a custom e-learning content development company for courses with content features beyond their in-house staff capabilities, courses that require more advanced tools for activities like simulations and branching, or learning that requires extensive concept development and course execution. Custom content organizations have creative architects, instructional designers and content developers highly skilled in planning and developing learning experiences.

Typical learning staff members include titles like learning and development director, online trainer, curriculum writer, instructional designer, Web designer and developer, graphic design specialist and LMS administrator. Some of those positions will be new hires; others will be role changes for existing learning staff. For example, some classroom instructors may develop skills as virtual classroom instructors. Especially in an organization with some decentralized learning, a learning specialist may become a consultant assisting lines of business in planning their e-learning.

Help desk staff must also be knowledgeable and ready to assist users. User assistance is generally the responsibility of specific employees within the organization’s help desk. Learning directors must ensure those employees are well trained on the applications and tools. During the initial weeks of the rollout, ensure that those LMS help desk people are available during extended hours to allow easy access to help for employees. The help desk should prepare FAQs to post online with the most frequently asked questions and prepare other do-it-yourself troubleshooting aids.

And, the creation of an e-learning culture is critical to success. Special informational and rollout programs determine the success of getting employee buy-in to e-learning. Involve internal marketing people to create LMS awareness during the program planning and launch. Create "traveling road shows" where employees can use the application, ask questions and begin to understand what an LMS is, why it’s important to the business and how to use it effectively. Give employees opportunities to participate in pilots and give feedback. Finally, continue providing assistance and the latest information after the rollout.

Risk analysis

No change—or avoidance of change—is without risk. Factoring that uncertainty into the analysis converts an optimistic and potentially unachievable plan into one with higher accuracy. It is helpful to refine initial estimates by factoring in three key risks.

The first is maintaining a strong relationship with vendors. Because of the SaaS deployment, the LMS and the virtual classroom implementations are significantly easier than installed applications. However, maintain strong relationships with the vendors and address any application issues immediately. Ensure that vendors provide adequate support for learners who may struggle with issues of system uptime, ease of use and access to course content.

The next risk is managing the high startup costs. The SaaS LMS is a predictable yearly cost so the upfront cost of the LMS and virtual classroom technology is not as significant as installed applications. However, the organization must hire new staff and retrain some existing staff to mentor learners, develop e-learning content and teach online. The organization must purchase new authoring tools or upgrade existing ones for content development. Communication messages must start before the applications are launched and continue during the implementation until the technology becomes an integrated part of employees’ daily work.

And the last is ensuring excellent, engaging content. Both repurposed and new e-learning content must provide engaging learner experiences. The statement "content is king" is true. You may have wonderful technology but without excellent content, e-learning fails. Spend the time to repurpose classroom content with graphics and activities appropriate to the objectives and expect that the e-learning course will look very different from the classroom version. Carefully select off-the-shelf content. From some vendors, you will select libraries; from other vendors, you will select individual courses. Preview those to make sure they fit with your objectives and are well done.

Article courtesy: http://www.kmworld.com/Articles/ReadArticle.aspx?ArticleID=54973&PageNum=1