The Connected Learner

A round and round we go

2010-12-07T18:39:00.000-08:00

I'll go ahead and jump the gun on 2011 predictions thanks to an end the semester in my Human Performance Technology course. The professor asked us to make our industry predictions for the next 2-5 years. Below is my somewhat blustery, preachy, but also hopeful response. Feel free to chime in and set me straight.

“[HPT] and training professionals are seen as a pair of hands to implement the clients’ ideas” (Ruth Clark in Pershing, p. 874, 2006).

In answer to what I see as trends in the next two to five years, to be honest, I see things remaining relatively the same. Which is to say, HPT professionals will continue to make headway in introducing evidence-based practices, in truly partnering with clients to enact business results, and in moving from order takers to solution providers.

The quotation above, which talks about HPT professionals being order takers for mainly training solutions, is from 2006. Ten years before that, in 1996, Joe Harless wrote that his prediction for HPT professionals to advocate value-driven solutions rather than training was just being realized (Harless, 1996). So, to speak of the training department evolving, I think it’s a slow process, but one that is chugging along.

In the next two to five years, I see the same patterns emerging as the last 100. Professionals in HPT, perhaps myself included, in all the best interests of course, will continue to accept and implement fads, many of which will probably have something to do with technology, but little to do with evidence-based practices. However, more and more often (and far more often than not), we will use evidence-based practices. We’ll conduct sound analysis, we’ll put forth worthy solutions, we’ll be systematic and systemic. And our results will be noticed, by our co-workers, by our peers in the industry, by our company’s leadership. We’ll blog about our lessons learned, we’ll formally submit our results in trade publications, we’ll share our war stories with each other at conferences, we’ll tweet the backchannel. We’ll continue the cycle of learning, doing, reflecting, researching.

In doing all of this, we’ll continue in our 100-year journey. We'll be setting the stage for a new department. One not called training. One not under the arm of HR. But a new one, that has not yet been named. One where IS, HR, training, and knowledge management come together. A department where performance meets results.

Sources
Harless, Joe. Training & Development. Alexandria: Jan 1996. Vol. 50, Iss. 1; pg. 52, 2 pgs

Pershing, James A. (2006). Handbook of human performance technology (3rd Edition), Pfeiffer: San Francisco, CA.

FarmVille for HPT

2010-10-11T13:30:00.001-07:00

Sounds like fun, doesn’t it! Way better than "systems thinking serious game for instructional designers and performance support practitioners."

Too bad we don’t have a FarmVille for HPT. But I digress for a moment. Today I attended a webinar hosted by Boise State University for the IPT program, and Elliot Rosenberg was the speaker. He did a fantastic job and the main tenet he spoke about was understanding the business of your client. I could really appreciate that and know that it’s an area that I could use some work.

In my current course, Human Performance Technology, I’ve read several articles in the “Handbook of HPT” that discuss why it’s important to partner with the business, speak their language, and use their measurements. The entire time Elliot was speaking, I kept going back to one particular article by Silber & Kearny called “Business Perspectives.” They present the Business Logics Model, and have to admit that I’m dying to create one for myself for my own organization.

Basically, they hone in on how to identify key elements of the business model of your client or company. Just enough so that you are versed in what’s important to them, you can converse about their business practices and opportunities, and you are using their language. What I really loved was that it addressed a popular question in the ID world: do you need an MBA as well as an ID degree to truly connect with the business world you work in. The simple answer in this article is no, you don’t need an MBA, but you do need to take a little time to become acquainted with their business.

Are you feeling tricked, now? All this talk, but what about FarmVille? Well, this webinar got me thinking about training teams in general and getting a seat at the table, so to speak. How training departments can be organized in different ways, can be connected within an organization in different ways to other departments such as OD, IS, ID, Comm, Marketing, etc. Different connections and hierarchies would achieve different results. Different skillsets connected to each other, distributed or consolidated, would lead to different environments for performance support. Which made me think, what if we made a modeling game out of it? Would we, as HPT practitioners, learn something? What would be our crops? What would be our tools? How would we lay out the farms and create a trading system with other farms? What would we list as best practices?

I’m not sure, but I want to play to find out!

Photo credit:

The Pug Father http://www.flickr.com/photos/fleur-design/428341583/

SharePoint for Training Purposes

2010-10-06T14:08:00.001-07:00

My real intent for writing this post is to get ideas from others for how they’ve used SharePoint to collaborate and manage a training project. Normally I’m a stellar Google-er, but in this case, the results are bogging me down. There’s just too much out there touting SharePoint and combined with the work training, oh my. So please, share your examples with me!

My Goals

I’m just getting started with using SharePoint with my clients, so I don’t have much to share yet. I have two goals for applying this technology for my training projects.

Reduce the emails in my inbox and to save a tree or three.
Make it so I can find what I’m looking for by creating a centralized location for our work.

Getting Started

By now I’m sure everyone and their mom has used SharePoint, but I’m quite new to it. I have participated in a few “large” projects using SharePoint, but those sites were created and maintained by others and my role was reactionary. Establishing a site for my own projects was quite a different perspective.

There are a lot of options, as well as limitations in what you can do. And some features (hello, lists!) are more complex than figuring out how many miles your food has traveled to your plate. This is especially where I’m hoping to get a few comments from you with ideas.

As I mentioned, the documentation out there is quite frustrating. So a lot of what I’ve been doing is trial and error.

One Example – Project Site

The first site that I made was for a one-time training project. I proposed it as an alternative to email and let me client know that we could abandon ship if needed. We’re still working on the project, and so far using SharePoint has been successful.

Two of the features we use the most include:

Shared Documents – I use this to store archival material as well as meeting minutes and agendas.
Wikis – As a collaborative space for task lists, objectives, hashing out job aids, etc.

Features that haven’t taken hold yet:

Calendar – I set up a calendar, but it’s actually clunky to get it to sync with my Outlook calendar (probably because of versioning). Hopefully this gets fixed in an upcoming upgrade.
Announcements – I make announcements, but I’m not sure that they’re read and my clients don’t add any, so it feels very one way.
To Do lists – I hope that we’ll use these more, but it feels more as if I’m assigning work than tracking who is doing what. I think I need a better way to manager this part.
Discussion board – This is still the beginning of the project, so we’re still having in-person meetings. Even so, I’m sensing it might be difficult to transition from meetings to the discussion board. I guess we’ll see.

Unexpected benefits that are really cool:

Transparency – There’s no hiding out on my behalf with the status of the project. My progress is visible and I like that.
Organization – I was hoping for a way to keep track of things and not lose decisions in buried emails. But I had no idea how clean it would be. I don’t even have a file folder for this project. It’s all on the site! And my email file is super tiny.

Frustration:

Bugs/usability – Sometimes I just can’t figure things out. In my Shared Docs, I found that it’s difficult to move a document once in a folder, so I had to redo the entire thing to use “categories” instead. I’ve run into a few similar things where it’s the interface that makes it hard.

Another Example – Team Site

Another project that I haven’t got off the ground yet is to find a way for a team of people with training-related functions to collaborate and communicate. When I went to set up the site I realized the “project” based site wouldn’t fit the need. This situation was different because it doesn’t have a start and an end – or phases along the way. I still haven’t figured out exactly how to achieve all of my goals.

I want to be able to:

Track tasks for different people – But I can’t decide if this should be done per person, by type of work, or all in one big list.
Make a single place to document upcoming training sessions – This I think I may have figured out. For each new training session, I’ll create a wiki where we can document things like dates and times, location, student names, facilitator names. This should be great. One big challenge right now is that this information changes to the last second, so having one place to go will really help.
Make a place to document decisions about various training programs and courses.
Make it so that if I or other people leave their roles, the site will continue on without disruption.

I can post more as I get the site set up. Definitely send ideas if you have them. I’m sure I’m not the first to cross this bridge.

Change in Graduation Plans

2010-03-24T09:23:00.000-07:00

An Unexpected Delay

Last week I was dealt a devastating blow – I learned I’ll graduate a semester later than I thought. Instead of this December, I won’t toss my cap until next May. Seems the graduation process is a little more involved than I thought and my advisor recommended giving it the commitment it deserves. I’ll write up 3 case studies of past projects, present them in a short speech, and then take 45 minutes of Q&A from two of my past professors.

Reflecting on What I Learned

Actually, it sounds like fun. A chance to marinate in metacognition. I’ll relook at a lot of what I learned in the past three or four years with the goal of spotting patterns and connections among models and theories. It’ll also give me a chance to clean up my 10 stuffed binders of old class material and find things I forgot about. I plan to convert all the goodies to some type of digital personal library of references and job aids. I’m giddy just thinking about it. Really.

A Lifelong Learner
The downside is that I got ahead of myself. I was already making reading lists and planning little classes I could join like gardening or knitting. I even had thoughts of what I could learn next in the ISD field. I’m a big believer in having a solid base. I’m not the sort to just jump in. So, for me, learning instructional design and performance engineering meant knowing the basics and the history and the theories – which is where my Master’s program comes in. I also believe that a base is not the end. It’s just the beginning.

The fun begins when you can build off of the base and explore from there. I started foraging a while back, but not properly, just getting my toes wet. So, I’m disappointed that I’ll have to postpone it even longer. In my next post, I’ll toss out my ideas for transitioning from a cultivated ISD garden to a wild ISD garden, dynamic, bountiful, and full of unexpected treasures.

Photo credit:

Car tire - http://www.flickr.com/photos/anijdam/ / CC BY 2.0
Wildflowers - http://www.flickr.com/photos/drachenspinne/ / CC BY 2.0

Slashing sloth in elearning

2010-03-15T14:20:00.000-07:00

According to a wikipedia entry without citation, “sloth can also indicate a wasting due to lack of use, concerning a person, place, thing, skill, or intangible ideal that would require maintenance, refinement, or support to continue to exist.” It also mentions that sloth can be equated with inactivity and being idle.

That sets a couple red –alert sirens off in my head. Can you guess what the most likely things are to be ignored with elearning? Say it with me: evaluation, assessments, and user testing. Those are so big that we should say it again. Evaluation. Assessments. User Testing. Let’s call them the Big Three.
Why Me?
In my experience, sloth doesn’t always begin with the elearning designer or developer. But it sets in eventually, after time and time again, a million reasons come up for not doing the Big Three. Oh, there’s a manager who says there aren’t the resources…this time. Or the client who says they aren’t necessary and, futhermore, they haven’t the time to implement them. Or IT who says, sorry, we can’t use that survey tool. Or this or that. I’m sure you’ve heard them, too.

So, eventually, what happens? You don’t even think about them anymore. It would take too much work. Why bother if it’s been working as it is? Introduce Mr. Sloth Creep.He’s a slimy fella who lives in dark places.

Starting from Scratch
Now that we’ve identified the problem, what can we do about it? That’s tough. First, I think we need to channel our old unjaded fresh-faced self. The one who could conquer the elearning world, the one who eats programming languages for lunch, destroys Next buttons in a single blow, and can wrestle LMS’s to their death. That’s right, we need to forget every obstacle we’ve faced and every excuse we’ve used. We need to begin anew.

Small Steps
Then what? I think then we need to take a deep breath and humble ourselves. Yes, we are mighty elearning heros, but heros can be made by making a hundred small wins just as well as one big one. What I mean is that we need to set our sights smaller, be realistic, and give up the idea of perfection. (Not forever!) The pursuit of perfection can make mountains seem higher than they are. Small goals. Small forays. Begin forging the path for the Big Three and before you know it, you have standards, precendents, habits. And you can build on those.

Where to Go
What does that look like in an elearning world? Here are some ideas to chew on:

Evaluation: By evaluation, I’m referring to the process and pursuit of showing that your elearning project has merit and value to its sponsors and students. I just happen to be studying this right now, so I can pull out some big fancy stuff. Seriously, though, the class has opened my eyes to reasonable methods for collecting proof and showing causation. Instead of ROI getting you down, try my favorite: the Success Case Method. While it’s not specific to elearning, it is specific to training. Basically, the author reasons that there’s a percentage of people who are going to use your training for great things. Find them and get their stories. They will be able to pinpoint ways to improve training. They will also indicate the potential value of your training and prove how meaningful it is. The book I’m reading on the topic is Telling Training’s Story: Evaluation Made Simple, Credible, and Effective.

Assessment: If you’re feeling a little queasy from the repetive cycle of lesson, multiple choice quiz, lesson, multiple choice quiz, go wild instead. Case studies and braching scenarios are two of my favorites. Present a challenge, an actual challenge – as in something hard to do and set the student on figuring it out using resources that you provide them. They might answer multiple choice tests to do so, but so what. The point is that you’re not asking retention-based questions, you’re pushing them to the doing and thinking stages. Another way is to ditch the elearning altogether and break into a blended mode. Pause after a lesson or two and send them on an activity presented by a coach or mentor or manager in their work area. If it’s software, Captivate is an obvious answer. Ditch the quiz altogether and put them in the software and give them an actual task to complete. This one takes a little practice and inspiration to break out of the mold. One of my favorite places to get inspiration for thinking outside the box is the dy/dan blog. Just look at his work for digital storytelling and assessment.

User testing: Don’t wait until you have an entire user interface created along with color palette and icon set. Oh no. Take the Yahoo approach and go for incremental change. Today make a new button and ask a few people what they think. Put it in context and see if 5 co-workers use it correctly. Then experiement with a new drag and drop exercise. Watch a few people use it. Then try a new menu bar and see how people react to it. Tackling bits is much easier to get clear feedback on and to fix. Some great ideas and resources can be found on UIE’s site.

Elearning Without Envy

2010-01-22T12:13:00.000-08:00

Here we are again. Another week, another Deadly Sin to cleanse from our elearning. This week we’re going to check the green-eyed monster called Envy. Mr. Envy is like the Hulk. He’s a normal, sweet guy, but once provoked he’s a seething pit moshing psycho on a mission. Lest that be us, here’s some ways to quell the jealousy.

Just to make sure we’re all talking about the same thing, let’s start with the Wikipedia definition:

Envy (also called invidiousness) may be defined as an emotion that "occurs when a person lacks another's (perceived) superior quality, achievement, or possession and either desires it or wishes that the other lacked it."

What Is Elearning Envy?

What does this have to do with elearning? I’m thinking it’s like the time I went to an elearning demo put on by Big Name Training Company. Man, did they ever have great stuff. Their training simulations were so slick, so cool, so…what I wanted, nay, needed, to have. Immediately I wanted to rush back to my workbench and start chiseling, hammering, gouging and whatever else it took or cost to craft something like that. Wouldn’t it look nice on my resume. Wouldn’t it be so shiny and pretty. Everyone would love me. My life would be complete and I’d be lauded for time ever more.

Sound familiar, even a teensy weensy less-dramatic bit?

Basically, I sum up elearning envy as wanting the Bling for Bling’s sake. Who doesn’t want their elearning to be pretty and do cool things and make people stop and say Wow? Who doesn’t want to play with all the new technology and tools? But having a reason to get your elearning all gussied up is another matter. And then there’s also the whole worth thing. Sure there might be a reason to buy a fancy, new car – but is it worth it?

Stop the Elearning Envy Train

Consider what performance the Bling would effect. Is that performance worthwhile? Take a look at Thomas Gilbert’s notion of worth at Dave’s Whiteboard. No effect, no dice. No worth, no deal. Take a look at Cathy Moore’s Action Mapping to help hone in on what should be in the training.

Recognize what you have. Get creative with your tools. All you have is PowerPoint? Then get yourself a copy of Powerful PowerPoint for Educators. http://www.loyola.edu/edudept/PowerfulPowerPoint/ You can do quizzes, calculate results, branching, all sorts of things expensive tools do. No pretty graphics? Use the Microsoft Gallery, which is free as long as you own Office. Need other media, check the Creative Commons site for all sorts of great *free* media.

Learn a programming language. Okay, I hear the groans already. But sometimes, bypassing tools and being able to do it yourself unlocks your potential. I don’t do it often anymore, but when necessary, using HTML, JavaScript, and CSS can let you churn out some great stuff. Without needing software tools that cost thousands of dollars.

Take into account cognitive load. Do you really want to use video, animation, voiceover, avatars, podcasts, and flying monkeys? Instead of spending hundreds of hours building all of that, spend 3 hours reading up on some Ruth Clark articles. From the library or the Internet. For free. You might save yourself a lot of hassle.

Fall back on the real basics. Great analogies. Simple, but clear drawings. Stories that illustrate. Job aids that they’ll use. A place to take notes. The ARCS model, which focuses on attention, relevance, confidence, and satisfaction.

The lesson here is that Bling is not an indication of true value. All the Bling in the world won’t make your students learn. It won’t even make them give high marks on a smile sheet. Students want to know that their needs are met, that they are learning what they need to, and that they can use the skills/knowledge from the training. They’ll put up with crappy media. They’ll put up with shoddy materials. But they won’t put up with crappy results and content. Give them what matters.

For fun, tell me your elearning envy story. Or, share your tricks for keeping the right things in focus. I hope I'm not alone in this!

Lose the Wrath in Elearning

2010-01-16T09:42:00.000-08:00

Good e-learning doesn’t just happen and great e-learning takes a lot of thought. But bad elearning, well, that’s easy. How do I count the ways in which elearning can veer off the Happy Road and do a spectacular gut-wrenching dive towards death? Using the Seven Deadly Sins of course---it’s only fitting. I’ll cover each of the seven sins separately, and I’ll begin with Wrath.

Wrath

Wikipedia: also known as anger or "rage", may be described as inordinate and uncontrolled feelings of hatred and anger. These feelings can manifest as vehement denial of the truth, both to others and in the form of self-denial, impatience with the procedure of law, and the desire to seek revenge outside of the workings of the justice system (such as engaging in vigilantism) and generally wishing to do evil or harm to others.

Applied to training, I interpret avoiding wrath to mean, “Don’t hate on the student.”

Fundamental to teaching adults (or andragogy) is the principle that adults have a wealth of knowledge and experience. Whether classroom or elearning or m or s or whatever type of learning, it helps to know that your students are intelligent, have relevant experience to share, and want to excel.

How can this be applied to elearning?
Let the student have as much control of the course as is possible. Let the student skip pages or questions, provide multiple paths through the course, let the student move forward as well as backward, encourage the student to cheat during tests, and provide choices.

Make things difficult. Do not design for the “lowest common denominator.” Design for experts and experts you shall have. (And what happens if you do the opposite? Design for dummies and….) If using branching scenarios, make the options tough and ambiguous. When writing, go ahead and use big words, heck, use big thoughts. Do whatever you can to challenge your learners. Don’t let them settle in to the course for a rest. Keep them active and thinking. Make them feel their synapses firing.

Don’t get up on your high horse. Keep in mind that you’re one adult speaking to another adult. So, while I said to go ahead and use big words, that doesn’t mean to get all proper about it. Conversational is better. And, don’t be all “you should” and “I’m telling you.” Lead the way, but unless absolutely necessary, show the way instead of telling the way.

Well, that covers Wrath. Love thy student. Do you have other instances of how not to hate on the student? Add ‘em below. More deadly sins will be coming soon.

Here Comes 2010 and There Goes 2009

2009-12-29T11:40:00.000-08:00

Instead of writing a coherent end-of-year wrap up, I’m going to cram every meme in here and run through a gamut of topics from training to life to music to TV. I’ll go from light to heavy, so you can drop out before the going gets tough.

2009 Things That I’m Proud Of

I’m a proud mother of a beautiful baby boy.
I finally blogged!
I made it through several graduate classes – while pregnant and dead tired.
I was promoted to instructional designer.
I joined in the #lrnchat and LearnTrends fun.
I drove a car.
I joined a gym. (Only went three times, but no matter, it counts as something.

2009 Picks

The Deadweather
Method cleaning products, especially the cherry scented wood cleanser
Glee
The True Blood, Hung, Entourage line up on Sundays
Twitter
Lionheart washpod, large swaddling blankets from Target, Similac instant bottles, Aveeno lotion
Boswell Books, Freckle Face, Franklin Chocolate, Sparrow
South Shore Farmer’s Market
Café Central, Honeypie, Mai Thai
Sahara Café (now Yum Yum)

2009 Yucks

Chocolate coated bacon on a stick (whowouldathunkit)
Bulleted lists in Word
Yum Yum (formerly Sahara Café)
Service at Christie’s Pub & Grill (wouldn’t know how the food tastes)
Awful ending of Twilight series (not that the books were good, either)
iPhone/AT&T rates
The word “meme”

2010 Instructional Designer Goals

If I could forecast a path for myself – like the green line path from the Fidelity commercial* – where would my green path lead me? What distractions will try to lead me astray? How will I stay on the path?
As my first year as a full-fledged instructional designer (no matter that my title says “trainer” as it’s not likely I’ll find myself in front of a class of students) and instructional/multimedia developer, I want to give myself some mantras.

I, Jade Kazmierski, instructional designer extraordinaire, vow to:

Keep it simple. – Don’t train if it’s not needed. Don’t write a course if one is not needed. Don’t create a job aid if one is not needed. Go small.
Make results matter. Make people matter. – It’s not about content. It’s not about technology. It’s not about tools. It’s not about training. It’s about what works and the people involved. It’s about performance.

Also, to get the most from my year, I will do my best to balance the following:

Structure – I will organize the madness, plan my days, work diligently, set and achieve goals, and move forward.
Inspiration – I will seek out and permit randomness, chaos, craziness, and fun. I will meet new people, listen, learn, read, write, reflect, and enjoy.

Okay, so things got a bit lofty and heady there. I apologize. Sincerely. As for concreteness, here are some areas of focus for 2010:

Experimenting with instructional graphics
Dipping my toes in Adobe Flash & ActionScript
Graduating from my Master’s program (Boise State, MS Instructional & Performance Technology)
Designing after-the-fact and before-the-fact practice and follow ups for classes

*Fun fact: The Fidelity green-line commercials were directed by James Mangold – also known for directing 3:10 to Yuma, Walk the Line, and Girl Interrupted.

2010 Predictions for Learning

I’m pretty cloistered where I work, so much out there doesn’t apply to me. From that perspective, here’s my stab at next year’s big happenings.

Majority of inhouse training areas continue to be DIYers, with low budgets, and limited tools, cordoned off by IT.
Social remains a dirty word, a fad, and a relevant strategy.

Oops, none of those are actually predictions. Let me try again.

Learning theory triumphs and major-breakthroughs are had via evidence-based practices and workplace studies.

Oops, that’s just a wish. One more time.

Learning professionals unite socially and share what they know and like. Great times are had by all.

Oops, that’s what happened in 2009. Really, this time I’ll do it. It’s tough though since gaming, virtual, social, mobile, micro, distributed and open source are all past years’ predictions. What could possibly be new this year? Perhaps I’d better cheat and borrow from other industries and experts.

Augmented reality: While only the top echelon will attempt or have the means to experiment with this from a training perspective, ideas will begin to trickle out. While social media platforms finally become a viable option for many learning professionals, augmented reality tools will be the new envy.
Neuroimaging: While still considered bubblegum science, learning professionals will continue to eat up the new studies that have learning implications. However, like all good fads, there is real benefit in the science and a few tidbits will be gleaned that will help us improve our field of study.

Coined Phrases

I’m not sure what these mean, but I like how they sound and I’m tossing them out there in the hopes that I’ll actually coin my own big phrase for the year. Also, who knows – they could be actual predictions.

Learning locavores - Not sure what this really means, but it’s alliterate and it combines the big 2010 locavore movement that will replace the green hype. It will have something to do with location-based services and just-in-time learning.
Indexed moments – See twitter discussion. Experiences in virtual worlds indexed by search engines.

What I Learned in 2009 About Learning

Seeing as I’m currently a “learning” student and a “learning” professional, I better have learned something.

From classes/coursework

Instructional Design – Having informally studied ADDIE and been immersed in it at work, I thought this would be a no-brainer. Thankfully it wasn’t. I studied Merrill’s instructional model and his First Principles, which is a problem-based approach to training. Aside from the model, which really hones the training into need-to-have material and proficiency at doing, the focus was on alignment. All phases of the approach, all materials, all strategies had to be aligned. One step this or that way, and everything else had to be shifted.
Job Aids & Electronic Performance Support – So, I got a bit of a shock in this class. I thought it would be about creating job aids. Nope. My bad. It was really about EPSSs and “job performance aids” and how job aids are merely a small portion of that and only become meaningful when served up as part of a system, with a focus on performance. The job aid cannot simply be a bandaid to a system glitch. Or a checklist of steps. It must be a system complete with measurements It was a bizarre foray into EPSSs indeed with a very “nutty” professor. Some of the readings were so tough I had to read them 10 times and they still went over my head. Sometimes it’s nice to be so startled and out of it.
Instructional Strategies – Worked examples, case based learning, concept mapping, self-questioning, summarizing, advance organizers, adjunct questions, problem solving, feedback, reciprocal teaching, cognitive apprenticeships. Learning strategies abound. While they may seem intuitive, they go much deeper than being just a bag of tricks. First, it’s hard to apply a strategy that you don’t know exists. Second, like many learning myths, strategies are not always what they seem. Intuition can lead you astray. I was often surprised at what the studies revealed – what seems like it should work does not – or only with particular conditions.

On the job

Standards – Ugh. Having toiled in creating standards all year long, I can attest that they verge on being a bane and banal. But if more than one person is working on something, they sure do come in handy. My lesson is to start them early, rather than later. To document. To keep things simple. To work towards a common goal and from a shared perspective. Producing quality training materials should not be a every-man-for-himself event. While there needs to be room for creativity and innovation, standards focus on quality and time savings. Standards matter.

In life

Life does not come with an LMS – If O want to remember what I learned, I have to purposely reflect, organize, track, and evaluate my progress. While I learn a lot informally, I’m not sure how much is retained. I know informal learning is a hot topic and may be considered an elevated view of training, but when it comes down to it – what can I remember and what can I do proficiently? On my own, I tend to rake in a lot of bits, but usually not enough to be proficient. To reach that, I have to take a more formal approach as a self-directed, autonomous learner. I need a plan, I need accountability. But, like informal learning, I need the desire or the need.

As a student

Group projects – Are these made solely to torture students? Maybe. But I must acknowledge the fact that they definitely mirror life. Project management is the “other” side of work. The same concepts apply to school as they do on the job. While I sometimes feel that I have project management coming out of my ears, I have to admit that I could always use more.
Ambivalent assignments – While they pose a challenge, they also equal freedom. I struggled with an ill-defined project. I didn’t know where to start, what was expected, what was the point. And I never did find out. But at the end, I had completed a great concept project and actually enjoyed my work.

More Than "The End" - Ideas on Ending an Elearning Course

2009-12-07T20:43:00.000-08:00

Saying "The End" to a student completing an elearning course isn't always enough.

Especially when asychronous, the challenge is how to make the ending more interactive or blended by breaking out of the content-dump mode. Rushing through the ending of a course is one of the pitfalls of the content-dump mode. This means providing something more than a summary and restatement of the course objectives. Or a long exam. It's good to do those things, but it's not enough by themselves.

One way to break past that mindset is to use the "Integration" concept from David Merrill's First Principles (pdf), which also includes Activation, Demonstration, and Application.

As I discovered when completing a school assignment based on the First Principles of learning, integration grounds the learning in the worker's world and includes activities based on the ideas of "watch me," "reflection," and "creation."

Here are some of my brainstormed ideas on how to wrap up an elearning course. Some fall into the pure asychronous category, other's assume more blended methods that rely on mentor, subject matter expert, or manager involvment.

Questions - Ask the student to write down three questions for a SME. Make sure that formal time is set aside in a timely manner following the training course for discussing the questions. (As the instructional designer, make sure to get these questions as well, as a form of formative evaluation.)
Tips - One week following the class (so they have had some time to apply the training to their jobs), ask students to write down three tips. With the help of a SME, document the tips and provide them as a tipsheet to the students. Or, depending on the job or task, post the tips where they will be used. Also consider creating a job aid to be used in future classes from the tip sheet, possibly refining after each subsequent class.
Journaling - Ask students to "journal" their learning experience and takeaways in whatever manner they are comfortable with or technology allows. This could mean pen and paper, Word, Twitter, blogs, discussion boards, wikis, podcasts, or video casts.
Mind maps - Rather than a test (especially if it's only multiple choice), ask the student to concept map the course (or lesson). This also can be paper-based or online using one of the many free softwares for mindmapping. Allow the student to review the course while doing the map and provide a page in the course with a menu to all main sections of the course. Let the student know if it's for their own use or whether it will be reviewed by someone such as a subject matter expert or manager.
Next steps - Point the student to additional or related materials or ask the students to seek out next steps. This could also include creating a plan for what they want to learn next about the topic and how they will learn it.
Experiences - Conduct a classroom follow up, email discussion, or online chat (Skype, Second Life, discussion board, Tweetchat, WebEx) to talk about lessons learned. An example might be doing a session one-week after the class and asking each student to share how they've encountered the what they learned that week and how it went, good or bad, and why.

Self-Paced Elearning: How long is just right?

2009-11-30T14:25:00.000-08:00

This course will take approximately _____ minutes to complete.

How many minutes, hours, days do you think should be entered in the blank above. If you were sitting at your desk, how much of your day would you like to spend taking an online training course?

How Much Time?
This is a question that the elearning team I work on tried to answer and, to be honest, I'm not quite sure we've figured it out yet.

Like many before us and many after us - our first elearning courses were very long. Like over 3 hours long. Overkill. There's only so much you can take in while staring at a screen. Most recently, we decided that no course would be more than 20 minutes. Which was a nice try, but not quite realistic. To accomodate more content/practice we decided to "string together" 20 minute courses by having a main hub for a course. Which works in theory, yet due to technology and tracking course completion, it only caused a distracting mess for the student when finishing a "sub" course and beginning a new one. Which brings us to our current understanding: courses can be longer than 20 minutes, but 2 hours is too much. Very flexible.

Timing Considerations
Here are some of my thoughts on determining how long a course should last. Some are hard-earned practical considerations I've learned, others are more textbook repeats.

Also, please note that I'm not saying that you pass a decree that all courses should be a specific length. It's more about making sure that students aren't spending too much or too little time on a single course.

Audience - It may be obvious, but you might ask the potential students how long they would like to spend on the topic.
Managers - This can swing either way. If the manager believes it to be an important topic, they might think it requires a long training session. But in our whirlwind time and push to produce and work like crazy, the manager might put strict limits on the time they can afford their staff to be away.
Spaced Learning - This is one of my favorites and not one that I've successfully built on yet. But I really like the idea of giving students small chunks on a regular basis until proficiency is achieved. For example, 20 minute course/activities every Monday for three months.
Real Time - Not real time as in synchronous all-togther learning, but analyzing how much time workers (aka students) really have. If they only have 30 minutes, then work with that, otherwise they will do the dreaded "multitasking" (which we know is synonmous with "not really paying attention") while taking the course.
Practice & Content & Testing - Do you plan to have all three? Following ADDIE helps ensure retention and means that you should usually have all three, but it also means that you will be battling bulging course times.
Extras - Balance is key here. Extras can include job aids, manuals, video clips, even graphics. The more you load into the course, the more you load on the student (i.e., cognitive load) and the more you load on to the time to complete the course. Beware of text dumps. Beware of glam.
Single Courses vs Multiple Courses - This builds on some of the things above. Does everyone in the audience need the same thing? Maybe smaller courses can hold things that aren't in common across the board. Does the worker need everything today in order to do the job tomorrow? Maybe give them the basics today and "advanced" or additional information later.

I'm sure there's a lot more, but these are some things to think about when analyzing a future or existing elearning course and deciding if it beats the clock.

Elearning Standards and Styleguides

2009-11-19T07:43:00.000-08:00

Dream Team

Compared with where I started, and where I know many elearning DIYers are right now, I'm extremely lucky to work with a team of people that skills span many disciplines. I'd even say it's a DIY dream team. There is a wealth of knowledge and skills including Flash development (programming and animations), illustration and graphics, video production, technical writing, seo - not to mention years of experience with the whole gamut of software and project management.

A Big Mess

This team didn't happen overnight - it grew over years, and with each new person came new ways of doing things. So we found ourselves in a mire of standards and preferences. You could look at a course and tell who did it.

Standards

That's when we decided to create some standards. Holy moly. A year later and we're still not done. But we're nearly there and we've all learned a lot along the way. In future postings I'll try to present some of our Ah Ha's, decisions, and findings. If you have any questions, feel free to use the Comments to ask.

Some of the things we've tackled include defining course types, uses for our software, templates, and best practices for interactivity and UI.

Reflection & Meta-Cognition

2009-11-18T13:00:00.000-08:00

My meta-cognition practices have definitely been lagging, as evidenced by this neglected blog. Oh, I was still deliberately learning and being mindful of how I learned - but I wasn't reflecting all that much.

My college days were filled with self-assessments - one for each assignment, each paper, each project, each test (anyone from Alverno can speak to this). I never wanted to write another self-assessment. What else could I say about myself? Meta cognition is about purposeful self-assessment, learning from successes and failures, what worked and what didn't.

Today, a presenter at LearnTrends 2009, summed up meta cognition as learning how to learn and being aware of learning. And reflecting on what you are learning - formally and informally is part of that. And, a blog, of course, is a perfect place to do that.

Now, while I haven't been doing this well, there's no time like the present. My maternity leave has rejuvenated me. Time off work, time off school - nothing but me and the baby and a silent house. It has given me time to think, make some new goals, and rekindle old ones.

Soon I'll be back in the whirlwind: a new promotion at work as an instructional designer, a new class starting on Evaluation, plus blog readings, twitter, and #lrnchats - so I should have plenty to reflect on.

How I got here and where I am - a journey of online participation

2008-05-04T11:27:00.000-07:00

My final assignment for Learning Theories is to write a paper on any learning theory. That leaves it pretty wide open! As usual, I'm having a hard time nailing down exactly what stance I want to take. As my topic I chose Web 2.0, Communities of Practice, and probably with a little Wlodkowski's Cultural Motivation thrown in. Now what do I say...

As part of the paper, I thought I might be able to share my own experiences. I was making a few notes in the outline of my paper, but thought better of it. I'm here as a blogger to reflect, so I should put my reflections in a post. So what follows is a brief (ok, long) summary of my journey into this crazy, crazy online web 2.0 world.

Years ago, my ever so thoughtful husband bought me a pink iPod and a pink jogging suit for Valentine's day. Can you say sweet? I can't remember the year, but as a clue it was a first generation iPod mini. It must have been around the same time that I had bought my first computer - a Mac mini. It didn't take me long to discover podcasts in iTunes. I was addicted instantly, even falling asleep listening to them at night. I had to give up my music, since all my memory was taken up by podcasts. However, my interest slowly faded - it was constant work to sync and charge the iPod. The iPod ended up in the pile of abandoned things.

Around the same time as the iPod entered my life, so did participating on message boards. (Or maybe the message boards came first.) There's a couple I'll check in on daily. I got used to talking online publicly with others, albeit anonymously. I'll admit to being a bit embarrassed about sounding geeky/crazy to friends, as I'd say things like "yeah, I heard about [insert something cool] that!" Only to have to admit that it was someone online who had told me. Apparently, not everyone talks to people and forms relationships online! As I became more comfortable with message boards, I used them for professional reasons such as getting computer and programming help from tech boards. I was even subscribed to a couple listservs for elearning. (Anyone remember CourseBuilder for Dreamweaver?)

Now jump forward to 2007. I discovered blogs. Yes, they had been around for quite a bit already, and I read them here or there, but they weren't part of my routine. Suddenly, however, they became important to me. I found instructional designers! My manager was encouraging me to become one, but I wasn't sure. Finding all those blogs created interest for me. I felt curious, compelled, motivated. Passion formed. I built a huge subscription base in Google Reader. I checked it almost daily (and still do). I also joined LinkedIn after reading a news article about it. Why is that important? Because it was the first time I wasn't anonymous on the web. It was more than a little frightening to me. Then I signed up for school! That was a big step - committing to a Masters program. An online Masters program. I give blog reading a lot of credit for that, but I also owe thanks to my manager for prodding me, and also credit goes to plain, old luck - for just happening to work within a training team because there was no where else to put me (as a web developer).

To summarize up until this point: I talked on message boards, listened to podcasts, and read blogs, and was a member of LinkedIn. I started going to school for IPT (instructional and performance technology). Now here is where the next major step comes in. I started feeling like I was on the outskirts. I was reading the blogs, and even left a comment here or there - anonymously. But it didn't feel like enough. Creeping into my thoughts was the idea that I too should be a blogger. What a scary proposal! Took me several months to actually step up to it. And now I'm here. Trying to figure out my place. Learning etiquette. Talk to myself :)

And to bring it full circle with the start of this post, the next step was my instructor saying that maybe an idea for my final paper could be on blogs and Communities of Practice due to a small assignment where I applied online participation to the stages of "legitimate peripheral participation." Well...I could do that from an academic point of view OR (big or) I could do it from a personal perspective. I jumped the hurdle and started this blog. Not more than a couple days later, I got an invite through an e-newsletter to join LearningTown (a ning site). Then I heard a podcast by some teachers talking about Twitter. So I joined Twitter. Then I did some research on popular Web 2.0 sites in preparation for my final paper. I discovered thesixtyone.com, a social networking site for discovering music. Then I decided to give a little personalization to my blog by adding badges for my delicious links, twitter, linkedin, and thesixtyone. I am truly connected and it has been a whirlwind couple of weeks.

Where do I go from here? According to a Pew survey, I'm not a "creator" - I don't find media and rework into my own artistic formats. That would be interesting to try. I also need to continue participating - blogging and commenting. Maybe I can put my digital camera to use and start a flickr account. It'd be great to have an iPhone to keep me connected while away from home. Another big step - letting IRL-people know that I'm here. So, far I've been shy (i.e., scared silly) to admit that. It's one thing for strangers who are doing the same things to know about this, but it's quite another to fess up to people who don't even own computers or cell phones. They'll think I'm nuts! In in terms of work, perhaps a little too radical. Those however are my own fears and not necessarily fair to people I know. Time to get over it.

To conclude, if anyone is out there reading this - any suggestions for me? Where do I go from here? How can I make my experience richer, more purposeful, more beneficial to me or others? Because that's what it's all about.

Foundations of Instructional & Performance Technology

2008-05-03T06:19:00.001-07:00

Yonnie Chyung published her book titled Foundations of Instructional and Performance Technology. I received copies of the chapters for my introductory class to the Boise State IPT program. What I liked most were all the diagrams showing concepts, a synthesis of sources for any given topic, and the clear explanations. From someone with very scattered learning on the subject, it was helpful to bring everything back to fundamentals and start with a concrete schema.

Nomads

2008-04-28T08:56:00.000-07:00

A special report from economist.com discusses a new tribe of nomads - those unwired mobile users, always connected to each other.

Another big misunderstanding of previous decades was to confuse nomadismwith migration or travel. As the costs of (stationary) telecommunications
plummeted, it became fascinating to contemplate “the death of distance” (the title of a book written by Frances Cairncross, then on the staff of The Economist). And since the early mobile phones were aimed largely at business executives, it was assumed that nomadism was about corporate travel in particular. And indeed many nomads are frequent flyers, for example, which is why airlines such as JetBlue, American Airlines and Continental Airlines are now introducing in-flight Wi-Fi. But although nomadism and travel can coincide, they need not.

Humans have always migrated and travelled, without necessarily living nomadic lives. The nomadism now emerging is different from, and involves much more than, merely making journeys. A modern nomad is as likely to be a teenager in Oslo, Tokyo or suburban America as a jet-setting chief executive. He or she may never have left his or her city, stepped into an aeroplane or changed address. Indeed, how far he moves is completely irrelevant. Even if an urban nomad confines himself to a small perimeter, he nonetheless has a new and surprisingly different relationship to time, to place and to other people. “Permanent connectivity, not motion, is the critical thing,” says Manuel Castells, a sociologist at the Annenberg School for Communication, a part of the University of Southern California, Los Angeles.

I have to admit that I'm not quite a mobile nomad. I avoid my cellphone as much as possible. I get a bit annoyed while eating dinner and a friend checks her text messages. But I'm part way there. I have this blog, I'm on LearningTown, I'm playing around with Twitter and Spaz, I want an iPhone, and I may have even texted a photo or two to a friend.

So, is it me? Or do these articles seem a little off, a bit not there - like hip parents trying to appreciate their son's latest and favorite band, but not really getting it?

Where I see a disconnect is in the lack of Web 2.0 discussion. Or in the idea of weak ties getting weaker while family and close friend ties grow. For instance, bringing Twitter into the discussion, (or even blogs/comments for that matter), would add a new dimension to the worries about not interacting "with the wider society around them" or not gaining from the various viewpoints of strangers. In my opinion, there is probably truth in the changes happening to in person communication. (Answering texts in the middle of dinner, for instance.) But I don't think that it's at the expense of interacting with strangers. What I do think is very relevant and I can't remember it being mentioned is the Digital Divide. What happens to those without computers, the Internet, mobile devices, text/IM plans? Are they left in the lurch?

Act Locally

2008-04-26T06:49:00.000-07:00

Here it is, already the end of the month and I'm just answering The Big Question for April--which is actually a great illustration of my answer. I procrastinate! I always mean to get around to doing things...

So, the question on the table is what would I like to do better as a learning professional. At the risk of sounding corny and at the risk of giving myself yet another thing to feel guilty about, my answer is that I want to use my talents to help my community.

I live in Bay View (a section of Milwaukee, WI) and there's a lot of talk about our schools, especially the local high school. While there are plenty of good things occurring at the school, there are also low test scores, high drop out rates, and bad attendance. Most parents in the neighborhood send their kids to other high schools, whether private or public ones in other parts of the city and county. Not a good sign. So what can I do? I have no idea, but I can't help but think that if I truly care about education, this would be a good place to invest a little of my time.

This probably doesn't mean that I'd jump in and start analyzing curriculum or designing instruction. However, I could attend public meetings. I could join a committee. I could share my passion for learning.

Of course, as a procrastinator, I'm a champion at creating excuses. I'm sooooo busy. I have school papers to write. I have projects for work that I could be catching up on. I have dogs to walk. I, I, I.

I need to get involved.

On another, but related topic, I've been thinking about the power of the social networks forming for ISD folks. For my final paper in Learning Theories, I'm focusing on Web 2.0 technologies applied to Communities of Practice. I'll probably mention LearningTown - a ning site that went up not too long ago. There are fabulous discussions going on. Lots of networking and sharing. Thinking about my own goal as a result of this month's Big Question, I wonder whether there may be ways to bring a community like that together on a volunteer project. Like the monthly Big Question, what if there were a monthly Big Project. Everyone contributes to a final product that would benefit public education. I can just imagine the mess this would involve, the risk for failure...a whole slew of roadblocks. But what if...

$10 Did What?

2008-04-12T10:37:00.000-07:00

Yesterday I watched a short segment on Good Morning America. A teacher (and her students) was featured as the person of the week. Giving each student a $10 bill, 20 students in all, she told them they could do anything they want with their $10. They could spend it on themselves or others. They could decide individually what to do or work as a group. The only clause was that they needed to write an essay on their decision. The end result? Over $6000 went to charities and helped their community. So, what subject was the teacher was teaching? English.

I couldn't help but be impressed. In school this semester, I've been studying learning theories, and this seemed the perfect example of combining elements of constructivism, andragogy, and motivation. The activity itself didn't teach essay composition, but the teacher noted that she expected the students to write from the heart. She gave meaning to their essays and created engagement.

I Shouldn't Do This

2008-04-12T09:37:00.000-07:00

Or should I? I'm a student in instructional and performance technology. I read lots of blogs on the subject, but don't feel I have anything to say yet. What could I possibly contribute? However, it's no fun being on the outside, either. So here I am jumping into the mix. Will I sink or swim? Maybe I should have taken lessons first.