I’ve just read an interesting article from a SlideShare subscription alert. It was interesting on a number of levels. The article ‘Slides that Rock’ describes 5 ways SlideShare has helped them ‘rock’:

1. providing a platform where they can learn
2. building a better network
3. enabling a global presence
4. providing a marketing platform
5. adding credibility

I loved viewing their accompanying SlideShare presentation too which has some excellent learning points many of us can take away. It does have a SlideShare promotional feel to it and is considering SlideShare more from a marketing tool point of view but, nontheless, all their points are valid and I started to relate it back to eLearning (as is my tendency) and learning in general.

Presentations are a very passive way of sending a message but can play an important part in workplace learning or as part of a formal blended/eLearning solution. Reading copious amounts of text can have a detrimental effect on our levels of engagement and often visuals play a vital role in our comprehension of the material as well as motivating us to ‘stick with it’. “A picture paints a thousand words” as the saying goes is useful to bear in mind. We can learn to change that by taking ideas from these types of presentations such as ‘Slides that rock’.

Of course, we don’t have to stop at changing how our presentations look. We can apply the same principles to our eLearning tutorial slides too not to mention our classroom slides. And just think of the difference you can make to your conference presentations!

When people on my eLearning design workshops fear they haven’t the creative skills to produce dynamic and appealing slides I point them to two of the names mentioned in this article, Nancy Duarte (her Slideology book) and Garr Reynolds (particularly his Presentation Zen Design book).

Two further publication I always recommend are (i) ‘The non-designer’s design book‘ by Robin Williams (covers in layman’s terms the basic principles of graphic design – contrast, repitition, alignment and proximity) and (ii) ‘Visual Language for Designers‘ by Connie Malamed. I’m looking forward to checking out the work of David Crandall and Jesse Desjarnins to whom the article refers.

We could also do well to remember as learning designers though is that we too are marketeers. When we produce a piece of learning, whether it’s designed to be a formal course or ad-hoc, just in time chunks to help with workplace learning, we are producing a product to ‘sell’. The visual design ideas we see here could also be transferred to our marketing material such as posters and leaflets.

On a final note…. the main points that stuck with me from this article however were that SlideShare gave them a platform from where they could learn and it allowed them to build a better network.

We learn from sharing and collaborating with others. We just sometimes need a little help in knowing where to look which is where the role of trainers becoming curators and consultants comes in.

The debate over the importance of learning objectives continues. I enjoyed reading a recent post by Clive Shepherd and more particularly the responses it generated. I like to think I have a fairly open mind and welcome reading debates around various doctrines in the L&D arena (perhaps it’s my equal left brain/right brain split that helps – or hinders – or am I just indecisive?). It’s healthy to question and to see the other point of view. But before we can really decide whether learning ojectives should or shouldn’t be used, surely it’s important to first establish what exactly a learning objective is before we condemn?

Might objectives have such a bad press because of their misuse and poor construction? I’ve often seen lists of key learning points posted at the beginning of a lesson or course. These are not learning objectives and certainly, if faced with a whole list of key learning points that early on, would probably send the best of us running to the hills. When someone sees a list as long as your arm, of all the topics they are going to be taught at the very start of a course, session or module it is certainly understandable that their hearts will sink. Any motivation and buy-in that may have already been established is likely to be lost and all they hear inside is “I’m never going to take all that in!” or “it’s going to be a long day”.

Then of course you have a poorly constructed learning objectives. An example of a poorly constructed learning objective could be “you will understand the interview process”. At least it is succinct. But it could do with being more specific and measurable (how do you prove understanding?).

Even if you do have well constructed learning objectives, it’s best to only offer the overall learning objective at the start of the course. When it comes to listing all of lesson objectives at the beginning of the course/programme/module this should be avoided for the same reasons as highlighted above.

A good learning objective is a succinct, clear description of the task that proves learning has taken place.

Clive’s post gives us pros and cons of learning objectives. I agree with the pros as you might expect and to a great extent I agree with some of the cons but would like to explore these and some of the responses a little further.

Yes learning objectives are usually seen as directed from top-down. They give the organisatioin and the learners progress markers in their development which can be measured. They are certainly required from a development point of view to help the instructional designers construct learning that is logical, specific and relevant.

In Nick Shackleton-Jones’ response to Clive’s post, he recommends learning objectives should appear only in the catalogue and not the course. Certainly, when looking to register for a learning programme, we all need to know what’s in it for us – what we’re signing up for. But learning objectives (specific, well constructed and valid learning objectives) are also important progress markers within the course. The help us as the learner measure our achievements along the way and we can see how our skills are building. They help us, as learners, build confidence in our abilities.
Although I loved his film analogy “I can’t imagine a movie opening with the title ‘in this film you will learn that good eventually triumphs over evil, though this may require car chases and romantic interludes”, what Nick is referring to here isn’t what I would call a learning objective at all. It’s the aim or the message of the film. And, agreed, in the credits we wouldn’t see an overview of what the film was about to tell us. This message appears in the marketing of the film, oiceovers in the trailers and film reviews which would help you decide whether or not you wish to see the film. But these are still not learning objectives. If we were to write a learning objective for the film, first we’d need to establish a task for the viewer to do to prove they understood the message. Perhaps something like “using a your choice of media, submit a critque of [the film] citing at least 2 scenes where good overcame evil”.

In effect, the learning objective is a succinct description of the task that proves learning has taken place. When we have established that these are learning objectives, then including these within the course makes more sense. Throughout a course, whether it’s a classroom course, an eLearning course or a blended course, the programme will very likely consist of a series of progress checks (preferably skills checks not just quiz checks but that’s a whole different topic). For example, if a session in a ‘presentation skills’ course culminates in a progress check task where the learner has to apply the visual design elements covered in the session to a number of PowerPoint slides’ then it’s only right that the learner knows at the beginning of that session that they will be undertaking that task. Telling them at the beginning of the session is in the form of their learning objective e.g. “apply the 5 key design elements correctly to at least 1 of your PowerPoint slides”.

Now it can become very boring, even though it’s what we all expect, to see a slide titled ‘Learning Objective’ followed by “by the end of the session/module you will be able to….” at the beginning of every session/module (yawn!) Yes – even I get bored of that. Especially when considering an eLearning course. As long as everyone is clear of the task that’s expected of them why not break out from the mould and try saying it slightly differently “Your mission is to apply …. etc”

As we’ve heard, learning objectives are more often than not driven from the top. However, even from a personal learning point of view, without individually establishing a goal – an end result i.e. a learning objective, how would we as individuals be able to measure how well we have achieved our own personal learning goals? I’ve done more self-learning in my adult life than have undergone formal training courses. Of course a lot of my development has been serendipidous but where I have made a conscious decision to do something I have, in effect given myself a learning objective. Recently, I’ve been interested in creating and editing video in my spare time. It’s a minefield and in order to establish where to start I had to give myself a specific performance objective. I decided on a task which was “to create and edit a piece to camera about tips for writing book reviews”. This was my learning objective. It wasn’t a top-down initiative. It was a personal learning goal but a learning objective nonetheless. I’ve been doing this with the help of the eLearning Organisation’s mentoring scheme (slowly because of work commitments but am pleased with my progress so far – and if my mentor is reading this, I haven’t forgotten).

I certainly agree with Clive’s suggestion that where “participation in an intervention is determined by employees themselves, then their goals should surely over-ride any objectives set by the designer/instructor – at very least they should be negotiated”. This becomes more important in today’s climate where change happens at such a fast pace and the way we deliver learning needs to adapt. Enabling employees to have more of a say in their learning and negotiating their own personal learning goals is more achievable when applying more of a flexible and blended approach to learning. Nevertheless, negotiating and agreeing a real, learning objective which is task based is still as important as ever.

As instructional designers we can do a lot more to improve the delivery of our learning objectives which will have a positive impact so they engage our audiences instead of switch them off. Not only can they then be listed in the catalogue (“by the end of the course you will be able to….”) but with a little creative re-writing, the same goals can appear in the course (“your mission for this morning is to apply the 5 design elements correctly to your PowerPoint slides before a run through with your colleague”). They are still the same learning objective but one is from the instructional designer’s perspective, the other for the learner.

I guess the debate will continue

Of course, to make any sort of sense, it’s got to stand for ‘pre-course work’ but even that’s equally confusing.  Let’s explore.

The reason for this little rant is that my pet-hate of a phrase (as if you have yet guessed) has been rearing its ugly head quite a lot lately.  I’ve read a few blog posts, articles and had conversations with people where these terms are being handed out without any thought about their implications.  It’s always baffled me when people use this term.  I mean, really!  Even when traditional classroom training was the default delivery, we were very often given ‘pre-course work’ to do.  The term indicates that it some sort of activity (usually reading) that needs to be done before attending the course.  Students are usually provided with details of this as part of their joining instructions or booking confirmation.  And what do they do?  Well, the don’t do they?  This pre-course work is often (to be fair not always) forgotten.  Usually, it’s down to their perception that this pre-course work is optional.  After all, if it was necessary, it would be actually part of the course wouldn’t it? Its often provided with no clear guidelines about what they should do with it or how it’s going to be used when they arrive at the classroom.  There’s no real deadline apart from the date of the classroom course and more often than not there’s no tutor support or facilitation.

This all tells the student that if the tutors/facilitators can’t be bothered to put that effort in then why should they?  OK, I might be being a little unfair but it gets my point across.

Now us learning designers know that isn’t the case.  We’ve toiled for hours carefully creating this material and determining its importance in the course design.  I too have thrown my hands up in the air, looked skywards and silently screamed when set work hasn’t been carried out.  So why, if we have determined that this work is a necessary part of the course do we insist on calling it ‘pre-course’?  We’re not helping ourselves here.

In today’s multi-media rich world has opened the opportunities of the course to be more than classroom.  There is a wider adoption of blended solutions where different elements of the course are delivered via a range of different media channels.  Some don’t have a classroom element at all.  Strangely enough, those blended solutions where all elements are delivered remotely using a variety of media options are less likely to have ‘pre-course’ work included as it is easier to see it as part of that (likely) online delivery.

But where we do see these blended solutions having a significant classroom delivery element, any set activities outside of the classroom element are still being referred to as ‘pre-course’ or ‘post-course’.  Is it any wonder then  that we still hear concerns from learning designers that their students are unlikely to carry that work out?  Using the phrase ‘pre-course’ perpetuates the misconception that the classroom is still the only place where the real learning happens.  Anything else is less important.  And, sadly, there are learning designers, trainers and facilitators who still think that themselves.

Over the past 5 years I tried to do my bit to persuade people to think differently about using the term ‘pre-course’ work and to consider using terms such as ‘part 1, part 2 or stage 1, stage 2.  It will also help when we no long consider the bulk of the learning/training to take place in the classroom and concentrate on the course being the content not the classroom.

So, come on folks, no more ‘pre-course work’ – please!

At 12:49 on Wednesday 6 July 2005, I was travelling in Staffordshire to a training venue listening for the imminent announcement of who was going to ‘win’ the Olympic Games for 2012.  Now, I’m not a big sports fanatic but I couldn’t help but join in very excitedly with a big ‘WHOOP WHOOP!’ as Jacque Rogge made the announcement ….. LONDON.

Seven years later and it’s nearly here and Olympic fever has begun.  But along with the kudos comes chaos.  Now we’re hearing about all the disruption the Games are going to create.  It’s already started with Olympic organisers creating an Olympic route network meaning roadworks.

With the disruption to day to day business with journeys to work affected, higher than usual annual leave requests, pressures on transport systems and road networks, the advice given in the ‘preparing your business for the games‘ LOC publication to businesses is:

Millions of additional trips are expected on public transport and the road network in London and the UK … This could potentially disrupt your employees’ journeys, business travel, deliveries/collections, and the operations of suppliers, other contractors and freight.  To keep your businesses running, you should aim to reduce the need to travel and make essential journeys at less busy times or by using different modes or routes.

Over the past few months several delegates on my courses have talked about their organisations being encouraged to allow staff to work from home where they’re not needed to be in the office/building.

Of course, this doesn’t just mean problems for day to day working but also day to day training/learning.  Fortunately, if key people in these organisations are on the ball, they will see there is a way around some of this disruption.  Where live conversations are needed to take place, whether it’s to discuss on ongoing project or as part of a planned training course, we have the technology.  We’ve been communicating via e-mail for years.  The concept of collaborating remotely is not new but we’ve yet to embrace the live online environment.  Perhaps it’s the fear of the unknown.  Perhaps it’s bad experiences of them in the past.  But now – and I mean now and not in a few months time as an afterthought – is the time to make the most of the technology at our fingertips and start working (and learning) smarter.  If we start investigating as soon as possible how best to engage our live online participants (audience is too passive a word), we’ll be on the winning team by a long shot.

We certainly do have an Olympic opportunity.

What actually pricked up my ears was a statement along the lines of “it doesn’t matter how good your product is, you have to be able to sell it”. The family had a great range of products. However, the person tasked with sales and marketing the range didn’t have the detailed product knowledge, nor the drive to proactively market them.

We can often forget how important marketing is to our eLearning programme. Or, indeed any learning programmes. But it’s especially important we know how to ‘sell’ any new product well.

Just imagine….. you and your instructional design team have spent weeks designing and developing the perfect learning solution to meet the detailed analysis which also took blood, sweat and tears to complete. You’ve meticulously project managed the development and run a very successful pilot. The solution is good to go and has been opened up to the masses. So there it sits – in your course booking system like a forgotten toy waiting for someone to remember it and take it out off the box.

Without a robust marketing strategy all that hard work, time and resources will go to waste. Unlike Kevin Kostner’s Field of Dreams, just because you built it, your learners won’t necessarily come.

If selling to external customers, it goes without saying that your sales team should be fully conversant in what your eLearning or blended solution entails; identifying the unique selling point for different customers. A sheep dip approach has the same pitfalls in sales and marketing as it has for learning. One excellent way of helping your sales staff fully explain and sell the solution to different needs is for them to experience the learning first hand. Perhaps they could take part in the pilot?

But it’s not just down to our sales team. In L&D we are all ‘Ad-men’ selling the benefits to our learners, motivating and engaging. So remember, if all that hard work is going to pay off, your project plan has to include a good marketing strategy too.

However, I then have to take a step back and climb down from my high horse (mixing my metaphors). When discussing what is good eLearning (referring to the self-paced interactive tutorials) it often becomes very clear that even when people have the knowledge, skills and drive to produce quality their hands are quite tightly tied by time and resource constraints. People gasp with disbelief when I give them an indication of how many hours of development time to hours of learning it can take. Then their gasps turn to nervous laughter when contemplating what their bosses/sponsors would say if they asked for enough time to develop this level of excellence.

So I can equally empathise with Rob Stephen’s comment to Clark Quinn’s post. The problem is, in today’s climate where time and resources are scarce, something’s got to give – all too often that something is quality. So instead, perhaps we should ask ourselves “what’s the alternative” and take a more agile approach to make sure quality is maintained. After all there is more to eLearning than the self-paced (so called) interactive tutorials we often think of when faced with the term.

There is little excuse, however, if such poor examples to which Clark Quinn refers are still being produced. As ‘expert’ instructional designers they should know what good learning involves. Although, there may be various reasons why this might be so. Giving the benefit of the doubt, it may be that the sponsor, knowing little about what great eLearning looks and feels like, insists on info-dumps testing knowledge not application to tick those compliance boxes.

The culprit may be the sponsor’s limited budget and of course more complex the eLearning the longer it will take and therefore will cost more but that doesn’t mean that simple interactions needn’t be performance based, relevant and contextual. In which case the experts in instructional design surely would act as consultants to those with less knowledge in learning design. But it shouldn’t just be laid at their door. We all have a duty to work together, to make sure learning is effective no matter how it’s delivered. Are we willing to pay the price of perfection or will persuit of efficiency be the cost of quality?

I was pleased to find out that the book chosen for me to review was Ruth Clark and Richard Mayer’s third edition of ‘E-Learning and the Science of Instruction: Proven Guidelines for Consumers and Designers of Multimedia Learning’ to give it its full title.

Here’s an extract, hot off the press.

Transferring classroom courses to online delivery isn’t as simple as it might initially seem. In our eagerness to meet the needs of the organization, the needs of the learners are often overlooked. Even so, the trend for producing more efficient ways of delivering learning is set to continue. It also means more and more organizations are looking to produce eLearning in house. If this is the case, in order to leverage the benefits of eLearning we’ll need some guidance. And for that we do not have to look further than Clark and Mayer’s E-Learning and the Science of Instruction, now in its third edition.

Read the full article at eLearn Magazine here

I’ve certainly embraced any gadget that might make my life easier and to a quicker end result. Take the dishwasher for instance. Until I met my husband I never had one. It was a luxury for which I couldn’t justify the expenditure. Now, having had one for the past 8 yrs I can’t imagine not having one. Yes of course I could live without it but it washes my dishes so much more efficiently and on the whole does an excellent job of it too. And while it’s washing those dishes I can get on with something else or even do nothing at all.

But that dishwasher wouldn’t do such a good job without that something extra from us. To get sparkling dishes it’s important place the content correctly. It’s important to know what is suitable content and not to over stack the content. But even then if you have done that correctly, there’s still more to consider. What temperature is needed? We could stick with the default setting but that might be the hottest. Does every load need that setting. Of course you can carry on regardless. Yes the result will be sparkling – but at a cost of wasted energy and a longer cycle.

Yet what if we were energy conscious and washed everything on the coolest setting? Yes some dishes will be clean but those pots and pans we cooked the Sunday lunch in didn’t come very clean at all. So what do we do? Either hand wash them or wash them again. Either way that’s extra time and energy. And there’s still the question about the detergent! There are so many of them out there all claiming to give the best results. There are Eco friendly ones; power-ball ones; double, triple, quadruple action ones; some in packets that dissolve; some in packets you need to discard.

Fortunately, we more often than not get superb results. My parents, on the other hand, don’t. Is that the fault of the dishwasher? Well, of course there could be a problem but after some observation it was more about their stacking process; their refusal of following best practice because they ‘know best’ and the misguided thinking that cramming as much in as possible, using the coolest setting and cheapest tablets will give them good results. But no! Although if their happy with it, what’s the harm maybe? They might be ok with having to re-wash. It doesn’t affect anyone else.

A dishwasher is a brilliant time-saving invention but it won’t wash the dishes without our carefully considered actions and procedures.

Similarly, although there are many rapid authoring tools out there, that’s all they are – tools. With careful consideration, you’ll choose the best for what you want but without the right input from us, without carefully considering the right content , without understanding the implications that over-stacked content has on the result (our learners’ brains); without careful consideration of your audience and making the right decision for them your time and effort may be wasted. This is definitely a case of one size doesn’t fit all.

So remember, when thinking about changing the way you deliver your training, there are lots of tools to help reach global audiences, they may help reach more people in a shorter amount of time but it takes more than just stacking content from your classroom courses.

My plan to get back into my archery unfortunately didn’t materialise which also meant my plans for a more work/life balance wasn’t quite achieved. However, considering my blogging and professional development are all done in my own time, I’m fairly happy with my achievement. OK’ I didn’t always make my plan of a weekly post but I’ve averaged 3.5 posts a month which isn’t bad.

The last three months of 2011 saw me completely drop off the social media planet. I really can’t put my finger on why. I think I just burnt myself out with the social media scene. My official professional work became more hectic than usual and seeped into my own time (probably a familiar story to others out there) that I found myself abandoning my extra curricular investigations in the world of online learning and learning technologies. My iPhone became a tool for making calls, checking e-mails and taking photos of my beautiful new niece. My iPad started to gather dust on the coffee table. Its only outing a trip to Thailand where it was as invaluable as a Swiss army knife (but that’s another story entirely).I start 2012 with renewed motivation. I’ve made a promise to myself to get back on track and continue with those resolutions I made last year. But in addition I’ve made a promise to myself to make time just for me. After all, as the saying goes, ‘all work and no play makes Jack a dull boy’. And that’s exactly how I felt when I saw out 2011.

With a new year it’s time for a new and more positive outlook professionally too . What changes would I like to see in the year ahead in my profession? I’d like to see more emphasis on how people really learn and less about counting those bums on seats – virtual or otherwise. I’d like to see more acceptance of social tools for learning and working. I’d like to see more effort being put into what makes effective learning online. I’d like to see more asynchronous learning being the norm. I’d like to see more use of learning and collaborating in live online environments when live discussion is considered valuable. I’d like to see face to face interaction used efficiently and when most appropriate and I’d like to see more Learning and Development professionals grab the virtual bull by the horns and start adding to their skills to ensure learning online is as effective as learning in well designed classroom events. Am I expecting too much? It might be easier than you think.

Here’s to a successful 2012.

A strong statement indeed!  However, it’s one that does seem to be held (but I hope not by the majority).

I had an interesting debate about this recently on one of my courses about designing engaging eLearning.

Actually, the conversation we had was more about whether eLearning that is designed to cover what people should do rather than what they should know would be accepted by the stakeholders requesting the eLearning.  Previously we’d had some great discussions about how scenarios and stories can help the learning come to life and simulate what learners might experience when doing their jobs.  Most people, when asked what they dislike about eLearning, usually talk about the boring, information laden, page after page of text followed by the obligatory multiple choice quiz – or as Cammy Bean recently called “read ‘em and weep” eLearning.

Great eLearning focusses on performance.  Allowing learners to exercise their cognitive skills and learn through problem solving.  All learning should be focussed on helping people do their jobs properly.  Classroom learning has improved by leaps and bounds packed full of case studies, role plays, realistic and work-based examples designed to replicate as closely as possible their own roles.  They’ve become sandpits where people can experience tasks, make mistakes and learn from each other with immediate, constructive feedback from the facilitator.  The great news is that eLearning can be designed along the same lines.  It doesn’t matter whether the topic is about learning to give great customer service, identifying fraud, the importance of hand washing in patient care or introducing people to a new purchase ordering software.  In each of these examples people are needing to learn how to do something to a given standard.

Then of course the question has to be how we might assess the learning more appropriately?  How else can we prove we are complying with legal or organisational policies and guidelines than to show we can apply critical thinking to a given situation in which we might be faced with during our day to day job.  Reading pages of dos and don’ts, why’s and wherefores and then testing how well we remember them doesn’t prove we can apply a particular piece of legislation to an unexpected situation at work.  The only way we can do that is put people in the situation.  Of course this can still include using multiple choice questions but not the type we are most familiar with.  We just need to be more creative with them by using mini-scenario questions or case studies so we’re testing actions rather than recall.

Is it really impossible?  If you put such a solution forward to address compliance training in eLearning would you be laughed out of the boardroom?  Would your stakeholders just summarily dismiss the idea as unworkable?  My argument is that its more than possible, complience is crying out for it but you’ll have to sell the benefits carefully.  Will you just assume your stakeholders won’t buy-into it or will you be prepared to spend time and effort in producing something you know will engage and produce real results instead of ticking the attendance boxes?

Why is there such resistance by some organisations to producing quality eLearning.  Why are we still faced with this situatioin where the goal is just to get as many people through the sheep dip as quickly as possible, so they all come out the other end with a stamp to say ‘done’ rather than ‘can do’. In Craig Taylor’s comment to an earlier blog post ‘How do we ensure competency’, he has been faced with the same brick wall.

Perhaps our stakeholders need more persuading.  Perhaps they aren’t aware how compromising the quality of the learning actually has a negative impact on efficiency.  If the learning is poor then organisations will still see costly legal procedures continue, mistakes may still be made and productivity may still be down.  Retraining may be required but if the learning is poor, the whole cycle starts again.

Perhaps organisations are under pressure from their governing bodies to meet ever more demanding targets in shorter time scales that it’s become more about counting virtual bums on virtual seats than making sure staff are fully equipped with the skills to do their jobs.

Perhaps instead of saying how high and jump to the orders from those who really have little experience in producing quality learning solutions, we should change our strategies from being order takers to becoming the consultants we really are.  Supporting learning and performance is everyone’s responsibility, not just the L&D but the line managers, the senior managers and those doing the learning they just could do with a little help.

Only when we know we have tried our best; only when we have put forward all arguments; only when we’ve provided a taster, a working example based on scientific and evidence based practise; only when we’ve managed to pilot and collated feedback; only when we have measured both the efficacy and the efficiency of the solution (like Craig Taylor)can we honestly admit defeat.  At least we can say we’ve done all we can to persuade the sceptics.

If, after all that effort, our conscience is still in turmoil and “if you can’t beat them, join them” is not an option for you, there is only one thing left to do …..

My advice?  Keep chipping away.  Even though your head might bleed from hitting it against that proverbial brick wall, keep going.  As Confucius said “a journey of a thousand miles starts with a single step”. Before long you’ll have supporters walking along side and one day the rewards will be great.