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Basics

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A great difference between winners and losers
is their attitude to what they need to know.
Losers feel it's someone else's job
to teach them everything they need to know.
Winners are determined to learn,
and will seek out the best possible training,
if necessary, completely on their own.
 

John Lawhon

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See Links Below

What  
Is eLearning?



What  
Can eLearning Do For You?



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core concepts

Your Objective is to Solve a Problem.

Instead of thinking in terms of learning objectives, think about what organizational problems you are attempting to resolve.  A training objective has no meaning for learners or organizational leaders.  Solving a problem has more organizational value than achieving a training objective.

GO! R.A.D.!

Iterative, Interactive, Incremental Prototyping

Move Your Mouse Over Each Process

Iterative Evolution Refine Define Design Deploy
Wise Questions

Match the learning Process to the learner's Motivation

Maslow, Motivation, Learning Theory

Evaluate the Process,
Not the Learner

A wealth of information about who is accessing your online presentations, when, how, and where.
Depth How many levels are you impacting?
Width How many internal and external functional areas are you impacting?
Referrals Are links to your content being informally referenced?
Drop Ins Who is using your content beyond your target audience?
Search Reports Are the learners finding what they need from your resources or do they have needs that you're not meeting?
Amazon Type
Comments
Allow a comments section for each presentation to allow feedback about the usefulness or effectiveness of each presentation.
Saving Time CTE, SME, etc - Collect estimates of how much time you've cut from Time to Effectiveness, or from SME's no longer needed to answer repetitive or basic questions.
Levels of Evaluation What and how you measure will determine the results of your measurement
Supporting the Client's Client How much positive impact have you had on your organization's clients? 

Make it Usable and Useful

  • Effectiveness: Learner interprets instructional interface function correctly; instructional interface function performs according to the learner's expectations
  • Efficiency: Learner experiences minimal frustration interpreting instructional interface function; learner experiences minimal obstacles in using instructional interface element
  • Satisfaction: Learner seems comfortable in the environment overall

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Designing On-Line Learning Courses:
Implications for Usability

  • Match between designer and learner models
  • Navigational fidelity
  • Appropriate levels of learner control
  • Prevention of peripheral cognitive errors
  • Understandable and meaningful symbolic representations
  • Support personally significant approaches to learning
  • Strategies for cognitive error recognition, diagnosis and recovery
  • Match with the curriculum

Separate the Content from the Context

Northwind Database

AMAZON.com

  • How the presentation is formatted should always be separate from what is being presented.
  • Use style sheets and dynamic tools to recombine information on demand and allow easy management of how the information is presented.
  • Use faceted classification, flexible taxonomies to allow multiple access points to the content

Chunk Content to Increase Reusability

There is a lot of confusion about how to implement reusability to support learning. The easiest approach is to start with content that you find being copy/pasted from one topic to another. The problem with using copy/paste is that if the original information changes, it's very difficult to identify and change all the instances where that information has been used. Reusing information from a central source in multiple presentations allows instant updates of information that are immediately updated the next time someone views a presentation using that information.

Reusable Modules

DELL - Begin
DELL - Next 

 



Selected Tools and techniques

Tool
Comments
Asynchronous
Reflective
Synchronous
Collaborative
Very common.  Breaks reusabilityly by embedding graphics.  Can be made more usable by using hyperlinked TOC and style sheets. "Save as Web Page/HTML" creates kludgey and complex code.
Checkmark
 
Very common. Breaks reusability by creating copies of renamed graphic files.  Usability is increased by framing presentation with Linked navigation frame.
Checkmark
 
Can be created by taking large documents and then breaking them up using HTML links and anchors. Checkmark  
Always make sure that the source document includes a hyperlinked TOC.  Then, make sure that Acrobat settings retain those links to make the document easier to use. Checkmark  
Scheduling an online conference is not eLearning for several reasons. 
1. It requires all participants to be in the same space at the same time.
2. It is rarely reusable
3. It is usually formatted so that the presenter has total control and there is no opportunity for peer-peer learning.
Instead of conferencing use one of the many different types of collaboration tools that are available.
  Checkmark
Primarily used in educational environments but should be considered for any environment where people are collaborating to to design a shared result. Checkmark Checkmark
Discussion Forums
  Browser based or
  eMail based?
Browser vs email based should be a choice made by your learners.  Some like the convienence of receiving updated threads in their Inbox, some prefer to go online and read one thread in its entirety.  Offering both methods and allowing the learning to chose is the best of both worlds. Checkmark  
A blog w/o a discussion forum is similar to standing at a podium and pontificating.  It can be useful in the same environments as a newsletter but if discussion features are not allowed, it has limitations as an eLearning tool Checkmark  
A content management systems is the easiest way to implement eLearning while insuring that your efforts are embedded in organizational standard processes. Checkmark Checkmark
Using any type of content, course, management system that can only manage learning objects will limit your sphere of impact and access to resources. Checkmark Checkmark
Think about creating learning portals instead of individual courses.  It will expand the type of resources you access, and change the way your manage your presentations.  Think about how easy Amazon.com makes it to locate information, receive content, referrals and ratings from a wide variety of interactions. Checkmark Checkmark
Most organizations are drowning in information while their employees, partners and clients are parched for knowledge. Knowledge = Power and that power will accrue to whichever function can deliver a process to slake the organizational thirst. Checkmark Checkmark
Usually more collaborative and flexible than ISD methods.  Learners can become another resource of the project development team. Checkmark Checkmark
Can be useful in situations where real life practice is unsafe or to project a realistic environment for the application of strategic skills. Checkmark  
Very useful opportunities to support peer-peer and reflective learning. Checkmark  
Can be overused and annoying, useful for peer - SME interactions IF Q & A is saved in a searchable format.   Checkmark
Overused and much abused.  Creates large files that are not reusable, cannot be bookmarked and many organizations are prohibiting the download of the plug-in necessary to run it.

Ineffective Why Use Flash for PPT?
Cute But difficult to use
Interesting If this is a topic you needed to learn.
Excellent
Example
Shows how an animated interaction can clarify a complex subject.
Checkmark  
Video and/or Audio
Use as a supportive learning tool, not the only learning tool.   Checkmark  
Should be available for every presentation to allow non-linear, JIT access Checkmark  
Database
*ASP
*Cold Fusion
Basic tool of eLearning.   Used to track learners, manage objects and content. Checkmark Checkmark
Can be used to stream timed chunks of information or used as a reinforcement tool. Checkmark  


Other Recommendations

  • Never stop learning.
  • First, define a problem, then determine the organizational pain, then determine which tools will resolve the problem, then determine your Return on Impact/Return on Expectation evaluation process, then begin developing your process to resolve the problem.
  • Avoid the use of linear, presentations with"Next" and "Back" buttons
  • Focus on assessing the process and the content, not the learner
  • Don't refer to "in the last section" or "in the next section", future sequencing may be different.
  • Personalize, don't generalize
  • Separate the content and the context
  • Reading content online is not the same as reading a piece of paper. Avoid 3 column layouts, documents more than 5 pages long, Times Roman font, non-essential graphics
  • Implement the Platinum Rule, not the Golden Rule
  • Focus on beginning small and simple, then begin to earn ripples of respect that expand as you increase the complexity and the sphere of impact of your efforts.
  • Focus on Communities of Interest not Communities of Practice. CoPs are contained within static definitions. CoIs have flexible membership and focus that reflect evolving environmental needs.
  • ROI/ROE - Calculate Return on Impact or Return on Expectation by also including the amount saved by not offering a training solution when that won't resolve an organizational problem.
  • Use Liquid Design Techniques
  • Focus on learning what you're teaching others. JIT, sales, leadership, marketing, information technology, etc & etc have concepts that are useful for developing and delivering effective learning processes.