Tip 68: Going Social - Let’s Get This Party Started

Social Learning is one of the current darlings of the L&D world, with everyone trying to jump on the social bandwagon. It’s like there’s a party going on and everyone wants to be in the kitchen. We’re on board with the bandwagon, as it’s really about finding ways for us to connect more naturally with to others to share and gain knowledge and improve performance. 

In a recent anonymous survey conducted by Jane Hart (founder of C4LPT and the Social Learning Centre), 90% of respondents, “think that learning from collaborative working within your team is “essential” or “very important”, whilst conversations, feeds,  personal and professional networking, curetted content and using Google to search the Web are also rated very highly.“

So what’s an organisation to do?  And how can you get going with social? We’ve got three tips to share here – really just the tip of the iceberg…

טיפ 67: חדדו את הגרזן

האם אי פעם קרה לכם שנפגשתם עם מומחה תוכן, והוא מסר לכם בנימוס מצגת ובה 112 שקפים ואמר שזה התוכן שיש לכלול בלומדה בת 20 דקות שאתם מכינים? האם נאנחתם בייאוש מבלי יכולת לדעת מה לעשות עם כל התוכן הזה, חוץ מאשר לסדר אותו ברשימות בלתי נגמרות של טקסט?

Tip 66: Implementing an LMS

Kineo's LMS Consultant Andy Wooler shares his top tips on implementing an LMS.

טיפ 65: בחירת מערכת ניהול למידה - LMS

כאן ב-Kineo, אנו מאוד אוהבים פתרונות המבוססים על קוד פתוח, ובפרט מקדמים שימוש במערכת Moodle ובמערכת Totara LMS (גרסת Moodle המותאמת לארגונים) אותן אנו מטמיעים כמערכת ניהול הלמידה המועדפת לפתרונות של לקוחותינו. יחד עם זאת, יש מגוון פתרונות למערכות ניהול למידה - מערכות סגורות ומערכות קוד פתוח - וזה עלול להרגיש כמו שדה מוקשים.

ובכן, היכן מתחילים? על מנת לסייע לכם בקבלת ההחלטה, הנה עשרה דברים שעליכם לדעת בהקשר של בחירת מערכת LMS לארגון.

טיפ 64: התחילו בכתיבת השאלות

"חיו את השאלות עכשיו. אולי בזמן כלשהו בעתיד, בהדרגה, מבלי שאפילו תשים לב, תחייה את דרכך אל התשובה." ר.מ. רילקה מתוך "מכתביו של משורר צעיר"

אכן מילים כדרבנות. מסתבר שמילים אלו גם נכונות לפיתוח הדרכה.

Tip 63: Putting Mobile In Your Blend

You know you need to do blended learning. You know you should be thinking about mobile. But how (and why) would it fit? You’ve got questions. We’ve got answers. Caution – some of the answers are also questions. Stay with us... Starting point: Always ask ‘Why make this mobile?’’

Tip 62: Top (Christmas) Testing Tips

There isn’t much that screams ‘Christmas’ quite like ‘Quality Control’... right?! Ok, maybe not, but the Kineo Elves have been busy cooking up some Top Tips for a warm winter’s testing.

You may find yourself becoming your own QA department if you’re producing e-learning in house, or you’re setting expectations with a partner on QA standards. And whatever you do, of course you’re QA-in-chief for your own work. In all cases, remember to get a full low-down on both client and co-workers’ expectations for each project: technical specs, structure and functionality, style and branding, tone of voice, any other nuances, etc. The info you need is out there somewhere, so don’t be a Scrooge – get the team sharing!

With that in mind, here are a few tips. Apologies in advance for any seasonal punnery. QA doesn’t extend to removing gags, it transpires.

Tip 61: Making it Shine from the Inside - Reflection Counts

“Mirror, mirror on the wall, who is learning here at all?”

We’ve all seen a lot of elearning fall flat for a lot of reasons, but one of the biggest reasons is that it’s often simply used as a vehicle in which to dump impersonal information.   Are you in the e-learning at all? To paraphrase Lionel Ritchie (something you should do very carefully): Hello – is it you you’re looking for?

Tip 60: It's a stream, not a course...

Many traditional elearning instructional designers cut their teeth designing self-paced elearning programs. We create events.

However, the talk of the town these days is that learning is not an event.  People don’t plop in front of an elearning program or sit in a classroom and BAM! – they’ve got it all rock solid.  Instead, we’re talking about streams of activities that may happen over extended periods of time as individuals explore and master topic s or content areas. Instead of events, we hear about “learning experiences” and “activity streams”.

So how do traditional instructional designers stay relevant? And is that even possible? Let’s dip our paddles in the stream and explore together…

טיפ 59: לעשות את הקפיצה מהדרכת כיתה ל- e-learning

הנה תמונת המצב: קיבלתם משימה להמיר תכנית הדרכה בכיתה (או וובינר מקוון) לתכנית למידה עצמית בעזרת e-learning . המדריך בכיתה נותן לכם את מצגת PowerPoint שלו, ואומר לכם בערגה “הכל כאן. תודיע לי כאשר הלומדה מוכנה, טוב?”

אבל זה אף פעם לא הכל, נכון? לפעמים יש יותר מדי, לפעמים אין מספיק. מה אתם יכולים לעשות?

טיפ 58: הכניסו קצת רכילות

ראיתם את הלומדה שהצוות ההוא יצר? אתם יודעים, המשעמם ההוא שאף אחד לא יכל לזכור שום דבר ממנה? אתם זוכרים איך כל מסך היה עמוס במידע ואינספור תבליטי טקסט? ואיך שכל הלומדים היו לגמרי משועממים אבל היו חייבים לעבור אותה בגלל שהיא הייתה לומדת רגולציה?

הקטע עורר בכם סקרנות? אתם רוצים לצלול איתנו קצת יותר לעומק? אולי אפילו… לרכל איתנו על כל החוויה? ובכן. בואו נשב על כוס קפה ונצטופף סביב השולחן לקשקש על רכילות…

Tip 57: Applying Rapid Design to Classroom PowerPoints

The reality of the day-to-day life of those of us working in internal training departments is that we’re often tasked with the daunting job of quickly turning classroom training into online experiences.   You know that if you had the time or the budget you could do something really amazing that would change behavior and give the learners something to talk about.

But for this project -- time, budget, or some other constraints dictate that all you can do is take the classroom trainer’s existing PowerPoint deck and publish it online.

We totally feel your pain. Here are three simple tips you can apply those PowerPoints and get something up that’s good enough and on time.

Tip 56: Let your right brain do the design

At last month’s ASTD we spent some time with Michael Allen and his team, which is always fun. Michael’s a great guy and always talks a lot of common sense about e-learning design. His session at ASTD spelled out – literally – why you need three M’s in your e-learning, and why you shouldn’t let your left brain drive. Top tip material if we ever heard it...

Tip 55: Eat more eLearning pie

Many elearning designers get into the field because of a love of learning, a creative itch, or a passion for technology and making things work.  But these are just pieces in the pie that make up what we do as elearning professional. Your main three are: Learning & Pedagogy, Creative, and Technology.  Let’s not forget the fourth piece of the pie: Business.

In this top tip, let’s pull up a seat at the table and eat some pie.

Tip 54: 3D or not 3D?

We’ve been looking at 3D environments recently. What’s their potential for learning, and when are the right times to use them?

Tip 53: Bringing the legalese down to earth

If you ask a crowded room of eLearning designers to describe the most boring content they’ve had to work on recently, the number one answer will probably be compliance training.  It’s not the lawyers’ fault – but we’ve got to do something about it.

Tip 52: "If there's one thing I never want to see
again in an e-learning module, it's...”

...Complete this sentence in 20 words or less. That was the starter for 10 (well, 20) that we kicked off a few weeks ago in the Elearning Professionals Group on LinkedIn. So far we’re over 100 responses in. They range from the simple to the profound to the directly opposing (Fight! Fight!), to the surprisingly funny for e-learning. Some people had more to say than 20 words. That’s ok. You all obviously hate any instruction text anyway.

Tip 51: Lightening the Load

We sat in on a great session called ‘Learning with the brain in mind’ at Learning Technologies 2011. As so eloquently and effectively demonstrated by the two speakers in this session, (Itiel Dror and Chris Atherton), the human brain can only do so much at once. So, when designing e-learning, we need to we do whatever we can to lighten the load. Let’s look at how we can take a load off.

Tip 50: Beyond the Next Button

We’ve written recently about treating the Next button with a bit more love. At Learning Technologies, we listened to Andy Jones from Thomson Reuters share his experiences of pushing beyond it. To where? Let’s find out...

Tip 49: Action Mapping Made Easy

Cathy Moore has set our little e-learning world alight with her action mapping techniques. The Kineo design team are big fans. We joined her recent session at Learning Technologies on ‘Action mapping for great e-learning’. If you’ve not tried it as a technique, you really must.

Tip 48: Don't Badmouth the Next Button

Get rid of Next buttons, we often hear. They're boring. So last decade. Everyone hates them. Really, though? Really? We rush to their aid, and modestly suggest if you don't like Next buttons, maybe there's a deeper problem with your course. Take a seat on the couch...

Tip 47: Three Christmas Holiday Wishes

As the holiday season rapidly approaches we turn our thoughts from all things e-learning to mistletoe, egg-nog, and stocking stuffers.

Of course around here we stuff our stockings not with candy canes, but with e-learning top tips. So here are three wishes for you this holiday season.

Tip 46: Take a Risk

'Everything is just a copy of a copy of a copy'. It's a post-modern mantra, but we're here to prove it wrong. Things can be different. Change is nothing to fear. So how can you create something original? In just a few easy steps you can transform your e-learning into something unique, something that's never been seen before.

Here's an early new year's resolution for 2011: it's time to take a risk. And here's how to do it...

Tip 45: Video – Bring Out Your Inner Guerrilla

When is the ‘right’ time to use video in your e-learning... Well, is your course based around telling a story? Or showing people how to deal with difficult customers? Or are you struggling to bring the SME’s passion and knowledge across in words? If so, then video might just be the way to go.

Tip 44: Where's the Humanity?

At its core, e-learning is really about helping people. Through the countless e-learning programs created every year, e-learning practitioners help people to gain new insight and understanding, do their jobs better, advance their careers, nurture the plant, and take care of their families.

Unfortunately, a lot of e-learning falls short of the helping people mark. Instead, it locks people into a boring procession of pages, the only salvation for which is the blinking next button. The zombies take over in the design. And learners emerge from the far end feeling like the living dead.

Here are three simple ways you can stop the horror and put the humanity back into your e-learning programs.

טיפ 43: תיאורית 9 האירועים של Gagne

תשעת האירועים של ההדרכה אולי נשמע קצת מרתיע אבל אל תיבהלו. אלו תשעה שלבים, המוגדרים על ידי Robert Gagne, והמהווים בסיס למה שהרבה אנשים מכנים "ה א'-ב' של פיתוח ההדרכה.". אז מה זה בכלל?

טיפ 42: הביאו את הלומד לתוך תהליך עיצוב הלמידה

מי נמצא בלב תהליך העיצוב והפיתוח של למידת eLearning? טוב, התשובה די ברורה. הלומד, כמובן! ובכל זאת, הלומד היקר נאלץ לעתים קרובות כל כך להרגיש בודד ואבוד בערימות של קלסרים, bullet points ועמודים על גבי עמודים של תוכן. אז כיצד ניתן להוציא את הלומדים מבדידותם ומסף הטביעה בערימות התוכן? פשוט, שימו אותם במרכז תהליך העיצוב ופיתוח הלמידה שלכם!

Tip 41: Learning from the Ad Men

ELearning programs have a lot of competition out there.  An employee needs to take a 20 minute program on health and safety, but the lure of other shiny objects is strong:  work deadlines, websites, social networking applications, the guy in the next cubical.  

Who’s got it figured out?  Why the advertisers, of course.  TV Commercials, prints ads have a way of drawing us in, capturing our interest, creating the desire, and then -- when they're really good -- getting us to make the big purchase.

Some of us have recently gotten hooked on the show Mad Men (a stylish tale of a 1960’s New York advertising firm).  While life today may not be as boozy as all that, we like to take a page or two from advertising and marketing.  Let’s explore the classic copywriting model called AIDA and think about how we can apply that to eLearning projects.

Tip 40: Three Ways to Use Scenarios

We’ve all heard the story by now that storytelling enhances learning; that sharing relevant examples helps both the expert and the novice forge connections with the content to ensure knowledge transfer. We’ve heard that flight simulators save lives and that practice makes perfect.

And yet, scenarios and simulations can feel intimidating. They take time. And money. And fancy 3D worlds with blue-haired avatars.

We’re here to say that it can be all that, but it can also be something simpler.

So let’s look at three approaches to creating scenarios in your e-learning – a bit of a scenario spectrum as we go from simple to more complex.

Tip 39: Using Audio in E-learning

When should you use audio in e-Learning? Do you need to include audio to meet the needs of auditory learners? Do you also need to include text for visual learners? What’s the best use of audio?

These questions and more set e-learning teams screaming. So how can you quiet down the storm and provide some sound reasons for when and why to use it? (This, of course, assumes that you have the technical ability to run audio in your e-learning).

Tip 38: Say It Loud, Say It Proud

An important part of ensuring retention – that is helping your learner remember what they’ve learned so they can actually go back and use it on the job – is practice. Practice makes perfect.

Sometimes the best way to practice is to recite things out loud.

Are you one of those people who talks to yourself while working through a problem at the computer? Do you mutter things out loud when you think no one is looking? Does this help you work through the issue? Does this help you…gasp…learn?

We think so. And we think there’s a place for out loud in self-paced e-learning.

Tip 37: Menus that make sense

The menu in any e-learning course or learning site is a little glimpse into the minds of the design team.  Were they thinking about the learner, or were their heads elsewhere when it came to designing the menu? Here are a few pointers to make sure your menu design shows you’ve got your head screwed on.

Tip 36: Why a Shot of Theory is Good for You

“It’s just a little pinch. It’ll hardly hurt and then it will be over.” Tell that to a four year old, sitting in the doctor’s office awaiting a shot.

But it turns out to be true. You take a deep breath, feel the pinch, and then move on. OK – maybe you cried a lot. Maybe your arm feels bruised. But if you’re good, you might get a lollipop from your mommy.

We’re not talking about administering vaccinations to all you learning designers out there – although it would be nice if someone could develop a vaccine for bad e-learning! – but rather suggesting that all of us take some time to learn about learning theory and instructional design theory. Sounds painful, but really, it’s just a pinch…

Tip 35: A Shot of Theory - Elaboration Theory

When teaching someone a new fact or task, it’s best to start simple and then drill down into the more complicated content. Sounds pretty simple, right? Perhaps even intuitive.

But far too often trainers dive right in to the deep end, overwhelming learners from the get go with nitty gritty details and complicated rules.

So how can you combat that tendency? How can you structure content so learners can access and make sense of it from the start?

Well there’s a theory about it, which Charles Reigeluth appropriately termed the “The Elaboration Theory”. Reigeluth is a professor in the School of Education at Indiana University, Bloomington.

So let me elaborate…

Tip 34: Christmas special: What's in your blend?

What will it be? Turkey, stuffing and cranberry sauce? Or perhaps you’re more of a nut roast, with all the trimmings? When it comes to blended learning, there’s many different ingredients to choose from, both offline and online, especially if you serve your blend using an online collaboration tool like Moodle.

What can you throw into the mix to make your learning as appetising as possible and packed with variety and punch? Here’s a few ideas to help you shake it up.

Tip 33: A Shot of Theory - Keller's ARCS Model

If you know us at Kineo, you know we don’t like to get too bogged down in academic theory. We tend to the pragmatic and practical – what really works in learning design?

That said, it’s good to brush off the books now and then and revisit some of the formal theories behind how adults learn and how that can be applied to e-learning.

This is our first in an occasional series on learning design – little shots of theory to give you some foundational background or to refresh what you may already know. We start with John Keller’s ARCS Model of Motivational Design.

Tip 32: Getting to Rapid by Cutting the Project Bloat

Rapid e-learning doesn’t have to mean sacrificing quality. Nor does it mean using a specific tool. Sometimes, rapid just means you get it done rapidly. A cigar is just a cigar.

Kineo recently completed a project for Canon in 17 days, using high-end Flash for delivery. This award-winning project shows that you really can create quality at speed. But it did mean doing things a bit differently: cutting down on the process bloat, avoiding lengthy project plans and design documents, and getting to a working version as quick as lightening.

In this tip, we’ll look at trimming the project fat so you can deliver sooner.

Tip 31: Speak Easy
Writing in a Conversational Tone

The best self-paced e-learning programs are accessible and easy to understand.

Learners get the message. They might have to think about the content – and we hope they do – but they shouldn't need to agonise over the meaning of every sentence.

This week, we share some quick tips to improve your e-learning writing – be it for audio narration or on-screen text.

Tip 30: Show Don't Tell
Three Ways to Help Your SME See the Forest and the Trees

Helping Subject Matters Experts (SMEs) get from a flat document to an actual piece of e-learning can be quite a leap. Learning designers often have the same problem, even with years of experience at creating e-learning. You scope out your course or experience in a Word document and then hand it off – perhaps to a builder or maybe you do it yourself – to create something jazzy in Flash or Articulate. It’s only then that the light bulbs go off – “Ahh, I see how it’s going to work!” or “I didn’t know it was going to look like that!” or “I get it now – can we do it this way instead?”

In this week’s top tip, we’ll share some ideas that work for us – ways to create a visual and comprehensible design sooner rather than later.

Tip 29: Five Ways to Help Your Learners Space Out

We were all guilty of pre-exam cramming sessions. On more occasions than we’d like to admit, we stayed up all night before a final exam to stuff every last bit of learning we could into our little brains. Perhaps you did that once or twice yourself. But how much did you actually retain from said session? Enough to ace the test, I’m sure. But did you actually walk away from the experience with any lasting knowledge?

The spacing effect tells us it’s much better to study for that exam – not in one intense burst – but rather in sessions that are spread out over time.

So how do you do that in the e-learning arena? This week, we’ll suggest five simple ways to help your learners space out for more effective results.

Tip 28: Staying on the Cutting Edge

It’s possible that you know what you’re doing. You have a firm grasp of the tools you use to build e-learning and you know how to design just the right solutions for today's learners.

But right now is but a brief moment in time in an ever-changing technological landscape. We’ve seen some big shifts in the e-learning world in the past 10 years. I mean, c’mon – it wasn’t even called e-learning until, when? 1997-ish, right? What’s coming and how should you – a learning professional – prepare yourself for the road ahead? This top tip will help you stay ahead of the curve.

Tip 27: Tear Down the Visual Wallpaper

It is time to tear down the e-learning wallpaper and take heed of some top tips on using graphics for instructional use.

Tip 26: Our Objection to Learning Objectives

After reading this post, you will be able to:

• explain two of the reasons why we don't like traditional learning objectives
• describe your own view of learning objectives
• develop an alternative approach to listing learning objectives in your next e-learning course

Do your e-learning programs typically start with something like this? Quite gripping, isn't it?

Let's talk about some other options.

טיפ 25: עשר העצות המובילות להעברת וובינר

אנו נבחן את נושא הוובינרים במהדורות הקרובות של העלון הניוזלטר שלנו. בנוסף, נקיים וובינר בעצמנו בנושא זה בהמשך השנה.

אבל כדי להתחיל לגלגל את העניין, הנה לפניכם 10 עצות מובילות לניהול מצליח של וובינרים.

Tip 24: Yamming it up with Yammer

Twitter + your company – rest of world = Yammer?

Previously we wrote about Twitter. Hard to miss Twitter these days, it’s the talk of the town. As you, and probably your mother knows, Twitter is a 140-character microblogging platform. It’s different from an instant message system which lets you talk in real time with one person. With Twitter, you talk in real time to a whole crowd. This is great when you’re sharing the love with the big wide world and want to seek expertise and input from those outside your company’s walls. But sometimes you want to tap the expertise inside your walls. 

Tip 23: Twitter - 5 Tips for Tweeting

When Oprah joined Twitter a few weeks ago, everyone started claiming that Twitter was all over. But those of us in the know, 'know' that we're just getting started. Not tweeting yet? Kineo’s new VP of Learning Design, Cammy Bean, tweetingly invites you aboard.

Tip 22: Shoot This - 5 Tips for Video

After many years in the wilderness of e-learning, with fear for its safety – video’s back, baby. It’s about as cheap and quick to produce as audio and can do a whole lot more. What can it do for you? A few points before you shoot…

Tip 21: Listen Carefully

Audio. It’s cheap to do and quick to make. But so is a pot noodle – and we all know, you shouldn’t add those to your e-learning. So when does audio enhance, and when does it start to be more noise than content? Here are some tips for using it sensibly in e-learning.

Tip 20: Six Steps to Effective Tutorials

If you’re going to develop e-learning rapidly, you need to start with a model in mind. A model will help you to be consistent, to develop to good design principles, and to create a consistent experience for your learners. One tried and trusted model that should be in any designer’s toolkit is the Knowledge and Skills Builder model.

Tip 19: Five steps to great podcast interviews

Last time we looked at getting yourself set up for success with podcasting. This week we get down to the basics of making the podcast interview itself sound like…well, like someone might actually want to listen to it.

Tip 18: Five pointers for podcasts

They’re quick, easy to produce and can add great value to your e-learning. Maybe podcasts are the quintessential rapid e-learning? We’d encourage any designer to consider adding value to their e-learning through podcasts. Here are a few pointers for making the most of them.

Tip 17: Five questions to ask about authoring tools

One of the mantras of these crunching times is (or at least should be): if it’s worth doing, you better have a look at doing it yourself, before you pay someone over the odds for it. Ok, so there’s probably a snappier version of that statement. Let’s just say ‘You should look at rapid e-learning authoring tools’. You won’t have to look too hard – the market’s flooded to its banks with them. But what’s right for you? Here are five questions to ask during your search:

Tip 16: Ten tips for online tutors

As e-learning evolves, one welcome trend is the movement away from large formal courses and towards more informal methods - providing support to your learners by any means necessary. Open source tools like Moodle provide very cost effective ways of providing what one expert has called ‘surround sound’ support to learners. One of the more cost effective, and high-touch ways of supporting learners is through online tutoring.

Tip 15: Doing product knowledge right

If you’re in retail, you know that despite all the cuts you need to make, you can’t cut back on supporting your front-line sales team. More than ever, they need to know how to connect with customers, recognize opportunities to sell, and have the product knowledge information at their fingertips. But you’ve got to do it faster and cheaper than ever. How can rapid e-learning help? Get the design right and you’re on your way.

Tip 14: Love your SME

The Subject Matter Expert and the Designer: This week we look at the need for a little love and understanding...

Tip 13: Happy new cost-cutting

The only way to start 2009 is to show how you’re going to do more for less. If your boss hasn’t asked you how you’re cutting costs in e-learning yet, it must be because your name is towards the end of the alphabet – because believe us, the conversation is coming. So, there are three quick tips from us for making your e-learning more cost effective in 2009.

טיפ 12: האם זכיתי בתשומת הלב שלך?

האם השתעממת בעבר מהדרכת e-learnings? אנו בטוחים שלא פעם ראית לומדה עם מסך פתיחה שבפינתו הימנית היה כתוב "מסך 1 מתוך 98" ממש כאילו שמישהו שם למעלה רוצה להגיד לך "חושב שאתה משתעמם עכשיו? חכה שתגיע למסך 45..."

טיפ 11: טוב, אז הנה תרחיש...

e-learning אפקטיבי מבוסס פעמים רבות על גישה של תרחישים מבוססי מטרה. מה הם אותם תרחישים וכיצד הם פועלים? בואו לא נתעכב כרגע לדבר על הגדרות. במקום זה, נסתכל על מה מכיל מודל יעיל של תרחיש מבוסס מטרה.