Synapsys Blog - Analyse/Plan

Understanding the elearning landscape

One of the things that we've learned from our eLearning projects is that the term 'eLearning' means different things to different people. Once upon a time, eLearning just meant content - chunks of material that were self contained learning objects, with not much thought for the context in which learners engaged with that content. Increasingly, the term is expanding in it's reach and is now bit of a catch-all term that is used to cover a range of possible online experiences. And the number of possible online experiences is increasing dramatically.

If you don't believe me, check out the top 100 learning tools of 2009 collated by Jane Hart at the Centre for Learning and Performance Technologies

The list covers personal publishing tools, document collaboration and sharing systems, microblogs, video editing and broadcasting, web conferencing, learning management and portfolio tools and many many more. All of these tools in some way allow the creation of events that can form part of eLearning experiences. The trick is to understand what kind of experiences your learners need, and which tools are best suited to different learning experiences.

Each of the tools mentioned above are better suited to some tasks than others. They're also better suited to some environments, learning styles, content areas .. all the things that you would consider in a learner profile analysis. I've started to think about this as an eLearning landscape that is defined by these different dimensions (and I'm not the only one). If we can locate our learners in this landscape, and have a corresponding map of tools that work best in different parts of the landscape, we can more easily choose the best tools to use.

Let me give you an example. Lets say we have learners that can't meet face-to-face, and that there are three dimensions of interest when planning eLearning for this group:

• the number of learners (individual through to large group)


• temporal proximity (same timezone vs other side of the world), and


• the depth of learner engagement required (passive vs active).
  

With a large group of learners in the same timezone, we might choose a webinar tool for an expert-led seminar. When active engagement is required, we might introduce an online polling or survey tool to get real-time feedback on questions. When the audience is large, passive and in different timezones, a streamed video of the presentation and some reading material would probably be a better choice.

In contrast, a small group of people in different timezones with a need to be actively engaged in learning would have difficulty interacting in real time, so a webinar wouldn't be the best tool to choose. A better choice might be an asynchronous collaboration tool like a wiki or a forum where a small group can work together more effectively.

This isn't an exhaustive list of dimensions, or possible tools. But I hope it get's across the point that one tool does not fit all if your learners vary on important dimensions. If we want to achieve effective learning, and we want to make best choices about what tools to use, I find it a useful way to get underway. I'm planning on developing this idea a bit further in future posts and would be interested to hear your thoughts so let me know what you think.

Changing our thinking about VET trainer competency development

We've recently been working with a client to define a trainer progression framework for around 3000 trainers spread across the organisation. Our thinking was influenced by research coming out of the E.U. around competencies for VET professionals. It's produced by the European Centre for the Development of Vocational Education, and the 'Handbook for Practitioners' can be found here . It's well worth a read. Some of the key themes that made good sense to us include:
- The explosion of new learning technologies and pace of change of information now demands far greater flexibility and responsiveness of trainers than has been the case in the past
-In order to respond to this challenge, trainers need to see themselves in broad partnerships and networks. "Professionalism and expertise are no longer understood as personal properties..." p13.
-This change is sufficiently important to justify a quadrant of the framework being dedicated to networking.

The Handbook goes on to break down competencies across administration, training, quality assurance, and networking. These categories are mapped to teachers, in-company trainers, and leaders.

While written at a high level, the competencies provide a really pragmatic, useful set of indicators that can be adapted for individual organisational contexts.

It's always hard to know where to focus your limited time when exploring new models for trainer development. This should definitely be on your reading list.

Changing our thinking about VET trainer competency development

We've recently been working with a client to define a trainer progression framework for around 3000 trainers spread across the organisation. Our thinking was influenced by research coming out of the E.U. around competencies for VET professionals. It's produced by the European Centre for the Development of Vocational Education, and the 'Handbook for Practitioners' can be found here . It's well worth a read. Some of the key themes that made good sense to us include:
- The explosion of new learning technologies and pace of change of information now demands far greater flexibility and responsiveness of trainers than has been the case in the past
-In order to respond to this challenge, trainers need to see themselves in broad partnerships and networks. "Professionalism and expertise are no longer understood as personal properties..." p13.
-This change is sufficiently important to justify a quadrant of the framework being dedicated to networking.

The Handbook goes on to break down competencies across administration, training, quality assurance, and networking. These categories are mapped to teachers, in-company trainers, and leaders.

While written at a high level, the competencies provide a really pragmatic, useful set of indicators that can be adapted for individual organisational contexts.

It's always hard to know where to focus your limited time when exploring new models for trainer development. This should definitely be on your reading list.

Choosing the right delivery mode

IDC's Corporate Learning Buyer Survey series suggests that most corporates choose the delivery mode of training based on available content (IDC, March 2009, #217336, Vol. 1). Hardly surprising really; migrating content from one delivery mode to another is no small task. Moving the words from book to eLearning is one thing. Creating an effective learning experience in the new mode is another thing again.

In our experience, corporates are motivated to change mode because of the apparent significant savings, and the promise of 'better' results. A back-of-the-envelope calculation of the cost of flying 10 people to a workshop for two days quickly moves into the tens of thousands of dollars. Plenty there for some good eLearning content creation, surely?

The problem is that creating a new delivery mode is an upfront cost while business as usual needs to continue. Where does the 'extra' money come from? And what about the risk, maybe it won't work? And where do we get the specialist skills to develop the new mode without becoming dependent on an external provider?... Perhaps we'll just run workshops for another year....

We believe there are three critical steps to setting this process up correctly:
1. Use a sound process to choose the new mode. Base it on what will work for the learners. Audience analysis, organisational requirements, expected change, best model, and required resources.... It doesn't have to be huge, but it needs to ask the right questions.
2. Take small steps and start with the content. Don't leap in and choose an LMS, thre are plenty of cheap hosting options while you focus on creating some good content and the piloting process.
3. Take the time to do a basic Return On Investment analysis, and use it to measure the effectiveness of the pilot. It'll give you the confidence to proceed further - or not!

Integrating Unit Standards - Good concept, hard work

We've noticed a change in the way a number of our clients are approaching the issue of creating learning resources for Unit Standards. There is a growing desire to provide learning packages that integrate a number of Unit Standards. The motivations include:
• More flexibility in creating innovative, engaging learning resources
• Reduced duplication of assessment across multiple units
• A more coherent learning pathway than simply serving up content Unit by Unit.

Some of these drivers also sit behind the Government's recently announced decision to limit the extent to which students can be re-assessed against competency standards they have not achieved.

In the past some clients have been reluctantant to tackle these issues because:
• There was a need to allow learners to be assessed and sign off on individual units
• The task of aggregating content for multiple Elements and PCs was seen as too complex
• The task of writing integrated assessments for multiple Elements and PCs was also seen as too complex, particulary given the downside of multiple range statements being aggregated.

The heart of the problem is that while aggregated Units are great for learners, assessment and adminstration processes still need to manage content on a Unit Standard basis for recognition.

Our approach to this issue is to template a process that:
• Creates a matrix of aggregated P.C.s that define new topic structures but still leave transparent the Units they relate to
• Generates a matrix of assessment questions that maps aggregated P.C.s to assessment tools and keeps the linkages transparent.

That has taken us to the point where are able to provide to the development teams a coherent roadmap detailing how the content needs to be written. The next challenge is that creating integrated content resouces that meet these requirements is more complex that writing for single Units. More about that in a subsequent post....

Selecting an LMS for your Business

What are the keys to successfully selecting a Learning Management System for your business?

I've just finished viewing an excellent webinar on this topic, courtesy of Bryan Chapman. In the webinar, Bryan talks with three senior managers at large corporates (NEC, Sharp and Valero Energy) about their process for selecting and implementing a Learning Management System.

There's a lot of really useful insights in this presentation, but the key messages that I took from it are:

• There are hundreds of potential LMSs to choose from. The challenge is to identify the one that's best for your organisation.


• Consult widely within your organisation to determine the requirements.


• Finding the right supplier is as important as finding the right system.


• Frequent communication with stakeholders, an organisational champion and leadership from senior management are all critical to the success of your implementation

Nothing terribly surprising, but it's always great when you see industry leaders agreeing with your approach. Synapsys has long been convinced of the importance of understanding your stakeholders, your audiences and their needs before making strategic decisions.

It's clear that an effective LMS implementation can have wide ranging effects on your business. The people interviewed during the webinar quoted shifts in online delivery of training from 10% pre-LMS to 90% in some cases. It was also fascinating to hear how NEC had turned their LMS into a revenue generation channel, using it to advertise and sell training packages to their dealer network. In this particular case, NEC achieved a 1300% (yes, 1300%) return on investment.

It's clearly a decision that can have wide ranging effects on your business, and making sure you have a clear understanding of what your users need is of paramount importance. And that's where we can help.

To LMS or not to LMS

At some point in their growth, many organisations identify a need to distribute learning and training material to people in diverse locations. E-learning is an ideal solution for this need, but how should it be deployed for maximum benefit to the organisation?
A key decision in a large-scale deployment concerns whether to use a Learning Management System (LMS) to manage the delivery of learning content. And it's not hard to see why - LMSs have many benefits, and in the right environment are a perfect choice for learning and training delivery to people in disparate locations. Some of the benefits include:

• A single location for material


• The ability to easily update material and have updates distributed to learners instantly


• The ability to manage access to different resources through user authentication

However, the use of LMS based content depends on having readily available and reliable access to the internet. In developing markets, this can't always be depended upon. Although some vendors claim that their LMSs allow content to be exported to other formats, through tools like the Blackboard Backpack, it's often not as easy as is suggested.

eLearning design process, moving on from ADDIE

Most training developers are familiar with the ADDIE training development model, based on a series of steps moving from analysis through development to evaluation. This article by Kevin Kruse suggests that eLearning development processes might benefit from the incorporation of systemic design models that involve an interative process. Creative teams evolve and test concepts until there is broad user acceptance. He also suggests that a rapid prototyping step can be inserted as part of CD ROM solutions design to test out working models.

Our experience is that project practicalities such as budget and timeframe often preclude an open ended process of iterative inquiry. If (and it's a big if) the right information is gathered in the initial scoping phases, we can have confidence that the proposed solution will fit.

A relatively linear model doesn't preclude creativity. The key determinant here is that the development team needs to have clearly defined roles and processes which allow the creative/expansive work to be done in a managed way. If the team composition isn't appropriate, or if the process is unclear, it's doubtful whether a truly effective solution will emerge, no matter what time or resource is allocated to it.

At Synapsys, the vision for the elearning experience is driven by the educational designer. Graphic designers and coding developers are charged with responsibility to 'make it so', as much as techncially possible.

As more and more of our work involves blended learning solutions, the other big challenge becomes clearly defining the relationship between the different media/experiences so that the learner has a clear pathway to follow that makes sense to them.

On larger projects we'll manage this process through the use of media-specific project managers, whose output is managed by the lead educational designer. It is this person who is charged with the role of 'champion of the learner', continuously monitoring from the perspective of the learner whether the final experience will be both seamless and effective.

Beginner's Guide to Distance Learning Issues

The California Distance Learning Project (CDLP) provides a useful overview of common issues and concerns in the development of distance learning materials. eLearning related development is also addressed. Content includes an overview of the history of distance learning, as well as coverage of more contemporary issues such as SCORM compliance and open source LMSs. Administration and evaluation issues are also overviewed. If you need to clarify what these terms mean, or orient yourself around broad issues, this is a good place to start:

CDLP

Why doesn't our eLearning work?

Many organisations approach the issue of eLearning and computer based training by
1. Deciding it might add some value, or reduce training cost
2. Purchasing a Learning Management System
3. Purchasing off-the-shelf content or taking existing training resource and putting it on the intranet.

It is not uncommon for them to discover:
• Implementation costs far exceed estimates
• There are a raft of unanticipated staffing and technology issues
• There is low uptake in the training by staff
• There are real questions over whether the new training is actually delivering changed behaviours

Why? Because effectively leveraging the value of eLearning isn’t just about technology and content. It’s also about your organisations’ culture, how people cope with change, and the quality of the learning experience.

No surprise then, that a truly eLearning capable organisation has strategically addressed issues of:
• Leadership and Management
• Organisational Culture
• Technology, and
• Staffing

It's a daunting list, but the industry is mature enough now for there to be clear indicators of the sorts of characteristics that typify organisations how have developed their eLearning capability effectively.

Synapsys has classified these indicators and developed an audit service that involves mapping your organisation to a series of indicators for each area. We report to you on your organisations’ status, and provide suggestions for tactical initiatives that will target your particular areas of priority. Contact us for more information.

Create your own training site

Developed in a series of workshops since 2002, the On the Cutting Edge Program, is sponsored by the National Science Foundation in USA. This programme is focussed on Geosciences, but the information presented on sound web development for training sites applies across multi-disciplines.

The site appealed to me because of its simplicity and down-to-earth instructions that follow very similar processes to those we have developed in Synapsys NZ Ltd. This site can give you a good start in creating your own training online. If you'd like some support in how to apply the principles to your own organisation, give us a call.

Start by looking at Web Based Resources - Developing Effective On-Line Educational Resources in the Geosciences and work through the site for a step-by-step web build for a training site. Excellent layout allows sequential and random access to information for JIT reference.

Also of importance is the section on Observing and Assessing Student Learning. On these pages, users can find activities for evaluating student learning as well as information on how to use different assessment methods in different learning environments.

Full credit must go to the planning team for a well constructed site with heaps of practical information:
1. Heather Macdonald, College of William and Mary, rhmacd@wm.edu
2. Cathryn Manduca, Carleton College, cmanduca@carleton.edu
3. David Mogk, Montana State University, Bozeman, mogk@montana.edu
4. Barbara Tewksbury, Hamilton College, btewksbu@hamilton.edu

Multimedia development process models

The process of multimedia development is complex. Each organisation will develop its own process which reflects its own culture, as much as it does good process design principles. Here's an example of one process module developed by Stephen Lowe for use by Level 7 Multimedia Diploma students. Note that each step has rollovers, providing useful background.

Useful Blended Learning case studies

This White Paper: http://www.centra.com/download/whitepapers/CaseStudy_BlendedLearning.pdf contains a couple of useful case studies illustrating the way in which different blended media can be purposed for different business needs, together with commentary on the decision making processes sitting behind them.

They do a good job of selling blended solutions, but don't go into any depth around the actual change processes that have to take place for solutions such as these to work. Case study 1 includes the use of a range of different technology tools. Unless your organisation already has them bedded down as part of its culture, the job in getting people to work with them may well overshadow the learning that you're hoping to achieve through their use.

Top Ten Tips for Implementing eLearning

From Jane Knight at the eLearning Centre:

1. e-learning is more than online courses
2. Content is not the answer to every learning problem
3. Beauty is in the blend
4. Learning solutions must be appropriate
5. e-Learning is a strategic solution
6. An LMS is not a necessary prerequisite for e-learning
7. Coordinated e-learning efforts make sense
8. Success measures should be clearly identified
9. The right conditions need to be in place for e-learning to succeed
10. Just do it!

Link here...

The People-Process-Product Continuum in eLearning

This paper by Badrul H. Khan addresses the process of building eLearning materials and what types of people need to be involved. His process involves two phases, content development and content delivery/maintenance. He also outlines the different roles tha tneed to be involved from planning and design to production and evaluation. A very useful blueprint for setting up a project.

More here...

Are LMS's Too Limiting?

We're really pleased that this conversation is happening, though it does cause quite a bit of consternation. Learning and content management systems are great because they make learning content relatively easy to develop and administer, but they do require a lot of compromising.

"Given the marketing muscle behind the major LMS developers and their complete dominance of the e-learning space, it’s hardly surprising that many people see an LMS as “the solution” to their future learning needs. But an LMS, as available today, is not a universal solution for a corporation’s e-learning problems. In fact, an LMS is often the albatross around the neck of progress in technology-enhanced learning."

More here...

Categories of eLearning

We've just been sent a great resource from George Siemens that offers a compelling and structured view of the eLearning universe. It dovetails nicely with the paper we presented at e-Fest last week, stressing the importance of understand learning objectives and approaches over particular technologies and methods.

"A danger exists in discussing various segments of elearning: paying too much attention to distinctions across categories. The real focus and unifying theme is (or at least should be) learning – whether it is in a classroom, online, blended, or embedded. Each category presented here is most effective when properly matched with the appropriate learning environment and desired outcome."

More here...

How's Your eLearning?

Another great reality check for us, this time from Badrul H. Khan. In this article, he reminds us to think of an organsation's learning environment as part of a system that includes learners, instuctors, staff and many other stakeholders. He uses the term 'meaningful learning' which echoes our concern with creating solutions that are truly effective...

Badrul writes:

"About two years back, I asked a friend if his institution was doing any eLearning. He said, "Oh, yes, we have an LMS and we are doing all sorts of eLearning stuff." I said, "Having an LMS does not necessarily mean that you are creating meaningful eLearning." He asked, "Meaningful eLearning-what do you mean?"

More here...

How's Your eLearning?

Another great reality check for us, this time from Badrul H. Khan. In this article, he reminds us to think of an organsation's learning environment as part of a system that includes learners, instuctors, staff and many other stakeholders. He uses the term 'meaningful learning' which echoes our concern with creating solutions that are truly effective...

Badrul writes:

"About two years back, I asked a friend if his institution was doing any eLearning. He said, "Oh, yes, we have an LMS and we are doing all sorts of eLearning stuff." I said, "Having an LMS does not necessarily mean that you are creating meaningful eLearning." He asked, "Meaningful eLearning-what do you mean?"

More here...

Making Personas More Powerful

We have written before about how valuable we find personas and how we use them in our work. We were really excited to find this great article by George Olsen that takes the idea even further, and highlights tangible ways of making personas multi-dimensional and most importantly, actionable. Though tailored towards a web business audience, educators and trainers should find this helpful, as well.

The piece includes a link to Olsen's persona toolkit that includes information on:

- Biographic, geographic, demographic, psychographic background information
- The business’ relationship to the persona
- The persona’s relationship to product and business
- The persona’s specific goals, needs and attitudes
- The persona’s specific knowledge and proficiencies
- The context of usage
- Interaction, information, sensory, emotional aspects of the user experience
- Accessibility issues
- Relationships among personas

More here...

Integrating Performance and Learning using Competencies

This is an older, but quite relevant article about aligning learning initiatives with business strategy and tangible performance outcomes.

"People are an organization’s most important value-producing asset. They represent enormous wealth for an organization and can exceed 40 percent of corporate expense. Without them nothing gets done. If people assets don’t act and re-act appropriately, then much of our financial capital, technology capital, and knowledge capital is wasted - strategy is not successfully executed, objectives are not met, mission is not fulfilled, and stakeholders are not satisfied. There is tremendous business value, competitive advantage and growth to be gained by improving how human capital is managed."

More here...

eLearning is Not Knowledge Management

This is great, a four-year old piece by Verna Allee that foreshadows all of the hot thinking right now, particularly around social networks and emergent learning. Specifically, she talks about what eLearning providers need to understand in order to create real intellectual capital:

"For elearning providers to really support knowledge management, they would expand their focus to learning communities and link to the real-time knowledge object repositories that people use in their daily work. A more complete knowledge focus would mean having the capacity to:

- Connect people to people in ways that build learning communities

- Support learning communities in creating knowledge objects

- Connect to those knowledge objects in elearning modules

- Create expertise and learning profiles of the community..."

We had the pleasure of seeing Verna speak at a SmartNet event here in Christchurch recently -- great, high-level strategic thinking.

More here:
http://www.linezine.com/2.1/features/vaenkm.htm

The Future of Work

Comparing the evolution of human society to the evolution of the workplace, author Tom Malone suggests that lower communication costs are changing the face of the modern workplace:

"Near the end of the 20th century, it became possible for the first time to exchange the detailed kind of information necessary to coordinate a business on a very large scale even as lots of individuals made decisions for themselves. When communications costs fall it becomes possible for vastly more people to be well-enough informed to make decisions instead of just following orders from their uniquely well-informed superiors."

More at: http://www.fortune.com/fortune/fastforward/0,15704,611068,00.html

The Problems with Training (and What to Do About It)

This essay sums up a lot of important principles in the creation of training, mainly related to motivation and engagement. The authors, Scott Berkun and Vanessa Longacre, ran training events at Microsoft, so you could say they've had a bit of experience...

"...we learned that there are two essential ingredients in great learning experiences: A team of smart energetic people committed to doing something good, and a thoughtful plan, crafted with creative energy and smart logistical planning."

More here:

http://www.uiweb.com/issues/issue29.htm

Blended Learning and Business Change

This is a semi-introductory article on blended learning, but includes interesting results of an IDC study of fifteen organisations that have undertaken blended learning. Included are some helpful guidelines for developing a blended learning approach, focused on ensuring business impact.

http://www.clomedia.com/content/templates/clo_fairfield.asp?articleid=349

eLearning Trends for 2004

This article makes a number of predictions about eLearning in 2004, including speculation that more companies will outsource the creation of custom courseware and simulations will be the learning platform of choice:

http://www.darwinmag.com/read/120103/elearn.html

Designing Emotional Impact Into eLearning

This is a very interesting article from eLearn Magazine that points out how much more effective eLearning can be if it is designed to trigger positive emotions.

"The problem is not the technology, the problem is that nearly all of the [e-learning] environments I know metacommunicate dreariness and boredom, and they only address the cognitive part of learning."

http://www.elearnmag.com

Aligning Training with Business Strategy

This is a subject near and dear to our hearts and one that is now getting a lot of attention: the importance of aligning training to business strategy and looking for real changes in behaviour and improvements to the bottom line. This article is a discussion about ROI to some extent, but its strongest message is the importance of executive involvement in training decisions.

http://www.optimizemag.com/issue/026/roi.htm

Personas Development

This is one of the best articles we've seen on the development of personas. If you're unfamiliar with the term, 'personas' are a tool used by software/web and educational designers to better understand their target audiences. It is an excellent way for the entire development or training team to visualise the individuals for whom they are building solutions.

At Synapsys, we take the paradigm a step further, leveraging the personas to create scenarios that inform our planning process. This article isn't training-specific, but quite useful nonetheless.

http://www.infotoday.com/online/jul03/head.shtml