Mobile Learning

Assignment:
Do you own a smartphone or a tablet or both? If you don't, why not? If you do, what do you use them for? Would you ever consider them to be your primary source of learning? Or, are they just a portable way to play Angry Birds?

What could you envision as a good application for mobile learning? What are the barriers to this approach? What would be the advantage for this approach?

Response:

I own a smartphone, but not a tablet.  I have a laptop at home and at work, and a smartphone for on the go, so I don’t really see the need for an extra device.  I’ve thought about getting a Kindle or Nook e-reader, but have a backlog of about 20 hard-copy books on my bookshelf that are on my “to-read” list, so I figure I should get through those before purchasing a new piece of equipment.  I use my smartphone mostly to check emails and facebook and play some games.  I look up things online, and use the GPS navigation feature.  My daughter’s baby monitor also has an app where I can view it from my phone, and I’ve downloaded some toddler games for her. 

I don’t use my smartphone for learning, but I have definitely found it useful to look up things on the spot, for example, if we are out running errands and want to find the nearest gas station or Mexican restaurant, I have the means to find them. 

I just don’t know if anything I need to learn for my job would be better suited for a mobile device.  My job is largely conducted at my desk, and personally, I would rather view training or watch videos on my large monitor, than try to squint and deal with intermittent wi-fi while on the train or waiting in line for my lunch order. 

But, not everyone is like me with access to a large computer monitor from 9-5, and a home laptop.  There are those workers that drive around all day, or work in retail or food services where they are in front of customers most of the time they are at work. 

For these employees, having a mobile training platform where they can watch or read something on their breaks, or listen to it in their car, would be beneficial.  I think a good application would be for small bite-sized pieced of information, almost like Performance Support.  If there is a new product coming out that they need to be able to tell customers about, then a quick product introduction video/training would be helpful to send via mobile.  If you are a server in a restaurant, perhaps the daily specials could be delivered to your smartphone, with a brief description of each item and a list of ingredients.  You could study the specials before you clock in. 

I think advantages to these approaches are that the content is in small, easy-to-digest chunks, and they can be viewed just-in-time.  Barriers are that all employees have access to a device, and have the time to devote to watching.  Playing Devil’s Advocate – I’m not sure that a mobile specials overview is any more effective than a printed piece of paper with the night’s specials.  Is the mode of delivery enough of a benefit to outweigh the costs and time commitment of putting the material on a mobile platform?  Maybe if it were weekly specials rather than daily.  And maybe if your company were a large chain in several states that has to get this info to several hundred employees.  But if you are a small clothing shop or local diner, it’s probably easier to just gather your employees in a quick huddle meeting before the start of their shift to tell them about the new products or new specials, and even allow them to touch and/or taste them, rather than just read about them or listen to someone else describe them. 

Social Learning

Assignment:

Have you had any experience in using social learning as part of your own learning experience either as a designer or a learner? What do you see are the challenges and advantages to incorporating social learning to your own designs? Please use the reflection this week to advance your thinking in these areas.

Response:

I used a discussion board tool in our Learning Management System to create a “community” for our mentors.  They are introduced to it in their orientation, and we post their quick reference guides and resources there, and posted several starter discussion questions to try to get them to share best practices or tips.  The whole point is for them to learn from each other how to best mentor new hires, however, in several years, it has barely been used, despite our best efforts to keep the content fresh and “hype” up the site as a great resource for them.  You can provide the tools, but if no one posts, then it doesn’t add any value. 

My company started using a social networking site called Connect.  We can use it to create groups of cohorts, or teams use it to create private discussions areas for their business.  But a lot of the use is just open areas for people to post and share.  They’ve used it to promote company initiatives, like our partnership with the Olympics, or our annual charitable giving campaign.  People can post their own stories or photos of their experiences and fellow employees can like, rate, and respond to the posts.  It’s been great because I can connect with other employees across the country (and world) and get perspectives that I wouldn’t normally have access to.  Some of it is just fluff, and I wonder how much productivity is wasted (we have some discussion areas on “Around the Water Cooler” for random topics, and different communities for people who like to run, bike, hike, or animal lovers).  I find myself sharing photos of my dogs and liking other people’s pet photos, but then it also offers opportunities to discuss things like animal rescue over pet shops, and people’s opinions on what age to neuter their pets.  There have been connections made where people are interested in getting a second animal and others offering their experience with how to introduce a new pet to an existing one.  So, while a valuable community has been born, not all of the activity is work-related. 

But, I have been able to use it for work-related items as well.  We have a group for Learning and Development, and different discussion rooms for some of the tools we use to create learning.  I’ve posted an example of a demo I created and got some feedback, and have posted questions on what type of equipment others in the company are using for video, etc.  Our Chief Learning Officer has a weekly blog where he posts some thoughts and asks for opinions from other learning professionals in the company.  It’s really informative and interesting to hear from others and have good debates. 

Some of the challenges I see with using our Connect platform in our own courses are:

·         Will people actually use it? If you create it as a discussion area or to share projects, if people don't actually use it, it has no value (much like our Mentor discussion board). You can make it mandatory, but what are the consequences for not actively using it? And it creates a lot more work on the program or page administrator to monitor activity and award points or grades to the connect postings.

·         What is the appropriate amount of time to utilize a connect space for a program? If you have a week-long class, is it worth it to create a space for those participants? Perhaps if it is blended with pre-work and pre-discussions, and post-work and post-class discussions, but how long do you expect people to use it? 30 days after the learning event? a year or more after the learning event? What about for a 1-day program?

·         How do you divide up the connect spaces? You could do it by cohort, so each session gets their own collaborative space, or maybe one per class, so people who went through a program in the past can see what the new people in the class are posting, or people new to the class can go back and see what prior participants said. But that goes back to the amount of time they are expected to use it and gain value from it. The latter example might be more of an example of a wiki or resource site than a learning tool, and when the information gets too broad or cumbersome to look through, then it loses its value.

Some advantages I see are:

·         Ability to share and receive information. This should increase our ability to learn from peers, instructors, and others.

·         Ability to extend collaboration and learning–before, after, or in-between courses

·         Ability for the participants to add diagrams, links, thoughts, and ideas to discussions

·         Ability for the participants to participate in learning when it is convenient for them (time zones, schedules)

·         Ability for participants to access a record of collaborative “conversations” on Connect that can be used at a later date for summarizing findings or reporting.

Overall, I think a social community is great, and find value in it.  But from a course management perspective, I’m not sure if it makes sense for the types of one-day and 3-day courses we design.  Perhaps for our longer-tailed development programs when people are in a cohort for 6 months working together, but I’m not sure social learning sites would be of value for every topic we teach. 

Games and Simulations

Assignment:
Think about examples of when you have used games or simulations yourself or attended a course in which a game or simulation was used. Please share with us what the game or simulation was and whether it was successful or not.

Response:
I have used a Jeopardy style game using a software called GameShow Pro. We use this in a live classroom, and you can get buzzers for your participants to ring in and it automatically keeps track of their scores. It is successful in a live classroom with several teams because it builds camaraderie and teamwork as they compete against other teams for the high score.  It is also a nice way to test recall.  We use it as a debrief in the mornings of a week-long class and test either their knowleedge of the pre-work, or what they learned the day before. 

I've also done a "Who Wants to be a Millionaire" type game using a flash template in Lectora as a quiz in an eLearning course.  It's another way to do a recall/knowledge based quiz, but it looks a lot cooler than a bunch of multiple choice questions.  We do not actually score this quiz since the results are not sent to our Learning Management System, but we've found that the participants do answer all 15 questions because they want to see if they can get them all right. 

As for simulations, I've only ever written very simple branching scenarios using PowerPoint, and more recently, Storyline, but they have only gone one or two slides before coming back together. From what I have seen elsewhere, you can do very advanced branching with multiple outcomes, multiple variables and very different paths, but it takes a lot of work to design and program it!  I don't think I've ever done a true simulation for my own work, but I've seen some examples. 

SimWriter is a simulation-writing tool, and I attended training on how to use it.  While there, I created a demo simulation, but have not had a chance to use it in my work yet.  They have great examples on their Showcase tab on their website. Some of my colleagues in a different department have created a simulation with it, on selling techniques.  They used a green screen to film an employee as a potential sales prospect, and inserted him in one of the backgrounds SimWriter provides.  They then used the software to create a meter to see how good the customer though the interaction was going.  You could fail at any time, but the customer telling you the meeting was over, or, if you took an acceptable path, you closed the sale.  It was really cool, and I liked that they used video and not just still images. 

How to implement eLearning

Assignment:

When you think about how you want to implement your elearning, you have to think about all of the issues that will influence your decision. Reflect on the questions and considerations that impact your decisions about how to implement elearning. 

Response:

I think the biggest consideration is time - how much time do we have for the project?  After the needs analysis and before a decision is made on implementation, you have to determine your time contraints. You may not have time to build a fancy, media-rich course with multiple branching scenarios and animated vignettes.  At that point, you will need to make a decision on the type of authoring tool, theme, and media standards for the course.  In my opinion, this decision needs to come before the storyboarding, but likely after the design document. 

Another consideration is regarding your tools and talent- do you have a developer who can make your vision come to life in the course?  What authoring tools are available?  What are system or bandwidth contraints? 

A third consideration is how this course will integrate with any other courses in a curriculum and how learners will find it.  Will it be delivered to a specific audience or available for anyone to search.? Will it be uploaded through an LMS system, or available by search through a department website? Will it be a stand-alone course or part of a larger curriculum?  Will it link to any other topics or courses? 

Other considerations depend on the project, your project members and stakeholders.  What do your stakeholders want?  What did your needs analysis reveal to you?  Is a job aid or performance support sufficient, or is a full course needed?  Is WBT the appropriate vehicle for the course, or does it need to be blended with some Instructor-led components? 

There are many questions and decisions that need to be made before implementing a course.  Hopefully, your project planning, and design process will allow you to answer all these questions before you begin the course development to guide you to the best implementation plan. 





 

Assessments

Assignment:

Assessments can be a challenging and delicate topic in training and elearning. There are many considerations that you have to look into as you design your assessments. What considerations have you included when formulating assessments?

Response:
When building assessments, I often think about how they will be delivered/scored.  Will it be paper-based and scored by hand?  Computer-based and scored automatically?  Built, delivered and scored through our LMS?  Or given orally and scored by an Instructor? 

Most of the tests I've designed have been for computer-based courses and delivered via an eLearning software or in our LMS system.  Sometimes they are scored, and sometimes they serve more as a practice activity within the course and feedback is given before the learner moves on.  Whether they are scored/reported on or not is another consideration that requires input from the stakeholders and depends on the purpose of the course and test. 

We do have one course that has a robust authentic assessment to determine if the learner can apply all of the objectives of our behavioral interviewing course while interviewing a "mock candidate".  We set up a learner to be the interviewer, while another student serves as the candidate.  A pre-qualified observer listens in and takes notes and grades the interviewer against the rubric.  They run through three different behavioral-based questions in the mock interview and have to display the required behaviors, not only in the interview itself, but in the debrief, candidate rating, and decision-making at the end of the exercise.  The observer then consolidates their notes and scores from the entire series of questions, and provides feedback to both the learner and their manager on what elements meet or exceed criteria, and what elements need more work. 

Another consideration is whether the assessment can predict success on the job. If a test is written so that it just tests knowledge of something versus how to actually perform and do something, it's not as effective. 

The main consideration is whether the assessment ties back to the objective and end goal of the course.  If it doesn't, then it's not worth including. 
 

Connect Activities

Assignment:  For this week's blog post, please recount a learning experience you have had in which the connect portion of the experience was so important it is the part you remember the best!

Response:  It's funny, because when I started reading about Connect Activities, I thought they were almost a "throwaway" activity.  I mean, I've seen countless elearnings or readings where a rhetorical question is asked to try to make you think about how you can apply it to your own experience, but how many learners actually stop and think about it?  I know I often fly right past those questions and keep reading.  

But, as I kept reading about other "connect" activities, I realized that they are more than just rhetorical questions, and can add a lot of value.  Even those stop and think questions, when used in a live class or with a discussion board, and can be good fodder for group discussion and insight.  I think it's tougher when it's an individual reflection. 

A good way I've seen ponder activities applied is through a journal.  This was for a live course that lasted several days.  At the end of each day, the learners were prompted to capture their top three "a-ha" moments or key take-aways from the day's lessons.  By writing them down, and reflecting on how they would apply those concepts back on the job, it both reinforced the learning and connected it to their daily work.  Each morning in class, we would then have a journal reflection discussion where people would share their take-aways and thoughts on application.  Then others in the class could expand on their classmates' ideas and incorporate other applications into their own journals.  This was very effective.  Not only could the learners refer back to just a few pages of their journal, versus several days worth of course materials, they also had a built-in discussion-starter to talk to their manager about what they learned in training and how they would apply it.  When I took a class with a journal-type exercise, it was definitely the part that I remember best and was able to use when I came back to work from the training. 

Another good connect tool is a job aid.  Especially after a session of heavy learning, it's nice to have a simple document to remind you of the key concepts or where/how to find additional resources.  Job aids also allow you to spend less time on training, since you can train them on using the job aid or performance support, rather than spending a lot of time on the system itself. 

Absorb Activities

Reflection Assignment: 

Many elearning courses depend on the learner to read words on a page to absorb the content and click a Next button as the "do" interaction. As designers, what have you designed or seen designed that allows the learner to engage with the content in a way that asks the learner to do more than read & click?

Response:

Many of my early eLearning courses (written 5 years ago) were simply "page-turners" as we call them now.  Basically, a translation of an in-person presentation, moved to an online format where they could read the materials, click next to advance, and maybe have a rollover or two to provide some additional definitions or context.  Throw in a couple of multiple choice or true/false knowledge checks, and that was the extent of the eLearning. 

Now I know that these courses were (are) poorly designed eLearning courses.  Unfortunately, some of them still exist and have only been updated for content changes, not for style or format.  It's on our list of projects to tackle when there is time. 

With the advent of more advanced course-building tools that include flash-based programming, adding more interaction is easier, but it still may not truly be engaging.  I've used Articulate Engage to create pages where users can click on elements of a triangle or  tabs or a timeline or concentric circles to pull out information in a more graphical way, but isn't it still just reading?  Instead of clicking "next", you click on another area of the screen. 

I've tried to dip my toe into some simulation and branching, which allows the user to select a response, and based on the answer, they get different feedback and go down a different path.  These are difficult to design, but can be rewarding. 

A course I'm working on now in Articulate Storyline uses layers and lightbox slides to add dimension and additional information.  There are a lot of links to more information that are optional, if they want to explore further.  The course can be completed in any order, so it's not as linear, but they do have to complete each section to receive credit for the course.  I'm not sure even this course is TRULY interactive, as it's still a lot of absorbing, and not a lot of doing, other than clicking, exploring, and reading.  But I have tried to make the assessment questions more authentic and connect the concepts back to the real job applications.  But the nature of the course is an orientation to our business, so I'm not sure how much "doing" they can actually do with high-level overview information.  I am working on converting one of the sections on our multiple web resources to be a scavenger hunt so they can go out and seek and find relevant information for themselves. 

I think I still have a lot to learn in terms of making truly interactive, engaging, and meaningful eLearning, but I am working on trying to reduce "page-turners" and get more creative in my design so that users motivated to absorb the materials. 

 

 

Company Mission Statement

Assignment: William Horton goes into some detail about aligning the goals of your e-learning projects with the goals of your organization. His examples of company goals include financial, intellectual capital, customers, operations, reputation. Most of us don't really think much about the organizations we work for in terms of the goals. In fact, we tend to ignore mission statements and the like as if they were irrelevant to what we do every day.

As your weekly reflection blog post, I would like you to spend a little time discovering your organization's goals and write a bit about how you might align specific elearning projects for your organization to those goals.

Response:
My company recently debuted a new mission statement in the form of a "Common Purpose":

We deliver our customers peace of mind every day by helping them protect what they value most. We do this by adhering to our quality standards:

• We behave with Integrity
• We deliver Expertise
• We show Care and compassion
• We make things Easy

As an insurance company, our goal is to protect the assets of our customers in the case of loss, theft, or damage.  Therefore, our mission statement is very customer focused. 

Most of the courses I write are designed to help managers build leadership soft skills.  It's a bit of a reach for me to align to the corporate goal of helping to protect our customer's assets when my customer is not a policyholder, but an internal employee.  However, I have to translate that customer focus to my work and think about how I can make the employees' jobs easier and provide them with the expertise they need so they can in turn do a better job of servicing our end-user customers. 

If I can tie back a course objective to how it will help improve processes or reduce time in non-value-added activities, then that will support our goal of providing excellent customer service and peace of mind.  I could also tie back objectives to supporting one of the quality standards of integrity, expertise, care, or ease. 

Introduction to 640

My name is Jennifer Boettcher (Jen), and I live in Wakefield, MA, a suburb north of Boston. I work as an Instructional Designer for a large insurance company, and enjoy working with elearning technologies. I actually prefer the course development side of things over the design side, though I can't imagine developing something that I didn't at least help to design - I like being able to do both. I am enrolled in the certificate program (and am planning on converting to the Master's) to get a broader understanding of the different elearning technologies and methodologies I can apply to my work. So far I have worked in Lectora, Articulate Studio and Articulate Storyline, and Storyline is my favorite. I took 610 (Video Priciples) this summer, so I am starting to think more about incorporating video into my training and have worked with Adobe Premiere Elements.

This is my 4th course in the program - I have taken 601, 610, and 653. 

Outside of work, I am a mom of an almost-2 year old, and have two black lab mixes that we rescued. My husband and I are almost finished with a large home renovation that we began in May. We added a 2nd floor, knocked down some walls, gutted the kitchen, and replaced our heating and cooling systems. This fall we will hopefully be able to start putting our house back together (once the contractors finish their work). I will be thrilled when we stop living in a construction zone!