elearning 1.0 and 2.0

I very much liked the table on learning 1.0 vs 2.0 on this blog. (Couldn't find the name of the author on the page.)

eLearning 1.0	eLearning 2.0
Formal structure	Freeform
Training required	No training
Software installation	SaaS = Software as a Service
Complexity	Easily changed
Experts to make changes	Anyone [mine][in the book: "simple"]
Predetermined uses only	Unintended uses
Non-social	Social

Meet Charlene, a 2.0 learner

Meet Charlene

View SlideShare presentation or Upload your own. (tags: learning 2.0)

Last lecture - how does that work in companies?

You probably have seen the famous last lecture video of prof. Randy Pausch. It really was his last lecture as he was diagnosed with cancer. If you have never watched it, I encourage you to do so. (Why are the brick walls really there? - If you screw up and nobody bothers to tell you any more, that's when you are in a bad place - etc) .

I was wondering how you can bring a concept of giving your so-called last lecture to the workplace. Giving your last speech gives you the freedom to throw away all what doesn't matter and speak from the heart on what you find is most worthwhile. Could we have a 'last meeting' for people leaving the company? I bet they'd have interesting things to say, and good advice to give. Or a 'last email' to the company when you move on? Would it work?

Audience comments on lecture via SMS

A few days ago I attended an event on Generation Y, organized by my alumni association. As an experiment, they had invited people from a company called citylive with a cool technology for conferences. You see two screens above the speaker's head: one is ye old powerpoint (ok, shown via SlideShare instead of MS Office, but still a presentation), and the other screen shows live comments from the audience and answers to questions from the panel or speaker to that audience. The audience can react via an SMS or a mobile application. It really makes the whole presentation thing two-ways, interactive and a lot more fun. Oh, by the way, the comments are filtered by a moderator :-) . People are still people.

OpenElms: open source LMS, CMS and content

I stumbled upon OpenElms.com, another site where you can download an open source learning platform. So far, nothing special. This one calls itself 'open source e-learning for business', and I didn't try the product but from the demo it seems to do the job. Although it's open source, they really want you to do business with them too, reading between the lines, but who can blame them? :-)

Anyway, what I find refreshing about this offer is that you don't only get an open source LMS and LCMS with rapid authoring tool for it, but also a selection of ready-made content on various topics that you can then customise to your needs. I like the marriage between open source technology with open source content, and wish openelms all the best with their business model.

Brain Rules

Brain Rules for Presenters

View SlideShare presentation or Upload your own. (tags: reynolds garr)


Mike suggested me this book and site: brainrules.net. It offers 12 rules for the brain. Learning professionals should know a bit on how the brain works and in what conditions it works best.
And very cool presentation too... I ordered the book, I'll read it in November (yes, you need to plan these things :-) )

Companies say: who's wants a lobotomy?

This is how a lot of companies act lately:

"Hi young graduate, would you like to come and work for us? You get a nice car, a laptop, a challenging environment and lots of growing opportunities. The only thing we ask for in return is you have a lobotomy."

Now honestly, would you consider? And this is in fact how too many are welcoming the new generation in our organizations. I'm talking about all those policies to ban social networking and instant messaging from the workplace "because they hurt productivity". That is not wise. Here's why: people entering the workforce are used to finding the answers they need via their network. Your brain is what is inside your own head PLUS what your contacts know. And in a world of constant change and information overload, that is actually the best you can do. Half of your knowledge or more is in your network. So, cut that off at the office, make sure that you only can rely on the stuff in your own head, and you might as well get a lobotomy. It reminds me of the times companies didn't want to allow Internet access to their employees "because it hurts productivity". It doesn't, and IM or social network sites don't either. In fact, you would do well to implement it within your organisation. Get it or don't get it.

From hard to soft skills

Shifting from hard to soft skills in the future (yes, that's you generation Y!)

• From knowledge to learning
• From routine to creativity
• From following rules to breaking rules
• From experience to innovation
• From specialization to generalization
  
• From keeping the order to managing the chaos
• From stability to the power to surprise
  

Source: Copenhagen Institute for Future Studies

CLO Magazine: outsourcing on decline,

From this edition of the (free) CLO magazine, I remember:

Training Outsourcing on the Decline: (probably US only, not sure?)

• Decisions to outsource rests mainly on whether the needed volume and quality of training can be supported by internal staff.
• The most important activities, according to CLOs, in the learning function are: custom content design, training delivery, strategy development, program oversight and learning technology management. Reporting and measurement came 6th.
• The most outsourced activities, according to the same CLOs are: custom content development, training delivery, learning technology management, and only small portions of all the rest.
• It seems that companies are using external training providers primarily for activities that are important but do not require the transfer of management authority.

IOL: Determining the impact of Learning

• Like metrics for learning or not, but you need to justify it somehow to upper management. Total students trained or course smileys says little on impact.
  
• ROI is often designed too complex but might work.
• Another way is to go for the 'Impact of Learning' or IOL instead of the Return on Investment (ROI)
• There are these three basic steps to IOL as a way to demonstrate the value of learning: insight - individual - impact
• And I still would like to see a complete example before I'm intelectually capable of understanding this approach

Creative destruction in the learning industry

• Disposable technology demands faster and more relevant learning than what can be designed and delivered using old ADDIE methodologies of yesterday. (Connie Twynham)
  

Between making yourself and buying off the shelve

E-learning content is basically a make-or-buy decision. Either you find the package that satisfies your needs on the market, and you buy a license, or you don't and than you develop it yourself. I would argue that the industry is or should be shifting to a make-and-buy model, where a company can buy semi-finalized course materials, and put in the extra 20% effort to tweak them to the organization's unique needs. After all, generic e-learning can only satisfy so many needs (Office training would be one), and reinventing the wheel for customized training is a costly matter.

- Companies should be able to buy instructional templates and creative alternatives on specific types of training. I'm thinking of templates for application training, product training, process training, induction, management 'soft' skills, etc. It saves a lot on instructional design to work with a sound and proven template.

- Companies should be able to buy almost-ready content that is approx 80% ready and complete it with their own terminology, logo, picture library and relevant cases and examples. I'm thinking of general training or cross-industry training.

I stumbled upon Kineo, a UK provider that is operating in this in-between market: the offer flatpacks or templates for a fee. Have a look at their store:

http://www.rapidelearningstore.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=blogcategory&id=2&Itemid=107

What is PENS?

PENS is another standard in the elearning world, and stands for 'Package Exchange Notification Services'. It's a specification that allows for quickly and automatically uploading an e-learning package to an LMS from a supported tool like an authoring tool or an LCMS.

http://pens.lmstesting.com/pages/whatispens.htm

Busuu language learning

Busuu is a new site to learn languages (English, French, Spanish, German). Currently in beta, it offers an orientation test and a community around native speakers. The design is fresh and very visual, something important for language learners. I also like the fact this site does not necessarily assume you want to learn language A from B. In your profile you can select all the languages you know and the level you are at, and the languages you want to know. The tour video doesn't work, but otherwise looks promising. Made in Spain.

Learning snacks

What's in a name? You can a small learning unit an object (SCO from the SCORM standard), or a module, a lesson, ... Microsoft has a new name: on their Windows 2008 website they offer 'learning snacks' for free.
It are little modules on some of the features of their new server product in their usual e-learning format: a combination of a menu, static information, and simulations.
It plays in a nice Silverlight player. Silverlight is Microsoft's competitor for Flash and just like Flash requires a one time installation of the free Silverlight player. After that, it just plays in your browser, and as Microsoft will push their format in the time coming, you'll hear more of it.

One thing struck me while viewing a sample: either Text-To-Speech voices have become very good, or the man speaking the text on the simulations has a bad cold or is a cyborg. :-)

Web-based e-learning authoring tools

I'm a strong fan of complete web-based e-learning authoring tools. With the Rich Internet Client applications these days (often build with Flash Flex or Ajax), it is not needed anymore to install local programs to create courses. Furthermore, online tools ensure better collaboration during the development phase because just like learning, making learning is in essence a social and collaborative activity. These online editors often share a common online media library, have workflow features (for example for reviews), and allow for publishing in SCORM or other formats. They are often more simple to use because they heavily rely on screen templates or educational templates.

Here is a list:
- Udutu.com : beta site I wrote in this blog about before. Free authoring via Flash-based forms.
- http://www.rapidintake.com/unison/index.htm : similar product, by the makers of FlashForms
- http://www.coursebuilder.no/ by Edvantage: Course Builder is an online platform for course creation. Don't confuse it with an Adobe product of the same name.
- http://www.composica.com/product/ : online elearning tool for 150$ per author per month
- http://www.courseliner.com/ : courseliner is a French commercial tool

Knol = a unit of knowledge according to Google

It's one of the things Google is experimenting with, when they are not making maps of the moon or so. They started a by-invitation only project called Knol, which is short for knowledge. The idea is to bring authors and their expertise status back into the web. I'm not sure what it looks like, it seems like a wiki for experts only that other people can comment on but not change. I'm sure we'll hear more about it in due time, but if nothing else, we have a new cool word for 'a unit of knowledge', a knol. It sounds so much better than learning object, doesn't it?

More information and a screenshot on the official Google blog.

Masie survey on how employees learn

The Masie Consortium did a survey on how employees learn. You can read some findings here:

http://www.masieweb.com/voicesurvey


Some of the points I remember are:
- People like the fact they have multiple options on what, how and when they learn. There used to be only a class. Now there is also tutoring, e-learning, social networks, the internet, etc.
- But people also get the feeling that with more options, they actually get less time for learning.
Looks like corporate learning is shifting to 'more freedom but in your own time'.

Flash movie tool online: toufee.com

I'm not producing any flash for my sites. The reason is that although the result is visually better than HTML with combined javascript, I just don't have the skills or the money to do proper flash development. Once in a while I'm temped to use an easy (and I mean REAL easy) flash tool.

I recently stumbled upon toufee.com. Warning: I haven't tried it out, because they charge (a little) for it, but it looks like a good tool if all you want is to quickly make some animated movies or text transitions. It's made by a couple of Indians. There is an article on TechCrunch on them here.

Scorm Test Track online by Rustice Software (free)

A tool I frequently use to check an e-learning SCORM package is the free and online SCORM Test Track by Rustici Software.

Just make an account and upload your SCORM packages. You can launch the course, and track all the SCORM communication in detailed logs or just the major items like completion status and score information. Highly recommended tool for testing if your course is SCORM compatible and communicates the necessary information to the LMS.

The tool itself will not solve any compatibility problems between your course (authoring tool) and learning platform, but is a great help. The problem with especially SCORM 1.2 is that the same standard can be interpreted in multiple ways. I give you one example: there is an API to tell the LMS you are moving to another page. But the standard doesn't say if you have to specify the page ID you are moving away from, or the one you are going to.

Site with quiz and testing tools

This site lists many free or commercial tools to create quizzes or tests.

http://www.c4lpt.co.uk/Directory/Tools/testing.html

Does content still have value?

Answer: yes. But the willingness for the consumers of it to pay for the content is going way, way down, to the point that content itself will be offered for free, and additional services around will make the money. It is what the music industry is struggling with (the revenue is in the concert tours not the songs), and it's in fact an old prediction of the Internet bubble gurus. They weren't wrong about everything.

This blog (Will at Work) explains why learning will not escape this trend and makes some predictions. I think everyone in our industry should read this, whether or not you agree.

http://www.willatworklearning.com/2008/06/all-media-force.html