Recently I’ve been pushing our organization to focus on nurturing more in-house eLearning development skill versus frequently relying on outside vendors who give us mundane eLearning at outrageous prices. “We can do far better for far less!” I wail. Fortunately, my cries are finally being heard, and we now seem to be heading in the right direction. Albeit cautiously.
A few weeks ago I was having a spirited discussion with one of the training managers in our organization regarding this shift. While the discussion was mostly positive, she did make a comment regarding dedicating more staff to in-house development that alarmed me. The comment went something like this:
“Why would we pay someone X thousand dollars a year just to sit and do this [makes dismissive gesture of fingers typing on a keyboard] all day?”
[insert sound of needle scratching vinyl record here]
What???
OK, let me get this straight: eLearning is supposed to be this magical contraption that saves us a bajillion dollars in training costs, yet building this magical contraption is nothing more than a trivial clerical task that involves the simple press of a button and turn of a few dials? Seriously?
And if eLearning development is such a menial, low-grade task, why are we paying vendors high-grade dollars to do eLearning development for us? Someone please explain the logic here.
With this kind of attitude, it’s no wonder our eLearning is boring, mundane, unimaginative, and mightily resisted by the majority of our learners.
The biggest reason we are struggling with getting our learners to embrace the concept of eLearning is not that the concept of anytime, anywhere learning isn’t sound. The biggest reason is that we have chosen to represent this new way to learn with some of the most offensively bland products imaginable for the sake of a higher ROI. Can we not see how we are sabotaging ourselves here?
Personally, I fail to see how the value of a course developer who sits around a table with a bunch of SMEs to hash out the course content is of more monetary worth than the eLearning developer who has to step in and put that content into a compelling eLearning product. Who, by the way, needs to be an expert of Photoshop, Fireworks, visual design basics, typography, color, audio recording and editing, video recording and editing, PowerPoint, Flash, HTML, JavaScript, Captivate, Articulate, and on, and on, and on. Not to mention an efficient writer and grammarian whose task it is to clean up the often-jumbled mess the course writers/SMEs provide (particularly the almost-always horrible narration script).
Perhaps I should feel good knowing that my work is done so quickly and the quality of my product is so great that my eLearning-ignorant peers think the work involved is really no big deal. But, surprisingly, I suddenly don’t feel good about that. Not at all.
If we can’t convince the people with the budget that eLearning is only going to save us money if we put enough money into eLearning to create compelling learning experiences, then eLearning is surely doomed.
That, or I need to quit my job and get in on some of this overpriced big-dollar vendor-created eLearning action, while the getting is good.
So if you’re in a corporate training shop with a lack of in-house talent and you have big outsourcing dollars to wildly throw around…call me.
I often get requests for visual timelines in eLearning courses. Typically I’ll try to cobble something together using PowerPoint’s charting or drawing tools (shudder). Sometimes I’ll create the timeline in Apple’s Keynote (much nicer charting tools) and bring the graphic into PowerPoint (since I do most of my development work in Articulate Presenter). I’ve also created timelines from scratch using something like Adobe Fireworks, which can be a time-consuming endeavor.
Timeline from Bee Documents looks like an interesting application. Whip up a beautiful timeline in a matter of minutes? Yes please! The 3D version looks particularly intriguing (and visually stunning).
Ah, this is what I love about my cross-platform setup at home (iMac + VMWare Fusion + Windows XP). Easy access to the best and brightest apps, regardless of the platform.
Give Timeline a look. Better yet, download the free trial. And the prices are reasonable enough to pay for themselves in time saved in a course or two.
Clearleft has just announced a new software usability testing application for Mac called Silverback. Silverback uses the built-in camera found on most current Mac models to record video and audio of your user while simultaneously capturing screen activity. There’s a free 30-day trial, and the app costs a mere $49.95. Which, in the outrageously pricey world of eLearning development software, is practically free. Not to mention all the typical testing equipment (and setup grief) this app (and Apple hardware) renders unnecessary.
There’s also a video demo of the application in action on the website.
Sadly, my organization has a total of zero Macs (pathetic, I know). I may have to sneak in my personal MacBook or iMac and do some eLearning usability testing on some of our customers using Silverback. I really need some “hard data” to provide management to support my arguments that our Articulate-developed stuff is vastly better than our horrible LCMS-developed stuff. Sure, the email messages I receive from our customers (as well as my own personal rantings and ravings) say it all, but you know how management prefers “test results” to “anecdotal evidence.” Wish me luck.
This may be old news to some of you, but I had never seen it before it was presented at a training conference I attended last week. Not only is the message thought-provoking, but the visual design is extremely compelling. This is nothing more than a PowerPoint-like presentation set to music. Yet it’s more effective than 99.9% of the PowerPoint presentations you’ll see.
If only most of the eLearning I’ve been subjected to were this efficient…
I don’t tend to deviate from the topic of eLearning on this blog, but I’ll make an exception today. I just returned from an internal training event, which featured the requisite (and often dreaded, at least for me) keynote speaker. Now, I’ve seen a lot of keynote speakers in my day, most of them ranging anywhere on the quality scale from bad to horrible. There have been a few shining stars. Erik Wahl was one of them.
Of course, every presenter hits every viewer differently. What is inspirational to me may be cheesy and contrived to you. And vice versa. Heck, your opinion of a keynote speaker may be based almost entirely on your particular mood that morning. The amount of sleep you got the night before. The unbearable temperature and humidity in the bleak “undesirable but affordable” outpost of a city you are staying in for your conference. So one’s evaluation of a keynote speaker is highly subjective.
That said, if you have any say in the choosing of keynote speakers for your organization’s training events, I highly recommend you take a look at Erik Wahl.
I was inspired. And I was entertained. Keynote speaker mission accomplished!
I’m a gadget freak. I’ll admit it. And my favorite gadget of all time is my Apple iPhone. Period. Frankly, it’s the device I’ve been waiting for these many years (and through one tragically horrible cell phone or PDA after another (may you rot in Heck, miserable, despised little Sony-Ericsson T610, bane of my pre-iPhone life)).
Is it wrong to be deeply in love with a handful of glass, chrome, aluminum, silicon and plastic? Perhaps. But I don’t care. It’s real, baby, even if you don’t understand it. We have something…special.
OK, I’m veering off course now. Correcting…
Even if you’re not a gadget freak, you’ve probably heard that Apple recently announced its second version of the iPhone. Cheaper, faster, GPS inside, yada yada. Yes, it will be cool. Yes, I will be buying one. As will a bajillion other members of the horrible-gadget-oppressed masses.
But the bigger news to me does not involve the hardware, but the software (which applies to the current iPhone as well). A couple of months ago Apple announced the App Store, which will feature 3rd party software offerings for the iPhone and iPod Touch. The App Store will provide a convenient (if restrictive) way to browse and purchase (or download for free), directly from the iPhone/iPod itself, what I expect to be a mostly-stellar offering of touchscreen-based applications.
Will eLearning applications be among them? Heck yes they will!
Modality Learning announced (onstage at the Stevenote, no less) several apps that will be available when the App Store launches, including Brain Quest for kids, a variety of educational apps for medical students (as seen in the image at the top of this post), and Frommer’s travel guides.
Expect an avalanche of other educational software to follow from other developers.
The eLearning potential for that big, beautiful, buttery smooth touchscreen you can carry anywhere is so enormous, it makes me hyper like a 3rd grader hopped up on Sugar Smacks. Wait, I’m always that hyper. But I digress…
Will Apple be the ones to finally put legitimate eLearning in our pockets? My money says yes. Hey, it’s not a smart move to bet against El Jobso these days. And heaven knows no other pocketable device thus far has given mobile eLearning real legs.
I can’t wait to see the possibilities. And, perhaps, create some of my own.
The future of mobile eLearning truly begins July 11. Mark your calendars.
Now, who is going to step up to the plate and develop a great eLearning authoring tool for the iPhone? Since my favorite eLearning software company is beholden to Microsoft PowerPoint (the Windows version only, no less) and Adobe Flash - neither of which are currently allowed to play in the iPhone Garden - is another contender ready to bring the goods?
I mentioned the release of ScreenFlow back in February, and this app is getting some high-profile (and well-deserved) recognition by way of twoApple Design Awards from the 2008 Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC): Best OS X Graphics and Media Application and Best OS X Application.
With the high level of quality of OS X applications in general, winning an Apple Design Award is no mean feat. Winning two? Epic!
Sorry Windows users, this one is Mac-only. But the time has never been better (VMWare Fusion) to jump into the Mac end of the pool. Come on in, the water’s fine!
As eLearning developers, most of us are not graphic designers by trade or by training. Many of us have academic or corporate backgrounds. We are, to put it bluntly, visual design noobs. Hacks. Poseurs. We think white socks are perfectly fine with black trousers. And we couldn’t tell the difference between Helvetica and Microsoft’s tacky two-bit knockoff Arial if our lives depended on it.
So if we’re not graphic designers, and we can’t afford to hire a real graphic designer for our eLearning development team, how are we supposed to create visually compelling eLearning without a clue about what we’re doing?
Friends, the answer is simple. Ape the work of someone who does.
Whenever I come across a website with a visual design that inspires me, I take a snapshot of it and file it away. I find it helpful to browse this “digital scrapbook” of tasteful design whenever I’m starting a new eLearning development project. I look at the color schemes. The image styles. The fonts used.
And while mimicking a color scheme is a simple affair, duplicating a font style can be a real challenge. After all, if you can barely tell a serif font from a sans-serif font, how are you going to discern Futura from Avenir? You aren’t.
Simply upload an image containing the font you like and WhatTheFont?!, or WTF from here on out (no, not that WTF), will do its darnedest to tell you exactly what font it is.
I feel an example is in order.
Imagine you stumble across a refreshingly (or annoyingly) honest blog about eLearning design called, oh, say, eQuixotic. And say you are struck - inspired even - by the visual symphony that frames its verbose grandeur.
“This man knows what he is doing!” you cry. (Ah, not so! But I digress…)
And imagine you are attracted in particular to the title font used in the site’s banner. Why, you would just love to use this exact font in your next eLearning project. But how can you determine what that font is?Simple. Go to WTF. Upload the banner image. WTF will automatically attempt to recognize each character. Like so:
You may have to help it along by filling in some of the character boxes. It seems to struggle with the dotted i in particular.Once you’ve ensured the correct characters are identified, click the Search button. And voila, WTF will identify the font with a surprising degree of accuracy:
Indeed, the font used for the eQuixotic site banner is Cholla Sans Regular. WTF FTW!
I love Web magic like this.
So go forth and imitate, my visually-challenged eLearning developer friends. There is no excuse for using ugly, amateurish fonts (Comic Sans, I’m nodding in your direction) in your next eLearning project.
The shame of hopping a free ride on someone else’s caboose will fade over time. Trust me.
My organization, like many large organizations (and many if not most eLearning development professionals, for that matter), has bought into the Reusable Learning Object (RLO) concept with reckless abandon, implementing a Learning Content Management System (LCMS) (shudder) which shall remain nameless (but rhymes with Neato HorsePen).
This system is not only a horrifically cumbersome environment in which to develop, but, from my experience, it churns out the most banal eLearning imaginable. Personally, I avoid developing in it at all costs. And when I find myself in the pitiable role of the learner, faced with a course that was developed in our LCMS, I do my best to avoid letting out an audible groan while readying my mouse pointer on the Next button.
I found the monotony of flash cards in grade school more tolerable.
RLOs, the theory goes, are merely building blocks (flash cards?) of information that can quickly and easily be lifted from one course and dropped into another. Like a big bin of homogenous parts that just so happen to fit whatever you wish to bolt them to. Why, it sounds almost, well, too good to be true!
It is.
Actually, on paper, the theory makes perfect sense. Achieving peak efficiency is, after all, a noble goal. It’s what keeps business moving ever forward. And with training dollars always in short supply, getting the product out as quickly and cheaply as possible is the name of the game. Why recreate content over and over again?
In practice, however, things start to crumble quickly. The problem is this: if the goal is learning content that’s so generic it can easily be grafted seamlessly from one course into another, it’s doubtful that content will provide any real interest to the learner in the first place. If we’re focused on making the content reusable, are we also focused on making it interesting?
And it’s not just the interchangeable nature of the content that causes the problem. It’s also the authoring tool itself. Because a tool that is designed to assemble a collection of existing parts and quickly burp out a product is typically not a tool that facilitates creativity or innovation. You know, the things that actually make learning intriguing and enjoyable.
Read the sales pitch for any LCMS product. You’ll inevitably find the descriptors “scalable,” “rapid,” “efficient,” and “easy.” You’ll also find a lot of talk about “ROI.” What you won’t find are the adjectives “interesting” or “good.”
I won’t argue that you can’t create compelling eLearning using this type of authoring tool. I will argue, however, that this type of authoring tool doesn’t encourage you to create compelling eLearning. In fact, compelling eLearning is created in spite of such a tool, not because of it.
I tend to see the end product of RLO-based systems (our RLO-based system, anyway) like I see fast food. You have the all-beef patties, special sauce, lettuce, cheese, pickles, onions, and sesame seed bun. All the necessary ingredients neatly and methodically laid out for quick and easy assembly. And while this system enables you to crank out that burger rapidly and cheaply, your customer ends up with a meal that neither satisfies the palate nor provides any real nutritional value.
We need to reassess the implementation of the ROL philosophy. Yes, I know, there are a legion of Ph.Ds out there who know more about eLearning than I can ever hope to who will vehemently disagree with me with raised fist and furrowed brow. “Our methodology is sound,” they wail.
But let me lay down the cold, hard facts: as a learner, your eLearning fast food is just not working for me.
I view such LCMS tools as I view certain software applications that can generate music for you automatically by assembling a collection of interchangeable parts and passages. Sure, the result is usually listenable, but you certainly wouldn’t dance to it or load it on your iPod.
And we all know the result of Dr. Frankenstein’s experiment with reusable parts.
Geez, the bad analogies just keep coming. I’ll stop now.
Do we want quick, easy, cheap, and efficient eLearning? Or do we want eLearning that’s good? As a learner, I choose good, thank you very much. And as an eLearning developer, I feel obligated to, um, oblige.
I realize, of course, that for the sake of argument I’m oversimplifying the situation. And I’m sure there are some truly unforgettable, earth-moving, mind-bending courses out there that were built using an RLO-focused development tool.
I personally have never seen one, but I’d love to hear from someone who has.
I'm an eLearning developer and presentation designer looking for (and striving to create) eLearning and presentations that delight as well as educate and inform. Please join me.
August 25, 2008 
Posted in Rants, eLearning Design 
3 Comments » 
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I'm an eLearning developer and presentation designer looking for (and striving to create) eLearning and presentations that delight as well as educate and inform. Please join me.