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Wednesday, Nov 2, 2011 12:00 PM - 12:45 PM EDT

Can a small or medium sized business really produce a high quality course with just an online tool? The answer is yes!  Join us as we discuss a real life case study on how an Industry expert took his Beer (yes beer) certification course online, all by his lonesome.

A 45 minute online discussion between eLearning industry professionals with no sales agenda.

To finish up our discussion on implementing online learning into your training and development mix we are going to end things off with content. I have yet to come across an organization that solely using eLearning for all training and education needs. At this point it is important to do an analysis of which content needs to now be transformed to online learning as opposed to the traditional in class and documented training. Some material is better suited for in class where as other content is better absorbed via eLearning.

To recap, the first step is to find an LMS/LCMS provider. Your options range from purchasing one to outsourcing. Next it’s time to start identifying your development/instructional design strategy – will this be done in house or outsourced? And finally as we close off this topic a strong environmental analysis will identify what subject matter should be delivered via eLearning or other methods.

Let’s continue our discussion on including eLearning into the learning strategy of an organization for the first time. We have already covered the learning management system as well as the instructional design process. Let’s shift our focus to the development process. Similar questions arise here, in house or contract the work out? Again, really depends on several factors. For example, how much eLearning will be developed within a given year? If there aren’t high volumes of courses being developed then contracting out may be an attractive option.

If you were to hire developers in house the next decision would be which authoring tool should be used or should you choose a rapid eLearning tool. At this point there should be an evaluation process and all your specification should be well documented before hand to help you out in this process.  

It’s fair to say at this stage there are potentially two key decisions to be made. Who should be involved with the decision making process? Thoughts?

Last week I began a discussion on how to ramp up an organization planning to implement eLearning into their corporate education function, starting with the learning management system. For this post let’s explore instructional design. The question here is should it be done in house or contracted out? Let’s explore the benefits and implications of both options.

Often times a corporate instructional designer is also the SME. These two are somewhat independent of one another. Contracting out your instructional design requirements provides clarity and accountability. However, having IDs on staff can prove beneficial as they are aware of corporate norms and understand the project nuances. Another factor to consider is how much eLearning is developed within a given year as this will impact your decision.

Thoughts?

Seeing as how its 2009 and eLearning exploded onto the scene somewhere around 1998, we cannot assume every organization has the infrastructure to support online learning methods. In fact some of you reading this work for organizations that do not use eLearning nor do they believe they should. However, with the recent economic shift and the budgetary cuts training departments have been faced with, cost cutting is a necessity. There are obvious financial benefits to online learning given the global nature of today’s workforce. Although this is clearly not the only value add. Online forms of learning avoid scheduling conflicts, are easily deployed to all employees and easily tracked, thanks to LMS and LCMS.

What is the starting point for including eLearning into the mix of things? I have recently started down this path with one of our clients who is interested in getting up to speed with eLearning. First and foremost, do you have an LMS? If the answer is no, then you need to start looking around. Keep in mind that installing your own LMS is a costly investment and not always the only option. LMS outsourcing is always a possibility and provides more than just cost savings. If you partner with a vendor you get their expertise and a helping hand to walk you through the process.

Thoughts?

I have been asked by many clients over the years about Learning Management Systems (LMS).  It is very interesting to get an understanding of what people think a LMS can do for them.  Some feel it will change the way they work and do their jobs in a training department while others see it as a big hassle that requires undo amounts of time and effort to manage.  I honestly think that the truth lies somewhere in between.

The real question becomes what needs to be tracked and what does not.  Often it is simply good enough that a person has opened the course and gone through it from an awareness perspective but scoring is not really required.  More often than not the test scores are never even looked at or acted upon.  I think this is the bigger issue.  If you are going to score then someone needs to actually assess the data and try and assist the learners to ensure maximum retention.

Many courses are posted and then forgotten about by managers and admin folks.  Obviously tracking compliance courses is essential, but other less mission-critical courses may not require the same level of tracking.  When do you need to track scores at the module level vs. the end of the course final assessment?  Most of our clients prefer not to score learners at the end of each module but rather create learning reinforcements with remediation to assist the learner to gain a clear understanding.  The final assessment is scored and it this mark which is reflected on the Learners training history.

At the end of day tracking is essential but more essential what one does with the information.

To elaborate on my post last week in regards to some L&D issues I wanted to further discuss what I dubbed as “the learner analysis”. Since my experience in the world of corporate education I have come to learn the various learning strategies. How does one decide whether instructor led training is the right form of content delivery versus on line learning or a blended approach? Simply, it is vital to understand your audience before deciding how to educate them, something a customer touched on briefly.

A new and hot topic currently is the generational divide in the workplace. Methods have been introduced to manage the working relationships among each generation. From this, it is clear to see that each generation has their own preference to learning and training. The Gen Y’s expectation of on demand information acquisition would suggest that online learning would be effective.

Some smaller organizations or departments within large organizations tend to have their own generational groupings. This would be an important consideration for the training professionals to consider when forming their learning strategy. This is only one consideration, but understanding your learner prior to a gap analysis could prove extremely beneficial. Understanding the form of delivery can help shape the content that needs to be delivered.

Do you agree – audience first information gaps second?

During a conversation I had with an L&D Manager of a large high end retail company a few interesting points were raised. Allow me to take a look a some of those points … I’ll take them one by one.

Where should learning sit in an organization?

Learning should sit with Organizational Development. The most important reason being that the learning strategy of an organization absolutely must be aligned with the goals of the organization. Common sense? Wrong! This is often assumed but also where most problems arise. Ask yourself how many times you have worked in an organization where different departments act as competitors rather than colleagues. Is it possible a lack of alignment with corporate goals and learning goals could be causing this behaviour?

Ambiguity in the learning environment

The role of the learning professional is often faced with ambiguity and multiple changes on a daily basis. Does it help to have a PM frame of mind?  Being process-driven tends to build frustration when working with changing content and timelines.

Vendor relationship

As an L&D Manager you source and manage your vendors. They should be a network rather than simply an outside resource. Thus, it is important to maintain long lasting relationships that are built on trust and partnership. Transparency and openness (from both parties) is crucial.

Learner analysis

I have often heard learning professionals discuss the needs analysis of the training strategy, but rarely does one discuss a “learner analysis”. Who is your audience? How do they learn? What tools reach out to them best? With four generations in today’s workplace a thorough analysis of the learner is an absolute must.

Where do you stand on these topics? Leave a comment and let us know!

Engagement of the Learner is paramount.  Finding techniques beyond multiple choice and drag and drop is a must to keep learners on their toes, creating sales training that allows the learner use what they learned.

For one of my clients we created a final exam that required the learners, who were salespersons, to answer a series of questions regarding selling a home.  We added the twist of putting a timer in the top corner of the screen with a picture of the customer from the scenarios.  As the timer ticked down the customer’s facial expression became less tolerant as they took longer to answer to the question. They would interject comments to the learner, putting on additional pressure.  The response to this was amazing.  I had company veterans go through the course and say, “wow that final exam was tough, especially with the Customer getting upset at me for not having a timely response.”

Bring a little real world to the learning and it will go along way.

We are constantly striving to find innovative ways of engaging learners.  Often Scenarios are designed to illustrate correct behaviour in a given situation.  The problem is we cannot really tell if the learner is paying attention and grasping all of the subtle nuances to be successful.

By creating a “First Person” reinforcement activity, learners can practice what they learn in a safe and supportive manner.  A few years ago I began to experiment with this technique.  As technology has evolved we have become able to do some amazing things.  In the past we would have to create a storyboard matrix and lay out the possible paths a learner could take during a conversation.  Once these were identified, scripts for both the Learner and the person with whom they were interacting onscreen had to be created. The script for the onscreen person was recorded with an actor in character.  The script of possible responses or questions was laid out on screen, giving the learner the opportunity to select a response or question from 4 possible ones at that moment.

The tricky part was recording the video with all the necessary outcomes that wouldn’t take the learner so far down a path they couldn’t recover.  I remember in one situation we had to get the on screen character to get more and more upset with the learner during the course of the conversation.  We had over 40 video clips she needed to record.  By the end the actor told me that this was one of the most difficult shoots she had done, especially getting more and more upset, staying in character while keeping it feeling real.  However the project, which was for a very large accounting firm in the US, got an overwhelmingly positive response, with learners scoring very high.

The feedback from this style of learning was fantastic.  Companies were able to see immediate improvements due to the fact that the training was not static and the role playing that typically went on in the class was much more consistent and controlled to maximize the learning.

Results from this online learning experience were fully tracked and then sent back to the LMS when appropriate.

Where are we headed next?  Avatars, “Second Life” style characters, Learning 2.0 online virtual mentors ….?