5 things Facebook can teach us about elearning

Facebook is an Internet phenomenon. It launched to a small group of Harvard students in 2004 and now has millions of users worldwide. Although elearning is popular, it has not had the kind of widespread acceptance with the general public that Facebook has seen. Let’s take a look at a 5 things Facebook can teach us about elearning.

1. Anyone can do it.

One reason people give for not wanting to participate in elearning is that they aren’t good with computers or technology. According to Inside Facebook, Facebook’s fastest growing demographic is women over 55. I’ll never forget the surprise I had when I logged into Facebook and saw that I had a friend request from my mother. MY MOM IS ON FACEBOOK! I was shocked. If she has the ability to create an account, upload pictures, make status updates, and everything else she’s been doing on Facebook, why can’t she take an elearning course?

2. People don’t mind spending time online.

Another complaint I’ve heard about elearning is that people don’t like spending that much time on the computer. If you take a look at Nielsen’s Online Ratings, you’ll see that the average Facebook user spent almost 6 hours on the site in December. If someone can spend 6 hours a month updating their status, viewing photos, and participating in virtual pillow fights, they should be able to spend time participating in elearning.

3. Evolution is critical.

Facebook is constantly changing and improving. They add features that are needed and take away features that people don’t like or don’t use. They change the layout to help improve the user experience, even though everyone doesn’t always agree.  Elearning must take a similar approach for the content and the experience to remain relevant. Elearning must take advantage of the latest technology, make changes based on user feedback, and keep content up to date in order to improve the overall experience.

4. An active facilitator is not necessary.

Elearning proponents often talk about the need for an active facilitator to help create a thriving online community. Facebook blows this theory out of the water. Facebook has an extremely active and constantly growing community without having someone in charge of making sure everyone is participating. However, there is some facilitation programmed into the system. It might make a suggestion about adding a new friend or contacting someone you haven’t messaged in a while, but there is no live person checking to make sure you do these things.

5. It’s not for everyone.

I know I said earlier that anyone can do it, but that doesn’t mean that everyone wants to do it. Even with over 300 million Facebook users, there are still people who just don’t get it. I know several people who have signed up for an account, spent some time looking around, and then never returned. The same applies to elearning. It just doesn’t seem to fit with some people’s learning style.

So, if you are involved in the development of elearning, keep these things in mind. They might help it improve. If you can think of other things that Facebook can teach us about elearning (good or bad) please post them in the comments.

Guest Blogger: Joey Weaver teaches Computer Technology to high school students at Kansas Career & Technology Center in Memphis, TN. He is currently working on a Master’s degree in Instructional Design & Technology at the University of Memphis.

Image courtesy of sitmonkeysupreme at Flikr Creative Commons

eLearning and “Scooby-Doo! Where are you?”

I really enjoyed watching Scooby-Doo as a kid.  The original theme song was, of course, the best…”Scooby, Scooby-Doo, where are you?  You’ve got some work to do now.”  As my Technology Tools to Support Learning course finishes up their self-paced interactive learning modules, I was thinking, “Where are you…in your thinking about elearning and self-paced instruction?”  To take you back, though, here’s the video:

For many of us, the past couple of weeks has been an introduction to elearning and many of the students in my course are beginning instructional designers. So, I am hoping that their thinking has evolved over the time we’ve been discussing elearning.  For the module they have been producing in Powerpoint, we have been following quite of bit of the suggestions and guidelines from Tom Kuhlmann at Articulate.  Certainly one of the points that Tom emphasizes in his posts is making content necessary and meaningful for the learning, such as through scenarios, choices, and consequences.

We’ve also discussed many of the points that Steve Alessi and Stan Trollip identify as essential features for computer-based instruction, or tutorials.  These include:

1. Introduction
2. Presenting new information
3. Questioning
4. Judging responses
5. Feedback
6. Learner control
7. Closing/Exiting

In addition, we have discussed terms, such as page turners, and in another post some folks have considered what tools really contribute purposefully to the creation of learning content for this year and into the next.

So where is your thinking now about elearning? What have you learned and what do you still need to learn?  What’s still a little fuzzy for you?  Where are you?

Jane’s 10 tools for 2010: Do you know about them?

Just this morning, I received an email update fro Jane Hart at the Center for Learning and Performance Technologies in the UK.  Jane’s blog “Jane’s E-Learning Pick of the Day” is one I look forward to each day, because I get a single new tool to consider for elearning.  I encourage you to check it out.  Since my Technology Tools to Support Learning course is discussing elearning now, I thought sharing Jane’s blog, an international perspective, and her post for today would be a great opportunity.

In Jane’s email update, she writes:

I have just completed a short article for the November edition of e.learning age magazine.

e.learning age is the UK’s number one media resource for the e-learning community.  The magazine is the only one if its kind for anyone involved in the e-learning industry – from board directors responsible for skilling the workforce, to training and HR professionals choosing and implementing the best systems, to vendors who want to find out the latest news and trends in the industry.

In Jane’s post for today, she presents 10 tools that appear to be worthy of carrying into 2010.  These tools were compiled from Jane’s list of Top 10 Tools for Learning, where elearning professionals list and rank their top 10 tools for learning.  Then Jane is able to build an annual Top 100 Tool for Learning list.  The ones for today overlap both formal learning and informal learning opportunities.  So, it will be interesting to see how these continue to support one another — if at all.

Here is Jane’s Top 10 list:

1. Prezi
2. Evernote
3. dimdim
4. Etherpad
5. udutu
6. Screenr
7. Posterous
8. Yammer
9. Wordle
10. Flip video

Your turn

Now, I’m not going to give you all the details here, because I want you to go visit Jane’s  page for today.  So, do you know about these?  Are there tools that you use?  Are there tools that you’ve never heard of but would like to use?  Are there ones that are similar to tools that you use personally or professionally now?  Let me know.  Put your comments into the box below.

The landscape of Powerpoint for elearning

This week in my Technology Tools to Support Learning course, we are discussing an overview of elearning.  These novice instructional designers are on their way to producing some self-paced instruction with Powerpoint and converting it to Flash for ease of deployment.  So, I thought it would be really beneficial for them to see/read the landscape of elearning and Powerpoint.

The Landscape

Certainly, Powerpoint has a stigma attached to it.  Books like Beyond Bullet Points by Cliff Atkinson have tried to move us away from the mental model that templates and bullet points have forced us into.  Similarly, Edward Tufte’s treatise on “The Cognitive Style of Powerpoint” has emphasized the dilution of facts and thought brought about by using the hierarchy of bullet points. Wired magazine even picked up his point back in 2003.

Most recently, a slew of mainstream motivational speakers, techies, consultants, and corporate pundits have brought evangelized a number of methods to improve lecture-type and keynote presentations.  We’ve got the following:

• Godin – the power of images and big images
• Takahashi – big text only
• Lessig – each key word or phrase is isolated to a single slide
• Kawasaki – 10/20/30 with 10 slides only, 20 minutes max, and 30 point font
• Ignite – 20 slides, 15 seconds per slide

But has much changed?  We see these pockets of innovation, but the mainstream is still bound to bullet points and poor clip art.

Elearning

Does all of these ideas apply to elearning?  For elearning, the uses of Powerpoint fall into two main categories: development and delivery.

Development

For the development of elearning, Powerpoint has a number of uses.  First, numerous instructional designers and developers have told me that they use Powerpoint for storyboarding.  Powerpoint is simple enough that subject matter experts can even input the information (note that’s information not instruction).  The process of moving from design to development quickly through storyboarding offers a lot of promise for quickly presenting a visual product.

I’ve also heard of folks using Powerpoint as a wireframing tool.  This is where they mock up a user interface quickly to test the interactions and the navigation prior to building a prototype system.  By using the hyperlinking and even Action Buttons/Settings, you can quickly put together a system that responds to clicks to use as a model for a more sophisticated prototype inside Flash, Director, or even a web site.

More recently, Powerpoint has come on strong as a rapid development tool.  This is at the crux of Tom Kuhlmann’s blog. With hyperlinking, advanced graphics features, and templating, Powerpoint offers a lot of advantages to developing a unit as opposed to to building from scratch in Flash.  In addition, there are a number of tools, like Articulate (Tom’s company), that offer conversion of Powerpoint files to Flash for distribution, as well as adding in branching and assessments.

Delivery

The other way for using Powerpoint with elearning is to use it as a delivery vehicle for the instruction.  The most obvious method is for a trainer or instructor to present with a Powerpoint presentation.  This is certainly where all of the ideas above about improving presentations would most easily fit. (And yes, I get that this is technically not elearning.)  Powerpoint can also be used as a stand-alone self-paced instructional unit.  By saving as a Powerpoint show file, kiosk mode, and hyperlinking, the learner can control the presentation.  This is pretty common in K-12 schools.  Finally, I’ve been told by a number of instructional designers that they often produce Powerpoint presentations with text heavy slides for distribution.  They said this works well for their salesforce, who are on the go, and they don’t require an Internet connection, so the salesperson can look at it at any time.

You tell me.

Are there other ways Powerpoint is being used with elearning?  Are you and your organization doing other things with Powerpoint for elearning?  Did I miss something altogether?

Do you have examples to share of just how it is getting used?  Are you using it by itself or with another tools, like Articulate or Impactica?  Let me and my students know.  Put your ideas and comments below.

Instructional design & development project showcase

Tonight is the project showcase for my IDT 7095/8095: Developing Interactive Learning Environments II course.  This semester the teams are comprised of all women.  (Go girl-power!)  The overwhelming majority of this course is based in working with a “live” external client.  At the beginning of the semester, student teams select clients from proposals I have received.  Then students work all semester with the client to analyze, design, develop, implement and evaluate a solution to the proposed problem.  This semester one project is a traditional instructional design training opportunity for a client and friend Dr. Chuck Hodges at Virginia Tech’s Math Emporium.  The other project is more of an electronic performance support system for abnormal ophthalmology at the University of Tennessee Health Science Center here in Memphis.  As part of the showcase, student teams will present an executive summary of their projects’ problems, solutions and evaluations.

In addition to the primary project, students are also learning project management.  We follow Lynch and Roecker’s (2007) Project Managing e-Learning: A Handbook for Successful Design, Delivery and Management, which is based on the Project Management Body of Knowledge (PMBOK).  In addition, we supplement with the Fast Forward MBA in Project Management, which has a wealth of examples and templates built in.

On top of the instructional design models from previous courses, including Morrison, Ross and Kemp and Dick, Carey and Carey, we emphasize rapid prototyping as a development model. So, you can see that students are doing a tremendous amount of work and learning.

Below are the project teams’ descriptions.

PB&K Solutions has focused on designing and developing an electronic performance support system for medical students studying ophthalmology at UT Health Science Center.  Their clients are Dr. Bill Brescia and Dr. William Morris.  One of their most unique challenges is to create a system that is scalable and maintainable.  PB&K Solutions’ primaries are Kathy Youngblood, Patti Liddell and Becki Barnhardt.

Joint Creative Design designed and developed training for test proctors at Virginia Tech’s Math Emporium.  The Math Emporium supports several thousand students enrolled in math courses throughout the year.  Their client is Dr. Charles Hodges, a faculty member in Virginia Tech’s math program and geographically located in Blacksburg, VA.  Joint Creative Design combines the expertises of Donna Brunner, Joanne Gikas and Christie Hayes.

I encourage you to leave your thoughts and well-wishes to the students in the comments below.

Sprout listens to the crowd, offering free accounts again

One of my new favorite tools, Sproutbuilder, recently changed its pricing structure (again!).  Whew!  In January, the Flash-based interactive module/widget/website/Swiss-army-knife announced that they would eliminate their free accounts altogether.  I certainly understand the need to stay afloat with a business model.  Two of my other favorite tools Zoho Creator and Weebly also launched new pricing structures about a year ago that limited their free accounts.  However, at the beginning of March, Sprout announced that they were going to offer a free account again.  The account is limited to 3 published or unpublished projects.  From the comments, it is evident that the user community felt like I did about the value of Sprout and the importance of a free version.

I think Sprout offers great potential for building small widgety Flash-based modules without any coding.  I did a test a few months ago by building a quick timer to use with a Think-Pair-Share activity for classroom or face-to-face training.  Here’s the link to Edusprouts, a blog that started collected educational sprouts but hasn’t been updated since the elimination of the free version.

I contacted the Sprout folks directly about what their plans were for students and educators.  Here’s the response I received from Joey Mucha, the Marketing Manager:

We will continue to offer free accounts that offers up to 3 projects which would be perfect for students.  To educators we are offering 50% off all levels.  If you want to create more than 3 projects you will need a paid account.  At 50% off we believe this is a great deal for Educators. I will send an email with a coupon code to redeem this pricing once the payment system launches.

While his is not the best accommodations for students and educators, it does offer some concessions.  I believe Sprout is really looking to define their niche and education I don’t believe is in the mix.  While I believe their marketing niche is a little small, I certainly understand the need to brand and be identified.  I also believe that they are listening to the community of users, though.  The reintroduction of the free plan is evidence of that.  Maybe better things are on the horizon as they navigate the 2.0 waters.  What’s your experience with Sprout?

Styles and templates and consistency…oh my!

David Lindenberg

We’ve all seen it:  The training material that is a jumbled mess of mismatched graphics, hard-to-read text and no sense of cohesion whatsoever.  What good is the content if the learner needs a decoder ring to decipher it?  Therefore, I offer up my Top 11 List of Style.  Why eleven?  Because eleven is the new ten (actually, I just couldn’t narrow it down).  None of these topics are new, but rather a collection of style principles I adhere to when developing materials.

1. Font style – Pick two fonts, one for your body text and one for your headers.
2. Font size – Keep it standard, not too big, not too small.
3. Graphics – Exercise prudence.  Don’t mix and match (i.e. don’t use a clipart cartoon in one spot and a photograph in another).
4. Colors – Generally, stick with dark font colors against a light background.
5. White space – Embrace space.  Make it your friend.  Not everything needs to be covered with text or pictures.
6. Text blocks – Avoid large chunks of text.  Use bullet points to break the text into more visual-friendly parts.
7. Alignment – Pick an alignment and stick with it.  Use center align sparingly.
8. Branding – Put your company and/or department logo on the material.
9. Consistency – Strive for a consistent look and feel throughout the material.
10. Template – If there is a chance of reusing the material again for another project, put all of your style options in a blank template.
11. Style sheet – Create a style sheet for others who may be helping develop the material, or for future reference/reuse.

For a more in-depth explanation of many of these principles, see Robin Williams’ The Non-Designer’s Design Book.

Guest blogger:  David Lindenberg is a practicing instructional designer at Methodist Le Bonheur Healthcare in Memphis, Tennessee.  He is a graduate of the Instructional Design & Technology program at The University of Memphis.

Who (really) needs instructional designers?

by Elizabeth Boling

Years ago when I read Design for the Real World (Papanek, 1973), I was not anticipating ending up in a design field where the issues he championed would actually apply to my work. Over time, however, I find my thoughts returning insistently to the core of his message – most trained designers end up plying their trade to produce more stuff (or more experiences) for people who already have enough (or people who have too much! See The Plenitude, Gold, 2007). Furthermore, a world of design problems exists all around us, solutions to which are desperately needed but for which comparatively little funding is available and to which little glamour is attached. It’s easy to see that this is still true decades later when we contemplate the esoteric wine bottle openers and floor lamps, or the expensive office chairs and modular work systems that take up most of the space in product design publications. Even on the experience side, it is easy to see when we think about whether or not people too busy to sleep or to be civil to each other on the street really need another mobile communication device – especially one that will cost hundreds of dollars, require toxic materials to produce and rely on an unsustainable infrastructure to maintain.

But instructional designers … we’re the good guys of design, right? We improve people’s learning and their experiences of learning. We consider performance holistically and don’t just try to cram knowledge into people’s heads without regard for their circumstances or needs. We worry about school districts without computers, and we help teachers integrate technology into their classrooms. Some of us even engage the objects of our design fully in the process and consider them collaborators in the design of instruction/systems that they will use. What could be wrong with that? Honestly, I am not sure there is anything very much wrong with it. I am just uncertain that we are offering our students the broadest view possible of instructional design’s potential in the world. If we had a publication that featured the most interesting and cool instructional design going on right now, how many of the projects featured in it would be focused in areas where people cannot find, or afford, instructional designers?

Guest blogger: Currently on sabbatical, Elizabeth Boling is an Associate Professor of Education and Chairperson of the Department of Instructional Systems Technology at Indiana University. She teaches and conducts research on the use of images in instructional materials, ISD as a design endeavor and on teaching design. She is also a designer of interactive multimedia and other forms of teaching and learning materials.