Creating video learning on your iPhone

At Learning 2011 CNN’s Lisa Pedrogo (Director of Training, Turner Broadcasting) taught a session on Blitz training, which was launched at CNN in 2010. Since their initial “blitz training” experience, they came back to Learning 2011 to show others how to rapidly develop and implement video learning. This concept they call blitz training consists of pulling apart tired curriculum and re-envisioning its content, all in a very short timeframe. During the conference Elliott Masie and CNN challenged us to build our own rapid learning using smart phones. Check out the video CNN made on tips and tricks for rapidly developing video training.

As per usual, my on-the-spot thinking was not up to the task and I did not create a video at the conference. However, we did learn some  great tips for rapid video development and I used some of those tips to create a video from clips I recorded at Learning 2010.

CNN’s blitz training taught me that we don’t have to spend hours, days and months designing and developing good training. Today’s technologies offer us the opportunity to develop quality training within hours! The video I created on advice for the 30 under 30 cohort took me less than an hour. While I used iMovie to edit my movie (the app is only $4.99), there are free video editing apps you can download to do the work such as Splice – Video Editor. Think of the opportunities that lie ahead for us as eLearning developers and instructional designers. How are you going to use blitz training in your organization?

Here are the tips CNN shared with us for shooting and editing video on an iPhone:

1. Shoot in the camera app, not directly in the edit app.  In iMovie for example, even your bad takes will be put in the edit and will have to be deleted.  If you shoot in the camera app you can select the takes to include and also bring them to the edit when you need them.
2. Shoot to the edit.  Set up your shooting so you follow your story board sequence.  This makes it easier when sorting through your shots to find the ones you want when you need them.  Especially useful if your shots look similar.
3. Take a new shot for each take.  If someone flubs their lines, stop the camera and start a new shot for the next attempt.  It makes it easier to trim the shot in the edit.  You can also delete the bad takes and save file space on the phone.
4. Mind your fingers.  When shooting make sure your fingers are not covering the lens or the microphone.  Know where they are on the device.
5. To avoid shake put the phone on a solid object when taking your shots.  A camera tripod works well as a way to getting the camera to the right height, even though you are just using it to support.
6. Consider a bean bag as a way of supporting the camera on desktops or other objects (the top of your tripod), but be careful it doesn’t make noise if moved slightly as that noise will be picked up on the phone mic.
7. Pressing the roll button on the phone screen can cause you to jiggle the phone, so start the camera rolling, wait a beat then shout ACTION.  Wait another beat after the take to stop the camera for the same reason.
8. In the edit start at the beginning and work to the end.  As you hopefully shot in sequence, this will make the edit easier.  When you have mastered your edit app, you may do this differently, but first time out this is easier.
9. Bring the shot into the edit, then trim it to size.  Do all your shots, play the whole thing and see how it paces.
10. In iMovie, when you track you do it to the video.  Have your script in front of you and read it to the shots.  It may just work first time, but if it doesn’t, shorten or lengthen the shots in the areas you need to then re-track.
11.  If the video is long, consider tracking in sections, not in one go.  It will save you from reading a whole page and then blowing it on the last line.
12.  Graphics can help explain things or act as foreign language subtitles and therefore help your video reach more than one audience.
13. Narration is also an explainer, but should not be redundant.  Don’t say “the cat ran across the road, chased by the dog”, if the video shows that.  Say something like “dogs and cats are not naturally friends” to explain the video and to add more information to the story.

Reflections from one learning professional about Learning 2011

It’s hard to believe but another year of Learning is now in the books. The Masie Consortium’s annual learning conference is always my favorite time of year, as a learning professional and it’s that one time every year that I can converge with over 2,000 other learning professional who all speak my language and I speak theirs! Naturally, this year did not disappoint one bit, from big name keynotes like President Bill Clinton, Betsy Myers and John Lithgow, to informal conversations with other like-minded professionals, to new innovations that are hitting the ground running. The wealth of information shared at Learning 2011 conference was invaluable.

This year was another roaring rendition of the 30 under 30 scholarship program. It’s wonderful to see more and more learning professionals under the age of 30 attending the conference. Last year was the first year the Masie Consortium offered this unique opportunity. I can remember attending my first Learning conference in 2008 at the age of 23 and only being one of three other learning professionals under the age of 25.  Last year, it was an honor to be a part of the program and meet others who were in similar shoes as me. This year, eight of us were able to return and welcome the new cohort of young professionals. It was especially exciting for me as my colleague was accepted into the 30 under 30 program and able to experience the unique opportunity.

This year’s conference had a number of themes that were strung and threaded every session I attended: empowering learners, encouraging leadership across all levels, the power of storytelling, and the array of impacts technology is having on our industry (mostly for the positive). To elaborate on those topics regarding technologies impact on our future, they included a re-evaluation on how we look at the instructional design process, is ID dead? Also, how is technology impacting our brains, memories and retention information? Also, with the changing workplace and workforce how is technology impacting the 4 generations that currently work cohesively with one another on a daily basis?

I only experienced one blip in this year’s conference and it was the same topic that has been beaten into the ground over the past few years – Generation Y and the stereotypes that are placed upon us. My friend and fellow 30 under 30 alum, Sarah Bloomfield wrote a brilliant blog post on this topic as it was being debated informally through conversations and Twitter during the conference. She tells her critics not to judge us and listen to our story. As Bill Clinton told us, you should never begrudge someone else’s chance in life. Everybody has a story and every life has something interesting about it. We have to learn how to listen to a story before we can tell a story. As learning professionals we are educated to do this and it saddens me to see peers casting stereotypes on younger professionals because of what they’ve heard or seen in their jaded past. As Sarah Bloomfield says in her post, “Don’t stereotype me.  Ask me.  Learn my story.”

Remember what our dear friend Sigmund Freud told us many moons ago (1955), “One cannot explain things to unfriendly people,” Don’t be that unfriendly sole. During his keynote session, Bill Clinton told us the younger generation has an opportunity to reinvent democracy. People have been betting against America since it started and we shouldn’t be pessimistic about our country’s future; that includes our people, government, land and selves. Let’s work together to erase some of these stereotypes and show the world how motivated we all are to work together and empower the rest of the world to be leaders and educators! Thank you to my fellow peers and the Masie Consortium for another memorable year and the power of knowledge! I look forward to connecting with my new and old friends on ways to integrate the golden nuggets we learned into our jobs and organizations.

The Era of Siri and “Google Effects”

My apologies to my learning blog friends, I’ve been cheating on your with my lifestyle blog. I hope to make it up to you with this post.

The other week I received the latest and greatest gadget from Apple – the iPhone 4S. For me this was a big upgrade as I was still operating on the iPhone 3. While many of the features are still the same from the iPhone 4 to the iPhone 4S one major addition was the Siri functionality. I couldn’t help but think about how this personal assistant ties into Betsey Sparrow’s research on “Google Effects on Memory: Cognitive Consequences of Having Information at Our Fingertips”.

Today, we are able to take the space where we used to remember/store information and events and now we are using that space to remember how to find that information. Betsey Sparrow says, instead of internally storing information we are becoming more adaptive and storing that information externally. We are prioritizing where to store things, rather than retaining the actual information.  Now, when people don’t know something they think about where to find that information (they automatically think about the computer).

It’s interesting because to some extent we are no longer able to remember as much as we used to (or should). A Forbes article on this topic found that college students remembered less information when they knew they would have access to it later. This is very true and I can remember personal experiences in college where this happened. When a professor told us an exam would be open-book, fewer hours were spent on rote memorization and more on indexing books and being able to access the information quickly. To some extent I find this to be a hindrance because we are using the Internet (and in some cases “open-books”) as a crutch to our own brain. But other education professionals might view this as a positive because all of the information one might need is at our fingertips thanks to the Internet and smart phone.

Since getting the new iPhone, I’ve been asking Siri and array of questions – from “call mom”, to who is the president of whatever country, to “remind me to pick up milk at the store”. Siri has become (as marketed) my own personal assistant for reminders, to-do’s, note-taking, and information repository.  The entrance of Siri into our lives is an unprecedented next-step for our memory store all types of information. As learning professionals, how do these technologies and ways of storing information affect the way we design, develop and deliver training? I myself have noticed a change in the courses I develop for self-paced online. My narration scripts are becoming shorter and more information is turning into direct links to online community spaces and downloadable cheat sheets.

In many regards, I find this a positive and aids learning “at the moment of need”. Rather than bogging learners down with information in the classroom or online, why not help them file the information they will need when that “moment of need” occurs? How are you noticing changes in the way you design, develop and deliver training in your organization?

Video Learning and Storytelling

In 1983, researcher and theorist – Richard Clark wrote that “media are mere vehicles that deliver instruction but do not influence student achievement any more than the truck that delivers our groceries causes changes in nutrition… only content of the vehicle can influence achievement” (Clark, pg 445 – volume 53 of the Review of Educational Research – 1983).

Interesting food for thought, don’t you think? Because technologies are constantly changing and evolving (just like fashion trends) and content is something that strives to be timeless. Kind of like a Chanel suit. Whether you bought one in the 1960’s or the other week, it’s a timeless wardrobe piece. Written content can be the same. However, the evolution of learning technologies truly enhances the way we learn and achieve knowledge transfer.

Back in September, I posted a short post on ’s idea of “flip thinking”. Over the past few months, there has been a reemergence of video learning in the classroom and online.  Kind of like 1980’s fashion trends, reemerging in the 2000’s.

Video learning is not a new concept; it’s one that has been around for more than 50’s years. Satellite technology from the 1960’s made is cost effective for people to learn via television and in the 1980’s Instructional Television (ITV) was utilized at a much more rapid pace due to its cost effectiveness.

Rather than fading into darkness, video learning has evolved with the times and technology innovations. We’ve gone from PBS in the classroom, to video web conferencing, to user generated videos for learning purposes. Today, we live in a YouTube generated world where users and not just the learner but also the instructor and how content is taught is flipped upside down and spun around.

We are seeing people like bestselling author Daniel Pink sharing this concept of learning outside of the classroom and practices inside the classroom. Students are now learning critical curriculum via YouTube videos their teacher posted or through organizations like Sal Khan’s Khan Academy.

While books still have a prevalent place in the world of learning, video learning and story-telling are having profound impacts on the way people learn.  Khan said in his March 2011 Ted Talks that the reason his videos have been so effective was the notion that when people are learning something for the very first time, they don’t want someone standing over them asking, “Do you understand this?” Rather learners are able to pause, repeat and learn at their own time and pace.

Once again, it’s this idea of putting the learner in the driver seat and letting them take control of their learning experience. Typically when you feel like you are in control of something, you are more likely to succeed because you are the one setting the rules or determining the pace.

The other interesting concept that is emerging with video learning is the prevalence of story-telling. Again, story-telling is not a new concept. It was used well beyond the years of books and writing. People learned through their family members and verbal story telling.

William Horton (2006) said that “stories are often what learners remember best but what designers leave out when converting classroom courses to eLearning.” As an eLearning designer I can say this statement is true. Often time’s classroom courses need to be quickly converted to eLearning and there is not nearly as much time invested in making the course engaging or relate-able.

One quick and easy fix to ensuring those stories that are told in the classroom are told online is through video. Ask instructors and subject matter experts to take a moment and video the stories they would share in person. Also, for digestible bites of information, why not use a video to convey your information, rather than building an entire course (classroom or online). Consider how your learners learn and give them the option to pause and repeat you or their own time and pace. It’s amazing to think how many wonderful things you can do with video and story-telling and stay within budget!

Learning: Converting Crash Dieters to Lifelong Healthy Eaters

The following post is an article I wrote in October 2010 for the Masie Consortium eBook “Learning Perspectives 2010″, which highlighted contributions by 40 Global Learning Leaders and participants of the Learning 2010 30 Under 30 Scholarship.

Click here  to access the entire eBook.

As a whole, western learning, much like western medicine is reactive instead of proactive. Rather than a generative, organic experience, learning is at times a knee-jerk solution to an immediate need or discomfort. In its most ego-driven form, learning becomes an antidote to a disease rather than a daily ritual of health.

A high school student who hasn’t implemented learning into the daily routine, who seeks out a tutor the night before a test as a last ditch effort to pass a course; a development team scurrying to patch up an on-site training audit that exposes incompliant training courses; an under-performing school that pushes curriculum focusing on passing standardized tests rather than teaching content. These are all symptoms of a systemic weakness in the body of our learning doctrine.

How do you teach people to learn? How do you convert chronic crash dieters to lifelong healthy eaters?

Because learning starts with a moment of need, planting that moment is critical to reducing the necessity of reactive learning. Identifying viable learning delivery modes, carving out time to exercise learning, and developing consistency in a learning routine is what converts crash learners into lifelong learners. Once the infrastructure of learning is in place, the opportunities – however fleeting they may appear to be – can be more readily taken advantage of when they arise. Failure to create a fertile environment for learning can turn it into a grueling task for all (developers, instructors, learners) involved. In order to shift our learning paradigm to an active experience, we need to champion learning. No amount of intricately designed curricula or elaborate instructional design can make up for the lack of a positive, healthful leader.

As a young learning professional, I see evidence of reactive learning occurring all around me and find it disheartening. Those who have an MBA or who have achieved early in their careers find that they can discontinue learning or internal training since they have paid their dues. They treat learning as an achievement in and of itself rather than an active way of life.

Think of your coordinators, designers, and instructors as personal trainers and nutritionists rather than emergency surgeons. Learning is a lifestyle, not crash course. Take it in stride.

Daniel Pink and “Flip Thinking”

The other day I came across an article by Dan Pink in the Telegraph.co.uk. In this article, Pink talks about various experiments in reversing the “natural” sequence of things.  For example, what if a teacher was to turn his or her classroom lectures into homework assignments and have the homework activities occur in the classroom? Karl Fisch, the author of the viral slideshow “Shift Happens” has been doing that with his high school algebra class. Fisch provides his student with videos of the lectures that one would typically present in the classroom for the students to view before class. He then uses his in-class time to answer questions, create discussions and practice the problems.  I believe there is a big opportunity to introduce flip thinking beyond the classroom and into other elements of our lives. Beyond traditional education and corporate training flip thinking could also be used in our daily home tasks or corporate projects.  At the end of the article, Pink poses his readers with a question, “What is one process, practice, method or model in my business, work or life that I can flip?”

So I too pose that same question to you, is there a process, practice, method, or model that you use on a daily basis that could use an innovative dose of flip thinking?

Are online classes the future of learning?

I seem to run across the following questions a lot when discussing the benefits of online education with people, so it only seem appropriate that I share some of my thoughts on the topic based off an article I read a while back that might also interest you: http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2353642,00.asp

Are online classes the future of learning?  Will brick and mortar schools be a bygone era?  What implications does this have for us as L&D professionals?

It would be dramatic and lofty to say traditional education (brick and mortar) will be a bygone era. There are a lot of challenges that stand in the way of online education being the gold standard for education. First, there is society’s perception on education that needs to change. The paradigm shift for online education is beginning to change but as a whole, society still views the traditional forms of education to be the standard option. Second, online education is beneficial to a select group of learners. Learning and Human Development studies/ theories generally show online education methodologies work best for adults. Children do not have the proper maturity, motivation, and discipline levels to complete education solely online (Ormrod, 2005). However, there are some wonderful resources currently available that discuss Adult Learning Theories and explain how adults are motivated intrinsically and extrinsically. Catering to adult learners needs, motivational preferences, and learning styles will help ensure their online learning experience is successful.

Third, and to me the most important challenge that the article did not address is the constraint of access and digital divide. Simply put, the reason for the digital divide is insufficient funding. While the Obama Administration has pledged $500 million for online courses and materials, it still does not address access issues.  These access issues include: gaps in physical access to computers and Internet, gaps in access to teaching and learning experiences, and gaps in access to relevant Internet content. A. Carivin (2000) found that U.S. households earning over $75,000 are 20 times more likely to have home Internet access. With that said, households and educational systems in lower-income communities are 20 times less likely to have access to Internet or computers in each household.

An example that represents the digital divide is a documentary Teaching and Learning in Compton (2005). Students at Dominguez High School come from foster homes, homes that speak Spanish as their first language, divorced parents, etc. When the students come to school they are expected to learn without updated computers and learning resources. The digital divide challenges these students every day both at home and in school because of their environments. Research suggests that the home has a larger impact than schools for technology use (Ching, et al, 2005). However, governmental funding and programs are usually more focused on the public school system and not the households (Milheim, 2006). Unless the Obama Administration plans to address household funding for online education, brick and mortar school systems will continue to dominate the education field (and not in the most effective manner).

Two more points I’d like to bring up include that of individual preference. For the average college student, brick and mortar systems encompass more than just education. They provide students with life changing experiences, experiences that mold them into the adult they most likely will become after they finish their 2 or 4 years of undergraduate experiences. However, online education offers students blended learning opportunities; it also offers learners an alternative to education. Online education offers learners the opportunity to enjoy “work-life-balance”. Online programs such as the University of Phoenix cater towards adults beyond the age of 23. “The typical University of Phoenix student is thirty-five years old (in the United States) and is employed full-time, typically in a middle-management role” (Twigg, 2001). With that said, online learning provides a solution for a specific niche of the population – working professionals.

Second, I would like to note a quote from Richard Garrett, “interest in online education may have plateaued for now, awaiting innovations that will transform the experience beyond screen imitations of the brick-and-mortar curriculum” (Reuters, 2009). The other day I read an article Thwarted Innovation (Zemsky & Massy, 2004). The article said that within the past two decades, we have experienced three milestone innovations in the field of online education: high-stakes testing, national ranking systems, and e-learning. Of these three major innovations, e-learning began to cause a paradigm shift in how we looked at learning and education. However, it appears as though innovation has recently begun to stall in the area of e-learning. Bobby G. Stevenson said, “The biggest obstacle to innovation is thinking it can be done the old way” (Twigg, 2001). All too often, this is the case with e-learning. How can we create online education using traditional methodologies? If we want to continue to grow the field of online education AND make a “significant difference” then we need to start thinking creatively, innovatively, and push beyond the challenges that I mentioned above.

As for online education and learning & development professionals, I think online education offers a plethora of opportunities but it will not replace instructor-led training. As you might have gathered in my short novella I also don’t believe online education should replace instructor-led education. Online education offers opportunities for those who need alternative learning or additional learning outlets.

The biggest obstacle we will experience a companies unaccustomed to online learning  is causing an educational paradigm shift. We need to change the way we look at education (not just online, but also instructor-led). We need to challenge learners and make them shift their views from seeing education as an after-thought to a fore-thought. In the end, it will be that changement that will determine whether or not online learning is successful for any company.

References:

Carvin, A.  (2000). Mind the gap: The digital divide as the civil rights issue of the new millennium.  Multimedia Schools, 7, 56-58.

Ching, C.C., J.D. Basham, and E. Jang (2005). The legacy of the digital divide: Gender, socioeconomic status, and early exposure as predictors of full-spectrum ethnology among young adults.  Urban Education, 40(4), 394-411.

Gallegos, K. L. (Producer), & Russell, G. (Directors). (2005). Teaching and Learning in Compton [Documentary]. Film available at www.Joost.com. Retrieved November 10, 2009, from http://www.joost.com/home?playNow=257000f#id=257000f

Mileim, K. L. (2006). Not Just an Access Issue: Further Analysis of the Digital Divide from a Socioeconomic Perspective. Retrieved November 10, 2009, from http://sarasotacountyschools.com/uploadedFiles/Departments/Texcellence_Computer_Donation_Program/8f.pdf

Ormrod, J. (2008). Human Learning. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson-Merrill Prentice Hall

Twigg, C. (2001). Innovations in Online Learning: Moving Beyond No Significant Difference. Retrieved, November 11, 2009, from https://d2l.global.uillinois.edu/content/170_1760/HRE590/120099_GCC/10027/readings/Innovations_in_Online_Learning.pdf

Zemsky, R. & Massy, W.F. (2004). Thwarted Innovation: What Happened to e-Learning and Why? Retrieved, November 8, 2009, from http://www.thelearningalliance.info/Docs/Jun2004/ThwartedInnovation.pdf

Implementing E-Learning & ASTD ICE 2010 Reflections

It’s a common challenge amongst those in the field of learning and development – getting your learner’s in the classroom. Getting member buy-in seems like it would be the toughest task but sometimes maintaining that buy-in can be a bit tougher of a task.

We all remember the quote from Field of Dreams, “If you build it, they will come.” But in today’s world, building it does not necessarily mean the learners will come. We see it all the time, organizations decide to implement e-Learning; they spend hundreds of thousands of dollars and man-hours to build engaging e-Learning programs, but in the end… the learners fail to show.

One of the biggest challenges I have come across has to do with mandating training. One would think, if you selected a mandatory amount of training hours for an employee to complete, there would be more learners in the classroom or online. False. Somehow learners still fail to step foot in classroom or log onto their online course. However, on the other end of the spectrum – optional learning – we have the same dilemma.

So how do we create that e-Learning buzz? Simple. Well sort of… we create marketing and implementation plans. We will build it. And they will come (well… they will come with a little pushing on the end of the learning and development group).

Lance Dublin co-authored a book called Implementing E-Learning. He also held a session for the second straight year at ASTD ICE that focused on implementing e-Learning – No Matter How Cool the Technology – Implementation Is Still Key.

He first asked this same question – how do we drive the change to get the workforce to complete your learning? His answer was change-management – a structured approach to transitioning individuals, teams, and organizations from a current state to a desired future state (Change Management – Wikipedia, 2010).

Change management begins with changing our own views of the learner. Think of the learner as your client or customer (Cross & Dublin 2002). They are the people we are catering too. So how do we market our learning brand so that our customers will “buy” our products?

Think about it… one of the most recognized symbol around the world is the Nike Swoosh. People see the Nike Swoosh and they immediately know what products are being sold. They might also be loyal to the brand and will instantly know if they buy a sports product with the Nike Swoosh they will have a reliable product. We can do that with e-Learning. We might not have world wide recognition but we will have a marketing campaign that will allow us to make our products recognized throughout the entire learning field.

We want our customers to know that when they see e-Learning they will know that they’ll find what they are looking for and be satisfied.

So how do we begin the change-management process? For starters, willing-hearts and minds will enable change to occur.  Lance Dublin highlighted 5 key points to ensure change-management stays on track when implementing e-Learning:

1. It’s about organizational change – not the technology
   1. Change can be a challenge and people expect their work lives to be consistent. While change is meant to improve the process, changing attitudes and behaviors are the hardest. Sometimes it’s easy to get people to recognize that change needs to occur, but actually getting people to act on the change process can be more exhausting.
2. Focus on the ‘soft stuff’ – the people stuff; that’s what’s really difficult!
   1. According to Dublin, there are five different stages that need to occur in change management: Anticipation (of change), Reality (of change), Letting Go (of old ways), Recusing (on change), and Integration (of change). Rather than focusing efforts on the implementation of specific learning and technologies, spend your time on preparing your employees. Take the time to lead them through the change process and ensure they reach the stage of integration.
3. Focus your efforts and energies
   1. Rather than spreading yourself too thin, focus your efforts. Think about it for a minute… out of the key players in your organization (Executive/CEO, Line Manager, Training/HR Manager, and Worker/Learner), who would you focus your efforts and energies on? Hopefully you said Line Manager because it’s the line managers who are managing your new hires, they are the ones influencing your workers and learners and preparing them to be future line managers and senior managers.
   2. Also, when implementing learning and technology do we want to focus our efforts on the innovators, early adopters, early majority, late majority, late adopters, or the diehards? The answer is your early adopters. The reason for this is that your diehards and innovators are already hooked and if you wait till you get to the early majority, you are reaching the peak of your adoption curve and from that point your opportunity for change will decrease.
4. Think like a marketer
   1. Marketers think about maintaining long-term relationships. They will consumers to continually buy their brand. Marketers also ensure their consumers know what’s in it for me. They aid consumers in changing their views of a brand and building a level of respect. For example, the Nike Swoosh logo. A long-term relationship has been invested into this logo. If one were to change its color or appearance then its brand and awareness is thrown off.
5. It’s about implementation change
   1. Understand the value of your e-Learning.

Hopefully this post got you thinking about your own learning programs and how you go about implementing learning and change management into your organizations!

ATSD ICE 2010 – Session Reflections

A couple weeks ago I was given the opportunity to volunteer at the ASTD ICE 2010 conference. It was a unique experience and one of my first volunteering experiences in the professional world of training and development. Because I volunteered for two days I was able to attend two days of the conference for free! With that said I wanted to share my reflections on a session that I thought was valuable to the design and development of e-Learning.

Creating Irresistible e-Learning with Next-Generation Authoring Tools – Michael Allen of Allen Interactions: This session looked at what is possible when today’s technology is focused on designing and building advanced, instructional, interactivity multimedia within realistic constraints. Allen spoke on the 3 M’s of effective e-Learning development. When designing and developing e-Learning, one should ask themselves, is it meaningful? Is it memorable? And is my e-Learning motivational? And when I say motivational, I’m referring to change; does the e-Learning module encourage the learner to change their current behavior? Irresistible e-Learning should be focused, similar to a book. A book without a focus does not constitute a page turning, award-winning novel. With that said, when we build e-Learning, we want to make sure we are building experiences. People encounter experiences every day and learning experiences can leave an impression for future experiences. For example, Michael Allen demoed an online course they built for a police academy. The purpose of the e-Learning module was to prepare future police officers for experiences they will experience on a day-to-day basis. These experiences were authentic activities that encouraged knowledge transfer of behaviors, skills and attributes. The goal of achieving e-Learning experiences is to ensure learners are practicing the skills they’ll need on the job, even before they are on the job.

By giving learners engaging scenarios (i.e. what to do when a police office is called in for a potential terrorist attack), they will have situational context and feedback based on their actions within the course. Much of the course Michael Allen demoed during his session focused on simple, but effective online simulations, allowing future police officers to experience real-life situations in a safe environment. So rather than build a textbook e-Learning module, build an experience that will allow learners to practice as they learn.

Michael Allen also shared an alternative process to the ADDIE module that he dubbed the Successive Approximation:

You begin with a rough draft or sketch of what you envision, you design a first draft, or proof and then you begin editing. Once editing has been completed you are ready to publish your final product. Developing an online course can be similar to that of writing a book. Start at the end and go backwards. How many times have you written an article, story or course content and when you’ve reached the end your introduction is nothing like what you began with. Don’t spend too much time developing the introduction of your course up front, let is grow organically and fine tune it at the end. Most likely, your vision will shift as you continue down the development process path.

Also, creating irresistible e-Learning doesn’t mean you have to be an expert with Adobe Flash or knowledgeable with HTML code. There are plenty of tools that already do that for you at a cheaper price.

Following some of Michael Allen’s tips can ensure any e-Learning developer is able to create effective learning experiences. The main take-aways for me from this session were:

1. Create learning as an experience
2. Test out various instructional design processes to find out which one works best for you
3. Start at the end and work backwards, to use design and development more effectively
4. Developing irresistible e-Learning doesn’t mean you have to be a Flash guru, focus your efforts on the 3 M’s (Meaningful, Memorable, and Motivational)
5. Utilize WYSIWYGS and Templates to build engaging simulations and scenarios

Social Media in Professional Organizations

Social learning just happens. It is innate and constant, and linked to our simplest desires. We all crave interactions with others. We spend much of our lives searching for relationships and a sense of belonging. We share information with family, friends and colleagues and observe the behaviors of people walking down the street, standing in line at Starbucks, or riding the train to work. We watch reality shows, read celebrity magazines, and track the daily news to keep ourselves connected with the world around us.  We are born to be social.

Methods for interacting have evolved, of course. People collaborate via mobile devices and solidify big deals on their Blackberries. They use instant messengers, VoIP and the web to tap knowledge and its keepers. The keepers of that knowledge have shown a willingness—a desire—to share. The web is no longer just a means for gathering information; it’s also a vehicle for social learning. We’re in the midst of a user-revolution, one without borders, geographic or otherwise.

Every minute of our day is spent gathering new information through social conversations, watching others, and imitating what we learn. Because we spend much of our days socially engaged it only seems appropriate that social media would be incorporated into our routine interactions.

Take this into consideration:

A speech pathologist in Tucson responds to a Parkinson expert’s tweet in Paris and friends a patient in Chicago. Based on these interactions, she contributes to a wiki.

All of these new technologies have turned into a way of life, a revolution just begging for an identity. Ever since Tim O’Reilly coined the term Web 2.0 in 2004 our virtual world hasn’t been the same. There are many different definitions to this organic term and choosing a static definition might not be possible.  Instead it’s best to look at Web 2.0 and social media through its characteristics: web applications that are light-weight, cost-effective and built on the ideology that as the more people engage the richer is will be and the larger it will grow. They are a means of collective intelligence.

It’s no longer a question of determining whether or not Web 2.0 will be a passing fad. Six years later, it’s still holding strong. It’s become the driving force for how we communicate in today’s virtual world. The question we face is how do we incorporate this new level of social learning into our organizations?

Take for example the Institute of Real Estate Management (IREM), a non-profit organization located in Chicago, IL. In 2006 they began exploring social media for their industry resource website IREMFIRST. They knew social media would enhance the learning experience for real estate professionals; it was just a matter of deciding which ones.  After two years of research and development IREM launched its enhanced version of IREMFIRST, a dynamic information portal that was user-driven and community-oriented. People could build profiles, endorse colleagues, rate and comment on content, and interact on the community forum. Even a community leader board was created to encourage activity and recognize top contributors. Before, content was static. Now it’s being driven by the people, for the people. Six months after its launch the Institute of Real Estate Management has continued its quest for social media. Additional tools are being considered and new members are joining every day. If there is one thing to be said about social media tools, it’s that you’ll forever be in a state of change. Every day is new and different depending on the level of activity. IREM is just one example of how organizations can incorporate social media tools into the needs of their organization.

Social media tools are cost-effective alternative to proprietary software. Start small and test a variety of social media tools. Determine which ones fit your needs best and don’t spread yourself thin. It’s easy to become overwhelmed with all the different blogs, RSS feeds, and social networks available. Choose one or two social media tools and build your user-base. Try a wiki to for a SME project. Post conference recordings as podcasts. Or set up a Twitter account to keep your company up-to-date on industry news. Whatever you choose start small and be creative.

As we enter this new virtual world of learning it’s important to remember that this is the new form of learning. Seminars and classrooms will not go extinct, but people will look towards social media tools for cost-effective results.

A few years back, Thomas Friedman said our world is flat and globalization is knocking at our door. He wasn’t kidding. With social media tools’ being more readily available than ever before it only seems natural that people will want to incorporate it into their professional lives. So in typical Gen Y fashion, dive in and be a part of this user-driven revolution. It’s knocking at your door. Are you ready?