When I saw my friend Lee last night, he told me “I looked at your blog the other day.” He’d seen it referenced in the signature line of an e-mail I sent him. He went on to say, ” I read three or four entries. Then I went back up and looked more closely at the title.” He told me that, for a minute there, he had real concerns about our sense of humor. Because he wasn’t seeing ANYTHING on this LOL blog that struck him as particularly funny.

The conversation (which did make me Laugh Out Loud a little) also made me think about acronyms in general and how often they’re a source for misunderstanding. Do you check your learning materials to make sure the language used is commonly understood by your target audience? As a consultant, I have an advantage working with most clients when it comes to jargon and potentially confusing language. Terms that are likely to confuse listeners are likely to confuse me, too, prompting the question. Even that’s not foolproof, though, since it’s human nature to pick up on language and jargon pretty quickly.

And it’s not as though we don’t have jargon, too. “The rule of difference” or “congruence” are terms that make perfect sense to me and my coworkers – because we talk about those principles a lot. When it comes to explaining to subject matter experts why we are making certain design choices in our courses, I have to explain what I mean by those and other learning terms.

So, as with so much in learning (and in life), context is key. And clarity is more difficult to achieve than we sometimes think it will be.

It’s been awhile since I tackled one of The Learning Circuits Blog Big Question of the Month – but this one is intriguing ” “Does the discussion of how the brain learns impact your e-learning design?”

I feel pretty confident answering yes, – and only partly because I have a boss who’s a huge fan of research-based instructional design. We literally spent half of our last company-wide meeting reviewing the basics from learning researchers like Ruth Clark, Robert Gagne, and Benjamin Bloom.

One of the criticisms I saw from some of the bloggers who called the brain-based instruction craze a lot of hooey was that the principles were just “common sense”. The problem with common sense is that some of what I see as common practice doesn’t necessarily make sense with what we know about how people learn. Here are the top three “common sense” practices I see that run completely counter to what we know about how people learn.

Interesting facts will help the learner better remember the information

Ruth Clark’s coherence principle is pretty clear that extraneous information detracts from learning. This extraneous information won’t drive performance, even if the learner does remember it. And the space it takes up in the learner’s brain might well be better used for performance-driving information.

Often, subject matter experts want to compound the damage by putting the interesting but irrelevant information right at the start of the training. The basic instructional design principle of primacy tells us that right up front is prime learning real estate – definitely not the place to put something you don’t really care if the learner remembers or not.

Pictures engage the learner

The multimedia principle (Ruth Clark again – we like her stuff quite a lot around BLP) says that pictures have to be relevant to be useful in learning. Sounds obvious enough – but how many powerpoint slides or e-learning pages have you seen with graphics that are clearly there to just make the page look better? Pretty is good – pretty and relevant is required for the instruction to be effective.

Practice is a nice-to-have, but can be skipped if you run out of time

While I very seldom hear clients talk about this one when designing instructor led training, we’ve all seen it happen. Instructors run out of time, or simply want to win points with their audience by getting done early, and the first thing to go is the exercises. We’ve all heard that practice makes perfect – and most of us have heard the nitpicky version, “perfect practice makes perfect”. Common sense, sure, but also often ignored in practice.

Leannne standing on the green screen.

Happy Fourth of July! As I thought about all of the pyrotechnics of the coming holiday, the special effects the video crews will use to produce that TV special with the Boston Pops and the fireworks from the White House lawn, I had to reflect on my own special effects moment from earlier this week, a green screen video shoot.

The project we’re working on has a learning agent that guides participants through the course. We’re using a combination of still photography and audio along with green screen video. The shot went great, but we did learn a few tricks for future green screen videos:

• Use a teleprompter. Even if it’s just a few short sentences, it’s hard to remember marks and the script. And since you really want the talent to hit the marks, lessen the burden on the script side.
• Bring sticky notes! If the learning agent is pointing to buttons on screen, you’ll need to mark them off on the green screen, but sticky notes on the monitor will make sure the people watching know the agent is hitting the mark.
• Keep it short. Green screen videos are shot in one take, if possible. Thirty seconds to a minute is really about all you need. Another reason the teleprompter is key, too.
• Use props. The learning agent feels more comfortable when he or she has something to do, besides walk across the screen. Props that illustrate key points give him or her action to take. Picking up a book from a table can be easier than trying to talk to the camera.
• Set cues for moving hands or changing position. Not everyone feels comfortable on green screen. Offering suggestions of when to move their hands or even walk a bit on screen can be helpful for new talent. We recommended keeping your hands above your waist, as you’re more likely to gesture with them naturally as you speak.
•  Have hairspray. Editing green screen can get complicated if the learning agent has lots of fly-aways. The hair will get edited out when the background is removed. Our wonderful talent was thoughtful enough to bring her own, but next time I know I’ll have an extra can with me!

If you’re getting started with your own green screen video shoot or any video shoot for that matter, check out I Came, I Saw, I Learned for production tips and tips on purchasing the correct equipment for green screen.

What other tips do you have for producing green screen? I definitely want suggestions before I do our next video shoot!

I just finished giving a talk on training trends - what they are and the “so what’s” associated with them.

Here’s a link to the slides associated with this presentation

We had a nice group of folks participating, and we generated lots of discussion. Here - for those of you who don’t want to access the slides - are the top 6 trends we see, and the “so-what’s associated with these trends. Feel free to agree, disagree, or propose other trends.

The 6 trends

1. The need/demand to compress time.
2. The shift from “training” to “learning.”
3. The shift from F2F to online classroom.
4. Rapid authoring (and we aren’t talking about Articulate here!)
5. The new blend - formal and informal.
6. Mobile and web delivery.

The “So What’s” associated with these trends

The trends are pretty self-explanatory. I think it’s the “so what’s” associated with them that are more interesting. What implications do the trends have for learning professionals, learners, and, indeed, companies who employ people and, in theory, support learning.

1. Traditional learning design models need to be revamped and re-thought. We have to consider usability data from learners as part of this.
2. Remembering is WAY less important than it used to be. Now…FINDING stuff is most important. (Think WebMD)
3. Instructional design - and the role of instructional designers - has to change. (Yeah, this one kind of links with Point 1).
4. The tech toolbox HAS to be big - you can’t just use one tool and expect it do be your one-size fits all learning solution. Instructional designers may not have the technical proficiency to use all the tools, but they better be able to identify appropriate tools and figure out what to use when (or know who to ask.
5. We have many more distractions for learners and IDers to manage - NO ONE gives 100% attention to most learning events - formal or informal!
6. The new blend - formal and informal - only works so well. The holy grail right now is to “formalize informal learning” which sounds great but may not be a really good idea. Informal learning that is “formalized” requires a gardener/moderator to tend to it and cultivate interactions/community. Informal learning that is mandated (e.g. You will submit X blog posts/week gets the required minimum….but doesn’t really foster better learning. For me, it’s more about recognizing when letting people learn on their own is okay - and creating tools that make it easier for this to happen.

I’m going to deliver this presentation again on July 14th in Bloomington, IN and again via webinar in late July. Check out our website if you’d like to sign up for the next webinar:

I recently received an e-mail asking what I thought about adding 16 new people to the alpha review list for a e-learning course. The idea was to get a wide variety of opinions from people from around the organization and around the globe. To be inclusive and ensure that the course would be well received by the global audience for which it is intended. This is a group that likes to work by consensus, and they wanted to bring that culture to this project.

Now personally, I’m a big fan of consensus. I love talking a problem through with other people until a solution presents itself out of the chaos. In this case, though, the intentions behind the push for consensus and the realities of this approach, turned out to be very disconnected.

Intention:

Get the team to feel a sense of ownership and pride in the course, so they will be more likely to promote it.

Reality:

A lot of the edits that were submitted were ultimately ignored, because they didn’t line up with other comments. There was (as one would expect) a lot of discontinuity between the sets of edits. For example – one person loved the color scheme, another person hated it. Whatever we do with that information, somebody is going to think (correctly) that we disregarded their input. Where that happened on content points, the project runs the risk of having enemies, rather than advocates.

Intention:

Make the decision-making easier.

Reality:

Consolidating edits from all those people adds a whole lot of work and effort, and that’s before you even get to the decision making. And, at the end of the day, someone still has to write and approve the actual words that will be used. On balance, the approval process took longer and more effort even for the final decision-maker.

Making Consensus Work

Despite the risks and the frustration factor, I still believe it makes sense to work consensus into the creation of e-learning solutions. To do so effectively:

• Get consensus as early in the project as possible. Get consensus on the goals and objectives of the project. If people have different goals in mind, it’ll be impossible for them to agree on tactics. Since it’s World Cup season, I’ll use a sports analogy – if you don’t agree on which goal you’re shooting at, you aren’t going to agree on which direction to run.

• Recognize when you or your team is trying to use coming to consensus on how to describe a process as a way to come to consensus on the process itself. When the process, product or policy you are training people on is new, it is likely to take a lot longer to come to consensus. Plan that time into your project, because you will end up using ig.

• Decide where consensus is worth the cost. Consensus takes a lot of time to achieve. It’s worth taking the time for the big stuff. But when it comes down to deciding every single word in a course, as long as the words convey the appropriate message it’s probably not worth the time to come up with the perfect phrasing. As much as it pains me to recognize this, the words we craft with such care are often skimmed with much less attention to detail by our learners.

What experiences have you had trying to come to consensus on a course? What tips do you live by when planning your projects?

A couple of weeks I completed a video shoot for two short training videos. (When I say “I”, I mean I made sure there were snacks and supplies for my hard working video team.) I know that 90% of my job as project manager on shoot days is making sure that there is sugar around to get us through the afternoon!

Today, I read a post from Clive Shepherd that got me thinking about the decisions we made at that shoot. He argues that training does not need to have “Hollywood” production levels - that learners don’t need or expect it. His first point is that: “You will never in your wildest dreams be able to match ‘Hollywood’ production values or even get anywhere near.” While slightly depressing, it’s true. For those of us working as consultants with clients, it can become a little tricky to communicate this message (without looking like you’re trying to get out of work) and also identify what the production needs of the audience are. From my experience, here are a few questions you need answers to when developing training videos:

• How will the videos be viewed? A video viewed online in a 2×3 player probably doesn’t need the production value of something seen on a large projection screen.
• How old is your audience? In my opinion, a younger audience has different expectations than an older one. And while teenagers or twenty-somethings are used to low production videos on You Tube, they are used to videos that move quickly and have a high entertainment value.
• What’s the budget and timeline ? Many clients have little to no understanding of how much it costs or how long it takes to develop a super-slick video game, or Hollywood movie.

What other questions do you think need to be answered? How do you determine when you are less concerned about production value?

We get lots and lots of proposal requests from current and prospective clients…and I’ve been writing a ton of proposals lately. Some are much easier to write than others, and the ease/difficulty is 100% dependent on the quality of the request.

Some of the RFPs - requests for proposals - we receive are very good requests with detailed information; others give us the opportunity to do lots of follow-up. We find ourselves asking a lot of questions as we attempt to accurately pinpoint the scope of the project and provide concept, price, and time line information. We end up spending quite a bit of time formulating questions and then talking these questions through with the client. I often wonder how many hours a client might save himself or herself if their RFP had been put together a bit more carefully. I do recognize the difficulty of communicating clearly about a project in which you’ve probably been immersed for a long while. It comes difficult to discern what’s obvious -and what needs to be explicitly explained for a vendor to understand your needs.

If you are someone who outsources work to vendors, you can make your job easier - and your vendors’ job easier by assembling a solid RFP - or request for proposal. The information that follows is straight from a document we created titled, “Creating a Good RFP.” We provide it free-of-charge to customers who don’t have any experience creating RFPs…or who’ve provided us with RFPs in the past that lead to lengthy Q&A sessions to understand what they want/need. Most of them tell us it’s a really helpful guideline.

Company and Logistical Information

Sounds stupid, but a lot of companies forget to put basic contact information in their proposal. Be sure to include:

• Company name and address
• The name and contact information for the person making the request. If YOU aren’t the one to answer questions, then please include the name/contact info for the person who is supposed to answer questions.
• Any parameters we need to follow in submitting questions or requesting additional info.
• The due date of the response. (Please make this very clear and easy to find!!!)
• The anticipated decision date and how you will communicate this decision.

Project Information

• Description of your project. Tell us what the project is and who it is intended for: “We need a training course on XYZ developed for XYZ audiences.” Or…”We need help in analyzing what we DO need because we have no idea.” (I’m being a bit sarcastic here, but truly, so many customers aren’t really sure what they do need - and we end up looping back to do some needs assessment before we can ever move forward. They jump to solution before they’ve fully thought about what the problem truly is.)
• Give us background on your intended audiences - what do they already know? Where are they located? What entry-level attitudes or behaviors should be considered as we bid the project? What is their education level and language skills? What unique traits should we consider? (e.g. The need to eventually  translate a finished solution into multiple languages is something that’s nice to know when we bid the project since it affects the way we might program a solution. This, in turn, affects time required.)
• List of deliverables and services you need. Services may include needs analysis, curriculum or course design, graphic design, performance analysis, etc. Deliverables might competency model, analysis report, curriculum design, course design, course materials, e-learning course, webinar, job aids, etc. If you don’t know what deliverables you want, we’ll have a very hard time giving you a price. When you are really unsure of what the deliverables should be….strongly consider requesting support for analysis and design - with no other deliverables. Once analysis and design work have happened, you can request a proposal that focuses exclusively on development and testing of your solution.
• Anticipated project time line that factors in the review cycles required on the project. Here is where many clients stumble a bit. They request a completion date that cannot logistically be accomplished ON THEIR END.
• Description of the available resources. This includes source content and subject matter experts. Depending on the project, it may include other, very specific resources as well.  Remember: “source content” is only source content if it exists on hard copy or electronic copy somewhere. Telling a vendor you have all the content…and then surprising them in the kickoff with an intro to a SME who is going to tell them everything they need to know is NOT good.

Budgetary Constraints or Timeline Constraints

Please, please don’t withhold budget information because you worry that the vendor will use every penny of what’s available to spend. The worst scenarios are when someone only has $10K to spend - and describes a project that clearly requires $50K to produce.  You are NOT going to get audio, complex Flash animation, and a full-branching scenario in 4 weeks and for less than $10K.

If you can give budget parameters or expectations upfront, we can help guide you and tell you what features/functionality/services are typically part of a $10K, $20K, $50K, or $100K solution. We can also probe for the outcomes you’re trying to achieve. If you merely want to share information, you really don’t need to spend $50K on an e-course to communicate new policies. Ethical vendors will point this out - and save you money.

Evaluation Criteria

Let’s be honest here. There’s always one or two things that are MOST important to you. Sometimes it’s your timeline. You need something fast…and your top evaluation criteria will be how well a vendor can meet your timeline. Other times, you have a high-profile project and what you’ll value most is a vendor who can truly partner with you in thinking through needs and optimal solutions, and then produce a high-quality, creative solution.

Though some vendors will tell you it’s possible to do good, fast, and cheap all together…that’s relative. We can be two of those three things, but most vendors cannot be all of those things. Simply letting the vendor know which two are most important to you can help you get responses that are useful to you. We’ve had some terrific honest discussions with clients - and declined to respond - when we’ve discovered their top priority is not one we feel we can honor. (We just had a client who wanted us to bid a project two ways: 2) super-fast with lowered quality standards and 2) high-quality with lengthened timeline.)  After considering what “super-fast” would mean (just about absolutely killing everyone on the project in order to complete it in four weeks), we replied back that we felt we could only bid on Option 2. The client was fine with this…and the evaluators can go with what’s most important to them.

Summary

The best projects happen when there is a high level of trust and good communication exchange throughout the proposal process. We start consulting from the moment we receive a proposal so we make sure our response truly addresses the needs the client has - which often are nowhere on their RFP.

Clients who have a rock-solid RFP help themselves. They get responses that better match their vision. They also minimize the risk of the project scope expanding on them because it wasn’t fully thought through at the RFP stage.

I welcome any other tips folks have on what makes a great RFP. Any war stories can also be shared and enjoyed. I suspect most of us have at least one!

In a comment on Jen’s wonderful blog post last week,  Jon Lloyd says “I think the first point ought to be ‘why are you doing this – what is the business reason and expected results for the conversation?” We’ve talked about this question before on this blog , because it’s one of our favorite questions. As we begin start to talk about every project we do, we ask the client why they want to do the project. We ask this question because the answer – how the work is expected to add value to the business – shapes.

1. The content we include. There is always more information available about a topic than learners actually need. Knowing the business driver helps us to help our subject matter experts draw the li ne.
2. The format the training will take. Now that there are more formats for training than ever before, it’s important to match the format to the goals.

In this post, I’ll talk about how the goal affects the content we include. In my next post, I’ll talk about how the goal affects the format we use.

Be aware that information exits

The goal of many “training initiatives” is often said to be just making people aware that particular information exists. I would (and do) also argue that if you really don’t need people to know or do anything different as a result of the learning solution, the project might not actually be useful to the business. Even compliance training – the perpetual “they just need to be aware” category – ultimately exists because the business needs its people to act in accordance with the regulation – not just to be aware that there is one.

Ultimately, when I am aced with an awareness project, I try and shape the content to be as small as possible. I don’t incorporate case studies or learning activities – because when the goal is simply awareness, it’s wasted effort to design those materials.

Be able to use information to make decisions.

These knowledge courses are the bulk of the work I’ve done in my career. They are about helping people use information to make different decisions. For knowledge workers, much of what they are paid to do IS to make decisions, so there is some blurring of know and do in this age of information.

When I’m working on a knowledge project, I try and shape the content to show the information in action. Case studies or scenarios do a good job of helping the learner know what the knowledge looks like in the real world. I try and make the information – and especially the learning checks – mirror the situations in which the learner will be making decisions.

Be able to use new skills to do their job.

Actual skill-building projects are the rarest and most fun projects of all. They are about using the skills to do a job differently - which means you need to have a way to practice the skills in question. What that looks like depends a great deal on the skill in question.

When I’m working on a skill project, it’s critical to see the skill in action. Usually, it’s not enough just to see it – you also need to be able to practice it. The content on these projects has to include actual practice. This practice can be simulated (it can be very effective to teach the 3-dimensional skill of flying a plane using a 2-dimensional flight simulator…up to a point). But to truly build skill, you have to give your learners an opportunity to USE the skill they are trying to build.

While I was writing this post, I remembered a presentation I made at the Governor’s Conference on Volunteerism a couple of years ago. I pulled out the core of it into this slide share, just for fun. (Yes, I’m that sort of geek, too.)

How does the GOAL of the course you’re designing affect the content you include?

We receive frequent requests to convert ILT courses to e-learning or distance learning. And sometimes I think that people perceive the process will go something like this:

1. We start with a 126 slide PowerPoint presentation.
2. We insert the presentation into a conversion machine.
3. An engaging, effective e-learning course comes out on the other side. (and includes all 126 slides.)

I’m exaggerating a little to make my point, but even I can be convinced that starting from an existing course can be faster, and that’s not always the case. In my experience, here are a few realities I have found to be true:

• It’s difficult to let go of the slides. Allow for a mourning period. Sometimes subject matter experts (SMEs) think that we’ll be able to translate their slides “as is” to an e-learning course.
  • This is not usually true. It’s my job to help the team realize that a clear slide for an ILT course may be very confusing in an online environment.
  • One way that I help the team through this grieving process is with the e-learning course design document. For each screen we plan to have, I’ll insert thumbnails of the slides that will be used to build those screens. That way the team knows that the information isn’t being trashed.

• You’re probably going to have to cut some of the content. There is usually content that doesn’t make it into the e-learning course due to time constraints or because it can’t be translated online effectively.

• In theory, the e-learning version of the course should be about ½ of the ILT version. (See Tony Karrer’s blog for some good info on this math.) But it doesn’t always work exactly. I recently had a project where we translated a 16 hour ILT course into a 45 minute e-learning course. Obviously, something had to go.
• One approach to determine what can go is through a “slide-sort”. We have a face to face meeting with the team. We print off each slide and lay them out on a conference table. Then, as a team, we evaluate what stays and if the order gets adjusted. It’s a good way for the SME to 1) realize just how many slides they have and 2) identify the impact of their changes on the rest of the course content.

• Translating activities online is going to take longer than you think. Since I’m not a programmer by trade, it can be easy to look at an ILT worksheet or activity and say, “Yes, we can translate that into a great online activity by….” And while that might be true, it isn’t always a quick process.

• A good example is the below activity we developed for a recent ILT to distance learning conversion. In the ILT course, learners used fun-size bags of M&Ms to learn about basic statistical concepts. I thought, “we can make that an online activity!” And we did. While this is a slick interaction, we dealt with several unknowns throughout development, from how much to randomize the colors of the candies, to how learners will share their results with their instructors. Click the image below to test out the activity for yourself.

• Someone has to capture what the instructor “says”. I’ve submitted an e-learning script to a SME for review and heard back, “But that’s not what I say when I teach the class.” It’s important to the team to not just convert the content, but also the discussions and points made by the facilitator. Obviously, not everything a facilitator says can be kept in the e-learning course, but be sure and find out what happens in the class. It is frequently those discussions that are what you really want to keep, rather than slides full of bullet points. You can capture this by:

• Observing a class, taking lots of notes, and talking with the learners in the room.
• Interviewing the facilitator. A good way is to walk with them slide by slide and have them share the key points as well as frequently asked questions.

• Don’t be afraid to express your professional opinion. As a joint team, we need to have open, frank discussions about what the best approach is to the e-learning or distance learning version of the course. Sometimes the course needs to be almost completely redesigned, especially if the ILT version wasn’t instructionally sound.

Those are just a few of my guiding principles when dealing with ILT conversions. What would you add to the list?

I’ve watched eagerly as Apple moved from concept to launch with the iPad. For at least two years I’ve believed that training and education will be revolutionized when we finally have a hand-held device that puts rich multimedia experiences literally in the hands of learners - from kids to corporate-types. I’m not talking about the typical SmartPhone - I’m talking about a device about the size of my Kindle. For me, a phone is too small. I want something that gives me a screen big enough to REALLY experience media on while still being truly portable.

We are SO close to this learning revolution. Read Fast Company’s article on how SmartPhones and mobile apps are changing learning in the classroom. I was PUMPED when I read about the math and reading progress first graders made using a portable device called “Teacher’s Mate.” Kids went from below to above grade level using these tools - something the teacher readily admits she could not have accomplished on her own.

Review my presentation and white paper to see what competitors to the iPad are emerging - and how they will go beyond what the iPad can do today.  I see a future that is amazing in terms of opportunities to design learning that truly engages and is delivered in a far more palatable way than most learning is served up today. Click the image below to see a presentation I developed on this topic.

Mobile Devices Revolutionize Learning

The top features we need to see to be ready for the full impact that mobile devices can have on learning include:

• A touch screen interface (i.e. like the iPad).
• A screen that doubles the real estate available on most phones. (Like the e-readers on the market)
• Batter life that allows the device to be used for several hours each day without need for plugging in to re-charge. This ensures true portability and anytime/anywhere access.
• WiFI Internet capability for accessing content and for sharing content with others.
• An operating system that supports Flash and Windows. (The business world is PC and they need PC tools that mirror what they have on their desktops/laptops. Flash is what most websites are developed in - refusing to support Flash (as Apple has) means that users are cut off from a huge amount of content. It also limits content creation.)
• The capability to deliver media-rich experiences that immerse the user. The iPad gives us a glimpse of what’s possible. Compare the viewing experience of the USA Today newspaper between the iPad and the Kindle. There IS no comparison. The iPad delivers an amazing, interactive experience. The Kindle…delivers text.

HP plans to launch a direct competitor to the iPad this year - and it’s worth checking out. It will be a “true” computer that supports Windows 7 - and Flash. It’s battery life is about half of the iPad (5 hours as opposed to 10), but it packs far more power and opportunity into its package. nVidia, known for its stellar graphics cards, is ready to launch an application processor that should give hardware manufacturers a powerful tool for creating mobile devices that compete well against the iPad.

I, for one, cannot wait to see what comes nipping at the heels of the iPad. In the coming months, we are going to see learning be available in the palms of our hands. It will make current e-learning offerings look anemic and will push traditional classroom instruction even further back in our minds than it already is.