Bottom-Line Performance

Each week Brandon Penticuff, Bottom-Line Performance’s Director of Technology and admitted app-obsessed iOS user will share an app that he is using that week. Whether it is an app to make you more productive, teach you something, or simply entertain you, we hope that you’ll enjoy learning about them!

This week’s app is “Art Authority for iPad”, an amazing virtual museum that will put over 50,000 of the worlds best artistic works at your fingertips on your iPad (a separate app is available for iPhone). You can browse the app by it’s 8 period-specific rooms that each contain a museum’s worth of content, or you can search an artist by name and view all the available pieces from their collection. The app is incredibly robust, featuring art from over 2,000 museums from across the globe.

In addition to giving you with a virtual museum to explore, the app also provides other clever features to help you get the most out of your experience. “Art Like This” let’s you immediately bring up similar pieces to your current selection, expanding your awareness of other works and artists that you might have otherwise not easily found. “Art Near Me” is a location based feature that helps alert you to what pieces are near your current location, giving you options to consider for making a day-trip to your local museum to see something first hand. You’ll likely be amazed by the number of pieces that are within a couple miles of your location! These features are part of the reason that the New York Times reported that for art on your iPad, Art Authority for the iPad has no rival.

In addition to increasing your personal cultural awareness and art appreciation, the arts have role to play in sparking our creativity and informing our designs. I’d like to share two quotes with you that I think speak to this better than I could:

“In my own philanthropy and business endeavors, I have seen the critical role that the arts play in stimulating creativity and in developing vital communities….the arts have a crucial impact on our economy and are an important catalyst for learning, discovery, and achievement in our country.”
–Paul G. Allen, Co-Founder, Microsoft

“Creativity is just connecting things. When you ask creative people how they did something, they feel a little guilty because they didn’t really do it, they just saw something. It seemed obvious to them after a while. That’s because they were able to connect experiences they’ve had and synthesize new things. And the reason they were able to do that was that they’ve had more experiences or they have thought more about their experiences than other people. Unfortunately, that’s too rare a commodity. A lot of people in our industry haven’t had very diverse experiences. So they don’t have lots of dots to connect, and they end up with very linear solution without a broad perspective on the problem. The broader one’s understanding of the human experience, the better design we will have.”
–Steve Jobs

So maybe you haven’t made time in quite a while to visit a museum or perhaps that Bachelor of the Arts degree could use a refresher. An app like this one lets you use the most cutting edge technology of today to bring some of history’s best works to you.

Art Authority for iPad- [$4.99 (Currently on sale half-price)]

Follow Brandon on Twitter for more tips and tracks on all things App related. Got an app you want featured? Send him a tweet to have it considered!

 Well, no…but some trainers seem to think so.

In the age of “awareness level training” and “click next to continue” courses designed to check a box or meet regulatory requirements, we risk missing out on opportunities to really let learning happen. Awareness may be necessary, but it’s just the beginning. If your training program begins and ends with “awareness,” you’re missing the boat.

 Malcolm Gladwell did an excellent job of showing us that it takes 10,000 hours to be a master at virtually any discipline. If companies want to distill “training” into 5 and 10 minute sound bytes, what does that say about the overall competence of their workforce?

We seem to forget that awareness is just the beginning of the learning process. Yes, it’s important: I cannot take an action until I am aware of the need to do so. But in order to invest my time and energy into taking that action, I will need to be motivated and really believe that the action has value to me and to my company. Training is not learning, and the course you are going to make me take is only the beginning of my discovery process. If we treat it like the end-all, I’m never actually going to learn anything. No wonder many workers feel alienated by the Learning and Development department.

Awareness has its time and place….but we need to make a distinction between training and communication. Training should be used when you need to teach someone how to do something. It needs to be specific, actionable, and measurable. Communication should be used to convey a message or make someone aware of something. For example, an effective chain of company communication might make your learners aware that they need training and reach them in such a way that they become intrinsically motivated to do what is necessary to learn that skill. The training that you then provide will serve as a starting point and guide for their learning, but learners are still going to have to take responsibility for their own skill-building. The brain doesn’t have any hands for us to hold…it has to do the heavy lifting all by its lonesome.

It’s also important to keep in mind that everyone does not need the same level of awareness all the time. Even if a piece of information or procedure seems integral to everyone in your company, chances are people only need to use or reference it at most for a small part of their day. Or maybe only a certain segment of people need to use it at all. It is perfectly adequate and appropriate to make your learners aware of safety documents and procedures, but if the roll-out is not timed right and months go by between awareness training and the time when knowledge recall is needed, your outcome will be less than ideal. Design training around your desired outcome, not the content you think you need to include.

Remember that awareness is more about motivation than information. Pique your learners’ interests, make them aware of the problem, and give them the resources they need to go out and learn what they need to learn. Then, get out of the way and let it happen, supporting the process as needed. It may take 10,000 hours to achieve mastery in a field, but chances are you can measurably improve your results by making some small steps in the right direction.

Chances are, someone has told you how you should or should not be using Twitter recently.

Did you know that Twitter chats are a fantastic way to share informal knowledge and spark conversation within  your field or even inside your organization? Think about it: You spend all day every day sitting in your office, siloed off from the world of information ebbing and flowing all around you. What if there was a way to tap in to the collective expertise of industry experts and thought leaders, creating synergistic relationships both inside and outside your organization? This is all possible. Best of all, it’s cost-effective and easy to implement.

For the past month, Bottom-Line Performance has been hosting Thursday Tech Talk, a weekly chat on Twitter. Each week, we extend an open call for users to submit articles on emerging trends, gadgets, or tech and we curate three of our favorites to include in our discussion. You can follow along and even join in by following @BLPIndy on Twitter to see the upcoming articles and saving the #TalkTech hashtag as a search. Here’s a transcript from our chat on Thursday, 2/16:

A few tips to get you started:

-Pick a hashtag that is short yet memorable and unique: We started our Twitter chat using the hashtag #T3 and have since changed it to #TalkTech. Since Twitter limits the number of characters per tweet to 140, we thought using a short hashtag would enhance people’s experience by allowing them to fit more in to one tweet. However, we quickly realized that having a hashtag that is unique and specific to your talk is important. The stream for #T3 was always cluttered with spam and errant conversations we did not want to view. #TalkTech has been much more successful thus far.

-Brevity is the soul of wit…and good conversation: New Twitter users sometimes balk at the 140 character limit per tweet. “How will I get my point across?” Rather than being a deterrant, we’ve found that the 140 character clause actually helps participants be more concise and form their thoughts better.

-Embrace different consumption preferences: Some of our BLPers are digital natives who find it easy to rapid-fire Tweets on any topic (I fit in to this heap). However, others prefer to receive and process information at a more controlled rate. We recommend using a service like Storify to gather the conversation and preserve a record of it for easy viewing. Users who prefer to interact with Twitter at a slower pace will still benefit from the conversation by reading it later and may even become more comfortable with the medium in time. Making a transcript of your chat available after the fact will greatly enhance its value. 

-It takes time to build participation: We have been encouraging BLP employees who do not normally use Twitter to hop on and try participating in #TalkTech. It has taken some time for those not used to taking part in this medium of communication to get used to sharing thoughts in this format, but we have seen great improvement from the first week.

-Twitter isn’t perfect: The platform itself has some limitations that are worth noting: Tweets do not always load immediately when you are monitoring a keyword and the stream of commentary can become confusing for some. Remember that the added value of Twitter versus a closed off chat room is the openness of the platform itself: every Tweet being shared can be searched and viewed by anyone on Twitter, any time. There is always an opportunity for someone unexpected to chime in with a new insight. Sharing your thoughts and expertise in such a way is also a great way to improve the credibility of your organization on a chosen topic.

Our experiences with #TalkTech have been all-together encouraging and we plan to continue our weekly chats. We’ll keep posting the Storify summaries once a week on this blog.

I would encourage any organization still standing on the side of the pool dipping their toes in and grimacing a bit to take the plunge in to social media and try hosting a Twitter chat of your own. You can also try participating in one of many Twitter chats already going on. Just search for what you are looking for, and odds are you will find it!

We’ll be back in the near future with more on our short series of social media tips. For now, let’s talk about synchronous eLearning.

Synchronous eLearning (Distance Learning) was a hot topic at 2011′s DevLearn conference. Today, I want to talk about how to actually design synchronous e-learning courses. There are many elements of course design that need to be taken into consideration for synchronous e-learning. However, here are just a few questions to consider:

1. Technology

• Is there someone who can act as a “host” on the session and manage technical issues and questions?
• Is the technology that we’re using stable and robust enough to allow for interaction?
• Is the technology intuitive enough that it is a help and not a distraction to facilitators or participants?

2. Facilitators

• Are the facilitators comfortable using the technology?
• Can the facilitators offer feedback to participants on activities in real time?
• Are facilitators willing to take the additional time needed to practice and prepare for a synchronous e-learning course?
• Do facilitators have clear instructions on how to facilitate the activity? Below is an example of a duel facilitator guide we created for a client recently. In this situation, the course will be taught both face to face and online. Facilitators make the choice on how to facilitate based on their situation.

3. Participants 

• Have participants been given enough time to practice using the technology?
• Are participants given opportunities to interact with each other, not just with the facilitator?

4. Content

• Have I avoided the temptation to make synchronous e-Learning more about lecture than exploration? While it can seem “easier” to take this route, in reality synchronous e-learning requires MORE interaction and opportunities to ensure that participants are engaged.

• Is the course chunked into management bites? As much as possible, shorter modules are preferable in synchronous e-learning to avoid the dreaded multitasking of participants!
• Is the course designer/writer familiar with the technology? Has she/he ensured that what is written is actually feasible?

What do you think of my list? What’s missing that you always consider when developing synchronous e-learning?

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?

So…anyone can create a course, right? But…very few people actually create GOOD courses that truly train people to do something.

If you are tasked with creating a course on a technical topic…and you have to rely on a subject matter expert (SME) to help you create this course, you need to get your SME to think in terms of outcomes as opposed to content.

Subject matter experts tend to want to share everything they know about a topic. It’s the course designer’s job to help them shape their thoughts into outputs rather than inputs. At BLP, we do this with a design meeting. Here’s a quick look at the main steps in our design meeting and the process we use to “shift” SMEs toward an outcome focus rather than an information focus.

Step 1: Verify required outcomes. This sounds amazingly simple, yet you wouldn’t believe how many times people say they need training and yet they cannot articulate a simple goal or outcome this training should achieve. In instructional design lingo, we call this a “course goal.” It’s a description of what learners will do on the job once training is complete. Here’s a few examples of course goals:

• When selling Product X, reps will position Product X against competition, communicate benefits, and successfully close at least 80% of sales.
• During customer phone calls or customer meetings, reps will appropriately communicate the “fit” of Product X for the customer’s particular situation.
• Patients will safely and confidently use Equipment X to do home treatment.

Often, SMEs who have been tapped to be content experts have thought very little about what OUTCOME they hope learners will have. They have focused instead on thinking about what content they want to deliver. We give them examples of possible course goals and then ask them questions to help them shift focus:

• When training is over, what does the employee need to be able to do on the job? (When you hear, “Well, they need to understand X, Y, and Z,” you simply re-direct them and say back. “But WHY do they need to understand X, Y, and Z? What will they DO with this information?)
• If this training is successful, what problem will you solve or prevent?
• If this training is successful, what improvement will occur?

Sometimes, SMEs simply cannot articulate a goal. If they can’t, try shifting to step 2 and seeing if you can distill the ultimate goal after seeing their responses to Step 2 questions.

Step 2: Define the learning objectives. Now – we don’t tell SMEs that we’re “defining learning objectives,” but it’s what we do. We ask these questions, and we have them write their responses to each one on individual Post-It Notes. Ideally, we’ll use different colored Post-Its for each “type” of question:

• What do learners need to know?
• What do learners need to do?
• What do learners need to believe/feel?
• What common mistakes do you want to prevent or what problem do you want to solve?

SMEs generally respond really well to this activity. They may not do a great job distinguishing between something people need to know (knowledge) versus something they need to do (skill), but they will brainstorm their thoughts and we can then organize them.

Step 3: Chunk everything. This is honestly what we do. Together with the SMEs we shift/move the Post-Its around into logical groups. Topic themes will emerge and natural hierarchies will form. We’ll put the Post-Its on flipcharts and name each chunk with a logical title.

Step 4: Identify required content. Now, the SMEs can start talking content. We will look at each objective we defined and discuss what content has to be included to support it. For example, if the objective is that the patient performs machine set-up tasks, then the content is clearly descriptions of the machine set-up tasks.

Step 5: Identify appropriate learning activities. This is something we sometimes do with SMEs..and sometimes without them. If an appropriate learning activity is a practice activity in answering customer questions, we will brainstorm with the SMEs what questions are typically asked, what common mistakes reps make in answering these questions, and what kinds of resources a rep typically has available. In other words, we use the SME to craft the structure of the learning activity and to help us populate it.

Step 6: Identify job aids. What tools can help the learner transfer the training to the job? Sometimes the answer is – nothing. Other times, SMEs will identify “job aids” they want the learner to have access to. Honestly, in our experience, this offers a nice outlet to the SMEs to spill out all the content they didn’t get to include in the body of the course. We call these “reference materials” and allow SMEs to include all the “extra” material that we helped them winnow out through Steps 1 – 5.

I did a podcast where I attempted to show a very abbreviated form of this design meeting process. You can check it out here (And, yes, I realize no one is going to nominate me for an Emmy or an Oscar for my scintillating performance in the podcast!):

I checked today and since April we’ve logged about 160 hours getting Moodle installed and configured as well as getting 3 courses created in it. We’ve also input a whopping 16 users (who I still haven’t figured out how to send a mass email to). In general, we’re having a ball learning Moodle and I am extremely excited about its power to enhance learning in an organization.

When I say “we,” I mean two people with some peaks over the shoulder from a third one. Thank goodness I have a “techie” person who did the installation and some initial configuration tasks. I’ve taken it from there and done tons of work setting up courses and continuing to configure the site. Moodle is definitely a learn by trying it kind of thing; it also simply takes TIME to do system admin and course creation tasks.  Yes, it’s “free” in that the code doesn’t cost you anything, but I don’t work for free and neither does my “techie” partner, Kelly. We get paid, and when we’re workin’ on Moodle we aren’t doing the other parts of our jobs.

I’m excited by the possibilites and I really, really want to know: who else in the corporate world is Moodling? If you are using Moodle:

1. Why did you choose it as your LMS?
2. What have been your greatest triumphs?
3. What has been your greatest challenge that you want to share with others?

If you aren’t using it, share what you’ve heard about it!

I’ll be posting more on Moodle the rest of this month. In my next post, I’ll share what two other Moodlers have done with it – and why they chose it for their organizations.

Recently, I played at a wedding – you see my undergrad is in music – how I got to BLP and e-Learning is a long story and not at all related to this post, but I digress…so, I was involved in this wedding. When I walked into the church for the rehearsal there were several “decorators” unloading this huge trailer of flowers, candelabras, tulle, greenery, and just about everything else you could imagine to turn a church into the most beautiful Steel Magnolia’s “blush and bashful” wedding. Well, the bride had not “approved” said unloaded items and had them promptly “reloaded” and as you can guess there’s another story there, but I digress again. The bride wanted everything to be “simple” and the focus to be on her and her soon-to-be-husband and the vows there were about to take. So, what does this have to do with e-Learning?

Well, I’ve been wondering about the “simple” the bride longed for, and what we, as e-Learning professionals, can learn from this simplicity and focus. Do we (meaning me) make screens/activities too complicated because we are trying to accomplish too many things at once? Or, do we (meaning me) get sucked into trying to out-do our previous selves and projects, and forget about teaching the learner anything they will remember. We do want the learner to remember something, right?

Keeping e-Learning simple with a clear focus (or you can call it ‘objective’) is not a new concept, but a good reminder! I decided to start a list on how to keep it simple and focused. I am a multimedia developer, so these thoughts are from the developer perspective, but I think some of these could apply to design and writing for e-Learning. NOTE: I kept the list fairly short…trying to learn from my own post and all.

1. Keep your objective(s) in front of you…literally.
2. Let there be white space! Not every pixel needs something in it…white space actually helps the learner focus on what’s important on the screen.
3. Be the learner…live the “learner experience” to gain insight. Be careful! You may get a little queasy when you realize what the learner has to go through in your course.
4. Choose images, color, font, and screen style with care…it may be pretty, but so what? It needs to mean something, too.
5. Animate with caution…move to illustrate a point or change the screen perspective to get the learners’ attention…animation should not induce headaches.

Do you have any to share?

We’re continuing our discussion of synchronous e-learning (aka. distance learning) this month. Today, I want to talk about how to actually design synchronous e-learning courses. There are many elements of course design that need to be taken into consideration for synchronous e-learning. However, here are just a few questions to consider:

1. Technology

• Is there someone who can act as a “host” on the session and manage technical issues and questions?
• Is the technology that we’re using stable and robust enough to allow for interaction?
• Is the technology intuitive enough that it is a help and not a distraction to facilitators or participants?

2. Facilitators

• Are the facilitators comfortable using the technology?
• Can the facilitators offer feedback to participants on activities in real time?
• Are facilitators willing to take the additional time needed to practice and prepare for a synchronous e-learning course?
• Do facilitators have clear instructions on how to facilitate the activity? Below is an example of a duel facilitator guide we created for a client recently. In this situation, the course will be taught both face to face and online. Facilitators make the choice on how to facilitate based on their situation.

3. Participants

• Have participants been given enough time to practice using the technology?
• Are participants given opportunities to interact with each other, not just with the facilitator? Check out these great ideas for interactivity…

4. Content

• Have I avoided the temptation to make synchronous e-Learning more about lecture than exploration? While it can seem “easier” to take this route, in reality synchronous e-learning requires MORE interaction and opportunities to ensure that participants are engaged. Check out this great table to assess the level of interactivity across the various elements of course design.

• Is the course chunked into management bites? As much as possible, shorter modules are preferable in synchronous e-learning to avoid the dreaded multitasking of participants!
• Is the course designer/writer familiar with the technology? Has she/he ensured that what is written is actually feasible?

What do you think of my list? What’s missing that you always consider when developing synchronous e-learning?

Hey everyone,
As we shifted to our new format for the LOL Blog this month, my role is reduced to a monthly one – putting out a short video podcast on the topic of choice. I’ve facilitated a few online sessions (all for e-Learning Guild’s monthly Online Learning events, which are awesome). Karen Hyder of the e-Learning Guild has been truly wonderful to me in building my skill set so I can do a good job. The following video summarizes my last presentation (September 2008) and shows you a few (actually 7) tips that I used to make things go well. The post-session reviews were strong with folks indicating we did a good job facilitating. I think the tips can be helpful to all. Enjoy!