NYNP blog post 9-2-09

Notes from Day 2 of The eLearning Guild's New England Regional Instructional Design Symposium

Designing Learning for the “Moment of Need”
Bob Mosher, LearningGuide Solutions USA

Mosher talked about creating a "holistic learning ecosystem" that helps people at each moment of need for learning. He suggested that there are five such moments of need: 1) the first time we learn something, 2) when we want to learn more, 3) when we try to remember or apply learning, 4) when things change, and 5) when something goes wrong. As trainers, we need to create support for staff that's appropriate for each stage, and Mosher suggested that e-learning can be useful for the first two types of moments, whereas just-in-time performance supports are more useful for the last three.

The learning ecosystem needs to include guidance for learners on what to access and when, because Mosher noted that research shows that 80% of adults make poor choices when given choices in their learning -- we tend to choose based on what's shortest, shiniest, etc., rather than on what will actually help us perform.

E-Learning on the Cheap! Finding Resources for Free (or Virtually Free)
Steven Yacovelli, TopDog Learning Group, LLC

Yacovelli made the point that e-learning doesn't need to be expensive to be good, as long as it's designed well. As he said, "cheap does not equal low quality." Without necessarily endorsing any products, he and the group shared many free resources, including Audacity and Wavepad for creating audio recordings, Moodle and Sakai for managing e-learning content much like an LMS, Udutu for building SCORM objects online, Wink or Camstudio for doing video screen captures, Guttenberg Press for books that are out of print, Stockvault for graphics, Comicpics or Toondoo for creating comics, and Drupal or Joomla for web authoring.

He also said that his company has a paper measurement that can help benchmark attitudes about e-learning before a project begins, which can be used to measure the project's success -- and they will share the measurement for free if the user agrees to share the data collected.

Blended and Interactive Design on a Nonprofit Budget
Matthea Marquart & Zora Rizzi, BELL (Building Educated Leaders for Life)

Day 2 of the symposium was the day when Zora and I led a session, which provided lessons learned from BELL's e-learning project. It was a delight to present our project to e-learning professionals, and it was a thrill to receive positive feedback. If you're interested in checking out some of what we shared, our handouts are available at http://www.elearningguild.com/showFile.cfm?id=3495

Closing General Session – Panel
Panelists: Lee Maxey, MINDMAX, Inc.
Bob Mosher, LearningGuide Solutions
Marc Rosenberg, Marc Rosenberg and Associates
Allison Rossett, Department of Educational Technology, San Diego State University
Will Thalheimer, Work-Learning Research
Ellen Wagner, Sage Road Solutions, LLC
Moderator: Heidi Fisk, The eLearning Guild

Here are some highlights of the panel's responses to questions from symposium participants.

In response to the question of the top three things a new e-learning manager should do, Will Thalheimer said that the new manager should prioritize evaluation, learn to be a good leader of many different types of people, and maintain a sense of humor; Lee Maxey said that the new manager should read The First 90 Days, determine success measures, and get a coach that will help the manager be accountable.

In response to the question of what organizations should consider when selecting an LMS or CMS (learning management system or content management system), Marc Rosenberg said that the LMS doesn't really matter because well designed, relevant e-learning content is the key and LMS's can become a roadblock when they control what type of e-learning is produced in order to fit the LMS's limited capabilities; Lee Maxey said that it's not important to have a perfect LMS because there are many web-enabled services you can tack on as long as you get an LMS with 80% of what you need; Will Thalheimer cautioned that having an overly fancy LMS can send the message that training is separate from work if the training becomes more about the LMS than the job.

In response to the question of what kind of interactivity multiple generations need, Allison Rossett said that everyone needs interaction, so we should assume that certain generations don't need to be engaged; Will Thalheimer noted e-learning should engage people to the point that they stop multi-tasking, because research has clearly demonstrated that multitasking doesn't work and that what happens is that people jump from one task to another without focusing on anything and therefore do everything worse.

In response to what books e-learning professionals should read, the panel recommended Ruth Clark on design and e-learning, Jackie Fenn on managing the technology hype cycle, John Kotter on leading change, and Chip & Dan Heath on making ideas stick.