In this podcast for Edentree, James and I discuss: why it’s important to have an expansive view of what e-learning is the process we go through at the start of each e-learning project my views on best practice e-learning development my advice on how to select both a third-party e-learning supplier and an e-learning authoring tool the place of traditional e-learning courses in today’s learning environment Designing and Developing Great eLearning Podcast Interview with James McLuckie

Last month I attended the Ufi Charitable Trust launch event where there was a lot of talk about innovative ways to use technology for teaching purposes. Interactive whiteboards were broadly lambasted as waste of resources that are underused in schools. Some even went so far as to say they were a barrier to the adoption of technology, presumably because teachers were so intimidated by using them, it put them off other technology. I don’t think there is such a thing as bad technology. Provided it functionally does what it’s supposed to, whether or not it is effective depends on how it is used and for what purpose. People who ‘hate PowerPoint’ should instead hate the people who put it to bad use in over-long, tedious presentations. The feeling was that technology had not yet transformed teaching and learning to the extent it has transformed other sectors. The issue is that, too often, old paradigms are applied thoughtlessly to new technology. This is forgivable with something that is brand-new, after all you’ve got to start somewhere to see what works. But with something like elearning that’s been around for 20 years; that fact that ‘courses’ are still the norm in the industry is just plain lazy. So what are these new paradigms? Here are my thoughts:  Learning experiences should be based around the application of learning, so activity-based, perhaps involving simulations, and opportunities for practice and feedback. It should be collaborative and peer-to-peer, not tutor-to-student top down. The tutor should be a learning guide, not a sage on the stage handing down words of (arguable) wisdom. It should be measurable. There should be a specific aim to it and a clear way to measure how close to that aim you have got. I hope that the Ufi will help to revitalise elearning as a whole and have the vision and guts to fund forward-thinking, innovative projects that truly make the most of the remarkable things we can do with technology.

I’ve been creating a lot of screencasts recently for the goal-based learning systems that we develop, so I thought I’d give you a run through of the equipment I’m using and the workflow I’ve adopted. The screencasts show users how to use the functions of the goal-based learning system. Equipment: Mac Screenflow screen capture software (see Rob Reviews for a review of it) Zoom H4N recorder used as a USB microphone Workflow I begin by identifying the system functions that I want to cover and I also include a general overview of the system. I divide up the functions so each screencast is short. I aim for less than three minutes. I rough out a script, not word-for-word, but the main things I want to mention in the order they should be introduced. Then I capture screencasts of me using the system functions and talking my way through them. I do a few takes and use the one I’m happiest with. I generally aim to get it 80% right in the initial recording. In Screenflow, I then tidy up the timing and rerecord any of narration I’m not happy with. I then publish and upload to our video hosting site. Tips for success Use a decent mic - audio quality is important and you can get an excellent USB condenser mic for £100. Record in a quiet environment - you don’t want background noise on your recording. Don’t try to make them perfect - focus on making them easy to follow and don’t worry about the odd ‘um’ or ‘ah’ in your recording.

by Tess Robinson (Director, LearningAge Solutions) So goal-based learning sounds great but what can you use it for? And how can technology augment this way of learning? 1. Performance support Learning shouldn’t stop when a learner leaves the classroom. A goal-based approach can ensure that the learning continues into the workplace, making the most of the investment that the organisation has made and ensuring that learners are fully supported in attempting to improve their performance at work. Imagine you’ve just sat through a whole day’s workshop on project management. Correct me if I’m wrong, but what usually happens is that you take the weighty folder  of documentation you’ve been given and the sheaf of notes you’ve written, you go back to your desk, shove it in a drawer and never look at it again. With a goal-based approach, following the training, you would conduct a 360 degree survey based on a number of goals relevant to the training. The results would help you to identify where your weaknesses lie and would suggest a number of specific goals that you could attempt in order to put your learning into practice and to help you to improve your performance. A second 360 survey after you have completed your goals would help you decide whether you need to do more work on them. This is true integration of learning and work, reducing the need for time away from the workplace. Learners can be fully supported through technology by a library of resources, perhaps even user-generated, for each goal and by support from peers attempting the same goals. You could even, dare I say it, forget about the initial workshop completely and go for an entirely goal-based approach, reducing the need for time away entirely. 2. Performance review Annual reviews, appraisals or whatever you like to call them usually include some sort of goal-setting and identification of area that need improving. Goal-based technology can be invaluable in making sure that the right goals are chosen to ensure performance improvement and in providing a clear route to achieving those goals. Technology can also be used to remind learners at regular intervals that these things need attention. Technology also, of course, allows the appraiser to monitor progress via reports. 3. ‘Pull’ learning Arguably the next big thing for L&D; moving away from a traditional teacher/learner ‘push’ way of learning and instead empowering and challenging learners to find and access relevant resources at the point of need. The wonderful Alan Bellinger from the LPI defines ‘pull learning ‘ as: ‘helping people to develop the capabilities to become leaders in their own context, so when they’re confronting an unexpected challenge they have the initiative and the questing disposition that will make them want to embrace that challenge and find creative ways of overcoming it and addressing it, and in the process, learning from that experience. In a pull platform, talent development emphasises on-the-job learning and informal structures rather than a formal training programme. Pull learning gives people the ability to confront challenges and draw out the resources needed to develop solutions.’ He also pointed us in the direction of a really interesting book The Power of Pull: How Small Moves, Smartly Made, Can Set Big Things in Motion. By John Hagel and John Seely Brown. The book describes the ongoing shift in power from institutions to individuals through what the authors call "pull". They argue that this type of learning requires a serious shift in organisational thinking: "The learning is actually a by-product of facing unexpected challenges and ever-increasing performance requirements. If you really took that seriously, you would end up rethinking all aspects of the company from operations, how you design the organisation, even what kind of business strategy you would pursue, and certainly what kind of technology platforms you would use to support them in their work environments." Goal-based learning fits ‘pull’ learning style like a glove. It can and should be learner-driven. A goal-based technology platform can facilitate on-the-job learning as well as informal peer-to-peer learning through being mobile and social and allowing user-generated content in the form of rated resources. 4. Compliance training This is a biggy. Compliance training is usually a costly necessity and often a tick-box exercise. However, if compliance training is mandatory, that means, by definition, that it’s important and deserves being turned into creative learning that will stick. Goal-based learning can be used to ensure that compliance training is being translated into the workplace, as it allows learners to practice and hone behaviours in real time. Goal-based learning technology allows learners to have an electronic portfolio of evidence which shows that they have achieved required competence levels, through actually putting their knowledge about compliance into practice. This can be shown to assessors as part of an accreditation. This also, of course, relieves some of the pressure on L&D managers to reduce the cost of compliance as it transfers at least some of the learning to on-the-job. 5. Social learning Goal-based learning doesn’t have to be a lonely experience. In fact, it’s ideal for social learning and making the most of the knowledge that already exists within the organisation. Technology can assist with this in creating group and shared resources, where peers can share their experiences and knowledge and learn from each other. They can also upload documents, links, blog posts and other things that they have found useful in helping them to achieve their goals. The resources can even be user rated and reviewed, like on Amazon, to give other existing and future learners a steer on the most useful ones. 6. Refresher training A goal-based learning approach allows learners to review and identify their weaknesses and practice behaviours that will address and improve those weaknesses at any time. Used in conjunction with another method of training e.g. a face-to-face workshop or elearning courseware, it makes sure that what is learnt isn’t quickly forgotten, but instead is translated into learners working lives and practiced until perfect (or as near as dammit). Learners can go back to these goals and attempt them again at any time. Undertaking a simple 360 degree review on a regular basis is recommended so that learners can judge how much (or not) they’ve improved. Goal-based technology allows this facility to be literally in the learners’ pockets. Including a repository of useful downloadable resources within goals also means that learners can look up relevant information on the job as they need it. The technology can also include reminders for learners that it’s time to review and refresh their skills.   OK, I admit that was 6 ways to use a goal-based approach, not 5. It’s such a versatile way of learning though that I could easily have stretched this list to 10, 15 or even 20 ways that it can be used. We love that it is such an active, empowering way of learning that really puts the learner themselves at the heart of it. What do you think?

In order to thrive in today’s tough economic climate, it’s no longer enough for your people to just ‘know stuff’. Learning needs to be focussed on performance and that’s where goal-based learning comes in. Goal-based learning is an extension of Cathy Moore’s Action Mapping process, of which we’ve been firm advocates for a long time. It concentrates on developing real-world behaviours that will lead to performance improvement. Goal-based learning should not be top-down, instead it is very much focussed on empowering learners to take control of their own learning journeys, making them more able to respond to the changing requirements of their role. What organisation wouldn’t want a more agile workforce? So, what’s the process? Within a subject area, identify all the things that an expert in that subject  would do. These become the goals for that subject. Let’s take ‘communications’ as an example; goals might be: Remember peoples’ names Be a great listener Get your point across effectively It’s fine to have lots of goals within a subject so learners have plenty of choice so that the learning can be more accurately tailored to each learner’s specific needs. Within each goal, you then design practice activities where learners can have a go at doing these things. For example, an activity for the ‘Be a great listener’ goal might be an active listening exercise or an exercise in removing distractions. Quite often, these will be the same sort of activities that might be done in a face-to-face workshop. You then need to identify the knowledge that people would need to complete the practice activities and include this in the goal, you could do this as text, a video, a link to an existing piece of elearning or links to other relevant resources - but keep it short. Don’t overburden learners with un-necessary content. Sounds good so far, and a lot like Action Mapping, but here’s the twist: how do your learners know which goals to focus on? A 360-degree survey is used to measure people’s ability with regard to each of the goals within the subject. The results of this will then identify which of the goals the learner should attempt and what areas they need to work on. After working towards goals for a while, the survey should be resent and the results compared to the first survey to measure performance improvement. Goal-based learning works best when there is a mechanism to allow learners to connect socially and learn from each other. This is another difference to Action Mapping. This collaboration can be achieved using internal social networks or, if you use something like twitter, creating a #hashtag for each goal. Adopting a goal-based approach and making it social can really help to maximise the knowledge networks within your organisation.

by Tess Robinson, Director, LearningAge Solutions Being innovative doesn’t mean that you have to come up with big radical new ideas all the time. Sometimes the very best learning innovations are quite simple and subtle or are just improvements or diversions from existing ideas. Having just won an award for innovation, we’d like to share our 10 top tips for innovative thinking with you… Look beyond what is in front of you and practice seeing more than what is directly before your eyes. Think of this in terms of the young lady/old lady optical illusion - there are different ways of looking at the same thing. The way you view something at first, is not necessarily the only way of looking at it. Ask questions  - don’t be afraid not to accept the status quo. Asking questions will help your ideas to crystallise. Don’t stop at the first answer either, as above, there are many different ways to answer the same question. Think about what kind of learning you’d like to see, be it products, theories or something completely different. Where is the gap? Look at what others have produced and see how it can be improved upon. Collaborate - don’t be afraid to share ideas and get other’s opinions. Join a body such as the eLearning Network or ASTD where you can attend networking events and get yourself a mentor. Keep your eye out for emerging L&D trends that can be exploited. New trends often mean new ways of learning are needed - you can be on the forefront of that. Notice assumptions and don’t be afraid to break the rules. Just because something has been done a certain way for years, doesn’t make it the best or the right way! Change your routines - walk a different way to work, talk to a stranger, challenge yourself to do something you’ve never done before - perhaps something you’re scared of. Break out of your normal comfort zones and allow your brain to get a taste of what it feels like to do things differently - exciting isn’t it! Be prepared to have to weed through piles of rubbish to get to the good stuff. Being innovative isn’t just about having that lightbulb moment but about being committed, flexible and open. Prototype and test your ideas as early as possible (and as cheaply as possible) to discount solutions that won’t work and hone the ones that will. Finally, don’t be afraid of failure. It’s fine to get things wrong as that’s often the best and most powerful way for you to learn and be spurred on to get things right.

We were recently recognised with an award for innovation. This meant a huge amount to us as a company and to me in particular. I’m a designer. I love design in all its forms and I’m passionate about making things work better. Being recognised for something that I designed (and that utterly consumed me for about nine months) is a BIG deal to me. It got me thinking about innovation and what it takes to be innovative. Now, I’m no expert in innovation, however I do have some pretty good ideas and I know how to develop them. When you watch Dragon’s Den and see some really great innovation the temptation is to think ‘I wish I’d thought of that.’ The trouble is, the initial idea is the easy bit! Here are some of what I think are the ingredients to true innovation along with some ideas on how to achieve them. A great idea - yes, you need a great idea. It doesn’t have to be completely original - few ideas are, but it does need to achieve something quicker, better or more cheaply than what is currently available. I always have some sort of digital device on me and I note down ideas as they occur to me. Some of these I do nothing with, some I integrate into current projects or products, others hold my interest and I come back and refine them. I always keep an eye open for commercial opportunities to develop my best ideas. Sometimes a customer appears looking for just what I’ve come up with. My original idea for goalgetter dates back about eight years! Self-belief with flexibility - you need to be certain yours is a good idea and you need to be able to convince others of this easily. If few other people ‘get’ your idea, or it takes you half an hour to explain it, you probably should rethink. One way to build belief in your idea is to research the market and look at what competitors exist. I personally prefer to define my idea quite fully before looking at what else is out there. This is so that my design isn’t influenced by what already exists. Also be prepared to change your idea based on your research and input from others. Don’t continue on blindly when the evidence is against you. Be flexible and instead try to identify the aspects of your idea that you should keep and look at how else you could develop it. Tenacity - you do need to be tenacious to push on through the challenges you’ll face, and yes, there will be many. There will be times when: You’ll struggle to find the time to work on your idea You’ll lose faith in what you’re doing You’ll want to quit Another easier option becomes available to you and you have to make a choice It is tough. In times like these I return to the core spark of the idea and reaffirm what I’m doing. I also minimise risk by initially building it as cheaply as possible using the tech I have available. This might be paper and pencil, wireframes or a prototype. Minimising the risk makes you less likely to give up. Great execution - actually creating your what-ever-it-is will be an ongoing challenge taking many months and possibly years. You need all of the above to achieve this. Ideas are everywhere. You can generate a dozen in an hour. The real skill comes in sifting them, refining them, building them and testing them. Make sure you use a flexible design and development process. Prototype early and often and get lots of user feedback. Don’t be afraid to radically change your designs if you need to. Work in small batches so that if something doesn’t work you haven’t wasted a lot of resources. Build as late as you possibly can and leave plenty of budget for changes. Seek out people who will be great constructive critics of what you’re doing. Your harshest critic can give you the greatest insight - and if you can win them over to your idea, you are almost definitely onto something! Design in general, and innovation in particular, are not easy - but they are hugely rewarding. In the UK we are a nation of inventors and tinkerers. It’s one of the few things that we still lead the world in and something we can be rightly proud of. Feed your creativity and you could be the next Tim Berners-Lee.

by Tess Robinson, Director, LearningAge Solutions We’ve put our heads together and come up with our favourite (mostly free) tools for aiding rapid elearning development. As our team are located all over the world, we particularly love cloud-based tools that allow for collaboration: MockFlow Wireframe Editor Screenshot  MockFlow - Cloud-based collaborative design tool. We use Mockflow for  wire framing and specifying functionality. Google Drive - easy-to-use document sharing for storyboarding, QA, script writing and media lists. Allows for collaborative working and comments. Survey Monkey - free online questionnaires and surveys. Survey Monkey has been around for a while but still a great tool for gathering user feedback and can also be used to pre-assess knowledge gaps. GNU Image Manipulation Program (GIMP) - fantastically named piece of freeware that works on most operating systems for photo retouching, image composition and authoring. Dropbox - collaborative document storage and working. An alternative to Google Drive. Storyline - elearning tool that can develop for Flash and html 5 Screenflow - our favourite screencasting tool for the Mac. Easy and quick to use, beautiful quality, smooth movement and glitch-free. Makes high resolution video look fantastic. Mindmeister - online mind mapping software that allows you to create, share and collaboratively work on mind maps. Includes apps for iPhone, iPad and Android so you can see your maps anywhere. iMovie - For people starting out in video editing, iMovie is simply the best video editor. It is not as fully featured as other editors, but the most advanced functionality is either not necessary for basic web video, or you can find work-arounds. Only available for Apple devices. SmartBuilder -  a great and underrated elearning author tool specifically designed for building branching scenarios. It’s got a decent scripting language too. Thanks to Rob Hubbard, Louise Cox and Ed Hickman for their input into this article.

As well as our free online Rapid eLearning Development (ReD) course we also deliver a one-day workshop covering some of the same material. In fact it was from this workshop that ReD grew. Quite regularly people ask us which elearning author tool they should buy, the assumption being, you must have an elearning author tool in order to create elearning. This simply isn’t the case. With the rise of mobile devices and tablet computers, people increasingly want access to their learning on the move and from whichever device they have on them. The trouble with many author tools is that their main publishing format is Flash, which as you know, Apple don’t support on their mobile devices. Author tool vendors are increasingly embracing HTML5 publishing, however, typically this will only support a sub-set of their functionality and you will be limited by users needing the very latest browsers to run the content. The self-paced elearning course has been a staple of the industry for many years and yes, they have their place. However, more useful for the mobile user are smaller chunks of material that they can easily access. This is a case where the parts are more useful and flexible than the sum of them! The really great news is that these ‘learning assets’ are quicker and cheaper to produce than courses and can often be created using tools you already have, or ones that are free or cheap. These resources truly can be Rapid eLearning and this is what people learn on our ReD course. Here are some ideas for the sorts of resources you can develop cheaply and quickly: Screencasts - short videos that capture what you are doing onscreen along with your voice. These can be captured using free or cheap systems such as screenr, Jing and Screenflow. Quizzes and assessments - quizzes can be used to reinforce learning as well as test knowledge retention. There are many free and low-cost quiz building systems available. We have used ProProfs, Classmarker and Google Forms for building quizzes. Animated videos - you could use these to get across key points of a topic, give an overview of a subject or explain a diagram or process. You can animate text and images using Microsoft PowerPoint and then publish it out as a video. Powtoon is pretty cool too. Web pages - simple web pages can be used as job-aids or implementation aids, helping people to put their learning into practice or to remind them of key points. If you know HTML you can create web pages using any text editor. If you need a little more help use something like Google Sites. Wikis and collaborative docs - letting people collaboratively work on a document allows them to share ideas, see other people’s contributions and build on them. We’ve used both Wikispaces and Google Drive to do this. Hopefully this article has helped you see just how much you can do with low-cost tools and that much of it can also be mobile-accessible. Now go forth and have a play!

After a 20-year break I’m getting back into skiing. I’ve just returned from a four-day ski trip to the French Alps. It was awesome. Returning to a soggy grey UK, I’ve been thinking a lot about the trip and reflecting on my learning process. I went with three goals in mind: Learn to parallel turn (turn with my feet parallel) Start to carve (turn using the edges of the skis) Do one red (advanced) run In order to achieve these goals I built up to them; I had an instructor show me how to parallel turn, I then practiced these on green (easy) runs and blue (intermediate) runs. Once I had these nailed, I tried carving on some slower sections of piste. By the fourth day I could ski the blues fairly comfortably so I felt ready to try a red. I knew this would be a stretch, so I’d asked other, more experienced skiers which red they would recommend for a first attempt. I warmed up on a few blues then tried it just before lunch. I had a fall, got up and tried again, making it successfully down the most advanced slope I’d ever skied. After lunch I did it again to prove to myself it wasn’t a fluke. This time I went faster and didn’t fall once. These were fairly ambitious goals for someone who last skied when they were 17 and who had never skied on real snow, however, I achieved them all by: Having clear goals Seeking support from experts and peers Practicing and learning from my mistakes This, of course, is a recipe for learning any new skill. Unfortunately it is an approach missing from many learning interventions both online and in the classroom. In your next learning design ensure you include all three of these elements, for example: Goals - don’t sheep-dip your learners, let them choose what they should learn based upon their skills gaps. Support  - include some expert tuition or coaching for novices, allow people to connect and share with their peers Practice - design activities where people can practice the new skills they are trying to develop, ideally with increasing levels of difficulty