Adobe eLearning Suite 2

I recently purchase the Adobe eLearning Suite 2 to not only keep up to date but to replace some earlier versions of software that was not compatible with my new laptop.  My new laptop uses Windows 7 which is a 64 bit operating system.  My copies of Acrobat, Captivate, and Dreamweaver were not compatible with this system so I was forced to make the jump to the latest versions of these.  By choosing the eLearning Suite I was also able to get the latest versions of Flash, Photoshop and few other lesser known applications from Adobe.

Normally this software would run about $1800; however I took advantage of an educational discount available to me as a student.  Earlier this year I had completed an adult training certification which entitled me to this discount.  I ended up paying only $600 for the suite.  This proved to be less than purchasing any two of the more known applications within the suite.  If you are taking even a single course at your local college you can take advantage of this offering.  The Adobe eLearning suite is extremely useful to anyone within the Instructional Design field.

Death by PowerPoint Isn't Always To Blame

Check out this presentation on PowerPoint.

YOU SUCK AT POWERPOINT!

View more presentations from @JESSEDEE.

How Many Pages is a Job Aid?

I feel that sometimes we attempt to make training more complicated than it has to be.  I recently was asked to develop training for using a closed circuit TV system.  The manufacturer’s user guide is a few hundred pages long.  I found out specifically what the end user needed to know to do their jobs.  Turns out they required only about five pieces of knowledge and skill.  I focused my training on those items and ended up with an eleven page document with a skills assessment check list at the end.  Very simple and it does what they asked this training to do.

Ironically the training department’s expectation was a “job aid”.  Many organizations think of job aids as “one pagers” or single page documents.  I think this is a misnomer about job aids; job aids are anything that helps a learner perform their job.  It could be a cheat sheet that sits on the top of their computer keyboard, a sign on the wall or like in this case a few pages about how to do a particular task.  I think we get stuck with expectations of our clients rather than building a training solution that is right for the training problem.  If a single page is all that is required; you are wasting the learner’s time to give them too much, if one page isn’t enough than more is required.  It really is that simple.

Don't Let It End This Way

Oh the corporate battles we as Instructional Designers have. In my first position as an Instructional Designer I thought this was a unique situation with the organization that I was apart of. Of course I didn’t know any better. Now that I have worked in more than one organization, I can tell you that this is a universal challenge.

What it comes down to is the fact that most people have a preconceived notion of what training is. While our industry has developed standards and expectations of training, the rest of the world is oblivious to these. In most cases, training is assumed to simply be a collection of information in some structure resembling a PowerPoint file. The assumption is that the more you put into this PowerPoint file the better and more complete the training will be. If one particular point is really important you should say it many times rephrased in different ways.

I’m sorry to say that this is still the expected norm out there in the corporate world. In fact I have colleagues who still think that this is primarily what we do (add style and appearance to other peoples content). There is more to it than that. It is up to each Instructional Designer out their in the world to educate our customers as to what value we bring to the table. Please don’t cave into the death by PowerPoint that so many are expecting. Ironically these are the same people who will blame you when the training that they had you passively design turns out to be ineffective.

The Search and Learn

Designing learning activities where the learners teach themselves are some of the easiest yet most effective training to design. These types of learning activities work best when the learners come to the table with some existing knowledge of the subject. This way less experienced learners can rely on the greater expertise of their partners. Another time when it's a great method for training is when there is an official document that the organization relies on such as a policy or procedures manual. This reference material can be distributed to the learners along with a set of instructions to guide the learners in their quest for knowledge; and some raw materials such as magic markers, white boards, or flip chart paper.

The parameters of the learning activity are simple. The learning activity is divided into three parts:

Part One:
Introduction and Instructions: You can call it a brain storming activity or a search and learn activity, or a knowledge hunt activity or whatever clever training exercise name you wish to dream up. I like Search and Learn myself but to each their own. Next you want to provide very clear instructions on how the activity will be performed. I personally like to assign roles within the smaller groups. For example one member of the group might be responsible for writing down what the group has learned, while another member might be responsible for presenting the material to the rest of the class, and so on. The key is getting everyone involved in some way. Rather than assigning these roles, allow the groups to democratically choose or elect one another for the roles. Typically people select roles they are strong at or enjoy doing.

Part Two:
Research: With the instructions at hand along with the reference material, allot a set number of minutes for the groups to conduct their research. Instruct your trainers to use this time to monitor the groups by walking around the classroom to offer advice or encouragement. They may also be required to put groups back on track if they end up misunderstanding the exercise.

Part three:
Presentation: Once the allotted time have been used up it's time for the groups to present their learning to the rest of the class. If each group has been responsible for the same research as other groups, take up the exercise in a round robin approach. This is where one idea is presented by one group; another idea is presented by the next group, and so on until all ideas have been exhausted. Alternatively if groups have been assigned unique research, each group can present all their content at once.

Personally I enjoy this type of design as you do not need to reinvent the wheel here. There are several advantages to you as a designer. First there is no need for updating the training each time the reference material is updated by the organization as the training does not contain the reference material itself. Another benefit to that same point is that you don't need to rewrite the reference material into a training format and have it signed off by subject matter experts. As long as the reference material provided remains accurate, your training will convey the right ideas to the group. Also this form of training breaks away from the passive methods such as lecturing. Learners learn best when they are engaged, talking with one another, sharing ideas and involved in some kind of activity.

eLearning is Just Another Tool

There has been much debate around the office recently over what online learning is or isn't and of course if it truly is it an effective means to train.  I myself have gone back and forth on this issue over the years.  In my last position with a large telecom that was spread all across Canada we did a great deal of web based training.  The obvious reason for this was the vast distance our company spanned and the number of points of presence was large as well.  Trying to get 10,000 people in 2000 locations under one roof for training is a logistical impossibility.  For that organization eLearning just makes sense. 

The current client that I'm working for is an organization that is hundreds of employees in one location.  While online learning may eventually be an option for this organization, they have not officially rolled out their LMS.  This particular project is a curriculum of hundreds of short courses that need to be rolled out in the next few months for a business transformation project.  While most of these employees already work in similar jobs, the changes in their responsibilities mean subtle differences in what they are used to doing.  Our training will make them ready for these changes.  I feel we not only can deliver a more robust classroom solution in the short term, but we can avoid the pitfalls of launching a new online learning solution for them as well.  I personally would rather spend my time building the training and not troubleshooting if the author-ware will publish results that will upload properly with their LMS and so forth.

If you rely only on online learning, you are also missing several learning domains.  If you were given the task of changing an organizations attitude for example (affective domain of learning), I’m not sure you could accomplish this in an e-learning module.  Even if it was really well designed, I daresay you could only change the attitude of some of your audience.  It also isn’t a very good tool for the psychomotor domain (physical skills), unless the group is learning computer skills.  If the group needs to learn how to rebuild an engine, you will never really know if they can rebuild an engine upon completion of an online learning module.

I see online learning as a tool rather than a complete methodology.  Even when I worked for the telecom with all the points of presence across the country, we still ran classroom training; we still brought people in for specialized training events.  No, I feel that online learning is a training tool, in the same way that flip-chart paper or conducting role plays are training tools.  You can use them from time to time when it’s appropriate, however you cannot rely on them exclusively.

Training is Never Finished

When sending your second draft of training out for approval, only send the content that received feedback during the first round.  Don't send anything that did not receive criticism the first time, otherwise they may find something they would like to change during the second round.  Stake holders love to change things.  Without their changes, what would they have contributed?  My thinking is that if there was something wrong with it the first time they would have said so.  Don't give your SMEs or stake holders an opportunity to simply create more busy work for you.

Leonardo da Vinci said: "Art is never finished, only abandoned."  I think this is generally true of training design.  There comes a point where the training needs to go out to the field.  I'm certain if you got enough people to review your work, there would be something to change everyday.  Even once you get beyond spelling and grammar, there are subtleties in the way things are said that could be interpreted differently.  You could literally work on training design forever.

Rapid Instructional Design

I've decided to give myself a project this week and next.  I'm going to template out all the learning exercises that I typically inject into my classroom training.  I found myself racking my brain this week trying to think of a learning activity for a classroom course that I'm presently designing.  I was flipping through books and reading my blog trying to come up with something.  To my dismay I had nothing.  It wasn't until I came home that day and flipped through one of my older courses and saw essentially what I was looking for.

I think if I had a thumb drive filled with the skeletal structure of all the learning activities and exercises I can think of, I would save hours trying to find the right exercise.  This way they will all be at arm's length and I can get back to the work at hand.

Assumptions

You've heard the old expression; "Never assume because it makes an ass out of you and me". 

I'd like to suggest an alternative that may be a little more useful in an instructional design world; "Never assume unless you assume the worst case scenario".

I design to that worst case scenario all the time.  I like to assume that the person delivering my training has no knowledge of the subject and little to no training experience.  How many times have you received a PowerPoint file with no leader's notes or delivery instructions?  These types of files are typically designed by people who expected that they themselves would be delivering the material.  That or they simply do not care to put the extra effort in.

I think a general business rule should be to leave instructions to your replacement.  This is especially applicable to leader’s notes in training.  While you might be off on the next project, someone entirely different may be required to deliver your course.  It just makes sense to provide them the context needed to do a great job.  Not only is it professional, it's a testament to your instructional design capabilities.

Back At It

I apologize for the lack of entries over the last month.  I have been hired by a large organization to create and revamp the majority of their training programs.  It's obviously a big job and very time consuming.  I will try to publish more regularly.