e-Learning Media: Self made Constraints : Part 4: Visual Designer is never Information Designer

Is it the same with Visual Designers round the world. At least in my part, I see the creativity with strokes, sketches is not matched by their vocabulary set.

Anyways, that is not the point here. The point is a visual designer in e-Learning is a passe.

1. For CBT's they were essential.
2. In early days of WBT, they were required.
3. In Web2.0 medium they are optional.

One field and skill that has transformed beyond the early vintage designs and job description is that of visual designer. Today, a VD is more of a painter where artistry is required. The artistry in VD is to visualize the details, design the information, present the semantics rather than support text in alternate medium.

Information Visualization and design are 2 most important skills that shape the beauty of today's e-Learning courses. How many of them have adopted this professional line and how many of them are getting there ?

The answers in my circle are far and few. Unless this transformation is complete, e-Learning courses will continue to be boxed between colored header and footer without relevance to content at hand.

e-Learning Media: Self made constraints : Part 1: Estimation Models

I was discussing a project with a long time colleague of mine from the same industry. We quickly started to rue the fact that e-Learning has been stereotyped to be a screen based activity.

Screens would contain either

1. Animation
2. Interactivity
3. Video
4. Simple text and Graphic.

These over a period of time, has got slotted into level 1,2,3,... for quick estimation and budgets. This, I always maintain is the wrong estimation technique. It is

1. Anti-pedagogy: It is the confluence of a chosen combination of these AS PER subject matter that defines the learning. Pre-configuring levels and fitting content into these levels is a dump of content in the determined areas.
2. Anti Pattern for User Experience: When you define levels, you say, in effect, that the course I am giving you is going to contain simple text and graphic with page turner, or screens which have a said interactivity and so on. This is not user experience. Where did we care for users and ask them what would they like to see and how they want to experience e-Learning ?
   
3. Opposed to the development teams real efforts: Levels define the output based estimates. But a delivery team takes in so much constraints, loose ends, additional but allied tasks, that they are not truly reflected in the estimates and hence the value of the entire project.

Still in my own team, I tend to join the chorus on discussing numbers with this model. So deeply entrenched is this culture, that the alternates are nowhere near main stream adoption.

Some alternates I have seen are:
1. Points based estimation: Have a unit for estimation and for various tasks, assign weighted points. These then sum up together multiplied by least effort value gives the total effort for which quote is given. This mimics functional point estimation in IT projects. However the unit figure typically is an abstract estimate, which needs more science for an effective measurement. It is best bet for approximation of efforts, does it give a framework for tracking efforts ?

2. Task based estimation: This technique is to list down the tasks in chronological order and rate the efforts against them. This is a safe bet and good estimation technique that allows for tracking as well. But the effectiveness of this depends on the granularity of defined tasks. Most of the time, we do so many out of the box tasks relevant to move the project that it seeps through the cracks of this estimation resulting in more variance.

3. Resource Loading based estimation: This at times really works. Though very crude and does not have scientific value, this gut estimation of resource loading over the project duration is normally close in measuring actuals. Yet, this measures efforts and cost of creating e-Learning. Does it measure the output and value of the package for e-Learning ?

4. Course-hour seat time based estimation: Suffers from same pitfalls as level based estimation, this is again anti thesis for pedagogy and andragogy. How can some one calculate the time I will remain in my seat for learning or studying ? May be reading. Yes. But is it e-Learning? What we talk here is only a notional time and I usually argue that it should be referred to with some good notation format and never as a value.

For example: SeatTime (Click Throughs):10 hours, SeatTime(Audio Length): 10 hours, SeatTime(Voice Reader): 10 hours.

These atleast suggest the various ways we arrive at the course hour and NEVER BY JUDGING LEARNING TIME.

Any other models, you use to effectively measure and track time of tasks, user feedback, value that is aligned with e-Learning and betters the above list. Please leave your comments.

Elastic Learning Design: How Social Media Transforms Course Structure

Sahana in response to my post on Ideanets, had the following comment.

"I love the idea of "ideanet" and these moving and expanding, gathering more and more force en-route. I can see an analogy to Twitter here--a collection of 140 characters coming from different directions, converging on certain topics and forming a veritable flood of ideas on that topic. From this mix emerges something that is powerful, innovative, transformation in nature."

I liked the brevity of the message here. What underlies this statement is a powerful message on what laser-focused topic discussions and little good digression can have on learning.

A similar format was started by our community at Ning. Join us to view the topics under discussion here.

In many cases, the output of a learning design is to create a table of contents or a course structure with limited amount of elasticity in allowing for change: Expansion, Contraction based on current context. The idea of elasticity in these instances is to make a remediation path or a custom learning path pre-configured to a certain assessment score. The role of social media has not changed it, but eliminated this constraint in unparalleled ways.

The funny thing is that social media is not a learning medium or tool.
It is an exchange medium. It is a place to

1. bond,
2. develop relationships,
3. collect,
4. discuss,
5. lead,
6. participate,
7. share your possessions: It could be your friends, knowledge, music collection, books, etc.

Yet, the revolution it brings on to learning and development on an individual is to challenge old notion of a structure and replace with a structure that is

1. unstructured, yet
2. dynamic,
3. relevant,
4. intuitive,
5. appealing,
6. important and
7. hence ELASTIC in nature.
   

And yes, in these is true learning and spirit of learning that endures our lives. Hence design and invest in a social media program that even if 1% in your company is active, it is worthwhile investment.

But yes and again, having an Intranet portal or a technology implementation is not sufficient condition to be in social media community place. You need to buzz it every time, every occasion, every where. Have you done it ?

To enable such elastic learning design in a company/community cannot happen in a vacuum. Users just don't create content on their own. They need content to talk about, need to talk with people, to generates true social media learning content. Hence investing in e-Learning around the vision of taking the next big step in social media learning would get you better ROI strewn in the path of e-learning implementation.

A truly Elastic Learning Design will give the endurance of time, life-long support and automated self-coach vehicle with the promise of higher return every time the content is accessed by a consumer.

Low Budgets, Less Time introduces stereotypes and constraints

Isn't it ?

When you are looking for quick solutions "NOW", you tend to ask and see what majority people use and buy. You seem to think that if it works for them, it will work for you as well. Further, such instances lead to dire needs, that you intend to cut the "desired" features and go for the basic stuff "that works", a compromise.

Thus you make the purchase, lest allow the sales person earn his "incentive" (I was told to use this word, instead of commission) through his skills on selling. A "bad" situation indeed.

In other instances, you understand the need and desire for a solution that eases some time off you. You have been doing the job and now, with a little automation for a small fee, try to do more with earlier constraints removed. The catch is this. For a better budget, you get to free "all" your time for better and productive tasks. But inflicting self constraints and not opening up, leads to desired vs accepted level gap.

What do sellers and vendors do.

1. Do what is accepted by majority, that is create stereotypes, thereby innovating a solution at bottom pyramid.
2. Put limitations/constraints on the solution, as to what is delivered and leave what is possible, for better times, thus manage time.
   

See what has happened? When both consumer and producer should work and concentrate on the "solution", both are now looking at "cost and time" and fitting the solution inside the slot machine.

Hence, please give sufficient time to allow for work, iterations, discussions, wider feedback to get the best bang for your buck. Instead of going down a range, try moving within a range judiciously, to accept/tweak feature/functionality that are desirable and useful.

Any alternate line of thoughts, welcome.

Knowledge - Skill Trade Off.

For working adults and for business, Knowledge is a liability. Proficiency is an asset.

Coming from a professional making living selling and consulting on e-Learning content, this might be strange. But it is true. We go to campus to hire graduates knowledgeable in software, concepts and programming languages. But after few years, it is experience and the work done that is of prime importance and interviews than the same knowledge with which you entered the industry. People with high degree of knowledge and low on adaptation of them as skills do not get the same success as they get in academic world.

In smaller organizations, the theme is "Learn on the Job". This means, they need to apply the knowledge and gain the skills. If not known, they need to pick up the skills to deliver it on time. If they do not gain the full knowledge but are skilled, they are better and reliable resources.

My favorite pet theme in initiating a new member is "Welcome to the unlearn land"
Imparting e-Learning or training in businesses for giving knowledge, is not a worthy investment. The best way to gain knowledge still is the school or college system. So, if resources are in need of knowledge, say financial management, it would be a good investment to sponsor their education in school. But if the resource needs skill, say in managing cash flows of the company, then e-Learning would be best medium to re-tool them to become productive resources.

To achieve this, Multiple views, multiple presentations for same content, multiple situations, should be made available to users to let them gain the knowledge for the job requirement a.k.a skill.

Self Evaluation Case Study:

I majored in Computer Science and later on a Management degree program. They definitely made me where I am. But how many books, theories, do I use in real life ? Rather, when I joined my first company, we were moving away from Authorware and Java to HTML/Javascript. Javascript fascinated me and I was one among the prime movers into that technology.

How was it possible ? Obviously Yahoo and Google searches helped.
Was it one site, one author, one training provider, one professor, one mentor, who helped me in it ?
Definitely no. It was multiple sites, multiple code snippets, various coding styles, multiple mentors, knowledgeable peers, multiple books that helped me gain the proficiency.

Would it be possible for an organization to provision them to their employees?

Yes, with mashable and single source script/storyboard, it is possible to create multiple delivery mediums and content streams in the same cost that it makes to create an elaborate training program.

Skills for a Learning Professional

The Learning Circuits Blog question for the month: "What new skills and knowledge are required for learning professionals?" coincides with a similar discussion, me and my colleague are having over at Ning: explore learning solutions forum.

These are not new skills, but should be in must have checklist.

Self management skills required:
1. Use of task management software to track tasks and time. I recommend todolist

2. Knowledge of MS Excel: While most learning professionals are experts in word, power point, knowing MS excel is more important. Leaving it as a managers tool for tracking is not a good understanding of the software itself.

Few important skills required in excel are:

• Linking cells,
  
• Frequently used formulas,
  
• Conditional Formatting,
  
• Work with data manipulation and Report sheets,
  
• Pivot table and Pivot charts.

With above skills, Solution that excel could provide are:

• Information Architecture,
  
• Content Analysis/Course Outline/Gap Analysis,
  
• Incident/Bug Tracking
• Questionnaires: Learning Needs Analysis, Customer Satisfaction Surveys, Polls
  
• Wire frame and Prototype through Excel
• Project Tracking and Project Management tasks like resource allocation, planning
• Store Code/Visual Templates and Code Libraries
  

3. Understand the final output architecture. If it is going to be in HTML, then it is better to avoid transition effects (unless recent javascript frameworks like EXTJS, JQuery are used.) If it is flash, then the instruction area, size, total word count, how to handle scrolls need to be understood. Check if the text input format is XML, text file, from database, or an object file or is directly embedded in flash/HTML.

If RAD (Rapid Application Development) tools are used, what are their limitations, how much customization and tweaks are possible.

An important question that any learning professional should answer is: How soon will RAD deliver by end output ready for release?

4. Usability and User Experience guidelines and intermediate level of heuristic parameter knowledge in visual communication and functionality design.

For providing Great Solutions:

1. Understand mind mapping and use effective tools: I recommend Free Mind.
2. Record and Note every expectation, instructions and sequencing and structuring progress. I recommend Evernote.
3. Learn XML: The first place to start would be "W3School" e-Learning courses.
4. Learn Manifest file in SCORM: I really do not know why technical people create them, while it is ID who should be checking the LO chunks and create IDREF.
5. Read books: Recommended reading would include:
1. System Thinking Books
Fifth Discipline by Peter Senge, Seeing Forest for Trees by Dennis Sherwood

2. Consulting Books
McKinsey Mind, Seven C's of Consulting

3. Presentation and Training Books.
How to Wow with Power point, Show Biz Training

and anything you like. The key is read books in lateral areas.