Horizontal Learning

Interesting post ... Horizontal technologies for learning ...

In the eLearning sector many vendors have created eLearning Solutions primarily for educational institutions. These technologies are supposedly designed for learning but that is not true. These technologies are institution-centric and vertical by nature. The concept of Learning Management System (LMS) was wrongly named. Better fit for a name would be Teaching Management System or Institution Control System.

Same is true in the corporate eLearning space (LMS Dissatisfaction on the Rise & Do You WANT an LMS? Does a Learner WANT an LMS?).

No student would use the current so-called learning environments during their worktime or freetime. In 2006 I was at EC-TEL where Scott Wilson asked the audience full of educational technology specialists, “how many of you use a LMS for your personal learning?”. Surprise. No hands.

Quite true.

Social technologies are different. Blogs and wikis are already being implemented by learners themselves. Call them Personal Learning Environments (PLE) if you want but the key issue here is that they are based on user-centric design.

I'm not sure what he means by "they are based on user-centric design" but the idea is right. If we are providing an LMS and thinking we are providing a good learning support mechanism, I think we are deluding ourselves. They are necessary and I certainly am involved with them (selection and implementation) a lot. However, knowledge workers and learners are adopting other work and learning techniques and tools because they support knowledge work and learning AND because they are incredibly easy to use, thus, the adoption hurdle is low (see Adoption of Web 2.0 and eLearning 2.0 Revisited).

DevLearn - Beer - Who's In? - And Where?

I just saw that BJ had posted about DevLearn and I feel somewhat remiss that he beat me to it. In case you hadn’t heard, The eLearning Guild is hosting DevLearn 2007 in San Jose, CA, November 5-8 2007.

I'll be there (and doing a few presentations and some special sessions for managers with Lance Dublin).

As always, I'll likely be getting together with folks who read this blog and other bloggers and other interesting folks to go have a few beers. It's become somewhat of a tradition for us at conferences (Beer Tasting at ASTD TechKnowledge, Boston, Beer - Bloggers - Learn.com).

Unfortunately, I don't believe that Jim Javenkoski from Unibroue is going to be there and he normally arranges the place for us. So, hopefully we can figure out a way to continue our tradition. Based on the list of speakers, I can tell there are quite a few of us who will likely be going.

Let me know if you are interested and better yet, if you know somewhere in Silicon Valley that might be a good place to drink some good beers and get good food (and would have a nice space for 30 people or so).

Mac Authoring Tools - Help Needed

I was just asked a question and was a bit at a loss for a response. This organization predominantly has Macs and would like to use something like Articulate or Captivate to:

"convert our existing Powerpoint trainings, include quizes, track responding, track time spent enaged, insert Quicktime movies and deploy via the web."

For so long, Adobe has had products on both Mac and PC, I assumed that Captivate had a Mac version - but I didn't find one.

Any suggestions?

How Long Should an eLearning Course Be?

Interesting question posed in eLearn Magazine article: How Long Should an E-learning Course Be?

Interestingly the author chooses to sidestep the question he poses and instead gives a direct answer to a different question (focusing on modules that are parts of a course):

What is a good length for a module? Through countless hours of instructional design, field testing, and client feedback, I have found that 30 minutes is about the maximum, and less than 15 is too short. The exact number of minutes between 15 and 30 should be dictated by the depth and number of objectives in the learning module. In a one-hour course, it's absolutely fine to have two 18-minute modules and one 24-minute module. Do what feels right. Test it with members of your target audience, and then fine-tune each module until it's just where you want it.

I have found a sweet spot for learning chunks around the 10-15 minute range. Of course, it's highly dependent.

However, I have a possibly different answer to the core question about how long should the course itself be ... my answer ...

As short as you can make it. Zero is optimal.

There's a natural tendency to try to teach too much. As teachers, we are passionate about our knowledge/information and its value. So we want to share. But instead we need to question every objective, every piece of content. If it's not absolutely essential, then it should be provided in some other way, i.e., reference.

When you take this approach, you often find yourself coming to a different kind of solution. For example, when we asked to design an eLearning Course that went along with the release of a new procurement software (e.g., order office supplies, business cards, etc.) for a large company, we originally were asked to do what amounted to an hour long introductory course.

However, since the software would be used sporadically (maybe once a month) and since it was fairly intuitive to use for most activities, all we really needed to tell people were a few basic pieces of information and to make sure they knew how to get more. So instead of teaching them a bunch of stuff up-front, we provided those few pieces of information inside a hybrid reference solution.

How long was the "course"? It was one page (a really good page).

Of course, you could drill down for lots more including guide tours of features and for a couple of really advanced, and possibly scary functions, some simulations.

Most people were very satisfied with just the most basic information and the ability to get more as needed. Some learners (many of the admins who would be using it more frequently) would go through most of the learning pieces based on the links in the Quick Start Guide.

The end result was considerably better (and lower cost) than the original solution that was requested.

Introduction to eLearning 2.0 - ASTD Presentation in Irvine, CA

I mentioned this before ( eLearning 2.0 Presentation - ASTD OC - September)but promised I'd post a reminder. I'm doing a presentation that's an Introduction to eLearning 2.0 in Irvine, CA on September 12.

Details here.