eLearning Course or Online Demo - which is better?

My co-worker and had a discussion today about what will come into our area over the next year and one of them was my goal to create several courses to go onto our LMS (once it's up of course). As the discussion went along she mentioned that she would like to do something where she could demonstrate how to do certain searches using her literature databases to employees. I responded with how easily that could be done by screen capturing her movements on the screen and adding voice over of how/what she is doing.

She responded in turn that she prefers to have them sit at one computer and her at another then she can take control of their screen and show them where to click and move throughout the program. They could then (through microphone/headset) ask her any questions as they come up. I thought these could be addressed through an FAQ section of an e-course.

So the big question arises. Is one format better than another? Would you rather sit in on a demo with many other people or take a course online by yourself? Does one format fit better for certain training than another? Do you have a personal preference on which you'd rather teach through and even learn through?

I actually suppose this is one of those "great debate" topics that never truly gets answered, but I'm still curious to any responses you'd like to share.

My Breakfast Byte on LMS Pitfalls

I facilitated a Breakfast Byte session at the eLearing Guild Annual Gathering and wanted to capture the points I shared and those of the participants. It's a long list so be prepared and is not in any particular order. These are many of the questions I've had to answer as I've gone along trying to get my system up.

1. Get your hands on a demo or sandbox version. Make sure you get to play with the LMS before purchasing.
2. Don't be in a rush to find something and just get it implemented.
3. If possible check to see what system others in your industry are using.
4. Make sure your team of stakeholders knows what they are looking for and need prior to viewing the demo. Make sure they are as informed as you.
5. Set weekly progress meetings with your vendor.
6. Ensure each side of the implementation knows exactly what tasks are being accomplished by each side (you and your vendor)
7. Make sure your HR database of employees has all the data you really need to track and report on your staff. Older HR systems may not have everything you need.
8. Make sure your HR system can communicated with the LMS system.
9. Consider whether you need an LMS that can be accessed from home or is inside the company "walls" enough. Can the LMS handle external access?
10. Training, training, training. Make sure you as the Administrator get training from a Learner level, then an Instructor level, and finally the Administrator level. Know what each person will see and be able to access.
11. Don't get pressured by the vendor to launch before you are comfortable with the system and know it is up to your personal/dept standards of excellence. Credibility will be lost by you if you launch to early and have too many bugs.
12. Ensure the reporting is extremely robust, customizable, exportable.
13. Roles - most LMS seem to offer training broken into learning roles. Is this a method you can use to group training for staff? Is this something that fits with your corp's learning models.
14. How robust is the testing/quizzing of the system? Is it even built in? Does the LMS mark a pass/fail or can it track down to the question level?
15. Can you import courses that have been created elsewhere and track the results from participation?
16. How well does the vendor understand SCORM compliance? Can they explain it to you?
17. Can you import courses or does the vendor have to do this for you? Each course could cost more money.
18. How user friendly and easily navigational is the system for learners, instructors and administrators?
19. Can students be easily updated, added, maintained?
20. Can the system be changed easily to match your organization's needs/branding? Can you do this or does the vendor have to make these changes?
21. Can you group your courses into categories that make sense to your learners?
22. Do you have a checklist of all the components that you want to see in an LMS to match your vendor against?
23. Can the system create courses (some can and still call themselves an LMS and not an LCMS)? More importantly, if so how robust are they or do you need to think about looking into a 3rd party course creation tool.
24. What types of content can be imported? video, audio, ppt, doc, xls, pdf, swf, anything else?
25. Do you and your vendor have the same idea of how the system will initially roll out? 1 course or several, only registration or online courses as well? Make sure you are both clear on what "go live" means.
26. Do you have the most current version of the system or are updates being created as you are trying to implement your system?
27. How often will you get updates?
28. Do you offer classroom courses as well as online courses? If so how well does the system manage the classroom courses for you based on your current training methods.
29. Research lots of LMSs before even going to the RFP stage. You'll be able to eliminate those that don't meet your requirements before going to stakeholders for input.
30. Name your LMS - give it a name that will mean something to your employees and keep them coming back to the system to learn.
31. Take advice from the vendor on how to role out the pilot of the system, but stick to what you also know will work best for your organization. They may have the methodology, but you may know the sample size that works best for you.
32. Find an IT buddy. Someone that can help you out and translate the computer language talk that goes along with implementing a system and getting it to talk to your internal system.
33. Find an LMS mentor, someone that has implemented a system before. Even if they implemented a different product they'll be able to advise.
34. Not everything is going to work 100% from the very start, so take it easy on yourself. Don't expect it all to fall into place right away.
35. Figure out what LMS elements are most important to you and get them up and running for the pilot, then work from there on making it more and more robust.
36. Do you have a backup plan should another dept start thinking and shopping for their own LMS?
37. How responsive is the vendor to your inquiries, troubleshooting, etc
38. Is there a yearly licence or one time fee, or per user fee
39. How often are upgrades issued? Are they part of the fee?
40. How long does the pilot take? How long do they think it will be up and running based on past customers?
41. Does the system track external learning events?
42. Do other users have comments they can share from learners of the system? Learner feedback?
43. Can you send email notification to learners?
44. Can it be integrated with your particular online calendar system?
45. Can you assign course dates to learners or do they have to assign themselves?
46. Is there space on the dashboard for news, updates, info text, on homepage?****
47. Is it searchable? By course title or right into a course? Do you have to use it’s elearning building tool to make it searchable?
48. Can you administer hands-on practical tests?
49. Are evaluations for courses available?
50. Does it have discussion boards, wikis, etc? Are these important to you? Do you even need them?
51. Does it have other social networking tools?
52. What is built in and what has to be an add-in?
53. How robust is the support documentation for the user and for the learner?
54. Can you set up courses that online some staff can access and not others? - assigned to a role?
55. Go to the top if you have to? Maybe weekly conversation with your project lead, but monthly meeting with owner of company or sales rep to keep project on track.
56. Try to list all the steps you will need to cover to get the system going.
57. What for vendors/sales reps that bully and are they showing you the "real" system? Can you see a demo from an actual user with out the vendor present?
58. How secure is the data by the vendor - if hosted?
59. Be prepared to go over budget.
60. Find out one key contact (from the provider) for your implementation project so that you can maintain constant communication.
61. Can you get ROI reporting from the system?
62. Can you produce performance appraisals, career paths, development paths? Is this something you need as an organization?
63. You can "turn off" the elements of the LMS you don't need or won't use.

Graphich Symbols: The 5th Language - Kevin Thorne

5 Languages

• spoken - may be fluent in more than one
• written - symbolic form of our spoken language
• mathematics -symbols for concepts and data
• body - language of expression
• symbols

Examples: nike swish, windows flag, facebook "f", target brand, golden arches

Symbol tips to get what is in your head, out in to graphics, into your course

How do we take thousands of years of communicating graphically into e-learning? World's most well know symbol - the olive branch.

Ancient Egyptians entire language was all symbols. Mayan symbols thousands of years ago look extremely similar to iphone app icons....hmmmmmm.

Native Indians created some symbols, but added some motion into their "pictures".

Sequential art - comics, Will Eisner PS monthly - 1951 The Preventative Maintenance Monthly. Taught driving safe but in "comics". "A graphic medium in which images are utilized in order to convey a sequential narrative."

The picture does not need to be professionally drawn, it just needs to convey the message. Put the "x" in the upper right corner to exit, we all already know that.

Shem says I'll give you 2 pigs to Thor for 5 jars of olives. They agreed, left, came back and forgot the deal. So they drew pictures of what they wanted to trade. But 1 pig equalling 50 beans was too much to draw. Drew 50 beans = 1 pig. But then Bubba came and wanted to trade a goat. But Bubba couldn't draw a goat. So they then created words 4 goats = 7 Jars of olives.

NOW...instead work backwards. Think of the words you want to convey, draw them as written language, convert to symbols.

Thinking of a clown:

• big nose
• big shoes
• poofy hair
• flower
• hat
• gloves
• big clothes
• make up
• tie

Can all be drawn with simple shapes. You can do it all yourself. Entire course hand drawn, hand written and the result was the same as an expensive coures.

Dan Roam - The back of the napkin. Any problem can be made clearer with a picture, and any picture can be made using the same simple steps.

Think of a cash register....you'll first think of an old time 1930's cash registered. Still a recongizeable symbol.

Squares, rectangles, lines, dots (triangles too) are all you need.

Simple frame - square inside a square, triangle at top

Again - square inside a square, half moon resting on top to the left, 2 lines up from the half moon, two dots on the right side of the "frame" - becomes a tv.

This is showing and sharing of symbol libraries. Complete library of basic shapes. Reusing over and over in slightly different configurations. Break apart the symbol in to basic shapes you can then create other symbols quicker and easily.

An object is first a shape. That shape occupies a space. That space defines the object. An object is a shape that occupies a space.

We can then stretch, squeeze, squash and squish basic shapes.

Like the 4 stage engine:

Intake - Consult, brainstorm, plan, team

Compression - Development, reviews, translate, edit

Ignite - launch involve engage market

Exhaust - measure, report, review, analyze

Increasing Learner Productivity with New Technologies

Participants are looking for information on new technologies, passing road blocks that are limiting us from using new technologies, facing generations using new tools - but faculty are not.

Feels like sales forces are the drive of early adopters. They need just-in-time information often about the products they need. Also within the education industry, field support, etc.

How do you allow staff to take time out to learn? How to get mgrs to understand this need to learn?

We're at this point in time where wikis, open source products are all becoming more stable, more structured and there for more used. Mobile products are still getting there. More roadblocks about having to learn in a new way. More so a large human/cultural issue about using a new tool. What is it that people are doing that we then need to figure out the best "new" way of how to do it? (all without the testing, piloting, etc because by the time you get to it the technology is old). Now the tools of today are easy to use, turn on, and get using it. This is all quite simple compared to 10 or even 5 years ago.

Why are some industries/areas embracing new technologies and others are not? 1, 9, 90 rule one creates, one reads, 90 don't quite get it.

Using blogs - if you have a question, comment, etc call a phone number and then it gets posted to a blog. The phone then becomes a bridge using the tool of blogging. Use old technologies and connect them to the new technologies. But how do we get the large groups to do it? Get over the fascination of the technology and use the business need to drive the use of the technology.

Most change happens one bite at a time. Perhaps we need to do it gradually. Send them to the website instead of answering the question. Or watch the trends of what people want to do, now try to figure out how you can bring them in.

Fail-forward-faster. Web 2.0 stuff is really cheap. Sometimes it's too cheap because it might get cut next year. Allow for some choice and individuality, but point everything back to one place. There are personal needs, business needs. Know your people where are they, what are they doing, how are they doing. Then decide on the tools that fit that best.

Try using Sharepoint to introduce elements of web 2.0 types of tools. Go with what your people know. Try sending more through emails as people are much more familiar with reading and scanning through emails and doing so quickly.

You need to learn how to feed information into these tools rather than waiting for people to find them. Let people go out and talk stuff up before you even turn it on and let it be used. Perhaps you always need to be ahead of the time, have the need ready, wait for them to ask for it.

Ie: NetMeeting years ago had little buy in, and now we're looking at gotomeeting, etc as tools we can't live with. FAIL - mandatory blogging...mandatory anything not good. Leaving it as - you should all be doing this, is very scary to your people. You want people to learn, but not tell them how to learn can sometimes scare them away as well.

Collaboration is incredibly powerful. The fact that millenials are so use to this is exciting.

Try putting web 2.0 questions into your interviews. Do they blog, do they use wikis, do they edit them....if so would they do it at work as well. You create buy in as you hire.

Learning from blogging: Creating your own and learning from other's

I'm actually presenting at the Annual Gathering in about 30 minutes or so and am quite excited. I really hope those in attendance enjoy the presentation and those that can't attend are free to take a look at my slides and forward any questions to myself.

AG09 Presentation (full slide presentation)

AG09 Presentation (handout - tba)

Mostly this is about the steps needed to start up your own blog and then ways to tweak the blog to make it your own. There will be some notes on how to tap into other blogs out there and in doing so learn from peers by reading theirs and connecting with them. I also will be presenting some info on changing the basic templates using some simple html tricks to make your blog uniquely your own or branding it to your corporation.

Get Dressed for Success! On-Screen Aesthetics for your courseware – Ng

Two screens shown – more positive of 2 screens is the one that is balanced, doesn’t have red, clear text.

Don’t judge a book by its cover? Is this true of your on-screen content? Here it is very true to keep your audience engaged from click one.

Placement,
Colour,
Font

Placement: 4 rectangles shown. Most popular choice is a large wider rectangle. Since the time of the Greeks they have been using the Perfect Rectangle, and to them this is the most perfect rectangle. Ie: Typical Letter size paper.

The more symmetrical left to right the more “perfect” you are.

Western culture reads left to right, however scientifically (pictures right, text left) the right side is our creative side, left side is logic side. If you tried to visualize something your eyes automatically trail to the right. Ask a math question and your eyes will trail to the left.

“video within area” Had person more in the middle and his speech bubble up to the right.

Is there a perfect course? No they are subjective, but there are guidelines we can follow and will please the majority of learners.


Colour combinations
Be sure your text does not get lost in the background you have chosen. Ie: dark text on dark background – bad, dark text on medium tone background – okay, dark text on white background – best

We’ve been taught to associate colours with items. Blue – sky, ocean, Orange – warmth, Red – danger (Chinese luck). You need to be aware of what colours mean to different people/cultures.

Ie Vegas – there are lots of bright lights, warm colours, nothing cool/pastel. Influences you to make riskier bets. Thinking of being on a plane, especially long flights the seats tend to be blue, green, calming colours. Very subtle things, but important. The learners most likely will never even notice these items.

Know compliment colours and contrasting colours. This will assist you in your own course design choices. Quick way to find out, highlight your text and it will show you automatically the contrasting colour.

Text
Fonts to choose – no standard again, more preference however. Anything as a Sans Font, will be the best. Do not use downloaded fonts because not every computer will have the same downloaded font. Alignment can be messed up, words can run off the screen.

Don’t use too many different fonts. Choose only 1 font, 2 at most where the second one is for special or warning messages within the course.. Consistency is best for the reader.

Use different font sizes to let you know the different parts of the course (title, subtitle, text). Distance from one section to another is not enough (from title to subtitle).

Summary
These elements along with good learning/teaching theory will help produce excellent courses.

Click - Thursday's Keynote - Bill Tancer

Click: What Millions Are Doing Online and Why it Matters to You as an e-Learning Professional. – Bill Tancer, General Manager, Hitwise

Keynote – Thursday, March 12, 2009

I found this keynote so interesting I took a lot of notes. I guess I love data too!

Saturday, March 13, 2009 is Pi day.

“To become aware of the possibility of the search is to onto something.” – Walker Percy

His blog – ilovedata.com

Looking through junk emails he saw an email requesting that he write an article. Was actually the editor of Time.com. Requested 3 submissions by the following week. First thing he googled was how to right a magazine column. Then from there the column became more and more popular.

Where does the data come from?

• 25 Million internet users world wide
• 10 Million from the US
• 1 Million websites
• 172 Industry Categories
• Millions of Search terms per month
• Monthly, Weekly, & Daily

All from direct internet providers

One of the first charts that interested him was what was being searched for on one specific term. The interest is that looking at one term’s search and how it is reflective over the full year. Ie: diets are searched for huge on Jan 1 and then end Jan 5. Thanksgiving is the lowest day for the search to be term. This repeats year after year.

Prom Dress Obsession:
Gave an assistant an assignment – take 4 million search term set, using all the retail searches what is the number one thing they are searching the most. Searching to buy. After a few weeks – she said something wrong with data, number one thing was prom dresses. They thought perhaps something had corrupted the data. This was not the case, not effected by bots or anything else. First week of January there is a spike as well on prom dresses. Called their clients, retailers, buyers asking when they did marketing, for dresses and this occurred in March.

Finally at a publisher meeting a gentleman there was the GM of a major magazine and the teen division. He was specifically at the meeting for the prom dress phenomenon. Most revenue also comes through the magazine in March. They decided to try to move the consumer behaviour to begin to start marketing a pre-issue in January.

We can now look at aggregate user behaviour and make very informed choices.
Engagement Ring searches are similar. Spike was the week before Thanksgiving and largest buying time is after Thanksgiving. Consumers are tending to do research about a week before they go to the store.

Seasonality of the data trends can be quite different than we expect. Example: Dancing with the stars seems to be more of a popularity contest than anything else. Looking at who is eliminated and who is searched there is a direct correlation. Charting the season with Stacy Keibler, Drew Lachey and Jerry Rice. So, he predicted that she would win. In fact she came in second. Why the mistake in prediction?

Instead they dug into the intent of the searches regarding Stacey Keibler. The increased searches were not because of the ball room fans but those looking just for “hot pictures, pictures of, etc.” The SKCC – Stacy Keibler Correction Coefficient. This means you need to dig into the reason for the search not just the search term.

Another example looking at how people sell homes, could now predict what would happen in home sales. He started making predictions on CNN. He predicted at one point they would go up, all economists said they would go down 2%. He agreed to come back when the prediction could be validated or not. The numbers came out and they actually had gone down. SKCC he had not thought of was the intent for searches on existing home sales. People used to look at homes for sales and look to sell homes, now instead they were actually looking to see how much their home was valued at in the current market with no intent of selling.

Cognitive Dissonance & the Adult Entertainment Industry
- when you ask someone a question they usually will answer it in the best positive light. But observed behaviour is often different.

Ie: how many people in the audience regularly go to adult entertainment sites? No one answers yes. Lead us to believe that the internet is porn free. LOL.

Someone in the gov’t decided to see if the internet is then 99.95% porn free.

HoweverIf you have a theory and then go and look at the data, you can find or only look at the data that matches your theory and then believe your theory to be true.

When times get tough lipstick sales go up. Things that aren’t very expensive in times that are tough people will be the cheaper luxury items rather than the expensive items (ie a fancy dress). Looking at data about lipstick searches this to timed perfectly with the bank info drops, DOW drops, and this theory seemed to make sense. However, he went back to the data and looking deeper at the searches there were “lipstick on a pig”, “lipstick on a bull”. The peak in searches was actually related to the presidential debates of the time.

Looking at all the online learning facilities of the world he charted how well elearning is doing in this economy. Appears that more and more people are taking a look at their careers and rethinking relooking at updating and improving their education. Good news for us elearning creators.

Income brackets of people that are looking at online learning more than anyone are the upper income groups. Over $50,000 went from 0.7% to 12.9%.

Clickstream
This allows him to see where they went just previous and where they go when they leave a specific site (or search term). Driver of portals is huge to online universities. Social Networking is at about 3% right now, but it is steadily increasing as a drive to online universities.

Search.twitter.com lets you search all of Twitter for specific terms. His big ah-ha was when he searched his own name. Saw that someone twittered and asked if his book was any good? He responded that is was good. LOL

Google Trends for your own sites/terms is a great search. Currently 70+% of all searches are done through Google.

Looked at the pattern of trends looking through elearning platforms. There is a bit of a trend following some of the school calendar, but not exactly. No decline seems to be happening as with other industries currently, but also not quite as dynamic as online universities.

Looking at the age demographics though is a doubling of millennials. This is the only group that is increasing in searching online universities.

Looking at platform searches, they next place they go are technology industry, education, then retailers and the entertainment industry.

Conclusion:
Observed behaviour is one of the key components. Look deeper at what they are truly looking at and why.
eLearning and Institutes are moving in the opposite direction of the economy.
Looking at the data is going to be key to keeping competitive.

Twitter.com/hitwise_US

Click column

Personal Productivity Tools - Thomas Stone

Going around the room of participants each person shared 1-3 of their favourite tools that they use most often during their daily duties.

• Microsoft OneNote EverNote – part of Microsoft office. Only part of the Student Suite and ultimate (?) suite. Don’t need to use post-it notes, text files, etc. Tabs, subpages, etc. Screen clipping, audio, calculator, tables, list, easy user interface, type anywhere you want on the screen. 60-day free trial. Give yourself more than a day to try it out. Put it into your daily work-flow. EverNote – web based. OneNote – desktop based. Will also search for words in audio files.
• myhours.com – time tracking, clicktime.com – project time tracking
• Twitter.com – microblogging, info intake, tons of feeds
• Delicious – one for work, one for personal
• pixlr.com image editor
• sumo.fi – image editing
• screengrab – add on to firefox, snag-it, and entire scroll down of a screen
• MS Outlook – email, tasks, time (2007 has an RSS reader)
• Lifehacker – blog, interesting read
• Remember the Milk – to do apps (can be used within google homepage as well)
• Qlock.com – world time zone tracker or world clock meeting planner
• Facebook for sending emails to students – to reach students quicker than regular emails
• Yahoo Toolbar – put up icons as shortcuts for his own websites
• LinkedIn – looked at as a more professional based “facebook"
• Gravatar.com – one picture for all places, gives you a url for your picture that then can go into every other place
• Ning sites as well for social networking
• Google Apps – share docs, spreadsheets, presentations, etc.
• Google Toolbar – save bookmarks as well
• TED talks
• Michael Lingenburger (sp?) – Maximizing Outlook to the best it can be
• O’Riley – the hack series – google hacks, etc.
• Adobe Connect – not blocked by most firewalls, someone on the other side can assist you in presenting, or creating virtual meetings
• Sorenson products to present and convert videos to play on the web, compression
• Audacity – free sound editing program, there are add-ons for this as well, use for recording SME’s
• Collective X , Community Zero – Social Networking
• Inspiration – mind mapping tool, webspiration.com as well

Additional tools can be found at: http://www.c4lpt.co.uk/ – Jane Hart, she has extensive complied list of top 10 lists collected from users that have supplied to her. There is a further full catalogue within her directory. You can drill down into a particular contributors top ten list.

Great Day One at AG09

Well the eLearning Guild Annual Gathering for 2009 has once again not disappointed. I've learned so many great new things here today. I find it amazing every year that I seem to learn more from just networking and speaking to people over the lunch hour and at demo booths than some of the actual sessions.

I found a flyer in the lobby about Captain Smiley (which I'll insert a picture of once I return home) and went off to visit the Articulate booth. Turned out to be one of the best half hours of the day. I listened to Tom Kuhlmann and learned some amazing tricks. Simple enough tricks that will take me a few times to get right, but really neat ways to bring even more into your courses.

I found out through the dinner discussion board that the Shuttle was going to launch. Then looking at information about the best place to view it over the lunch hour, I found Nasa's Twitter link. Later in the afternoon, sure enough a tweet from Nasa that the launch had be cancelled. I'm loving Twitter more and more.

My lunch discussions also gave me a few brainstorms about how to get more buy in for social tools from the CEO and upper management. One included getting our physicians more interested in using Twitter to collaborate and consult with one another on cases. Sounds like a great idea and if you can get physician buy-in then you're definitely part way there.

I did my breakfast byte session this morning, which wasn't exactly what I envisioned it to be and I'm unsure if I gave the participants any more than they already knew. However, I really enjoyed the experience and I think it has better prepared me for tomorrow's session.

I'm looking very forward to the rest of the Gathering and all it has to offer. Oh and a big shout out to my many new Twitter Friends. Tweeple? Twiends? you get the idea. Oh and follow http://twitter.com/jzurovchak he's got great tweets going out during each of the sessions he's sitting in on.

Retaining Those New Young Employees You Hired - Claire Schooley

Senior Analyst with Forrester Research (internationally)

- Characteristics of new workers
- learning approaches
- ways of recruiting
- tools/resources

Millennials between 1980 & 2000, There are 81 million of them coming.

78 Million baby boomers will be retiring with only 45 million Gen X to fill the places.

Short Term
- boomers are working longer
-workers are being imported
-jobs are outsourced
-economy shifting

But....

• The millenials are the catalysts of change. They have lots of thoughts to share. Open environments to allow them are key.
• They want career opportunities, and are optimistic of finding jobs.
• Very innovative in collaborating, learning, working and fun.
• Have an innate ability to use technology.
• Value the opportunity to be given the chance to find the solution to a problem on their own.

Characteristic

• multitasking
• materialistic and entrepreneurial
• innovative
• family/social life important
• work-life balance key (more task oriented rather than 9:00-5:00)
• socially responsible

Career Traits

• Task oriented rather than time-based - Can we start employing home workers? The commute isn't important, less cars, .....but will they really work at home and how can we evaluate that?
• Team oriented, supportive work culture. - Looking for how people are working. Just in cubicles, not group gatherings. Not everything in teams, but looking for some. Looking for quiet rooms. Find with moving around, just give them a place they can go when they need to gather with 3 or 4 people. Don't necessarily need a desk. Looking for more of a "pod" atmosphere. (some might not want to hear everything, but remember these are more multi-tasking types of people).
• Looking for good pay. Millennials know what they are worth based on their skills. They look it up and expect they will be paid equally.
• They want feedback, constant feedback.

Experiences that Shaped the Millennial Generation

-after school programs
-don't remember not having technology
-parent both have hectic life styles (work)
-have seen parents lose their jobs (look out for themselves instead)

(presenter has been working with the same people for 6 years and never met them in person)

Rate technology low as to what companies will have. They just assume that we will have it and have it all! (big thing for mgrs to think of)

How to retain them...

• short, meaningful learning - quick and matters to their job at the moment (podcasts big - short 5-20 minute pieces) (orientation podcasts - great idea, or youtube videos)
• self-generated learning to help others
• collaboration tools to speed the work process (video conferencing, desktop even interest growing, millenials are not afraid to be online)

Nike and what they have done:

They have a continual challenge that sales associates (100% turnover rate - workers only come to work for a few years at a time) need to learn about new products every season. Need to also teach new workers selling techniques, they all are tech savvy, and it needs to create minimal disruption to the retail environment. Lastly, it's often blended.

They have paper based info, hand held info - scan a product and find out about it. Sell-through of Nike product increased by 4%. They have created the Sports Underground Network. Online based training is only 3-5 minutes. Reinforcement and performance support constant. Based on the UK underground subway maps, each train link represents a different part of the product chain. Learners go through a virtual subway, click on subway poster to find out about the shoe, benefits, how they function in the weather, click the subway map to go to another product info area. Challenge of the job is that it's retail and it's the nature of the job there will be quick turnover. A stepping stone to other places. This increased selling though, perhaps not retention. Learning is allowed instore when no customers around. Tracked through LMS. Supervisor is checking from time to time.

At Black and Decker all training staff have flip cameras to capture appropriate training scenes. Capture short segment videos. Now have a full library of videos that can be accessed on specific topics and are no longer than 10 minutes. "sales people need it and it doesn't need to be perfect"

DHL has an 11 week blended program. All the history & general understanding of product is online. Job shadowing and mentoring done face-to-face. Face-to-face mock sales situations. Then trips to customer service locations to understand procedures and to meet the CEO.

Millenials like to meet the CEO and they have no trouble talking to the senior management.

UPS - pilot training facility, used a transparent car, sensors on the truck for enter/exit, lift & lower simulators, slip and fall simulators, mini town for driving practice. Key here - all hands on learning and not classroom based. Students then as well watch animated demos. Took quizzes and trialed hand held tools. Important here is that they learned the WHY of what they were learning.

Recommendations:

clear learning opportunties
provide formal, informal, online, training
pair with mentors
build communities

Brain-Based Strategies for Passionate Learning Experiences - Martinez

By -Dr. Margaret Martinez

Psychological factors and relationships that influence persistence, motivation and attrition. Dominate influence of emotion s and intentions on learning.

What was the one time in your life you felt truly passionate about learning?
Smiles took over the room, positive emotion grew. That is what we want to get each time we teach.

Brain Fitness market revenues continue to grow. $100million in 2005, $225 million in 2007

What is happening though is that you once used a linear process to finger walk through a card catalogue to find book. Now looking through a search engine is using different parts of the brain to do this searching. Brain morphology is looking at the way that the brain is changing to adapt to a more technology based society.

Technology has changed the size of the brain, especially in the cognitive functioning.

Senses are triggering synopsis in the brain. Development is occurring. The "circuits" once triggered something is being learned in the brain.

Video Clip: YouTube - "The Brain - Emotions, Neurons, Neurotransmitters" showed to explain how the brain works and functions.

Learning Changes the brain: Video - Dan Rather Reports - Mind Science Part 1 of 6.

People forget to exercise their brains. Brain placidity - everyone of us can change our brain.

Book recommended - Art of Changing the Brain - James Zull

How do you make this practical for the learning environment?
Understand your audience and analyse who they are.
This how the learner is influenced by relationships, environment, and instructional delivery.

Learning Orientation Questionnaire
discover your learning type, preference

Top Passion Strategies
-don't focus on mistakes or misunderstandings
-use metaphors and stories to get across your message to you audience
-use reflection to search for connections and consider meaning to build new knowledge
-thoughtful questions will help them to learn to ask their own thoughtful questions
-Use intrigue, mystery to gain buy in - learning games
-brain likes to predict, use strategies to help set and meet expectations
-use conversations
-provide stress free environments
-give the learning in pieces
-use more graphics to help focus
-personalize more (if, then, ......)
-focus on how the learning happens, ask the SME the best way to learn their particular item

Search learning strategies for more information.

Practice, feedback, Reflect, Again...brain's natural cycle.

Follow:
Amygdala
Neuromodulation
Neuronal Development
Synapses
Mirror Neurons
www.trainingplace.com - here studies, sites, resources, papers.

Selecting Practice Activities and Media for Online and Blended Learning - Patti Shank

Opening Story: In the bird world there are "bird tutors" that teach the baby birds to learn and practice and they don't stop until they've learned it correctly.

Working through and example - violence threat assessment.
patti@learningpeaks.com - for slidedeck from activity session. Not all slides are included in handout, but you can request them from her.

Uncover the Do's (activities), Convert the Do's into activities, Select media to support.

Uncover the Do's - from learning research (pg. 5 of her handout) (examples below)

• Recall facts
• Find and make sense of information
• Understand underlying concepts
• Understand how a process works
• Complete needed steps
• Determine which course of action is needed
• Create a product or produce a specific result
• Troubleshoot and fix problems

Doing it in this manner is goal oriented.

Use the 8 Do types to determine the to do's of the courses. Then change them into real activities. Do this with the people that actually do the work so that you don't miss any of their steps. ( You may want to watch them for a day, take notes and then go back and see if they actually match the way the person performs the task - ask them for feedback).

- What's needed to practice the Do? How important is realistic practice? Does it need to be online or real?

Typical practice activities that match the 8 Do's are on her handouts as well.
Do # 1 - Ie: recall facts, classify facts, use facts
Do # 1 (activity) using Threat example - Questions on how often and overlooked threats are.

DOs and Example Activities

1. recall facts example - hotspot on an image, multiple choice recall question, drag & drop

2. find and make sense of information example - http://dmv.ca/gov/pubs/interactive/tdrive/clm1written.htm

http://www.libraries.psu.edu/instruciotn/ebpt-07/Letter_Dr_Schirm.htm

Microsoft - Protect your PC demo

3. Understand underlying concepts example - Microsoft demo Security 101

http://www.emusictheory.com/pracite/pianoKeys.html

(turn learning do's into instructional objectives)

(patterns and recognition of them)

http://www.gliffy.com/ (individual or collaborative diagramming site) - beginners don't know how things connect and giving them a simple pattern allows them to understand it

http://www.forio.com/pdasim.htm (perhaps to dynamic of an example)

# 4 - Understanding a process

ie: how to talk to a customer, understand what they need, bring them into the store

http://www.msnbc.com/modules/airport-security/screener (simple demo - great scenario) - screen captures

http://www.forntiernet.net/~imagining/vector_calculator.html (works if the person understands the concept)

http://www.lynda.com/podcasts

(very little text examples - does that mean you should use less text during activities? better but does not have to be the rule, don't show in text what you can show in pictures - not a rule, but good to follow)

Research says you should never read text to people. People can read faster than you can talk.

Less "show me's" more walk-thru and learning demos.

#5 - Complete needed steps example -

job aids, take away and use it some where to see if you can do the steps on your own

Research shows that if you have a visual on the screen you can speak to it and it is very difficult to read text and look back at the visual.

#6 Determine which course of action is needed example - http://www.edheads.org/activities/knee

Rapid elearning Blog

Doesn't always have to be online. There are lots of real-life examples where staff can take a check list and work through a real-life scenario

http://wwwl.practiceboard.com/ (html sandbox)

http://www.language-exchanges.org/ (using skype to hook learners together with real people)

#7 Troubleshoot and fix problems example -

Should be added to any type of practice if that is a do. And is the case in most instances.

Consider Media for Activities (on slides)

typical media for each type of activity is included here.

Crowdsourcing - Jeff Howe

Crowdsourcing - video displayed by Jeff.

Few key ideas

• Now with the internet we can create a crowd virtually with shared interest.
• Shared passions for hobbies, crafts, arts, etc.
• Ie: quality of stockphotos by amateurs is abundant, drives supply up and prices downforces companies to approach us as potential partners, not just buyers
• Technology is so good that people are becoming better.

Spent time covering the Vans Warp tour for some time and during this became infatuated with the process (he was a member of the Suburban Morons). What he loved about the time is that the teens there were so open to any creativity. Their relationship with the product. Older generations see that you film a movie because you want to be a film maker, write a book because you want to be a writer. These kids though do all these things just because they want to, the technology disappears and they just use the tool. They shoot video, write blogs, draw just for the creative drive of it, not for any one particular reason.

Opensource in 2006 was less familiar then now, existed very sparsely. User-generated brought back little if you tried to search for it.

User generated content is like Old Faithful, every so many minutes water is being spewed out. As an image it seems to come out in one location, but there are actually geysers spewing out vapor in fields quite a distance away from the original. User - generated - open source ....crowd-sourcing.

The labour source for crowdsourcing can be done over the "coffee break". That things or tasks can be done in small components and in a quick amount of time. The time it takes to have a coffee break. (ie: Threadless - voting for the best t-shirt design). (note: from the Two Jakes).
What does the crowd do for Threadless - gives them cheap labour (picture a teen on a chair, laptop on knees). They do it because they have a chance to do it. (look for the Communist Party).

They are creating all sorts of cheap marketing by getting buyers to take pictures of them wearing the shirt. They then get a discount. Threadless has never spent a dime on marketing. The buyers do it all. But this is not the best thing that the crowd is doing for them. The crowd votes on the shirts and if they'd buy it or not. That way the are never over or under stocked.
Threadless is not exceptional, but a perfect example.

iStockphoto is the same idea. You can benefit from it by contributing to it. "Why do they put stuff on the web, so that others can enjoy and benefit from it." Buyers quickly learned that they could publish their photos there and buy photos there for very very cheap. Other stock groups had astronomical prices. 96% claim that contributors to iStockphoto have another job and photography is not their first line of work.Ask not what your community can do for you, ask what you can do for your community. – Jeff Howe.

They both were providing, giving to communities. They built up around the community and then the community eventually gave back tenfold.

Themes of crowdsources the less discipline that a scientist had in relation to a problem, the more like they were to solve it. Scientists (generally) 70% of the time already know the solution to the problem (it just needs to be brought out).

Another example: Current - tv show - content created by the same people that watch the show.

The more you can do for your community - give to them, the greater the participation back from the community.

4 Developments that make crowdsourcing possible and inevitable.

- Amateur Renaissance - ie: bird watch, stock photos, threadless - we are all producing work at a higher quality and greater volume

- The open source revolution - we all are creating better products than the big corporations\

- Democratization of production - cost has decreased so more can access the tools to produce

- The rise of online communities - geography no longer matters. Communities are truly global.

Q & A:

How does this affect the lives of professional artist? Opening doors or limiting this? - keep your day job. Over the last several years it has made it easier for exceptional artist to market their wares effectively.

As elearners we use graphic design a lot. How do we keyword search some of these tools? "Spec Work", Crowdsourcing design

eLearning seems to be a place where people can learn more from each other than not.

Technology used to facilitate crowd sourcing in a group such as a venue as this gathering? salesforce.com, citizens briefing book

Will depend a bit on the wisdom of the crowd. Collective wisdom of the crowd as well.

Using this for things related to expetise, where people think they know something where infact it's not true. It gets put out there, but then it's very difficult to bring it back to the truth. - Danger of this? Yes there is bit of this problem. This is the tranistion and everything is up for grabs now.

Articulate Workshop At AG09

I'm sitting in on the Articulate workshop today at the eLearning Annual Gathering 2009. It's been a fabulous workshop so far. I've learned many tips and tricks that I didn't yet know or experience from my limited time of using the program.

Yukon Learning has sent a great group of trainers and facilitators to assist with the class. I have enjoyed that they have one person presenting (Ron Price) and then several others hovering in the room to assist with any troubles or glitches that learners are having. There is also a technical person, that I used, that is here to assist with real computer problems. I needed assistance downloading an add-in so I could particpate in the class.

Great job to the session and the group.

Teaching English Through Video - The Children of SEAM

I wrote previously about my friend who volunteered 8 weeks of her summer in 2007 and 2008 in India. During her time there she was assisting at an orphanage. The first time some of her time went to teaching English to the children and women. The second summer she continued that task, but also assisted in the building of the foundation for a sleeping complex for the children.

She just shared this video with me where another recent volunteers "taught the kids at SEAM orphanage how to make a movie. He gave them 3 cameras and they did this film. She is so proud of the film and they even edited in a short clip of her from summertime, which was a complete surprise! She worked on the construction at this orphanage 9am to 1pm then taught English to 4 adult women in afternoon. At 5:30pm she would go back to the orphanage for the evening. There are 38 kids here in the orphanage. Giving them access to what we see as such a simple tool in our culture has been an incredible way to help teach the children English, but even more importantly it has allowed them to share their story with the rest of the world.

Tweets Back on for Bell Subscribers

I'm excited to learn that Bell has worked out a plan with Twitter to re-continue SMS feeds/sends to subscribers. This may be a bit to my family's dismay as they were getting a little annoyed by the constant beeps of my phone, but was starting to feel cut off. (Chronic...perhaps).

It's interesting to see a Canadian company actually be one of the first to "jump back on". It didn't surprise me that our carriers stopped the feeds early last year. It did take us well over a year to get iPhone's available to the masses. However, to find a way to get back into the action is exciting.

To read more take a look at Twitter's update here.

Still Don't Know What Twitter Is or What You Can Do With It?

If you haven't yet discovered Twitter and what it can do for you as a blogger, student, politician, entrepreneur, or anything else then take a few minutes to look at this video.

Here is quick 8 minute video of Evan Williams, co-founder of Twitter, at this year's TED talk. It's a great way to see how Twitter came to be, how users changed the way it works, how users are using it to their benefit, and how other "gadgets" are finding ways to tweet you.

Communication with your provider is the key

I called a meeting with our LMS provider on Friday. It felt as if we had come to a stand still again with the entire project. Some of that was on our part some on the part of the vendor.

Year end is never great time in any organization for true productivity. Top that off with our organization going through the Accreditation process. "Participating in accreditation demonstrates an organizations commitment to quality health care to its staff, patients, clients, and community. In the pursuit of excellence, thousands of health organizations voluntarily participate in Accreditation Canada's accreditation program each year." Getting down to serious LMS work really didn't fall high on my list of priority to-dos.

Once I had finished the majority of my accreditation tasks I got back into the fine details of the LMS. For a week (at least when I could) I looked at as many components of the system as I could. Looking for items I wanted changed, items I needed change, and components that just weren't functioning. Compiling a long list of these into a table, I sent them off to the vendor, our project lead, and our purchasing contract negotiator.

Our negotiator called a meeting with the vendor and to my surprise (and I use that loosely) I began to get a few more emails. Responded to my email queries were more timely. What had happened? We called. That's it.

Wrapping this little episode up....what I want to highlight again is the truly important need of communication from you to the vendor and from the vendor back to you. Both need to know where the other is in the the implementation process. I was being side tracked by other priorities, they were as well, but in doing so they have created some upgrades that I didn't know about and would have solved many sleepless nights and countless meetings I was having with my users. More regular discussions and open communication could bring your project to a conclusion much more quickly, with less complications and head aches.

Guild Looking for Tips for Getting Started With eLearning

Oh how great will this installment be from the eLearning Guild. They are currently compliling a list of the best tips for getting started with elearning. I know we all have some, so please share your thoughts. This will be invaluable to those newly entering this "world" and I have found that the rest of us can always benefit from tips we didn't think of before approaching our next project.

"Most eLearning Guild members work in organizations that have been engaged in e-Learning for some time. In some cases for many years. But there are many organizations out there that are just getting started with e-Learning. Let’s help those organizations get started – and avoid the pit-falls and costly mistakes we made – by giving them our top tips for getting started with e-Learning. To submit your tips, click HERE. " - The eLearning Guild: eLearning Insider

Why is it they only want to teach how to write an outline?

I'm taking yet another course in online design and delivery. I think I'm a glutton for punishment, but the trouble is I have yet to find a great course that really satisfies my craving for learning or meets my needs.

I did take a certificate with Bill and Kit Horton through Training Live and Online and I will say it was really good. I walked away with a ton of great tips, tricks and resources that I could use right then and there.

However, each of the university and college courses I've participated in spend so much time on creating an outline and objectives and blah, blah, blah that there is very little practical learnings that can be taken away an applied.

If you are like me you probably have little time to be wasting learning how to write an outline for the 10th time. You want solid tools, examples, and tips you can use to really create some fantastic learning experiences. I'm curious if others have experienced this and if not who do you truly recommend for solid learning and getting exactly what you needed?

Listing the Steps of the LMS is Difficult

I'm working on my performance plan of the last year and I'm finding it surprising that the area that has occupied the most of my work life, the LMS implementation, is proving to be the most difficult to map out.

I'm having little difficulty in listing all the steps for issuing our core training packages. I very quickly mapped out the process I followed to host our annual spring gathering for all staff. I even was able to list a few other major projects, but the LMS.....wow that is much more difficult.

Now I must find out why that is proving so hard. My best guess is that is has been a real trial and error from day one. There has been gains and set backs since the beginning and set backs seem to last so long that you forget where you last left off. I'm at that point currently. I last had a meeting with one of my end users in November. Once we met again last week we had a difficult time in trying to remember what we had first discussed and agreed upon. Basically we had to start over. Relook at the issues we "thought" we had previously, were they still the same, and did we have new ideas which with to rectify.

Now that I'm being forced (almost against my will) to list out the steps I'v currently followed and those that I plan to follow I'm having some trouble working through them. For the most part I believe it is avoidance, but I would suggest at this point to others to document your steps as you meet/pass them. I have an email trail, but if I could do things differently this would be one item I would have done much more in depth from the start.

Proving My Worth & Explaining Why I Need Less Interuptions

It's been almost 3 weeks since I returned from my vacation and the 3 solid days of LMS work I had scheduled for myself still has not occurred. It's amazing how many "this is number one" priorities come up in a single day. I came back to having to create org. charts, produce yet another paper version of curriculum, general document creation, meetings, budget concerns, binder stuffing, a/v equipment malfunctions, coordinating of orientation, and it goes on and on and on.

I am finally (I think) at almost a point where I can get back to "the number one priority" (for the moment) of going through the LMS step-by-step looking for bugs, issues, and general strangeness. However, there is another priority that I believe for a change may actually be something I should concentrate on first and stop looking at as an annoyance; My Performance Development Plan. Makes me shiver just to say the words.

I've never had to do one before...ever. However, my department is responsible for creating the document and is requiring the entire management team have them completed. So, as a FINE EXAMPLE, our department has been "strongly recommended" to complete ours as well. I am not a list person by any sense of the imagination and having to list out my priorities and objectives for the year is very painful. Listing further all the implementation steps is driving me to pull my hair out and my eyes to cross.

However.....

I now realize that my supervisors seem to have little understanding in how much is needed to be done to get the LMS working and continue to have it function. I've been working on it in bits and pieces now for such a long time that it seems to be one of those things that will never get done and therefore is moving lower on their priority list. This isn't true of others in the organization that are asking me where it stands and will it be ready soon. Yes and no....depending on if I get to actually concentrate more then 10 minutes at a time on the tasks needed for it to succeed.

I'm beginning to understand myself that I need to make my Performance Plan my first priority. This is not only because I have a meeting about it next week, but also because it will allow me to show clearly everything that I have done up until this point. More importantly it will help me to demonstrate all the tasks that will be needed to get the system functioning. I'm expecting that once they see how much is truly involved they will perhaps back off the "this is number one priority now" mentality and maybe even help me to protect my time from others in the organization as well.

I'll certainly post the results of my plan and meeting after they occur next week and hope that they are greatly positive.

Posting from my cell phone text message.
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Envoyé par messagerie texte d'un appareil mobile.
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This is a test post from my email

Just testing out posting directly from my email.

Looking Back at My Own Blog

I was trying desperately today to remember something I had posted a long time ago about grading your website. That turned out to be Website Grader, surprise, surprise. What really surprised me was some of the things I have posted about and completely forgot I had written down.

Searching somewhat randomly to what I could only remember as "grade", I came upon so many different topics that I've covered over the last two years. My task or challenge for you today is to take a look back as well at some of your earlier posts. Take a trip down your own memory lane and visit your own consciousness for a while. I'm positive you'll enjoy the journey and surprise yourself with your own writings.

How Old is Too Old to be Relevant?

This is going to be a short post, but I just wanted to comment on my astonishment at how much info is out on the web about blogging. Most of it is posted on blogs...go figure. I've search "components of blogs", "how to start a blog", "blog tools", "how many blogs exist" and that's just a starting point. It's overwhelming and difficult to grasp was parts are really relevant.

Something that struck me though is how relevant and up-to-date with current trends can some of these posts be when many are a few years old. How old is now too old when it comes being relevant? I know the lady that works in the resource library in our facility does not keep any journals on the shelf that are more than a year old.

I can barely keep up with the constants streaming of information I receive daily through Twitter and these are just the select few people I have decided to follow. What about the thousands of others out there that are posting, tweeting, sharing their information, thoughts and ideas.

Is there a point in time that you don't reference back past? Do you give yourself a limit as to what you pay attention too? Is there a standard that we all should be following and if so does that mean the past is irrelevant? (I dare not ask that question).

Is the simple to you, complex to your students?

I'm taking yet another online course in designing online courses. So far I'm not learning anything, I'm just going through the motions.

What struck me tonight though, is this about the 10th course I've taken using the Blackboard system. So you can imagine my familiarity with it. Last semester I actually got to create and teach a short course through it to my fellow students. Again, you can see it's not my first time using the platform. YOU'D THINK THOUGH..... the way I have had to ask for clarification again and again about submitting assignments that I'm completely NEW. I can't figure it out to save my life....and maybe my grade.

So that brings me to thinking about designing and clarifying those instructions you present to your students/learners/users. Make them as clear and fool proof as possible. Yes I realize I'm labelling myself the fool here because I'm just not following the teacher in my own course. Just because you have hit the the "submit" button on the screen 1 billion times, do not assume your students/learners/users can figure out where the submit button even is, let alone know how to hit it.

Do they say hit or click? Do you need to be specific and say click twice? Do you need to say it is blue? Do you need to show a small picture of it? I'm not saying I'm that lost right now, but there could very well be learners right now in one of your classes lost wondering what to do next.

My computer science teacher in grade ten always had us write our programs as dummy proof as possible. If we put a yes/no question on the screen he would inevitably type - maybe. If we asked him to type in his name he would type - why do you ask? We had to make sure that regardless of the answer typed in, the program would redirected unexpected answers into a loop of "feedback" or gentle nudging for a proper response (or acceptable yes/no).

Just a little something to keep in mind as I struggle through tonight's lesson in my own school work. On the other hand maybe I'm just a glutton for punishment and should find something else to do with my time.

Cheers.

I Can't Believe I Have to Use Paper Again

This year my Core Curriculum learning packages are going to finally be online. Fully accessible by all staff. Automatically marked by the LMS. Easy to determine completion rates. Simple to distribute to every department.


AND THEN I WOKE UP!!!

I can't believe I'm being forced against my will to set up and print out 500 learning packages. 2700 tests with student names/numbers already entered. The very worse part of the entire process is the marking and recording of completion of 2700 test.

Now can you understand why I desperately want to get my learning system up and running.

Looking at Blogs to Share About Blogs (which do you use?)

I'm currently preparing for a presentation on learning how to blog and learning from other's blogs and so that is exactly what I'm doing. I'm surfing around looking at blogs that I've only been reading in the past to dive a little deeper into some of the tools/widgets that seem most common. Looking to see if there is a standard length of a post....doesn't appear so. Looking at the use of colour and fonts. Has the blogger modified the standard template to their own or are they content with the format offered?

Another big thing I'm trying out is to see how different Blogger is from WordPress. To me they seem quite similar in what they offer. Each has it's merits though and I can see quite easily why someone might choose one over the other. Blogger seems a little more streamline to me and I haven't yet been dissatisfied with it as a tool. However, I can see how someone that prefers more of a standard webpage feel might like WordPress with its tabs and embedded pages.

I'm curious to know, if anyone would like to share, why they may have changed from one tool to another. If so where you happy with the change? Did you stick with the change or go back? I'm very curious about this last question as I have tried setting up a mirror blog on WordPress and it's okay, but I think I'm going to stick to my Blogger version.

Back to the grind stone, almost!

Well my first day back from vacation did not disappoint. I tried extremely hard while away to never think of work; I think I succeeded about 98% of the trip. I had planned to come back and even had blocked off 3 solid days to just click through every single screen of my LMS.

I'm now at the MAKE IT HAPPEN OR ELSE stage of the implementation project. Now realizing I have little choice (economically) for any change to a new system and now need to focus in on every detailed aspect of the system from both a user perspective and an administrative perspective. My goal is to create a list of everything I want to change and prioritize the changes needed with respect to being able to launch the LMS. Is the change a must have, nice to have, can make do with out if necessary? This list of changes will then be presented to the vendor along with my posse (the initial project lead, representative from purchasing - we're still in RPF, and perhaps my director) for discussion on whether any of the requests are possible.

At first I was getting responses from my vendor rep. "yes we can look into that", then it turned to "I'll see what the IT guy suggests", to finally "no". I didn't like the no's and so the new strategy of a list and meeting with the CEO of the company will be our next step. I believe most of my ideas won't require too much change, but I know this is the way every end user thinks.

So my first day back, as I said, was to be the launch of the great little new plan. Of course the "work gods" had different ideas for me and of course our Organization Chart needed to be produced instead. I'm not sure why suddenly so many people want this particular document. I'm also not sure why I'm the one creating it....oh yes, let's thank my former boss for that one (she's lucky I like her so much or I would track her down). One full day of work was all it took me to produce half of the chart. Yes one full day = half an org. chart. I'm hoping a have system down now and the second half will come more quickly so that I can move forward with my LMS must haves.

Great to be back.

Vacation time and I'm still drawn to looking at this screen

I'm happily on vacation. Loving the warm air. Falling head over heels in the waves. Seen puffer fish, 2 eels, a sea snake, urchins, coral, tons of fish, pelicans feeding, an iguana, seagulls (why are they everywhere!?!), I think I might have had a minor sting by a jelly-fish, 3 sting rays, and far too many people wearing bikinis that shouldn't and speedos (no one should wear these).

We upgraded to a fancier room. Love the king bed and the view is spectacularñ oh the plasma tv´s not bad either. Learning many phrases via HBO and subtitling. The upgrade came with unlimited internet. Which brings me here.....Hubby's checking the Leafs' score to see if they are losing (not yet!?! - how are we going to get better picks - don't they get it). Spent the afternoon on Saturday reading play-by-plays of the latest UFC results. But also, try as I might, I've been trying very hard not to think of work and of elearning, or blogging, or anything electronic, but I admit it.....Hello, My Name is Tracy and I'm Addicted to the Computer.

So there we go....a brief check in....no I haven't completely broken my resolution of blogging, it's just really hard to pay attention to it while on vacation. I hope I'll be excused. Just when I figure out this crazy mexican key board I'll be ready to leave.

Cheers everyone!!!!

Potential Questions to Ask When Having an LMS Demo'd

I've been having other LMS vendors contact me wanting me to see demonstrations of their systems several times over the last year. A situation arose recently that made my department seriously question the system we had in place and should we switch to another vendor. I made arrangements to visit a colleague at another hospital to see their system first hand from a user's perspective rather than the sales pitch that provided by vendor demos.

I can not begin to tell you how invaluable this visit turned out to be for my learning. I was pleasantly surprised to see that I actually had some features that she didn't have offered on her system. I was able to ask what the best features were from her perspective and which ones she never bothered to use. This was such a great comparison and was quite relevant as we both work in health care, I with 2700 employees, her with 10,000 employees and 4 sites.

I thought I'd share some of the questions I took with me on my visit as they might come in handy for you should you be on the LMS shopping journey. I highly recommend seeking out someone else in a similar industry to you and seeing first hand how the user is using the product. If you can do it with out the vendor's assistance I believe you'll get an even greater unbiased opinion from the user. The questions are in a particular order and some may seem like they have obvious answers, but I've learned that you can't be so sure of what is exactly included in a system.

1. How does the system import user ID information? (Active Directory, or what every system your HR team uses)


2. How responsive is the vendor to your inquiries, troubleshooting, etc.


3. Can users access the system from home? (Is this important to your organization? - probably)


4. Is there a yearly licence or a one time fee, per user or for the whole system?


5. How often are upgrades issued? Are they part of the fee?


6. How long did the user take to pilot the system? How did they run their pilot?


7. Does the system track external credits?


8. What kind of comments have you heard from learners using the system?


9. How intuitive is the system for learners and users(admin)?


10. Does the system allow for email notification to learners?


11. How many years has the person being using the system? How much longer do they plan to continue using the system?


12. Does it integrate with Outlook or what ever mail/calendar system you use?


13. Can you display course thumbnails or other images?


14. Can course due dates be assigned or does a learner have to manually adjust?


15. Is there space for News, Updates, Info text to be displayed on homepage of system?


16. Is it searchable? How so? Might you need to purchase a mini-search engine?


17. Can you administer practical, hands-on tests/assignments to users?


18. Are evaluations attached or part of courses?


19. Does it have discussion boards, wikis, etc? Are these important to your org.?


20. What kind of reporting does it allow? Can it be exported? In what kind of formats? Is it customizable - can you report on anything/everything?


21. Is it SCORM compliant? What version?


22. How robust is the support documentation for the user? For the learners?


23. Can you set up course/info that online one particular set of learners can access?

I'm sure there are a million other questions that could be asked, but I hope these at least arm you with the option to seek out greater knowledge of a system before you commit to purchasing. Please feel free to respond with additional questions someone buying a system might want to have answered.

Does it have to be timely to be relevant?

I saw a very interesting online conference come across my email the other day. It's for "Stepping into Virtual Worlds" which happens January 30th, completely virtually through Second Life. How incredibly neat is that?

I did see this posted last year, but I was too late to attend at when I found the conference. So when I saw this the other day I was excited that perhaps I could attend this year and experience some true learning through Second Life. I've sat in on some concerts, movies, and even a few comedy shows. I've visited some sandboxes where I could read text and learn how to perform some tasks. I haven't yet experienced a learning scenario.

I mentioned this to my boss and thought what a great opportunity to see some of the potential opportunities for this type of training. I can imagine how wonderfully it could possibly work with a hospital facility's training needs. Best yet, is I could use it as a work at home day and stay in my pajamas.

Unfortunately the feedback I received from my supervisor, who by the way is supportive about my elearning initiatives, question the relevancy of such a seminar at this point in "our" elearning journey. "If something like this is years down the road of time from where we (our organization and learner) then should I be wasting time exploring this option now."

My answer is yes. I think it's quite important to be exploring all learning/networking options out there within reason. When I say within reason I mean within money constraints and time constraints. I've found that you never know where the next great idea is going to come from that you can apply to your/work learning environment. Being on the forefront of many of these tips, tricks, and techniques is very much intriguing and exciting.

I'm curious if others have come across this "road block" within their personal learning initiatives. Do you believe that there is a proper time for seeking out new learning techniques or should one explore them as they present themselves?

Disneynature Earth to be Release Earth Day 2009

One of my favourite things about going to the movies is acutally watching the previews of movies yet to be released. This weekend I was pleasantly surprised to see the trailer for EARTH from Disneynature.

The movie is to be released this upcoming Earth Day, April 22, 2009. I'm a sucker for nature shows, but to combine it with Disney too....I'm there, get me my ticket. On a slightly more serious note the trailer looked fantastic. The cinematography looked as if we will get an extraordinary look into a year in the life of many creatures from around the globe.

If you go to Disneynature website there are actually several other movies listed to be coming out over the next several years. As per their website, "Disneynature it The Walt Disney Studios' label dedicated to working with leading filmmakers to produce one cutting-edge theatrical release each year celebrating the wonders of the world in which we live."

I look forward to this year's Earth Day and hope this film is yet another great way that we will all continue to be inspired and become increasing aware of the world that we share with so many others.

2 New Upgrades You May Want

Articulate has releases some great updates to for Studio '09. Along with some bug fixes there are 3 new interactions available for use. The new activities are Flipbook, Flashcards and Stairstep. More information including how to upgrade your version can be found at Articulate - Word of Mouth blog.

Also tomorrow Microsoft is offering the new Windows 7 beta and with that Internet Explorer 8. Rumour is to get in early to get this new upgrade. I'm not sure whether it is a good change or not, but many of the reviews I read seem to promote it as "exciting". More info on this can be found on Microsoft's website and all sorts of techy blogs. Give it a Google and you'll find it for sure.

Try a Different Thought Pattern, It Just Might Change Your Life

A dear friend of mine has been on a journey for quite a long time now going out there and inspiring the best in others, getting people to find the humour in their daily lives, and just overall lightening up. It's no wonder then that Jacquie Hermans has called her company Light'N UP (...Laugh and Be You).
In another life, a few moons ago, I learned from her and then performed with her improv. It was such a fabulous experience that I recommend it to anyone who wants or needs that little boost of confidence to go out there and "just be" in front of others. There were many of us in the class that were looking to be able to present, teach or speak better in front of crowds. This method of learning and performing improv was incredible. Not only did you learn to almost not care how you looked in front of other, most of us got up on stage and performed routinely some of the silliest skits you could ever imagine. (Some how I manifested a redneck mechanic, angry/bitter teenage girls, and a little old women with a bit of a Polish accent ....don't even ask.)

What I wanted to draw a little attention to today was Jacquie's inspirational short video blogs. Each is about 2-3 minutes long and touch on topics from Death to Self-Worthiness. Jacquie still runs her Light'NUp workshops, but she also wears many other hats as well. She's a laughter coach and a personal growth trainer and that is where her video blogs have begun, personal growth.

I love the whole concept of video blogs, but haven't gone there yet myself. So, when I saw Jacquie's and watched a few I once again was inspired by her down to earth nature. She is one of those people that was truly put here to make the world a better place.

Jacquie didn't ask me to write any of this and in fact doesn't know I have yet, but I did want to capture a bit here about what she means to me and how she's touched my life. I hope you'll take a moment to check her video blog out when you need a little boost of energy in your day.

Extra Learning Through the Web - Photography Lessons

Well exactly as I wanted, I learned something new tonight just by reading my feeds and looking deeper into various bits of content.

I came across Joe McNally's blog and a few of his video posts on YouTube about how to be a better photographer. (Joe McNally shoots assignments for magazines, ad agencies, & graphic design firms. Clients include Sports Illustrated, ESPN Magazine, National Geographic, Life, Time, Fortune, New York Magazine, GEO, Golf Digest, Discover, Men's Journal, Business Week, Rolling Stone, New York Stock Exchange, Target, Sony, GE, Nikon, Lehman Brothers, & PNC Bank.) He presents simple tips and tricks that any average photo shooting lover can use the next time they are out snapping shots. What's great is he presents them in such a way that the learner/watcher knows that they too can use this techniques the very next time they pick up their camera. What's more it's very candid and includes a few moments of hilarity without being fancily edited; i.e. his wife in the kitchen whipping up a gourmet meal for their 19lb cat.

I hope you'll take a moment to watch at least this clip on steadying your shot and if so interested you might move on to some of his other points to ponder. Thanks for taking the time and effort to share these tips Joe!

2.009 - The Start of Another Great Year

I'm off to a great start for this new year. By now you've seen that this year for me has started on January 5th (Monday - back to work day). So far I've already blown the "getting up at 5:00am with hubby and start working out first thing," instead I opted for sleeping in 10 minutes too late and rushing to work. I've stuck to the "let's eat healthier", but then again it's only 3:10 in the afternoon so we'll have to see if this lasts the week.

I also have stuck to the 1 hour a day set aside for me to catch up on my RSS feeds and commit to writing a posting here. Again....it's only 3:10 in the afternoon and the boss isn't in the office to interrupt. Let's see if this lasts the week.

I had great comments from Dave Ferguson in regards to my post "A New Year, A Chance to Start Fresh." He really put improvement, regardless of the task, into great perspective:

As for the coming year, one of the quotes in my collection is, "There's always room for improvement. It's the biggest room in the house." I can get dismayed or discouraged by the improvement that's always lying around, waiting to happen, but this is a reminder that there ain't no time machines. You can't go back and do things differently.

From this I take away - do not get discouraged or afraid of improvement as it will always be there, and you may as well try to improve as best you can, any change however small is good in that it will either make the situation better or teach you that it was find from the start. Every attempt at improvement is another opportunity to learn and that's really what I'm striving for this year. A HUGE INCREASE IN LEARNING. 2007 was tremendous, 2008 was okay, 2009 will be GIANORMOUS.

I came across this great post today about the trends and changes seen for 2009 or 2.009 as it was labled. I really like that so 2.009 it is, seems so trendy. E-Learning 2.009, by Eva Kaplan-Leiserson. She speaks to the likes of Tony Karrer, Anders Gronstedt, Judy Brown, David Metcalf, Anne Derryberry, and Clark Quinn. Addressed are trends and obstacles we will all face in the coming year surrounding Web 2.0 learning, Mobile Learning, and Simulations and Games. I look forward to seeing where all these land over the next year.

Here's to a prosperous 2009 everyone. Keep up the great work; together we'll continue to learn, develop, and expand our minds together..