Organization Structure? We need that?

Once again the LMS haunts me night and day. I should have bought stocks in Advil. Looking back at the implementation process and how poorly it has progressed is very much due to the fact that we do not have an HR system that properly or even semi-adequately has any organizational structure.

Each staff member is only linked by the department budget that pays for them. It is entirely a payroll system and now that we are finally moving forward with the LMS and looking forward to online performance systems and talent management systems; my little "wait did you guys think about...." is rearing its ugly head again and again. We have no system currently that displays which staff report to which manager, manager to director, director to VP. This can be tracked through many different systems, but this is completely impractical for any other usage.

The task has been placed onto the shoulders of one of our IT staff and a person in HR. I'm crossing my fingers very tightly that they can solve this issue quickly and simply as I don't want to have to map how our 2600 employees report.

I Love the World & Discovery Channel

...and I don't care who knows it. If I could lock myself in a room and just watch the Discovery Channel and National Geographic all day, I'd be a happy gal.

My friend jokes that they are my "nerd channels". I just don't care. I love watching them and learning all they offer. I saw this commerical today on Discovery and it just made me smile. I hope it makes you smile a bit too and be as intrigued about the world around you as I hope I am.

Discovering Your Brand

I saw that Christy Tucker was working through Michele Martin’s Web 2.0 Wednesday task to discover what was her personal brand. I loved the word cloud she showed using Wordle so I too gave it a try.

Michele suggests that the top 5 words should give you a picture into what brand you are portraying and to think about if it is truly what you want to concentrate on.

Mine seems to be LMS, Learning, Know, and Training. I know that LMS has been my focus over the last year and is the subject of many of my posts, but it is not because I want to be branded as such. This is just my primary concern currently and therefore the item that I post the most about and look for feedback on from peers.

Can a word cloud truly project your brand? Perhaps, it certainly would reveal the focus of your blog. Cnn's cloud currently looks like this (http://www.cnn.com/)

This wordcloud wouldn't surprise anyone given the current news. I think the use of a cloud definitely can help a blogger to pinpoint the subjects they are posting on, but you will need to discern if you are looking at your current focus or your brand and are you content with either.

Learning Styles a Myth

I saw this on Brent Schlenker's post who got it from Clive Sheppard who got it from Stephen Downes and wanted to place it here purely for my own future reference. Please refer to their posts for more thoughts/comments.



I love that Brent pointed out that the video states the myth exists because we all believe that it does. I was just asked to help a department out here with their training/teaching for adult patients and they wanted to know about learning styles & prinicples. I really think I need to reconsider this one and a whole new approach.

Reflections, Light, How does it work? - A Science Question for Anyone Who Can Answer

At a recent party my God-father, sister, and I were amazed at the questions that his grandson was asking about the world around him. Such as "Why can I see through the window, but not put my hand through it?" Big question for an 11 year old.

My sister then came up with:

When sitting on a train, bus, etc. I can look in the window that I am
sitting directly beside (on an angle) and I can see not (only) the reflection of
what is across the train from me, but I can see a reflection of what/who is
sitting in front of me even if they are several seats ahead. How does this
happen or how can it be explained? A simple version of this is if I hold a
small mirror right beside my right eye and something in my left hand, I can
extend my left almost to arms length and still see the reflection of the item in
the mirror. How does it reflect back when it is so far forward of the mirror?

I've emailed this to Bob McDonald, host of CBC's Quirks & Quarks. I'm hoping I get an answer from him or any one else that cares to answer. Things that keep me up at night.....lol.

Trying to get my LMS vendor to do what I want

So I have a meeting in 10 minutes with my LMS vendor to discuss our next steps in preparing for our pilot and ultimately our launch. However, I just sent them a list of about 20 tweaks I want done to the user end of the system to make it more friendly and easy to use.

I know that if it doesn't make sense from the start, why would the staff want to go back and use it again. Items like date/time/location of a course, I would have thought would have been listed clearly for the learner. Course descriptions should be precise and easy to navigate through. Mini-ads not long paragraphs. Icons for quick reference are in some places, but not used through out. Etc. Etc. Etc.

I got caught up looking at one aspect for the user and then found a billion other things that need changes. Now I need to go back with a fine tooth comb for the administrator, managers, and educators/SMEs.

Ugg!!!! This does end doesn't it?

Naming your LMS - Follow-up

I recently posted a question about the importance of naming your LMS. Coincidentally a day or two previously on the eLearning Guild's forum someone asked the same question.

Here are a few of the comments I received and a few from various Guild members:

• "Do the majority of customers actually care what the site is called or are they there to access their learning and look for resources? Would marketing for the LMS not be just marketing for the LMS regardless of name? After all, its about what you put on the site, the content and the ease of use, not what its called. Whilst a brand is important, does the brand have to be tied to a trendy/cringeworthy acronym?"
• "I think that calling it your "LMS" may not be the best idea. Does the average person (outside HR or training) know the term LMS? Calling it a "Learning Management System" goes a little further. If someone saw a link to the Learning Management System, they would at least know it had something to do with learning. Giving it a more descriptive name like, ABC's Employee University would let employees know that is the place to go for their training needs. I suggest picking a name that will have meaning to your employees and be a place they want to go. "
• "Using "ACME" as the proverbial generic name, customers have used: learnACME, ACME-U, ACME-Achieve, goACME (emphasizing easy access), myACME, and ACMETrack"
• "From working different ones and implementing at different corporations, naming the training environment is usually a good idea. Most general users don't care what LMS stands or it gives them a preconception of it being just another confusion computer system.Some ideas could be (Your Corporate) University(Your Corporation) Training Environment Branding could make it more of a success."

Struggling in a Dept of One

I know after going to the eLearning Guild Annual Gathering last year and chatting with folks I met that there are so many of us that are little departments of only one or if you are lucky two people with in them. I find that I am constantly struggling day-by-day to get accomplished what I need to get done. Especially right now as we are looming closer to a date that we have targeted as launching our LMS. I have had little to no time to prepare even the basics that I need to in order for the pilot piece to take place.

I work within the Organization Development department of our hospital and there are 3 other staff members, but each person has their own area that they look after. There is a director, a manager, a consultant (working on culture implementation), and then there is myself. I'm the only one working on the LMS, elearning, development, implementation, training, demos, etc. I will have some SME's eventually, but it's going to take a while to get there.

I just more and more am feeling the stress of the other office duties creeping in and taking over my time that I would much rather be spending on our corporate elearning development. It's very difficult to express this frustration to management when they too are struggling coping with their work load. We all must pitch in daily to keep the office functioning and our customers feeling attended to properly.

I'm curious how others cope within their departments of one or two and if you have any great tips and tactics for getting by and managing it all.

New Google Chrome - interesting

I'm a big Google fan, but I'm not quite sure about Chrome yet.  I saw tons of Twitter chatter yesterday going on about it, so first thing this morning I had to give it a try.

Yes it has many features I had seen mentioned yesterday, but the very first thing that struck me was where is the toolbar and why couldn't I figure out how where it was located.

After a very few searches I found I wasn't alone in looking for this feature.  Harry McCracken at Technologizer had the same thoughts and explains more of his troublesome experience in trying to install the tool. 

Hopefully this (well used by me and others) feature will be incorporated soon.

Blog Day - (a little late though)

Well I actually got to go away this weekend camping. Yeah!!! One final hurrah of the summer and so thankfully the last long weekend of the summer was full of heat and sun. That's been rare here this year in Ontario.

For Blog Day this year I thought I would find other blogs that match (and surpass) my other blog's focus - Photography. I'm no expert by any means. I just enjoy taking photos.

Here are 5 new blogs I've come across where the photos and the stories are gorgeous, inspiring, and fascinating.

1. Flemming Bo Jensen Photography blog - check out this pic - I wish I had this scenery around me
2. Photo Attorney - photography law....how fascinating. Things to think about when shooting.
3. Art Galleries of Second Life - there are 92 galleries listed here. I'm expecting some are real life photos/art some are second life photos/art
4. Fotohacker - "a one stop shop for all the cool stuff happening in the rapidly changing world of digital photography, and explains how best to take advantage of it."
5. Squashy Frog Photography - I just love the photos here and some of the great tweaks he's done to his photos. I'm not one to do this, but his images could get me into trying it out.

What's in an LMS name?

Still plugging along with my LMS project (last post on topic). I think we are at the point that I'm just going to have to make it work and then at some point in the near future I'll get to say...."I told you so."

My curiosities for today for anyone out there caring to share your experiences is...

Do you have a catchy name in your organization for your LMS? Or Do you just call it your LMS?

Does it matter really? Is it purely you build it and they come to use it or did they want to know what the new "insert catchy name here" was because of the name?

Blog Day 2008 (August 31)

Blog Day 2008 is coming up in two weeks. The purpose of blog day is t o get to know other bloggers around the world. An to participate is very simple. On August 31st all you need to do is create a posting about 5 new bloggers that are preferrably different than your own. That can mean culturally, point-of-view, topic, etc.

See you on Blog Day!

October 15th is Blog Action Day

Blog Action Day this year is October 15th. All you have to do as a blogger to participate is dedicate a post on this one day regarding Poverty.

What Can One Person Do?
"Poverty is not only a pressing issue, it is a complex one. It's easy to think that there isn’t much an individual can do. Fortunately this isn’t the case at all. With activities ranging from advocacy and professional contribution to charity and financing, there is in fact many ways that we can act.

You can find a range of resources about poverty, about what the average person can do as well as dozens of post suggestions and ideas in our Resources section."
Visit the Resources Section." ( - Blog Action Day 2008)

Close to 16,000 sites participated last year. So far 787 sites have registered reaching 2 million + readers. Help us boost that even higher and in turn you'll be helping humanity.

10,000th Visitor!!!!

Wow at some point this morning I've had my 10,000th visitor to my site. I'm so impressed and grateful that I have a few regulars that look at the site and many more that stop by to look around.

I have visitors from all over the world including:

Canada, Austria, US Educational Institutions, Australia, United Kingdom, India, Netherlands, Organizations, Germany, Japan, France, Italy, US Governmental Entities, Singapore, Malaysia, New Zealand, United States, Belgium, Brazil, Poland, Portugal, South Africa, Greece, Mexico, Finland, Denmark, Romania, and Hungary

So a big Welcome to everyone and an even larger THANK YOU!

Implementing eLearning Templates (eLearning Guild Online Forum)

How Implementing E-Learning Templates Enabled Us To Produce More With Less Elsa Glassman & Peter Heald, Sandia National Laboratories

I was able to sit in today on this online forum and here are some of the notes taken during the session.

Challenges when developing courses:

• better design into templates
• one template doesn't always fit every course
• developing them
• creating quality scenarios
• length of modules
• speed up the development process
• increase production of course
• maintain quality
• reduce costs
• provide consistency
• decrease time to produce

What is a template?

• framework for content
• build once & reuse many
• standards
• standard look & fee
• pattern used as a guide
• separates form from content
• frame into which you place content
• structure for specific tasks
• area for holding, sharing and updating information

Perceptions of Templates vs. Reality

**participants polled: disagree that they are boring, agree courses will look the same, neutral on rigidity, agree only certain types of content work

rigid: as flexible as it is designed to be
only for certain types of content: content needs to just fit the format of the template
boring learning: templates can incorporate variety of different elements (flash, captivate, etc)
all look the same: you can change colours, fonts, etc. but the location, format is the only part the same

Pros vs. Cons

• time and effort are max., but not easy customized to different content or applications
• tight integration removes guess work, but takes time to change processes due to interdependencies
• can be very flexible, but increases complexity and decreases benefits
• content goes quickly into templates, but content must be designed for templates

Why use them?

• product design: customer can have a clear idea of what they will get beforehand
• project roles & tasks: predetermines what the roles & tasks will be
• cognitive load & usability: learner knows how to navigate and use course due to consistent look and feel
• data collection: consistent data across all courses

Template type & Goal

MULTIMEDIA DEVELOPER TEMPLATES - minimize time and effort spent on creating courses
COMMUNICATION TEMPLATES - ensure critical information is communicated
INSTRUCTIONAL DESIGN TEMPLATES - provide framework for designing content for use in templates
COURSE CREATION SOFTWARE - ensure a consistent development & delivery process
FEEDBACK TEMPLATES - facilitate data analysis and summary

How-to guides were created: - one for instructional designers, one for multimedia developers **available to participants after presentation

Decision Aids (COLT site)
- ie is your content appropriate for online training or classroom training
- pre-made activities (multiple choice, pick and drag, definitions)

After templates
courses took 6 months now only 3 months
2-4 courses a year, now 15-20 courses per year
programmer took several hours to produce a report, now anyone can generate a report in seconds
programming took 180 hours per courses, now takes 60 hours per (typical) course
course cost for program owner $30K-$50K, now $3K - $15k

Advice when creating your own templates

• document your process
• take your time, don't try to standardize the whole process all at once or a full template library
• keep it simple - if the template requires training to use, it's not simple enough
• expect changes - you'll have mistakes and successes, learn from both
• be flexible - allow for variance
• collect pre & post template data to show impact
• there are no guarantees - standardizing does NOT ensure effective content; templates do not ensure good design

Template resources

http://www.horton.com/html.elformsword.aspx

Ray Jimenez - 3-minute eLearning: Rapid Learning and Applications, Amazingly Lower Cost and Faster Speed of Development: Demos, Examples, Template, & Video Vignettes

Patti Shank - The Online Learning Idea Book: 95 Proven Ways to Enhance Technology-Based and Blended Learning.

eLearning on a Shoestring (eLearning Guild Online Forum)

E-learning on a Shoestring: Help for the Chronically Underfunded - Jane Bozarth
bozarthzone.com

I was able to sit in on the eLearning Guild's Online Forums today and here is a collection of notes from this presentation.

For every product I like there are hundreds more out there and the market is getting bigger and bigger all the time.

Converting an existing 2 hour course $25K
New course $65K
LMS cost $200-$1m

Build or buy:

• does it really have to be company specific (ie: fire safety, whmis, etc?)
• everyone thinks there own this is special and unique
• do you have more than 500 users - is it worth the time to create/buy the courses if no one is going to use them

Remember that you should balance the ideas of:

• can you get it out earlier or spend hours on making it elegant
• can you get it good enough or does it have to be perfect
• everything does not have to be visual & auditory & etc, etc
• 0$, student misses the performance objective, but then they want situational
• examples....turns into a $50000 with a 6 month delay - SCOPE CREEP
• don't waste money past what objective you need to meet
  
  * Find the critical 20% of information: regarding making sure SME's only have the info they need included.

Word - webpage template wizard ---find for a 3 page instruction piece
(but writes bad and cluttered code - not great for HTML & Webpage tools)

MS Paint - graphics, designing, editing, creating - FREE (it can help out with what you need on a basic level)

Buy what you need! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uk2sPl_Z7Z (The Mona Lesa created with MS Paint)...whewww....what a lot of work.

"Good elearning comes from design rather than the software"

PowerPoint

• pictures with audio can work as well as video with audio
• hyperlink areas of the screen
• large file size can be avoided by converting the ppt to a flash file
• if you are using video and you are showing only someones mouth moving you are wasting your money on the video

75% of learners have..... try to go with what they have

• lots of text
• lots of video
• lots of audio
  (or just a little of each to match your learners' technology)

Nothing is more compelling than putting your learner into real situations of learning.
ie: family struggles, mother trying to feed a family, trying to get your first job, etc
-if you can get your learner to go and try other scenarios (all the scenarios) you've created something very compelling.

Games (ie: CourseBuilder)

• small java program
• scaffolding and feedback (once twice)
  **don't just replicate tests you could do with pencil and paper - then you might as well use a survey tool
  (tool - Hot Potatoes, mix match questions, fill in the blanks, short answer, etc)

Add on, don't renovate

Collaborative Learning Systems http://www.clsllc.com/
each game - $1.80 (only mine, once you download to your own system)
Quia
$99 for education (jeopardy, surveys, homepages, feedback, quizzes, matching, etc)
- launched to 10,000 with no issues (unlimited users)

Web Quests
"student....you're going to research info and create something for our public to learn"
-send them to the pages you want to see

Collaboration

• role plays (discussion boards, emails)
• case studies
• group tasks (discussion boards, emails) (everyone posts their ideas, compile up a consensus answer - everyone participates)
• 23 Things - do all the 23 things and you win a prize (to do list)
• blogs - have your own blogs, get students to discuss a topic live, then post their own answers to the topic on their own blog
• Job aids - with call outs on important areas (can eliminate screens of training

Re-use videos, cliparts, templates

Talking to Management

• research
• what can you do cheaply
• PowerPoint $0
• webpage $0
  (exsiting 2 hour course to transfer to an online courses- 1 month to 6 weeks of time) - but depends on the topic of the course, expertise of designer, SMEs, etc

Tracking and LMS (what do you want it to do)

• how many people are going to access the programs
• did so and so access the program
• did so and so complete the program
• did they start and complete, or not complete
  registrations

Free options for LMS features (like features)

• counters
• email
• paper/pencil
• proctors
• polls and surveys
• quia and web communities (at $99 you get lots of reports and feedback as well)

Jane's Books
Better Than Bullet Points
e-Learning Solutions Shoestring
From Analysis to Evaluation

Why's the blog so busy - testing things out

I'm no HTML wizard, but I can find my way around the code alright. Enough so that I can change up the colours, fonts, etc. as the moment finds me. I often change them just to give my blog a fresh look, but I tend to keep the same layout as I guess I've at least become accustom to its design.

Today I finally figured out how to change the background outside the main blog area from a solid colour to an image I choose. I know this may be very simple for many folks, but for me it was driving nuts trying to get it to work. Now, I too know how simple this change is as well.

I've also changed/added some gadgets down the side to some of the Google tools that are now available. Sorry readers, in an effort to keep my self amused, you;ll continue to see the colours/images on the page change around from time to time.

Stay c o l o u r f u l everyone!

A Pondering about Webcam Use

After catching up on some blog reading and being directed to some different videos out there.....

"Why do people who use webcams spend more time looking at themselves on the computer screen then directly into the camera?"

Just wondering? Thoughts?

Nokia & Spike Lee & You team up to create a new movie

This is a neat idea that I came across tonight. Unfortunately it's into it's 3 part, but there is still time to participate and collaborate if you would like to be a part of Spike Lee's next major film.

You can check out the Nokia Productions website and upload your photos, videos, text, etc all from your phone. Selected items will be used in the making of the upcoming film. Humanity is the overall theme and focuses on the role that music plays throughout the experiences of your life.

So far submissions for Birth and Life have been received and they are now excepting items for the final Act - Death. The deadline for submissions is August 20, 2008.

There is no limit to the number of submissions you can make and you don't have to use a Nokia product to take part in the project. Take a look around you; use your phone or camera; you might become a movie maker that quickly.

How do you keep up with all the new trends/tools?

In speaking with a recently acquired colleague (I think I'm going to start elearning trading cards) we were discussing how difficult for us "experts" (if we can loosely call ourselves that) it is to keep up with all the new web tools, elearning trends, latest software, best techniques, etc.

I know for myself I'm constantly trying to keep up-to-date on what is the latest and greatest, but it is all coming so fast it's hard to keep up with. Recently someone on Twitter I follow mentioned that they were cutting their RSS feeds down to just the ones they "want" to read not "feel they had" to read. Mine constantly is well over 1000 and I to need to follow this strategy.

It also seems to be that it feels as if one or two colleagues have a really good handle on some new trend and I let them run with it, but go to them for advice about it when the time arises instead of learning what I can myself. Not that I'm not completely interested, but finding the time to commit is difficult.

As mentioned above we are typically the "experts" in this field within our organizations. So how do we maintain that level of knowledge when there is so much to know?

I'm curious to know if you are having the same trouble keeping up with everything? If so how are you coping or managing to stay ahead? What are some strategies that you've developed?