When is the content enough? LMS Pilot has become too intense

I'm working on a school project where I get to use Blackboard as a teacher. I have an assignment worth 30% of my overall class mark, but the actual content of the course material I put into the system is only worth 1/3rd of the mark. I've been working at it and working at it creating this in depth learning course on using myUdutu.com to create online courses. I'm at the fifth page (.doc) of my course material and I haven't even gotten past the templates that are available to you as an author.

I'm now mulling over where do I "stop" the course so that it ends at an appropriate place (end of topic). When can I say I've done enough that's about 1/3rd's worth. I think I may be creating the supreme version of the course as opposed to the first chapter.

I've realized today that I'm doing the same thing with my LMS pilot or preparation for the pilot. I've been killing myself mentally and physically (okay only my fingers are cramping up, but it does hurt). I've been working endlessly to get all my physical course catalogue inputted into the LMS catalogue. I've been trying to create 2 elearning courses for the learners to try. I've also been trying to make sure the system works flawlessly from a student perspective, author, manager, and administrator.

A friend was kind enough to slap some reality into me today and allowed me to step back and look at it for what it is....a pilot. Not everything is going to work right away and it probably should not work perfectly. It should be expected that there will be things you'll want to tweak and fix so that it better matches your learners expectations. It doesn't need to have the entire course catalogue created. It just needs a sampling of classroom courses and online courses for them to register for and take. I have 2 SCORM courses from the Ontario Health Association that will make good test courses. One has sound and video. I would love to have one or two of our own courses in there, but it's not a necessity.

My LMS Tips for today is to take it easy on yourself, remember your pilot is only a pilot. It is simply there for you to test out the functionality of your system for you as an administrator and for your learners for ease and simplicity. Can they navigate their way around the system easily? Step back, simplify it for yourself, get the main components in that you require, it does not have to be at the 100% GO LIVE stage. Another really big big tip I got today as well is....you don't have to turn every part of the system on. Our system has the ability for the manager to approve a staff member taking a course. I've been going nuts trying to make sure this works....but why? Mangers don't do this right now in our learning environment, why do they need to do it online. Myself and my colleague aren't convinced it works the way we would want to any way. So we'll leave it be for now. Pretend it doesn't exist and deal with it later if we see it as a necessary tool.

Hope this too helps you sleep a little better my LMS friends.

eLearning Learning - Now Launched

Tony Karrer graciously asked me to participate in the launch of a new tool called eLearning Learning. I've added to my blog sidebar and you will be able to use it to see the most common terms, tools, and concepts that I blog about. Each of those links within the tool (widget) can then be break down further in to more specific content. As you follow a link you will first come to the content that was created by myself, or fed into the eLearning Learning site. As you scroll through that you will come to content created by others. If you use one of the links available to you now on the eLearning Learning site you will be able to further into the first topic link (i.e. Learning > Learning-Blogging, or Learning-Technology, etc.). The break down goes on and on.

"This is the beginning of a community portal where the community will help to collect and organize the best content from blogs and web sites. The goal is to create a place where it's relatively easy to find current content and highly relevant content surrounding eLearning." - Tony Karrer

Currently the content is mostly feed in through blogs, but will be expanded in the future.

If you want to try out the tool on some live blogs there are a few launch sites you can take a look through and play with:


Tracy Hamilton - Discovery through eLearning (mine)

Collin Kromke - Web 2.0 Work

Kevin Jones - Engaged Learning

Wendy Wickham - In The Middle of the Curve

Tony Karrer - eLearning Technology

Educational Videos Online and Other Great Stuff

I saw this linked passed through Twitter from Dennis Callahan, it's 10 Free Online Educational Video Options. The list was compiled by Ace Online Schools blog.

"Ace Online Schools is a guide to useful online resources for students and professionals. In addition to our own tips and tutorials, we recommend websites and applications that help you work and live more productively."

I was aware of the first few as they are quite mainstream but am grateful to see the remaining fantastic options. I'm not a school teacher, but there definitely appears to be some great resources here for instructors in general.

LMS Big Dreaming...Darn

I was so close to being happy....they almost had it. Update to my earlier post (moments ago). Further investigation by me is they haven't quite got it yet. They have grasped the concept that a course may take place over many days with in a week and that each day the time may be different, but what if it is over several months. Giving me the option to enter in a class that happens Monday at 2:00 and Wednesday at 3:00 doesn't quite solve my problem.

Mine is I have 1 course that runs twice a year (2 sessions). Each session has 6 modules (full days). Due to the lack of rooms available to us they are not always every other Thursday or follow any pattern for that matter. I have one schedule Feb. 12, Feb. 26, Mar. 19, Mar. 26, Apr. 9, Apr. 30 2009. Take a look at a calendar and see how scattered these are, at least they are all Thursdays. Luckily they are all in the same room, but this is a fluke.

My vendor is close to solving it, but not quite there yet. I've taken their screen shots and with some graphic editing resent back to them what I was hoping for instead. Fingers crossed I'm not dreaming to large.

Big Changes in My LMS World Today

A couple of key things have begun to happen today. One I attended a meeting with my key IT people and the HR manager. Our HR system is a little old (okay very old) and has not really been updated for the size of staff we have currently. It was a great little system 10-15 years ago, but now that we have tripled in size it doesn't really meet our needs. One of them being who reports to whom. We have been existing with who is paid by which budget line. Not great for accountability, performance support, or my LMS.

The good news today is that the HR system is now approximately 10% away from being complete to function the way we need it to for the current situation. We of course have larger, grander schemes in mind, but it will (should) suffice for now.

Secondly, I began to panic this afternoon as simple procedures within the LMS as an administrator seemed to have disappeared. So I fired off an email to the vendor, stated they must be up to something as everything was crashing on my end and I went to lunch.

To my surprise upon my return; nothing was fixed. I then decided forget it I'll work around the errors and keep doing what I'm doing. A bit more typing, a few more screens and suddenly I have new fields available to me for creating courses. My biggest excitement is they may have, just may have, found a way for me to input courses that run over multiple days. Yippee!!!!

My LMS tip for the day: create really strong communication connections with your vendor. Make sure that you each know what the other is doing, when, and for how long. We have run into several issues like this where suddenly nothing is working. We panic on our end, only to find out that they are fixing bugs that we requested be fixed. Unless you each know what the other is working on ill relationships and understanding develop very quickly.

Latest LMS Implementation Issue - External Access

So one (of the many) things to keep me awake at night right now, in regards to my LMS implementation is the whole issue around access. Currently our intranet is not accessible externally. Our LMS portal runs through our intranet.

Management and physicians have access to the network from home or external offices. The issue now is the 2600 other staff that don't. The several issues I have with this are how do we expect staff do complete mandatory education that will be provided as elearning packages if we 1) don't have enough computer stations for them to use, and 2) have limited amount of free time we can give them on the job to do the packages. The logical choice then appears to let them work on it at home through the elearning system.

Hense my dilemma.....that does not exist. Please tell me these issue begin to dwindle at some point.

Corporate Learning Trends & Innovations 2008 - Have You Signed Up

I'm working through all the incredible events that are offered through Corporate Learning Trends and Innovations 2008 site. I'm surprised there are so few members currently, considering it will run from Nov. 17th until the 21st.

"Join us to explore new developments, track emerging opportunities, network with other learning pioneers, and deal with topics you don’t find at the conferences you have to travel to. Come online the week of November 17 for a different kind of conference experience. Mark your calendar now. The event is free. Events are live and online. Hook up with fellow innovative thinkers and international visionaries to gain insight into what’s going on, swap opinions, and shape the future of learning. Share your suggestions with the organizers at learntrends.com"

Did you see that word FREE in that quote? How can you pass up joining in the discussion? Not enough for you, then how about the speakers scheduled to share on their insights....

Nov. 17
Jane Hart - 25 Free Tools Every Learning Professional Should Have in their Toolbox
Robin Good - Best Online Collaboration Tools for Learning
Learning Technology Strategy in Climates of Change (organized by George Siemens)
Q&A with David Weinberger

Nov. 18
Tools, the Discussion (organized by Tony Karrer, Robin Good, Jane Hart)
Tony Karrer - Work Literacy - Implications for Learning Professionals
Dave Pollard - Working Smarter

Nov. 19
Nancy White - Online social architectures - Networks & communities
Marcia Connor - Learning When the Money Runs Out
Jay Cross, Jane Hart, Harold Jarche, Clark Quink - Learnscape Sandbox

Nov. 20
Alvaro Fernandez - Key research behing cognitive & emotianl training

Nov. 21
Kevin Wheeler - Future of Work
Allison Anderson - Enterprise Learning
Jay Cross - What's it all about?
Dave Gray - Visual Literacy

EnglishCafe - helping each other to learn English

I had this interesting site sent to me today; http://www.englishcafe.com/.

"Like the best Cafés around the world, EnglishCafé is an enclave for vibrant and respectful exchange of knowledge, ideas and entertainment. We value the diversity of people, the unique experiences they bring, and the cultures from which their voices rise.

English does not belong to any group of people. English is a language that is malleable enough for the entire world to use. For this reason, we can learn from each other and about each other through this language. We can indeed advance our careers with English knowledge and make ourselves more marketable in the global economy. It is with a spirit of openness and desire to understand that we built EnglishCafé. We invite you to come in, gain or share knowledge, and join in a world-wide conversation about words and culture."

They asked me to look at it as it is in beta stage currently. I immediately was drawn to how easily I could navigate around the site looking for the answers I might need to find as a user. Also I got drawn in through out the day looking at places where I could contribute answers to other users that were asking questions.

There is an area where any registered user can post a question such as "what is the difference between Miss and Ms." This might seem a simple question to first-language English speakers, but for those learning it is confusing. As our organization becomes more diversity aware we realize more and more how difficult it might be to explain how so many English words, such as "fare" & "fair", may sound the same but are spelt so differently and mean vary different things as well.

My colleague who is getting her certificate as an English as a Second Language instructor said there are many sites out there that do assist with this, but her first reaction was very positive as well.

Another aspect I liked about the site was it's collaborative nature in posting a question to the community and the community responding back with answers. Each new member responding often elaborates on the previous answer and so the user posing the question get's quite in depth responses.

I look forward to seeing how well this site is received by users and how it progresses into the future.

eLearning & LMS Implementation Mentor Needed

Driving for 3 days at 8 hours at a shot gave me lots of time to think, ponder, and worry more and more about the LMS implementation that is a few weeks away. I reach out to my peers quite often through this and am so grateful for all the help I continue to receive. I know now I really need your assistance again or even a mentor that I can ask questions of and bounce ideas off as I move forward over the next few months.

I am a department of one and I am only a subsection of our Organization Development department. My project is of course then not the priority of the department, but one of several priorities (yes, an oxy-moron for sure). I made the mistake of looking a my email the last night of my vacation and that threw lots of questions and worry my way.

Please assist/answer any of these if you can either through this blog or through my direct email. Any advice is sincerely appreciated.

1) I have many depts in my organization that are all wanting to develop self-learning packages (everyone is sick of doing training for 2600 people 10 students at a time).

• Do I let them each develop their own training and leave it at that?
• Do I let them do the developing and then assist with giving suggestions where it can be improved?
• Do I develop guidelines/procedures that they have to follow when creating their own training packages? (Does anyone have an example?)
• I've had recent questions about getting Articulate. I know Articulate and Captivate each have their own merits. Wondering if someone that has used both can give me some background on their preference?
• Do I let them produce their packages in PowerPoint and then have them give the material to me to convert into elearning courses?

Any suggestions.......(whew)....I'm ready for vacation again and haven't even stepped foot back in the office yet.

Clark Aldrich was the last 2 questions on my mid-term last night.

I wrote (or clicked) my way through a mid-term last night for a Online Technology course, and yes I passed with flying colours Mom.

I was pleasantly surprised for 2 reasons. I was interesting to work through a multiple choice test that actually covered everything taught so far, and was challenging at the same time. I haven't had a real thought provoking multiple choice test since University Biology classes (those are NOT pleasant by any sense of the imagination).

The second surprise was that the last 2 questions on the exam were "According to Clark Aldrich....."

Care to have a go at them?

True or False: According to Clark Aldrich in Learning Circuits, he predicts that immersive simulations will short-cut the experiential learning process to become the dominant form of high-end pre-packaged management training for the Play Station 2 generation.

True or False: According to Clark Aldrich in Learning Circuits learning experiences such as mentoring, apprenticeships, and group projects can lead to the kind of profound experiences that fundamentally grow people that can be orchestrated and captured by LMSs.

Blog Action Day - Poverty (Tsunamika Dolls)

My friend at work that volunteered in India this past summer and the summer before brought me back a precious little gift. A Tsunamika doll. A symbol of living hope.


"This project is conceived and executed by Upasana Design Studio of Auroville in the seaside villages of Auroville's bioregion. Nearly 480 fisherwomen from 6 villages are trained and from them around 180 ladies are now creating these little dolls called Tsunamika. She has been hand-made from fabrics left over from other creative works in Upasana. The project team, who trained the ladies, now supplies them with raw materials to continue producing the dolls. All dolls produced are bought from them in bulk and are gifted unconditionally worldwide by Upasana."

What strikes me here is that these women are being empowered to make life a little better for themselves. Many, if not all, were left with very little after the Tsunami. These ladies now have a job they can do daily. "When they earn money through work, there is dignity, pride and self respect in them, they know the value of what they receive, they learn new skills, they learn to discipline and channelize their energies. These are the real but intangible assets they receive, money is only a means to brings this out."

Ending poverty is not purely giving out money to those in need. It is helping those that need it to find that dignity, pride, and self respect that we each strive for regardless of our situation. It is a fundamental need we each have.

I proudly wear my Tsunamaki doll each day, pinned to my name badge at work. It reminds me of many things of which I am thankful and grateful.

Simple Clean Learning Example on BBC News

I just wanted to make note of this simple interactive bit of learning that was on the BBC News Science & Environment page from Friday. The title first caught my eye "Alien species are a problem in the UK - and invasive plants are causing some of the worst damage." So I took a quick look.

Without reading anything I was drawn into the simple, yet colourful illustration of a garden with labels scattered around it. Little arrow symbols for "PLAY" immediately made me know there was more to the diagram. As I clicked through each of them up came a quick 2-3 minute video about the Alien Plant, when it arrived in the UK, and the damage it was causing being alien to the UK environment.


The topic might not intrigue everyone, but the simplicity of the way the lectures were delivered would probably draw your students into any lesson you might want to share. A good idea/model to follow.

LMS Name & Logo Created, If I Could Just Get the LMS to Look as Nice

I think I've got it. With a little more brainstorming with a different colleague we decided we liked SOL. So we added an S on the end and now have SOLS, the Southlake Online Learning System. Ooooh sounds so fancy you say.

Then I played with some logo designs I'm sure Corporate Communications will never approve.

Well here's hoping they do. I think they're kind of neat and it was a nice distraction for the last 1/2 hour of my day. Now all I need is to get the LMS running and looking just as good.

I did get a new version of the system loaded up today. Some good new fixes were added. Some old bugs were removed. There are still a few things I'd love them to change, but I'm not sure how much further to press my luck. I've got 5 more working days to get some content loaded onto the silly thing. Then a week vacation - Yeah!!!! Then I'm suppose to being piloting it with users at the end of the month.

Where ever will I find the time to make cool t-shirts, hats, and any other swag I think will sell this to the masses.

Careful what you name your LMS

I was just brainstorming with a friend from our Corp. Communications on a name for our LMS. I've been looking into this for a bit, but it slipped my mind and now I need to come up with something.

So we threw around the words "university", "college", "academy", "elearning", "online", "intranet". Finally we came up with Southlake Online Learning. Sounds plain. Sounds simple. SOL is catchy. It's "brightening our Stars for tomorrow.

Oh ya, in case you missed it the acronym is S. O. L. If you don't know what else that stands for....give me an email.

Back I go to brainstorming.

Dear Boss: Let me tell you what I really think....whoops

I saw this post today via LifeHacker and them in turn from The Official Gmail Blog. Google labs is working on a feature, Mail Goggles, that once set will give you a series of math questions to test your own level of consciousness on whether sending that late Saturday night email is such a good idea.

If you're one of those people that decides at 1:00am you've waited long enough to tell someone exactly what you think of them, then it sounds like this feature might be for you. On the other hand if you often find the need to self-edit, then perhaps this tool is just pointing to something greater....step away from the computer....go to bed.

I'll admit it...I've made a few phone calls that way in college, but no emails...yet :)

Getting addicted to Tweets? Maybe.

Last year at the Annual Gathering someone asked if I was hooked into Twitter that they would send me a message that way about where to meet up later during the event. I wasn't but quickly did to give it a try and check it out.

It did take me a little getting use to setting up and using as I still have an old regular cell phone. (hmm no iphone, instinct, or other yet) I'm also in Canada so it took a few more screens to get it going, but it wasn't overly frustrating. Soon I started finding a few key people who I follow on blogs to follow on Twitter. Messages started to come in about what project they were working on. What articles people were reading. Blogs they were posting. So on and so on the work related info came to me.

My hubby kept wondering why my phone was going off all the time. So I tried to explain how it was a connection to peers and I was learning from them some of the latest and greatest of what they were learning. Then came in the messages on the weekend...kids just won a swim meet, flying my kite at the park, sitting at the ball game, watching a race, meeting with other Twits (lol....is that right...perhaps not...but I kind of like it).

So many months later I now have a few more people following me, I'm following a few more people, and the messages are coming in more and more and more. And frankly I really like it. Now I'm wondering hmmmmm am I getting addicted to knowing what others are doing. At first I wondered why would someone tell me that their kids just won a race, now I've changed my thoughts and am thinking I'm really happy they are sharing this with me. Not only is the work stuff important to share, but the personal stuff is as well.

It's strange how the little bits of personal messages that flow in after the work hours and on the weekends help you to learn more about the people with whom you are connecting. It takes the "coldness" (if there was any to begin with) and turns a bunch of stranger peers into friend peers.

It's much like coming into work, going to the coffee break table and asking what people did on the weekend. I'm thrilled to know that someone and thier wife just tried cooking lobster for the first time. I'm happy to find out that someone is in downtown Omaha. I'm estatic to find a new free video capturing tool. It's all good.

Check with me in another 6 months to see if I still like it....lol.

Internet and Email Use at Work - Study Findings

PEW Internet and American Life Project have a great paper out right now with some interesting stats on use of the internet and email and how it effects workers. It is from September 24, 2008 and the data seems to have been collected earlier in the year.

It caught my attention in relation to the Work Literacy Web 2.0 for Learning Professionals workshop/class/network (it's a bit of all of these). Someone was wondering if the tasks people are doing in relation to age have shifted over the last year or so. It seems that the older boomers maybe even seniors (in terms of generations) are more 2.0 savvy than ever. I'm not sure to be honest, but this report has some interesting information on how email (personal and work related) and the internet effect workers at home and in the "office". I know the eLearning Guild is also doing a free webinar today on their eLearning 2.0 360 findings as well and may address some of this - who is doing what and where idea.

Some of the PEW/Internet findings:

Working men and women are equally as likely to blog, but young adults far outpace older workers in their engagement with blogging. Employed internet users ages 18-29 are more than twice as likely to blog when compared with 30-49 year olds (20% vs. 9%). However, young adults are no more likely to report at-work tending to their blog; just 2% say they blog from work.

Blog reading is also most prevalent among younger generations of employed internet
users. One in three internet-using employees (33%) say they have read someone else’s blog or online journal, and 11% report at least some at-work reading. However, among young working adults, 46% are blog readers, compared with 33% of 30-49 year olds and 25% of employed internet users ages 50-64. At-work blog reading is equally prevalent among all of these groups.

Starting to be a Collector (comment from Work Literacy Ning)

Susan Neva commented today, after seeing a graph (What People are Doing) that I shared, that they would like to become more of a collector and wants to learn how to accomplish this task starting with RSS feeds.

I responded (and decided to share here) with a comment.

Week 4 of Work Literacy seems to be when we get into RSS feeds a bit more, but if you want a place to start try Google Reader. It's quite simple to use and navigate though and a great place to start collecting feeds. They don't have to be just on the topic you are interested in (ie: elearning) but can be space, news, cooking, it's endless. Word to the wise, don't collect too many or you end up not having time to read them all.

I'd start with Tony Karrer's blog, Brent Schlenker's, or mine. Tony and Brent have amazing content, but the reason I listed all three is they have great blog lists of others we follow and might be of interest to you. Tony suggested at one session to keep a feed for 30-60 days (I think) and then determine if you are getting much from the content. If it isn't of much interest to you after that, then clear it away. This way you don't end up with 1000+ rss posting a day.

Brent has just changed his reader to no feeds at all. If someone has a blog that he is following, he hopes they have now got Twitter Feeds coming from it as well and he relies on the blog headings that come through twitter. Not sure how this is working yet for him, but it's an interested way to keep up with all the info we share with one another. I use the Twitter Feeds myself through out the day to check those topics that pop up and are intriguing to me at the moment.

Feeling behind, overwhelmed, leading to discouragement - LMS blues

So I guess I have the LMS blues. I'm coming to what should be the final stretch of getting the LMS functioning. I should have access to a new version of the system. I should have several courses on it for users to try out. I should have our HR system talking to our Active Directory system, talking to the LMS and functioning. I should have a pilot group all set ready to give it all a try. I should feel like things are coming together.

BUT I DON'T.

I, like most of you, feel completely swamped by the every day tasks that come my way. The barrage of emails, the phone calls, and the drop-ins. They are all taking their toll and time away from me being able to concentrate on the tasks at hand. Getting the LMS running.

I'm in a bit of a panic there in that I'm not convinced the people that can (IT) have been able to get the HR system to have all the fields populated that should be populated so that we know who reports to whom instead of who gets paid by whom. Even if that is completed, I'm not sure our Active Directory is picking it up yet. However, as B.J. Schone has told me many times....always have an IT buddy and I think Ryan is mine. I gave him some blank discs today...he said he can get the AD up to speed in no time. So I hope it works, I just have no control or authority to say "make it happen".

As I said the drop-ins have been a bit overwhelming so I don't know if the new system is ready for me to try out or not. When I say new I mean a few tweaks here and there. But the vendor's idea of a pilot group and my idea are off by about 60 people. I don't want to test the system and see if it works and functions. It should upon purchase. I do want to have a small representation of various users give it a go and tell me if they can easily navigate and find what they need, register, take a course. If they can't then perhaps some tweaks, but more likely change the training to address the gap.

Finally the time line. According to the vendor I should have everything in place, oh let me see, yesterday. Doesn't work like that. Most of the elearning people I have connected with are departments of one. How many of us have time to concentrate on one thing either? Don't get me started if you are in health care. My colleagues here in Ontario would definitely know that most of us wear 2, 3, and sometimes 4 different hats. Each of those have their own priorities as well and let's not talk about where our bosses think our priorities should start.

Okay. I feel better, well at least feel it's off my chest. Thanks for the rant. I think I've covered a few concerns I hope you'll concern if you go through an implementation.