Mixed Messages

I've recently seen a lot of posts in blogs and on twitter about mixed messages. One I saw this morning on Twitter was "What message does it send if your co has a Facebook page and YouTube channel but you're blocked from it at work? (via @moehlert) " and it made me think about the various mixed messages that get sent in pur eLearning efforts.

One such mixed message is that we want our learners to be independent thinkers and adopters of knowledge and technology and then we "dumb" down our courses so much that we are insulting our learners.

Another such mixed message is when we advertise our courses as engaging and interactive and they are really just page turners with no opportunity for interaction or engagement.

I think it is important that our messages to our learners are consistent one way or another. There may be times when a page turner course is appropriate, we should advertise it in a manner that accurately represents what it is. If we don't we loose the trust of our learners. If we loose their trust we loose their participation.

This weeks interesting reads.

Here are my top reads for this week:

Recommended End of Year eLearning Tools Spending? http://elearningtech.blogspot.com/2009/11/recommended-end-of-year-elearning-tools.html
Learning Power Laws: eLearning Technology - http://elearningtech.blogspot.com/2009/11/learning-power-laws.html
3 Ways to Define Interactive Rapid e-Learning - http://www.articulate.com/rapid-elearning/3-ways-to-define-interactive-rapid-e-learning/
Toondoo Spaces - http://www.fossil.energy.gov/education/energylessons/index.html
Can Fun Help Change Behaviors? - http://www.upsidelearning.com/blog/index.php/2009/10/31/can-fun-help-change-behaviors/
Wild and Wacky Friday: Just in Time for Halloween, photo editing made fun - http://www.upsidelearning.com/blog/index.php/2009/10/31/can-fun-help-change-behaviors/

Walk in their shoes

With Halloween tomorrow many (myself included) of the people in my office have dressed up in their costumed alter ego's. As much fun as it is it also made me think about putting yourself into the shoes of others...more specifically our learners. If we don't take the time and put ourselves into the place of our learners and see the training through their eyes we risk missing some information. We also risk missing the point which is to make the training interesting and engaging for our learners so they will use them.

"Dress Up" as your learner and then take a look at your presentation and see what you think...it will be an interesting experience and help you create better eLearning!

Happy Halloween!

"Why do I get out of bed and go to work?"

Have you ever looked at a job description and wonder "What makes the person in that job get out of bed in the morning and come to work?" What about those days when you hit the brick wall and wonder "Why do I want to get out of bed this morning and go to work?" We've all been there, we've all had days where we are just warming the chair and not being our most productive selves. We still carry on through meetings, webinars, training, etc. but on these days are we learning? How do we as designers engage our learners on these days?

I don't know about you, but when these days are around for me if something doesn't catch my attention within the first 5 seconds I'm gone and on to something else that might provoke my interest and engage my attention. So there is an answer for designing, it needs to grab your attention immediately, no big long lead in about what you're going to learn, no pages of text telling you what is coming next, you need to get the attention of the learner NOW or you won't get to later.

There is a lot of information out there about designing attention grabbing graphics and those are great but they also need to be followed up with continued attention grabbing content. In this fast paced world, were it is admitted that most people don't read past the first three lines of an email, if our learners aren't interested and engaged they are gone and our work has been for nought and we begin to wonder "why do I get out of bed this morning to go to work?". It is up to us to get our learners engaged and then keep them that way so we ourselves can stay motivated and know why we get out of bed in the morning.

To Market, yes but how?

So you've spent time and energy creating your eLearning program and presentations and you've published them to your company website. Now you've got to get your audience to participate and utilize them. The question that you have to answer now is how do you get the word out? What is the best way to make sure that your employees and audience know that they are out there and available for them to use?

I'm asking you for your ideas, what has worked for you and what hasn't. Please leave your opinions, thoughts and ideas.

Great Blog Posts

Here are some great blog posts that I found useful from my reading last week:

Elearner Motivation & Support - [[http://newmiddle-earth.blogspot.com/2009/09/elearner-motivation-and-support.html]]
10 Sites to Learn Something New in 10 Minutes a Day - http://mashable.com/2009/09/24/learning-resources/
What’s the Difference: Learning Designer vs Instructional Designer? http://learningvisions.blogspot.com/2009/09/whats-difference-learning-designer-vs.html
What makes online learning effective? http://alearning.wordpress.com/2009/09/30/what-makes-online-learning-effective/
Top five tips for managing resources.
http://www.saffroninteractive.com/2009/blog/top-five-tips-for-managing-resources/
It's not the tool that’s boring, it’s you. http://michelemartin.typepad.com/thebambooprojectblog/2009/09/its-not-the-tool-thats-boring-its-you.html

What is good eLearning?

I've read several blog posts lately that all tie together in my mind to help us define what constitutes good eLearning programs. As we all know there are many things that work together when we are creating our programs to produce something that the learners will actually want to take part in so lets take a look at a few areas.

Content - Content is vital to any eLearning (or any learning) presentation. If there isn't quality content being presented, then what is the point? All you are doing is wasting your time and the learners time and creating frustration in the process. Ellen posts about this in her blog "What makes online learning effective?" and I completely agree with her.

Resources - With so many tools that are available to us to create our programs it is important that we manage the resources we use and don't just throw in more tools and techniques than we need to. Sometimes it is more appropriate for focusing on one or two techniques and resources to create a better program rather than a more confusing one with several techniques and methods. Here is a blog posting with "Top Five Tips for Managing Resources." that provides helpful tips and tricks.

People - With the technological advancements that make eLearning such a real and useful possibility I think that we can often forget that we are ultimately designing our programs for people to use and learn from. With the distance from the learner we get caught up with the resources and tools and forget what learners what and need and that whatever we provide them with has to be interesting in order for them to be engaged and using the programs. Not only did I like the title of Michele Martin's blog post "It's not the tool that's boring, it's you." I also like what she said. We can't just throw something out there and expect learners to accept and love it, if I wouldn't enjoy participating in the program presented like that then why would my learners?

Bringing all three of these things together and remembering them as I am preparing my presentations helps me to produce programs that people are using and learning from. I think it's a good thing though to remind myself of the basics every once in a while as well and these are the building blocks for quality programs.