Hello,
This will be my last blogging post here. My blog has now moved to:
http://blog.edcetratraining.com/
This month I'm focusing in on providing neat little tips and tricks for working with structured content and delivering high end eLearning courses.
Wednesday, September 8, 2010
Friday, July 23, 2010
Why eLearning Should Care About Adobe versus Apple
Two technology giants have exchanged blows over the last little while, in attempts to knock the other one out in the public’s eyes. Apple and Adobe are at odds over the adoption of the Flash platform on iPhones, iPads and iPods. The battle in fact reinforces the public’s strong interest and desire to have the two giants work together, but alas there seems to be no reconciliation in the near future.
In a letter Steve Jobs, CEO of Apple posted on the apple website, he writes:
Flash was created during the PC era – for PCs and mice. Flash is a successful business for Adobe, and we can understand why they want to push it beyond PCs. But the mobile era is about low power devices, touch interfaces and open web standards – all areas where Flash falls short.
The avalanche of media outlets offering their content for Apple’s mobile devices demonstrates that Flash is no longer necessary to watch video or consume any kind of web content. And the 200,000 apps on Apple’s App Store proves that Flash isn’t necessary for tens of thousands of developers to create graphically rich applications, including games. (http://www.apple.com/hotnews/thoughts-on-flash/)
One really interested party in reconciliation between the two giants is the eLearning industry who relies heavily on Flash to deliver what is commonly known as ‘interactive content’, videos and even just plain text. Moreover, the recent fascination with mLearning has the industry wanting a ubiquitous mobile platform that includes Flash capabilities.
Almost all eLearning industry accepted tools have Flash outputs and most have an mLearning component or are looking into it. The gross majority of organizations who develop their eLearning internally (which I would think form the largest producers of eLearning) have all armed themselves with the ‘do –it-yourself’ tool and handed it off to their non-technical resources who inevitably become the ‘developers’. As online learning is going mobile questions about how to build mobile learning, how do you deploy mobile learning are surfacing en masse. Almost all conversations based on these questions turn to the ugly truth that unfortunately iPhones and iPads don’t run Flash and so the ‘interactive bag-o-tricks’ have to be left at the door for large scale mLearning deployments. Instead folks are asked to consider creative thinking about how best to use the technology to make it larger than what it is (and there have been plenty of great ideas).
In the letter Jobs writes on the Apple site, there is one section that really caught my eye and sparked the motivation to write. He says:
Adobe’s Flash products are 100% proprietary. They are only available from Adobe, and Adobe has sole authority as to their future enhancement, pricing, etc. While Adobe’s Flash products are widely available, this does not mean they are open, since they are controlled entirely by Adobe and available only from Adobe. By almost any definition, Flash is a closed system. (http://www.apple.com/hotnews/thoughts-on-flash/)
Ever hear the expression ‘Here today, gone tomorrow’? With the rising white noise of HTML5 on the horizon are we as confident as we used to be that Flash is going no where? Talking about Apple, how many iMacs did we see in the airport five years ago perched on the business traveler’s lap? How many do we see today? Personally, I see almost as many iMacs as I do PCs. All that to say that technology changes, and it can change quickly or it can change very slowly. The scariness of what Jobs says is the collective sound of the bottom dropping out of corporate America’s internal training programs when they become locked out from use as new platforms take over.
Although this specific battle between Apple and Adobe isn’t at the heart of the issue (it’s the proprietary nature of the tools we use in eLearning) the battle should be a rallying call to everyone who has invested in technology enabled training. When I first started in this field, the big concern for corporate America was the collective retirement of baby boomers and the skills and knowledge that they will be taking with them as they go. How ever would corporate America capture that knowledge and then use it to train the up and coming generation of workers? Funny enough, the answer seems to have been ‘lock the knowledge into a proprietary format and distribute it using proprietary tools’. Funny…because what happens when the tools disappear?
Sure, it won’t happen tomorrow, or will it? A couple of years ago, a fairly large educational institution was given its new invoice for licensing a proprietary LMS for the next few years. Startled at the price increase the institution released a request for proposal seeking a new LMS at a more affordable price. As part of the requirements listed in the RFP, the new vendor would be responsible for converting legacy content in the old LMS, into the new platform. Guess what? Although the cost of a different LMS was cheaper, the cost to convert content to the new platform far exceeded the new licensing costs of the old LMS. Forced with a fiscally painful decision where there was a no win, the least painful route was sticking with the old system. Now I’m a believer in standards and support the SCORM initiative, however, every system has its nuances of implementing the standards and when you have thousands of courses and modules, the task of changing even one line of code to accommodate a system’s nuance results in a rather large undertaking.
The solution for me is not necessarily to implement an open source LMS system although, given the right situation this may help solve some problems for some people. Instead the solution is wrapping our content in open source formats. The paradigm shift, workflow shifts and business modeling shifts have to date interfered in corporations taking a good look at this (since it requires actual expertise rather than putting a new hat on an unqualified resource) but the feud between Apple and Adobe should at the very least make us reconsider.
The notion of wrapping content into open source formats may seem foreign and truth be told I’m using this phrasing in a very specific way. By ‘open source formats’ I’m driving at a vision of multiple software platforms (LMS’s, LCMS’s, authoring tols, etc) being able to process the same content regardless of how the platform was built itself. Processing content refers to a machine’s ability to apply a defined set of algorithms to ingest the content and then spit it out in a specified format (specified through algorithms). Therefore the only precondition to these platforms processing the content is that they contain algorithms that can understand how the content was wrapped. Sounds complicated, but in truth all systems work in this way. In other words for any system to work, there must be a common language, or common denominator that all components of a system understand. The common denominator allows the components to operate under their own set of rules, yet communicate with one another.
Bryan Chapman, from Brandon Hall in his paper At the Intersection of Learning and Enterprise Content Management, talks about the disconnectedness of training departments from ECM strategies which result in training departments having to recreate content that already exists elsewhere in the organization. That disconnectedness will always make training irrelevant when push comes to shove because they aren’t part of the system.
To be part of the system training departments need to be plugged in. Being plugged in means that content that exists elsewhere in the organization can flow through the training department (it can be processed and turned into training) without it having to be recreated. Building content with tool suites that only speak with themselves, locking training content into Flash, putting it into systems that can only be used for training purposes clearly feeds a disaggregated training department from an organization’s system.
Again turning to the feud between Adobe and Apple there ought to be strong global interest within the eLearning community to see it resolved, lest the marginalization of Flash become a reality. Moreover, there ought to be strong global interest from the eLearning community to protect themselves and their organizations from future feuds through the adoption of ‘open source formats’ for their content. Not only will organizations be protected from feuding giants but will have a basis on which to exchange content and have it flow through the system.
In a letter Steve Jobs, CEO of Apple posted on the apple website, he writes:
Flash was created during the PC era – for PCs and mice. Flash is a successful business for Adobe, and we can understand why they want to push it beyond PCs. But the mobile era is about low power devices, touch interfaces and open web standards – all areas where Flash falls short.
The avalanche of media outlets offering their content for Apple’s mobile devices demonstrates that Flash is no longer necessary to watch video or consume any kind of web content. And the 200,000 apps on Apple’s App Store proves that Flash isn’t necessary for tens of thousands of developers to create graphically rich applications, including games. (http://www.apple.com/hotnews/thoughts-on-flash/)
One really interested party in reconciliation between the two giants is the eLearning industry who relies heavily on Flash to deliver what is commonly known as ‘interactive content’, videos and even just plain text. Moreover, the recent fascination with mLearning has the industry wanting a ubiquitous mobile platform that includes Flash capabilities.
Almost all eLearning industry accepted tools have Flash outputs and most have an mLearning component or are looking into it. The gross majority of organizations who develop their eLearning internally (which I would think form the largest producers of eLearning) have all armed themselves with the ‘do –it-yourself’ tool and handed it off to their non-technical resources who inevitably become the ‘developers’. As online learning is going mobile questions about how to build mobile learning, how do you deploy mobile learning are surfacing en masse. Almost all conversations based on these questions turn to the ugly truth that unfortunately iPhones and iPads don’t run Flash and so the ‘interactive bag-o-tricks’ have to be left at the door for large scale mLearning deployments. Instead folks are asked to consider creative thinking about how best to use the technology to make it larger than what it is (and there have been plenty of great ideas).
In the letter Jobs writes on the Apple site, there is one section that really caught my eye and sparked the motivation to write. He says:
Adobe’s Flash products are 100% proprietary. They are only available from Adobe, and Adobe has sole authority as to their future enhancement, pricing, etc. While Adobe’s Flash products are widely available, this does not mean they are open, since they are controlled entirely by Adobe and available only from Adobe. By almost any definition, Flash is a closed system. (http://www.apple.com/hotnews/thoughts-on-flash/)
Ever hear the expression ‘Here today, gone tomorrow’? With the rising white noise of HTML5 on the horizon are we as confident as we used to be that Flash is going no where? Talking about Apple, how many iMacs did we see in the airport five years ago perched on the business traveler’s lap? How many do we see today? Personally, I see almost as many iMacs as I do PCs. All that to say that technology changes, and it can change quickly or it can change very slowly. The scariness of what Jobs says is the collective sound of the bottom dropping out of corporate America’s internal training programs when they become locked out from use as new platforms take over.
Although this specific battle between Apple and Adobe isn’t at the heart of the issue (it’s the proprietary nature of the tools we use in eLearning) the battle should be a rallying call to everyone who has invested in technology enabled training. When I first started in this field, the big concern for corporate America was the collective retirement of baby boomers and the skills and knowledge that they will be taking with them as they go. How ever would corporate America capture that knowledge and then use it to train the up and coming generation of workers? Funny enough, the answer seems to have been ‘lock the knowledge into a proprietary format and distribute it using proprietary tools’. Funny…because what happens when the tools disappear?
Sure, it won’t happen tomorrow, or will it? A couple of years ago, a fairly large educational institution was given its new invoice for licensing a proprietary LMS for the next few years. Startled at the price increase the institution released a request for proposal seeking a new LMS at a more affordable price. As part of the requirements listed in the RFP, the new vendor would be responsible for converting legacy content in the old LMS, into the new platform. Guess what? Although the cost of a different LMS was cheaper, the cost to convert content to the new platform far exceeded the new licensing costs of the old LMS. Forced with a fiscally painful decision where there was a no win, the least painful route was sticking with the old system. Now I’m a believer in standards and support the SCORM initiative, however, every system has its nuances of implementing the standards and when you have thousands of courses and modules, the task of changing even one line of code to accommodate a system’s nuance results in a rather large undertaking.
The solution for me is not necessarily to implement an open source LMS system although, given the right situation this may help solve some problems for some people. Instead the solution is wrapping our content in open source formats. The paradigm shift, workflow shifts and business modeling shifts have to date interfered in corporations taking a good look at this (since it requires actual expertise rather than putting a new hat on an unqualified resource) but the feud between Apple and Adobe should at the very least make us reconsider.
The notion of wrapping content into open source formats may seem foreign and truth be told I’m using this phrasing in a very specific way. By ‘open source formats’ I’m driving at a vision of multiple software platforms (LMS’s, LCMS’s, authoring tols, etc) being able to process the same content regardless of how the platform was built itself. Processing content refers to a machine’s ability to apply a defined set of algorithms to ingest the content and then spit it out in a specified format (specified through algorithms). Therefore the only precondition to these platforms processing the content is that they contain algorithms that can understand how the content was wrapped. Sounds complicated, but in truth all systems work in this way. In other words for any system to work, there must be a common language, or common denominator that all components of a system understand. The common denominator allows the components to operate under their own set of rules, yet communicate with one another.
Bryan Chapman, from Brandon Hall in his paper At the Intersection of Learning and Enterprise Content Management, talks about the disconnectedness of training departments from ECM strategies which result in training departments having to recreate content that already exists elsewhere in the organization. That disconnectedness will always make training irrelevant when push comes to shove because they aren’t part of the system.
To be part of the system training departments need to be plugged in. Being plugged in means that content that exists elsewhere in the organization can flow through the training department (it can be processed and turned into training) without it having to be recreated. Building content with tool suites that only speak with themselves, locking training content into Flash, putting it into systems that can only be used for training purposes clearly feeds a disaggregated training department from an organization’s system.
Again turning to the feud between Adobe and Apple there ought to be strong global interest within the eLearning community to see it resolved, lest the marginalization of Flash become a reality. Moreover, there ought to be strong global interest from the eLearning community to protect themselves and their organizations from future feuds through the adoption of ‘open source formats’ for their content. Not only will organizations be protected from feuding giants but will have a basis on which to exchange content and have it flow through the system.
Wednesday, June 30, 2010
What is sLML and why use it.
sLML stands for Structured Learning Markup Language. It is an open source XML standard to help learning designers and developers provide meaningful semantic markup to learning or knowledge based content. sLML was designed to support web 3.0 and the notion of performance based learning as opposed to event based learning. sLML provides a rich lexicon of instructionally relevant tags to content data. The sLML schema supports instructional design through the application of terms and concepts from the science of instructional design.
There are two important reasons to use sLML:
1) sLML provides a natural language around the tagging of content that can act as a common technology for processing learning content. What does this mean? In the same way that the Dewey Decimal System acts as a common technology for library sciences, sLML can provide a common framework for different learning applications to process content. ‘Processing content’ in this case refers to a computer’s ability to understand the nature of the learning content, and then distribute it to the appropriate platform, to the appropriate audience, in the appropriate language at the appropriate time. The distribution of content can be print based, computer based, through mobiles or any other distribution channel. Again, if you think about the Dewey Decimal System and how it is used by computers or card catalogs to find and retrieve books, the technology around the Dewey Decimal System is secondary. What makes the technology useful is the Dewey Decimal System itself. In the case of sLML, organizations are free to build their own tools that are relevant for their organization similarly to the different applications built around the Dewy Decimal System.
2) The use of the sLML model is consistent with the evolution of web technology. The web is slowly moving to being the ubiquitous operating system for everybody. More and more people are storing, transferring and using documents and applications directly on the web. As it relates to sLML facilitating the use of the web as a CPU means that computers (not humans) will be able do the actual developing, compiling and distribution of content into eLearning, print, mobile, etc at run time. This is much different than what happens today. Today the process for developing and compiling learning content into packages for distribution is a manual process. People compile content into pages, develop the code for those pages, apply the proper standards into the code so that the content can ‘play’ in the appropriate application, package the content and so on. Having a computer do that work means that content can be consumed in sync with its inclusion into the web. In other words, plug content into the web using a standardized semantic markup language (sLML) and then have your web based processing agent make sense of it, compile it, distribute it, track it and anything else, all at run time.
Final Vision
A standardized semantic markup language based on the science of instructional design for the learning community gives the community a powerful foundation to start ‘feeding the web’ with content that can be understood by machines. That understanding includes who the content is for, when do people need the content, what the subject of the content is, the learning hierarchical status of the content (memorize, explain, apply, etc), the language of the content and more. Once a machine can ‘understand’ the content, machines can ‘process’ the content into many different applications, including mobile delivery, eLearning, performance support tools, print based documents, etc. It also means that anyone using sLML, who has created personalized processing agents can grab any content using sLML and have it processed based on their individual specifications. To be clear, the processing includes building code such as HTML, PDF or flash in real time at the time the content is actually being accessed.
Benefits
Intuitive markup for creating learning content
Drastically reduce development time for print, eLearning, mLearning
Expand content, modify content without having to repackage it into its deliverable
sLML stands for Structured Learning Markup Language. It is an open source XML standard to help learning designers and developers provide meaningful semantic markup to learning or knowledge based content. sLML was designed to support web 3.0 and the notion of performance based learning as opposed to event based learning. sLML provides a rich lexicon of instructionally relevant tags to content data. The sLML schema supports instructional design through the application of terms and concepts from the science of instructional design.
There are two important reasons to use sLML:
1) sLML provides a natural language around the tagging of content that can act as a common technology for processing learning content. What does this mean? In the same way that the Dewey Decimal System acts as a common technology for library sciences, sLML can provide a common framework for different learning applications to process content. ‘Processing content’ in this case refers to a computer’s ability to understand the nature of the learning content, and then distribute it to the appropriate platform, to the appropriate audience, in the appropriate language at the appropriate time. The distribution of content can be print based, computer based, through mobiles or any other distribution channel. Again, if you think about the Dewey Decimal System and how it is used by computers or card catalogs to find and retrieve books, the technology around the Dewey Decimal System is secondary. What makes the technology useful is the Dewey Decimal System itself. In the case of sLML, organizations are free to build their own tools that are relevant for their organization similarly to the different applications built around the Dewy Decimal System.
2) The use of the sLML model is consistent with the evolution of web technology. The web is slowly moving to being the ubiquitous operating system for everybody. More and more people are storing, transferring and using documents and applications directly on the web. As it relates to sLML facilitating the use of the web as a CPU means that computers (not humans) will be able do the actual developing, compiling and distribution of content into eLearning, print, mobile, etc at run time. This is much different than what happens today. Today the process for developing and compiling learning content into packages for distribution is a manual process. People compile content into pages, develop the code for those pages, apply the proper standards into the code so that the content can ‘play’ in the appropriate application, package the content and so on. Having a computer do that work means that content can be consumed in sync with its inclusion into the web. In other words, plug content into the web using a standardized semantic markup language (sLML) and then have your web based processing agent make sense of it, compile it, distribute it, track it and anything else, all at run time.
Final Vision
A standardized semantic markup language based on the science of instructional design for the learning community gives the community a powerful foundation to start ‘feeding the web’ with content that can be understood by machines. That understanding includes who the content is for, when do people need the content, what the subject of the content is, the learning hierarchical status of the content (memorize, explain, apply, etc), the language of the content and more. Once a machine can ‘understand’ the content, machines can ‘process’ the content into many different applications, including mobile delivery, eLearning, performance support tools, print based documents, etc. It also means that anyone using sLML, who has created personalized processing agents can grab any content using sLML and have it processed based on their individual specifications. To be clear, the processing includes building code such as HTML, PDF or flash in real time at the time the content is actually being accessed.
Benefits
Intuitive markup for creating learning content
Drastically reduce development time for print, eLearning, mLearning
Expand content, modify content without having to repackage it into its deliverable
Tuesday, June 8, 2010
How the web wants us to learn
For years now, I've been touting the advantages of structured authoring for learning using Instructional Design as the semantic framework for markup. In so doing, I believe the value of instructional designers will once again be placed in the right spot and the industry as a whole (specifically consumers) would benefit both in dollars and time.
Well....the industry is still moving clumsily along with 'black box' technology, yet the most powerful learning tool in the world has completely changed the way people learn and has also demonstrated what learning could be. I would suggest that the Google search engine has done more for learners and learning than any other million dollar app out there. In fact, I would even suggest that Google has provided a will to the web on how people should learn. People have changed their own expectations and clearly show that they don't want 'event' based training, but rather the tools to give them the answers when they need them. So the web wants us to learn through performance support based paradigms (that may include full courses) and we want to learn that way also.
So why does our industry ignore what's happening and continue to work on technology that the web doesn't understand. Structured authoring for learning is the process that supports learning technologies that are understood by the web. What the web understands, the web can process. What the web can process results in pinpoint information when we need it the most. What platform is more ubiquitous than the web? Why not use it.
Thursday, October 8, 2009
Buy with an exit strategy
One thing I always like to tell people when they are about to purchase eLearning products or services, is buy with an exit strategy. What this means is before you go spend your money or your company's money on a product or service, consider the impact of the product itself or the vendor of the product not being around at some point. It also means buy knowing that you may want to move in a different direction one day.
Some of the biggest mistakes I've seen in the market come from large purchases that do not have an exit strategy. A company pays millions for an LMS, want to switch but the cost of moving content from one LMS to the other is so expensive, that spending millions to renew a license for a product you don't like is actually the path of least resistance.
Now factor in that the money spent designing and developing content, at some point exceeds any money you spend on infrastructure, you would think that decisions around products and tools might be made with a little more caution. Straight up, no bullshit, but 99% of the products and services people purchase are designed with a hook. They are designed to make the exit strategy painful.
One of the greatest assets of using a structured authoring approach based on open source technology means that if I need to move my content and my technology to a new platform...I can. Because form and function aren't hard coded together and that both are built using standard web technologies, means that I can move content to a new delivery and authoring platform without having to reauthor everything. What are you going to do with your content when you switch LMS's? How much money are you going to shell out to move your 'legacy' content?
You might want to rethink your Articulate/Captivate/Lectora/etc strategy.
Some of the biggest mistakes I've seen in the market come from large purchases that do not have an exit strategy. A company pays millions for an LMS, want to switch but the cost of moving content from one LMS to the other is so expensive, that spending millions to renew a license for a product you don't like is actually the path of least resistance.
Now factor in that the money spent designing and developing content, at some point exceeds any money you spend on infrastructure, you would think that decisions around products and tools might be made with a little more caution. Straight up, no bullshit, but 99% of the products and services people purchase are designed with a hook. They are designed to make the exit strategy painful.
One of the greatest assets of using a structured authoring approach based on open source technology means that if I need to move my content and my technology to a new platform...I can. Because form and function aren't hard coded together and that both are built using standard web technologies, means that I can move content to a new delivery and authoring platform without having to reauthor everything. What are you going to do with your content when you switch LMS's? How much money are you going to shell out to move your 'legacy' content?
You might want to rethink your Articulate/Captivate/Lectora/etc strategy.
Monday, September 21, 2009
sLML
Well...edCetra Training has finally released its open source semantic markup language for learning; sLML. It stands for Structured Learning Markup Language. The point of creating and releasing the language is to start a dialogue about a single platform that is diverse enough, scalable enough and rigid enough to power 'on-demand' learning. The language has shyed away from redefining packaging standards and also processing standards and has focused instead on really finding a generic instructional design model that can help folks structure their learning and provide semantic meaning to the content.
With this type of language in place, it allows for the potential of the semantic web to break through. Processing semantic content can happen on multiple levels and through multiple streams. It can happen in real time, or can be packaged and loaded up somewhere. Content can be reused, repurposed and rebranded without having to save the content elsewhere.
The sLML package can be downloaded from sourceforge and we are looking for contributors to help us push this specification through.
With this type of language in place, it allows for the potential of the semantic web to break through. Processing semantic content can happen on multiple levels and through multiple streams. It can happen in real time, or can be packaged and loaded up somewhere. Content can be reused, repurposed and rebranded without having to save the content elsewhere.
The sLML package can be downloaded from sourceforge and we are looking for contributors to help us push this specification through.
Monday, July 27, 2009
eLearning the Religion - The Unfortunate Parallel
It might be because I'm reading the book 'God Is Not Great', but I essentially can't lose this feeling that eLearning and the folks within the industry operate as a 'religion'. Now there are going to be some of you who think this is a good thing. I couldn't disagree more.
Without getting into a debate over 'religion' itself, let me point out some of the characteristics of a religion that I believe are universally true and then discuss how these characteristics when applied to eLearning prove to be a detriment.
1) All religions require a 'leap of faith'. In other words, religion is beyond reason, and if you tried to logically defend it, you would ultimately have to at some point agree that the 'first thing' (refered to as God) can not ever be logically proven as fact and therefore requires a leap of faith. Religion would argue this is because as humans we could not possibly really 'get it' unless through divine revelation.
2) All religions have 'Guardians' of truth that serve as the messengers who spread the word and work to assure the faithful that their faith is well placed and also rebuke the nay sayers.
3) Religions require 'status quo'. Ideally there is no change...ever...since the basis of a religion is thought to come from God him/herself. If it comes from God...it must be true! Sure, there is evolution and modernization...but really this is simply trying to attract the next generation of believers...since the current generation would never want anything changed.
Now lets look at these characteristics and apply them to eLearning:
1) Leap of Faith - People buy products and services all the time before ever having a logical reason or the right information about the product or service before buying. They acknowledge their ignorance and take somebody's word for it, that whatever they're buying will do the job. This is pervasive in the eLearning industry. There are a significant portion of decision makers that are in their position without any knowledge at all of learning, training, development, eLearning, etc who pay big bucks for products and services. Even the people below the decision makers who inform the decision maker are in no position to understand the ins and outs of what they recommend. The end result - the leap of faith - and a big waste of money.
2) The Guardians of Truth - These are the folks that keep the status quo. They reaffirm the faithful and keep away the nay sayers. If you don't believe these exist, take a look at every conference and look at the vendors, speakers and participants. The vendors have spent lots of money on their product so they absolutely want to slow down change to sell as much product as they can. The speakers in the hopes of attracting the largest amount of people must talk about topics that are familiar to everyone and most of the time, speakers are vendors. And then you have the participants. The participants only know what they've heard at conferences. Their education comes from the literature and the conferences that all conspire to market the same message and that message is the one that the guardians of truth want us to hear. The messages that sell the most products and attract the greatest amount of attendees.
3) Status Quo - There is no doubt that when large groups of people all share the same message, as a person of reason I'm going to tend to drop my guard and believe what I hear. The eLearning industry and the organizations that operate in it must try to maintain the status quo to satisfy its participants. Change is intentionally halted and slowed down. It preys on ignorance and systematically keeps ignorance alive by bombarding participants with half truths, lies and simplified ideas.How else could it sell to the ignorant?
If you still think I'm being harsh, think about eLearning 2.0? How many people know where the '2.0' comes from? How many people know what it refers to? How many people understand the concepts implicit in tying '2.0' to learning? My guess is the answers to the questions are 'not many'. If thats the case, why is everybody talking about it? Where is the research? Where are the nay sayers?
eLearning needs the nay sayers. We need to educate ourselves so that we can make informed decisions, not decisions based on a leap of faith. We need to challenge the orthodoxy. We need to push our institutions to showcase what the 'others' are saying. What organization out there is going to take this challenge?
Without getting into a debate over 'religion' itself, let me point out some of the characteristics of a religion that I believe are universally true and then discuss how these characteristics when applied to eLearning prove to be a detriment.
1) All religions require a 'leap of faith'. In other words, religion is beyond reason, and if you tried to logically defend it, you would ultimately have to at some point agree that the 'first thing' (refered to as God) can not ever be logically proven as fact and therefore requires a leap of faith. Religion would argue this is because as humans we could not possibly really 'get it' unless through divine revelation.
2) All religions have 'Guardians' of truth that serve as the messengers who spread the word and work to assure the faithful that their faith is well placed and also rebuke the nay sayers.
3) Religions require 'status quo'. Ideally there is no change...ever...since the basis of a religion is thought to come from God him/herself. If it comes from God...it must be true! Sure, there is evolution and modernization...but really this is simply trying to attract the next generation of believers...since the current generation would never want anything changed.
Now lets look at these characteristics and apply them to eLearning:
1) Leap of Faith - People buy products and services all the time before ever having a logical reason or the right information about the product or service before buying. They acknowledge their ignorance and take somebody's word for it, that whatever they're buying will do the job. This is pervasive in the eLearning industry. There are a significant portion of decision makers that are in their position without any knowledge at all of learning, training, development, eLearning, etc who pay big bucks for products and services. Even the people below the decision makers who inform the decision maker are in no position to understand the ins and outs of what they recommend. The end result - the leap of faith - and a big waste of money.
2) The Guardians of Truth - These are the folks that keep the status quo. They reaffirm the faithful and keep away the nay sayers. If you don't believe these exist, take a look at every conference and look at the vendors, speakers and participants. The vendors have spent lots of money on their product so they absolutely want to slow down change to sell as much product as they can. The speakers in the hopes of attracting the largest amount of people must talk about topics that are familiar to everyone and most of the time, speakers are vendors. And then you have the participants. The participants only know what they've heard at conferences. Their education comes from the literature and the conferences that all conspire to market the same message and that message is the one that the guardians of truth want us to hear. The messages that sell the most products and attract the greatest amount of attendees.
3) Status Quo - There is no doubt that when large groups of people all share the same message, as a person of reason I'm going to tend to drop my guard and believe what I hear. The eLearning industry and the organizations that operate in it must try to maintain the status quo to satisfy its participants. Change is intentionally halted and slowed down. It preys on ignorance and systematically keeps ignorance alive by bombarding participants with half truths, lies and simplified ideas.How else could it sell to the ignorant?
If you still think I'm being harsh, think about eLearning 2.0? How many people know where the '2.0' comes from? How many people know what it refers to? How many people understand the concepts implicit in tying '2.0' to learning? My guess is the answers to the questions are 'not many'. If thats the case, why is everybody talking about it? Where is the research? Where are the nay sayers?
eLearning needs the nay sayers. We need to educate ourselves so that we can make informed decisions, not decisions based on a leap of faith. We need to challenge the orthodoxy. We need to push our institutions to showcase what the 'others' are saying. What organization out there is going to take this challenge?
Friday, February 6, 2009
Working on a book
I've been chipping away at a book titled "How cloudbooks will change learning forever" and I have to say, its just not going as quickly as I would like. I have so much ground to cover that when I go to write, I may or may not be ready to continue where I left off. Instead, I may start a new train of thought.
Some ideas that I am covering in the book include:
- What is the significance of a "cloudbook" to learning? What does it represent?
- How is the "cloudbook" an extension of instructional design's evolution?
- How will the cloudbook be used for learning?
- How does structured content development tie into cloudbooks?
The more I do the speaker circuit and the more feedback I get, the more encouraged I become that folks are starting to get it. As new toys come out for learning, people are becoming concerned over issues of reuse. Creating intelligent content that all forms of cloud computing devices can read and dispense to individuals is consistent with where Web 2.0 leaves off and where Web 3.0 comes in. Using proper semantic markup techniques, based on instructional value of content to learners will ensure content retains the context on which it is to be taught rather than the delivery mode it is meant to be taught. Allow devices such as "cloudbooks" to make use of that content to make the individual consumer of the content's life easier.
I don't really believe that there will be the perfect semantic language for learning content that will allow all contexts to be reused properly each and every time, but like "meaning" itself, it can evolve and reach agreement within the masses.
Worrying about the tools of eLearning and looking for the ones that will allow the fastest rapid development cycles with the least amount of experience is only going to produce an economic meltdown for your organization in the future as folks struggle with where to find the money to move all your "legacy" content into the next best thing!
Some ideas that I am covering in the book include:
- What is the significance of a "cloudbook" to learning? What does it represent?
- How is the "cloudbook" an extension of instructional design's evolution?
- How will the cloudbook be used for learning?
- How does structured content development tie into cloudbooks?
The more I do the speaker circuit and the more feedback I get, the more encouraged I become that folks are starting to get it. As new toys come out for learning, people are becoming concerned over issues of reuse. Creating intelligent content that all forms of cloud computing devices can read and dispense to individuals is consistent with where Web 2.0 leaves off and where Web 3.0 comes in. Using proper semantic markup techniques, based on instructional value of content to learners will ensure content retains the context on which it is to be taught rather than the delivery mode it is meant to be taught. Allow devices such as "cloudbooks" to make use of that content to make the individual consumer of the content's life easier.
I don't really believe that there will be the perfect semantic language for learning content that will allow all contexts to be reused properly each and every time, but like "meaning" itself, it can evolve and reach agreement within the masses.
Worrying about the tools of eLearning and looking for the ones that will allow the fastest rapid development cycles with the least amount of experience is only going to produce an economic meltdown for your organization in the future as folks struggle with where to find the money to move all your "legacy" content into the next best thing!
Thursday, October 30, 2008
Now that what I'm talking about
Just got back from Learning 2008. It may be that I'm overdosing on learning conferences, but I found this one particularly bland EXCEPT for the the fact that I spoke with Mr. Kevin Kelly and saw a great presentation from Allison Anderson from Intel. Let talk briefly about both.
My conversation with Kevin Kelly was brief. Essentially the question I had for him was based on an article he wrote that spoke of an economy based on "feeding the web" (This was just a small piece of the article). To simplify this, think of feeding the web as the economy of open source. My question was what is the evolution of this economy, where is it going and how does an entrepreneur like me take advantage of it. I specifically spoke of some smaller products our company carries and the potential of these in the open source economy. The one critical piece of advice he gave me was, well if you want to see if something is valuable to begin with, give it away. If people still don't take it, even when its free, its probably not all that valuable.
I did also ask him if he felt the semantic web was inevitable. He said it was, but that the project was massive and that who knew when it would come to be. But what was new to me in all of this was not that we need to construct a semntic taxonomy but that the first step is the deconstruction of current content. You see, this is critical in creating structure. In most cases, the creation of structure or semantics requires the deconstuction of information into its atomic level, which is really the step that matters most. Once you've done this, you've essentially already figured out what your semantics are going to be.
The other interesting presentation I saw, was by Allison Anderson from Intel. Allison presented a vision of what the typical Intel employee may see on their desktop in the future. It was based on the notion that relevant content in the form of training, connections to other people and experts, project information, etc, would all be dynamically pulled into one's personal environment based on their role in the company and what they were currently working on. Well if this isn't the actualization of how the semantic web and structured content will play out in an organization, then I don't know what is. You see....this is the promise. That the days of constantly reinventing the wheel, figuring out what people need to know, learn, where and how will all be an algorythm based on their transparency to the web! This is the vision I think we should all be looking towards.
It is inevitable!
My conversation with Kevin Kelly was brief. Essentially the question I had for him was based on an article he wrote that spoke of an economy based on "feeding the web" (This was just a small piece of the article). To simplify this, think of feeding the web as the economy of open source. My question was what is the evolution of this economy, where is it going and how does an entrepreneur like me take advantage of it. I specifically spoke of some smaller products our company carries and the potential of these in the open source economy. The one critical piece of advice he gave me was, well if you want to see if something is valuable to begin with, give it away. If people still don't take it, even when its free, its probably not all that valuable.
I did also ask him if he felt the semantic web was inevitable. He said it was, but that the project was massive and that who knew when it would come to be. But what was new to me in all of this was not that we need to construct a semntic taxonomy but that the first step is the deconstruction of current content. You see, this is critical in creating structure. In most cases, the creation of structure or semantics requires the deconstuction of information into its atomic level, which is really the step that matters most. Once you've done this, you've essentially already figured out what your semantics are going to be.
The other interesting presentation I saw, was by Allison Anderson from Intel. Allison presented a vision of what the typical Intel employee may see on their desktop in the future. It was based on the notion that relevant content in the form of training, connections to other people and experts, project information, etc, would all be dynamically pulled into one's personal environment based on their role in the company and what they were currently working on. Well if this isn't the actualization of how the semantic web and structured content will play out in an organization, then I don't know what is. You see....this is the promise. That the days of constantly reinventing the wheel, figuring out what people need to know, learn, where and how will all be an algorythm based on their transparency to the web! This is the vision I think we should all be looking towards.
It is inevitable!
Tuesday, September 30, 2008
Brandon Hall Innovations in Learning 08
Got back from IIL08 (Innovations in Learning 08) the annual conference given by the Brandon Hall folks. I gave my presentation on instructional design for the semantic web and got fairly positive feedback. However, I do know of one improvement I would like to make to the presentation is to include more examples.
Based on everything I heard at the conference, the movement to structured content is well on its way regardless of whether people understand it or not. The thing that really gets me, is that instructional designers have yet to take ownership of our failed practice and understand that if they want to practice instructional design they need to rethink how they are going to do this. An instructional designer that is developing courses, at the end of the day is a multimedia/courseware developer....which is fine. There's nothing wrong with having those skills and doing that work. But lets face it, thats not where an instructional designer is providing the most value. As content moves into the networked economy, building taxonomies, creating learning meta-languages, looking at standards is where the instructional designer will find a home. We need only look at SCORM as a standard and understand that it was created by programmers and IT folk with less input from instructional designers to figure out that any new version of SCORM needs more of the instructional design input.
I also had some great discussions with Tom Crawford from VizThink about the semantic web and where its going, what role is it going to play and will it be the next 'BIG' thing. We both agreed its coming one way or another. Its impact I think is where we disagree, however as an instructional designer it will be critical for me to research and learn all I can about it.
Based on everything I heard at the conference, the movement to structured content is well on its way regardless of whether people understand it or not. The thing that really gets me, is that instructional designers have yet to take ownership of our failed practice and understand that if they want to practice instructional design they need to rethink how they are going to do this. An instructional designer that is developing courses, at the end of the day is a multimedia/courseware developer....which is fine. There's nothing wrong with having those skills and doing that work. But lets face it, thats not where an instructional designer is providing the most value. As content moves into the networked economy, building taxonomies, creating learning meta-languages, looking at standards is where the instructional designer will find a home. We need only look at SCORM as a standard and understand that it was created by programmers and IT folk with less input from instructional designers to figure out that any new version of SCORM needs more of the instructional design input.
I also had some great discussions with Tom Crawford from VizThink about the semantic web and where its going, what role is it going to play and will it be the next 'BIG' thing. We both agreed its coming one way or another. Its impact I think is where we disagree, however as an instructional designer it will be critical for me to research and learn all I can about it.
Wednesday, September 17, 2008
Instructional Design for the Semantic Web
Well, its been a while.
Here's whats really turning me on these days....the possibilities of applying the principles of the semantic web to learning. I've been inspired once again by a Kevin Kelly video talking about the next 5000 days of the web. What I really liked is his analogy of the web as a single system. His vision, and one that I believe we're already seeing is an all encompassing web with peripheral devices acting as windows to that web. More an more, computers and other peripherals are used less as single processing units and more as windows to and through the web.
What this means for learning, is the ability to create the necessary semantics around learning so that learning content is appropriately marked up for our devices to find, retrieve and deliver in a consistent and useful manner. The creation of a meta-language for learning is no easy task, nor is it conceivable that there would be a single language created (at least not right now). But the importance of feeding the web, exposing content to the web is critical for learning.
When my wife was pregnant the quickest wa to learn what needed to be done was research the web. This is the reality of our times, that learning happens real time. Enabling learning comntent to be pulled at real time is consistent with tech trends and also consistent with good instructional design practice. As an instructional designer I am excited about the opportunity to contribute to the advancement of our field through its application to THE new learning environment web 3.0. For anybody who isn't getting what I'm saying, I will be speaking at Brandon Hall's Innovation in Learning conference on this very topic.
I am also in the process of working on a book that underlies the process for applying instructional design to the creation of 'semantics'. Hopefully one day it will actually get done.
Later,
RT
Here's whats really turning me on these days....the possibilities of applying the principles of the semantic web to learning. I've been inspired once again by a Kevin Kelly video talking about the next 5000 days of the web. What I really liked is his analogy of the web as a single system. His vision, and one that I believe we're already seeing is an all encompassing web with peripheral devices acting as windows to that web. More an more, computers and other peripherals are used less as single processing units and more as windows to and through the web.
What this means for learning, is the ability to create the necessary semantics around learning so that learning content is appropriately marked up for our devices to find, retrieve and deliver in a consistent and useful manner. The creation of a meta-language for learning is no easy task, nor is it conceivable that there would be a single language created (at least not right now). But the importance of feeding the web, exposing content to the web is critical for learning.
When my wife was pregnant the quickest wa to learn what needed to be done was research the web. This is the reality of our times, that learning happens real time. Enabling learning comntent to be pulled at real time is consistent with tech trends and also consistent with good instructional design practice. As an instructional designer I am excited about the opportunity to contribute to the advancement of our field through its application to THE new learning environment web 3.0. For anybody who isn't getting what I'm saying, I will be speaking at Brandon Hall's Innovation in Learning conference on this very topic.
I am also in the process of working on a book that underlies the process for applying instructional design to the creation of 'semantics'. Hopefully one day it will actually get done.
Later,
RT
Tuesday, December 4, 2007
What's wrong with E-Learning
Here is a white paper that is going to be published February/March and will have to be "toned down". This is what it looks like before being toned down.
Show after show, newsletter after newsletter, conversation after conversation with the industry’s leading organizations to the independent consultant the e-learning consumer gets bombarded with the latest catch phrases, latest trends and most importantly, the industry’s leading misinformation. As an e-learning practitioner that services a wide array of interests and projects I am always stunned at how some of the industry’s leading misconceptions continue to get propagated with no intervention from knowledgeable and capable professionals. I think that both vendors and consumers can do more to help one another out, vendors by responsible marketing and consumers by doing more to educate themselves about what they hear and see. In this article I would like to explore what I consider to be the top ten misconceptions or areas of confusion in the e-learning industry. If you’re reading between the lines, I suppose the article would read ‘Reuben’s top ten pet peeves’.
1) SCORM Compliant Learning Content Management Systems (LCMS)
Let’s be clear about what ‘compliance’ actually means versus its abundant use by vendors across the board. The current ADL organization will certify two things for SCORM compliance. Those being Learning Management Systems (LMS) and content packages. They do not certify vendors (Only their products), nor do they certify LCMS systems. So what then do vendors mean when they market that their LCMS platform is SCORM compliant? Most vendors who claim that their LCMS system is SCORM compliant fall into two categories:
#1 – The developer of the LCMS system has certified content with the ADL that was created using their tool.
#2 – The developer of the LCMS system has incorporated some elements of SCORM standards into their content packages but do not comply with everything.
In either case, ‘compliance’ is misleading for something can only be compliant if it is certified as such. Non-certified products are also non-compliant.
Would an LCMS system that is capable of outputting a SCORM package be considered as a SCORM compliant system? In looking through the ADL website we find no particular classification called SCORM compliant systems. There are SCORM adopters and then there are certified products. So to answer the question, No. An LCMS system that can output a SCORM package is not compliant as there is no such classification from the body that governs SCORM. To verify if a system is SCORM certified or if a content package is SCORM certified go to www.adlnet.gov. They are the sole body that can certify a product as being SCORM compliant. If your vendor isn’t there, they are not compliant!
2) Merged LMS and LCMS Systems
There are systems that include both authoring capabilities and tracking capabilities, this is true. When these two systems are integrated into one system with no separation between them the fallout to the consumer is huge. The reason for this is simple. When you create one system that does both, the content created in the system must stay within the system to work. More often than not, the integrated system has proprietary means of tracking and the content becomes locked in a proprietary format that only the integrated tool can modify. This solution might be good for short term ease of use, but the long term financial impact to an organization who wants to move content to a new system, or change how they track courses is huge, especially if time and effort went into creating content within the system to begin with.
If you are considering the purchase of an LMS and LCMS from the same vendor ensure that they are two different systems and that you can buy one without the other.
3) An LMS is a Content Management System
An LMS is not a content management system. I get the question all the time about how will learners access content that is in an LCMS. The answer is they won’t. A content Management System (CMS) or Learning Content Management System (LCMS) is where content authors (not consumers) organize and store content for later use or re-use. It is a library of content that provides tools and applications that help organizations store information so that it can be bundled or packaged at a later time in a variety of ways. An LMS or Learning Management System manages the learning for students and administrators. It is where the finished learning products are stored and where a student accesses the learning. An LMS will provide tools and applications that help administer and track learning within an organization.
4) Instructional Designers are Courseware Developers
A recent trend that I see more and more of is the synonymous use of the terms instructional designers and courseware developers. A quick scan of Monster.com™ database of resumes confirms this as more and more developers (programming backgrounds) are applying for instructional design jobs and instructional designers who tout their programming skills with various applications are applying for courseware developer jobs. There is nothing wrong with people who have the sort of diverse background that enables them to do one job or the other. However, to use the terms interchangeably and expect that developers in an e-learning company will also do instructional design and instructional designers will be courseware developers would be to devalue the strengths each of those roles might bring to a production process.
5) Customized courseware
With the industry’s obsession over buying the right tools and making the production process faster and easier a breed of custom courseware developers have emerged capable of wielding the latest and greatest course building tool. What most people fail to realize is the limitations of custom courseware builders who fall into this category. In almost all cases, what makes the tool so easy and quick to use, is its database of templates that you can customize. What is really meant by customization however, is the ability to add logos and change colors of the template. The exercise types and functionality in a templated environment are static, which means there will be times when you will have to put a square peg in a round hole. Do not confuse this sort of customization with organizations who build courses on spec. These organizations will build exercises and applications that speak to a defined set of needs and requirements. The price difference between the two types of custom work is significant. However, they both suit different needs and should never be compared against one another. Let the requirements of your project dictate what sort and level of customization you need.
6) Building Engaging E-Learning
We must as an industry admit that the years and years that we have all spoken of truly interactive courseware and engaging e-learning has resulted for the most part in glorified e-books with animations and true/false questions. Every conference that one could potentially attend in our industry has at least one topic on “Developing Engaging E-Learning”. The word engaging is completely elusive as it doesn’t really say much. If I were to try and define engaging for an e-learning context I would build on the word “interactivity”, which is in itself a misunderstood term for our industry. The word “interactivity’ means the ability to act on one another, to influence one another. In other words, true interactivity, true engagement in e-learning would ideally point to a program that would dynamically adapt its presentation to the learner taking the course at the time; i.e. Artificial Intelligence. The time and money required for this level of sophistication is well beyond the budget of most organizations who are implementing e-learning. In its place we substitute a tricked out PowerPoint presentation delivered through Flash. The point here is not to denounce web based PowerPoint presentations but to find alternate ways of describing a product. PowerPoint is still PowerPoint even when it’s delivered through Flash.
7) E-Learning Seat Time
A common benchmark that content development vendors like to use for quoting on projects is ‘seat time’. E-Learning costs ‘x’ amount of dollars per student seat time. The problems with measuring and benchmarking against student seat time include:
a. Difficult to compare what different vendors are offering. An hour of student seat time with one vendor might cost a lot more than another because of the types of screens and interactivity that is being built out.
b. Difficult to manage projects if the benchmark is seat time. When is something out of scope if it can be accommodated within the parameters of the agreed upon seat time?
c. Student seat time is impossible to calculate.
Instead of benchmarking against student seat time, why not use number of screens and number of screens per screen type. You can also try benchmarking against agreed upon performance objectives covered in a course.
8) Video and Audio accommodate the Visual and Auditory Learner
One of the myths that have propagated itself since the days of CBT is the notion that what makes e-learning so effective is its ability to present the same content in a multimedia format including audio and video, which accommodates a variety of learning styles. Based on this I assume that people can choose to watch a video instead of reading the text or listening to the audio track which is really good for what we like to call “visual learners”. The same would be true for people that were “auditory learners” who would listen to the audio track and forego everything else. The problem with this idea is that a well designed course doesn’t put audio and video into a course to mimic exactly what is there in some other format. It is meant to provide a cohesive environment where all pieces play off of each other. So looking at only a video would provide someone with a fragmented view of the whole. Which means that to learn the whole, even the visual learner would need to listen to the audio and read the text. The use of multimedia has little to do with accommodating different learning styles and is instead used to compliment a specific type of content for all learners.
9) Repurposing Content Doesn’t Work- SCORM is a Failed Standard
The mistake people make when they claim that repurposing content doesn’t work and therefore SCORM is a failed standard is based on a misunderstanding of what SCORM is as a standard. SCORM provides a standard for packaging content that facilitates its re-use if the content itself was designed for reuse. SCORM doesn’t dictate the design of content. To assume SCORM is a failed standard because repurposing content hasn’t worked in an organization is to miss a critical piece. The missing piece is whether or not the content was created for reuse to begin with. If it has been, then SCORM facilitates the technical end of it, so that reusable pieces of content (that are inherently reusable due to their design) can be merged together. If you believe content that was not designed together can not be merged at a later date then that remains a separate issue which SCORM has nothing to do with. That is a question of instructional design and other development technologies.
10) We Use a Blended Learning Approach
Who doesn’t? I can’t imagine a single organization that doesn’t use a multi faceted approach to training employees. Blended learning isn’t a science unto itself that can be studied. There is no magic sauce for any one thing. Blended Learning is a reality, not a topic for a conference.
Show after show, newsletter after newsletter, conversation after conversation with the industry’s leading organizations to the independent consultant the e-learning consumer gets bombarded with the latest catch phrases, latest trends and most importantly, the industry’s leading misinformation. As an e-learning practitioner that services a wide array of interests and projects I am always stunned at how some of the industry’s leading misconceptions continue to get propagated with no intervention from knowledgeable and capable professionals. I think that both vendors and consumers can do more to help one another out, vendors by responsible marketing and consumers by doing more to educate themselves about what they hear and see. In this article I would like to explore what I consider to be the top ten misconceptions or areas of confusion in the e-learning industry. If you’re reading between the lines, I suppose the article would read ‘Reuben’s top ten pet peeves’.
1) SCORM Compliant Learning Content Management Systems (LCMS)
Let’s be clear about what ‘compliance’ actually means versus its abundant use by vendors across the board. The current ADL organization will certify two things for SCORM compliance. Those being Learning Management Systems (LMS) and content packages. They do not certify vendors (Only their products), nor do they certify LCMS systems. So what then do vendors mean when they market that their LCMS platform is SCORM compliant? Most vendors who claim that their LCMS system is SCORM compliant fall into two categories:
#1 – The developer of the LCMS system has certified content with the ADL that was created using their tool.
#2 – The developer of the LCMS system has incorporated some elements of SCORM standards into their content packages but do not comply with everything.
In either case, ‘compliance’ is misleading for something can only be compliant if it is certified as such. Non-certified products are also non-compliant.
Would an LCMS system that is capable of outputting a SCORM package be considered as a SCORM compliant system? In looking through the ADL website we find no particular classification called SCORM compliant systems. There are SCORM adopters and then there are certified products. So to answer the question, No. An LCMS system that can output a SCORM package is not compliant as there is no such classification from the body that governs SCORM. To verify if a system is SCORM certified or if a content package is SCORM certified go to www.adlnet.gov. They are the sole body that can certify a product as being SCORM compliant. If your vendor isn’t there, they are not compliant!
2) Merged LMS and LCMS Systems
There are systems that include both authoring capabilities and tracking capabilities, this is true. When these two systems are integrated into one system with no separation between them the fallout to the consumer is huge. The reason for this is simple. When you create one system that does both, the content created in the system must stay within the system to work. More often than not, the integrated system has proprietary means of tracking and the content becomes locked in a proprietary format that only the integrated tool can modify. This solution might be good for short term ease of use, but the long term financial impact to an organization who wants to move content to a new system, or change how they track courses is huge, especially if time and effort went into creating content within the system to begin with.
If you are considering the purchase of an LMS and LCMS from the same vendor ensure that they are two different systems and that you can buy one without the other.
3) An LMS is a Content Management System
An LMS is not a content management system. I get the question all the time about how will learners access content that is in an LCMS. The answer is they won’t. A content Management System (CMS) or Learning Content Management System (LCMS) is where content authors (not consumers) organize and store content for later use or re-use. It is a library of content that provides tools and applications that help organizations store information so that it can be bundled or packaged at a later time in a variety of ways. An LMS or Learning Management System manages the learning for students and administrators. It is where the finished learning products are stored and where a student accesses the learning. An LMS will provide tools and applications that help administer and track learning within an organization.
4) Instructional Designers are Courseware Developers
A recent trend that I see more and more of is the synonymous use of the terms instructional designers and courseware developers. A quick scan of Monster.com™ database of resumes confirms this as more and more developers (programming backgrounds) are applying for instructional design jobs and instructional designers who tout their programming skills with various applications are applying for courseware developer jobs. There is nothing wrong with people who have the sort of diverse background that enables them to do one job or the other. However, to use the terms interchangeably and expect that developers in an e-learning company will also do instructional design and instructional designers will be courseware developers would be to devalue the strengths each of those roles might bring to a production process.
5) Customized courseware
With the industry’s obsession over buying the right tools and making the production process faster and easier a breed of custom courseware developers have emerged capable of wielding the latest and greatest course building tool. What most people fail to realize is the limitations of custom courseware builders who fall into this category. In almost all cases, what makes the tool so easy and quick to use, is its database of templates that you can customize. What is really meant by customization however, is the ability to add logos and change colors of the template. The exercise types and functionality in a templated environment are static, which means there will be times when you will have to put a square peg in a round hole. Do not confuse this sort of customization with organizations who build courses on spec. These organizations will build exercises and applications that speak to a defined set of needs and requirements. The price difference between the two types of custom work is significant. However, they both suit different needs and should never be compared against one another. Let the requirements of your project dictate what sort and level of customization you need.
6) Building Engaging E-Learning
We must as an industry admit that the years and years that we have all spoken of truly interactive courseware and engaging e-learning has resulted for the most part in glorified e-books with animations and true/false questions. Every conference that one could potentially attend in our industry has at least one topic on “Developing Engaging E-Learning”. The word engaging is completely elusive as it doesn’t really say much. If I were to try and define engaging for an e-learning context I would build on the word “interactivity”, which is in itself a misunderstood term for our industry. The word “interactivity’ means the ability to act on one another, to influence one another. In other words, true interactivity, true engagement in e-learning would ideally point to a program that would dynamically adapt its presentation to the learner taking the course at the time; i.e. Artificial Intelligence. The time and money required for this level of sophistication is well beyond the budget of most organizations who are implementing e-learning. In its place we substitute a tricked out PowerPoint presentation delivered through Flash. The point here is not to denounce web based PowerPoint presentations but to find alternate ways of describing a product. PowerPoint is still PowerPoint even when it’s delivered through Flash.
7) E-Learning Seat Time
A common benchmark that content development vendors like to use for quoting on projects is ‘seat time’. E-Learning costs ‘x’ amount of dollars per student seat time. The problems with measuring and benchmarking against student seat time include:
a. Difficult to compare what different vendors are offering. An hour of student seat time with one vendor might cost a lot more than another because of the types of screens and interactivity that is being built out.
b. Difficult to manage projects if the benchmark is seat time. When is something out of scope if it can be accommodated within the parameters of the agreed upon seat time?
c. Student seat time is impossible to calculate.
Instead of benchmarking against student seat time, why not use number of screens and number of screens per screen type. You can also try benchmarking against agreed upon performance objectives covered in a course.
8) Video and Audio accommodate the Visual and Auditory Learner
One of the myths that have propagated itself since the days of CBT is the notion that what makes e-learning so effective is its ability to present the same content in a multimedia format including audio and video, which accommodates a variety of learning styles. Based on this I assume that people can choose to watch a video instead of reading the text or listening to the audio track which is really good for what we like to call “visual learners”. The same would be true for people that were “auditory learners” who would listen to the audio track and forego everything else. The problem with this idea is that a well designed course doesn’t put audio and video into a course to mimic exactly what is there in some other format. It is meant to provide a cohesive environment where all pieces play off of each other. So looking at only a video would provide someone with a fragmented view of the whole. Which means that to learn the whole, even the visual learner would need to listen to the audio and read the text. The use of multimedia has little to do with accommodating different learning styles and is instead used to compliment a specific type of content for all learners.
9) Repurposing Content Doesn’t Work- SCORM is a Failed Standard
The mistake people make when they claim that repurposing content doesn’t work and therefore SCORM is a failed standard is based on a misunderstanding of what SCORM is as a standard. SCORM provides a standard for packaging content that facilitates its re-use if the content itself was designed for reuse. SCORM doesn’t dictate the design of content. To assume SCORM is a failed standard because repurposing content hasn’t worked in an organization is to miss a critical piece. The missing piece is whether or not the content was created for reuse to begin with. If it has been, then SCORM facilitates the technical end of it, so that reusable pieces of content (that are inherently reusable due to their design) can be merged together. If you believe content that was not designed together can not be merged at a later date then that remains a separate issue which SCORM has nothing to do with. That is a question of instructional design and other development technologies.
10) We Use a Blended Learning Approach
Who doesn’t? I can’t imagine a single organization that doesn’t use a multi faceted approach to training employees. Blended learning isn’t a science unto itself that can be studied. There is no magic sauce for any one thing. Blended Learning is a reality, not a topic for a conference.
Wednesday, November 28, 2007
Upcoming white paper
I learned today that a white paper I have been working on for quite some time will be published in the E-Learning Guild's newsletter December 10th. The topic is Evolving Instructional Design and something that is dear to my heart. At the same time I am also going to submit a new paper to Learning Circuits for publication. The topic is top 10 B.S stuff in the e-learning industry. Here is one paragraph from the paper:
1) SCORM Compliant Learning Content Management Systems (LCMS)
Let’s be clear about what compliance means. The current ADL organization will certify two things for SCORM compliance. Those being Learning Management Systems (LMS) and content packages. They do not certify vendors, nor do they certify LCMS systems. So what then do vendors mean when they market that their LCMS platform as SCORM compliant? Most vendors who claim that their LCMS system is SCORM compliant fall into two categories:
#1 – The developer of the LCMS system has certified content with the ADL that was created using their tool.
#2 – The developer of the LCMS system has incorporated some elements of SCORM standards into their content packages but do not comply with everything.
In either case, ‘compliance’ is meaningless.
Would an LCMS system that is capable of outputting a SCORM package be considered as a SCORM compliant system? In looking through the ADL website we find no particular classification called SCORM compliant systems. There are SCORM adopters and then there are certified products. So to answer the question, No. An LCMS system that can output a SCORM package is not compliant as there is no such classification from the body that governs SCORM. To verify if a system is SCORM certified or if a content package is SCORM certified go to www.adlnet.gov. They are the sole body that can certify a product as being SCORM compliant. If your vendor isn’t there, they are not compliant!
Cheers,
1) SCORM Compliant Learning Content Management Systems (LCMS)
Let’s be clear about what compliance means. The current ADL organization will certify two things for SCORM compliance. Those being Learning Management Systems (LMS) and content packages. They do not certify vendors, nor do they certify LCMS systems. So what then do vendors mean when they market that their LCMS platform as SCORM compliant? Most vendors who claim that their LCMS system is SCORM compliant fall into two categories:
#1 – The developer of the LCMS system has certified content with the ADL that was created using their tool.
#2 – The developer of the LCMS system has incorporated some elements of SCORM standards into their content packages but do not comply with everything.
In either case, ‘compliance’ is meaningless.
Would an LCMS system that is capable of outputting a SCORM package be considered as a SCORM compliant system? In looking through the ADL website we find no particular classification called SCORM compliant systems. There are SCORM adopters and then there are certified products. So to answer the question, No. An LCMS system that can output a SCORM package is not compliant as there is no such classification from the body that governs SCORM. To verify if a system is SCORM certified or if a content package is SCORM certified go to www.adlnet.gov. They are the sole body that can certify a product as being SCORM compliant. If your vendor isn’t there, they are not compliant!
Cheers,
Monday, November 26, 2007
My first Podcast
So this is all about firsts. I researched and researched about podcasting and couldn't get past this one wall I was having. That was, if I'm not on a MAC whats the easiest way to create a podcast that included slides or some form of visuals. Well here it is:
Wednesday, November 14, 2007
Whats this all about?
Whats the blogging all about? For me, this will be a way to get my professional ideas out into the world without having to submit them for review per se. It is the community which will decide how valuable my thoughts may or may not be to their own professional experiences. I am definitely opinionated on alot of what my industry is doing and what it has to offer. I don't necessarily think my views are radical but they can be contentious. I, along with my wife operate a business from the perspective of a consumer. We are driven by integrity and ensuring that our capabilities match our integrity has been a key to our success. I suspect then, that my thoughts will challenge the norm when they have to and allow those that feel they need to do the same, to rally behind my thoughts and provide their own. I hope this whole blog thing proves to be valuable for myself and those with whom I have a professional relationship with.
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