The E-Learning Guild in the US has recently published its latest research into the most popular tools for creating media in e-learning. It's based on the responses of over 2,000 of its members.
In terms of overall popularity, the top slot might be a bit of a surprise - it's the free open source sound recorder and editor, Audacity. But otherwise, It's a fairly predictable list with Adobe's products taking three of the other four slots in the top five. Even more predictably perhaps, Lectora, Articulate and Captivate all make it into the top 10.
The list shifts a little once you get to rating the tools by overall importance in the respondent's toolkit. Using this criteria, Lectora just beats Articulate to the top of the list, followed closely by Photoshop.
Of the the three big authoring tools, Articulate comes out best on ease of use, with 54% of respondents rating this as very easy to use. While Lectora and Captivate lag behind a bit at 30% and 26% respectively.
Adobe's Premiere Pro, Flash Professional and Photoshop are the top three rated for power and flexibility with between 83% and 86% of respondents categorising each of these tools as 'Very powerful/flexible'. Adobe doesn't do so well with Presenter, though - only 26% of respondent's labelled it 'very powerful/flexible'.
The Guild is always careful to point out that its research does not in anyway constitute an endorsement of the products featured. What the research does provide, though is a fascinating snapshot of who's using what and what they honestly think of it.
If you are in the market for buying tools for the first time or perhaps changing from one product to another, this report helps you to cut through the marketing noise and get a good sense of what users really use and what they think of the products.
And it's worth remembering that beside the big names mentioned in this research, there are some great free or lesser known tools out there for the using.
As many of you may have gathered already, I love my Mac, and if you own one too, you'll already have iMovie installed for free. In my opinion you can't beat this for basic video capture and editing. Similarly, Movie Maker comes free with new Windows systems and provides basic editing capabilities.
Another great tool I love using (sorry folks, Mac only) is ScreenFlow from Telestream. It's really easy to use for screen capture.
Finally, if you can't persuade your boss to fund multiple copies of Photoshop, you could check out GImp a free open source alternative available for both WIndows and Mac.
At a conference a year or so ago, I noticed a seminar that drew a good crowd was entitled, "Who says e-learning compliance training has to be boring?". Well not me for sure.
Perhaps, I'm a bit naive, but even now (after many years in the world of learning) it shocks me that some people can shrug their shoulders and say., "well this material is pretty dry and boring, so we'll just have to accept that the way we deliver it is dry and boring". To me that's a bit like the designers at a car company saying, "well it's a bit difficult to design a really comfortable car seat, so we'll just fit the car with uncomfortable wooden benches and the passengers will have to lump it."
Perhaps the acceptance of poor quality compliance training is linked to the box ticking mentality that often accompanies the dreaded 'c' word. We have to do the training - even though nobody wants to, so let's just collectively hold our noses and all be bored together - designers, trainers and delegates. Oh yes, and let's make it even worse, by delivering it as the most boring, sleep-inducing piece of e-learning you have ever seen.
From this point of view, you'd think that compliance in a particular job role or organisation wasn't something anybody really needed to know or do. Yet it most definitely is.
So rather than treating it as a dry abstract topic, why not relate it back to the context or contexts in which learners need to be compliant? Why not provide the learners with challenging, life-like scenarios and activities that require them to think about what they actually need to do to be compliant. How about some intrinsic, contextual feedback that vividly demonstrates the consequences of not being compliant or trying to cut corners.
If you find yourself nodding your head and you are about to embark on creating some compliance e-learning (or any kind of e-learning for that matter) and you would like to read more about the four-pronged approach to e-learning development just described (context, challenge, activity and feedback) take a look at our free
'Effective E-Learning Toolkit'.
I read an astonishing statistic recently. Over 500,000 employees of the US government are each provided with a Blackberry.
Actually, perhaps I shouldn't be surprised. After all, if you take all the various branches of any government, you are talking big numbers.
But when you begin to realise this is the scale on which mobile devices are being deployed throughout many organisations, you can begin to see why so many are, at the very least, thinking about mobile learning.
So what other factors might be driving the interest in or uptake of mobile learning? Here are three important ones:
A mobile workforce
I don't have the exact figures for the UK, but in the US the estimate is that at least 40% of the workforce is now 'mobile' (i.e. they only spend a small part of their working week in a fixed location). No question about it, getting these folks to fit into a fixed learning schedule is only going to get more challenging.
The daily commute
For those of us who do the daily grind into work on trains, trams and buses, mobile devices provide one means of distracting us from the potential horrors (or boredom) of that commute. So encouraging people to use a mobile device to learn (as well as check the footie or the latest celeb gossip) makes perfect sense.
Demographics
There's no question about it, the younger you are, the more likely you are to use your mobile in most aspects of daily life.
So to put it bluntly, people leaving full-time education now and coming into the world of work will find it extremely odd that mobile devices aren't being used as a means to deliver some aspects of learning.
I could go on, but I think you get the idea. Love them or loathe them, mobile devices are here to stay.
Personally, I hope more organisations will start to give themselves the mobile learning edge by embracing the medium and creating learning solutions that people really enjoy and get great benefit from.
It was the late Steve Jobs who said: "Design is not what it looks like and feels like. Design is how it works." Classic Steve. In just a couple of sentences he sums up one of the fundamental factors in Apple's phenomenal success.
But you don't have to be the producer of uber-cool computers and gadgets to find relevance in his words. They could be equally applied to aspects of e-learning - particularly with regard to the interface we devise for learners.
In my view, there's an interesting distinction to be made here between User Interface Design (UID) and Learner Interface Design (LID). The first is probably a more familiar term than the latter.
In an e-learning context, UID is about total simplicity and focusing on the ease of use of a course. Good UID shouldn't leave people pondering the outcome of alternative actions. It generally aims to minimise mental involvement. The overriding imperative of good UID? "Don't make the user think".
Now here's the difficult bit. LID, by contrast, has exactly the opposite imperative. It's totally about helping learners to think, learn and perform. Designing a learning interface is about getting learners to engage their mental faculties in order to learn. And this might involve confronting them with problems, challenges and issues.
In designing a learner interface, the focus should be on making it relevant and motivating. Something that will help the learner remember and implement what they learnt long after the learning event.
So, the challenge for e-learning developers is two-fold. First, being clear about the difference between the two concepts. Second, understanding where and when to apply one or the other.
If you are interested in learning more about this topic, check out the 'Creating effective learner interfaces' module from our instructional design programme.
Innovative learning solutions company seeks organisational learning and development specialist for an exclusive one-on-one relationship. We enjoy challenging the status quo, pushing the envelope and generally being at the cutting edge of learning design and technology. You must be excited by the prospect of new experiences and be especially into iPad. So, dear reader, are you the one?
Okay, so we are having a bit of fun here with our "personal ad" - but this blog post is seriously about us looking for someone we can do a pilot project with.
Why? Well, we got very excited last Thursday when Apple announced its new iBooks Author development tool. Granted they are not the first to market with such a concept, but as always, they have taken something that exists already and made it special.
If you watched the launch you'll know their emphasis was on creating content for schools and colleges. But look closely at what iBooks Author has to offer. You'll see that it not only provides an innovative take on digital content development, it also includes many functions found in existing e-learning authoring tools.
So we think this is about more than just interactive textbooks. To us it has the potential to be a new and interesting hybrid: a cross between mobile learning, e-learning and e-books - fully optimised for iPad, of course. And we certainly don't think it has to be restricted to schools and colleges. We can instantly see uses for this in most organisations that need to do training.
Are you similarly excited? Do you have people in your organisation in love with their iPads? Do you have a learning requirement that you think could be suitable for a new and innovative solution. If yes, we would definitely like to hear from you because we are genuinely interested in talking to an organisation that would like to experiement with this new medium.
One important caveat. To work with us on this, you'd need to be okay about going public once the development is complete. After all, there's no point in doing something new and interesting if you can't share it with the world.
We'll be wasting no time in playing with iBooks Author to see what we can do with it. Creating samples is an obvious first step. But we'd much rather work with someone who has an actual learning requirement. Someone who will get some real benefit from a pilot project.
So, are you the one we are looking for? If you'd like to talk with us in more detail and you happen to be visiting the Learning Technologies and Learning and Skills show this week, drop by and talk to us on our stand (204) on the ground floor. Otherwise, you can get in touch with us here.
This wouldn't be the first time that I've ranted about boring, page-turning e-learning. But this is the first time that I've specifically linked part of the problem with e-learning to authoring tools.
Now before I get started, I want to be clear. I'm not suggesting that authoring tools are a complete waste of space. Far from it. In so many ways they have opened up e-learning to a swathe of people who in the early days of the medium were excluded from using it purely on the grounds of cost.
But this opening up has also introduced as many problems as it has solved. Let me explain.
Many people out there developing e-learning know little or nothing about learning or instructional design. This doesn't mean you have to hold a degree in instructional design course to create good learning. Goodness knows, some of the worst courses I've seen have been created by people who are so over-qualified, they've lost the ability to be truly spontaneous and creative.
But if your only credentials for creating some e-learning are your subject matter expertise, unless you are blessed with innate skills, you and your learners are likely screwed.
In these circumstances, at best you will get a series of linear, content-centric screens with a few interactions or bits of multimedia thrown in for good measure. At worst, a series of densely-packed screens of content - mostly text with a few graphics or pics here and there. An e-book by another name!
And this is my point about authoring tools. People with no learning or design experience, but lots of subject matter expertise will do what most of us would do in this situation - grab on to the structure provided by the authoring tool for dear life.
If just the idea of using any kind of authoring tool is daunting, you are likely to stick with the basic features. If you are a little more confident or ambitious, you'll probably get creative and use some of the more 'advanced' features - most likely the interactions.
Either way, it's the authoring tool directing and controlling your creativity rather than the other way around. Effective and enjoyable e-learning this does not make.
Effective, performance-improving e-learning requires developers to "think different" and catapult themselves out of the authoring tool straitjacket.
The good news? There is a four-pronged approach to e-learning development which doesn’t require you to abandon your favourite authoring tool. Instead it helps you use your authoring tool to develop truly engaging learning, rather than letting the authoring tool’s available features narrow and control your instructional thinking.
So what’s it all about?
Banish all thoughts of Liverpool and the Cavern Club from your mind and instead embrace the e-learning Fab Four: Context, Challenge, Activity and Feedback. Each of these overlapping components helps you to think differently about your e-learning.
Context
An authentic context provides a situation that learners can relate to and care about. It makes learners think about the applicability of their learning. Just as important, it sets the scene for an equally authentic learning challenge.
Challenge
A challenge stimulates the brain. It forces the learner to think about what they know already, process new information they are presented with and decide what action to take.
Well-designed challenges build on the context previously set. They require learners to consider various courses of action and select the most appropriate path.
Activity
A challenge for your learners means they need to take action. Well-designed activities will feel natural. In other words, similar to the kind of actions the learner would make back in the real world (taking into account the limitations of the e-learning environment, of course).
Feedback
If you’ve ever taken an e-learning course, you’ll likely have experienced this kind of feedback:
“Congratulations, that’s the right answer”. “Sorry, that’s not right. Have another go”.
This is entirely the wrong kind of feedback, but exactly the kind authoring tools encourage you to create. What's the problem with it? It simply focuses your learners on winning approval.
Instead, you need feedback that demonstrates successful (or poor) performance. This is called intrinsic feedback. It lets learners see the effects of their decisions or actions. And it links back meaningfully to the context, challenge and activity.
Weaving these four components together results in a very different course from one produced using the more familiar screen-driven, content-centric approach. The learning that’s created truly reflects what the learner needs to know and do in their world of work.
Learn more about this four-pronged approach and other boredom-busting e-learning techniques...
There was a piece on the BBC news website a couple of days ago, "Ten 100-year predictions that came true"?
It was looking at predictions made by an American civil engineer in 1900 about life in 2000. He got a good deal right - although he got one or two predictions spectacularly wrong. (If you want to read the article you can follow this link:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-16444966).
It got me thinking back to a book I read in the early 90's, called "The Media Lab" by Nicholas Negreponte. At the time, it was a truly exciting read because it was predicting the near-future of technology. It's main theme: convergence.
Broadly, it was predicting that different forms of existing media and communication would converge into a kind of digital whole. At the time, a radical thought. Today, now that Negreponte's prediction has largely come true - we don't give it much of a thought.
But it struck me - one area of life where convergence has been strikingly absent is in the world of learning. We still tend to put different approaches to learning in very clear boxes with little cross-over between them.
So I begin to wonder if 2012 will be the year when this really starts to change. Here's why.
If you had asked me this time last year what the big theme of 2011 was going to be, without a moment's hesitation, I would have said mobile learning. But really it didn't happen. In fact I now find myself wondering if mobile learning as a discrete concept is dead before it's even got started.
When the term was first coined, the mobile world was a very simple place. It consisted of - well, mobile phones. Several years later and mobile devices come in all shapes and sizes and each new innovation just blurs the line between what's mobile and what's not.
Instead of talking about e-learning and mobile learning as separate concepts, it seems to me we are moving into a world of digital learning which will be available across a range of devices - some more mobile than others.
And it may not just be e-learning and mobile learning where the lines will blur and the content will start to converge. Recently, I read Walter Isaacson's biography of Steve Jobs. Apparently, he had his sights set on doing something radical with textbooks. Who knows what that will involve, but at the very least, it will surely be about enhanced digital content provided on iPads and iPhones. More blurring, more convergence.
For sure, we have a long journey ahead (with plenty of compatibility hurdles to cross along the way) but I wonder if 2012 will be the year when the view of the road ahead starts to become much clearer?
When we are designing training programmes, how much should we consider learners' self-awareness of their learning preferences?
At the risk of doing a Donald Rumsfeld (he of the 'known unknowns'), one of the things that I find fascinating about learning and knowledge transfer is whether we know what we know.
In other words, how much are we really able to assess our own learning needs and preferences?
On this topic, I offer you a fascinating piece of research carried out by a group of people with the snappy surnames of Schnackenberg, Sullivan, Leader and Jones.
In their research, a group of learners taking an e-learning course, were given a survey about their preferences for the amount of practice they do when learning - either high or low.
The learners were then assigned to two different e-learning courses one with a high level of practice, the other with minimal practice.
Half the learners were given the version of the course that matched their preference, the other half were deliberately mismatched.
I've written previously about the significance of practice activities in learning, so you may not be surprised to discover that regardless of their preference, those who took the version of the course with more practice scored significantly higher on a post-course test than those who had taken the version with minimal practice.
First of all, this highlights the importance of practice activities in learning. But the results are important for another reason. They chime with quite a bit of other research that points to a frequent mismatch between what we think we want as learners and what actually produces results.
In other words, our perceived preferences about how we like to learn are not always good indicators of the way we actually need to learn.
If you are involved with designing training programmes and what to learn more about instructional design (or get help with creating a course) take a look at our instructional design programme and development services.
Is a successful learning experience purely about external factors or do our own internal beliefs and motivations play a part?
We've all had good and bad learning experiences, so this is a fascinating question. How much is that success or failure purely down to external influences?
If we go back to the 1930s, Thorndike's Law of Effect holds that a correct answer needs a response to reward the learner. A "Well done, that's the right answer", from the trainer helps strengthen the association between the question and the correct answer and increases the probability of a similar correct response the next time around.
I think most people in the world of learning and development would broadly agree with this view. But this emphasises the external environment. What about if we also put an individual's beliefs into the centre of the picture. It's likely that we then have several other factors to take into account.
1. Beliefs about yourself Do you believe you can succeed and acquire the knowledge and skills you are setting out to learn? This level of belief varies tremendously and is influenced by existing knowledge and experience. Go outside of familiar territories and domains and it is likely our self-belief and confidence will plummet.
2. Beliefs about the learning content Is the content interesting? Genuine personal interest makes learners far more willing to engage with content - even when dull and boring. If personal interest is low or non-existent than we need to create situational interest. In other words, grab learners' attention and interest by making sure the learning content is well-crafted and engaging.
3. Beliefs about the success or failure of learning Do learners believe the outcome they achieved was under or outside their control? Do they believe it was a poor trainer that caused them to fail or sheer good luck that they did well? Whether the outcome is positive or negative, research into something called
attribution theory suggests a learner who believes an outcome was caused by factors outside their control, is far less likely to be motivated to succeed in the future.
By contrast, a learner who attributes success or failure to their own effort (or lack of it) is far more likely to be productive and put in more effort next time around.
This suggests it is hugely important to foster an environment that encourages learners to understand (and believe) that the success of learning outcomes is clearly within their control
Of course, all of this is just scraping the surface of an immensely complex (and very interesting) area. But it's a good reminder that we shouldn't just focus on external factors (important as they are) when thinking about how to achieve successful learning.
Blended learning has been around for a while now. Plenty of organisations claim to use it. Some actually do. Not so many learners claim to like it. But there are some who actually do.
This and the next several posts will pose and answer the question, "What are the pros and cons of blended learning?" It's for those of you who are grappling with the prospect of blended learning for the first time. Or for those of you re-visiting the topic after a long pause.
In this first post we'll focus on one aspect of the cons - why people object to it. In the next post, we'll focus on another aspect of the cons - why it might fail. In our third post we'll start to look at the pros - why people might like it. In our fourth and final post we'll continue with the pros and look at why it might work.
What people object to
Just like any approach to learning, blended has its detractors. The objections take a variety of angles.
For some, it's just a fad. A new name for something we've always done. Long before computer technology there were alternatives or complements to classroom teaching. People listened to cassettes, worked through self-study packs, went to seminars or had one-to-one coaching. What's suddenly so new?
Others worry that it's just about choice. It's not about really providing a coherent mix of learning. They point to the duplication of content that happens in many organisations. Just the same old stuff being churned out in a variety of flavours.
What about the work involved? Another common and very valid objection. Aiming for a coherent blend of learning provided through a variety of delivery mediums and instructional techniques is hard. It will take some careful thought and planning. Why bother some might ask, if only a handful of learners fully engage with all the elements.
It's just a marketing ploy. A ploy dreamt up by e-learning vendors and/or management. A ploy to get more e-learning in through the back door allowing them to slash the classroom training budget.
It gives e-learning a bad name. The people who develop blended learning would much rather be using classroom training throughout. They deliberately put all the boring bits of the blend into e-learning and save the fun bits for the classroom training.
It's frequently not necessary. Short training programmes or knowledge that can be covered in a day or two simply doesn't require the complexity of a blended approach. To provide it in these circumstances is just overkill.
As you see, the reasons people don't like blended learning are many and varied. Some objections even contradict others. So what about the practical problems?
Stayed tuned for the next post when we'll look at what might go wrong with a blended approach.
By the way, if you've got blended learning on the brain at the moment, take a look at our free, concise guide to blended learning: Making Blended Learning Work
It explains the ins and outs of some of the different delivery channels you might consider using with a blended approach. It also contains a costed example of a traditional classroom training approach compared to a blended programme.
