10. You actually clap your hands in excitement when you figure out that hiding slides in PowerPoint does not play nice with Articulate; you instead need to use the Hide in Navigation Panel option in the Slide Properties window of Articulate.
9. Knowing that you have an important meeting the next day with your project manager to go over a specific course's content, you take a printout of the course content with you to the gym and figure out how the course can be re-ordered and split up, while working out, to ensure that it is a more instructionally sound course.
8. While waiting for an extremely lengthy Articulate course to finish publishing, instead of surfing the Net, you peruse all of the many Twitter postings on Articulate tips and tricks.
7. You anxiously await the publishing and insertion of your Raptivity interactions into a course PowerPoint.
6. When you realize the reason why a single hyperlink out of 20 that are in a published course does not work is because the name of your linked file is just too long, you give yourself a great big pat on the back.
5. An idea comes to you in a dream about how to animate a concept that has stumped you for days.
4. While waiting for a response to your post on the Raptivity forums on how to insert a graphic without distortion issues using one of the Hot Spot interactions, you spend any free time you have playing around with the interaction, only to find out that importing a graphic into this particular interaction works only when using the wizard feature. You find that you cannot circumvent the wizard for this specific type of interaction at all, as you can with others, so you post the answer to your own question on the forums.
3. Proud of the Excel worksheet you have created by simply using the basic rectangle shape and the color fills and borders that PowerPoint offers, all you look forward to is showing it off to your family, friends, and co-workers.
2. When given a very complicated formula, with just the final answer and no examples on how to use it, you attempt to figure out the workings of the formula so that you can better explain the information to your target audience.
1. You spend your day off thinking of and reflecting on the top ten signs that you are an eLearning Geek.
Friday, March 26, 2010
Monday, March 15, 2010
Today's Custom Learning is Tomorrow's Customizable Learning Solution
Although she's probably never heard of me, I've heard of Jane Hart (@c4lpt). She had the most evocative tweets (at least to me) recently in a #lrnchat discussion.
Coming from custom content development organization, this resonated with me probably more than many in the industry. However, to expand on it, I truly feel Jane is not only on to something, but that this something should be considered as an alternative to how we approach individuals and corporations alike.
If I'm trying to learn a given subject, such as "How to Paint a Room", I simply hit up my search button with that very phrase. Now with the myriad choices for search engines, I can easily find the following:
I could have called in some practitioners in my network (probably some friends who have done this many times before), and ask them for specific feedback in my scenario, like removing a light fixture, or the best way to paint with the room setup I have. I could have called in some experts, and paid for it. Seriously, Sherwin Williams would love me if I called them in to consult on the whole job, or to actually pay "Jim's Brush Rush" to come in and do the job for me.
I think about real-life situations like these when it comes to customized training. Simply put, I customized my own personal training using the tools I had at hand. Each of these tools, be it blogs, videos, wikis, groups, practitioners, and experts, can be combined to form a unique learning solution that is perfectly tailored to my needs. Why? Because I'm the one who knows what I need in my specific situation.
Of course there may be situation that can't be learned immediately, and there are some activities that I would need to be certified to perform, but I'm not referring to these. I'm referring to on-the-job performance. Even if I couldn't perform a certain task, or needed to be certified to perform it, my network can provide me this information as well, instructing me to stop when necessary and what information is explicitly delivered via formal learning events (such as accredited academic organizations, or in a contained environment with special conditions and tools), as well as special assessment conditions (such as certification exams).
Why can't we at least get this far for our organizations that are willing to pay for customized learning solutions? I look at the example ACME corporation willing to pay thousands (if not hundreds of thousands of dollars) for a customized learning course or solution that will fit their needs for no more than 1- 2 years until the tasks change for the target audience.
Why can't we offer the chunks of information, and facilitate the technology to offer some of the solutions offered so readily at the hands of the Cloud? We need to provide the technologies and mechanisms necessary to make the search for this on-the-job performance help as seamless as typing "How to Paint a Room". What will be more beneficial for the ACME corporation? A customized learning course or solution that they will have to refresh on a bi-annual basis, or a mechanism such that they can create their own learning courses, insert their own how-to web-pages, and attach their own job-specific resources?
Imagine, instead of taking a course "Microsoft Word: Level 1", that a user could create course like "Microsoft Office, for ACME project managers" that would be specifically designed to their needs. We keep on talking as if learning professionals provide the necessary instructional design and delivery expertise to give a corporation the ultimate learning experience, however, how relevant is that learning experience if it is only valid for 12-18 months at the most?
In the end, motivation to continue through a course and successfully change behaviors is based on relevance. We need to provide our learners the ability and skills to customize and create their own learning solutions at will.
"Many see a "course" as the only solution to a training problem - until they u/s other ways of learning, things won't change"
"Stop training! Start developing self-directed self-managed learners"
"The new skill for L&D in 21stC is letting go - and helping others develop themselves!"
Coming from custom content development organization, this resonated with me probably more than many in the industry. However, to expand on it, I truly feel Jane is not only on to something, but that this something should be considered as an alternative to how we approach individuals and corporations alike.
 |
| tools of every color... |
- pages that describe the best procedure
- pages that describe best practices
- who's talking about painting a room right now on microblogging sites
- groups out there that contain laymen in the field of painting (from apprentice to expert)
- videos that demonstrate the procedure and best practices
I could have called in some practitioners in my network (probably some friends who have done this many times before), and ask them for specific feedback in my scenario, like removing a light fixture, or the best way to paint with the room setup I have. I could have called in some experts, and paid for it. Seriously, Sherwin Williams would love me if I called them in to consult on the whole job, or to actually pay "Jim's Brush Rush" to come in and do the job for me.
I think about real-life situations like these when it comes to customized training. Simply put, I customized my own personal training using the tools I had at hand. Each of these tools, be it blogs, videos, wikis, groups, practitioners, and experts, can be combined to form a unique learning solution that is perfectly tailored to my needs. Why? Because I'm the one who knows what I need in my specific situation.
Of course there may be situation that can't be learned immediately, and there are some activities that I would need to be certified to perform, but I'm not referring to these. I'm referring to on-the-job performance. Even if I couldn't perform a certain task, or needed to be certified to perform it, my network can provide me this information as well, instructing me to stop when necessary and what information is explicitly delivered via formal learning events (such as accredited academic organizations, or in a contained environment with special conditions and tools), as well as special assessment conditions (such as certification exams).
Why can't we at least get this far for our organizations that are willing to pay for customized learning solutions? I look at the example ACME corporation willing to pay thousands (if not hundreds of thousands of dollars) for a customized learning course or solution that will fit their needs for no more than 1- 2 years until the tasks change for the target audience.
Why can't we offer the chunks of information, and facilitate the technology to offer some of the solutions offered so readily at the hands of the Cloud? We need to provide the technologies and mechanisms necessary to make the search for this on-the-job performance help as seamless as typing "How to Paint a Room". What will be more beneficial for the ACME corporation? A customized learning course or solution that they will have to refresh on a bi-annual basis, or a mechanism such that they can create their own learning courses, insert their own how-to web-pages, and attach their own job-specific resources?
Imagine, instead of taking a course "Microsoft Word: Level 1", that a user could create course like "Microsoft Office, for ACME project managers" that would be specifically designed to their needs. We keep on talking as if learning professionals provide the necessary instructional design and delivery expertise to give a corporation the ultimate learning experience, however, how relevant is that learning experience if it is only valid for 12-18 months at the most?
In the end, motivation to continue through a course and successfully change behaviors is based on relevance. We need to provide our learners the ability and skills to customize and create their own learning solutions at will.
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