LMS Pilot is Looming Near

Oh this is getting scary. My LMS pilot is scheduled to occur in a few weeks and I'm getting very nervous. There is so much about the system I don't like that I'm now getting very discouraged about the entire thing. Having the fear that it's going to drastically fail is not a good feeling. It certainly is not one I can project to others.

I suppose I need to act as if I'm 100% behind the project, but what if I am not. How do you, on one hand, encourage others to use it and be excited that we now have an LMS, and on the other hand hate the whole thing and wish you could start it all over.

Oh my dilemma is drawing more and more near. I feel a bit like one of those screaming girls in a horror movie that's is running through the woods, in the dark, it's raining, I'm wearing 4 inch stilettos, a heel breaks, and the killer is behind the tree. You just kind of know how it's going to turn out don't you?

Well here's hoping it's actually Bambi behind the tree and not Jason.

(Thanks for listening to the rantings of a sick person implementing an LMS)

Honoured by a reposting of "LMS Pitfalls" to Spanish site

I was honoured earlier this week by a fellow blogger requesting if he could re-post my post on LMS Pitfalls. Anthony Montalvo of Buenos Aires, Argentina pens the blog 34.35°S, 58.24°W - Navegando el aprendizaje 2.0.

I really agree with one the comments of his re-posted version and that is that many on the list should very much be part of our common sense when implementing an LMS. The reality though is that some of these we take for granted and just assume the system will work or function as we expect. What seems natural and second hand to you may not have crossed the LMS vendor's mind.

Anthony's blog includes other topics such as collaboration, implementation, Moodle, and answers to The Big Question among many other things. Take some time to stop by his blog to read and comment on a few posts. He does offer translation of his blog, so everyone is welcome.

Reflecting on "My Big Find" of the eLearning Guild Annual Gathering '09

It dawned on me today that I've been able to come away with one truly "Big Find" from my attendance at each of the last three Annual Gatherings. There are many, many finds to be had but, I think the "Big Find" is that one new person that amazes, inspires, and teaches you something you didn't know before. Meeting this person makes you want to learn all their tips and tricks, and keeps you driven to keep learning more about the elearning field in general. They are much like that latest television show you always watch or tape so you never miss a single episode.

For the first of my attendance that was Brent Schlenker. His presentations inspired me to begin blogging. My second year of attendance was B.J. Schone, his blog and his knowledge about mobile learning kept me reading each an every one of his posts. I'll admit I've also sent him many questions over the past two years about elearning and LMSs.

This year I think the "Big Find" was Tom Kuhlmann. I happen to come across a flyer in the lobby and after reading it walked into the expo to see if I could get my hands on a Captain Smiley from the Articulate booth. Not only did I add to my little collection for squeezey characters, but to my surprised I learned so many neat Articulate tricks from him in just 30 minutes.

I'm sorry to admit here, that it wasn't until I walked away that I realized why his name was so familiar. Tom is the author of The Rapid eLearning Blog. What I love about his postings is that they may come from the Articulate camp, but you need not have the tool to find his postings useful. Each week there are simple and practical tips, tricks, and demos that anyone can incorporate into any of their training. The past few weeks have included:
Mar. 24, 2009 3 Easy Ways to Create Silhouette Characters
Mar. 17, 2009 Here’s Why PowerPoint 2007 Helps You Build Better E-Learning
Mar. 10, 2009 50 Practical Tips & Tricks to Build Better E-Learning
Mar. 03, 2009 3 Proven Techniques to Add Creativity to Your E-Learning Courses

This gentleman was truly a great find of this year's Annual Gathering. Thanks Tom for the continued inspiration to make my learning more engaging for my audience.

Earth Hour March 28, 2009 - (8:30pm - 9:30pm)

What are you planning to do this year for Earth Hour? If you haven't yet thought about it, now is the time. Cities, Towns, and Villages around the world are choosing to help save our planet from global warming with one simple act...turning their lights off for one hour. Wherever they are in the world they are clicking the switch and saving energy for one hour, that's it! Seems simple right? It is. If you have other power appliances you can turn off for one hour too, then great the more we save the better. But just turning off our lights around the world will save tens of thousands of Kilowatts of energy and help in stopping global warming. It's not the cure all for this issue, but it is a start in the right direction and something that we all can easily to in our own homes and places of work.

So take part and do your part to help save our planet...we all know it's the only one we have.

eLearning Course or Online Demo - which is better?

My co-worker and had a discussion today about what will come into our area over the next year and one of them was my goal to create several courses to go onto our LMS (once it's up of course). As the discussion went along she mentioned that she would like to do something where she could demonstrate how to do certain searches using her literature databases to employees. I responded with how easily that could be done by screen capturing her movements on the screen and adding voice over of how/what she is doing.

She responded in turn that she prefers to have them sit at one computer and her at another then she can take control of their screen and show them where to click and move throughout the program. They could then (through microphone/headset) ask her any questions as they come up. I thought these could be addressed through an FAQ section of an e-course.

So the big question arises. Is one format better than another? Would you rather sit in on a demo with many other people or take a course online by yourself? Does one format fit better for certain training than another? Do you have a personal preference on which you'd rather teach through and even learn through?

I actually suppose this is one of those "great debate" topics that never truly gets answered, but I'm still curious to any responses you'd like to share.

My Breakfast Byte on LMS Pitfalls

I facilitated a Breakfast Byte session at the eLearing Guild Annual Gathering and wanted to capture the points I shared and those of the participants. It's a long list so be prepared and is not in any particular order. These are many of the questions I've had to answer as I've gone along trying to get my system up.

1. Get your hands on a demo or sandbox version. Make sure you get to play with the LMS before purchasing.
2. Don't be in a rush to find something and just get it implemented.
3. If possible check to see what system others in your industry are using.
4. Make sure your team of stakeholders knows what they are looking for and need prior to viewing the demo. Make sure they are as informed as you.
5. Set weekly progress meetings with your vendor.
6. Ensure each side of the implementation knows exactly what tasks are being accomplished by each side (you and your vendor)
7. Make sure your HR database of employees has all the data you really need to track and report on your staff. Older HR systems may not have everything you need.
8. Make sure your HR system can communicated with the LMS system.
9. Consider whether you need an LMS that can be accessed from home or is inside the company "walls" enough. Can the LMS handle external access?
10. Training, training, training. Make sure you as the Administrator get training from a Learner level, then an Instructor level, and finally the Administrator level. Know what each person will see and be able to access.
11. Don't get pressured by the vendor to launch before you are comfortable with the system and know it is up to your personal/dept standards of excellence. Credibility will be lost by you if you launch to early and have too many bugs.
12. Ensure the reporting is extremely robust, customizable, exportable.
13. Roles - most LMS seem to offer training broken into learning roles. Is this a method you can use to group training for staff? Is this something that fits with your corp's learning models.
14. How robust is the testing/quizzing of the system? Is it even built in? Does the LMS mark a pass/fail or can it track down to the question level?
15. Can you import courses that have been created elsewhere and track the results from participation?
16. How well does the vendor understand SCORM compliance? Can they explain it to you?
17. Can you import courses or does the vendor have to do this for you? Each course could cost more money.
18. How user friendly and easily navigational is the system for learners, instructors and administrators?
19. Can students be easily updated, added, maintained?
20. Can the system be changed easily to match your organization's needs/branding? Can you do this or does the vendor have to make these changes?
21. Can you group your courses into categories that make sense to your learners?
22. Do you have a checklist of all the components that you want to see in an LMS to match your vendor against?
23. Can the system create courses (some can and still call themselves an LMS and not an LCMS)? More importantly, if so how robust are they or do you need to think about looking into a 3rd party course creation tool.
24. What types of content can be imported? video, audio, ppt, doc, xls, pdf, swf, anything else?
25. Do you and your vendor have the same idea of how the system will initially roll out? 1 course or several, only registration or online courses as well? Make sure you are both clear on what "go live" means.
26. Do you have the most current version of the system or are updates being created as you are trying to implement your system?
27. How often will you get updates?
28. Do you offer classroom courses as well as online courses? If so how well does the system manage the classroom courses for you based on your current training methods.
29. Research lots of LMSs before even going to the RFP stage. You'll be able to eliminate those that don't meet your requirements before going to stakeholders for input.
30. Name your LMS - give it a name that will mean something to your employees and keep them coming back to the system to learn.
31. Take advice from the vendor on how to role out the pilot of the system, but stick to what you also know will work best for your organization. They may have the methodology, but you may know the sample size that works best for you.
32. Find an IT buddy. Someone that can help you out and translate the computer language talk that goes along with implementing a system and getting it to talk to your internal system.
33. Find an LMS mentor, someone that has implemented a system before. Even if they implemented a different product they'll be able to advise.
34. Not everything is going to work 100% from the very start, so take it easy on yourself. Don't expect it all to fall into place right away.
35. Figure out what LMS elements are most important to you and get them up and running for the pilot, then work from there on making it more and more robust.
36. Do you have a backup plan should another dept start thinking and shopping for their own LMS?
37. How responsive is the vendor to your inquiries, troubleshooting, etc
38. Is there a yearly licence or one time fee, or per user fee
39. How often are upgrades issued? Are they part of the fee?
40. How long does the pilot take? How long do they think it will be up and running based on past customers?
41. Does the system track external learning events?
42. Do other users have comments they can share from learners of the system? Learner feedback?
43. Can you send email notification to learners?
44. Can it be integrated with your particular online calendar system?
45. Can you assign course dates to learners or do they have to assign themselves?
46. Is there space on the dashboard for news, updates, info text, on homepage?****
47. Is it searchable? By course title or right into a course? Do you have to use it’s elearning building tool to make it searchable?
48. Can you administer hands-on practical tests?
49. Are evaluations for courses available?
50. Does it have discussion boards, wikis, etc? Are these important to you? Do you even need them?
51. Does it have other social networking tools?
52. What is built in and what has to be an add-in?
53. How robust is the support documentation for the user and for the learner?
54. Can you set up courses that online some staff can access and not others? - assigned to a role?
55. Go to the top if you have to? Maybe weekly conversation with your project lead, but monthly meeting with owner of company or sales rep to keep project on track.
56. Try to list all the steps you will need to cover to get the system going.
57. What for vendors/sales reps that bully and are they showing you the "real" system? Can you see a demo from an actual user with out the vendor present?
58. How secure is the data by the vendor - if hosted?
59. Be prepared to go over budget.
60. Find out one key contact (from the provider) for your implementation project so that you can maintain constant communication.
61. Can you get ROI reporting from the system?
62. Can you produce performance appraisals, career paths, development paths? Is this something you need as an organization?
63. You can "turn off" the elements of the LMS you don't need or won't use.

Graphich Symbols: The 5th Language - Kevin Thorne

5 Languages

• spoken - may be fluent in more than one
• written - symbolic form of our spoken language
• mathematics -symbols for concepts and data
• body - language of expression
• symbols

Examples: nike swish, windows flag, facebook "f", target brand, golden arches

Symbol tips to get what is in your head, out in to graphics, into your course

How do we take thousands of years of communicating graphically into e-learning? World's most well know symbol - the olive branch.

Ancient Egyptians entire language was all symbols. Mayan symbols thousands of years ago look extremely similar to iphone app icons....hmmmmmm.

Native Indians created some symbols, but added some motion into their "pictures".

Sequential art - comics, Will Eisner PS monthly - 1951 The Preventative Maintenance Monthly. Taught driving safe but in "comics". "A graphic medium in which images are utilized in order to convey a sequential narrative."

The picture does not need to be professionally drawn, it just needs to convey the message. Put the "x" in the upper right corner to exit, we all already know that.

Shem says I'll give you 2 pigs to Thor for 5 jars of olives. They agreed, left, came back and forgot the deal. So they drew pictures of what they wanted to trade. But 1 pig equalling 50 beans was too much to draw. Drew 50 beans = 1 pig. But then Bubba came and wanted to trade a goat. But Bubba couldn't draw a goat. So they then created words 4 goats = 7 Jars of olives.

NOW...instead work backwards. Think of the words you want to convey, draw them as written language, convert to symbols.

Thinking of a clown:

• big nose
• big shoes
• poofy hair
• flower
• hat
• gloves
• big clothes
• make up
• tie

Can all be drawn with simple shapes. You can do it all yourself. Entire course hand drawn, hand written and the result was the same as an expensive coures.

Dan Roam - The back of the napkin. Any problem can be made clearer with a picture, and any picture can be made using the same simple steps.

Think of a cash register....you'll first think of an old time 1930's cash registered. Still a recongizeable symbol.

Squares, rectangles, lines, dots (triangles too) are all you need.

Simple frame - square inside a square, triangle at top

Again - square inside a square, half moon resting on top to the left, 2 lines up from the half moon, two dots on the right side of the "frame" - becomes a tv.

This is showing and sharing of symbol libraries. Complete library of basic shapes. Reusing over and over in slightly different configurations. Break apart the symbol in to basic shapes you can then create other symbols quicker and easily.

An object is first a shape. That shape occupies a space. That space defines the object. An object is a shape that occupies a space.

We can then stretch, squeeze, squash and squish basic shapes.

Like the 4 stage engine:

Intake - Consult, brainstorm, plan, team

Compression - Development, reviews, translate, edit

Ignite - launch involve engage market

Exhaust - measure, report, review, analyze

Increasing Learner Productivity with New Technologies

Participants are looking for information on new technologies, passing road blocks that are limiting us from using new technologies, facing generations using new tools - but faculty are not.

Feels like sales forces are the drive of early adopters. They need just-in-time information often about the products they need. Also within the education industry, field support, etc.

How do you allow staff to take time out to learn? How to get mgrs to understand this need to learn?

We're at this point in time where wikis, open source products are all becoming more stable, more structured and there for more used. Mobile products are still getting there. More roadblocks about having to learn in a new way. More so a large human/cultural issue about using a new tool. What is it that people are doing that we then need to figure out the best "new" way of how to do it? (all without the testing, piloting, etc because by the time you get to it the technology is old). Now the tools of today are easy to use, turn on, and get using it. This is all quite simple compared to 10 or even 5 years ago.

Why are some industries/areas embracing new technologies and others are not? 1, 9, 90 rule one creates, one reads, 90 don't quite get it.

Using blogs - if you have a question, comment, etc call a phone number and then it gets posted to a blog. The phone then becomes a bridge using the tool of blogging. Use old technologies and connect them to the new technologies. But how do we get the large groups to do it? Get over the fascination of the technology and use the business need to drive the use of the technology.

Most change happens one bite at a time. Perhaps we need to do it gradually. Send them to the website instead of answering the question. Or watch the trends of what people want to do, now try to figure out how you can bring them in.

Fail-forward-faster. Web 2.0 stuff is really cheap. Sometimes it's too cheap because it might get cut next year. Allow for some choice and individuality, but point everything back to one place. There are personal needs, business needs. Know your people where are they, what are they doing, how are they doing. Then decide on the tools that fit that best.

Try using Sharepoint to introduce elements of web 2.0 types of tools. Go with what your people know. Try sending more through emails as people are much more familiar with reading and scanning through emails and doing so quickly.

You need to learn how to feed information into these tools rather than waiting for people to find them. Let people go out and talk stuff up before you even turn it on and let it be used. Perhaps you always need to be ahead of the time, have the need ready, wait for them to ask for it.

Ie: NetMeeting years ago had little buy in, and now we're looking at gotomeeting, etc as tools we can't live with. FAIL - mandatory blogging...mandatory anything not good. Leaving it as - you should all be doing this, is very scary to your people. You want people to learn, but not tell them how to learn can sometimes scare them away as well.

Collaboration is incredibly powerful. The fact that millenials are so use to this is exciting.

Try putting web 2.0 questions into your interviews. Do they blog, do they use wikis, do they edit them....if so would they do it at work as well. You create buy in as you hire.

Learning from blogging: Creating your own and learning from other's

I'm actually presenting at the Annual Gathering in about 30 minutes or so and am quite excited. I really hope those in attendance enjoy the presentation and those that can't attend are free to take a look at my slides and forward any questions to myself.

AG09 Presentation (full slide presentation)

AG09 Presentation (handout - tba)

Mostly this is about the steps needed to start up your own blog and then ways to tweak the blog to make it your own. There will be some notes on how to tap into other blogs out there and in doing so learn from peers by reading theirs and connecting with them. I also will be presenting some info on changing the basic templates using some simple html tricks to make your blog uniquely your own or branding it to your corporation.

Get Dressed for Success! On-Screen Aesthetics for your courseware – Ng

Two screens shown – more positive of 2 screens is the one that is balanced, doesn’t have red, clear text.

Don’t judge a book by its cover? Is this true of your on-screen content? Here it is very true to keep your audience engaged from click one.

Placement,
Colour,
Font

Placement: 4 rectangles shown. Most popular choice is a large wider rectangle. Since the time of the Greeks they have been using the Perfect Rectangle, and to them this is the most perfect rectangle. Ie: Typical Letter size paper.

The more symmetrical left to right the more “perfect” you are.

Western culture reads left to right, however scientifically (pictures right, text left) the right side is our creative side, left side is logic side. If you tried to visualize something your eyes automatically trail to the right. Ask a math question and your eyes will trail to the left.

“video within area” Had person more in the middle and his speech bubble up to the right.

Is there a perfect course? No they are subjective, but there are guidelines we can follow and will please the majority of learners.


Colour combinations
Be sure your text does not get lost in the background you have chosen. Ie: dark text on dark background – bad, dark text on medium tone background – okay, dark text on white background – best

We’ve been taught to associate colours with items. Blue – sky, ocean, Orange – warmth, Red – danger (Chinese luck). You need to be aware of what colours mean to different people/cultures.

Ie Vegas – there are lots of bright lights, warm colours, nothing cool/pastel. Influences you to make riskier bets. Thinking of being on a plane, especially long flights the seats tend to be blue, green, calming colours. Very subtle things, but important. The learners most likely will never even notice these items.

Know compliment colours and contrasting colours. This will assist you in your own course design choices. Quick way to find out, highlight your text and it will show you automatically the contrasting colour.

Text
Fonts to choose – no standard again, more preference however. Anything as a Sans Font, will be the best. Do not use downloaded fonts because not every computer will have the same downloaded font. Alignment can be messed up, words can run off the screen.

Don’t use too many different fonts. Choose only 1 font, 2 at most where the second one is for special or warning messages within the course.. Consistency is best for the reader.

Use different font sizes to let you know the different parts of the course (title, subtitle, text). Distance from one section to another is not enough (from title to subtitle).

Summary
These elements along with good learning/teaching theory will help produce excellent courses.

Click - Thursday's Keynote - Bill Tancer

Click: What Millions Are Doing Online and Why it Matters to You as an e-Learning Professional. – Bill Tancer, General Manager, Hitwise

Keynote – Thursday, March 12, 2009

I found this keynote so interesting I took a lot of notes. I guess I love data too!

Saturday, March 13, 2009 is Pi day.

“To become aware of the possibility of the search is to onto something.” – Walker Percy

His blog – ilovedata.com

Looking through junk emails he saw an email requesting that he write an article. Was actually the editor of Time.com. Requested 3 submissions by the following week. First thing he googled was how to right a magazine column. Then from there the column became more and more popular.

Where does the data come from?

• 25 Million internet users world wide
• 10 Million from the US
• 1 Million websites
• 172 Industry Categories
• Millions of Search terms per month
• Monthly, Weekly, & Daily

All from direct internet providers

One of the first charts that interested him was what was being searched for on one specific term. The interest is that looking at one term’s search and how it is reflective over the full year. Ie: diets are searched for huge on Jan 1 and then end Jan 5. Thanksgiving is the lowest day for the search to be term. This repeats year after year.

Prom Dress Obsession:
Gave an assistant an assignment – take 4 million search term set, using all the retail searches what is the number one thing they are searching the most. Searching to buy. After a few weeks – she said something wrong with data, number one thing was prom dresses. They thought perhaps something had corrupted the data. This was not the case, not effected by bots or anything else. First week of January there is a spike as well on prom dresses. Called their clients, retailers, buyers asking when they did marketing, for dresses and this occurred in March.

Finally at a publisher meeting a gentleman there was the GM of a major magazine and the teen division. He was specifically at the meeting for the prom dress phenomenon. Most revenue also comes through the magazine in March. They decided to try to move the consumer behaviour to begin to start marketing a pre-issue in January.

We can now look at aggregate user behaviour and make very informed choices.
Engagement Ring searches are similar. Spike was the week before Thanksgiving and largest buying time is after Thanksgiving. Consumers are tending to do research about a week before they go to the store.

Seasonality of the data trends can be quite different than we expect. Example: Dancing with the stars seems to be more of a popularity contest than anything else. Looking at who is eliminated and who is searched there is a direct correlation. Charting the season with Stacy Keibler, Drew Lachey and Jerry Rice. So, he predicted that she would win. In fact she came in second. Why the mistake in prediction?

Instead they dug into the intent of the searches regarding Stacey Keibler. The increased searches were not because of the ball room fans but those looking just for “hot pictures, pictures of, etc.” The SKCC – Stacy Keibler Correction Coefficient. This means you need to dig into the reason for the search not just the search term.

Another example looking at how people sell homes, could now predict what would happen in home sales. He started making predictions on CNN. He predicted at one point they would go up, all economists said they would go down 2%. He agreed to come back when the prediction could be validated or not. The numbers came out and they actually had gone down. SKCC he had not thought of was the intent for searches on existing home sales. People used to look at homes for sales and look to sell homes, now instead they were actually looking to see how much their home was valued at in the current market with no intent of selling.

Cognitive Dissonance & the Adult Entertainment Industry
- when you ask someone a question they usually will answer it in the best positive light. But observed behaviour is often different.

Ie: how many people in the audience regularly go to adult entertainment sites? No one answers yes. Lead us to believe that the internet is porn free. LOL.

Someone in the gov’t decided to see if the internet is then 99.95% porn free.

HoweverIf you have a theory and then go and look at the data, you can find or only look at the data that matches your theory and then believe your theory to be true.

When times get tough lipstick sales go up. Things that aren’t very expensive in times that are tough people will be the cheaper luxury items rather than the expensive items (ie a fancy dress). Looking at data about lipstick searches this to timed perfectly with the bank info drops, DOW drops, and this theory seemed to make sense. However, he went back to the data and looking deeper at the searches there were “lipstick on a pig”, “lipstick on a bull”. The peak in searches was actually related to the presidential debates of the time.

Looking at all the online learning facilities of the world he charted how well elearning is doing in this economy. Appears that more and more people are taking a look at their careers and rethinking relooking at updating and improving their education. Good news for us elearning creators.

Income brackets of people that are looking at online learning more than anyone are the upper income groups. Over $50,000 went from 0.7% to 12.9%.

Clickstream
This allows him to see where they went just previous and where they go when they leave a specific site (or search term). Driver of portals is huge to online universities. Social Networking is at about 3% right now, but it is steadily increasing as a drive to online universities.

Search.twitter.com lets you search all of Twitter for specific terms. His big ah-ha was when he searched his own name. Saw that someone twittered and asked if his book was any good? He responded that is was good. LOL

Google Trends for your own sites/terms is a great search. Currently 70+% of all searches are done through Google.

Looked at the pattern of trends looking through elearning platforms. There is a bit of a trend following some of the school calendar, but not exactly. No decline seems to be happening as with other industries currently, but also not quite as dynamic as online universities.

Looking at the age demographics though is a doubling of millennials. This is the only group that is increasing in searching online universities.

Looking at platform searches, they next place they go are technology industry, education, then retailers and the entertainment industry.

Conclusion:
Observed behaviour is one of the key components. Look deeper at what they are truly looking at and why.
eLearning and Institutes are moving in the opposite direction of the economy.
Looking at the data is going to be key to keeping competitive.

Twitter.com/hitwise_US

Click column

Personal Productivity Tools - Thomas Stone

Going around the room of participants each person shared 1-3 of their favourite tools that they use most often during their daily duties.

• Microsoft OneNote EverNote – part of Microsoft office. Only part of the Student Suite and ultimate (?) suite. Don’t need to use post-it notes, text files, etc. Tabs, subpages, etc. Screen clipping, audio, calculator, tables, list, easy user interface, type anywhere you want on the screen. 60-day free trial. Give yourself more than a day to try it out. Put it into your daily work-flow. EverNote – web based. OneNote – desktop based. Will also search for words in audio files.
• myhours.com – time tracking, clicktime.com – project time tracking
• Twitter.com – microblogging, info intake, tons of feeds
• Delicious – one for work, one for personal
• pixlr.com image editor
• sumo.fi – image editing
• screengrab – add on to firefox, snag-it, and entire scroll down of a screen
• MS Outlook – email, tasks, time (2007 has an RSS reader)
• Lifehacker – blog, interesting read
• Remember the Milk – to do apps (can be used within google homepage as well)
• Qlock.com – world time zone tracker or world clock meeting planner
• Facebook for sending emails to students – to reach students quicker than regular emails
• Yahoo Toolbar – put up icons as shortcuts for his own websites
• LinkedIn – looked at as a more professional based “facebook"
• Gravatar.com – one picture for all places, gives you a url for your picture that then can go into every other place
• Ning sites as well for social networking
• Google Apps – share docs, spreadsheets, presentations, etc.
• Google Toolbar – save bookmarks as well
• TED talks
• Michael Lingenburger (sp?) – Maximizing Outlook to the best it can be
• O’Riley – the hack series – google hacks, etc.
• Adobe Connect – not blocked by most firewalls, someone on the other side can assist you in presenting, or creating virtual meetings
• Sorenson products to present and convert videos to play on the web, compression
• Audacity – free sound editing program, there are add-ons for this as well, use for recording SME’s
• Collective X , Community Zero – Social Networking
• Inspiration – mind mapping tool, webspiration.com as well

Additional tools can be found at: http://www.c4lpt.co.uk/ – Jane Hart, she has extensive complied list of top 10 lists collected from users that have supplied to her. There is a further full catalogue within her directory. You can drill down into a particular contributors top ten list.

Great Day One at AG09

Well the eLearning Guild Annual Gathering for 2009 has once again not disappointed. I've learned so many great new things here today. I find it amazing every year that I seem to learn more from just networking and speaking to people over the lunch hour and at demo booths than some of the actual sessions.

I found a flyer in the lobby about Captain Smiley (which I'll insert a picture of once I return home) and went off to visit the Articulate booth. Turned out to be one of the best half hours of the day. I listened to Tom Kuhlmann and learned some amazing tricks. Simple enough tricks that will take me a few times to get right, but really neat ways to bring even more into your courses.

I found out through the dinner discussion board that the Shuttle was going to launch. Then looking at information about the best place to view it over the lunch hour, I found Nasa's Twitter link. Later in the afternoon, sure enough a tweet from Nasa that the launch had be cancelled. I'm loving Twitter more and more.

My lunch discussions also gave me a few brainstorms about how to get more buy in for social tools from the CEO and upper management. One included getting our physicians more interested in using Twitter to collaborate and consult with one another on cases. Sounds like a great idea and if you can get physician buy-in then you're definitely part way there.

I did my breakfast byte session this morning, which wasn't exactly what I envisioned it to be and I'm unsure if I gave the participants any more than they already knew. However, I really enjoyed the experience and I think it has better prepared me for tomorrow's session.

I'm looking very forward to the rest of the Gathering and all it has to offer. Oh and a big shout out to my many new Twitter Friends. Tweeple? Twiends? you get the idea. Oh and follow http://twitter.com/jzurovchak he's got great tweets going out during each of the sessions he's sitting in on.

Retaining Those New Young Employees You Hired - Claire Schooley

Senior Analyst with Forrester Research (internationally)

- Characteristics of new workers
- learning approaches
- ways of recruiting
- tools/resources

Millennials between 1980 & 2000, There are 81 million of them coming.

78 Million baby boomers will be retiring with only 45 million Gen X to fill the places.

Short Term
- boomers are working longer
-workers are being imported
-jobs are outsourced
-economy shifting

But....

• The millenials are the catalysts of change. They have lots of thoughts to share. Open environments to allow them are key.
• They want career opportunities, and are optimistic of finding jobs.
• Very innovative in collaborating, learning, working and fun.
• Have an innate ability to use technology.
• Value the opportunity to be given the chance to find the solution to a problem on their own.

Characteristic

• multitasking
• materialistic and entrepreneurial
• innovative
• family/social life important
• work-life balance key (more task oriented rather than 9:00-5:00)
• socially responsible

Career Traits

• Task oriented rather than time-based - Can we start employing home workers? The commute isn't important, less cars, .....but will they really work at home and how can we evaluate that?
• Team oriented, supportive work culture. - Looking for how people are working. Just in cubicles, not group gatherings. Not everything in teams, but looking for some. Looking for quiet rooms. Find with moving around, just give them a place they can go when they need to gather with 3 or 4 people. Don't necessarily need a desk. Looking for more of a "pod" atmosphere. (some might not want to hear everything, but remember these are more multi-tasking types of people).
• Looking for good pay. Millennials know what they are worth based on their skills. They look it up and expect they will be paid equally.
• They want feedback, constant feedback.

Experiences that Shaped the Millennial Generation

-after school programs
-don't remember not having technology
-parent both have hectic life styles (work)
-have seen parents lose their jobs (look out for themselves instead)

(presenter has been working with the same people for 6 years and never met them in person)

Rate technology low as to what companies will have. They just assume that we will have it and have it all! (big thing for mgrs to think of)

How to retain them...

• short, meaningful learning - quick and matters to their job at the moment (podcasts big - short 5-20 minute pieces) (orientation podcasts - great idea, or youtube videos)
• self-generated learning to help others
• collaboration tools to speed the work process (video conferencing, desktop even interest growing, millenials are not afraid to be online)

Nike and what they have done:

They have a continual challenge that sales associates (100% turnover rate - workers only come to work for a few years at a time) need to learn about new products every season. Need to also teach new workers selling techniques, they all are tech savvy, and it needs to create minimal disruption to the retail environment. Lastly, it's often blended.

They have paper based info, hand held info - scan a product and find out about it. Sell-through of Nike product increased by 4%. They have created the Sports Underground Network. Online based training is only 3-5 minutes. Reinforcement and performance support constant. Based on the UK underground subway maps, each train link represents a different part of the product chain. Learners go through a virtual subway, click on subway poster to find out about the shoe, benefits, how they function in the weather, click the subway map to go to another product info area. Challenge of the job is that it's retail and it's the nature of the job there will be quick turnover. A stepping stone to other places. This increased selling though, perhaps not retention. Learning is allowed instore when no customers around. Tracked through LMS. Supervisor is checking from time to time.

At Black and Decker all training staff have flip cameras to capture appropriate training scenes. Capture short segment videos. Now have a full library of videos that can be accessed on specific topics and are no longer than 10 minutes. "sales people need it and it doesn't need to be perfect"

DHL has an 11 week blended program. All the history & general understanding of product is online. Job shadowing and mentoring done face-to-face. Face-to-face mock sales situations. Then trips to customer service locations to understand procedures and to meet the CEO.

Millenials like to meet the CEO and they have no trouble talking to the senior management.

UPS - pilot training facility, used a transparent car, sensors on the truck for enter/exit, lift & lower simulators, slip and fall simulators, mini town for driving practice. Key here - all hands on learning and not classroom based. Students then as well watch animated demos. Took quizzes and trialed hand held tools. Important here is that they learned the WHY of what they were learning.

Recommendations:

clear learning opportunties
provide formal, informal, online, training
pair with mentors
build communities

Brain-Based Strategies for Passionate Learning Experiences - Martinez

By -Dr. Margaret Martinez

Psychological factors and relationships that influence persistence, motivation and attrition. Dominate influence of emotion s and intentions on learning.

What was the one time in your life you felt truly passionate about learning?
Smiles took over the room, positive emotion grew. That is what we want to get each time we teach.

Brain Fitness market revenues continue to grow. $100million in 2005, $225 million in 2007

What is happening though is that you once used a linear process to finger walk through a card catalogue to find book. Now looking through a search engine is using different parts of the brain to do this searching. Brain morphology is looking at the way that the brain is changing to adapt to a more technology based society.

Technology has changed the size of the brain, especially in the cognitive functioning.

Senses are triggering synopsis in the brain. Development is occurring. The "circuits" once triggered something is being learned in the brain.

Video Clip: YouTube - "The Brain - Emotions, Neurons, Neurotransmitters" showed to explain how the brain works and functions.

Learning Changes the brain: Video - Dan Rather Reports - Mind Science Part 1 of 6.

People forget to exercise their brains. Brain placidity - everyone of us can change our brain.

Book recommended - Art of Changing the Brain - James Zull

How do you make this practical for the learning environment?
Understand your audience and analyse who they are.
This how the learner is influenced by relationships, environment, and instructional delivery.

Learning Orientation Questionnaire
discover your learning type, preference

Top Passion Strategies
-don't focus on mistakes or misunderstandings
-use metaphors and stories to get across your message to you audience
-use reflection to search for connections and consider meaning to build new knowledge
-thoughtful questions will help them to learn to ask their own thoughtful questions
-Use intrigue, mystery to gain buy in - learning games
-brain likes to predict, use strategies to help set and meet expectations
-use conversations
-provide stress free environments
-give the learning in pieces
-use more graphics to help focus
-personalize more (if, then, ......)
-focus on how the learning happens, ask the SME the best way to learn their particular item

Search learning strategies for more information.

Practice, feedback, Reflect, Again...brain's natural cycle.

Follow:
Amygdala
Neuromodulation
Neuronal Development
Synapses
Mirror Neurons
www.trainingplace.com - here studies, sites, resources, papers.

Selecting Practice Activities and Media for Online and Blended Learning - Patti Shank

Opening Story: In the bird world there are "bird tutors" that teach the baby birds to learn and practice and they don't stop until they've learned it correctly.

Working through and example - violence threat assessment.
patti@learningpeaks.com - for slidedeck from activity session. Not all slides are included in handout, but you can request them from her.

Uncover the Do's (activities), Convert the Do's into activities, Select media to support.

Uncover the Do's - from learning research (pg. 5 of her handout) (examples below)

• Recall facts
• Find and make sense of information
• Understand underlying concepts
• Understand how a process works
• Complete needed steps
• Determine which course of action is needed
• Create a product or produce a specific result
• Troubleshoot and fix problems

Doing it in this manner is goal oriented.

Use the 8 Do types to determine the to do's of the courses. Then change them into real activities. Do this with the people that actually do the work so that you don't miss any of their steps. ( You may want to watch them for a day, take notes and then go back and see if they actually match the way the person performs the task - ask them for feedback).

- What's needed to practice the Do? How important is realistic practice? Does it need to be online or real?

Typical practice activities that match the 8 Do's are on her handouts as well.
Do # 1 - Ie: recall facts, classify facts, use facts
Do # 1 (activity) using Threat example - Questions on how often and overlooked threats are.

DOs and Example Activities

1. recall facts example - hotspot on an image, multiple choice recall question, drag & drop

2. find and make sense of information example - http://dmv.ca/gov/pubs/interactive/tdrive/clm1written.htm

http://www.libraries.psu.edu/instruciotn/ebpt-07/Letter_Dr_Schirm.htm

Microsoft - Protect your PC demo

3. Understand underlying concepts example - Microsoft demo Security 101

http://www.emusictheory.com/pracite/pianoKeys.html

(turn learning do's into instructional objectives)

(patterns and recognition of them)

http://www.gliffy.com/ (individual or collaborative diagramming site) - beginners don't know how things connect and giving them a simple pattern allows them to understand it

http://www.forio.com/pdasim.htm (perhaps to dynamic of an example)

# 4 - Understanding a process

ie: how to talk to a customer, understand what they need, bring them into the store

http://www.msnbc.com/modules/airport-security/screener (simple demo - great scenario) - screen captures

http://www.forntiernet.net/~imagining/vector_calculator.html (works if the person understands the concept)

http://www.lynda.com/podcasts

(very little text examples - does that mean you should use less text during activities? better but does not have to be the rule, don't show in text what you can show in pictures - not a rule, but good to follow)

Research says you should never read text to people. People can read faster than you can talk.

Less "show me's" more walk-thru and learning demos.

#5 - Complete needed steps example -

job aids, take away and use it some where to see if you can do the steps on your own

Research shows that if you have a visual on the screen you can speak to it and it is very difficult to read text and look back at the visual.

#6 Determine which course of action is needed example - http://www.edheads.org/activities/knee

Rapid elearning Blog

Doesn't always have to be online. There are lots of real-life examples where staff can take a check list and work through a real-life scenario

http://wwwl.practiceboard.com/ (html sandbox)

http://www.language-exchanges.org/ (using skype to hook learners together with real people)

#7 Troubleshoot and fix problems example -

Should be added to any type of practice if that is a do. And is the case in most instances.

Consider Media for Activities (on slides)

typical media for each type of activity is included here.

Crowdsourcing - Jeff Howe

Crowdsourcing - video displayed by Jeff.

Few key ideas

• Now with the internet we can create a crowd virtually with shared interest.
• Shared passions for hobbies, crafts, arts, etc.
• Ie: quality of stockphotos by amateurs is abundant, drives supply up and prices downforces companies to approach us as potential partners, not just buyers
• Technology is so good that people are becoming better.

Spent time covering the Vans Warp tour for some time and during this became infatuated with the process (he was a member of the Suburban Morons). What he loved about the time is that the teens there were so open to any creativity. Their relationship with the product. Older generations see that you film a movie because you want to be a film maker, write a book because you want to be a writer. These kids though do all these things just because they want to, the technology disappears and they just use the tool. They shoot video, write blogs, draw just for the creative drive of it, not for any one particular reason.

Opensource in 2006 was less familiar then now, existed very sparsely. User-generated brought back little if you tried to search for it.

User generated content is like Old Faithful, every so many minutes water is being spewed out. As an image it seems to come out in one location, but there are actually geysers spewing out vapor in fields quite a distance away from the original. User - generated - open source ....crowd-sourcing.

The labour source for crowdsourcing can be done over the "coffee break". That things or tasks can be done in small components and in a quick amount of time. The time it takes to have a coffee break. (ie: Threadless - voting for the best t-shirt design). (note: from the Two Jakes).
What does the crowd do for Threadless - gives them cheap labour (picture a teen on a chair, laptop on knees). They do it because they have a chance to do it. (look for the Communist Party).

They are creating all sorts of cheap marketing by getting buyers to take pictures of them wearing the shirt. They then get a discount. Threadless has never spent a dime on marketing. The buyers do it all. But this is not the best thing that the crowd is doing for them. The crowd votes on the shirts and if they'd buy it or not. That way the are never over or under stocked.
Threadless is not exceptional, but a perfect example.

iStockphoto is the same idea. You can benefit from it by contributing to it. "Why do they put stuff on the web, so that others can enjoy and benefit from it." Buyers quickly learned that they could publish their photos there and buy photos there for very very cheap. Other stock groups had astronomical prices. 96% claim that contributors to iStockphoto have another job and photography is not their first line of work.Ask not what your community can do for you, ask what you can do for your community. – Jeff Howe.

They both were providing, giving to communities. They built up around the community and then the community eventually gave back tenfold.

Themes of crowdsources the less discipline that a scientist had in relation to a problem, the more like they were to solve it. Scientists (generally) 70% of the time already know the solution to the problem (it just needs to be brought out).

Another example: Current - tv show - content created by the same people that watch the show.

The more you can do for your community - give to them, the greater the participation back from the community.

4 Developments that make crowdsourcing possible and inevitable.

- Amateur Renaissance - ie: bird watch, stock photos, threadless - we are all producing work at a higher quality and greater volume

- The open source revolution - we all are creating better products than the big corporations\

- Democratization of production - cost has decreased so more can access the tools to produce

- The rise of online communities - geography no longer matters. Communities are truly global.

Q & A:

How does this affect the lives of professional artist? Opening doors or limiting this? - keep your day job. Over the last several years it has made it easier for exceptional artist to market their wares effectively.

As elearners we use graphic design a lot. How do we keyword search some of these tools? "Spec Work", Crowdsourcing design

eLearning seems to be a place where people can learn more from each other than not.

Technology used to facilitate crowd sourcing in a group such as a venue as this gathering? salesforce.com, citizens briefing book

Will depend a bit on the wisdom of the crowd. Collective wisdom of the crowd as well.

Using this for things related to expetise, where people think they know something where infact it's not true. It gets put out there, but then it's very difficult to bring it back to the truth. - Danger of this? Yes there is bit of this problem. This is the tranistion and everything is up for grabs now.

Articulate Workshop At AG09

I'm sitting in on the Articulate workshop today at the eLearning Annual Gathering 2009. It's been a fabulous workshop so far. I've learned many tips and tricks that I didn't yet know or experience from my limited time of using the program.

Yukon Learning has sent a great group of trainers and facilitators to assist with the class. I have enjoyed that they have one person presenting (Ron Price) and then several others hovering in the room to assist with any troubles or glitches that learners are having. There is also a technical person, that I used, that is here to assist with real computer problems. I needed assistance downloading an add-in so I could particpate in the class.

Great job to the session and the group.

Teaching English Through Video - The Children of SEAM

I wrote previously about my friend who volunteered 8 weeks of her summer in 2007 and 2008 in India. During her time there she was assisting at an orphanage. The first time some of her time went to teaching English to the children and women. The second summer she continued that task, but also assisted in the building of the foundation for a sleeping complex for the children.

She just shared this video with me where another recent volunteers "taught the kids at SEAM orphanage how to make a movie. He gave them 3 cameras and they did this film. She is so proud of the film and they even edited in a short clip of her from summertime, which was a complete surprise! She worked on the construction at this orphanage 9am to 1pm then taught English to 4 adult women in afternoon. At 5:30pm she would go back to the orphanage for the evening. There are 38 kids here in the orphanage. Giving them access to what we see as such a simple tool in our culture has been an incredible way to help teach the children English, but even more importantly it has allowed them to share their story with the rest of the world.

Tweets Back on for Bell Subscribers

I'm excited to learn that Bell has worked out a plan with Twitter to re-continue SMS feeds/sends to subscribers. This may be a bit to my family's dismay as they were getting a little annoyed by the constant beeps of my phone, but was starting to feel cut off. (Chronic...perhaps).

It's interesting to see a Canadian company actually be one of the first to "jump back on". It didn't surprise me that our carriers stopped the feeds early last year. It did take us well over a year to get iPhone's available to the masses. However, to find a way to get back into the action is exciting.

To read more take a look at Twitter's update here.

Still Don't Know What Twitter Is or What You Can Do With It?

If you haven't yet discovered Twitter and what it can do for you as a blogger, student, politician, entrepreneur, or anything else then take a few minutes to look at this video.

Here is quick 8 minute video of Evan Williams, co-founder of Twitter, at this year's TED talk. It's a great way to see how Twitter came to be, how users changed the way it works, how users are using it to their benefit, and how other "gadgets" are finding ways to tweet you.