I was interested to see that Skype has recently announced a partnership with LG and Panasonic, which means we will soon be able to buy a TV which we can use to Skype and browse the internet (find out more here). Promoting this new technology Skype’s business development manager, Jin Kim claimed that,

“TVs have lacked two things to date… eyes and ears” because “they haven’t had cameras and they haven’t had microphones.”

This led me to wonder… does e-learning also lack eyes and ears?

In fact, I think that many e-learning courses already possess ‘eyes and ears’ thanks to new technologies. Take mobile learning for example, where the learner progresses through the course and answers questions by speaking. Or how about social learning? Forums and help desks are evidence of an e-learning strategy’s ‘ears’ while the use of social networking points not only towards ‘eyes’ but also towards an age of collaborative learning that Skype and social networking sites’ popularity makes possible. And what about the advances being made in PC-based e-learning where we can now use techniques like 3D graphics, which allow the learner to pan around images and really become immersed in the learning? Surely highly interactive learning such as these examples could be counted as the ‘eyes and ears’ Kim is referring to?

This led me on to thinking that even if we do have ‘eyes and ears’ in our learning courses, does this actually enhance the learning in any way? For me, the following benefits come to mind:

• A positive first impression
• Learner engagement and motivation
• More realistic scenarios and environments where the learner can safely practise making decisions
• The ability to tailor the learning for different preferences, learning styles and capabilities

So far we’ve been focusing on how technology can give learning its ‘eyes and ears’ but I believe that this can also be created through instructional design. For instance, a scenario can be made more realistic by using well researched case studies written in a conversational tone. Or the learner can choose how they want to progress through a course by selecting to experience a certain scenario from a different point of view, for example, an interviewer versus an interviewee.

Kim’s thoughts about the evolution of TV are interesting, but I don’t think we can expect to see e-learning strategies reliant on cameras and microphones anytime soon. Instead, we should continue to vary the approaches we take and to be creative, rather than focusing only on the technology involved. After all, the most innovative graphics, interactions and technology will fail to engage the learner if the instructional design falls short.

(See Cat’s top L&D tip here.)

We English like nothing more than a bit of bad weather. It gives us something to talk about. We discuss it in the lift, in the bus queue and on the train. Bad weather is probably the only time that it’s acceptable for the English to talk to strangers!

As you may have heard, we’ve had a bit of snow. On one of the days that I was snowed in, I had the opportunity to sit and think about our industry - particularly, why is it that at the first sign of trouble, organisations cut their training budgets? Surely any form of logic would tell you that it should be the other way round. In times of trouble, we should be investing more in our people because we want them to achieve more.

I think the answer lies with us, the L&D professionals. For too long we have viewed training like chicken soup - its good for the soul and how can you argue that it won’t make you better? Unfortunately, this no longer washes with the CEO who has a million competing priorities. Often he or she is faced with making a decision between a business plan that has a clear return and a training budget where the benefits are hard to quantify. Unsurprisingly, it’s the training budget that gets squeezed.

We have to do better in this area if our organisations are to get the support that they deserve from L&D. We have to look at every programme as if we were paying for it ourselves. In this situation, would we spend the money if we could not quantify the return? We often hear that it is not always possible to determine the return from a training programme. In which case I would say don’t do the training - save the money. What about compliance training, I hear you say, we have to do this. I agree, but it’s a myth that you can’t measure the return from compliance training. The number of completions is an obvious measure but you can also measure the before and after effects in terms of, for example, the number of breaches or the calls to the help desk. By thinking about the return and measuring tangible results, we not only create financial benefits for the organisation but we help to make the training more palatable for the learners.

One project that comes to mind is some competition law training that we delivered. Initially the course was scoped to be a long programme that laid out the law. When we looked harder at the business benefits of the programme, we could not justify the costs. The subject matter expert, when confronted with this, admitted that actually learners did not need to know about competition law, only how to recognise the risks. They would then call a help line. This thinking resulted in a shorter, more effective course that actually had the desired impact. The change of heart came from looking at the training as a business proposition rather than an obvious foregone conclusion.

In my view L&D is not a support organisation, it’s a business unit and like all business units it needs to demonstrate tangible benefits - if we can’t do this, we may find that very quickly we are out in the cold.

Imagine a fully immersive virtual environment created for a safety training product, for example. If this environment is presented to the learner using techniques similar to those used to create a game’s 3D environment, would they not find the experience closer to the real situation and would it not leave a more lasting impression?

To further examine the safety example we can look at a situation where the learner is being trained in how to work safely on the roof of a building. The learner would view the location from a first-person perspective and would be able to move freely around the roof, study the environment and identify potential hazards. Using ambient sounds and effects would add more realism to the experience and allow the inclusion of aural hazards, such as sounds of machinery or nesting birds on the roof. The learner would be guided along by an artificially intelligent trainer, in the form of a 3D character, who would not only respond to questions but also react to the learner’s behaviour within the training environment. For example, the learner should not approach closer than two metres to the ungraded edge of the roof; if they did the trainer would call out with a warning then proceed to give an explanation of the correct regulation once they had the learner’s attention.

Recently there have been vast advancements in computer and video games but at the same time these advancements have, by their nature, made the games more complicated. This has created a new hurdle for game designers - how to provide guidance for a new player that is enjoyable and involving enough to keep them interested in playing the rest of the game.

Previously, when game tutorials were first introduced, they were often bolted on as separate modules to the actual game itself; they were basic and often tedious. A player was given the option to play through the tutorial or to skip it completely and start playing the game straight away. For seasoned game players skipping the tutorial was not a major issue but for more casual players this often resulted in them finding the game too daunting and not understanding how to progress, causing them to lose interest.

The solution developers came up with in more recent games was to integrate the tutorial directly into the game which also served as an interactive introduction. This new form of tutorial was designed to integrate in such a way as to make the new player unaware that they were even being taken through a tutorial. It was a gentle and more immersive start to the game which guided the user into understanding how to play the game without detaching them from the game itself. Using in-game interaction to guide the user through the basics made the learning process more effective as well as more enjoyable.

Learning new information is always easier when it is presented in an interactive and fun format; therefore modern e-learning courses tend to look more like computer games than training manuals. If the ultimate goal of an e-learning product is to leave the learner with a full understanding of the subject and for the information to be memorable, isn’t developing more realistic and immersive learning environments and experiences a natural evolution for the future of e-learning?

Please share your views on the subject. What else can e-learning designers learn from game designers and what dangers might occur from making an e-learning course more like a computer game?

Effective project management is often the deciding factor when it comes to e-learning project success. Here are our top ten tips for making sure that you always deliver!

1. Have a formal project kick off
Before you start the project, make sure you understand the learning objectives, the client’s expectations, the timelines and the risks. Also make sure that the client understands the approach that you are going to take.

2. Start with the end in mind
Define the end goal and end date first and then plan backwards from this point. If you have to deliver a working course by 20 March, when do you need the pilot? If the pilot is needed by 12 February, when do you need the first build?

3. Keep it simple
Your instinct may be to use a Microsoft project plan – resist this at all costs. Create a simple table of deliverables and feedback dates – something that is easy to maintain and easy to understand. 

4. Take an ‘it’s either done or it’s not done’ approach
Track your project using milestones – tangible deliverables which are either done or not done. Avoid using percentage complete. Ask yourself what 80% complete means, when the other 20% will be done and how much effort it will take.

5. Manage risks
The key to risk management is to ask: what could go (horribly) wrong? Once you have a list, don’t leave it in your desk draw. Actively manage it and try to mitigate the risk.

6. Communicate, communicate, communicate!
The biggest reason for project failure is lack of communication. Often people on projects just don’t talk enough, becoming overly reliant on emails, plans and reports. As a minimum, arrange weekly team conference calls or meetings. 

7. Manage the subject matter experts
Subject matter experts, who are balancing their role with their day jobs, can cause delays to your project and need to be managed. Communicate the process to them and make your expectations clear. Put your project dates in their diaries.

8. Don’t forget prototypes and pilots
Your stakeholders will really understand what you are proposing when they see it. This is a good thing and helps to narrow requirements. Therefore you should build prototypes and you should always have a pilot.

9. Don’t be shackled by the plan
Project management is a people business. Don’t spend all your time updating the plan and documenting the process. Spend your time working with your team, understanding their issues and managing the risks

10. Watch your optimism
It’s natural to be optimistic and to believe that everything will go right. Try to keep a lid on this and keep asking yourself, what could go horribly wrong and how will I manage the situation if this happens?

Download our top ten tips for managing an e-learning project

Volkswagen recently launched a website, www.thefuntheory.com, built around the idea that by adding fun into the equation it’s easier to change people’s behaviour for the better. In their own words…

“This site is dedicated to the thought that something as simple as fun is the easiest way to change people’s behaviour for the better. Be it for yourself, for the environment, or for something entirely different, the only thing that matters is that it’s change for the better.”

To back up this idea, VW decided to re-think three everyday tasks and inject their own brand of fun into the situation to see if they could achieve a positive change. The projects they decided to undertake were to change a bottle bank into an arcade machine, a subway staircase into a musical instrument and a public bin into “the world’s deepest bin”. The results of each project have been documented on video and can been seen on the Fun Theory website. Having seen the videos and knowing how the projects turned out for VW it’s clear to see that an element of fun really can help achieve a change in behaviour. (Although I think that the novelty of the musical staircase would probably be outweighed by the rise in complaints about the noise and injuries cased during rush hour!)

For VW, the Fun Theory website acts as a positive influence on their brand name even though it doesn’t have any real relevance to the world of automobiles or their day-to-day business. This is not always the case when you are trying to change behaviours in other lines of business, but that is not to say that it cannot be achieved! The same technique can be seen in many other businesses. For instance lots of energy companies are now trying to push the use of real-time energy monitors to help their customers see how much energy they use. This type of interaction allows the customer to see the impact they can have by making small adjustments, turning the whole process of reducing their consumption into a challenge that the customer can track and monitor.

Another example of introducing fun can be seen in www.smart.fm, which claims to take the hard work out of learning. The service aims keep people motivated to hit their goals by creating personalised learning programmes for them. The programmes are designed to harness the powers of a learning technique called graduated interval recall, guiding the learner to revisit their learning at key points to aid the retention of the knowledge. The fun factor in this service is that you are able to monitor your progress in a variety of formats, from tracking personal goals to testing long-term retention or item memory strength, and many other formats. The whole service is also available on the move via the iPhone which again buys into the fun factor of making the service available without the need to be in front of a PC.

There are probably many other engaging examples of fun being used to change behaviours and this seems like an opportunity that’s too good for the e-learning industry to miss.

Creating original graphics for an e-learning course can be a challenging task, particularly when anything that’s created has to comply with strict branding guidelines. An engaging graphic environment is essential for an interesting and successful learning experience. Read on for our top five tips for achieving this.

1. Work on the concept
A strong concept is a must for any design. An interesting theme that runs throughout the course can help keep learners focused and engaged in the content. While the idea should be based around the subject matter, using metaphors and indirect associations can often provide the most attention grabbing results.

2. Explore different technologies
Advances in technology have created new opportunities in every field of design, including e-learning. Subscribe to blogs, magazines and training websites like www.lynda.com to make sure you stay up to date with new software and techniques. If the budget is tight, using free software like Google SketchUp can help add new elements to your work.

3. Never stop experimenting
It is easy to get comfortable with a proven style or concept that you know has always worked in the past. Attempting something new might not always be as successful as your proven techniques but exploring new creative methods can lead to improved and more exciting graphic solutions.

4. Do not decorate - communicate
Each visual element should serve a purpose - it should help to communicate the message (the content of the course) and contribute to the overall design concept. Check your work carefully to ensure there are no elements that serve a purely decorative purpose as they can be distracting for the learner.

5. Make it unique
While stock photography can be useful, relying on it entirely can often result in dry and unoriginal work. Use your own photographs to assemble interesting compositions. Ask a colleague to be a model for a photo that can then be used as a reference for an illustration. Include scanned and hand drawn elements to add a personal touch to your work.

Download our top five tips for designing engaging graphics for e-learning

We are all eager for fresh and creative ideas to make our courses innovative, effective and engaging for the end user. But we can’t simply rely on random activities, chance or some creative ‘greater providence’ though. It is actually a solid and well structured approach that we need in order to generate and flourish brilliant ideas.

The well known name given to this approach is ‘brainstorming’ (although some governmental organisations have recently concluded that the term is offensive to people with epilepsy, suggesting the alternative ‘mind shower’). Actually, none of the above sound particularly inviting for people like us immersed in the pouring London weather, but that’s another kettle of fish…

Behind the creative output there are several techniques and methods to explore, including brand new trends like ‘nominal group technique’, ‘group passing technique’ and ‘electronic brainstorming’, all of them with the aim of using a fun and energetic process to create a list of ideas to kick off a project. The preferred method will vary of course depending on the objective, the available time and the participants. Below is a run through of what I have found to be the most useful and effective for our specific aims: a process of illumination (you might describe it as ‘sunbathing’), dumping the old soggy ideas for the fresher brighter ones that will enlighten our projects. Hopefully my suggestions might add a little spice and improved effectiveness to your brainstorming process.

• The objective:

Define and agree the topic for which you will be generating ideas. It’s good practice to create a background memo and send it out with the invitation to the participants. This should contain the session name, objective, time, date, and place. Describe the objective in the form of a question, and give some example ideas and references you might have found. Send the note well in advance, so the participants can think about the subject matter beforehand and come to the discussion prepared. It’s important to gather all the possible information around the project in advance of the session, as gaps in knowledge and information appearing during the idea generation might interrupt the flow of fruitful creative juices.

• The group

Brainstorming works best in small groups. If a group gets too large, more than 10 people, it can be difficult to control and some attendees may not feel as comfortable participating. A facilitator or meeting lead should take responsibility for getting everyone involved in the process. It doesn’t need to be a creative mind but someone with strong meeting leadership skills. They will then be the point person to ensure ideas flow and to drive the process, while the others bring the wildest ideas to the surface. The lead might decide to set a time limit as having a ticking clock can help keep the ideas coming. It’s also sometimes recommended that managers and superiors don’t attend, as they may inhibit and reduce the generation of unusual ideas. But make sure the group does include one good representative for each branch of expertise the project involves. For instance, for our e-learning projects it is advisable to include at least an instructional designer, a developer and a designer. You never know who will put forward the final juicy idea, so don’t underestimate the benefit of having extra points of view, as an ‘outsider’ mind might provide the unique perspective you need.

• Putting pen to paper

All we need to brainstorm is a pad and pencil. Assign a person to write down all the ideas, thoughts and everything that comes to mind in order to produce a ‘mind map’ that can be easily seen by all of the attendees. Create the mind map starting with your core central concept and branching off the new ideas in different circles that connect to the central theme and to each others. All ideas and thoughts should be recorded; worry about trimming them down later. It’s important to reduce ‘dead air’ and to keep the ideas to freeflowing; do not self-censor or hesitate before offering an idea and keep writing - as the pen must be touching the page the entire time, wandering, doodling and sketching without fear.

• Achieving quality through quantity

So the goal is to express very quickly as many ideas as possible. A free flux of consciousness is what can help bring up your most brilliant ideas. The point is that the more ideas you generate, the greater the chance of producing an outstanding solution: throw out any and all ideas related to a project, leading eventually to one or a few that are worth taking further. At the end you should even push yourself the extra mile - once you think you’ve exhausted all of the possibilities, take a big breath, re-examine the ideas you have got and push the group to add a few more to the box.

• The ‘all ideas are good ideas’ rule

Another important rule that follows the previous one is that all ideas should be encouraged and no one should issue any criticism toward any idea presented, no matter how off base it may seem at the time. No negative comments are allowed; instead build on, extend or add to the ideas when the opportunity is given. This will help create a supportive environment and encourage every participant to take part in the process. By suspending judgment, and reserving criticism for a later stage, participants will feel free and comfortable to generate unusual and unique ideas.

An ‘ideas book’ might be a great tool to keep outside the actual sessions. You can decide to place it somewhere in your shared network and make it accessible to everyone as a place to log all the extra ideas might come to mind. This can be a powerful source for refining concepts and providing inspiration for new ones. It also gives participants some ‘soak time’ to think deeply and evolve ideas. The individuals aren’t that comfortable with the face to face sessions might find in it a great way to contribute.

• Walking on the wild side

To get that long succulent list of ideas, unusual perspectives and the suspension of assumptions are needed. This is certainly not the time to hold back and the purpose is to invite everyone to participate, to dismiss nothing. You might indeed find that the ideas that seemed initially to be risky, unrealistic and nonsensical turn out to be the best one at the end. For this reason, brainstorming can be a great way to boost morale among participants and help them to feel part of the process. Just using sticky notes, markers and flip charts in a creative way to gather suggestions might add new engaging platforms. Also changing the setting could be beneficial, so don’t hesitate to move your location to the park, for instance, or anywhere might seem more inspiring. Yes, even in London there are a bunch of friendly days, fresh air and green spaces for spreading the wings of your ideas.

• Fortune telling

Now that you have all the tea leaves in your cup of tea it is time for the divination and refinement of your objective. This is when you sort through your list of generated ideas, start finding connections between the ideas that are related and prioritise the most promising ones into a more finished list. If you have done a good session the shiny solution should magically appear at the top of your list and the future of your project will appear blooming and full of promise. If you feel you have got the right solution to move forward then agree a timescale and who’s responsible. After the session it is important to circulate notes and give feedback in order to spread a transparent and positive result. In doing that people feel their participation and efforts were worthwhile and have resulted in action; they will be then motivated and keen to contribute again.

Good luck - and let us know if these tips work for you, or your ideas for getting the creative juices flowing!

At Saffron, we are always excited by new technologies which can be used as tools to enhance learning and usability. One of the many interesting projects I am currently involved in is the development of a RIA (rich internet application) product, using Microsoft’s Silverlight platform.

In this project, I used Expression Blend to recreate a user interface, based on the original Photoshop graphics, which was then passed on to our developers. The great thing about Blend is that it automatically converts all graphics to XAML, without the need to write code manually. Learning to work in Blend wasn’t difficult thanks to the intuitive user interface with its sleek graphite color scheme and well-arranged layout. Despite being new to this software, I found it straightforward to use which allowed me to concentrate on design rather than spending time searching for the right functions.

In the first stage, the original PSD graphics had to be converted into XAML using Blend which was a smooth process thanks to its support for importing Photoshop and Illustrator files. However, the import was not able to preserve all Photoshop effects and I found the best results were produced when importing vector layers. Blend is able to convert PSD files to XAML code with the original layer structure and names still intact. Additionally, individual layers can be selected for import whilst ignoring others; the pre-import preview function proved to be very useful for this.

After creating the initial static images, the animations were added. Creating animations, such as button controls, was painless using button transition states in Blend, especially as there was no need to write any code. The animation process itself is slightly different from Flash – in Blend, the process works with a true timeline and keyframes are created automatically as the timeline playhead is moved and the object properties changed. This approach seemed slightly quicker than using tweens in Flash but it’s hard to imagine how a frame by frame animation would work in Blend.

When animating movement, Blend creates a movement path which can easily be edited, thus controlling the movement animation; I also found this slightly more flexible than motion tweens in Flash. Another asset that deserves a special mention is the gradient tool in Blend which allows you to create and refine values of gradients directly on the object by dragging the gradient end points, which is extremely convenient to use.

One of the notable features of Silverlight, as often mentioned by Microsoft, lies in the improved designer-developer cycle. This was clearly proven in our experience as we at Saffron had a tight deadline to achieve, and it enabled both designers and developers to work in parallel. Silverlight is undoubtedly worth considering when choosing a platform for RIA, but is it a good alternative to Flash for creating engaging e-learning content? In my opinion, Silverlight can be a very useful tool for e-learning, especially in the following cases:

• When project deadlines are very tight and the project involves making multiple changes to design. Silverlight’s superior designer-developer workflow and team collaboration support means reduced overall development time as designers and developers can work on applications simultaneously.
  
• When the project involves full screen or HD videos. Silverlight 3 supports hardware graphics acceleration. This can lower CPU usage considerably, which means HD videos can be played on older low spec computers.
  
• When the project involves 3D or complex animations. Silverlight’s support for 3D graphics and animation rendering is superior to Flash and provides smoother animation due to GPU acceleration capabilities and perspective 3D support. This website provides a number of examples of Flash verses Silverlight performance comparisons.

There are probably many other reasons to use Silverlight for creating engaging e-learning content that I’ve not mentioned here. Please share your experiences of working with Silverlight and Expression Blend in the comments box below.

Whether they’re for an assessment or part of the training course itself, writing questions can be a tricky business. Read on for Saffron’s top ten tips for creating effective questions that test learners in the right way, on the right thing.

1. Draft the assessment before the content
If step one is defining the objectives and learning outcomes, step two is drafting the assessment. Make sure each question maps back to the outcomes and then focus the training content on the assessment.

2. Randomise the assessment
Ideally an end of course assessment will have a pool of questions, with a random selection drawn on each attempt. This means, if learners fail once, they can’t simply memorise where they went wrong but are actually tested again.

3. Remember: quality not quantity
When it comes to assessments, it’s better to have 10 excellent questions than 40 substandard ones. Likewise, multiple choice questions generally work best with four options - don’t go below three or above five without a very good reason.

4. Use questions to drive the learning
We’re big believers in the value of the test and tell approach. Don’t just give learners information and then test them on it. Instead, ask them to think for themselves with a question before correcting or confirming their answers.

5. Focus on behaviours
We’re in the business of changing behaviours. This means we need to enable learners to do the right thing, not just to remember facts and figures. Make sure every question relates to a choice or decision learners will face in real life.

6. Make it challenging…
If the right answer is three times as long as the rest, or the wrong answers are likely to make learners laugh not think, there’s no point even asking the question. Yes, coming up with plausible wrong answers is hard, but it’s worth the effort.

7. …but keep it fair
Don’t try to trick learners or give them an impossible choice. Negative questions, options that are identical except for one word, and questions on topics that weren’t actually covered in the course are neither fair nor effective.

8. Avoid yes/no questions
Giving learners a 50% chance of guessing correctly is not the most effective test. If you must use them, include a couple more options and make sure that ‘yes’, ‘no’ and ‘maybe’ are qualified, so learners have to justify their choice.

9. Help people learn from their mistakes
Don’t just use ticks and crosses to show how learners have done. Provide constructive feedback to reinforce the message if they answer correctly, and explain where they went wrong if they answer incorrectly.

10. Keep the learners’ experience in mind
Focusing on behaviours is one way to answer the ‘what’s in it for me?’ question. But there are other ways - for instance, pre-tests assess existing knowledge and point towards the most relevant training units. Time efficient and effective!

Download our top ten tips for for writing effective questions

A little while ago I was on the phone and the person on the other end of the line suddenly interrupted conversation to say ‘there’s a man dressed as a blackberry walking around the office.’ At least, that’s what I thought he said. What he actually said was ‘there’s a man dressed as a BlackBerry walking around the office.’ I must be one of the few people in London who still thinks of fruit before phones.

Since then I’ve been thinking about the impact of technology on our lives these days and the pros and cons of this. In our line of work we spend a lot of our time thinking and talking about how to make more of technology. How can we use Facebook or Twitter to enhance our learning solutions? How can we move from formal training to a social media based approach? How can we deliver training to BlackBerrys and iPhones? How can we find new and ever more numerous ways to reach our clients’ employees?

Now, I fully support this in terms of offering learners an increased level of choice about how, when and where they learn. With most people spending around an hour commuting to work each day, many of those on public transport, it makes sense to offer them the option of using that time to catch up on their learning and training requirements. And I agree with Clive Shepherd that ‘new thinking and new media are no longer the province of pioneers and geeks’ - these things are clearly here to stay (in some form or another) and we need to keep ourselves at the forefront of new developments. But I can’t pretend I’m not concerned about what we as an industry might be doing in terms of contributing to our growing national reliance on - in fact, I’d go so far as to say addiction to - technology.

I’m not suggesting that I’d like to return to the days before mobile phones (being the kind of person who’s usually very early and having the kind of friends who aren’t big on planning ahead, I’d spend a lot of time waiting around or being stood up if I had to rely solely on landlines). But there is a part of me that misses the days when people talking unnecessarily loudly into their brick sized phones was as intrusive as technology got. These days our lives are dictated by the politics of Facebook friendships, network coverage and battery life. Umbrellas have been replaced as the most perilous hazard on the high street by technophiles who stroll and surf the net rather than looking where they’re walking. And romantic restaurants are no longer the domain of loved up couples, but rather of loved up couples, the flashing lights and ‘discreet’ vibrations of new messages and frequent furtive glances just on the off chance that a message managed to sneak through unnoticed.

I’m not alone in this: in an article about the damaging effect of technology on relationships recently featured in The Times, Emma Cook writes that ‘we’ve long know about the compulsive allure of the “CrackBerry”, as well as its younger upstart the iPhone, but with the advent of Facebook, and particularly Twitter, a new level of distractedness is developing.’ And Cammy Bean, devoted to her iPhone, admits that - along with Twitter, blogs, Facebook and emails - it destroys boundaries between work life and home life (a threat which people who work from home are particularly susceptible to: as Cammy says, ‘my office is my home, my home is my office’).

Of course, it’s not all bad, but not everyone has given in to the allure and demands of social networking, video sharing and the blogosphere - and it’s this that I think we’re in danger of forgetting. Not everybody likes the fact that they are contactable anytime, anywhere. Not everybody feels anxious if their BlackBerry is in the next room rather than their pocket. Not everybody defines friendship in Facebook terms. Not everybody understands the draw of real time status updates throughout the day.

At the moment, all this technology means that we’ve got much more choice in terms of how we get information - whether that’s news updates, cinema times and gossip between friends or company updates and training sessions. But we need to make sure we strike the right balance, continuing to capitalise on this without overdosing on it (or, more importantly, forcing other people to overdose on it). I’m all for using Twitter and Facebook to offer people a new way to learn if they want to. What I’m not all for is creating learning solutions that are entirely dependent on these things. Just as some people prefer to learn through video and others through reading, some people appreciate training being delivered to their fingertips when they’re on the train or at home with their families and other people don’t.

So I say, let’s make sure we continue to offer choices, catering to the already techno-addicted, the techno-curious and the techno-minimalists. But I suspect I might be venturing into controversial territory here - am I alone on this side of the fence or are there others out there who share this view?

I’m currently writing a course for a retail client about climate change and this has really made me think about the ‘What’s in it for me?’ question. We always talk about engaging the learner and getting their buy-in, but what do we actually mean? For this course in particular I realised the importance of this because we’ve heard it all before about environmental issues. ‘Because of climate change the polar bears won’t have a home, so remember to turn off your computer every night.’ But do people really care about these things? Well, I’m sure there are some people who genuinely care about the plight of the polar bear but in reality most of us are more concerned with what we’re having for dinner.

It’s nothing new that teachers and instructors need to be salespeople in order to sell the benefits of the learning and engage their audience. This started me thinking that as well as writing learning outcomes at the start of designing a training course, maybe we should also write ‘audience drivers’. That is, answer the question that the learners will be asking themselves when their manager tells them to take the course: ‘OK, but what’s in it for me?’ We need to find out what really makes our audience tick, what is it that’s going to make them take 30 minutes out of their day to complete this course? But not just complete it, not just click Next and fluke the test at the end, actually, dare I say it, enjoy and appreciate it?

The course I’m currently designing is aimed at store managers within a retail company and so at the kick-off meeting for the project I asked:

• 1. What motivates store managers in their everyday job?
• 2. What don’t store managers like?
• 3. What three things come into your head when describing store managers?

It didn’t take them long to come up with the answers below:

• 1. Costs and making more profit, therefore bigger bonuses
• 2. Wasting time, long sentences, vague opinions
• 3. Task-oriented, matter-of-fact, competitive

Well, no surprises there then. So, how do we bring that into the course? We can’t just say ‘by taking this course you will be able to save money by reducing your energy usage’. Yes, this type of signposting can be useful but it’s not that engaging. If their number one priority is to make more profit, I decided to brainstorm a list of things that might help them do that:

• Refurbishing their store to attract more customers and increase sales
• Hiring more sales staff to increase sales
• Increasing their marketing activities to increase sales
• Being at the top of their monthly store managers’ sales league table (and getting a bigger bonus)

Now, instead of statements such as ‘turning off the lights saves you money’, we can tell them that ‘turning off the lights saves you money which you can use to hire more staff to increase sales and therefore profits.’ But, in order to really engage these people, it’s essential to consider the way we convey the message to them too and that last sentence was rather long-winded. Taking on board answers two and three from my original questions I began to focus more on using bullet points, short sentences and matter-of-fact statements about the ‘what’, ‘how’ and ‘why’.

And the result? A much punchier and more motivating e-learning module that speaks to the learners using language they connect to naturally, about a topic they are truly invested in.

I recently had the pleasure of working with some of our clients in the USA - a trip which I remember well for two journeys that I experienced. On the way to Heathrow, a young man in his twenties picked me up and no sooner had I got in, he started to tell me how the world was soon going to come to an end. How the government had stolen every opportunity and how he had been robbed of his future. He complained that ‘they’ were all corrupt and the working man was footing the bill. When I asked him what he was doing to make the situation better, he said “I’m just a taxi driver, what can I do?” Needless to say the ‘Welcome to Heathrow’ sign couldn’t come quick enough.

As I landed at JFK, I found myself thinking of strategies to avoid a conversation with my taxi driver. Having been subject to a depressing monologue in West London, I really felt I’d be searching for Valium if I had to go through the same thing again all the way to Manhattan.

Unsurprisingly the cabbie at JFK started to talk as soon as I hopped in. To my delight, however, the conversation took a different tone. “Sure things are hard” he said, “but what you gonna do, stay in bed all day?” he asked rhetorically. His entire view on life was that he controlled his destiny and although his fare income had dipped he was making up for it by working weekends and saving money where he could. “There’s nothing to worry about” he said, “as always, we’ll pull through and come out stronger - that’s what we Americans do.”

The point? The point is that as learning and development professionals we can learn from this story. Times are hard and things are difficult. Budgets are being cut and some of our colleagues are having to leave their positions. However, it falls on us to lift our organisations and to find new ways to improve morale and performance within the teams that we support. We have to break away from the traditional approaches and models; even e-learning (and maybe especially e-learning) needs a rethink. Do we need a course on project management or will a carefully crafted set of links do the job? Do we need to bring in a consultant or can we use a wiki to share best practice? Is the three day classroom course necessary or can we create a blend? Is e-learning the only way to run our compliance programmes or can we use our mobile devices? When we build programmes, can we build them with re-use in mind and share the assets across the organisation?

It’s really down to us to drive our businesses forward and to support them in these difficult times and I believe that now, more than ever before, L&D has the chance to shine. So my message is this: push hard and be creative - think three times about the return your programme will bring and the other ways that you could do it - what else you gonna do, stay in bed all day?

A couple of days ago I read with interest Clive Shepherd’s latest blog post in which he refers to his recent experience on the other side of the fence, as a student rather than designer of compliance e-learning. He draws the conclusion that it’s hard - if not impossible - to create something that achieves both competence and compliance. This is a topic we’ve broached before on the Spicy Learning Blog and I admit my thoughts on this are perhaps half-formed (or, more accurately, ever evolving), but I’m not entirely sure I agree with Clive…

What’s interesting is that he goes so far as to say the material was not just interesting, but fascinating. This is not always the case with compliance training, and creating something which actually piques the learner’s interest and gets them engaged is a great first step towards really effective e-learning. The next step is to create something that doesn’t simply achieve compliance, but delivers improved performance and behavioural change.

I would argue that this is absolutely possible in compliance training. Let’s take data protection as an example: a ‘traditional’ approach might simply run through the eight principles of data protection, instructing the learner in what they must and must not do when handling personal data. There would probably also be some horror stories about the dire consequences of breaking the law (as Donald Clark says, ‘the driver is NOT learning or people development, it’s “fear”‘), and a knowledge test or assessment consisting of questions focused on the wording and definitions of each of the principles. This type of course is designed purely for compliance purpose: the organisation can prove they’ve trained their people as required and cover their back in case an individual does break the law having taken the course.

But this is by no means the only way to approach the design of compliance e-learning. A more effective data protection training course, which aims to achieve the competence or enhanced awareness that Clive found lacking at the end of his experience as well as meet regulatory requirements, would focus not on the legislative detail but on what the law means in practice to each individual learner in their day to day work. We recently produced a course that took this approach and certainly took big steps towards achieving those aims.

We did broadly structure the course around the eight data protection principles, but we didn’t begin each section with the legal jargon and then hammer the point home with threats of dismissal, fines or prosecution. Instead we used video to engage the learner and demonstrate relevance by using very recognisable everyday situations and asking the learner to identify what the issues might be. We also offered them a variety of resources including real life case studies presented as news reports and newspaper articles, a take away list of suggested dos and don’ts that they could refer to in future (rather than ‘must’ and ‘must not’ messages on every other screen) and a data protection dictionary to translate any necessary jargon into easily understandable terms. We also paid close attention to the end of course assessment to ensure that this approach was applied there as well - all the questions presented the learner with situations that they might reasonably encounter at work and asked them to identify whether there was something to be concerned about, why this was the case, what should have been done differently or what action they would recommend.

The result was a course that absolutely met the organisation’s compliance obligations, but which also engaged learners and gave them an increased level of awareness and competence. Having taken the course they may not all be able to recite the actual wording of each principle, but they have the appropriate knowledge to be able to identify risky situations or areas of concern and to take steps to avoid or remedy those situations. They also have a genuine awareness of the seriousness of the topic, having been introduced to relevant real life examples and case studies throughout the course.

Of course, there would be people who took the course and claimed the aims hadn’t been met. But the overwhelming feedback from users and experts alike is that we delivered something they didn’t expect from compliance training. My favourite comment was from the technical expert testing for accessibility purposes who reported that he actually found himself reading the content voluntarily and being interested and engaged - not often the case with mandatory compliance training!

I’m guessing there are some strong views on this out there and I’d love to hear them. What do you think? Do you agree with Clive that competence and compliance are more or less mutually exclusive, or do you think there are ways they can sit comfortably together in e-learning? Leave your comments below and hopefully we’ll get a snapshot of what the learning and development community really thinks about compliance training!

I was standing next to a young lady on the tube this morning who was studiously working through a series of questions from a training handbook. She didn’t appear to be experiencing any difficulty with answering the questions; however, I did notice that the first question on the page had remained unanswered. To my surprise she tried to gain my attention by pointing animatedly with her pen. Upon closer observation I saw that she was pointing to the first question on the page and specifically at one word in particular.

Not really understanding the dilemma she was obviously in I asked her if she understood the question. Clearly she did not, but then I realised she didn’t understand me either. It was fairly obvious to me that she could write English judging by the extent of notes she had already written on the page, however we were not making much headway in how we were communicating with each other. She kept pointing to the phrase that was clearly vexing her: ‘on occasion.’ I wasn’t sure what she wanted of me so I responded by providing her with an alternative word that seemed to work with the question she was trying to answer - ‘sometimes’ - and to my great surprise she immediately and without any hesitation whatsoever began writing down her answer to the question.

Turning over the page, she continued to answer the next few questions, again without any difficulty until she reached the next stumbling block and just as before, tried to draw my attention by pointing to a specific word within a question. This time I didn’t hesitate: I read the question, saw the word she was struggling with, which was ‘promptly,’ and now starting to enjoy this early morning challenge responded with the word ‘quickly.’ Just as before, she immediately started to write down her answer to the question.

The tube at this point stopped at Chancery Lane, my designated stop, and with some degree of reluctance I wished the young lady good luck in her training and left her on the tube.

What did I learn from this experience? Two key things:

• We can all learn anywhere and at any time. This student was diligently working through some form of training material on her way perhaps to college or work.
• When designing learning or training material it really is fundamentally and critically important that the language we use can be understood by the end users, and this means all end users, whether English is their first language or not.

Why is it that this eastern European did not understand the words ‘occasion’ or ‘promptly’ but did understand ‘sometimes’ and ‘quickly’? I will never find out the answer to this question but it has left me richer from the experience.

My colleague (and fellow contributor to the Spicy Learning Blog) Lucy and I presented at last month’s eLearning Network event on creating effective and engaging learning content. This is a dauntingly vast topic and our biggest challenge was probably stripping down everything we wanted to say to some key messages that might actually prove useful to other delegates (or, at the very least, provide some food for thought). In the end, those key messages were:

• The importance of getting it right first time and how this can be achieved.
• What good learning content really looks like.
• How to move from good learning content to great learning content.

Lucy began by talking about how best learning providers can meet the expectations of their clients. She identified three main points here.

• Taking a consultative approach: The very best client-supplier relationship are actually strategic partnerships, in which the provider doesn’t simply deliver one-off products but works with the client to identify their business needs and develop a long term strategy, and supports the client in measuring results and evaluating progress.
• Developing long lasting relationships: This depends on the provider really making an effort to understand the client’s culture - what kind of people work there, what do the respond well to, what are the organisational constraints, what kind of appetite is there for different training methods? 
• Delivering fit for purpose solutions: Of course, no partnership will survive, let alone thrive, unless the provider consistently delivers on time, on spec and on budget.

All these become more challenging when the client or audience is new to e-learning. In these cases we often have to overcome an initial resistance to or scepticism about e-learning. This can’t be done unless we really do engage with the organisation and its people, identifying the barriers and working to overcome them. More than this, though, we need to let our passion and enthusiasm for what we do speak for itself, and turn any scepticism there may be into support. It all comes back to creativity, collaboration and communication.

So having discussed why it’s so important to deliver good learning content time after time, we turned our attention to what that really means. Everyone’s got their own ideas about what ‘good’ looks like, but some words crop up time and time again - engaging, relevant and effective are three of them - so we spent a few minutes thinking about how these things can be achieved.

• Engaging: You could argue that e-learning is limited in its ability to engage, what with it being more often than not a relatively solitary activity when compared with classroom workshops. But there are elements of classroom training that can work just as well online. Elements like collaboration and discussion (using video or graphics to communicate case studies or real life events), the opportunity to practise in a safe environment at your own pace, and the conversational tone and ‘people’ aspect. 
• Relevant: e-Learning might on the whole reduce the amount of time required for training, but it doesn’t mean people don’t want it reduced even further. People don’t appreciate spending an hour completing an online training course if they can’t easily and immediately see how it’s relevant to what they do every day at work. One of the best ways to ensure and demonstrate relevance is to use scenarios based on the kinds of situation they’ll face every day, to ask them to make the kinds of choices they’ll be confronted with at work, and - crucially - to include clear and full discussion of what’s in it for them - what are the consequences of doing the wrong thing and what are the benefits of doing the right thing?
• Effective: No matter how engaging and relevant, learning content can’t be considered ‘good’ if it doesn’t deliver the improved performance and business results it promised. One way to ensure effectiveness is to make sure questions and activities are used to maximum effect: you need to challenge your learner, not trick them. And they’re more likely to remember what they learn if they are actively involved in working things out rather than simply passively receiving information (we’re firm believers in the value of test and tell, as opposed to the all too common tell and test approach).

But why stop there? Is ‘good’ always good enough? Often it’s the little things that make the difference between something good and something great. Things like taking advantage of your position as an instructional designer - you’re not a subject matter expert when you begin (though you will be by the end of the project) so you can identify with the end users. What questions do you have? They’re probably the questions the learners will have to, so they’re the questions you need to make sure you answer.

The way you use technology can be another big factor in whether you deliver something that’s just good enough or something with the wow factor. There’s just no point showing off your team’s combined technical expertise if the end result doesn’t align with the strategy. Too many fancy graphics and animations, or excessive use of video or sound effects, can actually work against you, diluting your key message and distracting from what’s important: sometimes less can be more.

Finally, don’t pigeon hole yourself! Our industry isn’t just technology focused, it’s also people focused. Just because your job title is ‘graphic designer’ doesn’t mean you can’t contribute valuably to discussions about learning strategy; Flash developers often have a budding writer inside them; and why shouldn’t instructional designers also be able to edit video? Don’t stick within your comfort zone - push yourself to learn new things, blur the boundaries between roles and teams and constantly keep yourself on your toes. Refusing to just stick to what you know and keep going as you’ve always gone before is one great way to make sure that what you produce is always moving forwards too.

Our presentation slides can be accessed here and the full event report can be found here.

e-Learning design is about serious stuff like transforming information into a format that really teaches people and helps them to retain it. Building effective interfaces and graphical representations for this purpose involves a good dose of dealing with content and data. But this doesn’t mean your design has to be dull and serious. The end learner wants to be engaged and so do you. 

Deadly dull e-learning is more or less a thing of the past and now, more then ever, designers who work in this field are inclined to look for innovative ways to meet the changing objectives and expectations of clients and users. New technologies and fresh approaches mean our horizons are broadening in this branch of design and so I want to share some of what I have learned so far working in this growing world.

Define a hierarchy
It is crucial to create a sense of order and equilibrium in representing and communicating information. Without a clear visual hierarchy, different pieces of information fight for attention. Elements within an effective visual narrative should be arranged by order of importance, improving usability by grouping information into meaningful elements and sequences. A balanced architecture not only provides a clear way for recognising and understanding information, it also helps unify the different elements within a layout into an organic unity.

Make content king
You must create a design that serves its defined purpose and meets the defined scope, and that presents information in line with its objective. The most important task of e-learning design is to optimise the function, designing the user interface and visual elements to suit learner needs, and to maximise the learning experience.

Using simplicity designers can clearly communicate ideas through the rational organisation of content and imagery. That’s why we have to organise the space instead of filling it out with fancy graphics and our aesthetic ego. The bottom line is that in e-learning we are focused on information design rather than on graphic design. 

Remember, good design is innovative design
Technological developments keep offering new chances for innovative e-learning solutions. e-Learning designers have got now the opportunity to take advantage of fresh ways to manage and explore large and complex amounts of information and content. Although the devil in that is the risk of abusing of these brand new exciting tools just because they exist. What we need to do is take advantage of the right mature technology that is appropriate for each project’s scope and not just for the sake it. Again looking in-depth at the goals, needs, and contexts of the users remains the best approach.

Take an aesthetic view
Aesthetic quality in design always deals with details: subtle shades, harmony and the balance of a whole variety of visual elements. e-Learning design often applies this quality just to the containers and wrappers, leaving the individual visual elements free to float without the same level of quality. The challenge is to dress all the components with consistency, sacrificing maybe the variety for a standardised level of overall aesthetic quality. This doesn’t mean you have to pigeon hole your design, and remember that all good looking products work best when the functionality is consistent.

Add a little colour to the information
Confusion and clutter are the two main failures of e-learning design. Among the most powerful tools for reducing confusion and enriching the display is the technique of separation and stratification, visually layering various aspects of the content. In this, the use of colors is crucial. Colors can be the guide to drive the audience through a clear path for recognising and understanding information, and also help unify the disparate elements within a layout into a visual organisation. Accessibility is also particularly important in defining colours, considering that one in 12 people have some sort of color vision deficiency.

Make the logo smaller
e-Learning is maybe one among a few markets in which branding strategy is not so important. Usually companies ensure the impact and visibility of their brands are strong in order to increase sales and build customer loyalty. In e-learning, companies don’t need to advertise themselves in the same way. So while there are always brand guidelines to be considered, e-learning designers have a bit of freedom to make the logo smaller and the content bigger.

…this is a performance improvement strategy.

There’s a lot of talk about blended learning and a lot of hype around leveraging social media to help learning. But in my experience – and by no means am I suggesting that this is always the case – training providers are often still engaged to work on projects that have already been scoped and defined. By the time the client gets us involved, they’ve decided what the business need is, that e-learning is the best way to address it, the drop dead go live date and, of course, the budget.

By this time, it’s really too late to make substantial, effective use of other tools and methods. So often, once we get stuck into the material we realise that actually it lends itself better to an i-Cast course, or once we’ve had the chance to engage with end users we think a combination of e-learning and classroom training would be the most effective route. In principle, the client might be thrilled with these suggestions – until you mention that they’ll need a bit more money or a bit more time.

In these situations, all those great ideas get put on the back burner. Of course, we meet the client requirements, often we exceed their expectations, but so often we aren’t in a position to really add the value we’re capable of adding.

In his recent session on creating a successful technology based learning strategy at the eLearning Network’s ‘Making the case for eLearning’ day, Charles Jennings highlighted manager engagement as a key challenge facing training professionals. The role we can and should be filling is that of consultant – helping managers to identify and address their business needs – rather than that of simple supplier. More often than not a manager’s learning priorities are how it contributes to growth, productivity, transformation and strategy.

One of the most interesting things that came out of the presentation for me was his discussion around who has the biggest impact on improving performance (based on research carried out by Broad and Newstrom in 1992 and 1998). He asked the group who they thought was the most important in terms of improving an individual’s performance following a training intervention: the manager, the training designer or the learner, either before, during or after the intervention.

The result? Roughly a third of the audience thought it was what the manager does afterwards that has the biggest impact. The reality? It’s actually what the manager does before the intervention that has the biggest impact, followed by the training designer before the intervention, and the manager afterwards.

So the person with the biggest influence on improving performance is the manager. So managers need to tell users what’s expected of them, what it’s about, what they are expected to do before, during and after the session, and how they will be measured. And designers need to think about who they are designing for, what their needs are and how the intervention can meet those needs and the business needs.

What I’m asking for then is for clients to recognise the added value that comes from a close relationship between business managers, training providers and users at this early stage. Work with us as consultants – don’t just come to us with a brief. Let us work with you to assess your business needs and training requirements, to develop a plan for the best way to achieve those needs and requirements, to help you maximise your influence by getting that crucial buy in from end users before they sit down to take the training, and to actually measure results and monitor performance afterwards.

In the end, this kind of partnership – buying not just a training programme, but a performance improvement strategy – really does drive the benefits, delivering learning solutions that don’t simply meet an immediate business need, but really do contribute to growth, productivity, transformation and strategy.

There is little doubt that the ‘chatter’ surrounding m-learning is increasing in volume. Learning and development people are intrigued (and a little frightened) by the thought, business managers love the idea of training taking place during ‘dead’ time and learners see the undoubted value of training that can be accessed whenever they need it. Some of the chatter is hype but businesses ignore the potential value of m-learning at their peril.

The key to making m-learning successful, however, is not to repeat the mistakes of the past. Since the time of Plato, we’ve used the classroom model to teach. When e-learning came along, we took the classroom approach, removed the trainer and put the material online. At this point, I’m not sure why the industry was surprised that learners hated e-learning but it was. We’d taken the best bit, the experienced trainer, out and added very little to the bit we all hate - the dreaded PowerPoint deck.

The scary thing for me is that I’m starting to see mobile learning that looks very much like the worst examples of e-learning that I have seen. Building animated PowerPoint slides on small screens and trying to teach subjects like health and safety is just a recipe for disaster - with this model m-learning will never take off.

m-Learning should be about easily accessible, bite sized chunks of learning that I want to do - note WANT not HAVE to do. It should not try to replicate the hour long course that Plato may have run for his students.

One way to achieve success with m-learning is to look at how you can use video. Video provides a good medium for m-learning because:

1. Video is easy to distribute. Most organisations have an array of mobile devices which use a variety of technologies. Most of these devices, however, support video. This makes the content hassle free for the learner and makes it possible for the learner to easily share the content.

2. Video is compelling. As proven by YouTube, people like to watch videos and today’s technology allows even amateurs to create high-quality, highly engaging content.

3. Video is the right medium for m-learning. Often, learning is about persuasion - you are trying to get people to behave differently. The impact of this persuasion is diluted when presented as series of animated slides. Video on the other had can be used to convey passion and emotion. It can show fear or excitement. Today’s technology also means that video does not have to passive, it can be interactive with all the assessment tools and engaging interventions that we all love!

Whilst attending the Learning Technologies Show in January, one particular statement grabbed my attention. According to Dr. Itiel, former senior lecturer in cognitive neuroscience at the University of Southampton, on average, 70-80% of information that people “learn”, they will forget after 24 hours. So, for all of us who create learning courses, we really do have a tough job on our hands to ensure that participants remember the learning points for longer than a day!

In particular, this made me consider the assessments our clients often request at the end of an e-learning course. If we are assessing the participants on how much they have learnt then we should be aware that testing them within 24 hours of completing the course perhaps doesn’t give a fair representation of this. If someone achieves 90% on the assessment part at the end of a data protection course then we hail that as an achievement; that employee now knows how to handle data correctly! But, for how long? What if, 24 hours later, they are confronted with a data protection situation; will they remember what to do? If they’re lucky, the issue they face will draw from the 20-30% of learning they still remember.

But, before we all go and change our careers, let’s not forget that there are so many factors which influence why people “learn” or remember. For example, age, ability, cognitive load, relevance of the material and motivation for taking the course could all play a part. Dr Itiel’s point was that, as people who design learning, we just need to be aware of these factors and use them to our advantage. He carried out an experiment regarding the impact of the layout and structure of an e-learning course on learners’ information retention. He used three different layouts experimenting with the display of the information and the degree of control the learner had over the course navigation and their learning path. He tested participants immediately after taking the course and then two weeks later. His results found that immediately after the course there was no real difference between the layouts as to how much information was remembered. Two weeks later, however, learners remembered the most from the linear format with no user-control over the learning path or navigation. His theory behind this was related to cognitive load, perhaps the more you are thinking about how to navigate through the course, the less brain power you have available to absorb the learning from the course.

This is just one small investigation into one of the influencing factors on learning and retention, and Dr Itiel is still working on researching this topic in more detail. Obviously there are no clear-cut answers or set formats to which a course should adhere, but for the moment let’s just be aware of the impact of these factors when designing our courses. Next month in part two, I’ll take a look at the use of videos in e-learning courses and their effect on information retention and learning.

For more information on Dr Itiel’s studies please visit: http://users.ecs.soton.ac.uk/id/train.html

It’s true, the very best learning includes a large dose of ‘involve me’, of user interaction—but it’s so easy to overdose. A classic example is systems training. In its early years, it involved a virtual coach describing the system’s features and navigation while you were required to stare at the screen and follow an animated cursor around as it magically clicked, double-clicked, right-clicked and hovered over various things on the screen, supposedly simulating ‘real life’. If that was real life…

As systems training has evolved, it has become less talk and more action. Simulations allow users to physically interact with virtual systems without the fear of causing irreversible damage, and have largely become a key influence on the way systems training is now designed. Of late, however, I’ve noticed there’s more clicking than anything else.

A couple of years ago I sampled a course created for nursing staff, to train them on the hospital’s patient management system. It ran for three hours. Simulation after simulation, the coach led me through each and every click. The learning outcomes boldly stated that by the end of the course I’d be able to track patient treatment. However, even after completing the course I still didn’t have a clue and if I was let loose in the hospital there would have been a huge legal bill to pay. I bet the company paid someone thousands of pounds to create the training, but I was bored stiff and left unenlightened by this great attempt to disguise a page-turning exercise.

User interaction is often mistaken for the ‘involve me’ element, but that’s only one half of the story. The other half is the context—a scenario or story based on real life, one that will get the learner to think about their own experiences. That said, there also has to be a need for each simulation in systems training. There’s no point creating a simulation for everything as this often renders the course to be little more than a sophisticated online help manual, not the ‘behaviour-changing’ course it was meant to be!

So, when you’re creating your next systems training, be sure to think about the learners’ sanity. Use case studies and real life examples to add weight to the content. Make it interactive but limit the number of simulations and the length of each one so that they really do add value, continue to engage the learner, and most importantly, meet the desired learning objectives.