Recently someone asked how to combine their mentoring program with elearning courses.  This is something I’ve worked on a few times over the years.  It usually involved a production environment where peer coaches were tasked with training new employees on the floor.  But the ideas in this post could work in any type of training program that includes some sort of mentoring or peer coaching.

A Common Case

A person’s hired to a new position and often assigned a peer coach who walks beside him until he’s up-to-speed.  Not only is this an effective way to teach new employees, it’s also a great way to help build a social connection to the work and organization.

However, there are a few challenges with this type of training and many are overcome by blending elearning content with the peer coaching.

Here are a few of the challenges I’ve encountered:

• Pulling people from real production. The peer coach also has her own job to do.  So there’s pressure to help the new person but then get back to work.  Because of this, the peer coach may take short cuts, not present complete information, or neglect the needs of the new person.
• Inconsistent training process.  Much of the new person’s learning is dictated by the peer coach’s own work flow.  This can make it a challenge if the new person doesn’t fully understand what’s going on and jumps from one thing to the next without understanding the proper context or work process.
• Assign the wrong tasks to new learners.  It’s common to pawn off the easiest or less desired tasks to the new person.  Sometimes there’s too much focus on putting people on the simplest work until “they get it” and then advance them to more challenging work later on.
• Learning can be intimidating.  People can be intimidated by new tasks, especially in a real work environment where mistakes impact production. 

The Value of E-Learning

There should be some consistency in the training process.  However, peer coaching programs are notorious for inconsistency.  Even if the peer coach is really good, things like work requirements or personal areas of emphasis tend to make each training event a bit different. That’s where elearning proves valuable.

E-learning courses are effective in dealing with these challenges.  Elearning courses allow you to remove the person from the time and resource pressures of the real world.  This can ensure consistent delivery of critical information as well as compress the time to learn. 

• Doesn’t interfere with production: the learner is not constrained by real work processes.
• Asynchronous access: The information can be accessed anywhere and at any time.
• Less demand on peer coach: The peer coach can spend less time with the learner for some of the training.
• Consistent messaging & delivery: Information structure and delivery is consistent regardless of peer coach’s personal style or emphasis.
• Intentional training design: Allows you to present a more holistic and complete training program rather than sticking people on the easy tasks or boring work until some later date. 

Elearning modules are excellent for delivering key information that may missed during on-the-job training that’s focused on very specific tasks.  For example, in a real production environment while showing someone how to use a machine you may focus on the actual steps required for performance but lose out on explaining the upstream and downstream effects of the workflow.  In addition, production environments tend to be loud, which makes it difficult to have good conversation.

This can be solved with a simple orientation module where you provide a brief overview of the production process and workflow.  This allows you to maintain consistent messaging and it frees the peer coach from that part of the training.  You can also structure the module to review and assess the learner’s understanding, something that may be missed on the floor.

I worked on a production course once where we found the new hires were intimidated by the large machines.  So instead of putting them to work right away, we spend time teaching them the parts of the machine and how to do preventive maintenance.  We used a series of small elearning courses to go through the technical information and combined them with hands-on preventive maintenance.

By the time they started working on the machine they were very familiar and comfortable with what was going on.  We cut the training time dramatically.  The elearning courses also allowed us to control the information and practice activities.  Something that may have varied based on the peer coach.

The Learning Journal

Part of the training happens during the elearning module and part during the face-to-face time. To create a bridge, I like to add a learning journal. I see it as a way to instigate some note-taking and create a resource that becomes personal and something the learner always has access to. The note-taking in the learning also helps with knowledge transfer.

What’s included in the learning journal?

• Training calendar. Give the person a schedule that lets them know what they will be learning. They can check off what they’ve learned as they advance. This provides a progress report to the learner, the peer coach, and supervisor.
• Self-assessment. List the things they need to know or do to be proficient. They can review it and determine how well they’re doing. Include information on finding additional resources. I like this approach because it gives the learner some freedom and confidence as they assess their skills.
• Peer coach guides. Each elearning module should be coupled with a real-world activity. The peer coach guide tells the learner and peer coach what that is. This helps move the training forward. The peer coach is obligated to this process so they take fewer short cuts. And the learner is able to determine if something’s been skipped. I also include some quick review questions that cover the essential points of the module. After each module, the peer coach uses the questions as a way to review what was learned and assess the new person’s understanding.

The Peer Coach

A mentored training program is an effective way to train new employees.  But it’s also a great way train existing employees who are being groomed for greater management responsibilities.  You can use the peer coaching process as a way to teach giving feedback and supervising others.  It’s a great way to model the expectations you would have for supervisors or managers.

The key to success is consistency and commitment to the process.  At the same time, the peer coaching needs to work in a real environment. 

• Get peer coaches involved. When building this type of training it’s critical to connect with the peer coaches to craft the right types of activities and how to schedule them.  Otherwise the training program becomes burdensome and creates extra work as people circumvent the official training to get things done quickly.
• Teach them how to review progress and fill gaps.  We combined the elearning module with a real-world activity.  The peer coaches reviews what’s learned online to get a sense of how the person is progressing and to fill any gaps.  The learning journal’s structure facilitates assessing the learner’s understanding.
• Empower the peer coach.  The objective is to create a good training program.  People learn in different ways so the peer coach has to have some flexibility in how they work through the training with the new employee.  Break the content into smaller modules so that you have more freedom to work with them. 

Beware of Bureaucracy

The training program is a solution that helps meet your objective of training people.  The goal is that people are able to meet a specific level of proficiency.  It’s not that they go through training.  Often we focus too intently on the process that we lose sight of the real objectives. 

While you want to design a good training program that is consistent and effective, it has to include a way to work with the learner as an individual and how she learns.  The last thing you want is a burdensome process that is also so rigid that doesn’t account for how the trainee is actually doing and able to demonstrate understanding.

The peer coach plays a critical role in assessing the person’s progress and understanding of the key points of the training.  You can alleviate the bureaucratic elements by having clear metrics for proficiency.

To sum it all up:

• Determine what content can be taught electronically and what needs to be done in the real world.
• Break the content into smaller modules with each module combining elearning and real world learning.
• Use a learning journal as a means to bridge the two parts of the module and facilitate the conversation between learner and peer coach.
• Get the peer coach involved in the training design.
• Use the peer coaching experience as a way to develop that person’s management skills.
• Avoid bureaucracy.

Have you ever combined elearning with a mentored training program?  If so, what are some things you’d advise?  Feel free to share your thoughts via the comments link.

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Free E-Learning Resources

Want to learn more? Check out these articles and free resources in the community.	Here’s a great job board for e-learning, instructional design, and training jobs	Participate in the weekly e-learning challenges to sharpen your skills
Get your free PowerPoint templates and free graphics & stock images.	Lots of cool e-learning examples to check out and find inspiration.	Getting Started? This e-learning 101 series and the free e-books will help.

It’s hard to believe but another year’s come and gone.  The good thing is that it looks like 2012 will be a good year.  Although sometime in June, you may want to break out the DVD player and watch 2012.  Then practice your survival skills because come December, things may change.  But until then, just put your feet up and enjoy the year.

To ease your burden, I put together a list of all of the posts from 2011 where I shared free elearning assets.  They’re yours to enjoy and use as you wish.

Free E-Learning Templates

• Here’s a Noteworthy PowerPoint Template (and It’s Free!)

• Here’s a Free PowerPoint Template & Font

• Use This Free E-Learning Template to Inspire Your Next M-Learning Course

• 5 Free PowerPoint E-Learning Templates

• Check Out This Free PowerPoint Template & Tutorial

Free fonts

• Over 150 Free Fonts to Use in Your E-Learning Courses

Miscellaneous Free Tools

• A Free Tool & Free Graphics to Simplify Your E-Learning Course Design

• Here’s a Simple Way to Save Time When Working with Graphics in PowerPoint

• 5 Time-saving Tips from the E-learning Community

• Tips on Managing All of Those Free Fonts

• You May Already Own the Tools to Create Simple E-Learning Avatars

Free graphics

• Over 45 Free Speech Bubbles to Make Your E-Learning Courses Talk
• Dozens of Page Curl Graphics
• Here’s a Free PowerPoint Template & Laptop Illustration
• 15 Free Display Graphics to Use with Your E-Learning Courses
• 25 More Free Display Graphics for Your E-Learning Courses

Free Expert Advice

• 3 Things You Can Only Learn from a Real E-Learning Expert

Don’t forget to take advantage of all of the free downloads available in the elearning community and next time you’re stuck on a course, feel free to post a question.  You’ll get plenty of help.

I hope you have a great 2012.  Thank you for reading the blog, sharing your own expertise in the comments and emails.  I hope to see many of you during my travels this year.

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Free E-Learning Resources

Want to learn more? Check out these articles and free resources in the community.	Here’s a great job board for e-learning, instructional design, and training jobs	Participate in the weekly e-learning challenges to sharpen your skills
Get your free PowerPoint templates and free graphics & stock images.	Lots of cool e-learning examples to check out and find inspiration.	Getting Started? This e-learning 101 series and the free e-books will help.

It’s that time of year to share gifts, so here’s an elearning template that you’re free to use as you wish.  It’s inspired by a Christmas tree with the green background and colored bulbs.

The template comes with a few layouts and they’re easy enough to modify, which you’ll see in the tutorials.

I see the color bulbs as a way to feature different sections.  If you want additional layouts to accommodate the different colors, just go into the slide master, duplicate the layout and change the color of the bulb.

As always, I use the default template colors, so you’re free to easily modify the colors using PowerPoint’s color themes.

Click here to view the template in action.

You’ll notice in the demo above that I added characters to the bulbs.  This is a simple way to create a more human looking course.  It’s also a neat way to transition to scenarios.

Another thing you’ll notice is the cutout character.  It’s kind of trendy right now and pretty easy to do.  I like this look because it helps get away from the PowerPoint look and it adds a sense of informality to the course which may help make the content seem less rigid.

If you want to learn more about using the template and how to create the cutouts and character fills, be sure to check out the tutorials below.

Click here to view the tutorials.

Here’s a link to the free PowerPoint template.  Feel free to use it as you wish.  Also, take advantage of the other free downloads in the elearning community.

• PowerPoint Template

Hope you enjoy the template and have a great 2012!

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Free E-Learning Resources

Want to learn more? Check out these articles and free resources in the community.	Here’s a great job board for e-learning, instructional design, and training jobs	Participate in the weekly e-learning challenges to sharpen your skills
Get your free PowerPoint templates and free graphics & stock images.	Lots of cool e-learning examples to check out and find inspiration.	Getting Started? This e-learning 101 series and the free e-books will help.

There are three core questions that help guide the development of an elearning course.  I discussed this a bit in the post on building a roadmap for elearning.

• What is the look and feel of the course?
• What information needs to be in the course?
• What will the learner do with the information?

For many rapid elearning developers the most challenging part is the first question because it requires a skill set different than training or instructional design.  So what typically happens is that we create elearning courses that either all look the same or have a discordant look where the images and typography are a hodgepodge of whatever we have available.

In today’s post I’ll share a simple way to get a nice look for your course that will give it a rich feel.  It’s not a substitute for good instructional design, but it is a simple way to make your course look good and take the pressure off of the rapid elearning developer who has limited access to graphic designers.

In a recent post I shared some ideas on how to craft more engaging objectives.  For the demo, I wanted my earthquake intro to feature a family huddled in the dark.  And as the information was shared a family member would disappear.

Like most of you, I am pressed for time.  Since I had no time to build the graphics I wanted, I decided to change the huddled family image to a framed photo of a family.  This would be a lot easier to do since all I needed was an image of a picture frame and a family.

As I was looking for picture frames on iStockphoto I saw a few Polaroid-like images.  So I decided to switch from a single picture frame to Polaroid photos of each family member.  Doing a search for “Polaroid” revealed a lot of cool layouts.  What I like about them is that they offer some structure that I could easily use in my elearning course.

Searching through the Polaroid images lead me to an artist who had a series of images that I could use.  The artist provided a background, title and section screens, and then various layout options.  The added bonus is that since they came from the same artist they all looked like they belonged together.

Here’s a quick demo of these images used in an elearning course.  As you can see, I didn’t have to do much work because I used the default layouts for my slide backgrounds.

Click here to view the demo.

I look for images that come from the same style so I can get a consistent look and avoid a discordant style.  And then I look for “buckets” where I can add content.  In this case the Polaroid images are perfect.  I can use them to add pictures, as menu choices, or even as a way to display text that may have previously been a bullet point.

The secret is to find an artist who provides a lot of images that come from the same style.  This way you have a lot to work with.  Here are a few sets that I think would work well in an elearning course:

• Grungy Photos (set used in this demo)
• Education theme

Desktop themes (same artist):

• Brown wood
• Black desk
• Office folder
• Open notebook

This isn’t a replacement for good instructional design.  You’ll still need to do that.  But for the elearning developer who has no graphic design background and wants to create a visually appealing course, it’s an easy and simple solution.

Are there any similar styles in the stock image sites that you like?  Feel free to share them in the comments link.

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Free E-Learning Resources

Want to learn more? Check out these articles and free resources in the community.	Here’s a great job board for e-learning, instructional design, and training jobs	Participate in the weekly e-learning challenges to sharpen your skills
Get your free PowerPoint templates and free graphics & stock images.	Lots of cool e-learning examples to check out and find inspiration.	Getting Started? This e-learning 101 series and the free e-books will help.

I’ve been working on a few demos for some upcoming blog posts and conference presentations.  One demo is a module on having an emergency preparedness kit in case of a disaster.

In the past I’ve built similar elearning courses for organizations that taught their employees about having these disaster kits.  In most cases they started the courses with the standard objectives screen like the image below.

While there’s nothing wrong with creating a list to state learning objectives, there’s probably a better way to engage the learner emotionally.  And this is important if you want to connect with the learner and motivate them to change their behavior.

Understanding Objectives

When I first learned to build elearning courses the rule was that you HAD to have a page that stated the learning objectives.  Today that still seems to be standard.  On top of that many organizations require that each course have an objective screen that has an explicit list of learning objectives. If that’s the case, then that’s what you have to do. But let’s step away from that for a second.

In a simple sense the purpose of the objective is to communicate why the learner needs the course and what they’ll learn or be able to do afterwards.  We start at point A and at the end of the course want to be at point B.

The easiest thing to do is create an objectives screen like one above where you tell the learner what the objective is and what they should learn.  But that’s not the only way to present the objectives of the course.  It also may not be the most effective way.  And, it’s definitely not the most interesting way.

Crafting a Meaningful Objective

It doesn’t matter where you live; odds are that you’re in an area that at some point during your lifetime will experience a disaster.  In the Pacific Northwest the most likely disaster that I’ll experience is a major earthquake.

I say this because everywhere I’ve worked part of our annual safety training was the need to have an emergency kit.  We were told that it was just a matter of time before we had an emergency and to plan on being on our own for a while.  They said we needed an emergency kit that could sustain us for at least 72 hours.

Know what? I always passed the safety training; yet I never had an emergency kit.  Why is that?

While I KNEW that the kit was important, I was never MOTIVATED to actually have a kit.  Outside of my natural proclivity to procrastinate, I think the elearning course was positioned as just one of many boring elearning courses that I had to take every year.  All the organization cared about was making sure I had a check mark next to my name come December 31.

Essentially they did a poor job convincing me that the kit was essential.  They could have done a better job by appealing to my emotions rather than provide a bunch of information.

Often we focus on the cognitive part of learning which is all about the knowing.  But we don’t focus enough on the affective part which is more about the emotions.  What motivates someone is subjective and tied to their emotional awareness.  So creating an emotional connection to the content may be better than just a cognitive connection, especially at the forefront where we want to hook them.

Reworked Learning Objective

In the demo below I want to get away from the standard list of objectives. Instead I want something more emotional that matters to the person taking the course. I want them to know that this isn’t just information; instead it’s a matter of life and death.

Instead of creating the standard list of what you’ll learn I ask them to consider the ramifications of not having a kit.  I also stepped away from work and made it more personal.  This isn’t about some check mark to indicate completion.  This is about taking care of your family.

Click here to view the demo.

There’s a lot more I could have done to flesh out the scenario, but I kept it simple on purpose.  I want to show that even if you have limited resources and time you can build something like this.  As you can see the demo is not very interactive—just a few images, text, and some audio.

Learning is a complex process and part of it is to connect with the learners in a meaningful way.  Appealing to them emotionally is one way to do that.  So the next time you build an elearning course, see if you can replace the bullet point objective screen with something different.  Even if you can’t replace it, you can still do something like this to capture their attention.

Have some creative ideas? Share them by clicking on the comments link.  Not sure how to rework the learning objectives in the elearning course you’re building?  Jump into this forum thread that I started in the elearning community to get some feedback from others.

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Free E-Learning Resources

Want to learn more? Check out these articles and free resources in the community.	Here’s a great job board for e-learning, instructional design, and training jobs	Participate in the weekly e-learning challenges to sharpen your skills
Get your free PowerPoint templates and free graphics & stock images.	Lots of cool e-learning examples to check out and find inspiration.	Getting Started? This e-learning 101 series and the free e-books will help.

Over the years elearning software has become easier to use.  But with that comes some challenges.  In the past you had an instructional designer who designed the course.  Then there was a programmer who did the programming of the course.  And a graphics designer built the course’s graphics.

Today, things have changed a bit.  With the ease of authoring, it’s placed the burden to do all of it on the shoulders of the rapid elearning developer.  This can be a challenge because the skills to design graphics are different than the ones required to design instruction.

In an ideal world you’d have all the resources you need to build your elearning courses, but for many of you that’s not going to happen.  So anything you can do to find inexpensive assets that you can be used for elearning helps.

Here’s a Simple Solution

Most people have heard of sites like Groupon or Living Social.  They’re social buying sites that have some sort of “deal of the day” where you can make discounted purchases as you recommend them to others.  It’s really not much different than the desert island disks I mentioned in last week’s post.

Did you know that there are similar sites for technology and web design?  And many of them offer low cost or even free access to the types of assets you can use in your elearning courses.

The Way It Works

Here are a couple of the sites I subscribe to.  I’m sure there are others.

• AppSumo
• MightyDeals

Subscribe to the site and then you’ll get an email with the daily deals.  I find that most of them are not relevant to my needs so I just delete them.  But many times there are some good deals that would work great for elearning, similar to the images below.

What I Find Valuable

I’m not interested in most of what these services offer.  I don’t care that much about the tutorials or SEO type solutions.  I’m looking for tangible media assets, things I can use in my elearning courses.

Here’s a list of what I’ve found in previous offers that I believe have value:

• Icons
• Fonts
• Backgrounds
• Textures
• Templates (usually WordPress)
• Audio & video assets

Look for any type of multimedia asset that you think could be used in an elearning course.  They may not always fill an immediate need, but if the assets look good, get them.  Over time, you’ll build a large portfolio of assets.

Take a close look at the blog templates even if you don’t need them for blogging.  What I like about them is that they come with a “look” and all of the graphics to get it.  Instead of using the template for a blog site, pull out all of the graphics and use them to build your own elearning template.

I have no vested interest in any of these sites so I can freely share the pros as well as cons.

The pros:

• Good value: The daily deals usually offer an abundance of resources at a very good price.  Most of them will save you time and money as you develop your elearning courses. 
• Free stuff: It’s a cost-effective way to build a portfolio of resources.  Sometimes you’ll even get free stuff.

The cons:

• Email Noise: If you’ve ever subscribed to these types of sites then you know there’s a certain type of spaminess that goes with them.  Not bad spam, but just lots of noise. 
• Stuff you don’t need: You’ll get daily deals, but most of them probably aren’t relevant to your needs.  Odds are you’ll be enticed to buy stuff because of the deal it offers and not the value you’ll get out of it.  So beware!

Having assets that you can use for elearning courses is a challenge when you don’t have access to a graphics designer.  Using sites like these where you can take advantage of the daily deals is a good way to get the assets you need.  You just have to be patient and wiling to click the delete button every day until you get an offer that makes sense for you.  Clicking delete’s not a bad price to pay for inexpensive assets.

Have you ever used any of the assets from these offers for your course design?  If so, which ones?  Feel free to share your thoughts by clicking on the comments link.

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Free E-Learning Resources

Want to learn more? Check out these articles and free resources in the community.	Here’s a great job board for e-learning, instructional design, and training jobs	Participate in the weekly e-learning challenges to sharpen your skills
Get your free PowerPoint templates and free graphics & stock images.	Lots of cool e-learning examples to check out and find inspiration.	Getting Started? This e-learning 101 series and the free e-books will help.

Back in the ‘80s there was a music magazine that published a list of desert island discs.  People would write in and share the ten records they’d bring if they were stranded on an island.  I used that list to find people who had similar tastes and then checked out the bands they’d recommend.  That’s how found a lot of new bands like Milli Vanilli.

I get a lot of questions about book recommendations from people just getting started with elearning.  So for today’s post I’d like to do something similar to the desert island discs.

Let’s suppose you are on a desert island and in between catching fish and talking to volleyballs you have a deep desire to learn more about elearning. You can only bring three books. Which books are they and why?  I’ll get it started.

Elearning 101

Here is what I see as the three core elements of a successful elearning course.  I shared a little about this in this post on mapping out elearning courses.

• Visual design: Is the course visually appealing and use effective visual communication?
• Content: What content needs to be in the course?
• Learning activities: What will the learner do with the content?

If we broke those into three areas of expertise they would probably be something like this:

• Visual design & communication
• Instructional design
• Interaction design

Here are the books I’d recommend to those stranded elearning developers who are just getting started and want to build their elearning skills so they’ll be prepared when rescued from the island.

• Design for How People Learn. It’s important to understand how people learn because it will help you build better learning experiences. Unfortunately most people I talk to don’t have a formal education in instructional design. This book is probably the single best book for the person who’s just getting started and wants to know more about instructional design and how people learn.
• White Space is Not Your Enemy: A Beginner’s Guide to Communicating Visually through Graphic, Web and Multimedia Design.  Good visual design combines courses that look great with good visual communication.  Unfortunately there’s not enough focus on that for elearning.  Anything you can do to help you get there is a win.  This book is a good start.
• Beyond Bullet Points.  Many elearning developers overlook this book because it’s about presentations.  But here’s why I think it’s a must-have elearning book.  Most elearning courses are closer to online presentations than structured learning activities.  This book is great at helping you craft a message that has meaning and impact.  In addition, it also introduces the same cognitive load stuff that you’d find in Multimedia Learning and E-Learning & the Science of Instruction (both good books, by the way).

The links to Amazon books may produce a slight commission.

Obviously there are many good books from which to choose, but for now, these are the three I’d recommend.  Which three books would you take and why?  Feel free to share your recommendations in the comments section.

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Free E-Learning Resources

Want to learn more? Check out these articles and free resources in the community.	Here’s a great job board for e-learning, instructional design, and training jobs	Participate in the weekly e-learning challenges to sharpen your skills
Get your free PowerPoint templates and free graphics & stock images.	Lots of cool e-learning examples to check out and find inspiration.	Getting Started? This e-learning 101 series and the free e-books will help.

I’m coming off of back-to-back-to-back conference sessions and elearning workshops.  While the travel gets old, I really enjoy getting to connect with so many of the blog readers.

What I like best is that I run across so many different questions and elearning use cases and examples.  I’m always amazed at the creativity in our industry.  In addition, I get lots of time to reflect on things as I fly across the country. 

Following are three things that stood out to me during my recent travels.

It’s important to connect with people.

I stopped in one of those airport shops to pick up a couple of knickknacks for my kids. The young woman who processed my sale really stood out.  It was one of the best customer service experiences that I‘ve had in recent years.

As I was sitting in the lobby I thought more about it.  What’s funny is that she really didn’t do anything out of the ordinary.  As a matter of fact she did exactly what others would have done when it comes to processing the purchase.  Yet, the experience with her really stood out.  Why?

It’s because she connected with me in a real way.  She had a welcoming disposition, warm smile, and actually engaged me.  As a busy traveler, I felt less like a sales order being processed and more like a real person.  What she did was connect with me as a person and not as a requirement to complete her job.  And it stood out.

There’s a lesson here for those of us who build courses.  Learning is a very personal experience.  Yet so often, we treat those who take the courses like cattle being processed rather than real learners.  Here are a few ways that we make elearning impersonal:

• Content is irrelevant with no connection to real world solutions
• Course navigation is locked so the learner has no control
• More focus on corporate branding than crafting a great learning experience

Things to ponder:

What’s the equivalent to a warm smile and personal greeting in your course?  Are your elearning courses lacking personality?  Are there better ways for you to connect with those who have to take the course? 

Where am I and where am I going?

Maps and traveling go hand in hand.  A map lets you chart where you need to go and then provides a way for you to assess how far you’ve gone and where you’re currently at.  In the same sense, your course needs a map.

When I do workshops on interactive elearning, one of the first points I make about engaging people is that they need to know what’s expected and how long it will take.  People want to know what type of commitment they have to make before starting a course.

When someone sends me a YouTube video link, the first thing I do is look at how long it is.  If it’s 90 seconds, I’ll probably watch it.  But if it’s 6 minutes long, odds are that I won’t.  Knowing the requirements to view the video plays a role in how engaged I’ll be in the process.  The same can be said of your elearning courses.

When you deliver an elearning course, the expectations of the learner should be clear.  They need to know how long it is.  Also, during the course they should be able to assess their progress and how well they’re doing.

Things to ponder:

Are you making the expectations clear in your course?  And are you providing a way for them to assess their progress?

Engage learners by letting them create content

Whenever I travel I try to set some time aside for informal Articulate jam sessions.  It’s a great way to connect with blog readers and answer questions.  The most recent jam session was hosted by the Cheesecake Factory at their headquarters location.  You can’t go wrong when you mix elearning chit chat with delicious Cheesecake.

During the jam session, they shared one way they use videos in their training program.  In a recent activity, they had all of the restaurant greeters videotape their best customer greeting and then upload the videos to their internal video site.  The videos were made available to others in the organization and they ran a contest to go with them.

Here’s the value in this approach to training:

• The goal is to get the employees to learn the proper way to greet.  Normally, we’d push out a ten slide elearning course that shows how to greet.  With the videotape challenge, you get the learners focused on the best approach to greeting.  How many times do you think they’d practice the right type of greeting before they submitted their tape?  So you get the learner engaged and practicing real activities in a fun way.
• The employee videos were highlighted creating an environment where people were looking for videos and the recognition their team or site would get.  It’s a great way to build a motivating and engaging training program.
• Instead of the elearning team having to create greeting videos, they were created by people who actually do the greeting.  It’s a time saver and authentic for the others who will learn from them.

Things to ponder:

Is there a way for you to integrate user content with your more formal elearning development?  Perhaps you can have someone create Screenr videos where they show how to do something.  This lets them demonstrate their understanding and also gives you content to use to teach others.

There are all sorts of sites where your learners can create content and then provide you with an embed link that you can insert it into your elearning courses using the web object feature.

What all three of these points have in common is that in some way the approach is learner-centric.  Most elearning courses I see are focused on the content and how to deliver it.  Unfortunately, many times the learner is lost in the process.

One of the best things you can do to make your elearning courses effective is to shift the focus away from content delivery and place it on how the learner will use the content.  This lets you deliver a course that is engaging and relevant to the learner’s needs.

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Free E-Learning Resources

Want to learn more? Check out these articles and free resources in the community.	Here’s a great job board for e-learning, instructional design, and training jobs	Participate in the weekly e-learning challenges to sharpen your skills
Get your free PowerPoint templates and free graphics & stock images.	Lots of cool e-learning examples to check out and find inspiration.	Getting Started? This e-learning 101 series and the free e-books will help.

How we view effective elearning is somewhat subjective.  For some it requires that all elearning center on performance.  If it’s not, then how can it be effective?  However, many elearning courses are less “learning” and more marketing.  They’re about sharing information using elearning tools.  I see those more as multimedia marketing campaigns than traditional training programs.

For example, the human resources department is introducing a new bonus program and they want to have an “elearning course.” While they may call it elearning, it’s really more about creating awareness and not setting performance goals.  At least not immediately.

Ultimately the efficacy of elearning centers on the original course objectives and whether or not the course meets them.  Performance-based courses need to prove that the learner can meet the performance goals.  Information-based courses need to demonstrate a greater awareness of the content.

Both types of courses have their place in the elearning landscape.  Following are some keys to effective elearning.

Is the course building greater awareness?

I worked on a project once where it was taking too long for new hires to get up-to-speed in a production environment. The training program successfully taught the new hires everything they needed to DO.  But after doing some analysis, we recognized that it wasn’t that they didn’t know how to do the work, it was that they weren’t completely aware of how their work fit in the grand scheme of things.

So we added a few modules that taught them more about the overall production process and how they supported the organization.  There were no performance goals in these modules other than to share additional information.  Once they were made aware of this, the teams started meeting their production goals.

Our initial mistake was that we only focused on the performance goals.  They were able to perform their tasks.  But because they were new, they lacked awareness of the bigger picture.  While we want to focus on performance, there’s always a place for building context and framing the learning activities around that.

Is the course causing the learners to think?

Elearning should promote thinking.  Find ways to challenge their assumptions or their existing understanding of the content.  This can be wrapped in activities that mimic the learner’s world or information that causes reflection.  In either case, step away from an information dump and let the learner process the information.

Create activities or scenarios that offer contrast to the way they may normally see the content.  Provide fresh perspective.  I had a project once where the client wouldn’t budge from doing an information dump…and it was a lot of information.

Our solution was to build a learning journal to go with the information.  Then we presented a few case studies for the person to reflect on and document in the journal.  This allowed them to wade through the information and identify the content relevant to them and their reflections.

With today’s social media, it’s easy enough to transition the learning journal concept to a wiki or other collaborative forum.

Is the course giving them opportunities to practice?

Ultimately elearning courses exist to change understanding that impacts behavior.  Knowing the right information is proven in relevant activities.  We don’t just share information. We share information that allows someone to assess a situation and make appropriate decisions that produce real consequences.

Are you building activities in your courses that allow the learners to practice making the types of decisions they need to make in the real world? Or the types of decisions that let them build competencies that they may need?

Is the course allowing the learners to demonstrate their understanding?

Decision-making activities let the learners practice and build on existing knowledge.  They find ways to integrate what they’re learning in the course with what they already know.  Somewhere in the process you get to the point where you need to assess their understanding.  Are they able to meet the course’s objectives?

Typically we use simple multiple choice or true false type questions; probably because it’s what we’re used to and because they’re easy to create.  However that type of assessment only demonstrates whether a person knows the facts or not.  Measuring understanding is more about how they apply those facts to make decisions.

As you determine your course objectives, also determine how to assess them.  Then build your course around that.  We used to ask “What will it look like when I see it?”  This helped us focus on tangible results.

If this is new to you, I like the book Understanding by Design (an Amazon referral link).  The author does a good job of helping walk through the process of building objectives framed around understanding.  It’s worth adding to your bookshelf.

Obviously there’s a lot more to building effective elearning than these four questions.  But asking these questions is a good start and hopefully they help transition your course development away from information dumps to meaningful and effective learning.

What questions would you ask?  Feel free to leave a comment by clicking on the comments link.

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Free E-Learning Resources

Want to learn more? Check out these articles and free resources in the community.	Here’s a great job board for e-learning, instructional design, and training jobs	Participate in the weekly e-learning challenges to sharpen your skills
Get your free PowerPoint templates and free graphics & stock images.	Lots of cool e-learning examples to check out and find inspiration.	Getting Started? This e-learning 101 series and the free e-books will help.

The other day I ran across the website of How It Works Media.  They produce those clever marketing videos.  What caught my eye was the way they used their vector character with the projection screen especially since I had just done a couple of posts on display graphics which included some some projection screens.

The general layout of their site would make a great elearning template.  Here’s why:

• Simple, but rich background.
• Bold title colors.
• Lots of white space.
• Dedicated content areas.

As you know, I like to use sites like this as inspiration to show how easy it is to create PowerPoint elearning templates.  So I thought I’d make a template inspired by their site and then share a few tips.

Free PowerPoint Template

The template has six different layouts.  I tried to cover the most common layout types.  I also included a projection screen layout based on their screen design.  Of course, you may want to add some of the free displays from the previous post.

As far as the text placement, you can move it anywhere you want.  Also, feel free to modify the template as you wish.

Here are a few tips:

• I liked the blue mesh gradient on the website.  To create it in PowerPoint I combined two shapes.  The first shape is filled with cross pattern.  The second shape is filled with the color gradients.  I set the gradients to 10% transparent and placed the shape on top of the pattern shape.
• I always use the generic “office” color scheme in PowerPoint.  This way I can quickly apply a new theme and not have to do a lot of tweaking.  Below are three examples of how the different colors schemes look with the template.

• I like the bold font that How it Works Media used on their site.  For this template I used Bevan which is a free font available via the Google Web Fonts site. You can learn more about the site and get more free fonts via this post.

Here’s the link to download the free PowerPoint template.  Feel free to take it apart to see how it was constructed.

I hope you enjoy the free template. If you use it in a course let me know. I’d like see how it turns out.

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Free E-Learning Resources

Want to learn more? Check out these articles and free resources in the community.	Here’s a great job board for e-learning, instructional design, and training jobs	Participate in the weekly e-learning challenges to sharpen your skills
Get your free PowerPoint templates and free graphics & stock images.	Lots of cool e-learning examples to check out and find inspiration.	Getting Started? This e-learning 101 series and the free e-books will help.

I get a lot of questions about number of slides or screen count per hour of instruction.  My answer is that screen count is usually irrelevant.  Let me explain.

First, to the elearner screen count means nothing.  For example, I can make ten points on a single screen or have ten screens, each with a single point.  The time it takes to get through each point may be the same.  More screens don’t make it longer and fewer screens don’t make it shorter.

Screen count becomes even more irrelevant when you introduce interactive elements like branched navigation which could be made up of dozens of screens.  The time it takes to go through them depends on how fast the person can review the content and make decisions (and then react to feedback).

Ask the Right Question

Screen count is the wrong question.  People typically ask the question because they are tasked to build an hour of learning and want a better sense of how much content creation that means.

Instead of asking about screen count (which is driven more by dumping information) focus on how to create meaningful elearning that will make the hour more productive for the learner.  In the long run it costs less and will save time.

Following are some simple tips to help build more productive elearning.

Don’t Auto-Advance Slides

Screens have information.  Adding text or narration to them isn’t a problem.  Not every screen is going to be interactive.  With that said, how the user controls the information is something to consider.  Many developers will lock the screen and set it to auto advance. The problem with this is that if the person is a fast reader, it’s frustrating to wait for the slide to catch up. If the person is a slow reader, they won’t get everything they need before the slide advances.

Screens that have text and no audio should advance based on the viewer’s reading speed. The length of time on the slide is determined by how fast the person can read (or interact with the screen) and not by some arbitrary average reading speed.

The same can be said for slides with narration.  Ideally, the screen text and slide narration aren’t verbatim.  But if you have narration and text, it’s a good idea to let the learner choose when to advance.  I usually just set it to advance by user.  When they’re ready they can go to the next screen.

I’ll also add that if they have to read a lot on the screens, then they’re probably going to fall asleep during the course.  So you’ll want to do something to jar them awake.

Give the Learner Control

Even though they’re looking at the same screen, people will focus on different things.  Some are really fast and will quickly scan the screen looking for visual cues.  Others are more deliberate.  Many lose track during the session and will want to pause and restart the content at various points.

If you really want them to learn, then give them the freedom to navigate the content as they need to.  One of the great benefits of elearning is that it’s asynchronous.  Take advantage of this.  Free up the course navigation.  Let them explore.

“But I can’t do that, my customer wants to be sure they see all of the content!”

We’ll address that below.

Build Productive E-Learning

How many slides per hour is the wrong focus.  It’s better to consider how to create the best course given a certain time limit.  Here are three simple tips:

Break the content into bite-size chunks.  Regardless of how you design the course, people can only digest so much information.  Instead of an hour long course, you may consider 5 ten-minute courses where you can tackle smaller topics that are easier to process.

I like to call these coursels (as in course morsels).  They’re small, bite-size chunks of the course content.  Give them some information and then a quick way for them to apply it.  Then space it over time.  Spacing the information over a period of time will help them retain what they’re learning.

• Previous post: Ignore This Post If You Don’t Care About Effective Learning

Are you viewing or doing?  Some courses are only about sharing information.  In fact, they’re probably not really elearning.  I like to think of them more as multimedia ebooks.  The goal is to share information that is of interest or use to the learner, but not necessarily tied to performance goals.

In those cases, it’s all about efficiently creating and sharing the information.  It’s also a good idea to link the information to other performance support outside of the course.  This way you get the most value out of it.

If you do have performance expectations, then you want to turn the focus from the information to one that is learner-centric.

• Previous post: Want to Build Better E-Learning Courses? Think Beer

Are you pushing or pulling?  Info-centric courses push content out to the learner.  The focus is not on performance.  Instead it’s on how much information can be pushed out.  Hence the questions about slide count. “How much content can I push out in an hour?”

Wikipedia has more than 10,000 pages of information. If I asked you a question and let you search Wikipedia for an answer, odds are that you won’t need all 10,000 pages. You’ll only need what you need to answer the question.  Based on how I ask it or what I do to follow up your answers, I can get you to research and review all sorts of content.

The same applies to elearning. We can create a course that has all sorts of information and content available to the learner.  But people aren’t successful because they have information.  They’re successful because they know how to use it.

Create pull interactions where the learner has to make decisions.  And if they don’t know what to do, provide a way for them to pull the information they need.  If they’re new to the topic, they’ll need more supporting information. But a more experienced person may need less. Thus, there’s a lot of info
rmation (or screens of content) but the number of screens is not relevant to completing the course.  What’s relevant is that they can make the right decisions.

• Previous post: Are Your E-Learning Courses Pushed or Pulled?

Building good elearning is more than just providing information.  The key is figuring out how they’ll use the information.  And then create ways for them to make decisions using the information.  How you structure the decision-making and tap into the learner’s motivation is where the course is productive.

With all that said, if all you want to do is push out some screens of content, then 30 screens per hour is a good figure.  How many screens per hour do you recommend?  You can share your thoughts by clicking on the comments link.

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Free E-Learning Resources

Want to learn more? Check out these articles and free resources in the community.	Here’s a great job board for e-learning, instructional design, and training jobs	Participate in the weekly e-learning challenges to sharpen your skills
Get your free PowerPoint templates and free graphics & stock images.	Lots of cool e-learning examples to check out and find inspiration.	Getting Started? This e-learning 101 series and the free e-books will help.

PowerPoint’s designed as a presentation tool.  While the application is versatile and great for elearning, many people still struggle to get past the PowerPoint look because the features are designed to encourage the use of the templates.

The key is to learn to see the features from a different perspective.  When you can do this, you get more value out of the application.

They’re Just Tools That Build Multimedia

Vendors design tools with features.  But if you can step away from what the vendor calls the product and how they present the features, you’ll learn to get more value out of the tools.

Essentially the tools create multimedia content regardless of how they’re designed.  The key is to understand what the tools can produce and then figure out different ways to use them.  This helps you get more value out of your applications.

For example, with an application like Quizmaker you’re inclined to focus on the quizzing because that’s what it’s designed to do.  So when you want to build a quiz, you use Quizmaker. But when you want to build “regular” elearning, then you use something else.

However, if you step away from the quizzing structure, you’ll find that you can do a lot more than quizzes like interactive branched-scenarios.  PowerPoint has similar versatility which I’ve shown repeatedly on the blog.  I use PowerPoint to edit my graphics, create illustrations, videos, and Flash movies.

The key is to understand the tools and what you get.  And this is where the elearning community comes in handy.  The day-to-day users are the ones who will come up with the different ways to use the tools.  Here are some examples of things I’ve done in the past using the tools in slightly different ways.

Use Your Quiz Application to Build Interactive Scenarios

Quizzing products typically use forms to create the quiz questions.  This is why most quizzes have that boxy quiz look.  However, if you go outside the box and edit the questions in slide view, you can make the quiz look like anything.  Then combine the ability to create a custom look with the quizzing logic and now you have a powerful application that lets you quickly build interactive branched scenarios.

Here are a couple of example scenarios:

This first one I created at a conference where I showed how easy it is to use your quizzing application to build scenarios.  I took some images I had on hand and wrote the script on the fly.  I also did all of the voices (even the woman’s).  So don’t pay attention to the content, just look at how I used the tool to build a mini elearning scenario.

Click here to view the new manager scenario.

Jeanette built the demo below.  In this case she walks through the process of coaching an employee.  Same thing as above, she used the quiz’s multimedia and branching features to build an interactive scenario.

Click here to view the employee coaching scenario.

Going back to the main point, the quizzing application is designed for quizzes.  But when you change your perspective and think less about the quizzing and more about the features and output as a multimedia tool, then you can produce more than quizzes.  In some ways, you’ll feel like you have a brand new tool.

In both examples above, we used the blank slide feature for most of the content and then added a multiple choice question to do the branching.  To get away from the “boxy quiz look” just open your product’s quiz form and switch to slide view and then you can make it look any way you want.

Use PowerPoint to Build Flash Movies & Illustrations

In a previous post I mentioned that the PowerPoint-to-Flash tools convert your slides to Flash movies.  So any animations, text, and narration you have on the slide becomes part of a Flash movie which you can pull out of the published data folder and use elsewhere.  Let’s look at how this could work.

Engage is really easy to use.  All you have to do is copy and paste your content into a form and hit publish.  The output looks great and people who don’t know how easy it is to use will think you’re a rock star!

A challenge with form-based authoring is that the form creates constraints such as how things are laid out on the screen.  What I desire is the freedom of PowerPoint so that I can create any look I want.  But at the same time I want the easy authoring of a form-based tool like Engage.

The cool thing is that I can get the best of both worlds.  Most form-based tools can import Flash files.  And the PowerPoint-to-Flash tools can create them.  It’s like adding peanut butter to chocolate.  By themselves they’re good, but together they’re fantastic.

So instead of limiting your use of the PowerPoint to just building courses, use them to create Flash files that can be used in other applications.

In the following example, I created two tabs.  The first tab uses the form that comes with the tools and the second consists of a Flash movie created in PowerPoint.  As you can see, using PowerPoint to create content opens the door to animations and custom layouts that you may not get in the form.

Click here to view the PowerPoint for Flash demo.

In the next example I extended my rapid elearning tools in two ways.  In the demo below, I used PowerPoint to create an image template for quick knowledge checks.  Then I output the slide as a .PNG and inserted it into the labeled graphic interaction.

Now instead of using the labels as a me
ans to show off product features (as the tool was intended) I’m able to use the labels as clickable choices to create quick knowledge checks.  And because I built the images in PowerPoint, I can modify them in minutes.

Click here to view the demo.

Connect with Users to Learn These Types of Tricks

Remember, vendors design the applications but it’s the users who come up with ways to use them.  To get the most value out of your tools you’ll need to connect with others who use the same applications.

There are many more tips and tricks like the ones above. The key is learning to think of your tools from a different perspective. Don’t limit yourself to how they’re designed or marketed. Instead, see them as tools that create multimedia output.

Events

Free E-Learning Resources

Want to learn more? Check out these articles and free resources in the community.	Here’s a great job board for e-learning, instructional design, and training jobs	Participate in the weekly e-learning challenges to sharpen your skills
Get your free PowerPoint templates and free graphics & stock images.	Lots of cool e-learning examples to check out and find inspiration.	Getting Started? This e-learning 101 series and the free e-books will help.