Let's Talk Terminology

Many new and potentially confusing terms and phrases have been coming across my desk lately. I presume you have been seeing them as well, and you may wonder what they all mean. I thought I would offer some short explanations of them for you here.

Cloud computing refers to the invisible "cloud" of data and applications available anywhere and anytime. Mobile devices are the most pervasive in terms of accessing this ever-growing cloud of information that is, by its own nature, everywhere.

As defined in a Brandon Hall research paper on the subject, mobile learning is "personalized learning that unites the learner's context with cloud computing using a mobile device."

Also defined in the same paper is ambient intelligence (AmI): smart interactive technology that is both invisible and ubiquitous (omnipresent) and that adapts to its environment and users.

Mobi-sodes are short episodes of mobile learning, while an intraverse is the online universe that is available through your company's intranet.

Notice this growing list of similar terms:
E-Learning: electronic (online) learning
M-Learning: mobile learning (on handheld devices and cell phones)
V-Learning: learning inside a virtual world (such as Second Life)
G-Learning: learning via computer games
C-Learning: learning via collaboration with co-workers and associates

And of course you have all seen references to Web 2.0 and E-Learning 2.0. Web 2.0 is the stage of the World Wide Web where the Internet has become a platform for users to create, upload, and share content with others, versus simply downloading content. E-Learning 2.0 is the idea of learning through digital connections and peer collaboration enhanced by technologies driving Web 2.0. Users/learners are empowered to search, create, and collaborate in order to fulfill intrinsic needs to learn new information.

Finally, more businesses are concentrating on the bottom line and their return on investment (ROI) from their organization's training efforts and expenses. As a result, you will continue to hear more about Performance-Based Learning (PBL), which focuses learners on what they need "to do" to drive business results and delivers learning aligned closely to actual need.

I hope these explanations help. As I come upon new terms and phrases in our industry, I will be sure to share and explain them.

WHAT Do You Do For a Living?

"Did you say instructional design? What the heck is that?" Most of the time when I am asked by a layperson what we do here at CramerSweeney Instructional Design, I do NOT answer "We do instructional design" - a non-answer which would generate the above reaction. Instead, I answer something like this: "We write and develop classroom and online training programs on any topic for corporations of all sizes." I may even follow that extremely brief answer with the names of a few of our better-known (household name) clients. Hey, who doesn't like to name drop occasionally?

But what IS instructional design (really) and what is its true purpose? First consider the fact that we, as humans, are all learning all of the time. It's what we all do, even though we are not always (or even often) conscious of doing it. Most of our learning happens on the fly - through our experiences, our senses (what we see, hear, touch), our interactions and conversations. This is our natural way of learning. Sitting in a classroom or taking an e-learning course are other ways that we learn, but they are not natural to us. The purpose of instructional design, then, is to package these formal learning experiences in the most useful, effective, and engaging manner possible.

1. Good instructional design helps learners make sense of new information being taught. Training should never be just a dump of information.
2. To make sure learners understand what they need to learn, good instructional design provides clear learning goals. This ensures that learners will not focus on the wrong things and will focus on the appropriate specific pieces of information they need to learn.
3. By including examples, practices, exercises, and discussions (interactivity) throughout the training, good instructional design provides the context and perspective (real meaning) learners need in order to understand and process (remember) new information.
4. Using information from the subject matter expert(s) and compressing it into a streamlined course saves learners a lot of time (and saves companies a lot of money).
5. By designing and developing engaging learning experiences, good instructional design better engages learners and provides more effective learning.

Learning is a natural and complex process that we engage in all the time. Yet, to make learning happen in an unnatural, formal environment, we need to package the learning using good instructional design! The next time someone asks me what instructional design is, I may add this to my previous answer: It requires pulling together relevant content to create effective, focused, and meaningful courses.

Make e-Learning Engaging - Please!

We've all seen dead-boring e-learning courses. Heck, many of us have probably been involved in creating less than stellar e-learning. But we all have had to start somewhere. And we have all seen (or at least heard about) the high drop-out rates of e-learners. Today, of course, we find ourselves in the new world of "e-learning 2.0" with uncountable tools at our disposable (including the web), some of which make developing effective and engaging e-courses not only easy but pleasurable! But what can we really do to keep learners engaged and ensure that they will complete their e-learning modules?

Allison Rossett and Antonia Chan wrote a useful white paper for Adobe Systems, called Engaging with the New eLearning, in which they offer 12 great suggestions. These are the high-level highlights:

1. Participants must believe the e-learning will be useful to them.
2. If value for the participants is not obvious, provide a vivid example to make it obvious.
3. The program must provide opportunities for success, never failure or uncertainty.
4. Make the program real to participants by, for example, anchoring the topic to something familiar to them.
5. Since participant involvement will be required, demonstrate what that participation might look like.
6. Make the program active and thought-provoking - keep participants doing and thinking.
7. Make it human by including stories, lessons learned, quotes, anecdotal trivia, etc.
8. Guide and track participants.
9. Blend your e-learning program with other learning tools and opportunities, such as blogs, a performance support tool, an online assessment, online chats with fellow learners, a forum, videos, etc.
10. Use online communities to help participants form relationships, collaborate, and work as a team with others - by using a blog, wiki, discussion board, and other online tools.
11. Make it POP! Add some WOW! This requires creating something dramatic, compelling, and authentic that is still also perceived as valuable to the learner.
12. Measure results and effectiveness, and keep on improving.

You don't have to begin implementing all 12 of these recommendations at once. Ease into them and have fun. If you're having fun, chances are better that your learners will have fun. Good luck!

Update on Mobile Learning

I don't know how many of you have been able to read The eLearning Guild's 90-page 360 Report on Mobile Learning. If you haven't seen it, I want to share with you some of the most interesting highlights.

• Of the eLearning Guild members surveyed, 17.3% use mobile learning (m-learning) sometimes or often.
• Members with 7+ years of experience use m-learning 25.6% more often than members with 6 years of experience or less.
• Of the Guild members who took the survey, 37.5% said they plan to do more m-learning in the next 12 months.
• The most popular m-learning platform used by survey responders is Blackberry (46.6%), with Windows Mobile being used by 26.9% and iPhone 15.2%.
• The majority (81.4%) of members who have implemented m-learning have seen improvements in learner/user access and availability, with 59.4% seeing improved user performance.

This is an avenue for learning dissemination that will, I have no doubt, continue to grow exponentially, especially as more development tools/software continue to pop into the marketplace!

Blending Corporate Training Smoothly

Article by Guest Blog Contributor Heather Johnson.

Corporate training is necessary for a variety of reasons, from focusing on a company’s critical needs to empowering employees to take control of their responsibilities and help improve business performance. Each organization follows its own methods to impart this training, both to new hires and existing personnel according to the needs of the company. E-learning programs, once considered the outcast in the training world, has gained in popularity for more reasons than one:

• The software and resources needed are cost effective.
• They can be designed and tailor-made to suit the needs of your organization.
• They can be altered and changed as the nature of jobs and responsibilities morph to adapt to changing expectations and policies.
• They can be implemented rapidly.
• These programs are standardized, which means employees across the board are provided with the same instructions in the same form of delivery. Your company is thus more cohesive as a unit.
• They allow trainers to cut back on travel costs and time.
• With the Internet and the Intranet offering the advantage of connectivity anywhere and everywhere, employees can train on the job or at home at their leisure.
• E-learning development can be outsourced leaving your staff free to handle other responsibilities.

In spite of all these advantages that e-learning offers, organizations have moved on to a newer form of training, one which blends traditional and e-learning methods and takes the best of both to impart training to corporate circles. In other words, it’s old wine in a new bottle. Blended training came into its own when people started realizing that one size does not fit all and that each company’s needs are different.

Blended training sought to maximize returns on training programs from the organization’s point of view – it followed the principle that training programs exist not to educate employees and make them experts in their jobs but to help improve their performance in such a way that the business is profitable and that the organization’s goals are met.

With more emphasis on increased performance and maximum returns at the lowest cost, organizations are turning to a mixture of media and tools to impart training. Depending on their size and turnover, they adopt a blend of electronic and human training methods – the electronic aspect ensures that there is an element of standardization while the human aspect ensures that the process is accountable and the returns measurable. Formal classes, PowerPoint presentations, seminars on the web, manuals and discs with study material, books, meetings, conferences, hands-on experiences and simulations are all adopted in varying degrees by organizations, all of whom are striving to find the optimal combination that provides the best impact.


Guest Blog Contributor By-line:

This article is contributed by Heather Johnson, who regularly writes on California teacher certification. She invites your questions and writing job opportunities at her personal email address: heatherjohnson2323 at gmail dot com.

Mobile Learning's Slow Birth

Imagine a birth taking 10 years. Can't imagine it? Neither can I, but that is how long it has taken mobile learning (m-learning) to finally begin to make a visible appearance. M-learning has been discussed for amost 10 years, yet is only now approaching actual deployment.

Why now? Simply because the portable devices needed to deploy m-learning are finally here. They include smart phones, ultra-portable computers, and iPods/iPhones. And the number of learners who have them grows every day. In fact, there are more people with two mobile devices than there are people with just one (i.e., a Blackberry + an iPod).

Increasing numbers of handhelds offer internet access (the "mobile web"), further unleashing learners from their desktop or laptop computers. Today, over half a billion mobile phones connect to the internet each day, bringing information to where it's needed or wanted - anytime, anywhere. In addition to text, this information is in the form of images, animations, games, movies, videos, music, even maps and location services. IBM's Institute for Business Value predicts that a billion people will be accessing the mobile internet by 2011 - only 3 years away! At that time, our mobile transactions and interactions will generate $80 billion for the web services industry.

OK, so how quickly can the training industry accept, adopt, and truly implement m-learning?

Very soon, I hope. First, we must begin with enterprise acceptance, including executives and IT professionals willing to support a mobile infrastructure. These individuals have already seen the value of being "unplugged" as desktop computers have converted to laptops and notebook computers. Mobility has already become a focus for IT departments. Adoption of enterprise mobility is all about increasing workforce productivity - certainly not a hard sell.

As learning professionals, the more we can demonstrate productivity gains from m-learning, the more likely companies will be to support m-learning implementations. And to do so sooner instead of later.

What technologies do the IT folks need in order to support enterprise mobility and m-learning? Wireless networks, mobile applications, middleware, devices, and security and management software. They are confused, however, over which wireless networks need to support specific kinds of enterprise mobility needs, especially where new technologies are involved. Plus executives want to know the pros, cons, and deployment issues associated with the many wireless network options. Organizations must also decide who should have access to them (the entire workforce, or just select groups) and how best to cost-effectively deploy and maintain these systems. Finally, what should they do when new mobile devices come to market (such as the iPhone)? Do they support those as well?

As a newborn, m-learning has been focusing on providing performance support and information to mobile workers. Unfortunately, there are those who believe that is not the same thing as "learning". In fact, it is learning - it is a learning intervention that is accessible at the exact time and place it is needed.

Time will tell how readily accepted and integrated m-learning will become in our careers and our lives. I am quite hopeful and excited about it. I believe we need to see the introduction of more mainstream tools that produce mobile output. As Ellen Wagner said in a recent eLearning Guild article, "We all acknowledge that mobile learning is a many-splendored thing that has the potential to truly rock our professional practice."

Training Is Useless Unless...

T&D magazine published an interesting article titled "Why (Most) Training Is Useless: Start Developing Skills; Stop WASTING Time." David H. Maister offered some compelling insights that I would like to share with you:

• True long-term changes in any organization need to begin with changes at the top - in managerial behavior.


• Training should not be used as a first (or stand-alone) step to long-term change, but as part of a process toward organizational change.


• Training is a waste of time and money if what is taught is never put into practice.


• Too often, companies will train people in new areas but then send them back to their original jobs - where little of what was taught ever gets implemented.


• "There is no point in offering skills training if there is no incentive for people to engage in the desired behavior."


• Some business skills can be explained/taught but not effectively learned through mere discussion/lecture, such as being able to manage. You can learn a lot about management, but that doesn't mean you will be any good at doing it. "No amount of understanding, knowledge, or intelligence will help if you are unable to interact with people" and influence them. These kinds of skills need to be learned slowly and by doing/practicing them, not just learning about them.


• Training should only be scheduled on topics that can be applied immediately - not days, weeks, months, or years before it will applied.


• Training programs should have mandatory prereading and pretesting, with everyone coming to the session fully prepared.


• Work groups/departments should be trained together - and with the group's manager present. This way they can immediately begin to discuss how they plan to integrate the training's ideas into their practices.


• "If it's worth doing training, it's worth doing it in a way that's going to make a difference."

The "Value" of Learning?

Company business units all over are being expected to demonstrate and document their value to justify the investment their company is making to operate them. This includes training functions and departments. How on earth should we be expected to measure the value (ROI) of our efforts? What measures should we capture? What business result indicators should we focus on? We are training experts, not business analysts. But we are being asked to determine and measure business impacts that are extremely difficult to measure.

A Summer 2008 article published in Training Industry Quarterly gave me a few insights into this increasingly common dilemma. Some of the difficulties right out of the gate are that senior management is asking for measurements that aren’t necessarily practical for training divisions to measure. Their perspective is too “big picture” and conceptual, when what we are in fact able to measure is not. The business measures that we may be able to capture are on a much smaller scale, so we must first decide what business outcome(s) to measure and then get senior management to agree. In other words, “get them to align around some intermediate business impact parameters that are indeed measurable.”

The article goes on to offer a couple of good examples. At Halliburton, the leaders decided that the outcomes most important to them are employee engagement, customer satisfaction, and cash flow. Customer satisfaction and cash flow are relatively easy to measure. Why employee engagement? Halliburton has had evidence that employee engagement is critical to their financial and market performance. They have successfully measured it and they link leadership development programs to the impact they have on the employee engagement index.

The second example provided is from Sun Microsystems, where they discovered a link between mentoring programs and employee performance. A key step in their research was to relate mentoring to measurable performance improvement agreed to by Sun’s senior management. The metrics included rate of promotions and salary increases, as well as bonuses. They found that those who were mentored received more rapid pay raises and promotions – that they were higher performers than the control group. They also found that the mentees had similar superior performance. So Sun’s “senior managers were aligned around the business outcomes measurements based on compensation and promotion.”

Measuring the impact of learning on a business is not an exact science – nor is it the same across businesses or even industries. There is no prescribed way of doing it. You just need to figure out what is best to measure, get senior management’s agreement on it, measure it, then report on your findings. Easy, right?

So what skills do we need to be able to do this? First we need the ability to have a conversation about business impact - to understand it well enough to discuss it. We also need the ability to design a learning intervention experiment with control groups and statistical techniques. If these are not our strong skills, we need to align ourselves with people inside the organization (or outside) who can help us. The article mentions that CLO Institute offers a fully online CLO Certification program to teach some of these business skills that people who have come up through the training organization ranks may not have.

The bottom line is that training organizations are expected to change from being tactical/reactive to being more strategic. We all need to embrace this and learn how to move forward with it.

How to Spice Up a Presentation

By Heather Johnson (Guest blogger)

A friend had this to say of my brother – he’s the only guy I know who can sleep through his own team’s corporate presentation. Now I don’t know if this statement could be construed as derogatory to my brother or to the person who prepared and presented the presentation. Whatever the connotation, presentations are not the most entertaining films to view, especially on sonorous afternoons in air conditioned and darkened rooms that lull you to sleep. But the one you make can be the exception to the rule that presentations are boring; here are a few tips to spice up your presentation so that your audience is left asking for more:

• Preparation holds the key to a good presentation. Know your subject and know your audience. Make your presentation fit to their level of reasoning and understanding, make it seem like you’re showing them what they want to see, not what you want them to see.
• Interaction is the best way to get your audience involved. Ask and invite questions.
• Talk with enough confidence so you appear in control of and knowledgeable about the facts but don’t overdo it or you’ll come across as talking down to your listeners.
• The first blow is always the best and the hardest to recover from. The element of surprise lies in making a strong opening and getting your audience to sit straight with renewed interest.
• Be prepared to answer questions mid-slide and carry on from where you left off without breaking stride.
• It’s difficult, but being prepared to change tactics midway is an advantage when you sense your audience is not as attentive as you would like them to be.
• Short and sweet is the catchphrase for effective presentations – the shorter and more powerful the message, the more reach it has.
• Talk eloquently without the use of too many “ahs” and “ums” and “likes”.
• Use your hands to complement your words and slides – body language speaks a thousand words and wooden postures never helped liven a presentation.
• Balance your glance between your slides and audience as required.
• Dress appropriately.
• Modulate your voice according to the size and echo range of the room.
• Don’t throw in a joke just to get a few laughs; use humor that is relevant to the topic at hand.
• Know your slides thoroughly and never get them mixed up in the middle of a presentation.
• Try and make normal facts sound innovative and interesting by showing them from a different perspective.
• If you’re a beginner, there’s no shame in practicing in front of a mirror or recording yourself to provide your own feedback so you can improve and improvise as needed.
  

By-line:

This article is contributed by Heather Johnson, who regularly writes on the topic of college scholarship applications. She invites your questions and writing job opportunities at her personal email address: heatherjohnson2323 at gmail dot com.

Financial Squeeze on Training Departments

An article in ASTD's May 2008 T&D magazine outlined a recent study by Expertus and TrainingIndustry.com about training budgets and effectiveness. Over 3/4 of the respondents reported pressure to reduce costs and do more with the same budget. In addition, while there is more pressure for training departments to report return-on-investment, only 20% of respondents use ROI measures.
Leadership training and other soft skills training is difficult to track in terms of quality, so many companies are still using volumed-based instead of value-based metrics. While you can do ROI on sales and manufacturing training, who should be blamed if sales performance goes down, especially in our current economy? It doesn't seem at all fair to blame training.

A surprising finding in this study was the breakdown of dollars allocated in the training budget:

• Delivery = 35%
• Content development = 26%
• Administration = 24%
• Technology = 16%

What does this show? That a lot of time and resources (MONEY) is being spent on things that don't teach anybody anything! Here are a couple of suggestions offered in the T&D article:

Improve your company's training website:

• Make it more effective and user-friendly to reduce telephone inquiries and increase class registrations and attendance/participation rates
• Make better use of the training website to market training programs

Create training that is specific to the organization's needs:

• Don't spend time and money creating and offering courses that no one wants or needs - and THEN determining their individual value based on how many people sign up (this is called the supply-oriented approach and is highly ineffective, inefficient, and costly!)
• Don't simply roll out a cafeteria-style curriculum filled with general offerings

Do You Want to Advertise on This Blog?

Several readers have indicated interest in advertising on this blog. I have received these inquiries via your Comments to specific blog postings. Unfortunately, I am never able to write back directly to the inquirers because your email addresses are blocked in comments.

If you are interested in advertising here, please email me directly at jsweeney@cramersweeney.com. Thank you!!

Too Busy to Read? Try Text2Go!

I am an information junky. My laptop is exhausted from all the web searches I do on a daily basis - looking for information I must have, simply want to know, or am looking up for someone else. Anytime I need an answer to something, I "Google it" and always find the answer. The internet is incredible, and I can't imagine how I ever grew up during the 70's and 80's without this resource - and with only the local library (and my father's incredible brain-bank of knowledge) to rely on.

Given the amount of information I find and want/need to read throughout a given week, I can't aways find the time to, well, actually read it all! Not enough hours in a day or a week to keep up. I'm sure you know what I'm talking about! Then I was fortunate enough to have a lovely email exchange with Mark Gladding, Director of a company in Australia called Tumbywood Software. They have an awesome and affordable product called Text2Go!

Here's how they describe Text2Go on their website: "Transfer information from the web to your iPod / MP3 Player, so you can listen to it on the go and utilize time that would otherwise be wasted. Make productive use of those times when you're commuting, out for a run or in the gym. Designed to help students, doctors, lawyers, academics and knowledge workers absorb large amounts of information." It's very easy to use - I highly recommend that you check it out.

IBM Takes Online Corporate Training to New Heights

By Susan Jacobs (Guest blogger)

In an effort to provide its employees with extensive online training via virtual worlds, IBM has just announced that it will soon set up a private area of Second Life that is solely devoted to company personnel.

This is actually the beginning of an unprecedented partnership with Linden Lab, offering an enterprise-class version of the popular virtual world to IBM employees. Users will be able to effortlessly cross over from the mainland Second Life into the private area devoted to the company.

With IBM putting so much stock into the future of online corporate training and revenue-building virtual worlds, small to medium-sized companies are likely to follow suit. Big Blue has a reported 5,000 employees already in Second Life and the company wholeheartedly believes that virtual worlds will only grow from here.

According to a press release from the company:

This [partnership] marks the first time a portion of the Second Life Grid will be deployed behind a corporate firewall, with the goal of creating a solution that businesses can quickly deploy to get work done in a new way.

This blog has already mentioned that virtual worlds could become as important as the Web itself. In fact, Linden Lab and IBM have been discussing this very subject for quite some time. According to a report from CIO, the two companies wish to "develop open-standards based technologies and methodologies to enhance the Internet's various virtual worlds and build interoperability between them."

This could very well lead to a massive network of different virtual worlds, all available to users who wish to seamlessly cross from one area to another. Indeed, it will also be a boon to professionals who are participating with online training and virtual boardroom meetings. It seems that every business professional in the world may have his/her own avatar before long.


By-line:

Susan Jacobs is a freelance writer as well as a regular contributor for CollegeDegree.com, a site helping students to learn more about distance learning colleges. Susan invites your questions, comments and freelancing job inquiries at her email address susan.jacobs45@gmail.com.

First-Hand Second Life Experience

I recently attended a Second Life meeting. There were definite pros and cons to the experience, and I was attentive to how the environment really would suit a synchronous e-learning course. Shortly after, I read a short article by Tom Werner in which he lists what he believes are the plusses and minuses to using Second Life. Here they are:

Plusses:

• Tom feels that the newness and novelty of the environment can get attendees charged, excited, and energized.
• You can find "pleasant" meeting locations in Second Life, such as a park or patio or nice deck. This has a positive effect on meeting attendees.
• While you are able to show PowerPoint slides in Second Life, Tom's experience must have been more positive than mine. For me, despite my high-speed internet connection, the entire environment (including the viewing of PowerPoint slides) was very slow and jumpy - almost not worth using. But the plus IS that you are supposed to be able to show slides in SL.
• When compared with teleconferences or web-conferencing tools, attendees seem to enjoy the experience of "meeting with" physical representations of other attendees, not just their voices.
• This is quoted straight from Tom: "There can be entertaining side activities in Second Life. Our avatars hopped into a nearby hot tub after the meeting." The meeting I attended certainly wasn't that fun!

Minuses:

• Attendees should learn and practice how to navigate in the SL environment (not that easy to do) before attending meetings or e-classes. Any meeting or e-learning experience can be affected by newbies.
• If your meeting is for sharing and discussing information, SL isn't worth it. Just "keep it simple" by using the tools you (and everyone else) already know. You'll save everyone time.
• In addition to the SL environment being very sluggish and jumpy, another gripe I have about SL is this: Why would I be interested in "meeting" with people whose avatars look nothing at all like the real people, nor do they use the same name? No, it's not my lack of imagination. It's my complete lack of desire to be forced to remember/recognize two different faces/bodies and two different names for every one hot-blooded person. Seriously, my life is already complicated enough.

As Tom mentions, it's still a good idea for me and my associates to keep our noses in SL and other such tools and environments because it is important to follow their progress. Like fine wines, they can only continue to get better with time.

Today's Instructional Designer

In the last several years, a great deal has changed in the training industry, including our work environment, our education, tools, and learners. As a result, instructional designers need to change in order to keep up. Back "in the day," we developed training materials primarily for traditional instructor-led classroom settings and "pushed" learning out to learners. Now with the Internet, hand-held technologies, and an ever-growing multitude of training development software tools, we need to figure out our new roles. At the same time, we need to continue to champion, and occasionally defend, the real "VALUE" of instructional design to organizations. In a recent edition of Learning Solutions e-magazine (a publication of The eLearning Guild), Reuben Tozman wrote on this topic. The quoted text below is from Tozman's article.

Let's face it, we cannot keep operating the way we did 10 years ago. We certainly can't ignore rapid e-learning, m-learning, wikis, blogs, podcasting, virtual worlds, social networking, and other knowledge dissemination methods and tools. Instead of being responsible only for "pushing" information to our learners, we need to understand all of the ways in which learners can now "pull" information for themselves. At the same time, we can't get so caught up in the excitement of new tools ourselves that we lose our focus on the true learning results we need to ensure for our learners. We need to make sure that people can access our learning programs whenever they need them, and these learning programs must still be properly structured "to deliver the most effective learning experience possible." The bottom line: we cannot lose focus on the merits of true instructional design, no matter what the development tool or delivery medium!

With so many "easy-to-use" authoring tools available today, instructional designers are often expected to do it all (design and development). And my experience is that many IDs enjoy this new-found variety in their roles. Tozman fears, however, that our value as designers will diminish if we allow this to happen. He states, "This is because an instructional designer is supposed to avoid having to stuff material into a predefined box."

I believe that if we are good at instructional design, we have a technical aptitude, and our jobs and workloads offer the time and opportunity for both design and development, why not? Some of our instructional designers, in fact, welcome the variety of switching from straight ID work to occasional development tasks. (I do not mean that these people also do programming or heavy Flash work. That is something left completely to our programmers and experienced Flash developers!) Tozman's concern, however, is "the expectation, and the standard, for the instructional designer to have those skills." I do agree with that statement.

As an instructional designer who owns and runs an instructional design (ILT and e-learning) business and who also employs instructional designers and course developers, I happen to place a high value on someone who can straddle the line. I would never expect an instructional designer to do programming or to build a high-end, Flash-based e-learning course him/herself from the bottom up. But it certainly is nice to have IDs who have enough skills and technical knowledge to take some of the basic (and templated) development work off the plates of the developers and programmers. Plus, it's nice to know that everyone can then speak the same language and collaborate and communicate more clearly and effectively. It is also extremely helpful for client relations and communication.

Tozman states, "The skill that an instructional designer possesses....is the ability to systematically break down content so that it is applicable to learners and their learning styles. This is our value....Instructional designers merge a good understanding of psychology, learning theory, communication theory, and business acumen in order to be effective and valuable in their jobs." Tozman believes that to protect that value and those skills (not undermine them and water them down), IDs must keep their distance from technology. My counter-point is this: If IDs have an understanding of psychology, learning theory, communication theory, business acument - and much more, to be sure - aren't they even more effective and valuable in their jobs with some technical knowledge as well? I believe this to be the case.

2008 Trends to Shape E-Learning

In a recent article by Bill Brandon, editor of The eLearning Guild's Learning Solutions e-Magazine, I read that we shouldn't expect any huge changes this year in how we create or deliver e-learning. If anything, we will see small, gradual, and incremental changes brought on by industry and economic factors.

Brandon described several larger trends that will most likely affect the e-learning industry, such as the current/upcoming recession, increases in the availability of broadband and WiFi, and more mobile devices with 3G (wide-area cellular phone networks) and WiFi. These trends certainly point to the likelihood of continued growth in e-learning and m-learning across organizations.

With increased bandwidth and the ability to compress video files comes the increased use of video in both e-learning and m-learning, which I certainly noticed throughout 2007. Brandon hopes that 2008 will be "the year that video becomes a practical alternative to the ubiquitous PowerPoint bullet slide."

We can also expect to continue seeing a steady rise in enterprise social networking. You have all probably heard of Facebook. And many corporate employees read blogs (thank you for reading this one!!), use wikis, listen to podcasts, and have LinkedIn accounts (I do, too). We also utilize SharePoint here at my company to transfer large project files back and forth with our clients. Organizations already use social networks to share knowledge across departments, provide an avenue for "informal" self-directed learners, allow employees to stay connected and work collaboratively, etc.

Brandon made another interesting point that as technology continues to improve (always connected, more options, greater sophistication, better interfaces - like the iPhone and iPod touch, more engaging visual and audio elements) , user expectations will continue to rise. The limitations and frustrations experienced by e-learners who expect "more" will drive further advancements and innovation in e-learning creation and implementation. This will keep all of us e-learning professionals on our toes!!

Make Wishes / Grant Wishes

I have to share a wonderful, new website with all of you. This is not a corporate training/e-learning site, and you will quickly see that it's a bit off-topic from my usual posts. But bear with me - it'll be worth it.

Check out Wish Upon a Hero at www.wishuponahero.com. At this website, "No wish is too large, no hero is too small. Wish Upon a Hero is an online community of people helping people." Simply register for FREE, browse wishes already posted, post new wishes (anything at all, as long as they're "clean") for yourself and/or loved ones, and become a HERO by granting other people's wishes. It's that simple - and extremely effective in helping people. Over 4,000 wishes have already been granted in just a few short months!!

Members of the website have been forming local area forums all over the United States, and there are Wish Upon a Hero members now from all over the world. The website has been reported about in various newspapers, TV news programs, and radio programs. Be sure to share it with your friends, family, and co-workers.

Creative Training Delivery

When we think about today's most innovative learning methods, we often think about modern multimedia, such as game-based learning, simulations, and virtual reality. In ASTD's latest issue of T&D magazine, Paul Harris highlights several "terrific training ideas". I thought I'd share them with you:

1. "Laughing and learning" - Many business people are left brained, while most improvisational comedians use both sides of their brain. By learning how to use the whole brain (or at least tap into the right side occasionally), we can create more engaging ways to present information and break out of the PowerPoint mold. (Here at CramerSweeney, we are fortunate to have the resources of our own internal creative staff of art directors and multimedia/graphic designers!) Training is greatly improved by inserting some fun into it and emphasizing facts/information in creative ways - all with the goal of encouraging greater learning retention. (Take a look at a fun quiz that we created for our own website: Go to http://www.cramersweeney.com/, then click on the Smart Marketing IQ box in the lower left corner.)

In this article, Harris mentions that improv-based training helps businesses enhance how "people adapt to changing environments, process information, work in teams, and collaborate across functional and geographic boundaries...The methods address an ever-evolving range of client situations and needs." Improv games teach workers more flexible responses to situations.

2. "Hit me with knowledge" - Harvard law professor Charles R. Nesson says, "Poker is a great game for learning how to size up things for yourself, get intorisk management, and channel aggression. A student who can hold his own at a poker table, I have no worries about when they enter the real world."

My 14-year-old son loves poker. I suppose I should be encouraging him to play more often - and let him teach me Texas Hold 'Em! Nesson has even formed the Global Poker Strategic Thinking Society (GPSTS) among some Ivy Leagues, to promote poker as a learning tool. He also belives that poker skills can really help high school kids with math. Poker teaches you numeracy, probability, risk assessment, and subtleties vs. complexities.

3. "No, you first" - How can we increase socially responsible behavior on our roads? London and other Western European cities tried something new on their roadways. They removed traffic lights and signs so that no one would have right of way. You would expect chaos to ensue. Lo and behold, by making sure no one had the right of way, accidents dropped 44%! Drivers and pedestrians suddenly began relying on eye contact with each other rather than signs. Imagine roads with no signs telling traffic to stop, yield, or merge, and no lines on the roads to guide traffic - these are called "naked roads." These naked roads actually dramatically improved harmony on the roadway. Now everyone looks out for each other!

4. "Point-of-need learning" - Knowledge (more than training) is increasingly becoming the answer to what workers really need on the job. Learning content providers will need to become capability providers. Instead of providing customers with proprietary content/training, companies will be teaching skill transfer capability - as 80% of learning happens on the job, not in the classroom. It's all about bringing training to people's workspaces.

5. "A virtual community blossoms" - As I have written in previous blogs and Harris reports in T&D, virtual 3D worlds "have emerged as a bona fide educational tool." Organizations have begun using Second Life (a popular virtual environment) as a "place of engagement" - for employees and instructors to interact in formal or informal settings, and public or private spaces; role play; access resources; and engage in collaborative learning.

Virtual Worlds to Become as Important as the Web

Computerworld's Heather Havernstein provided (in the 1/9/08 issue) a synposis of a Forrester Research report which states that "within five years the 3D Internet will become as important to companies as the Web is today." Within five years? I am a bit skeptical about the strength of that statement, but I have a healthy wait-and-see attitude.

The Forrester report is titled "Getting Work Done in Virtual Worlds." It discusses the effect virtual worlds will have on remote collaboration, training, and building and sharing 3D models. While today's collaboration tools do not allow people to see gestures or emotions, avatars in a virtual environment can be directed to show these expressions. The report also says, "In a virtual meeting room, you can see who is present, who is multi-tasking, who has raised a hand, or who has been away from their keyboard so long that their avatar has fallen asleep." Professionals who can find specific value in virtual meetings are surgeons, architects, engineers, and product designers who use CAD or visualization systems to create projects. Examples cited in the Computerworld article include:

• Duke University and Virtual Heroes are creating a high-fidelity 3D virtual environment to train teamwork and communication skills to health care workers
• University of Maryland and the I-95 Corridor Coalition built a virtual world simulation of highway emergencies
• Princeton University is using a 3D virtual world to manage distributed teams of a large-scale astrophysics project

Immersive Education - Online Learning Worlds

I read an interesting article in The Chronicle of Higher Education / Information Technology, by Andrea Foaster and dated 12/21/07. Harvard University has devoted itself to a multimillion-dollar non-profit project to build virtual-reality software exclusively for education in fantasy spaces like Second Life. Using interactive 3D graphics, web cameras, web-based telephony, and other digital media, the goal is to build 3D interactive lessons that will grab attention but without the violence and titillation used in many of today's online games. Backers of this project include Boston College, Harvard U., Amherst College, Columbia U, MIT, Sweden's Royal Inst. of Technology, Japan's U of Aizu, the Asraeli Assoc. of Grid Technologies, NASA, Sun Microsystems, the City of Bostm, and the New Media Consortium.

2008 e-Learning Predictions

This is the time of year when bloggers and organizations publish their predictions for the upcoming year. In his "eLearning Technology" blog, Tony Karrer offers his top predictions for 2008. Let me talk about a few of them now.

In my last post, I talked about how employees will be expected to become more competent and self-managed learners. This is where eLearning 2.0 comes in to play. Karrer predicts an increase in pressure to understand and apply eLearning 2.0. He also points out that mobile learning in 2007 continued to disappoint and that it has yet to take flight. Despite the fact that so many mobile devices today offer Internet access, large adoption of m-learning still won't be here in 2008.

Karrer predicts that companies will increase their attention toward ROI and metrics when it comes to corporate training and worker performance. The large LMS players will continue to add functionality, but most likely additional functions that we do not want or need. "Serious games" will continue to be talked about, but most of us will never get to build one, buy one, or participate in one.

Industry experts should hold frequent, targeted virtual discussions, as opposed to large, multi-topic virtual conferences. Finally, Karrer believes that "knowledge worker skills" will be a huge topic for 2008 but won't really take off until 2009.

Future Trends in Training

I recently attended an ASTD webcast titled "Future Trends in Training & Development". The speakers, Marc Rosenberg and Pat McLagan, had the following main points to make:

Learning will become less course-centric and more knowledge-centric. Instead of asking what courses they can take on a particular subject, learners will ask what knowledge is available on a particular subject. Learners will continue to become more independent and "self-taught" as it becomes increasingly easy and convenient for them to find information and knowledge at their fingertips - and right in their workplace. The web (specifically Web 2.0) is changing the internet experience from static information and transactions to dynamic collaborations, offering more interactive and personable experiences. As a result, learning will be revolutionized.

In today's workplaces, people need to think, analyze, and solve problems - not just do routine work and tasks. Therefore, it is becoming paramount that employees know where to look for validated knowledge, instead of trying to remember everything. As job responsibilities continue to require more cognitive and relational thinking and the work itself becomes a continuous and accelerated learning process, the development of personal learning skills becomes critical for both employee and company success.

What we can expect in the future, then, is more learners managing their own learning, and learning professionals supporting learners' efforts. This is referred to as professional and competent self-managed learning.

Learners must learn to:

• Draw insight from information and extract learning from experience
• Evaluate information quality (validate the information)
• Become competent with a variety of learning resources
• Use analytical, systemic, and creative thinking
• Consciously manage their own learning
• Help others learn

As learning professionals, we must learn to:

• Help link organizational needs and learner priorities
• Help accelerate the learning that organizations and individuals need
• Ensure that individuals and managers have the learning capabilities and mental models they need
• Make accelerated learning resources accessible; create knowledge management systems
• Become a guide and facilitator of the new learning process

The Outsourcing Institute Survey

For those of us whose livelihood relies on the outsourcing of others, I was very interested to find the "Top 10 Drivers Behind Today's Outsourcing Decisions (in alphabetical order)". And they are:

• Accelerate reengineering benefits


• Access to world class capabilities


• Cash infusion


• Free resources for other purposes


• Function difficult to manage or out of control


• Improve company focus


• Make capital funds available


• Reduce operating costs


• Reduce risk


• Resources not available internally

E-Learning: Where Are We Now and Where Are We Headed?

According to a recent report by Global Industry Analysts Inc., “eLearning: A Global Strategic Business Report,” e-learning is on the rise, and demand for it is expected to exceed $52.6 billion by 2010 worldwide. The study said e-learning solutions are being incorporated in a large variety of informational and training applications at many corporations. E-learning is now the method companies use second-most often to deploy learning and development, according to the study.

The study also found the U.S. e-learning market is the world’s largest, as its 2007 revenues are expected to exceed $17.5 billion. Further, the U.S. corporate e-learning market share is more than 60 percent. Europe’s share (less than 15 percent) is the second-largest. The Japanese market is not as large, but because of globalization, Asia is predicted to experience a faster uptake — the study said its compound annual growth rate likely will range between 25 percent and 30 percent through 2010.

In regard to e-learning providers, the market is very fragmented, according to the study. It contains many key and niche players, and not all of them are online companies. Additionally, there has been a great deal of consolidation within the e-learning solutions markets — the study found many smaller companies merge with or are acquired by larger ones in a effort to expand offerings and remain viable.

The Global Industry Analysts Inc. report also reviews trends and issues in the e-learning market, as well as drivers, challenges, standards, product development, etc. It’s geared toward major geographic markets around the world, including Asia, Europe and the United States.

New CramerSweeney Website!

I cordially invite you to check out our brand new website for our family of CramerSweeney companies! We have had a lot of fun conceptualizing and creating it. Go ahead, spend some time exploring all the pages and links. In fact, we are still putting many finishing touches throughout the site (I just couldn't wait to announce it!), so be sure to come back frequently! I promise you won't be disappointed. ~ Jenna
www.cramersweeney.com

Immersive Learning Simulations (a.k.a. GAMES!)

Immersive Learning Simulations, also known as games, offer a competitive advantage in the emerging global market place, according to findings presented in the Guild Research 360 Report on Immersive Learning Simulations by The eLearning Guild. While it may be difficult for us conservative corporate-types to merge gaming and learning (and working) in our minds, let's face it, games can be a serious and highly effective (and enjoyable!) learning tool!

According to The eLearning Guild's report abstract, the report findings "validate the effectiveness of simulations, scenarios, and immersive learning simulations as viable and necessary in advancing the performance and skills of our current and future workforce facing the challenge of global competition." The survey also found a major increase in serious game-related learning projects being created by today's organizations.

Highlights of the findings from the survey on simulations, scenarios, and serious games include:

• Of those members who have created immersive learning simulations (ILS) that have been in place long enough to measure, 82% believe they have received a modest or very good return on investment.
• Of those members that have created immersive learning simulations, 97% believe that immersive learning simulations are better than other forms of rich skill practice.
• In the next 12 months, 50% of respondents plan to "do more" mini games, 72% plan to "do more" simulations and scenarios, and 36% plan to "do more" immersive learning.
• Learning professionals crave more information and help: 95% want great examples, 92% want resources for getting started, and 80% want ammunition to help sell ILS to their organization.
• Affinity toward learning "games" differs significantly between men and women (more so than other learning modalities).
• Many people work in organizations where the word "game" is filtered from browser searches.
• 71% of those surveyed either totally or somewhat agree that the concept of a learning game is great, but that the term is a problem, and 83% of those surveyed believe the industry should reject the moniker "serious game" and adopt a better term.

Mobile Learning

We were recently awarded another m-learning project here at CramerSweeney Instructional Design (hooray!!), and I am always extremely interested to see how many other organizations are with us on the m-learning pioneering front. Fortunately, the eLearning Guild recently published a new report on m-learning called "Guild Research 360 Report on Mobile Learning." Here is what their survey findings reveal (extracted from an abstract of the full report):

• 66% of Guild members are at least researching m-learning initiatives and 9% have actually implemented m-learning in their organizations.
• 44.8% of Guild members plan to do more m-learning in the next 12 months.
• The U.S. and Canada lag behind other countries in both current implementation and plans for m-learning. (That's NOT good!) 24% of Guild members in other countries have either implemented or are designing m-learning offerings vs. only 14% in the U.S. and Canada. Plus 57% of International members plan to do more m-learning in the next 12 months vs. 41% for the U.S. and Canada.
• The top 3 barriers to the adoption of m-learning are concerns over content created for traditional media not working on hand-held devices, the lack of a standard for mobile delivery, and concern that screens are too small.
• The iPhone (and products coming out that are now influenced by the iPhone) is expected to allay the concerns over compatibility and screen size and have a significant impact on the adoption of m-learning, as many learning activities developed for the web will work with little or no change on this new crop of portable devices.
• Members who have implemented m-learning report a 52% improvement in user performance and an 83% increase in making learning available to users.
• Of members who have implemented m-learning and who are able to evaluate return on investment, 88% report a positive ROI !!

Thank you, eLearning Guild, for these eye-opening survey results!

Video Games at Work? You betcha!

Here at CramerSweeney, we just added a basketball net, a ping pong table, and some other fun toys for our employees. In the near future, in fact, we are going to be adding a Wii. (I can't wait!) We want our folks to get out from behind their desks, move around, get some blood flowing to their brains, socialize, and yes... PLAY! (Hey, I want to get out from behind my own desk and play, too!)

Research shows that creating a fun office atmosphere increases productivity, boosts employee morale and solidarity, and also is a great recruiting tool that helps attract a younger workforce. As gaming at work is growing in acceptance, more and more companies are designating office areas for the sole purposes of gaming, playing, relaxing, socializing, and regenerating. In fact, at some companies, game rooms are the norm - especially at game development companies!

As an owner of CramerSweeney, I spend a great deal of my time here at our beautiful office - and love it. We want our employees to enjoy being here, too!~

Gamers Get the Jobs!

A few months back, I wrote about how I had long believed that playing video games for hours each week (as most kids do) couldn't be a good thing. The information I discovered and wrote about back then changed my mind. Now here is more rather surprising information about the benefits of gaming. This appeared in the Toronto Globe & Mail (7/14/07).

"Companies are placing greater value on workers who are well-versed in internet games," states an associate with IBM's Institute for Business Value. "Businesses are becoming internationally distributed, the pace of change is quicker, and there is additional data to handle, which are all challenges that internet gamers have to meet to help their virtual teams succeed. The leadership characteristics that make individuals successful in gaming make them successful in heading business groups as well." Such qualities include:

• Being able to bring a large number of people together in a highly sophisticated network for the purpose of attaining a goal
• Self-direction and interest in acquiring new skills and espousing new roles
• Openness in taking risks and learning from mistakes
• Collaboration skills and the ability to influence other people on the team
• Ability to locate strengths and drawbacks in the company
• Excellent communication skills

I can't help but wonder if my company's job postings should now include: "High proficiency and several years of experience playing video games."

Mini-Games!

ASTD's T&D magazine published a recent article called "Engaging Mini-Games Find Niche in Training". (Mini-games are also called micro games or casual games.) These are immersive learning simulations (ILSs) normally created in Adobe Flash and which last from 5-20 minutes. According to some industry statistics, 45% of respondents have deployed ILS/mini-games to their associates, and 48% more plan to use them more in the next year.

Who's doing this? Cisco Systems, Miller Brewing Company (one of our clients), and Canadian Standards Association were each highlighted in this article. Mini-games work really well in both e-learning and m-learning environments (PDAs and mobile phones, for example), as long the interface is simple and the graphics are clean.

Immersive Learning Solutions (ILS)

The eLearning Guild's recent research on Immersive Learning Simulations (ILS) reports that in the next 12 months there will be a:

• 72% growth in simulation and scenario-based learning, and
• 37% growth in e-learning games

Although the use of ILS is on the rise, there are still a number of barriers that prevent organizations from using games in e-learning - from a perceived difficulty in building this type of interacivity, to questions about the costs to build ILS, to the appropriateness of using "games" for e-learning. Of course, no one believes that corporate training games and ILS will be a passing fad.

Second Life + Wiimote

Imagine this. You are tasked with learning how to perform surgery, apply pesticides, or operate a nuclear power plant. And the learning tools provided to you are: Second Life and a remote control from a Wii (a popular video game system introduced several months ago). In other words, the Wiimote would be used during the training as a virtual scalpel!

Real-world simulations using these tools is being studied at MIT, where they believe that the Wii's motion-sensitive controller is "one of the most significant technology breakthroughs in the history of computer science" and the key to building training simulators within the virtual world of Second Life. Of course, the Wiimote is just an input device and does not teach anything in and of itself. The success of virtual training programs depends on how good the training scenario is.

The Wiimote's advantage is that it's a "human-centric" device, so the user knows untuitively what to do with it when they pick up it (like with a bat or a wand). The Wiimote provides the ability to easily integrate a wide range of psychomotor activities with simulations played on standard computer platforms - this will change the ways in which people interact with computers. See the full article in Wired magazine (7/27/07).

More on Second Life - It's NOT a Game

I came across an extremely informative article on MoneyCNN.com (written by Fortune magazine senior writer David Kirkpatrick) about the metaverse Second Life and the world of 3D online experiences - which really has become a phenomenon! The article was written earlier this year, so all of the numbers in the article (and quoted below) are outdated (too low now) - but you will get the idea!! Some interesting highlights include:

IBM's $10M: Last November, IBM CEO Sam Palmisano announced that it just started a $10 million project to help building out the "3-D Internet" exemplified by Second Life. Palmisano calls 3-D realms such as Second Life the "next phase of the Internet's evolution" and says they may have "the same level of impact" as the first web explosion.

All User-Driven: Although Linden Lab (the San Francisco company) created Second Life, everything is created by users, for users. The entire virtual world of Second Life is hatched completely by the users.

Text to Voice: As a highly social medium, you will see lots of other avatars all over Second Life. Text chat is ubiquitous, and voice conversation is coming (although no one has announced when).

3-D Net: Huge corporations like IBM see the "ability to use Second Life as a platform for a whole new Net - this one in 3-D and even more social than the original - with huge opportunities to sell products and services."

Big-Name Investors: Many big names have invested in Second Life already because they see it (like Microsoft or eBay) as "a venue in which thousands of ancillary businesses can sprout." Linden Lab's backers "include some of the world's smartest, richest, and most successful tech entrepreneurs." Some include a former columnist for Fortune magazine, the creator of Lotus 1-2-3 (the spreadsheet application that helped begin the PC software revolution - and I used to teach it to clients in corporate training classrooms!!), the founder of eBay, CEO of Amazon, and Microsoft's chief technology architect and inventor of Lotus Notes. These are some heavy-hitters in technology innovation, and they think Second Life may be next!! At least one man's prediction is this: "In two years, I think Second Life will be huge, probably as large as the entire gaming community is today."

Inception/Infancy/Linden Dollars: Second Life opened in June 2003. There was nothing there, nowhere to go, nobody to see. About 1,000 people kept visiting regularly and dreaming up cities, jungles, games, clubs, and all kinds of crazy avatars. Second Life was relaunched in January 2004 with greater focus on user creativity and in-world entrepreneurship. Linden also began allowing people to exchange real dollars ($) with Linden dollars (L). This allowed Second Life to become a real economy where residents can build, own, or sell their digital creations. In fact, about $600,000 is spent daily in Second Life, for an annual GDP of about $220 million!

Virtual Land: Linden's new business model focused on the sale of virtual land - and Linden Lab began generating serious revenue (that now grow at least 10% every month). They have sold 3,500 private islands, each equivalent to 16 acres in the real world. As the population increases, Linden simply creates more digital real estate! Each island costs $1,675 to purchase and $295/month to maintain. Some buyers subdivide their land and rent or sell it at a profit. IBM is one of the biggest landowners with over 24 islands!

Entrepreneurs Welcome! Any resident can become an entrepreneur. Wanna be a nightclub owner, jewelry maker, landscaper, pet manufacturer (huh?), store owner, beach owner, builder, ski champion? If you can dream it, you can do it - and make money at it. Take a look at one kinda famous Second Life resident, whose avatar is known as Anche Chung: She claims "to have accumulated a real-world net worth of more than $1 million in Second Life real estate. She now employs 30 people in China who build things and otherwise improve the land she buys and develops for resale." Something very nice happened to another Second Lifer who "developed a gambling game called Tringo, a cross between Tetris and Bingo. It becamse so popular that it has been licensed for Nintendo's Game Boy Advance!!

How to Make Money? Big companies like Nike, Sony, Toyota, Sun, and others have operations in Second Life. Some sell virtual clothing and other merchandise for avatars; some even move real product. There are about 65 virtual companies that have sprung up (been created) inside Second Life to serve real-world business customers. About 350 people work full-time for these virtual companies, and there are at least $10 million worth of such projects underway.

Where IS This Headed? This field of metaverses will become very competitive. We are in the earliest days of exploration, and no one knows exactly where we'll all end up. IBM's VP of technical strategy says, "Today virtual worlds are where video and VCRs were in the early 1980s, or where the web was in 1993."

So I say, hold on tight. This is guaranteed to be a very exciting ride!!

Virtual Worlds for Learning

Virtual worlds can be viewed across a continuum (as described by Tony Driscoll):

1. Metaverse (such as Second Life) - For commerce and collaboration
2. Intraverse - Where organizations try to extend their learning and collaboration technologies into the 3rd dimension. They want to do all the things that their LMS and collaboration software can do but extend it into the 3D realm.
3. Interverse - To leverage the power of 3D for community and collaboration across firewalls.

So how can we create learning in virtual worlds? Here are a few suggested tools from Tony Driscoll (actually, these are really the only tools currently in the industry/marketplace at the moment - but that too shall change!):

Tony says, "If you want a platform that runs on 56K, integrates with existing apps, allows you to fire up a browser "in world," and oh-yeah integrates with your current LMS, you may want to check out Protosphere. Multiverse is a new arrival on the scene, but it seems to fit somewhere in between. And finally for all of us who are educators and have been salivating over "Second Life meets Moodle," check out Sloodle." You also have to look into Open Croquet. Go ahead -- Check 'em all out!!

VLWs (Virtual Learning Worlds)

If you read my previous post about m-learning on iPhones, now imagine m-learning on your iPhone while "inside" a virtual world!! Although the statement "The future is HERE!" makes no sense (since the future is always, well - in the future), lately I've been starting to believe that the future IS here.

Virtual worlds exist online, allowing people to assume virtual identities (called avatars) and interact with other live users. In these online worlds, companies build artificial (computer-generated) buildings and buy islands. The most talked-about virtual world is called Second Life. At this exact moment as I write this blog:

• Second Life has 8,138,168 total "residents," 1,708,510 of whom have logged in in the last 60 days.
• Right now, 45,836 are currently online and wandering around all over Second Life.
• And real money is spent in this virtual world, to the tune of $1,747,346 US$ spent in JUST the last 24 hours!! (Yes, that alone boggles the mind.)
• By the end of last month (June 2007), there had been 8,336 islands added in Second Life, with 928 added just in June alone.
• Oh, and if you aspire to purchase land in Second life, there are 24,815,424 square meters available and for sale right now!

FYI - In order to visit most places in Second Life, you must sign up (it's free) and create an avatar for yourself.

Got the idea of how gynormous this thing is?? Many large companies have taken a strong interest in this emerging trend and are evaluating how they can leverage this technology to improve communication (to both employees and customers) and improve the productivity of their employees.

Some learning experts believe that virtual worlds just might be the future of e-learning and that online worlds provide new and effective learning environments. Younger people raised on video games are invading the workplace and demanding new online learning environments. No longer subjects of science fiction novels (such as Neal Stephenson’s 1992 novel Snow Crash), virtual worlds, avatars, and metaverses are here today. Some examples:

• Cisco Systems has developed a training island in the virtual 3D world – or metaverse – called Second Life. The training island has classrooms, areas for students to mix and mingle, and a teleportation system.
• IBM has launched a number of workplace learning initiatives within Second Life, such as virtual new employee orientations and a mentoring program.
• Warner Brothers, Adidas, and Intel are on Second Life. Intel is on Second Life with the Intel Software Network Zone (with five main areas) and the Developer Education Program. There is also the Dell Island.
• Countless companies now have a presence in Second Life, and close to 100 colleges and universities have campuses or classrooms there.

Metaverses such as Second Life, Active Worlds, and There are growing in popularity and can be used for training purposes. However, there are now even newer online worlds that are specifically created for learning! They are called virtual learning worlds (VLWs) and massively multilearner online learning environments (MMOLE), where many learners interact in a virtual 3D world with the specific goal of learning. Learning can occur in a formal classroom, in a role play scenario or simulation, as well as via informal chats and discussions.

Yes, the future is here...

Games / Simulations / "Immersive Learning Simulations"

“We learn by example and by direct experience because there are
real limits to the adequacy of verbal instruction.”
~ Malcolm Gladwell, Blink: The Power of Thinking Without Thinking, 2005

Vivid, engaging simulations (games) are now “in” in the corporate training world. In fact, for many institutions, particularly the US military and the medical field, simulations are standard methods of training. A simulation is technically “a model of a system.” When a learner is asked to take a simulation (wrapped in a story) from an initial state to a goal state, it becomes a scenario. When you tune that experience until you achieve engagement, it is finally a game. Since some companies frown at allowing their employees to learn by “playing games,” we now often use the phrase “immersive learning simulations.”

Immersive learning simulations provide deep and meaningful practice for complex decisions and are a powerful way to equip learners with the tools and knowledge they need to succeed. Many learning simulations often are not done well because many are under-designed (not enough intelligent instructional design up front) and overproduced (too much focus on Flash-y graphics).

Why do well-designed games work? Because they capture and retain learners’ attention, they allow for spontaneity, creativity and fun, and they allow learners to learn by doing and through consequences of making mistakes. Games are a series of interesting and challenging decisions. A powerful active learning environment is created when you embed important decisions in a setting that makes them interesting and engaging.

When we think of games, we think of fun: Games = Fun

When we think of learning, we think of work: Learning = Work

Games show us this is wrong. In a word, games allow us to “fool” learners into learning. Under the right conditions, learning is biologically motivating and pleasurable for humans, and games can trigger deep learning.

iPhone & M-Learning's Future

Some of you may already be tired of hearing all the "buzz" about iPhones. If so, I apologize before I continue...

I LOVE my iPhone! I am by no means a gadget girl - just ask my husband how unimportant e-toys typically are to me, especially after spending all day and many evenings on my laptop. At that point, I am ready to curl up with a good (paper-based) novel. I had a Sony Clie handheld several years ago (which I loved but didn't LOVE) and more recently a Blackberry (which I never loved at all and stopped using altogether). Just a couple of days after iPhone's official release, when my husband said he was picking up an iPhone for himself and asked if I wanted one too, I said "Sure, why not?" (Why should HE have all the best and newest toys and not me, too?? Oh, yeah, I did say that gadgets are not important to me, but I can still be interested in at least checking them out, can't I?)
So have I already mentioned that I LOVE my iPhone? Oops, I did. Instead of boring you with all the reasons I love it (which are all the same reasons everyone else loves theirs), I would rather discuss the iPhone as the coolest m-learning (mobile learning) device ever - and clearly a glimpse into the future of m-learning.

The iPhone is now drawing more attention to the mobile device space than anything in the recent past - more than iPods and video iPods did. So many people will want the iPhone, just like they did the iPod, that it will seem more and more normal for everyone to own such high-end devices. This simply accelerates the adoption of high-end devices by the average person. Despite the iPhone's high price point, cheaper "copy" products will emerge to help the consumer. All of this mimics what happened with iPods. The iPod drove so many of us to buy sophisticated mp3 players, even if they weren’t iPods (which are still pricier than other mp3 players). Similarly, the iPhone will drive people to purchase more capable mobile phones (and video phones), even if they are not iPhones.

As a result, we'll continue to see more and more sophisticated devices from companies other than Apple - larger screen sizes, easier data entry (QWERTY keyboards), better sound quality, and more processing power. As these capabilities continue to improve, mobile device platforms get more powerful for learning! Instead of just accessing podcasts and coaching via timed text messages, we will now start seeing the true convergence of m-learning (on these high-end mobile devices) with what drives pc-based learning today. This means much more game-based learning, simulations, and video. We are already seeing better mobile internet browsers and more websites providing "mobile" versions of their content (just as YouTube does on iPhone).

The introduction of iPhone's advanced capabilities and ease of use can only serve to push other mobile technology manufacturers to "step it up" and try to compete with what Apple has now done. It’s exciting that the iPhone will be such a catalyst for our industry's movement toward a better mobile learning platform!! For the growth and future of m-learning, "It's all good!"

Avatars in Learning

Immersive learning is one of the most effective learning techniques, and animated characters (called avatars) help to create an engaging, immersive learning environment. Avatars are computer depictions of humans and range from cartoonish characters to photo-realistic representations. Advocates say that using avatars for corporate training combine the best parts of face-to-face training and computer-based learning. Corporations are discovering that these characters, and their audio, visual, and content cues, create an experience that both engages and enhances the learning process. Avatars can be added to online learning courses, websites, and even to PowerPoint presentations.

Corporate trainers and salespeople have discovered that they can capture and sustain attention by using avatars in their PowerPoint presentations. The instructor at the front of a classroom (or break room at a retail store) accelerates learning simply by grabbing learners’ attention, pointing things out, explaining the concepts being taught, and encouraging two-way interactions and discussions. It is human nature for us to pay attention to anyone who is speaking to us. We are all hard-wired to do that. Avatars can accomplish these same results. Avatars can be the presenter, advance slides, demonstrate products, have interactive “conversations” with the audience, and even exhibit a personality. Studies show that avatar technology not only draws people in, but also increases their ability to retain the information included in the presentation. They offer an almost human touch that helps to reinforce learning. An important point is that the avatar has a face trainees can remember, which makes it easier for trainees to recall what they learned from the avatar. People have confidence in these human-like characters because they can provide familiar conversational signals and feedback. They can be perceived as realistic and well-liked social partners in conversations that simulate real-world interactions.

Avatars are less expensive and more efficient than human trainers, can deliver a more consistent message, and can provide training sessions around the clock and around the globe! Avatars also can pull together the knowledge and experience of many trainers and deliver all that collective knowledge identically at each training session for consistency. A telecommunications giant estimates that recently avatar-based training cost them half as much as a comparable “face-to-face solution.”

In addition, avatars can be any race, age, or gender – a huge advantage since research shows that trainers whose age and race reflects those of their trainees will typically achieve better results. In addition, learners can enjoy repeated reinforcement without penalty or fatigue from the “instructor.” For example, avatar-based presentations can be set to “loop” continuously in retail store break rooms and be available anytime sales people and other employees take their breaks!

Business Examples:

SBC Communications gained attention in the Wall Street Journal for training its staff with avatars, while computer products merchant CDW conducted sales training using avatars. Companies like McDonalds and Coca-Cola have been using avatars in online advertising campaigns. United Airlines’ Hazardous Materials Transportation Safety Unit uses a friendly character named Chuck. Security Finance, a financial and loan services company, incorporated an avatar to perk up a customer service training presentation – with much success! Take a page from Disney: Animated characters will be a hit every time.

Stanford University’s Center for the Study of Language and Information published a landmark study called “The Benefits of Interactive Online Characters.” Major findings described in the study include:

• Research about interactive characters suggests substantial opportunities for them to enhance online experiences.


• Characters can increase the trust the users place in online experiences, in part because they make online experiences easier.


• Adding interactive characters to online experiences is an effective method to gain control over the presentation of social intelligence and information.


• Socially intelligent interfaces increase memory and learning and make online education more effective.


• Interactive characters are perceived as real social actors.


• Characters have personalities that can represent brands, and personality is critical in learning and business.


• Research shows that a large majority of users prefer characters over no characters, often develop a sustained “liking” for a character, and as a result will look forward to returning to subsequent e-learning sessions.

Avatars are extremely well known to players of online games, which includes the majority of anyone under the age of 30. An increasing percentage of the work force grew up with computer games that often involve elaborate simulations of human behavior and fantastical environments. For younger workers in particular, avatar-based training fits right in with growing up with video games.

We know that a classroom instructor is the most powerful ingredient to learner success; the avatar provides the same sort of learning dynamic online. Avatars engage learners and, therefore, lead to enhanced learner attention and increased learning retention. Research shows that avatar-based simulations drive measurably higher rates of course completion, learning, retention, and overall job impact.

Oftentimes, employees may not choose to “seek out” learning opportunities. Consequently, we need to “fool” them into learning. Why not try a charismatic avatar? Here at CramerSweeney, we have used iclone2 to create avatars for clients, including an avatar we named Ava for Intel's field sales training!

Unlearning?

Industry expert Jay Cross recently listed what he believes today's learning professionals are concerned with. Ready?

Social networking, motivation, re-treading (or cutting), LMS, simulation, gaming, Web 2.0, mobile learning, preferential treatment of high performers, virtual worlds, the Net Generation, information overload, bottom-up knowledge management, rapid e-learning, human emotion, outsourcing, transparency, collaboration, building communities, podcasts, learning 2.0, e-learning 2.0, change management, PLEs (personal learning environments), VLEs (virtual learning environments), blogs, vlogs, wikis, RSS, performance support, and unlearning.

I understand and have written (or will be writing) about most of these items. "Unlearning," however, certainly piqued my interest. So I did some quick research and found an explanation for it on Creating Passionate Users Blog. The first line of the blog page stated, "The future is not in learning..." My first thought was, "Uh oh, my entire 20-year career has focused on corporate training. Now what? Is it time for a career change? Will my new career be in corporate UNtraining??" The second line of the blog page stated, "It's no longer about how quickly you learn; it's how quickly you unlearn." Egads!

This post pointed back to the 1970s as a time for "How well can you learn," the 1990s to early 2000s when the focus was "How fast and how much can you learn," to today (and looking ahead): "How fast can you unlearn." Okay, what's this all really about, anyway?

Sometimes, in order to learn something new, you must first let go of something else that you already know. In addition, the particular knowledge/skills/rules/habits you need to let go of may be something that served you well for a long time, so letting go of it can be very hard indeed. Here are some examples given in that blog of all the things you might have to unlearn in just the course of one year:

• Unlearn what your target market is (because it just changed).
• Unlearn the way you advertise and market (because your market just got a lot smarter).
• Unlearn the way you approach your brand (because your company is re-branding in order to remain competitive in the marketplace).
• Unlearn the way you teach (because learners need to unlearn and learn simultaneously).
• Unlearn the way you treat your employees (because before you know it, that "meets expectations" review might come back to haunt you on a blog).
• Unlearn the technology you use (because it's being replaced with something new tomorrow).
• Unlearn the methodology you use.
• Unlearn the designs you use.
• Unlearn the words you use to describe your business.
• Unlearn your login password (since the system forces you to change it every 60 days.)
• Unlearn your cell phone number (you'll want to change your number when you get that new iPhone!!).

And the list could go on. So, in this constantly changing world of ours, we all must learn to unlearn, instead of (or at least in addition to) learning to learn. Ask yourself: "What is not serving me that I need to unlearn...?" There's something to ponder during your commute home today.

LMS Satisfaction

1. What do corporate employees think about learning management systems (LMSs)? TrainingOutsourcing.com and Expertus conducted a recent survey which drew responses from more than 300 corporate learning professionals. Let's take a look at the 2007 survey results!

I was surprised to see that 81% of respondents reported dissatisfaction with the reporting capabilities of their LMSs! Specific problems stated are limited standardized reports (54%), integration issues (49%), and limitations in data collection (48%).

Despite the vast amounts of data collected by their LMSs, employees' biggest challenges to training measurements are data accuracy and standardization (51%) and lack of data (45%). In fact, 77% of respondents said their current measurements fall short of providing meaningful intelligence for business planning.

In case you're curious what training data is most important to companies, most companies focus on learning-related metrics such as course completions (84%), registrations (57%), and learner costs (49%). These metrics help to support learning-related decisions such as course offerings (77%), class scheduling (63%), and budgeting (60%).

2. Bersin & Associates analyzed LMS satisfaction among over 500 training administrators, managers, and executives. Categories of the 2007 Bersin study include product functions, technical support, customer service, business partnership, and implementation. The study's key findings may surprise you:

• The LMS market remains in a high state of churn, with relatively low customer loyalty. 24% of respondents said they were "extremely likely" or "somewhat likely" to switch LMS vendors.
• About 1 in 5 companies plan to spend more than $400K on LMS operations and maintenance this year, with 25% planning to spend between $100K and $399K, and 39% less than $100K.
• Externally hosted LMSs did not yield higher overall satisfaction ratings, yet they did rate higher in ease of upgrading, ease of learner use, and customer satisfaction.
• Lowest satisfaction ratings were with reporting, ease of customization, rapid ROI, and out-of-the-box functionality.
• Finally, key determinants of customer satisfaction are vendors' service and support.

Choosing the Right Type of Simulation

Have you ever been faced with the task of researching, selecting, building, and deploying the right type of educational simulation for a specific learning situation? Clark Aldrich authored the book Learning by Doing (published in 2005 by Pfeiffer). He explains and defines the different types of simulations available, then takes it a step further to educate readers about which simulations are most appropriate for which learning situations.

Simulations can range from simple live role plays to sophisticated flight simulators. The book explains four traditional online "simulation genres":

1. 1. Branching Stories - Stories/scenarios that engage the learner in a highly defined scenario where he/she makes multiple choice decisions that branch the story down different paths at specific intervals.
2. 2. Interactive Spreadsheets - These allow the learner to make decisions regarding how to allocate resources. The simulation generates a graph, for example, after each decision to show the results.
3. 3. Game-based Models - Here learners engage in entertaining and competitive games.
4. 4. Virtual Products and Virtual Labs - These are on-screen representations of objects and software that allow significant interaction and mimick many physical characteristics of the real-life counter part.

When is it appropriate to use these different simulation types? This is Clark Aldrich's advice:

• New employees and high turnover: Branching Stories
• Learning to use complicated equipment: Virtual Products and/or Virtual Labs
• New consultant team building: Virtual Experience Spaces
• Shared understanding of complex systems: Interactive Spreadsheets
• Sales training: Branching Stories
• Exposure to new perspective: Branching Stories and Interactive Spreadsheets
• A big new idea: Marketing Mini-games

Aldrich explains that using the correct simulation for each learning need can provide a powerful tool for changing behavior and impacting your organization's bottom line. He also argues that next generation simulations are the only chance to develop people quickly, rigorously, and cost-effectively.

Bersin's 2007 Predictions

You've just read some of the Bersin study results (my last post). Now let's take a look at Bersin's top 10 training industry predictions for this year. And now that we're already 1/4 of the way into the year, you can see if these predictions are already coming true in your learning organization:

1. 1. Continued increase in training budgets - Training-related spending increased by 7% in 2006, the highest increase in 5 years. We expect spending in 2007 to match or even exceed this rate.
2. 2. The structure and operation of corporate training will change - Learning organizations are increasing spending on technology. In fact, in 2006, payrolls declined on average by 11%. New skills and management structures will be needed to meet training's new role as a shared services organization.
3. 3. Use of outsourcing becomes standard practice - Companies have discovered that outsourcing can help them implement an infrastructure that reaches more employees at far lower costs and allows staff to focus on company-specific needs and performance consulting. We believe every organization should have a defined outsourcing strategy in 2007.
4. 4. Leadership development takes center stage - Research in 2006 showed leadership development and management training to be the highest area of program spending. Spending will likely be higher in 2007 as companies scramble to fill the leadership pipeline.
5. 5. Talent management will change the role of HR - HR's mission, supporting technology, staffing resources, and priorities will all continue to change, and likely at a rapid rate. Performance management, competency management, and talent-driven learning will be areas in which HR and learning are tightly aligned.
6. 6. E-learning matures and evolves - Now that e-learning is mainstream, companies are moving to more sophisticated uses of e-learning content and technology, such as for performance support, collaborative learning, and simulations.
7. 7. Content management becomes an imperative - About 40% of mature LMS users are now considering or actively searching for content management solutions.
8. 8. E-learning 3.0 arrives - First there were online self-study courses; then came virtual instructor-led training. The next stage is self-published training - resources such as blogs, wikis, and podcasts. Innovative training organizations are now working to harness these resources.
9. 9. New approaches to e-learning emerge - Some organizations have implemented "high-fidelity" online training programs. These instructionally rich courses, which include avatars and sophisticated simulations, were designed to develop and deepen mastery in areas such as customer service and sales.
10. 10. The LMS market continues to morph - Many companies are now looking to LMS solutions as the foundation for talent management platforms, with modules for performance management and integration with other HR systems. The market will see more partnerships, mergers, and acquisitions to meet the new demands of HR and learning convergence.

Source: www.bersin.com

Training Industry's Most Comprehensive Study

Bersin & Associates has been at it again - doing what they do so well, which is research and analysis in the training industry. They recently published their "Corporate Learning Factbook 2007: Statistics, Benchmarks and Analysis of the U.S. Corporate Training Market."

You can purchase a copy of the 79-page Corporate Learning Factbook at www.bersin.com. Here are some highlights from their e-newsletter.

• The corporate learning market continues to grow, with budget increases averaging 7%.
• In 2005, 73 cents of every training dollar went to payroll expenses; in 2006, payroll expenses were 65 cents of every dollar.
• The decrease in payroll expenses means that non-payroll expenses are rising. Examples of these expenses include technology (LMS & LCMS tools) and outsourcing.
• The average spending per learner is $1,273. The highest spending sector is technology ($2,763) and the lowest is retail ($519).
• The highest growth areas of outsourcing for the coming year are in custom content development (which is what my company does) and LMS hosting.

From E-Learning to M-Learning to... T-Learning?

Most likely, you already know all about e-learning. And I have written a number of times (see below) about m-learning (mobile learning where content is provided via handhelds, i-pods, and cell phones). Now we have (drumroll please)..... T-Learning!

T-learning is learning via interactive digital TV (iDTV). It is currently being researched in Europe as an alternative to e-learning (learning via PC). The goal of t-learning is to provide learning content through personal TV systems, thereby increasing learning opportunities at home, the office, and at school. T-learning encompasses an integrated learning platform for interactive TV.

Giunti Labs in Europe has been working on a project to develop innovative TV learning solutions for an international consortium, including a large array of more than ten European universities and broadcasters. A recent press release states, "The project focuses on pedagogical as well as technical aspects of the possibilities of 't-learning'... One of the focus areas of the project is a game based t-learning application." The CEO of Giunti Labs commented, "From the pedagogical point of view, TV is a different medium from the internet and needs a different approach than 'traditional distance learning solutions'."

"T-learning will help to overcome, for example, the limits of physical distance as there is a broad digital TV infrastructure base in Europe. In addition to web and mobile learning, TV is an additional channel for providing personalized learning experiences using always the most convenient channel from the user's point of view."

The challenge will be to create engaged learning (not just edutainment) and allow for active learning (not just passive viewing). I can't wait to see how this initiative progresses!

For more information, go to http://www.elu-project.com

FREE MIT Courseware - 1550 Courses and Growing!

Yes, you read that correctly! This is a content dissemination initiative from MIT called MIT OpenCourseWare (MIT OCW). MIT now makes its faculty's core teaching materials (both graduate and undergraduate courses) openly available for anyone, anywhere in the world with Internet access. MIT OCW is a large-scale, web-based electronic publishing initiative funded jointly by MIT, the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, and the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation. As of November 2006, 1550 of MIT's classes are available via MIT OCW!

MIT OCW's goals are to:

• Provide free, searchable, access to MIT's course materials for educators, students, and self-learners around the world
• Extend the reach and impact of MIT OCW and the "opencourseware" concept

As a result of MIT's model, there are now more than 100 other institutions around the world openly publishing their educational materials in "opencourseware" environments. As their website states, "MIT hopes to continue inspiring other institutions to openly share their course materials, creating a worldwide web of knwoeldge that will benefit humanity."

Check it out! http://ocw.mit.edu

Do Games Really Work in Corporate Learning?

This is a completely legitimate question which we all have asked at one time or another. And the answer is? You betcha they work! Let's take a good look at some advantages to using games - including those modeled after TV game shows, such as Jeopardy and Family Feud.

The power of game shows is that the second a question is asked, the brain automatically goes into search mode to find the answer. What makes games so effective is their ability to bring out curiosity and a competitive spirit. Games in learning have been found to:

• Break the mode of what a typical training class is like
• Keep learners' attention by engaging and motivating them
• Make learning more fun
• Energize any learning experience
• Speed up learning for most learners
• Increase test scores and comprehension by 50%
• Provide bottom-line benefits such as increased productivity and more engaged, motivated, happy and capable workers

Comcast University (one of my clients!) plays a game show at every office across the country, then turns it into a countrywide competition where regions play against one another! After going up in rankings, the top people come together in a final round.

Game show training programs can be easily customized and are appropriate for a full range of learners. A higher level of participant engagement in training creates a greater emotional stake, and emotions are tied to memory. As a result, people remember more of their training when the information is presented in a game show format. Think back to your best and favorite teachers - most likely they were the ones who really engaged you at a very emotional level.

Play on!

Jay Cross' 2007 Personal Predictions

In his January 2007 "Letter from Silicon Valley" (as reported in Learning Light), Jay Cross offered these e-learning predictions for the 12 months ahead. Jay's predictions are quite fun and interesting - especially his "company news" items. Read on!

1. Work and learning will continue to converge. Nurturing learning ecosystems will supplant course-by-course instructional design.
2. Talent management, wikis, and intangible assets will cross the chasm into the mainstream. M-learning will not.
3. Workforce learning will become increasingly self-service, accessible as needed or requested.
4. Web architecture will cut into the Learning Management System market. The web's flexibility, lower total cost of ownership, and ease of use will reinforce this migration to the web.
5. Learning management, delivery, and reporting will be available on a buy-only-what-you-need hosted basis.
6. The outcry over sub-par, irrelevant training will lead to wide-spread adoption of quality ratings supplied by all learners.
7. Workers will develop an increasing amount of their learning content, just as the "read/write web" relies on users to provide solutions to problems.
8. The panic over losing the knowledge in the heads of departing baby boomers will subside.
9. In company news, Microsoft Vista will land with a thud. Many companies will adopt a wait-and-see attitude after massive security breeches come to light.
10. Microsoft will buy Yahoo! to try to make up for ground lost to Google. Wal*Mart, hungry to grow despite market saturation, will buy Amazon.com.

Preventing Intellectual Laziness

How do we prevent intellectual laziness? With instructional interactivity, according to Michael Allen's Guide to e-Learning. Instructional interactivity serves to wrestle our intellectual laziness to the ground - to reawaken our interest in learning, strengthen our ability to learn, and provide an optimal environment in which to learn.

Be aware, however, that instructional interactivity is NOT the same as navigation, presentation, buttons, scrolling, browsing, information retrieval, paging, animation, or video. Instructional interactivity is "interaction that actively stimulates the learner's mind to do those things that improve ability and readiness to perform effectively."

Good interactivity:

• Causes learners to think
• Helps learners synthesize new information and integrate their knowledge
• Helps learners rehearse skills and prepare for performance
• Promotes awareness of competencies, readiness, and needs
• Contributes to self-confidence
• Tests learner knowledge whenever they might like a progress check

Meaningful and Memorable Learning

Learning experiences must be both meaningful and memorable to be effective. In Michael Allen's Guide to e-Learning, he defines these two concepts as they relate to effective e-learning. I want to expand these ideas into any kind of learning.

Meaningful
A learner can't gain from a learning experience if s/he can't understand the subject or see meaningful implications and applicability. This is instructional failure. Well-designed learning should be continuously meaningful for each learner. It should be sensitive to learner performance, identify levels of need and readiness, select appropriate activities, and engage learners in experiences that are likely to be meaningful.

Memorable
If a learner easily forgets a meaningful learning experience and any knowledge gained, it might as well not have happened at all. Fortunately, there are many ways to make learning experiences memorable, such as using:

• Interesting contexts and novel situations
• Real-world or authentic environments
• Problem-solving scenarios
• Simulations
• Risk and consequences
• Engaging themes
• Engaging media and interface elements
• Drill and practice
• Humor

The Gamer Generation

I have three very smart boys - and they all LOVE playing video games, which makes them "normal" in today's world. They love playing games on Game Cube, XBox 360, PS2, PS3, PSP, and on their iPods, cell phones, and computers. In fact, they can't get enough of gaming. Of course, this mom ensures that school, homework, sports, music, family time, eating, and good old-fashioned "playing" must all come before their gaming pursuits. So what do I think about video games? I think it's a waste of time.

Not true, say John Beck and Mitchell Wade, who wrote Got Game: How the Gamer Generation is Reshaping Business Forever. According to Beck and Wade, the gamer generation is already bigger than the baby boom generation, and games have made this group dramatically different in terms of their attitudes, expectations, and abilities. Gamers are committed, loyal, team-oriented and they "play to win."

Over 90 million people regularly play video games, and millions of them are rising young U.S. professionals. They must know something that I don't. Beck and Wade say that gaming is not a waste of time but is an amazingly effective training camp for teaching critical business skills. Through their research, they have found that gamer employees have the following unique attributes:

• Bold but measured risk taking
• Amazing ability to multitask
• Unexpected leadership skills

Games teach gamers how the world works and that failure doesn't hurt. Such high failure probabilities in video games can be very productive - players naturally focus on what they did wrong, what they could have done better, and how to get to the next level (how to succeed). The gamer generation learns through repetition that failure is part of the process that leads to success!

Gamers also learn to embrace risk for the purpose of capturing an appropriately large reward. So, gamers have different attitudes toward risk than the rest of us, and they aren't looking for comfort and safety but are after bigger rewards! Games provide countless opportunities to test and retest different problem-solving strategies immediately and without heavy preparation. This teaches quick decision-making. Finally, gamers learn to pace themselves and are self-educating.

Whoodathunk?!

E-Learning Myths

In his book titled Beyond E-Learning, Marc Rosenberg talks about some common myths in today's learning organizations. These myths and others need to be dispelled within an organization before an effective e-learning strategy can be deployed. They are:
1. Everyone understands what e-learning is.
This is just not true. In fact, there is still a lot of confusion about e-learning because there is no one agreed-upon definition or common framework for thinking about, talking about or "doing" e-learning.
2. E-learning is easy.
I wish this were true! Creating and deploying great e-learning that is effective AND efficient takes a great deal of effort, experience and discpline in such fields as instructional design, information design, communications, psychology, project management, psychometrics, certain technologies, and needs assessment and evaluation.
3. Success is getting e-learning to work.
Too many people think that it's all a matter of getting the technology to work - getting the e-learning course "out there" for the masses. It is far more than that!
4. Only certain content can be taught online.
This is not the case, despite what some people may try to tell you. With the right instructional design approach, almost any type of knowledge or skill can be developed and delivered online.
5. E-learning's value proposition is based on lowering the cost of training delivered.
What should really be the focus is the substantial benefits e-learning can generate in worker productivity, speed of learning deployment, and shortened times to competence.

The Continuing Debate: ILT or WBT?

The October issue of Chief Learning Officer contains some great articles (as always), starting with the Editor's Letter at the front of the magazine. The Editor in Chief at www.CLOmedia.com is Norm Kamikow, and in his October issue letter he raises the on-going, sometimes heated, and often controversial debate over whether traditional classroom learning or online learning is the better method of education. These two options are so steeped in variables, such as the quality of the course and the materials, the opportunities to practice (such as exercises and interactivities), the instructor's skills and experience and knowledge, the learner's background and knowledge and desire to learn - to name just a few.

Norm shares some interesting findings from a study conducted by Drexel e-Learning and Philadelphia University. Adult learners answered survey questions about their traditional classroom vs. online learning education experiences - split about half and half into the two categories. Norm wrote, "The results were fascinating..." so let's take a look, shall we?

"The key conclusions were that both traditional and online adult students have similar expectations, similar academic experiences, and similar results."

Other findings include:

"Online students are nearly twice as likely to view web-based programs as less intrusive on personal and professional schedules."

"Traditional students are more likely to view their experiences with exams and group projects as hard than online students were."

"Both online and traditional students feel satisfied with their degree program and chosen learning method."

"Both groups also had similar expectations in terms of study time, self-discipline, and determination."

"Regardless of the program type, most adult students spend the evening and weekend studying."

"A higher percentage of online students begin their studies after establishing careers and families, while a larger number of traditional students get going before these milestones in life."

Norm ended his Editor's Letter talking about blended learning. So it seems that the answer (or answers) to the question in the title of this post (ILT or WBT?) can be "Either or both!"

Engage is LIVE!

Articulate announced the release of Engage 1.0 last week. You will love this product, no doubt, as I do. I thoroughly enjoyed the opportunity Articulate gave me to beta test this impressive interactivity tool. In fact, Articulate posted my photo and enthusiastic testimonial at the bottom of the Engage product page.

I have numerous ideas for how I can and will use this tool. And I know our clients will love the gorgeous interactive elements we create for their e-courses. You must take a look!

Save $$ Using iPods Instead of Binders

Podcast expert John Havens (whom I mentioned in an earlier post below) researches and writes extensively and passionately about - you guess it - podcasting. In his very informative September 20th article called "Positing PodBranding," he talks about building credibility and your brand via podcasts - and how it really can work!

I was particularly struck by something in the article that related directly to corporate training. Someone he interviewed had "been working on an innovation program for a global financial services firm for the past six years. It was relatively easy to convince the client to try podcasting because prior to this year we had been distributing our course materials in a big black binder that included hard copy lecture notes and DVD videos of the learning materials. And this year, instead of doing that we gave every participant a video iPod. Doing this actually cost us $200 LESS per person to use the iPods than for the binders, and that was just for duplication costs."

John went on to say, "(On a quick environmental side note, Wal-Mart recently reported that those big black binders also tend to be the main component in most major landfills. Hmmm... Video iPod and a $200 savings, or spine-wrenching eco-trash. Your call.)" All great information!

On a personal note, while conducting a new business meeting with a major pharmaceutical company, I recommended the use of iPods for training their widely dispersed (worldwide) sales force. Unfortunately, they were not quite ready to consider such a huge leap (in their opinions) into that arena of training innovation. When I share with them this information from John's article, however, it may be just what they need to hear.

Learning Delivery Methods

In a recent issue of Learning TRENDS, Elliott Masie shared the Executive Summary results from his Learning Consortium's survey of 240 organizations. These organizations were asked what learning methods they deploy within their organizations:

• 46% Classroom
• 27% e-Learning
• 19% Blended
• 10% Other

From what I have seen in our industry in years past, e-Learning continues to grow.

Cool News for Us!

Some interesting news has been happening around here lately! Take a look...

1. 19 Best Elearning Blogs: This blog (Corporate Training & e-Learning Blog) was recently listed by Gabe Anderson as one of the “19 Best Elearning Blogs” (http://blog.articulate.com/the-19-best-elearning-blogs). He published this list in Articulate's blog called Word of Mouth Blog. Big kudos for us to share an equal mention in the same list with blogs from industry experts like ASTD, Jay Cross, Elliott Massie, Kevin Kruse, Brent Schlenker, Robin Good, and Susan Smith Nash. A HUGE “Thank you!” to Gabe and to Articule!

2. Articulate Beta Product Reviewer: Articulate.com invited me to beta test their awesome new high-end e-learning interactivity tool called Articulate Engage. I can’t say enough great things about this not-yet-released product. Its template-based interaction builder provides a fast, easy way to create beautiful and sophisticated interactive Flash experiences (that can include audio and video) and then add them to any e-learning course. Engage’s extremely friendly and well-designed user interface allows anyone to energize e-learning courses and produce gorgeous results. I can’t wait to use it “for real” after its official release. Another BIG "Thank you" to Articulate for inviting me along on this fun ride!

3. Podcast Interview: I recently spent an hour being interviewed by John C. Havens, actor and podcast expert, for a podcast and article/whitepaper he’s creating/writing for About.com’s Guide to Podcasting (http://podcasting.about.com). (About.com is part of The New York Times Company.) His podcast/article will be called “Podcasting: Sound Theory. How Just In Time, Do It Yourself Audio/Media Can Improve Corporate Training and Your Bottom Line.” John is very knowledgeable, an expert in the field, and extremely passionate about podcasting. I will share links with you as soon as it is published. Thank you, John, for this generous opportunity!

4. New Clients: My company CramerSweeney Instructional Design has recently been awarded some interesting projects with a number of great new clients, including the American Management Association (AMA), Miller Brewing Company, Comcast, L A Weight Loss, and Bristol-Myers Squibb. These projects run the design and development gamut of e-learning, simulations, and instructor-led training. Very exciting!

5. Corporate Learning Forum: As a founding member of Corporate Learning Forum (CLF), I am pleased to announce the close of our first successful month. After its first few weeks, the member company list already reads like a “Who’s Who" among the Fortune 500! A small sampling of these early members: American Express, Boeing, AstraZeneca, Walt Disney Company, Coca-Cola, Miller Brewing Company, 3M, American Red Cross, Comcast, FedEx, GEICO, GMAC, Hewlett Packard, Intuit, J&J, Lockheed Martin, Merck & Co., MetLife, Motorola, Oracle, Penn State University, Pfizer, KPMG, Pricewaterhouse Coopers, PSE&G, Roche, Target Corporation, Bank of New York, Time Warner Cable, United Airlines, United Way, Clorox, UPS, Washington Mutual, Wyeth, and the list goes on and on. Hundreds of messages (questions and answers) have been posted, and CLF continues to receive rave reviews from its members.

Corporate Learning Forum? What's the deal?

I just received an interesting inquiry about the new Corporate Learning Forum. The reader said:

"I appreciate the efforts going into this Forum, but I'm having a hard time seeing why I should pay for the service. I go into this a little more on my blog, but I feel like I must be missing something in understanding the value of this forum over a free alternative. Since you're obviously a member, can you help point out what makes this listserv so different?" -Jeff

My response:

Thanks for writing, Jeff. Actually, you do get it. Yes, there are other Listservs - but surprisingly few whose daily exchange amounts to much more than extra junk mail. And there are numerous blogs in the blogosphere, including yours and mine. However, the benefit of Listservs over blogs is that Listservs offer a truly dynamic and immediate exchange of information.

Consider this: Why after just two short weeks does Corporate Learning Forum’s membership read like a Who’s Who list in the corporate training industry? You hit the nail on the head: Marketing. (Keep reading...) Listservs are underutilized because most of them are byproducts of non-profit organizations. With the benefit of a small, nominal annual membership fee (just $50), Corporate Learning Forum can afford to market. And here are the true benefits: Aggressive marketing equals more members, and more members means a much deeper knowledge base to tap into. Ultimately, access to vast amounts of pertinent knowledge is what it’s all about, wouldn't you agree? Even better is the fact that the every inquiry is answered with personal, directly pertinent, and highly helpful information!

So how’s it working? Just last week, the chief learning officer of the nation’s largest cable provider posted a question to the Forum asking for help to find an e-course that could train his 80,000 employees on pandemic flu preparation. Within 5 minutes he received several excellent sources, including one from a local instructional design firm that had just completed the very same course—-MY firm! In a subsequent conversation, he told me that he had spent countless hours over several months researching this and was amazed to solve this issue within a few minutes of joining Corporate Learning Forum.

Is Corporate Learning Forum worth $50 a year? Absolutely! While I can’t speak for all the other members, I can tell from the large range of questions and the detail of the answers that it is working for many of the members! More specifically, I know at least two companies who’ve gotten amazing returns on their minor investments in just the first few minutes (or hours) of joining!

Corporate Learning Forum is HERE!

Corporate Learning Forum (a new information resource that I wrote about in my 6/4/06 post) was successfully launched this week. It is a brand new training industry Q&A forum for anyone who has questions for - and can provide answers to - our industry peers. There is no limit to the range or amount of questions and answers that the forum will generate. This new knowledge platform has already taken off quickly with several hundred members and continues to grow each day! Members include chief learning officers, training directors and managers, instructional designers and technologists, trainers, professors, and instructors - anyone responsible for designing, developing, managing, and providing training and instruction. (Click here to see a frequently updated list of companies represented by the new members.)

As the Corporate Learning Forum website describes, it is “A worldwide knowledge exchange for corporate training, organizational development and institutional learning professionals…Corporate Learning Forum is a repository for members to post questions about today's most challenging issues affecting the training industry.”

I haven’t seen anything else like this in our industry and wanted to pass around the great news myself! And it is already working. Terrific questions are posted, resulting in detailed and helpful answers! (I have provided a few myself!) In an industry where products and systems change daily, it is difficult to "keep up" with what's happening and what is available and worthwhile to us. Everywhere we turn, we see new e-learning authoring tools, new LMS and LCMS tools, corporate mergers and buy-outs, emerging training resources, you name it. Corporate Learning Forum is where you can now go to get answers - quickly and directly.

There is much excitement already being generated around this information sharing resource. Click here for a .PDF copy of the official News Release for further information. And share the great news with your friends and colleagues!

Workflow Nano-Learning

In a recent Chief Learning Officer magazine article, Bill Byron Concevitch raised the very interesting concept of combining workflow learning + nano-learning to get: "Workflow Nano-Learning." A brief definition of workflow nano-learning is short snippets (60-90 seconds) of highly relevant and timely information. Workflow learning is when work and learning become one; nano-learning is learning is super-small chunks. Together, they offer just-in-time workflow learning in "nano bites" - that is, learning happens at the specific time of need and is so short that it can be "squeezed" between real work tasks without interrupting regular workflow and be relevant to the next tasks and thereby immediately applied and learned. This type of learning can also be highly personalized based on individual need and be provided to only those who need it.

Examples of workflow nano-learning:

1. Offer nano-bites of workflow learning for sales reps on the road: Just 2 to 3 minute learning snippets can help them on their next sales call.
2. Workflow nano-learning is most effective when focused on systems and processes and skills: Use workflow nano-learning to increase skills on using a system effectively, handling difficult customers, asking effective questions, handling stress.

To begin, ask a target audience to identify their top 10 challenges to performing their jobs most effectively. You should quickly have a library of 1-2 dozen topics for nano-snippets of workflow learning! Each snippet should stand on its own, but can also be provided in clusters.

Don't forget to use instructional designers to develop these bite-size snippets and enable learner success!

80% Predict Increase in E-Learning in 2006

A Bersin & Associates research report reveals that e-learning comprised 33% of all workplace training in 2005 - up from 29% in 2004 and 24% in 2003. In addition, 80% of training and HR managers expect e-learning to continue to increase through 2006.

Bersin reports finding 4 clear stages of e-learning evolution - common across all industries and companies sizes:

• Stage 1: Getting Started (cost savings, off-the-shelf courses, LMS implementation)
• Stage 2: Expansion (blended learning, rapid e-learning, greater use of LMS, custom courses)
• Stage 3: Integration and Alignment (governance, HR integration, performance management)
• Stage 4: Learning on Demand (LCMS, performance support, search)

According to Bersin, most organizations' e-learning programs fall between stages 2 and 3. In stage 4, all digital learning assets (courses, references, help files, documentsm, presentations) are made available to learners on demand when workers needs them. Companies in this stage show a dramatic adoption of online books and references. Check www.bersin.com/stages for this report.

Business Intelligence Board - Industry Report

I am a member of the Business Intelligence Board for Chief Learning Officer magazine. CLO recently published its 2006 Business Intelligence Industry Report. According to the research report, learning and development (L&D) functions are currently experiencing both growth and change. Corporate learning budgets are increasing between 10%-20% this year, and organizations report an increased focus on leadership development. Much of the reported spending increases will be devoted to leadership and executive development. In fact, recent training design and development projects that I have worked on include "Medical Management" training for CIGNA, manager new-hire training for ARAMARK, and people and career development management programs for Miller Brewing Company.

The reported spending increases in L&D are also devoted to e-learning and improving learning technologies. While classroom training still dominates, asynchronous and synchronous e-learning continue to make significant headway. Fifty-one percent of responding organizations' learning is currently delivered in the classroom, followed by formal on-the-job training at 24%, asynchronous e-learning at 21% and synchronous e-learning at 11%.

Over 60% of Business Intelligence Board members report outsourcing part of their L&D functions. The two most prevalent outsourced activities are content design and development and learning delivery. Check out the rest of the report for many other interesting industry facts!

New training industry listserv scheduled for launch in August!

I just got word this week about the soon-to-be-launched Corporate Learning Forum, a global listserv designed for professionals in the training and organizational development industry.

The Corporate Learning Forum will serve as a repository for members to post questions about today's most challenging issues affecting the training industry. From questions about corporate university curriculum planning and instructional design methodologies to the latest trends in instructor-led, web-based and mobile learning. Given that we’re in the business of communicating, having access to a worldwide membership of chief learning officers, corporate training managers, instructional designers, instructional technologists, and training industry support professionals is welcome news! There isn’t much information yet on the website’s temporary “coming soon” page about the full website—which is being privately developed by a group of chief learning officers, instructional designers, instructional technologists and corporate trainers—but you can pre-register for a reduced membership fee. Check it out at www.corporatelearningforum.com!

E-Learning is Good for the Environment

Organizations have paid close attention to the cost reductions associated with online learning and reduced travel. However, have you ever thought about the environmental energy savings and benefits? Probably not. You may be surprised, then, to discover that a recent study by Britain’s Open University found huge energy savings associated with e-learning! Let’s take a look at what they found.

Consider the energy consumption that occurs whenever employees travel to attend training sessions, seminars, conventions, and face-to-face meetings. Environmental impacts include fuel for transportation (plane, train, bus, car, taxi); electricity to light and heat (or cool) conference rooms, training facilities, and hotel rooms; electricity and water to launder sheets and towels; and gas and electricity for restaurants to cook meals. Imagine also the mounds of paper used for all the training manuals, brochures, business cards, and handouts that are distributed at these events. On top of it all, add in the rising costs of fuel and travel.

Now consider the many e-learning formats that provide energy-saving alternatives to traditional classes and meetings. Synchronous online classes and seminars, asynchronous e-courses, self-study programs, online collaboration (blogs and wikis), rapid e-learning, you name it. Here comes the good part!... Open University’s study found that producing and providing distance learning courses consumes an average of 90% less energy and produces 85% fewer CO2 emissions per student than conventional face-to-face courses. Wow! Double wow!

Now think of all the trees that are saved by e-learning. Using online content, PDF manuals, synchronous classrooms, and other web-based tools, acres and acres of forests can be saved. Factor in the resources required to manufacture paper, such as water, electricity, fuel, bleach, and other chemicals, and you can really see the environmental benefits of online learning.

Mobile (m-learning) provides distance learning via audio and video blogs, web-based conferencing, handheld devices, video phones, iPods, and MP3 players. As m-learning continues to grow, we will continue to see a reduction in energy consumption and an increase in technological changes enabling richer content over ever-smaller devices.

The Open University study also found that learning online transformed students’ attitudes about how they can learn and work without traveling. They began shopping more online, corresponding more via email, and doing more research on the internet.

I hope organizations begin to recognize the extremely important benefits to our environment – not just to a company’s bottom-line – that e-learning provides.

Mother Earth will surely thank us.

The (Near) Future of e-Learning

The eLearning Guild (www.elearningguild.com) recently published their second annual report, titled “Future Directions in e-Learning Research Report 2006.” The majority of the study's 20,000 respondents believed that e-learning remains a rapidly growing practice with a bright future – that it serves a useful purpose and is here to stay. In fact, the study authors conclude that “just about everything ‘e-learning’ is on the increase.”

When asked which e-learning activity will need the most focus and attention, the most popular response was “Designing and developing e-learning content.” When asked what their organizations’ highest e-learning priority is for 2006, the most popular answer choice was “Improve the quality of e-learning content.” These results prove that “Content Remains King!” Instructional designers, buckle your seatbelts!!

Another item that respondents focused on was rapid development. Almost 80% of respondents say their organizations will increase their attention to “Rapid e-learning design and development.” Rapid e-learning was not included in last year’s study; yet this year it made its debut in the number one spot!

The study also found that the following emerging e-learning modalities are clearly on the rise in many organizations: blogging, podcasting, mobile learning (m-learning), and games.

So much fun to be had - by designers, developers, trainers, and students alike!

Corporate Podcasting

I have received many emails and phone calls about corporate podcasting since mentioning it in previous posts. I have even been interviewed by a couple of magazines, so I remain on the lookout for news on the continued growth of this very cool communication and learning medium. Chief Learning Officer's (CLO) Kellye Whitney wrote something interesting this week about how Prentice Hall is using podcasting to help train their own traveling textbook sales reps.

The vice president of Business Publishing at Prentice Hall believes that people learn best when they're stimulated and when the information is informative and also entertaining, which he believes they can and are doing with podcasting. Needless to say, podcasting also makes the information highly convenient and remarkably accessible! As a result, mobile learning options such as podcasting could very well allow for greater absorption of information. And that's what it's all about in today's competitive corporate arena, wouldn't you say? If done well, of course, mobile learners can enjoy training that is more along the lines of infotainment than just pure information.

The CLO article also cites some interesting 2005 statistics from a study conducted by a mobile market intelligence company called CLX:

• 15% of US respondents listen to podcasts
• The two groups most likely to listen to podcasts are 45-55 year olds and 55+ year olds

Are you as surprised to read this as I was? It appears that this new-fangled technology called podcasting can be used to create learning programs that appeal to all ages! (I just can't yet picture my parents or grandparents walking around listening intently to iPods, but you never know!)

BIG for 2006: LCMSs, Podcasting, and Outsourcing

What's expected to be really hot in 2006 and beyond? Outsourcing training design and development, podcasting, and LCMSs. According to the awesome online magazine Elearning!:

LCMSs

• 42% of organizations with LMSs (learning management system) are planning to acquire some type of LCMS (learning content management system). The $30 million LCMS market will grow by 30% next year! Of course, the LMS market is expected to continue to grow and mature, as will the demand for on-demand LMSs (such as GeoLearning and Learn.com), especially for mid-size companies.

Podcasting

• According to Josh Bersin of Bersin & Associates, as mentioned in Elearning! magazine, true on-demand learning solutions are growing in interest, and include podcasts, RSS feeds, expert directories, highly personalized learning paths and powerful search technologies.
• Podcasts are expected to exceed 62 million by 2010, from 5 million in 2005 and only 1 million in 2004.

Outsourcing

• The most frequently outsourced items have been technology intrastructure, and content design, development, and delivery. That's great news for CramerSweeney Instructional Design, since that is what we do: instructional design and development for both e-learning and ILT (instructor-led training)!
• Outsourcing is growing and attitudes toward outsourcing are positive. When companies try it, they like it. Content modification (conversion to e-learning) will see greater outsourcing next year and beyond.

Good News!

E-learning is projected to continue growing, at a rate of 35% next year, with the e-learning content side (instructional design) remaining the largest market opportunity.

More good news from the ASTD (American Society for Training & Development): US organizations are increasing their investments in employee learning, to the tune of 16.4% more. Annual training expenditure per employee increased to $944, up from $820 last year. Formal training per employee increased from 26 hours to 32 hours. Training delivered via technology increased from 24% to 28%.

More Cool Statistics & Trivia

• Number of registered websites in 1995: 18,957
  Number of registered websites in 2005: 74,409,971
  Wow! Now that's real growth!
• The ratio of average CEO pay to average production worker pay:
  1982 - 42:1
  1990 - 107:1
  2001 - 525:1
  2004 - 431:1
  At least the gap may have started to close the last few years.

Predictions for 2006

Several recent e-newsletters have shared various predictions for 2006 in terms of technology, corporate education, and e-learning. Here are some of the predictions:

• The use of e-learning will continue to increase
• ROI measurements will improve
• Outsourcing of learning and development functions will increase - especially the outsourcing of learning delivery, content design and development and custom e-learning (think CramerSweeney Instructional Design!)
• E-learning will continue to expand into more electronic gadgets and gizmos - such as audio podcasting and video podcasting, video blogs (v-logs or vodcasts), even blogs integrated into LMS platforms
• As an extension of the previous bullet, m-learning (mobile learning) will really come of age, as new video features will be exploited for e-learning in the expanding array of mobile devices (cell phones, iPods)
• Use of web-based simulations and business games will continue to increase

Free LMS!

Check this out! I never thought I'd see the day when a company created an easy-to-use LMS and then gave it away for FREE. It's called Nuvvo and was developed by Savvica. While it is not an enterprise-wide LMS, it could very well serve the needs of many individuals, organizations, and professors. (Savvica is currently developing an enterprise edition, which I presume will not be free. Look for it in 2006!)

This is what Savvica says about Nuvvo:

The Personal Learning Management System --
Call it bite-sized, mini, or LMS Lite; we call it Nuvvo, the first eLearning service for the individual instructor. Now it is easier than ever to create your own eLearning Portal from which to create a multimedia hub for your classroom, post prep. and follow-up for your live sessions, or run stand-alone courses online. With simple yet powerful content-creation, communication, and evaluation tools, Nuvvo is broadening the horizons of online education.

Take a look at this product. You will be pleasantly surprised, I promise.

New Learning Tool: Instant Messaging!

Our company has been using instant messaging (IM) for two years and wouldn't live without it! It is by far the most effective and efficient method of communication today. In fact, 90% of organizations already have IM on their networks, and some analysts predict that IM will outpace email. IMs take mere seconds to write, send, and receive a response back. They are quick and informal.

While considered a bit more aggressive - and therefore more efficient - than emails, IMs are less intrusive than phone calls. Despite my extroverted personality, I prefer people to contact me at work via IM, email, or phone - in that order.

As a simple communication tool (we'll get to how it can be a learning tool in a minute), IM offers several benefits:

1. IM users can easily see who else is online and available. Users should set up their IM program to log in automatically upon turning on their PCs each morning. That way they do not have to remember to do this separately. Whenever desired, users can set their IM to "away" to indicate they are not currently available (when they are out for lunch or a meeting, for instance).
2. IM users can get immediate responses to their IMs, which can increase productivity.
3. IMs are conveniently accessed from PCs and mobile devices, so IM apps can be used both at the office and on the road.
4. An IM can be an online conversation between two people or a group of people.
5. IM allows you to multitask (something I do all the time!): A user can respond to email, participate on a conference call, and respond to instant messages at the same time.

How can trainers and managers use IM as a learning tool? Let us count the ways in which IM contributes to knowledge-sharing:

1. If struggling with a procedure, it's easier and quicker to IM someone than to take the time to hunt down the answer in a user manual. IM can provide an immediate response and save time.
2. Managers can use IM to coach their staff. Managers tend to be more direct and honest in their IMs and emails than in person; and employees are often more likely to ask for help.
3. Trainers can offer "online office hours" by setting time each week when learners can contact them online and get immediate replies to their inquiries.
4. In the same way, trainers can offer "Ask the Trainer" sessions around specific topics the trainer determines and broadcasts in advance.
5. Group chats via IM can bring peers together to discuss specific topics or situations. It can be a powerful way to connect participants and co-workers.

Always keeps IM conversations short and end them gracefully when the chat is over. When used properly, IM is a terrific tool that can accelerate learning within any organization!

Bersin & Associates' 2005-2006 Industry Analysis

How fortunate I was about a month ago to receive a personal email from Josh Bersin of Bersin & Associates! He wrote to me as a result of finding this blog. As I candidly told him, I was honored to personally "meet" him, even via email, since I have tremendous respect for and interest in his industry research and reports. And each year, I thoroughly enjoy reading his industry analysis of e-learning trends for this past year and predictions for the year ahead. I thank you again, Josh, for getting in touch with me!

Bersin & Associates' "Enterprise Learning 2006" report has arrived, and I'd like to share just a few of the highlights with you that I found particularly interesting. For the entire interesting 29-page report and details, please go to www.bersin.com and click on the link under Hot New News for "2006 Predictions analyst insights."

• A year-by-year comparison graph of corporate training delivery by method shows that in 1999 80% of training was delivered via ILT, 12% via other/books, and 8% via e-learning. In 2005, only 63% of training was delivered via ILT, 8% via other/books, and 28% via e-learning. Growth in e-learning in 2004 alone was 25%; in 2005 e-learning grew 40%!
• Bersin & Associates believes that "no one questions whether e-learning is a good idea any more (at least not in the U.S.)." It is widely regarded as a great tool for teaching and communication.
• For the first year in many years, 46% of training budgets increased a little or a lot. Technology costs are responsible for much of the increase.
• Bersin & Associates has found that "e-learning has changed the economics of training." E-learning requires a larger up-front investment than previously understood. E-learning does, however, "shift variable training costs into fixed costs. It reduces cost per student hour, enabling training and information to reach more people more often."
• The "corporate university" model is being replaced by "learning services organizations." The focus is changing from "you come to us to be trained" to "we will deliver the training, support, and consulting you need - right to you - anytime, anywhere."
• 2005 saw increases in blended learning, rapid e-learning, and learning content management systems (LCMS). In 2005 we also saw the introduction of on-demand learning via RSS and podcasts (check out http://www.technologyreview.com/InfoTech/wtr_15940,300,p1.html), and continued growth and consolidation of learning management systems (LMS).
• Rapid e-learning is taking off at such a high speed due to the time-critical (a few weeks) nature of many training programs. Of the 300+ Bersin & Associates survey respondents, 100% said that their programs were in some way time critical: 46% said so of "most of" their programs, 26% said so of "a lot of" their programs, 22% said "some of" their programs, and 6% said "a few of" their programs. There is no denying Bersins prediction that most organizations will be evaluating and using rapid e-learning tools and approaches in the year ahead.
• Live (synchronous) e-learning will continue a dramatic growth rate. Seems that "everybody's doing it" these days! Examples of these tools are WebEx, Centra, Interwise, Microsoft Live Meeting, and Breeze Live.

As I have already said, these are just a few of the trends that I found compelling. Read the entire report for your own perspectives.

"Course Casting" is Here!

Two posts ago (E-Learning Will Continue its Growth!), I mentioned that delivery of learning will become increasingly mobile. Then I read the November 28, 2005, Newsweek article Professor In Your Pocket and learned how swiftly this has already become a reality! And I am confident that this is barely the tip of the iceberg.

Much to the dismay of some high-tuition-paying parents who believe in the effectiveness of traditional classroom lectures and professor-student interactions, "course casting" is now really here! It has been implemented this year on a dozen college campuses, such as Stanford, Purdue, Duke, Drexel, and U. of Washington. Simply stated, college students can skip classes and download lectures onto their iPods. The idea is to use course casting to supplement, and occasionally replace, large and impersonal lectures. Parents believe that these "lectures-to-go" are not giving them - or their college-age children - their money's worth.

Newsweek writer Peg Tyre ponders, "Could ivy-covered lecture halls become as obsolete as the typewriter?... course casting has become as popular as a keg party on homecoming weekend." Consider these numbers. At Purdue (enrollment 38,000), students have downloaded 40,000 lectures since the start of this semester!

Today's savvy college kids, who have been downloading songs onto their iPods and MP3s for years, love the format and convenience offered by course casting, and don't expect their parents to understand. Read the full Newsweek article for both the proponents' viewpoints and the potential pitfalls of course casting. It is certainly a very different world from my own college days! I can't help but wonder what campus life and learning will be like when my three boys enter college in less than 10 years.

Step Outside the Box of Taditional E-Course Design

Suppose you want to make your e-learning courses more interactive for learners. The 2005 book Renaissance eLearning, by Samantha Chapnick and Jimm Meloy, will give you 16 chapters full of great ideas! It is an excellent source for learning creative ways to break out of the traditional e-learning course design box.

Here are just a few ideas from the book:

1. Provide opportunities that allow learners to experiment with different cause-and-effect situations and scenarios. Their judgment skills are strengthened as they experience the outcomes of their actions.
2. Give participants tasks (hurdles) and a wide variety of ways to accomplish each task. This forces learners to analyze their actions, apply hindsight, and learn from what was done through trial and error.
3. Provide opportunities for debriefing sessions with a facilitator or other participants where they can analyze their actions and choices.
4. Build in adjusting levels of difficulty. E-learning modules should adjust to the learners' progress, by both redirecting them to different content and adjusting challenge difficulty along the way.
5. Allow learners to check their assumptions and the knowledge they have gained throughout the learning at certain "knowledge check points".
6. Use real people and real peoples' words. When possible, use actual conversations as the dialog in a program to enhance the realism of the e-learning.

While these suggestions are terrific, I recommend the entire book for ideas on how to: create convincing dialog, include metaphors and figures of speech, create good graphical styles, and put things into perspective for your learners. You can't miss with this one!

E-Learning Will Continue its Growth!

Findings from a study by SkillSoft, written by Bersin & Associates and highlighted in a recent article in Chief Learning Officer, show that e-learning will continue its healthy growth rates within organizations of all types and sizes. E-learning will comprise 33% of all corporate training in 2005. This growth is expected to continue into 2006: 77% of respondents said that use of e-learning would increase within their organizations over the next year.

The study reorts several major shifts in the use of corporate e-learning:

• An explosive growth in the use of online books and other reference materials.
• Off-the-shelf course use has broadened widely. To add to IT and software training, organizations now rely on e-courses for leadership, finance, HR, project management, and compliance training.
• Growing interest in true on-demand learning solutions (incorporating RSS feeds, podcasts, etc.).

At Tata Learning Forum 2005, the world's top e-learning leaders discussed the industry's key trends and issues. Highlights included:

• The delivery of learning will become increasingly mobile.
• Upcoming generations of workers will show a marked preference for learning via problem solving simulations and gaming.
• Learning will remaind strongly dependent on high quality instructional design. CEO of the University of Phoenix Online, Brian Mueller, stated, "If content is king, instructional design is the genius in learning."

A Plethora of E-Learning Articles

I just came across an online resource of interesting e-learning articles. The website home page is titled "Online Journal of Distance Learning Administration" (from the State University of West Georgia). While the subject of the articles and studies leans strongly toward online instruction at the university level, much information can be gleaned and applied to the corporate e-learning world as well! Just click on the season headers (e.g. Fall 2005) and gain immediate access to the articles there. To my readers who are "uni" students, this link could be very helpful to you in your course research!

Training ROI

I apologize for being away from my blogging responsibilities for so long! Client biz and deadlines have pushed my blogging activities to the back burner. But I am back!

I have written about training ROI in previous posts. Today I want to share some very interesting new information that I read. Don't we all want proof that "Training Works"? I know I do!

A decade of research performed by Lauri Bassi (CEO of McBassi & Company and former VP of Research at ASTD) shows that there is a connection between organizational performance and investment in training. In an interview with Online Learning News and Reviews, she was asked "How much better do firms that invest in their people do in terms of market performance?" Her answer? She has discovered that "a firm's investment in employee training is the SINGLE MOST POWERFUL PREDICTOR of stock prices that we can find." OK, even I was surprised to read this! Through her research and investment activities, she has seen first hand how investing in employee training means that you can out-perform your competition.

Some companies understand the importance of training and development because their leaders truly perceive employees as an asset and not an expense. Ms. Bassi believes that all companies should focus on optimizing people as assets. If your company's culture does not subscribe to this view, you can work internally to change that culture. According to Ms. Bassi, "research-based evidence we have presented in articles can be attention-grabbing for executives because the publications speak their language." Go ahead and stick these articles under your company's executives' noses! I did a quick Google search (for McBassi & Company, for instance) and easily found some of the information to which she refers.

And don't forget to send me a comment to let me know how you do! Good luck!

Lost Knowledge as Our Workforce Ages

The "Brain Drain" Dilemma

There is increasing concern among corporate executives about the imminent loss of employee knowledge and experience due to the aging and retirement of older Americans. Knowledge and experience that are vital to companies will be moving on. Many organizations are failing to capture critical workforce knowledge and experience and transfer that knowledge to newer employees. Companies should begin to focus on implementing formal workforce planning processes and tools and workforce training initiatives to capture this valuable institutional knowledge before their most experienced employees walk out their doors for good.

More than 25% of the current working U.S. population will reach retirement by 2010, resulting in a potential worker shortage of close to 10 million people. For any company, the introduction of a massive workforce development plan will present a large burden. Supporting these initiatives with technology will help to ease that burden by capturing critical information and more rapidly and accurately distributing it directly to employees' desktops via e-learning. An additional strategy is to hire retired employees as contractors so those former employees can transfer their knowledge and skills to their replacements.

The Benefits of Outsourcing Training

Outsourcing at least parts of their training programs is nothing new for many training managers. Companies outsource the responsibility and accountability for their training function to an outside vendor, who then delivers it back in a cheaper, better, faster form. At least that's the way it's supposed to work.

Outsourced learning is often necessary for small organizations with scant training staff and resources. Major companies such as Boeing, however, are outsourcing more and more of their training programs as well. Recent research by industry analyst IDC shows that training tops the list of functions that corporate executives are now outsourcing - more so than sales, marketing, HR, finance and accounting.

Outsourcing is a big decision that is quite complex. What corporations are realizing today is that training and training management are not their core competencies and that they cannot do any of it at the level of quality and value that they need. Therefore, they have somebody else do it all for them. Outsourcing the back end of training - administration, transactional activities, training design and development, and technology, for example - occurs when training managers believe an outside vendor can provide the service better and more cheaply, leaving internal staff to focus on meaningful training issues.

How Training Managers are Responding to Growth

This past year, we have been enjoying economic recovery and business re-growth. As a result, the demand for corporate learning - and especially e-learning - has been on the rise. The IOMA surveyed training managers about how they will handle organizational growth. Their answers? More training and more technology. The solid majority (75%) said they would expand training programs. Over 65% said they would leverage existing technology. And almost 53% will purchase new technology of web-based training applications.

Training Program Improvements That Work

Training managers are shifting their focus from training for training's sake to ensuring that training supports the business needs of the organization. Training professionals describe program design and delivery changes in order to address business problems or the needs of internal business units. Executives now want to see measurable business results in connection to training expenses.

In response to these new demands placed on training effectiveness ROI, many training managers now say that they have instituted the following four training improvements - and with great success:

1. Putting needs assessments and knowledge assessments in the forefront of the training planning process. A more targeted assessment process ensures the delivery of the right education to the right individuals at the right time - proactively, not reactively.

2. Finding links between learning and job performance. Management is eager to see proof that learning transfers to the job and produces business and productivity results. Organizations are beginning to overtly connect learning programs to organizational goals.

3. Adding more "e" in learning. Online learning is establishing itself as an extremely cost-effective and efficient way to augment training design, administration and delivery.

4. Selling the training programs. Companies that promote their programs more aggressively, with a focus on the business needs the training will address, enjoy increased participation so the training department doesn't have to repeat sessions as often.

Educational Blogging Presentation

A few days ago, I gave an educational presentation about blogging to the marketing committee of the Chamber of Commerce of Southern New Jersey. One of the attendees, Steven Lubetkin, the managing partner of Lubetkin & Co., mentioned that he had become involved in podcasting. He digitally recorded our meeting and added the resulting high-quality "podcast" to his own blog. Steve's blog does a truly wonderful job highlighting the main points of our blogging discussion and providing some of the important links to blogs and web sites that I shared with the committee. Thank you, Steve! Take a look at the Tuesday, April 05, 2005 entry on his blog. The podcast recording of this blogging session on Steve's blog, as well as the links Steve included from our session, are extremely helpful to any of you who may be new to blogging and are thinking of starting your own. Click here for a direct link to the podcast. It is a big file and may take a little while to open, but it will be worth it!

Podcast Training - Huh?

Since the blog just above this one introduces podcasting, I thought I should talk to you about how podcasts can be used for online learning! The term "podcasting" is a portmanteau of the words iPod and broadcasting. Although an iPod is currently the playback device of choice for many early adopters of podcasting (and young people who have iPods), a portable music player is not required to take advantage of this method of content distribution. Podcasts are simply MP3 files that can be listened to from any digital audio player or computer. Check Wikipedia's (an awesome, free online encyclopedia!) definition of podcasting.

So instead of having to read new content on a computer screen, you can listen to the audio content on a portable device like an iPod as well as your computer. Steve Sloan of Edupodder.com has this to say: "[Podcasting] has been described as being like underground radio. Except this broadcasting technology is becoming available to everyday users. It does for time-based content, like audio and potentially video, what the web did for text publishing. It is the audio version of a blog!"

How then is podcasting - or how can it be - tied to online learning? Nobody yet knows; it's still in its infancy. However, we already know that podcasting is full of elearning possibilities. It seems that subscribing to audio feeds could have tons of elearning applications. Check out some of the interesting examples in this blog. Also, see what Edugagdet is saying, Edupodder.com, and the Edupodder Weblog!

Some examples of corporate training uses of podcasts include:
- Deliver missed lectures/training sessions
- Present a recorded interview as a case study
- Deliver "take-them-with-you" audio files, provided to training attendees on CD or via email

Feel like trying podcasting yourself but don't know where to begin? Are you interested in a super easy way to try, create and distribute podcasts? Here's a description of a new product called Odeo (pronounced like rodeo). Steve Sloan of Edupodder feels "This is huge for education!" Also, here is a direct link to the Odeo product blog. Finally, here is a February 2005 New York Times article about Odeo. I have to admit that I have not yet tried Odeo myself, but it sure does look simple!

In a couple of years we should see more convergence between PDA users (yes, I have a Blackberry) wanting MP3 features (that would be cool), and that's when podcasting will become more realistic for corporate training. Since iPods are used mostly by young people (each of our three sons has one, but my husband and I do not), adult listeners can burn podcasts to CDs for listening on the road. Or borrow their children's iPods (hah!).

What intrigues me the most about the inevitable merging together of podcasting and elearning is the portability angle. Most any web-based learning management system has some built-in way to handle audio files to be listened to on your PC. It's the idea of letting an online learner escape from sitting at a desk or dragging around a laptop that makes my wheels turn... We live in very exciting times!

Statistics Prove e-Learning's Continued Growth

I find statistics fascinating. Here are some that came across my desk today:

• Online learning technologies and services grew to become a $23 billion global industry last year.
• That reflects an annual growth rate of 20 percent.
• There are now about 130 million online learners across the world.

Those numbers are astounding, and will just keep rising!

Training - It's a No-Brainer!

Why Wouldn't You Provide Training? Check Out All the Good It Can Bring Your Organization!

Increasingly, management recognizes that training offers a way of developing skills, enhancing productivity and quality of work, and building worker loyalty to the firm. Training is also widely accepted as a method of improving employee morale, but there are also many other reasons for the growing importance and need for training in today's corporate environment. Other factors include the complexity of the work environment, the rapid pace of organizational and technological change, and the growing number of jobs in fields that constantly generate new knowledge. In addition, advances in learning theory have provided insights into how adults learn, and how training can be organized most effectively for them.

Trainers respond to corporate and worker service requests. They consult with onsite supervisors regarding available performance improvement services and conduct orientation sessions and arrange on-the-job training for new employees. They help rank-and-file workers maintain and improve their job skills, and possibly prepare for jobs requiring greater skill. They help supervisors improve their interpersonal skills in order to deal effectively with employees. They may set up individualized training plans to strengthen an employee’s existing skills or teach new ones. Training specialists in some companies set up leadership or executive development programs among employees in lower level positions. These programs are designed to develop potential executives to replace those leaving the organization. Trainers also lead programs to assist employees with transitions due to mergers and acquisitions, as well as technological changes.

Planning and program development is an important part of the training specialist’s job. In order to identify and assess training needs within the firm, trainers may confer with managers and supervisors or conduct surveys. They also periodically evaluate training effectiveness.

Depending on the size, goals, and nature of the organization, trainers may differ considerably in their responsibilities and in the methods they use. Training methods include on-the-job training; apprenticeship training; classroom training; and electronic learning, which may involve interactive Internet-based training, multimedia programs, distance learning, satellite training, other computer-aided instructional technologies, videos, simulators, conferences, and workshops.

As you can see, the possibilities and benefits are endless.

e-Learning Too Expensive for Medium to Small Companies

Beating the high costs of e-Learning implementation has been a desire of mine for a very long time, especially when it comes to saving money for my clients. I have always believed that many small to medium sized companies have not enjoyed the benefits that high quality e-Learning programs can offer simply because of their exceedingly high price tags, especially for custom e-Learning. Some custom e-Learning companies quote upwards of over $50,000 (yes, that's $50K) for a two-hour, Flash-based online tutorial!

In January 2005, Andy Hughes (Director, Spirit Consulting Group) wrote that the evidence he has "seen relating to the uptake of e-Learning points to the fact that big businesses have more money to spend and, therefore, are more likely to attract e-Learning suppliers and developers. The cost of implementation is still too high for e-Learning to make a noticeable impact in a business. Most smaller firms are unlikely to have enough surplus profit to plough into e-Learning platforms or courseware."

Hughes continued by saying, "We have yet to see the significant reduction in the cost of e-Learning that would be associated with a maturing market... It will be another two or three years before we see general e-Learning costs reduce enough to make it viable for" companies to make a reasonable investment in it.

What to do in the meantime? Rapid e-Learning tools are on the rise, and they are becoming more and more robust. No matter how you decide to employ these tools - that is, whether you expend valuable internal resources or you hire an outside instructional design firm, these tools can save you loads of money and time. If you do not have the appropriate people or time resources (or instructional design know-how) to commit to creating affordable, rapid e-Learning programs internally, you can still save a great deal of money by contracting an instructional design firm to implement your custom rapid e-Learning than by hiring a super-expensive e-Learning/graphics company (remember that $50K figure?).

Internal Marketing for e-Learning Success!

People's perceptions of e-Learning can either make or break your efforts and the success of your e-Learning programs. In order for e-learning to succeed and for it to become fully integrated into an organization, the training must have a high profile and make an impact from the start. How can you ensure high levels of take up and completion rates from the get-go? Launch a full internal marketing campaign!

As part of your marketing campaign:

• Clearly and "loudly" communicate the benefits of e-Learning, targeting specific messages to different audiences depending on job roles (e.g. sales training for the sales force). Pique everyone's interest.
• Convey a clear brand and identity for e-Learning, such as a logo, image or name. This will raise the profile, recognition, status and perceived value of the program substantially.
• Show positive and visible endorsements and support from senior management that they believe e-Learning is an important tool for the business.
• Hold an e-Learning launch event to generate excitement and interest. Include hands-on sessions and take-away information, such as simple brochures.
• Develop an informercial. This is a one-off piece of marketing collateral that can be used via email, the Intranet and public display units highlighting the e-Learning opportunities and benefits you offer. I worked in the training department at one company where we had developed an impressive 3-minute Flash-based infomercial and even hired a professional to provide the voiceovers. We (the instructors) played the infomercial for 15 minutes (it looped repeatedly) just prior to starting our classes while students were signing in, getting their coffee/tea, taking their seats, getting settled in, and waiting for class to begin. In fact, we played the informercial at the start of both internal (employee) and external (client) revenue-generating classes. What a captive audience!! People loved having something to watch and listen to as they relaxed before class. It not only served to entertain people while waiting with nothing else to do, but it clearly advertised and promoted our training courses and curricula!!
• Encourage people to come back for more and take multiple courses by instituting a loyalty/ "air mile" scheme. Allow learners to accrue points for courses completed to be exchanged for goods or vouchers.
• Get feedback and testimonials from your learners. Ask them what they think are the real benefits to them of e-Learning. Publicize positive feedback and success stories, such as someone receiving a promotion as a results of skills acquired through e-Learning.
• Be sure to create an e-Learning page on your company's Intranet site. This page will be the main portal to all e-Learning throughout the company. The page must convey your new image, logo, name, brand, identity, etc. Advertise the link to this page on every communication (emails, hand-outs, bulletin board postings). This page should make it very clear and easy how to access the e-Learning courses/programs that you are making available there.

The CramerSweeney Family of Companies at www.CramerSweeney.com can help you with all of the ideas presented here. The CramerSweeney family of companies includes: CramerSweeney Advertising & Public Relations, CramerSweeney Instructional Design, CramerSweeney Non-Profit Solutions, Global Access Technologies, and PublicityFinder.com. We provide creative/design services, customized corporate training materials and e-Learning, public/media relations, fundraising, development and grant-writing, interactive and multimedia services, and on-line publicity through one of the nation’s largest publicity portals.

Variety is "Spice of Life" in Effective Learning Programs

The results of the 2004 e-Learning Trends survey by THINQ are very interesting! I thought I would share the highlights with you here. In a nutshell, e-Learning continues to make in-roads and increase in popularity within most organizations, but the consensus is that a variety of learning approaches is the best way to go.

Thirty-five learning organizations were asked to select their top three learning tools. 92% said that e-Learning programs were the most effective element in their learning environment, followed closely by instructor-led courses at 86%. A majority of respondents incorporated programs like virtual classrooms and on-the-job training into their blended learning initiatives. In fact, a preponderance of those surveyed leverage these elements more frequently than face-to-face tutoring and mentoring.

A significant point is that a one-size-fits-all approach will not work in a progressive learning organization. Blended learning, on the other hand, allows learning organizations to accommodate individual learning styles while ensuring that critical content is delivered and understood.
Click here to read more.

Build a Business Case for e-Learning

If you are in the midst of requesting funding and resources for e-Learning development, check out this article by Ed Mayberry for Learning Circuits, ASTD's Source for e-Learning. In the face of an economic downturn, many business managers will push back development requests that lack a clearly defined business case. Unfortunately, not all HR and training professionals know where to begin to create one. Here's some help.

Essentially, a business case is a form of gap analysis. It describes the organization's current status versus the desired status and how the organization can achieve its goals. A well-formulated business case is... Click here to finish this helpful article.

More on Training Analytics

In my last post, I shared Bersin & Associates' assertion that very few companies are successfully measuring the learning effectiveness or business impact of their training programs. However, organizations should be--and want to be--performing those training analytics. They just lack the experience, tools and resources to do so. A second Bersin & Associates training analytics report came out this week supporting the first report and providing more detailed information. The full name of this Training Analytics: Overview is "Training Analytics: What Works? What is Training Analytics? How do you get started?"

Key Points:

• Measuring training and e-Learning is so important because training is a large investment (companies spend between 1%-4% of total payroll on training--that's $700 to $1,400 per employee per year) and training can generate large amounts of revenue (for product centric businesses that offer customer education and training). Therefore, companies must track and understand the activity, effectiveness and impact of e-Learning and training.
  
• The three important training issues discussed in this report are effectiveness, efficiency and compliance. Benchmarks and measures must be established in each area.
  
• Training must be correlated to business measures (ROI), such as sales revenue, productivity, turnover and product quality.
  
• Training organizations need "actionable" information--information that is specific and detailed enough that specific actions can be taken on it. The report provides examples to illustrate actionable data.
  
• It is time for companies to add "measurement systems" (training analytics) to their training budgets. Even spending just "$2-$10 per learner on a training analytics system can provide dramatic improvements in the measurability and ROI of training."
  
• Since most companies are migrating 10%-50% or more of their training to e-Learning, more and more data is available now than ever before--such as enrollments, student-hours, completion rates, scores and dropout rates. You can start with these data and reports from your LMS, but that's not enough. Your LMS will not provide the analysis you need.
  
• Analytics solutions typically add on to LMS systems and capture data from the LMS as well as other sources. You will need information about costs, revenue, the organizational hierarchy, non-learning data (such as sales data), etc.

With a training analytics solution, companies can rapidly improve their learning programs to deliver higher ROI. This Bersin & Associates report mentions and discusses two turnkey analytics solutions available today: Saba and SumTotal.

Excerpted from www.bersin.com

Training Analytics

Measuring Training and ROI

In late 2004, Bersin & Associates surveyed 6,000 training professionals to understand how they are currently measuring the effectiveness of their training programs. The researchers at Bersin & Associates believe that “measurement, analytics, and benchmarking are critical tools to help training organizations optimize their programs to drive higher and higher business value.” The compelling results of this research were published this week in a new report called Training Analytics: Market Research. It's full heading is: "Training Analytics: A Market Analysis -- How Do Companies Measure Training and ROI?”.

Key Findings:

1. Most organizations routinely measure training volumes (enrollments, completions, hours delivered), learner satisfaction, and total training costs. These measures are the easiest to obtain and are widely used by about 75% of the companies surveyed.
2. The majority of organizations consider the business impact of training to be the most valuable information to obtain, but very few firms (only 11%) are actually measuring it. The reason for this is a clear lack of tools and methodologies.
3. The top business impacts which companies measure are sales-related, quality-related, retention, and overall cost reduction.
4. Most organizations are not satisfied with their learning management systems’ ability to provide the requisite measurements and reporting information.
5. Spending on tracking and measurement is small today, but there is a strong demand for higher spending and resource allocation in this area.

Excerpted from www.bersin.com

Training Planning

It is important to develop a training plan for your organization. Specifically, it is important to plan training that links to organizational performance improvement. But this is not an easy task. In order to do this successfully, you must first identify your organization's performance needs, gaps, and priorities. Then you must also deal with potential conflicts among the decision makers. This article discusses the "training drivers" that indicate and dictate which areas need training, as well as the potential conflicts between HR/Training and management over training priorities. Click here to read the article.

Learning by Design: Games as Learning Machines

Jenna Sweeney
President & COO
CramerSweeney Instructional Design
CramerSweeney Family of Companies

I came across another interesting article about games as learning tools. The author of this article believes that “game designers can make worlds where people can have meaningful new experiences, experiences that their places in life would never allow them to have or even experiences no human being has ever had before. These experiences have the potential to make people smarter and more thoughtful. Good games already do this and they will do it more and more in the future.” Click here to read this in-depth article.

Game-based Learning Implications for e-Learning

Jenna Sweeney
President & COO
CramerSweeney Instructional Design
CramerSweeney Family of Companies

Much to my disappointment, e-Learning has become too much about replicating traditional education in an electronic format. So I’ve become fascinated with what is going on in the world of game-based learning / instructional gaming. From the game-based learning paradigm, training programs seek not to just give people user manuals or explanations of tools, but also (and more crucially) experiences where they are using those tools in to try to solve complex problems. Unlike more traditional approaches to learning, educational game designers most often start with the user experience, and more specifically, with what the user does.

I have found some interesting articles and research on game-based learning. I'll start by sharing with you the Kurt Squire report. Elliott Masie of the MASIE Center wrote, “Kurt Squire has written a provocative and passionate paper about the current and future roles for Gaming in Learning,” which will make some of you “want to start Gaming for Learning projects in your organizations.” Squire’s paper has made Masie and his associates feel “challenged and even uncomfortable with the characterization of e-Learning’s current 'flat' state.” Most critically for e-Learning instructional designers, the movement toward “serious games” challenges us to rethink fundamental assumptions about instructional design.

Read through this thought-provoking and motivating study (downloadable .PDF) by Kurt Squire, University of Wisconsin-Madison and sponsored by the e-Learning CONSORTIUM.

Take Full Advantage of Your Company's Training Offerings!

"Why?" you ask. It's a simple matter of exploding information.

The world's knowledge base doubles every 18 months. Standing still (i.e., thinking you already know what you need to know to do your job) actually means you're losing ground at a tremendous rate, often without even knowing it. In MonsterLearning's latest poll about time spent on career-related learning, almost one-third of community members say they spend more than five hours a week learning in one way or another, while another 29% say they invest from two to five hours. It's time for you to join this trend!
(Source: www.monster.com)

Designing Collaborative e-Learning for Results (using Blogs?!)

This article describes the tasks that go into designing collaborative e-Learning. Consider the possibilities that lie at the confluence of blogs and the collaborative strategies mentioned in this article. It points to a move away from designing for discrete events to designing for collaborative experiences. Click here for article.

How to Use Blogs to Create Engaging Learning Experiences

To continue my earlier discussion about the use of blogs in corporate training, this article by Maish Nichani suggests a method for utilizing blogs in corporate learning situations. He introduces a practical and simple three-step design methodology: 1) intelligence gathering, 2) co-creation (design and development), and 3) facilitated engagement.

Blogs Gaining Use for Corporate Learning and Communication

Jenna Sweeney
President & COO
CramerSweeney Instructional Design
CramerSweeney Family of Companies

I am having so much fun sharing tons of interesting ideas and facts about e-Learning and training with you - my readers and subscribers - via this blog. So I decided to look into how (or if) blogs are being utilized as a training tool. Bring together what I am writing about (corporate training and e-Learning) with HOW I am sharing this information (through a blog)!

My first thought was that a blog would be a great mechanism for supplying follow-up information to trainees after any training event. In a previous position, I taught several technical and data-intensive pharmaceutical industry courses to seasoned pharmaceutical clients. Occasionally, I would have to research an answer to a difficult question (or several difficult questions) and send the answers to all the trainees. This required that I gather each of their e-mail addresses (or take the time to pull them down from our LMS database) and hope that I didn't miss or misspell any of them as I emailed the answers a day or two after the class. A much better way to disseminate this information would have been to simply provide them all with a URL address to a blog and post the questions and answers there. This would also give them the opportunity to reply with comments or further questions (that would generate further information from me, the instructor). And to take it one step further, their comments and my answers/replies would all automatically be shared with everyone else from the class and other classes as well! If only I had known about blogs and corporate blogging back then!

Until now, e-mail has been a prominent and powerful tool for the distribution of and collaboration around information. However, e-mail is losing its effectiveness as a communications tool. It is difficult to categorize, to archive and to search. And it is easy for information to get lost or become part of the overload. Multiple threads of a conversation can be generated and not seen by everyone who needs the information. Blogging makes it easy for new parties to get the answers they need, get up to speed quickly on situations and collaborate around a solution. Besides, the blog enables information to be redistributed easily through content syndication, which is a way of subscribing to a person's or company's blog and getting automatic notices whenever the blog is updated. I offer a couple of simple way to subscribe to this blog right here in the right-hand column. ->

m-Learning: TRUE "Anytime, Anywhere Learning"

Just when you thought e-Learning made sense...along comes...(insert Jaws theme) - m-Learning! m-Learning (mobile learning) is the process of accessing learning materials using PDA's. m-Learning has value in a mobile and fast paced work force. Click here to finish this article and link to many more m-Learning resources.

Customer Training as a Vehicle to Gain Trust...

... and trust is a huge competitive advantage for any company.

A wise executive once said that people like to buy from their teachers. Why is that? Because invariably, the underlying, primary emotion you feel is - trust. The elusive notion of trust is a huge competitive advantage. Realizing that learning is a vehicle to gaining trust, many organization are employing the help of training and development staffs [and vendors] to focus on providing training for their customers. Gain their trust, and you can gain their loyalty and their business for years to come.

Many businesses have decided not to let the walls of their organization confine them when developing learning programs. While the bulk of their effort and dollars spent on learning still focuses internally on the human capital of the organization, a surprising amount of activity occurs in programs ainmed at external audiences. A great example is Harley-Davidson University.

By Kevin Oakes for Training & Development Magazine, March 2005. Entire article is on page 42 or can be purchased on the ASTD Online Store at http://store.astd.org (ask for Reprint TD050342).

Corporate Training and Education: No Train, No Gain

By Jenna Sweeney, President & COO
CramerSweeney Instructional Design
CramerSweeney Family of Companies

Still Missing the Training Boat? Properly training your staff is essential in today’s competitive marketplace. If you have remained on shore long after the boat has set sail, you are making a dangerously shortsighted mistake, especially if your competitors already jumped on board. While your company’s executives may credit their employees as being their most valuable assets, chances are they are still budgeting too little or nothing at all for training and education. Click here for full article.

Why We Need Good Instructional Design

Design is now part of all our daily lives. Just like architecture, literature, art, music and film, design is now a regular subject in magazines and newspapers. The names of designers or companies famous for their product design are now commonly known. And even if they are not particularly famous, virtually every item we handle or see in our daily lives has been designed by someone, somewhere.

But why are things “designed”? How many times do we look at something and remark that it is “badly designed” since it is unfit to do the job for which it was originally intended. Sometimes the design is beautiful to the eye but as a consequence of this, it is not fit for purpose – a chair that is uncomfortable to sit on or a car that is unreliable.

When it comes to a program of instruction, the same rules apply. Whatever the delivery platform, whether week long instructor-lead courses or a five minute chunk of web delivered performance support, it has to be designed correctly. This paper discusses just what good design means in this context and what research exists to back up these claims. Click here for full paper.
By Vaughan Waller

Enhanced Communication Through Corporate Training and Education - Increased business performance produces bottom-line results

By Jenna Sweeney
President & COO
CramerSweeney Instructional Design
CramerSweeney Family of Companies

Internal and External Communications
Corporate communications come in many shapes, sizes and flavors. You may communicate with your clients using advertising, publicity, media relations, articles, an external website, email - even a blog. You may offer internal employees various information resources such as policies, announcements, an internal secure website, newsletters, email, and an internal blog.

A sure-fire way, however, to increase and enhance your company's communications, visibility and image with internal employees and external clients is to offer training and education. Companies use various forms of instruction to inform people about their company, their products and services, career development, just about anything. Educating both the people who work for you and those for whom you work is vital in today's competitive landscape.

Benefits of Training
Providing training for your employees and clients - or improving the training that you already offer - can increase productivity through increased staff competency and increased asset utilization. When aligned to a specified gap or need, employee training builds workforce behaviors and skills that improve performance, productivity, and the bottom-line. Effective transfer of knowledge from the classroom to the workplace increases productivity, saving your organization time and money in the long-term. Client training increases your customers’ understanding and proficiency with your products, which improves customer satisfaction and keeps them coming back for more.

Free Tips & Techniques on e-Learning

Every month Bersin & Associates publishes free practical tips and articles excerpted from their ongoing, in-depth research about learning management systems (LMS), rapid instructional design, rapid e-Learning, what works in e-Learning, industry predictions, blended learning and more. Click here for these articles and tips.

Workflow Learning Gets Real

With the right perspective and some hard work, the training and development community can make learning a true business process. Learning will be fused into work, delivered in small fragments on whatever device tethers them to the Internet just when they need it. In other words, we will have what we call workflow learning. Click here for article.
www.trainingmag.com

2005: e-Learning Moves to the Front Lines

With several dynamics setting an exciting stage, 2005 is just the beginning of a new frontier for e-Learning. First, companies are preparing for an economic recovery, but until it becomes a sustained reality, they continue to operate lean and mean, with only minor increases in staff and budgets. Secondly, organizations have gained a good deal of experience over the last several years with various modes of delivering learning using technology. To date, the large majority of efforts have been inwardly focused, within a company's own employee base. Finally, advancements in technology are making it easier than ever to quickly develop and deliver e-Learning content, increasing all-important access to subject matter experts by those who need it.

Six Enterprise Learning Management Suites Evaluated

e-Learning plays an increasing role in business strategy, according to Forrester Research, Inc. (Nasdaq: FORR) While many firms adopted e-Learning technologies to educate their workforce to gain a competitive edge, savings on travel costs remains one of the largest benefits. Forrester Research, Inc. finds that today firms are more closely integrating learning applications with other company activities and elevating the role learning plays in their businesses' success. To help clients identify the best learning management system (LMS) for them, Forrester recently evaluated six LMSes. This technology allows firms to control, measure, and report on their deployed learning offerings, and often provides additional features such as analytics, performance management, and learning content management. Click here to read article.

e-Learning's BIG Statistics

e-Learning represents learning through varying and entertaining visual mediums, which is made increasingly possible by improvements in broadband technologies. In January 2003, the International Data Corporation (IDC) predicted that web-based training (WBT) in the US will total $18 billion in 2005, up from $4.2 billion in 2001. eMarketer's e-Learning Report (July 2003) predicted that the US corporate e-Learning market will quadruple over the next five years to reach over $16 billion by 2005/2006.

Benefits of e-Learning

e-Learning has definite benefits over traditional classroom training. While the most obvious are the flexibility and the cost savings from not having to travel or spend excess time away from work, there are also others that might not be so obvious. For example:

• It's less expensive to produce – Once your asynchronous training programs have been developed, e-Learning is virtually free once you reach the break-even point. Synchronous programs will have continued costs associated with the instructor managing the class, but will still be lower than traditional courses.
• It's self-paced - Most e-Learning programs can be taken when needed. The e-courses you set up allow the learner to go through smaller chunks of training that can be used and absorbed for a while before moving on.
• It moves faster - According to an article by Jennifer Salopek in "Training and Development Magazine," e-Learning courses progress up to 50 percent faster than traditional courses. This is partly because the individualized approach allows learners to skip material they already know and understand and move onto the issues they need training on.
• It provides a consistent message - e-Learning eliminates the problems associated with different instructors teaching slightly different material on the same subject. For company-based training, this is often critical.
• It can work from any location and any time - e-Learners can go through training sessions from anywhere, usually at anytime. This Just-In-Time (JIT) benefit can make learning possible for people who never would have been able to work it into their schedules prior to the development of e-Learning. (If you manage a corporate learning program, however, be careful about requesting that workers learn on their own time from home.)
• It can be updated easily and quickly - Online e-Learning sessions are especially easy to keep up-to-date because the updated materials are simply uploaded to a server. CD-ROM-based programs may be slightly more expensive to update and distribute, but still come out cheaper than reprinting manuals and retraining instructors.
• It can lead to increased retention and a stronger grasp on the subject - This is because of the many elements that are combined in e-Learning to reinforce the message, such as video, audio, quizzes, interaction, etc. There is also the ability to revisit or replay sections of the training that might not have been clear the first time around. Try that in a crowded auditorium!
• It can be easily managed for large groups of students – Learning Management Systems (LMS) allow corporate training directors, HR managers and others to keep track of the course offerings, schedule or assign training for employees and track their progress and results. Managers can review a student's scores and identify any areas that need additional training.

There are many advantages to e-Learning, and even the potential disadvantages (i.e. boring text-based courses, technophobia, loneliness) can be alleviated with a properly designed course.

Source: Exerpted from “How e-Learning Works,” by Lee Ann Obringer

IBM and ASTD Release Learning Survey Results - 12/2004

Data reveal organizations increasingly tap service providers for best practices, access to talent and cost reduction. Click here for summary of results of the "IBM/ASTD Learning Outsourcing Survey, 2004."

ASTD's 2004 State of the Industry Report Released

ASTD’s annual review of trends in workplace learning and performance finds learning expenditures stable, and technology usage rising. Click here to view the executive summary.

Rapid e-Learning: A Growing Trend

To be sure, even though e-Learning is having a major impact on corporate education, many believe it has never lived up to its promise. Enter rapid e-Learning. Click here for full story.
By Dianne Archibald

Putting the 'E' in Corporate Training

e-Learning systems are getting smarter, but enterprises aren't waiting for graduation day to implement these cost-cutting lessons. Click here for full article.
By Phyllis Klees

Mind/Brain Learning Principles

Interesting summary of 12 principles of how the brain learns. Click here to read article.
By Renate Nummela Caine and Geoffrey Caine.