Blog posts
The Ultimate eLearning Design and Development Checklist « Flirting w/ eLearning
Checklist for e-learning design and development, with points in many categories: instructional design, technical issues, accessibility, assessment, navigation, design, videos & animation, audio, graphics, text, fonts, testing (QA). This would be a nice starting point for customizing a checklist for a specific organization, tweaking it for particular needs.
Clive on Learning: Learning, learners and logistics
Questions to ask during the needs analysis phase, in three categories: learning, learners, and logistics. Some additional questions are in the comments, including some good questions about consequences for performance (very helpful, especially for developing scenarios).
Does Teaching Online Really Take More Time? - Faculty Focus | Faculty Focus
According to this survey, rethinking pedagogy for online takes longer than learning technology. Developing online courses does take longer, especially the first time, but as faculty gain experience, they become more efficient.
<p>In Freeman’s research, it appears that it takes an instructor a little longer to figure out what they want to do with the course pedagogically than to become comfortable with the technology. </p>
<p>“That’s one of the biggest things, that the technological learning curve is shorter than the pedagogical learning curve,” Freeman says. “The technology’s not the problem. It’s not what’s making people take longer when they teach.” </p>
Freeman was able to demonstrate that, once past the first online course, there is a significant reduction of instructor time. This leads him to believe that much of the complaint of excessive time consumption probably comes from the first-time experience.
Freeman’s data doesn’t challenge the assumption that it takes longer to develop an online course than a face-to-face course. What he has established is that the teaching, as well as the development, become less time consuming, and that that change can come as early as the second or third time out.
#LSCON day 3: Scenario based assesments and Choices – Challenge to learn
Recap of two LSCON presentations, one on scenario-based learning and the other on limiting choices to avoid choice overload
<p>One of the practical things I took from this session is that she writes the scenario’s out divided in 5 elements:</p>
<ol>
<li>The <strong>tasks</strong> that you need to be able to perform</li>
<li>The <strong>procedures</strong> you need to know</li>
<li>The <strong>tools</strong> that you have to use</li>
<li>The <strong>knowledge</strong> you need to have</li>
<li>The <strong>performance</strong> you have to deliver</li>
</ol>
<p>A very helpful scheme to use when you set up a scenario based learning experience. She starts out with a global storyline and character description, than she defines a sequence of events that contain a number of action points. She divides the scenario into smaller parts each containing a few action points. She only scores on action points and on good choice.</p>
A List Apart: Articles: Pricing Strategy for Creatives
Although this is geared towards web developers rather than instructional designers, this could apply to our field as well.
Beginning relationships with customers at a high price makes the statement: “we’re good at what we do and we know it.” Fighting with a competitor over a low price says “I’m uncertain about my abilities, so I’ll take what I can get.”
<strong>Price by the service, not by the hour</strong>.
<strong>Slow down your sales process</strong>. Slow down how, when, and who you take on as clients. You need time to determine a client’s needs before you price their projects. You must know what outcomes they desire.
<strong>Inject value into your client’s experience with your service.</strong>
Establish a client intake process
<p>Here are three things you can do now to get started on your journey toward strategic pricing:</p>
<ul>
<li>Develop your new client intake process, similar to the example above. Add the various steps that you feel are valuable and walk your clients through it BEFORE you begin your work.</li>
<li>Begin offering three options to all of your work. And always include things in your options the client did NOT ask for. When you start selling things your client didn’t ask for, you will be surprised at how many clients choose the higher options. You will make more money and the client will get more of what they want.</li>
<li>Test your pricing, but don’t benchmark! To know what your market will bear, begin pricing higher than you have been in the past just to test your market. And avoid benchmarking—which is the process of looking at what your market or direct competitors price their services at. Remember, your competition may be pricing non-strategically as well. Don’t follow the blind. Strategic pricers don’t follow, they lead!</li></ul>
The problem with virtual training: instructional design, not distance — Online Collaboration
Interview with Janet Clarey responding to an article claiming you shouldn't even bother trying to do new hire orientation training virtually. As expected, Janet provides a thoughtful rebuttal, explaining that the problem with bad virtual training is that it's poorly designed, not that the technology is failing.
The Lab | ORI - The Office of Research Integrity
Example of e-learning with a branching video scenarios, where you can play four different roles to avoid a serious incident of research misconduct. The stage is set with the "worst case scenario" where everything has gone wrong to draw you in, but you can travel back in time to prevent the problem.
Case Study: Engaging Learners in the Synchronous Distance Environment by Kim Bahr & Rebecca Bodrero : Learning Solutions Magazine
Case study in how a F2F training program was adapted for online with Adobe Connect. This includes how they prepared the participants, adapted activities, engaged learners, supported with producers, and blended synchronous with asynchronous.
Building a new learning environment around social tools: Technology forecast: PwC
Tony O'Driscoll explains how he uses social media with an MBA course. He also talks about social technology in the broader context of the enterprise.
In this new context, by comparison, anybody who writes anything, whether it’s an individual or a team, is now exposed in the commons. Everybody is required to review three deliverables other than their own and rank and review them. That’s a little foreign, and there’s a fair amount of pushback on that. People say, “What do you mean, other people can see my stuff?” And I say, “Well, that’s how peer learning works.”
<p>The motive in this kind of social context is altruism. It’s to help others. By contrast, the motive in a business context is all about profit.</p>
<p>Enterprise behavior is different. You can’t take the same social technologies and plop them into a profit-making context and expect that people will immediately engage. The question is, once the underlying motivation shifts from purpose to profit, will the motivation to engage persist?</p>