Posts filed under ‘E-Learning’
New Media’s Fundamental Place in e-Learning
By Douglas E. Welch, September 30, 2010
“One of the most striking aspects of New Media is how much you can do inexpensively, even for free. As you move forward you might invest in larger, more robust systems, but investigating New Media often requires little more than access to the Internet. … There are very few financial excuses for not investigating how New Media can help your department or company.”
Like the technologies that preceded it – print, radio, television – New Media is set to change our lives and our learning in fundamental ways. Never before have we had such a great variety of educational tools at our disposal so inexpensively and so widely available. We can reach out to our customers, clients, and students almost anywhere in the world with the touch of button.
New Media consists of four pillars:
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Online video sharing sites, such as YouTube,
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Podcasting , which allows the automatic delivery of audio and video to listeners and viewers,
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Live video streaming, such as uStream.tv and Justin.tv, and
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Social media, that is, Facebook, Twitter, MySpace, and other such services.
All of these together form New Media – new ways of delivering information and interacting with our audience, whoever or wherever they might be.
As with any new technology, inertia and fear threaten to limit our use of these tools. We spend months and years evaluating, analyzing and investigating, but end up doing very little. As with other educational tools, you must engage with New Media to find its usefulness to you and your students.
Inertia
Inertia is a powerful force. Objects at rest remain at rest unless acted upon by an outside force. For many of us, the object is New Media and inertia is management apathy, status quo thinking, and fear of change. This can lead to an almost impenetrable barrier to New Media adoption, and all the benefits it can bring. Your job is to get the ball rolling – to nudge the New Media rock – one small inch at a time.
With each movement, the other part of the inertial law will begin to take effect: objects in motion remain in motion. Movement begets more movement. Momentum yields more momentum. Soon you will find yourself using more and more New Media tools as the walls start to crumble.
Not either/or, but rather yes/and
One roadblock I often face when introducing New Media is the either/or mentality. There is a belief that we must choose either this or that tool, either this or that method. When introducing New Media to your work I suggest moving beyond either/or and toward yes/and. Using New Media tools does not mean you abandon previous methods. Instead, you use New Media to expand existing methods while introducing new ones. Certainly, some tools will have outlived their usefulness, but many will find new life in combination with New Media. Conversely, you will find that some New Media tools don’t add value to your work. Your goal is to find the best of both old and new and combine them in new and powerful ways. Embrace both the old and the new. Say Yes/And.
Selling New Media
I find that convincing someone of the usefulness and power of New Media is very difficult in the abstract. We can talk about how audio, video, online communities, and social networks can expand the educational playing field, but the power of New Media is in the “doing.” One of the best methods of introducing New Media tools into your work is by finding those small niches in the educational environment where you can apply New Media. You use a New Media tool and then judge its effectiveness. Use it a bit more and let people see where and when it is effective. Then, slowly, expand its use further and further until it becomes a major tool in your educational toolbox.
In this way, you bring people along slowly. You don’t try to convert them with one dramatic gesture. You take them step-by-step, class-by-class, project-by-project, holding their hand the entire time until they start walking on the New Media path all by themselves. Even more importantly, though, when something obviously doesn’t work, you let it go. Not every tool will work for you and your environment. You won’t find the “value added” in every new service or program. We don’t live in an idealized world. Everything can’t be perfect, but you will be better for investigating that tool or service than you would have been without. You learn something with each try. You should not discount this.
It doesn’t take a lot of money
One of the most striking aspects of New Media is how much you can do inexpensively, and even for free. As you move forward you might invest in larger, more robust systems, but investigating New Media often requires little more than access to the Internet. With inexpensive tools like the Flip HD pocket camcorders, and free software like Apple’s iMovie, you can create professional-looking materials that, in the past, might have cost tens of thousands of dollars. There are very few financial excuses for not investigating how New Media can help your department or company.
To repeat, never before have we had such a wide variety of educational tools at our disposal so inexpensively and so widely available. This is indeed a whole new world. It is to your benefit to grasp the best of these new tools and wield them well, to take you and your students to new levels of learning.
What is DITA and Why Should You Care?
By Chris Benz
September 27, 2010
“The key to understanding how DITA works is to understand how DITA uses topics, maps, and output formats. I will describe each of these in detail, but here’s the big picture: You develop your content in DITA topics, use DITA maps to specify which topics go into which deliverables, then process those maps to DITA output formats to generate your final deliverables.”
Many of today’s instructional developers face a significant dilemma.
Learners have minimal time to comprehend and effectively use complex products and systems. To drive time-efficient learning experiences, developers must provide high-quality training content, customized to specific learner roles and delivered in a timely manner. At the same time, many instructional development budgets are shrinking. In short, learners have less time and money to learn what they need to know, and developers have less time and money to deliver what those learners need.
One way developers can address this dilemma is to become more efficient at reusing content. For many developers, the best way to achieve that efficiency will be the Learning and Training Content (L&TC) Specialization, soon to be released in version 1.2 of the Darwin Information Typing Architecture (DITA) standard.
“The what?” some readers are surely asking. Before I answer that, let me give you a taste of the “why.” In a test project for the DITA L&TC Specialization, a team at IBM studied content reuse in an existing training course. They discovered that 50% of the course content had been copied from the product documentation. Using the Specialization, they were able to automate much of that reuse, not only avoiding the cost and potential errors of manual copying and pasting, but also providing an efficient way to synchronize content updates between product documentation and training materials, and saving on the cost of translating essentially the same content twice. Does this sound like something worth learning about?
In this article, I will provide a description and brief history of DITA, explain how DITA facilitates efficient and flexible reuse across various types of content deliverables, and discuss how the L&TC Specialization focuses the benefits of DITA on training deliverables.
What is DITA?
DITA is an XML-based open standard for structuring, developing, managing, and publishing content. IBM originally developed DITA to more efficiently reuse content in product documentation. In 2004, IBM donated their DITA work to the Organization for the Advancement of Structured Information Standards (OASIS) for further development and release to the public. OASIS formally approved the DITA 1.0 specification in 2005, and the DITA 1.1 specification in 2007. OASIS expects to formally approve DITA 1.2, including the L&TC Specialization, by the end of 2010.
Getting Started in e-Learning: Asynchronous e-Learning
The eLearning Guild Getting Started series of reports will help you understand the concepts common to e-Learning design, development, and delivery. We base each report on eLearning Guild member data and the experience and insights of many people and organizations including this report’s author. Guild members with more experience have learned important lessons along the way that will be helpful to you as you get started. Each report will help you make sense of the options and evaluate both your and your organization’s needs.
Asynchronous e-Learning is enormously popular. Its self-service, use-as-needed approach appeals to both management and learners. Unlike synchronous e-Learning, which happens "live" at a specific time, asynchronous e-Learning refers to "on-demand" learning materials that the learner can access and use whenever and wherever he or she wants.
This report describes differences between synchronous and asynchronous e-Learning approaches that you should consider when deciding which to use (or determining how to combine these approaches). It also covers the categories of asynchronous authoring tools and Guild members’ usage of these tools, including which ones they use most, which are easiest to learn and use, and which are preferred by those who are newer to e-Learning and those who are more experienced with e-Learning.
Learners’ computing environments and other technical and non-technical issues can have an impact on what tools you’ll want to use, so the report covers these factors as well when recommending authoring tools. In most cases, the choice is a balancing act, like most purchasing decisions. Asynchronous e-Learning will help you choose the approach and tools that will best meet both your needs and your learners’.
Getting Started with e-Learning: Mobile Learning (mLearning)
Fifteen percent of Guild members have already implemented mLearning or are currently designing their first mLearning offering. An additional 50% are either researching how to do it or building a business case for mLearning in their organizations.
Unlike traditional forms of e-Learning, mLearning feels like something new to many e-Learning practitioners. Some don’t don’t perceive mLearning as being as feasible as more familiar e-Learning modalities, such as Webinars or self-paced online lessons. This report will change how you feel about that!
Guild members who responded to the Mobile Learning survey and who have started mLearning initiatives say their employees are increasingly mobile (82.7%). Greater than 60% feel that mLearning is truly useful, will have to be part of their offerings, and allows them to better align learning with business and strategic initiatives.
This report explores a broad array of technologies that you can harness for mLearning, including e-mail, mobile Web content, social networking, and stand-alone learning modules. Synchronous e-Learning (such as Webinars and virtual classroom sessions) is beginning to become available on some mobile devices.
Mobile learners have different needs than learners who can “attend” e-Learning from their desks. They typically deal with interruptions and distractions, operate with significant background noise, and may need to split their attention because of the need to engage in other concurrent activities. They may also be working in different lighting conditions and typically have limited time to work with mLearning content and tools. This means that porting typical e-Learning to mobile devices is the wrong approach and is unlikely to work.
MLearning has its own niche in learning strategy. It may be best for bite-sized learning “nuggets,” updates, introductory materials, reinforcement of objectives, reminders of key takeaways, social interaction and collaboration, and access to help and support tools. Design of mLearning is much different than design of typical e-Learning.
Even with the challenges, mLearning makes a lot of sense for a lot of organizations and institutions. Higher education is generally ahead of corporations in using mLearning. Guild members who have adopted mLearning attribute a number of positive changes because of it. Some of these include the ability to accommodate learner needs and increase access and availability of learning opportunities. Many feel that they need to be using this approach.
MLearning has begun to take off. And there’s a good chance that it will become mainstream before long. As a result, no matter whether you are new to e-Learning or only new to mLearning as a form of e-Learning, it’s time to get up to speed. It’s time to think about how to harness the ubiquity of mobile computing to help your learners work and learn.
Getting Started with e-Learning: Synchronous e-Learning
Synchronous Learning (which happens “live” during a specific time) uses a variety of technologies, such as chat, instant messaging, audio conference calls, and virtual classroom sessions. But the virtual classroom experience is what most people mean when they talk about synchronous e-Learning. Although synchronous e-Learning isn’t as flexible as asynchronous e-Learning, if well-designed, it can be more compelling to learners for a variety of reasons. This report explains why and describes differences between synchronous and asynchronous approaches to e-Learning that you should consider when deciding which approach to use (or determining how to combine these approaches). It also includes information about virtual classroom applications and Guild members’ usage of these tools, including which ones they use most, and which are easiest to learn and use. It explains the skills needed to design and implement successful virtual classroom sessions and provides tips on getting started with synchronous e-Learning. An invaluable resource for all organizations’ e-Learning departments.
Getting Started in e-Learning: Simulations and Games
Research studies have shown that certain instructional strategies–such as using similar contexts, providing extensive and varied practice, and make underlying principles clear–can dramatically improve transfer from learning to real-world performance, but too much instructional design doesn’t take advantage of these strategies. Simulations and games can provide a means for embedding these strategies into instruction.
A learning simulation is a structured activity that reproduces important characteristics of a real environment and situation, which allows learners to experience how reality works in a virtual environment. A learning game is a structured activity that involves a specific challenge, information to respond to, and rules for achieving the goal. Without these or other activities that allow learners to practice in a realistic context, effective and adequate practice is often hard to provide. (This is one reason why transfer from instruction to the workplace often doesn’t take place.)
Although some people see games as inherently childish, there are some advantages of games for learning. A recent research study by the U.S.Department of Defense (Blunt, 2008) showed that students in the study who used learning games scored significantly higher than those who did not.
More than 40% of respondents plan to do more games, simulations and scenarios, complex games, and immersive learning simulations in the next 12 months. Captivate is the top tool used for building simulations and it is used by almost half of respondents. The tools rated very powerful and flexible by more than 50% of respondents who answered this question include Lectora, Flash, Raptivity, and Authorware. But Flash and Authorware also had the highest difficulty ratings.
Learn how to integrate games and simulations in your e-Learning and start producing more "stickier" more engaging e-Learning today!
全球中文學習網 搶2兆商機
- 工商時報 【黃志偉／台北報導】2009-06-19
●臺大校長李嗣涔與麥奇數位董事長楊正大，順利完成「NTUtorMing全球中文學習網」成立簽約儀式。圖/黃志偉
中國大陸經濟體日漸強大，掀起全球華語學習熱。看好2兆元市場商機，臺灣大學與TutorABC日前攜手合作，創辦NTUtorMing全球中文學習網www.NTUtorMing.com。透過臺大的教材和語音辨識技術與TutorABC線上真人互動學習平台的結合，搶進華文學習領導地位。
政府積極推動文創產業，台大與TutorABC的合作也開創國內產學合作的先例。臺大校長李嗣涔表示，臺大一直積極投入華語師資的培訓與華語學習的推廣，而為突破線上華語學習商業化瓶頸，讓學習不再只是面對冷冰冰的電腦，臺大找到TutorABC，透過線上真人互動學習平台，結合臺大驗證過的師資、教材以及自行研發的語音辨識系統，很有機會將台灣華語學習優勢推向全球，成為華文學習網的最大入口網站。
TutorABC麥奇數位董事長楊正大指出，台灣因少子化，師資面臨過剩的問題，然而台灣老師國際觀與IT概念良好，具華語教學優勢，在全球華語師資需求高達50萬人，目前師資卻不到10萬人情況下，透過NTUtorMing網路教學平台成立，不僅可提高就業機會，也能讓優質台灣師資向外推廣，讓台灣經驗與全球華語市場接軌。
目前全球學習華語人數突破3千萬，而根據中國國家漢語國際推廣小組預估，2010年將有1億外國人學習華語。另資策會也估計，華語文全球市場在未來5年內約有新臺幣兩兆元龐大商機。在華語學習熱潮下，楊正大預估，5年內，NTUtorMing將可吸引超過10萬名學員加入學習華語行列。
E-Learning Hits Its Stride
"numbers, two widely regarded and independent reports on the U.S. training market conclude that 30 percent of employee learning last year occurred online. The question of whether workplace training improves worker performance remains unanswered, however. "
–By Garry Kranz
After years of budgeting money for software-based training modules, integrated learning systems and thick wads of online content, corporations are beginning to see those investments pay off in the form of increased use of e-learning.
Yet as more employees use online tools, corporations also are seeing their costs of delivery creep up slightly.
Those are among the key findings to emerge from a pair of annual reports that gauge the U.S. workplace training market. The research is from the American Society for Training & Development and private firm Bersin & Associates. The organizations, although not affiliated, each released data in January 2008.
Comparing the two reports can be tricky. In its 2007 State of the Industry Report, Arlington, Virginia-based ASTD estimates that U.S. organizations spent nearly $130 billion on employee learning and development in 2006. That figure includes direct expenditures such as salaries for learning professionals, administration, outsourcing activities and other non-salary delivery costs. The estimate is based on the average U.S. organization’s per-employee training expenditure—$1,083—multiplied by the number of full-time workers in the U.S., which ASTD puts at 119.7 million.
The report shows steady momentum for spending on training. In its 2006 report, ASTD estimated corporate learning expenditures in the U.S. at $109 billion.
Meanwhile, the Corporate Learning Factbook 2008, produced by Oakland, California-based Bersin & Associates, contains data on 2007 corporate training spending, which it says approached $58.5 billion. To arrive at that estimate, Bersin says it weights its data to more accurately reflect the makeup of businesses in the U.S., which tend to be small and medium-size, while most of its survey respondents were big companies. That weighting could account for the spending estimate being lower than that of the ASTD report, says company president Josh Bersin. The Bersin survey excludes government organizations, while the ASTD report includes responses from public-sector organizations.
Despite the variance, however, the reports corroborate one another on at least one important finding: One of every three hours of training is now being delivered via some form of technology, and that ratio is expected to climb in coming years.
ASTD says e-learning is becoming more prominent for several reasons. Among them: higher fees being charged for instructor-led classes, coupled with organizations’ growing reluctance to have employees miss work to attend training sessions.
Shifting demographics probably are also aiding the momentum. As older, book-bound workers edge closer to retirement, a younger and more tech-savvy cadre of people is filtering into the nation’s workforce, bringing an eagerness to use online tools to aid professional growth and development.
Technology-based methods accounted for 30 percent of all learning hours provided, a significant jump from 11.5 percent in 2001, according to ASTD. Even though e-learning methods aren’t new, only within the past several years have they moved into the mainstream, according to ASTD research analyst Andrew Paradise, who wrote the report.
Many employers initially resisted e-learning because of high capital costs and the corporate pain associated with implementing comprehensive e-learning catalogs and systems. In an age of intense global competition, however, organizations began sinking money into technologies that build much-needed competencies and skills, Paradise says.
In particular, e-learning is gaining traction because it enables organizations to be more flexible and efficient, he says. “It’s a shift away from the traditional classroom model to a more fluid model of training delivery.”
As organizations make those investments, they actually are seeing a slight bump in learning metrics, such as direct spending per employee, which rose 1.76 percent to $1,040, according to ASTD’s survey of 221 organizations, including some that are based outside the United States. The organizations have an average employee population of 27,549 and an average payroll of $1.1 billion. The development is exactly opposite of what business logic would dictate. When companies amortize large capital investments over time, it usually enables them to gradually reduce their expenditures.
In the case of e-learning, however, other factors are working to neutralize cost savings, Paradise says. Increased deployment of e-learning improves flexibility, but likely contributes to rising overhead for infrastructure and content development. The mixed results suggest that the learning function itself is reaching a new level of maturity.
“Companies are giving their earlier investments in [training technologies] time to blossom and assessing how well they work” before leaping headlong into changes, Paradise says.
Also contributing to the rise, Paradise says, is “a gain of a few million workers” to the nation’s labor pool from 2004 to 2006. More people are being trained than in previous years. Paradise estimates that about 120 million full-time workers in the U.S. received some form of training in 2006.
Indeed, American companies are devoting a larger share of their training dollars to technology, according to Bersin’s Corporate Learning Factbook. Technologies account for 11 percent of all U.S. training expenditures—well below the percentage for more traditional training approaches, yet double the percentage that Bersin reported in 2005.
Companies continued to invest in employee growth and development tools in 2007, albeit at a slower rate, perhaps indicative of a slackening domestic economy. Most companies are holding course on training expenditures, with only 16 percent expected to have less money in their training budgets this year. Fifty-four percent plan to boost spending on training, the Factbook says.
Like ASTD, the Factbook notes an “amazing transition” to e-learning, Josh Bersin says. In 2005, technology-based delivery methods accounted for 7 percent of employee learning. By 2007, about 30 percent of U.S. workers were pursuing development through e-learning environments like self-study and virtual classrooms.
“That increase is just astounding. We knew this was getting bigger year after year, but it’s become pretty clear that companies simply cannot do corporate training without using technology,” Bersin says.
Old-line companies are helping to propel adoption. That includes St. Louis-based Anheuser-Busch Cos. Although a well-run company whose HR processes are highly regarded, Anheuser-Busch is a latecomer to virtual learning, Bersin says.
“They reached a point where they had no choice, so there is a massive amount of training going on inside the organization on how to adapt and use these new tools,” says Bersin, whose firm provided consulting services to Anheuser-Busch.
Other companies also are gravitating to virtual methods. By increasing the availability of online resources, British conglomerate Rolls-Royce Group saw a 250 percent spike in use of e-learning by employees in 2006. The company employs 38,000 people globally and operates numerous subsidiaries on four continents.
Rolls-Royce also was an early adopter of the now-mature learning management systems, says Michael Trusty, director of talent management for Rolls-Royce North America, an Indianapolis-based subsidiary that makes gas turbines.
Globally, Rolls-Royce uses a series of regional LMS platforms to deliver training in various languages, including English and French in North America. (In addition to its various U.S.-based operations, Rolls-Royce runs a facility in Montreal.) Its business also is growing in countries such as Brazil, prompting the need for programs to support its Portuguese-speaking employees.
“We’re looking at aligning and going to a global LMS that would enable every Rolls-Royce employee to have access to the same learning catalog,” Trusty says, a situation that should boost usage rates for e-learning even higher across the company.
Although 70 percent of large organizations have an LMS, unlocking the often-idle learning resources within discrete systems continues to be an issue. Bersin says this may illustrate a trend that learning professionals should watch for: The emergence of content management systems, which has been an immature market for the training profession up until now.
Other forms of technologies are gaining steam, according to Bersin’s data. Nearly 11 percent of firms use collaborative learning through “communities of practice” to encourage employee learning, with interest slowly building in on-demand approaches like blogs and wikis.
The fascination with technologies does not obscure the very real human problem of too few people and too many leadership vacancies. Shoring up the leadership ranks continues to be the No. 1 driver of training investments, cited by 51 percent of companies surveyed by Bersin. Contrary to conventional wisdom, retention ranks dead last. Only 16 percent of firms cited retaining key performers as their top talent challenge in 2007.
As enlightening as both studies are, neither definitively answers whether learning actually improves employee performance. ASTD’s best metric is anecdotal. It cites reuse rates, which refer to the number of times a given piece of learning is accessed by employees. Every hour of content provided was used an average of 41 times, and the ratio has been steadily climbing.
Although this reflects people’s level of interest, it sheds little light on whether the learning is actually transforming employee performance. Paradise acknowledges it is a question “we get from time to time, and one we probably should start asking” in future studies.
Workforce Management Online, February 2008
SkillSoft Perspectives 2008
Learning. Performance. Impact.
April 28 – May 1, 2008
Orlando, FL
Corporate learning is evolving. Corporations have traditionally focused on providing basic learning resources for their work forces, but today learning departments are looking for ways to play a more strategic role. Simultaneously they are looking for way to maximize learning’s effectiveness by placing corporate initiatives in context to the needs of the individual.
This year’s Perspectives will include keynote speakers James Canton, a technology futurist; Oren Harari, who will speak about organizational agility and Tom Peters, featured in a Leadership Development Channel live broadcast.
Additionally the learning tracks will be focused on business challenges and solutions, global business issues, and lessons learned by experienced learning professionals.
Topics:
- Globalization
- Business Challenges and Trends
- Executive Development
- ROI
SkillSoft – Press Releases –
SkillSoft to Reduce Content Administration through SAP® Enterprise Learning environment supported by Open Learning Services
New SkillSoft OLSA Integration with SAP Enterprise Learning Addresses Customer Concerns with Administrative Overhead and Improves Speed-to-Learning
Orlando, FL. – March 13, 2008 – SkillSoft PLC (Nasdaq: SKIL), a leading SaaS provider of on-demand e-learning and performance support solutions for global enterprises, government, education and small- to medium-sized businesses, today announced from the SAP HR2008 show in Orlando Florida, that it is providing learning-services-based integration with the SAP® Enterprise Learning environment. SkillSoft’s Open Learning Services Architecture (OLSA) makes it possible to more easily integrate SkillSoft’s content with SAP Enterprise Learning. As a result, administrators spend less time maintaining content and learners get the benefits of a richer, dynamic learning experience by having access to SKIL content via a hosted OLSA solution.
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