Monday, March 26, 2012

Carers NSW launches e-learning course for carers of mentally ill people

Carers NSW launches e-learning course for carers of mentally ill people:
An Australian healthcare provider has launched an online learning course to assist people looking after individuals with mental illnesses.
Carers New South Wales (NSW) unveiled its Mental Health Foundations for Carers' e-learning tool, which provides resources, information and support to caregivers.
Looking after people with mental health problems can be particularly challenging due to the nature of the condition and the stigma that can be associated with certain illnesses, which can make care providers feel isolated.
However, the e-learning course gives these people practical assistance on how to cope with these problems, such as by providing tips relating to dealing with the healthcare system and useful communication strategies.
Further topics dealt with in the platform include helping carers to look after their own wellbeing and issues they might regularly face.
It also contains interactive sections and video interviews with other professionals in the caring role, who are sharing their own perspectives on the challenges faced when looking after people with mental health problems.
Carers NSW noted being a caregiver can be unpredictable. It can make it difficult for young people to pay attention in class and increase the likelihood of a family suffering from poverty.
However, it can provide a positive impact to a person's life, helping them to develop strong relationships and useful life skills, the organisation continued.
Chief executive officer of Carers NSW Elena Katrakis said the online learning course "sets out some of the issues carers of someone with a mental illness may face and the types of support they may need" in their particular role.
"It is important we acknowledge and support carers of people with mental illness so that they can better maintain their own health and wellbeing and are aware of the supports that are available to them," she added.
Service providers can also find assistance through the e-learning tool, as it will enable them to understand the needs and experiences of carers, the representative stated.

Severnside Housing provides e-learning to residents

Severnside Housing provides e-learning to residents:
One of the largest social landlords in Shropshire is offering e-learning courses to its tenants after collaborating with the Housing e-Academy.
Severnside Housing is providing a range of online learning platforms to all of its residents in modules entitled Community, Social Issues, Using the Internet and Around the Home.
There are 18 different online training courses within these four themes, covering topics including energy efficiency, interview preparation, cultural awareness and safe use of the web.
These can be completed anywhere with access to a computer, including the accommodation provider's offices on Brassey Road in Shrewsbury.
Senior community development officer at Severnside Marianne Grant said e-learning is a useful way to improve knowledge, confidence and skills.
It can be engaged in "from the comfort of your own home or wherever you can access a computer", the specialist added.
She noted the online learning courses contribute to the range of other educational opportunities the housing provider has made available to its residents in its Learning Programme, which is now two years old.
As well as helping residents to learn, the initiative also intends "to provide an insight and understanding of Severnside and the services provided", Ms Grant added.
All of the modules provided are straightforward, consisting of a short test that follows an on-screen presentation.
Participants can save their progress and return whenever it suits them and can also print certificates off detailing that they passed the topic, or contact the community development team at Severnside, which will then post them out.
Registration is free and only takes a few minutes. Once someone has signed up, they can select the e-learning courses they are interested in and begin them.
Severnside holds and maintains at least 5,300 dwellings in Shewsbury and the surrounding districts.
It is regulated by the Tenant Services Authority and is a registered social landlord.

Research and Markets reveals e-learning economics course library

Research and Markets reveals e-learning economics course library:
A new e-learning course library on economics has been launched by Research and Markets.
The virtual learning environment consists of 16 different modules that can help people to understand economics by providing a comprehensive introduction to the subject.
It deals with many of the key topics relating to both micro and macro-economics, covering a wide range of issues.
These include organising production, monopolies, competition and oligopolies, outputs, costs, markets in action, liquidity, efficiency, inflation, fiscal and monetary policies, the US Federal Reserve, gross domestic product and the monitoring of cycles.
People who complete the online learning course will be able to differentiate between firms on individual levels and determine their investment potential, the developers claimed.
Furthermore, an understanding of the variety of market structures in which enterprises operate will be provided, while a breakdown of macro-economic concepts that affect all businesses is introduced.
It also examines an economy's monetary sector, the functions of finances and central banks, inflation, circumstances that can result in changes to the value of currency and how cash is created.
The e-learning course will look into the implications and goals of particular policies, taking advantage of models and theories outlined by classical economists, Keynesians and monetarists.
Research and Markets hold over 80,000 major studies from some of the world's most important analysts, consultants and publishers.
It deals with over 350 industries, including business and finance, telecommunications, computing, construction, healthcare, manufacturing, transport, energy and the public sector.
Businesses in these areas may be able to find a large range of benefits from online learning courses, as president of the International E-Learning Association Dr David Guralnick recently said this form of education can provide a number of advantages to corporations.
These include "job performance improvement, employee engagement and motivation and company cost savings due to improved performance", he remarked, adding: "Learners are engaged and motivated and can make mistakes without impacting the business."

South Korea e-learning sector enjoys growth

South Korea e-learning sector enjoys growth:
South Korea's e-learning market is realising sustained growth, according to the country's government.
Yonhap News reports that over half of the populace over the age of three have used e-learning educational aids or similar devices.
In 2010, 49 per cent of these people had used virtual learning environments in their education, but this figure is now 52.8 per cent, the Ministry of Knowledge Economy revealed.
There was a 6.9 per cent year-on-year jump in the number of e-learning course service providers in 2011, hitting 1,656, with a 7.3 per cent growth in the number of people employed by these firms, which reached 25,182.
Combined sales from these enterprises increased by 9.2 per cent over the year, with transactions reaching 2.45 trillion won (£1.39 billion).
The government attributed this spike in part to a greater use of e-learning courses in educational institutions.
Last year, 82.3 per cent of all schools in the country used online learning in their official curriculum, which represents a 0.9 per cent rise since 2010, the ministry stated.
"To help further foster a niche for the e-learning industry, the government will establish a support centre that will support the development of new smart learning systems," the ministry was quoted by the news source as saying.
By 2015, South Korea intends to deliver education to its citizens over computers through online training programs and virtual learning environments.
The county's minister of education, science and technology Ju-Ho Lee recently told the BBC: "The transfer from the traditional paper textbooks to digital textbooks will allow students to leave their heavy backpacks and explore the world beyond the classroom."
Wireless networks will enable the population to learn "wherever and whenever" they want, through internet-connected television sets, PCs, tablet computers and laptops, he added.
Quality will be maintained and costs will be lowered by the government supporting an open-content marketplace, the minister remarked.
"Smart Education will change how we perceive textbooks," he added.

NI educational bodies produce e-learning tool for Olympics and Paralympics

NI educational bodies produce e-learning tool for Olympics and Paralympics:
An online learning course has been launched at the Jordanstown campus of the University of Ulster and should help teachers engage their pupils with the London 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games.
It is entitled Aspire, Aim and Achieve and is targeted at children between the ages of seven and 14.
The e-learning product provides educators with the ability to engage in video-conferences with elite athletes, sporting athletes and schools, promoting networking between peers and allowing children to work alongside each other in a cross-community manner.
It features a range of educational and interesting activities that can take place in classrooms and in gym lessons, as well as video material based on the Olympics.
Funding for this development came from Northern Ireland's (NI) Department of Education and the online learning environment was created through collaboration with Sports NI, the Sports Institute, the Council for the Curriculum Examinations and Assessment, C2k and Every School a Good School.
NI education minister John O'Dowd called it an "inspirational e-learning tool".
He argued it could help young people to become involved in activities that will increase their understanding of the world and encourage them to have a healthy lifestyle.
"The virtual learning environment provides a novel and engaging way for pupils to connect with subjects including history, geography, art and citizenship," the minister continued.
Mr O'Dowd urged teachers to take advantage of Aspire, Aim and Achieve and to make use of the opportunities it presents, before commending the organisations that worked alongside his ministerial department to produce the e-learning course.
Sports minister Caral Ni Chuilin said the online learning platform will be an "excellent legacy of the Games for local schools", pointing out they will be able to use it after the event.
It will help students to understand different cultures and countries and explore the relationship between art and sports, he added.
The Olympic Games take place between July 27th and August 12th, while the Paralympics occur from August 29th to September 9th.

Connect To Learn provides online learning solutions to African schools

Connect To Learn provides online learning solutions to African schools:
Online learning solutions have been provided to at least 5,000 students and teachers in Africa, enabling schools in the continent to use connectivity to boost their standard and performance.
Eight secondary schools have been given PC as a Service - which allows them to use mobile broadband networks to access cloud computing - through the Connect to Learn initiative.
This will affect communities in Kenya, Uganda, Ghana and Tanzania by giving them an e-learning model that is easy to use and low maintenance.
Ericsson has taken a large role in the project by enabling data and voice communications by installing network services and infrastructure.
Other organisations involved in the Connect to Learn programme include Columbia University and the Earth Institute.
The scheme intends to provide modern education to people in the world's most remote villages by investing in information technology, allowing schools to access online learning solutions and e-learning courses through enhanced connectivity.
Furthermore, over 500 scholarships will be issued through partners of the Connect to Learn programme, which will cover educational expenses including boarding and tuition.
This will involve partners of the policy, including SpinMaster, JM Eagle, the Sanchez-Palm Girls Scholarship Fund and Ericsson, as well as a range of individuals.
IT School Innovations has also provided assistance to this project, assisting Johannesburg's Westbury High School and Olievenhoutbosch's Bathible High School by providing complete e-learning courses.
In the future, the Connect to Learn initiative should benefit hundreds more young people in Jamaica and Chile, as computing deployments have already reached these locations and further investments will follow.
Ericsson vice-president of sustainability and corporate responsibility Elaine Weidman claimed: "Mobile and broadband technology is a key enabler for access to a quality education in all communities, even the poorest and most rural."
"Delivering cloud-based computers and connecting them in the eight schools is a major step in our mission to bring a quality secondary education to more students," she added.

Online learning 'takes off in Bangalore'

Online learning 'takes off in Bangalore':
E-learning is beginning to make a huge impact in Bangalore.
Express News Service reports that this advancement is enabling students to stay ahead of their peers and pass their exams.
Digital technologies are particularly commonplace among the young, with many teenagers using computers to study and to communicate, the news source pointed out.
This has attached itself to online learning technologies, which are taking off all over the world.
Sujith Appaya, a final-year student at Christ College in the city, told the publication that e-learning courses have been very useful to him.
"I can get the benefits which I don't get in classroom teaching," he added.
Furthermore, virtual learning environments enable him to receive replies to queries instantly, which Mr Appaya stated allows students to resolve any problems they encounter throughout their education as soon as they become apparent.
Other positive responses to e-learning were articulated by fellow pupil Sagayaraj, who pointed out that virtual learning environments help youngsters to receive all of their course material in one go.
This would be impossible in traditional classroom education, which would typically be limited by time constraints, the student continued.
Educational coordinator at Sri Sri Centre for Media Studies Beena Sunil said the scope of e-learning has been brought into focus recently, because young people "like to make use of things which are easily available".
She declared that teaching is no longer as theoretical as it used to be and is taking on more practical applications.
Online learning tools have supported this transition, she declared, with students using them extensively and receiving the wholehearted encouragement of the education provider.
Writing for community portal CoolAvenues.com, Bangalore University science graduate Varsha Agarwal said India has experienced significant technological advancements in recent years and this could support persistent growth in the country's e-learning sector.
"Experts claim that e-learning medium is 'on a roll' due to the numerous benefits such as speed of delivery, increasing accessibility of learning, generating user specific content, reducing cost of learning and increasing flexibility," he stated.

NPA produces e-learning course for pharmacists

NPA produces e-learning course for pharmacists:
Medical students can now engage in online training through a new e-learning platform developed by the UK's National Pharmacy Association (NPA).
This will enable learners to interact with other pupils and tutors over the internet, as well as access course material from anywhere in the world.
NPA research found many of the organisation's members believed online learning was desired by many people, who wanted to be able to study at their own convenience and at a pace of their choosing.
The group also provides an e-portfolio system for National Vocational Qualifications, enabling individuals to collate and develop all of the materials required for the competence section of the institution's level three Diploma in Pharmacy Skills.
NPA director of pharmacy Deborah Evans said: "We have listened to members throughout to ensure we have a product that builds on the excellent quality expected of the NPA."
Head of education and training for the association Sukhjit Grewal pointed out that people who are trying to gain qualifications from the NPA have got to balance the demands of this with the time they must spend working in busy pharmacies.
"Our e-learning platform allows students to dip in and out of their studies, which helps them to juggle these commitments," he pointed out.
Pharmacists and the owners of these businesses will also be able to keep track of how the students involved are performing, the specialist continued.
The representative stated the organisation is providing "blended learning" by combining the flexibility of online training courses with face-to-face sessions, alongside plenty of email and telephone support.
Mr Grewal added: "The e-learning platform features interactive assessments, which allows students to have their coursework marked quickly."
Paper-based learning resources are still available for individuals that prefer studying in this manner, he remarked.
Irishhealth.com recently reported that Dublin's Mater Hospital has developed an e-learning platform to raise awareness of high-risk drugs among the facility's pharmacists.

Shireland Collegiate Academy uses online learning tools to support education

Shireland Collegiate Academy uses online learning tools to support education:
Shireland Collegiate Academy in Smethwick is taking advantage of the opportunities provided by e-learning to improve the education of its pupils.
Lord Jim Knight went to see the facility alongside Doug Brown, director of global advisory organisation Step A International, in order to find out the ways it has used technology to support learning.
Shireland principal Sir Mark Grundy claimed the school has been "at the forefront" of using innovative developments to enhance education, which can promote efficiency among teaching staff and boost the academic prospects of students.
He said he has spoken to many organisations and governments all over the globe and is "delighted" to come back to the academy to see "the latest world-beating work".
The Express and Star reported Lord Knight and Mr Brown saw year seven pupils aged 11 to 12 utilising PlayStations as part of a virtual learning environment, as well as children a year older than them studying the Crusades with Microsoft software.
Lord Knight was also shown an e-learning website developed by a small number of maths students that could support the understanding of this subject by other young people.
In the week since it first launched, the online learning tool has been visited almost 200 times.
E-learning director at the educational establishment and lead teacher of the Young People's E-learning Network Kirsty Tonks told the publication that e-learning helps students to show their work to a global audience rather than just their teacher.
She added: "I was so proud to host Lord Jim Knight and Doug Brown here at Shireland. As ever, our students were wonderful ambassadors for the academy."
Ms Tonks has also been commended by the E-learning Foundation Home Access Awards, where she was crowned the Secondary Teacher of the Year 2011.
She has utilised internet technology to help teachers share good practice recommendations and has tried to tackle issues such as pupil absence linked to religious beliefs.

Texas driving school offers Distracted Driving online training course

Texas driving school offers Distracted Driving online training course:
Texas-based driver training company Smith System has launched an e-learning course to help people understand the dangers of operating a motor vehicle while not paying sufficient attention to the road.
The online health and safety learning course, which is entitled Distracted Driving, deals with issues both inside and outside the automobile.
While motorists may abide by laws or regulations relating to using mobile telephones when operating a car, other road users might not, the company pointed out.
Distracted Driving can be accessed through the internet and the online training course's web-based format will be utilised in Smith System's future content.
It will provide compelling, information-rich information on important issues such as drivers using hand-held devices, which the organisation claimed has been shown to be the leading cause of highway fatalities and collisions.
Chief executive officer of Smith System Tony Douglas argued the experience of his business indicates that safer driving "will not come from passing more laws".
Instead, educating members of the public on the dangers posed by momentary lapses in concentration, operating a motor-vehicle at high speeds and losses of visual contact while driving a car will result in positive changes, he declared.
"Many people are working on various forms of legislation regarding distracted driving and we appreciate their focus on this important issue," the business leader said.
He pointed out that the approach of his company is somewhat different.
Mr Douglas said the enterprise is already aware that the general public, the government and fleet safety experts are "all hungry" for content that could change people's behaviours when on the road in relation to the topic of distracted driving.
Smith System claims 95 per cent of all road collisions are the result of human error, with 54.1 per cent of these involving passenger cars and 41 per cent relating to light trucks.
The remaining traffic accidents are due to motorcycles, larger goods vehicles and buses, with 0.2 per cent described as dealing with other modes of transport.

Interaction Preferences

Interaction Preferences:
Hidden amongst the hundreds of links, in the many posts, of many feeds, was this great blog post by Judy Unrein – Catering to Interaction Preferences Instead. Recommend all learning designers read this post.
What she is pointing to is quite simply that just like there are possibly learning style preferences, there are also interaction style preferences. That is a very accurate observation that aligns with my experience with groups of learners.
Another very interesting point she makes is: “humans are such overwhelmingly visual creatures that if we simply catered better to that one sense, we could improve the vast majority of our designs”.
This is perhaps one of the best pieces of design advice I’ve ever heard. Well worth putting into practice.

Learner Driven Learning Management System in a Global Environment

Learner Driven Learning Management System in a Global Environment:
Learner Driven Learning Management System in a Global EnvironmentFor us at Upside Learning, learning and innovation have been and continue to be the key drivers for our working and success. This is one of the main reasons for the robust investments we have made in training – not just for our employees but for the global community at large.
Talking about training, our first webinar for 2012 is just around the corner. Titled ‘Learner Driven Learning Management System, in a Global Environment’, this interactive webinar will be conducted in association with Brandon Hall Group on 22nd March 2012 at 1 PM EDT. This FREE webinar will help you understand some simple key practices for designing your LMS interface, workflow and access pages so to improve the user experience for your trainers and learners.
What made us think of this topic? It’s because we understand the importance of user experience. And because we know that in today’s global environment, learners don’t just need their LMS to be technologically advanced but they need it to be designed for ‘them – the end users’.  They need to be provided with an experience that is intuitive, enjoyable, and personalized to their organization’s values and cultural preferences.
This 1 hour session will be hosted by Jason Clymer, our VP (North America), and Stacey Harris, VP, Research and Advisory Services at Brandon Hall Group. A Q&A session will follow where you will get an opportunity to have a one-to-one interaction with the hosts and get your doubts cleared.
Registrations for the Webinar Are Now Open. To book your seat, please visit: http://go.brandonhall.com/learner_driven_LMS_global

eLearning Content Proofreading: Don’t Trust Anything

eLearning Content Proofreading: Don’t Trust Anything:
eLearning Content Proofreading: Don't Trust AnythingThe other day, a colleague came up to me and asked me the how the word “sam-ma-ree” is spelt, which didn’t leave me surprised, floored, dumbfounded, or any of those adjectives.
What was entertaining though, in an otherwise mundane day, was the bemused look on his face. A storyboard was about to be sent to the client, and he had noticed what he thought was weird magical performance rendered by the standard spellchecker in the MS Word document.
The spellchecker thought the word Summery was perfectly fine.
Well, it was, and it is.
That’s because it’s a perfectly grammatically correct word, though rare in everyday usage. Remove the ‘y’ for a split second and you will see the obvious meaning. It simply means “Belonging to or characteristic of or occurring in summer”.
Sometimes, this is the way the importance of good old manual labour is highlighted while proofreading content in eLearning storyboards. What is not underlined in red often goes unnoticed. And F7 does not notice it either. Many content developers and proofreaders tend to miss this and end up wondering, mostly after the client feedback, how did such a simple thing slip through? It is because they relied too much on automation and ignored the old word-by-word manual check.
So next time you check your content, do not forget to honour the good old manual labour. Proofreading eLearning content is not rocket science, but it can be tricky as the curious case of my confused colleague shows.
Read each word both for its individual meaning and in the context of the content-and use the spellchecker only for the finishing touches. That is the rule by which I live by. Do you?

Campaign For Effective Elearning (#c4ee)

Campaign For Effective Elearning (#c4ee):
Campaign For Effective ElearningEarlier this year Rob Hubbard chair of the eLearning Network launched a campaign for effective elearning at the Learning Technology 2012.
With so much of mindless elearning being created around us everyday this is a welcome initiative.
Here’s a video by Rob Hubbard explaining the campaign.


I loved the analogy of a compromise elearning course with a ‘hybrid car’, it drives (no pun intended) the point home quite well for buyers who simply don’t understand what good elearning is. Most often we find ’smart buyers’ focusing on costs and trying to ‘bargain’ a great solution blissfully unaware of the real cost of bad elearning.
If you’re pained with ineffective elearning, want to learn from industry experts, or if you can contribute to this initiative in any way do join in.

Do You Have the Skills to Succeed?

Do You Have the Skills to Succeed?:
The Rapid E-Learning Blog - Do you have the skills to succeed at elearning?
In a recent post, I shared my recent webinar with the E-Learning Guild and some of the conversation we had around rapid elearning.
In today’s post we’ll look at another part of the conversation where we discussed what skills are needed to succeed and how they can be nurtured.

Rapid E-Learning Developers Wear Many Hats

When I first started with elearning we’d have a team of people working on projects. Someone did the instructional design, someone else worked on graphics, and then we had a programmer who built the courses in Authorware or some other application.
The Rapid E-Learning Blog - elearning developers need to learn multiple skills
That’s usually not the case today. Most of the people I talk with usually work by themselves and mostly responsible for all parts of the course development from content design to the graphics and then the conversion to elearning.
While today’s software has made the job easier, but it’s also made it more challenging for the person who has to develop and deliver elearning courses.

Success Requires Multiple Skills

The Rapid E-Learning Blog - elearning developers need to be good project managers and instructional designers
Since so much of the development of the elearning course sits on the shoulders of just a few, it’s important to have multiple skills. Here are some of the skills that are critical to success:
  • Project consulting. This combines project management and performance consulting so that the project is focused on the right things and moving in the right direction.
  • Instructional design. It’s important to understand how people learn and how to build good elearning experiences.
  • Visual design. Elearning is a mostly visual medium, so it makes sense to understand how to craft the visual experience that works best with the course content.
  • Experience design. Learn to build a great user experience. This is a combination of user interface design and graphic design. It’s all about creating an environment that facilitates the best learning experience.
  • Expertise with your authoring tool. Regardless of the authoring tool you use, you need to become an expert using it. The tools are getting easier, but unless you learn to really use them you probably won’t go past basic course design.
  • Understand common elearning technologies. “Multi” is the key part of multimedia. There are many technologies that make up good elearning—audio, video, graphics, and web technologies. HTML5 and the iPad are ushering even more considerations. You don’t need to be an expert, but you should be familiar with the basics.

Acquiring Skills

One you understand the skills you need, the next step is figuring out how to acquire them. We’ll explore a few ways here, both formal and informal.
Formal education. The most common expectation is to acquire them through some sort of formal education. In a previous post we discussed whether or not you need an instructional design degree
The Rapid E-Learning Blog - good books for elearning design
If you’re looking for formal education on instructional design, we started to compile a list of degree and certificate programs in the elearning community. There are also some good comments about the experience in the forum thread.
Informal education. I think getting a formal education is good and will open many doors. At a minimum, it lets you compete for jobs where having a degree is required. However, there’s a difference between a degree in instructional design (which can be broad) and gaining the skills to build good elearning courses.
You’ll definitely need to augment your formal education with informal activities.
Free tutorials. In this day and age there are all sorts of resources available to learn more. Want to learn PowerPoint? There are thousands of tutorials on sites like Youtube and Screenr. Here are two good posts that cover most of what you need to know about PowerPoint for elearning:
That’s just the tip of the iceberg. If you’re an Articulate user, the community offers hundreds of great how-to tutorials. There’s even a generic course on how to take a PowerPoint file and convert that to an elearning course. And those tips work regardless of the tools you use.
Of course, elearning isn’t limited to PowerPoint. The point is that if you want to learn then you’ll find a lot of free resources that help.
Read Books. There are many good books to help you get started. I’m sure everyone has a favorite. I started a list of books in the elearning community, but here are the most common that I usually recommend:
The Rapid E-Learning Blog - recommended books for gettign started in elearning
Real World Experience
A formal degree is only going to help you. But odds are you won’t learn enough to acquire all of the skills you need to get really good at this elearning thing. And you can only learn so much from reading and viewing tutorials.
At this point you have to get your feet wet and work on real projects. Most of the skills you need come from experience. And you only get the experience by working on projects and over time.
In an ideal world, you get to work on a variety of projects that will enhance your skills. But the reality for most people is that they work on the same types of projects over and over again. So they may have built 100 elearning courses, but basically they built one type of course a hundred times.
It’s up to you to get the diversity you need. Here are a few tips:
  • Make it a habit to review good elearning courses and multimedia examples. Then document what you like and try to work some of those things into different projects. This is a great way to develop your skills and push the envelope a bit at work.
  • Create before and after examples of good elearning. If you want to build more engaging courses at work, then convert one of the typical courses into something more engaging. Use that to show your organization the types of courses you should be building. People respond to good examples.
  • Create a personal portfolio. Some organizations will stifle your development. If that’s the case, then build a portfolio to practice different things. They don’t need to be big courses. For example, create ten different ways to navigate without a next button. This lets you practice ideas on a small scale and document your skills.
  • Volunteer. There are a number of opportunities to volunteer to build courses for others. LINGOs is always looking for help. And you may even get some recognition. Try local community groups like churches or the YMCA. I’m sure they’d love to put your skills to good use.

Stay Connected to the Industry

Years ago if you wanted to meet industry experts you had to go to trade conferences or workshops. And even then, did you really get to “meet” them?
Today, it’s so much easier. The online communities and social media tools make it easier than ever to connect with others. And here’s the thing about experts—we’re all experts, just at different levels. Even if you’re just getting started, your questions and fresh perspective help frame our understanding in new ways. You’re the fuel that keeps the community vital and growing.
The Rapid E-Learning Blog - the community is an extension of your work environment
In a practical sense, the online community is going to offer all sorts of help. It curates all of the latest news. It also shares expertise and offers free resources. Software vendors like Articulate make the tools to use, but it’s the community of users who develop the best practices and tricks to get the most out of them.
I see the community as an extension of your cubicle. Going forward your value to the organization is in large part going to be dictated by how well you’re connected to your industry peers. The person who is connected and knows where to find the help and resources is going to always have the advantage.
Like I stated earlier, the tools are getting easier to use, but that also places more pressure on you to have multiple skills. The opportunities to acquire them exist, even if you’re on a budget. You just have to be intentional about getting them.
How did you learn what you know? Did getting a degree help? Do you participate in a community or social media? We’d love to hear your thoughts. Share them by clicking on the comments link.

Tidbits
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How Google’s Designers Can Help You Build Better E-Learning

How Google’s Designers Can Help You Build Better E-Learning:
The Rapid E-Learning Blog - what can you learn from Google's designers to create your own elearning courses?
I read this interesting article the other day about how Google’s designers changed the look and feel of their products. It reminded me a lot of what we have to do when building elearning courses and it’s in line with many questions I get about elearning design during my workshops.
Here are some things that relate to what we do in the world of elearning.

Build Consistent Navigation

People generally expect that things work the way they expect them to. Navigation is one of those types of things. 
  • Don’t deviate from what people expect. Navigation should be consistent. Generally people look over the screen using a Z or F pattern. It makes sense that the back and forward navigation is at the bottom right corner since it isn’t critical information and one of the last things we need to see on that screen.
  • If you do deviate from expected norms, have a reason to do so. Don’t just haphazardly move things around the screen. I’ve seen buttons turned sideways and in different places just because there was no room on the slide or the designer wanted it to look different. This is a frustrating experience. When people start focusing on the navigation and not the instructional content, you’ve probably failed.

Use White Space in Graphic Design

White space is a just as much a design feature as any other graphic. However, I think some people aren’t comfortable with it on the screen. Empty space is like a vacuum that will keep sucking until it gets filled…kind of like my hallway closet or kitchen drawers. Typically we’ll move objects around to fill the space or add decorative graphics.
I worked on a project once where we had icons for six modules. The way they were designed they didn’t completely fill the top. So we had an empty corner (which was fine). But our client couldn’t handle the blank spot and didn’t want to change the icons. So she had us build an extra module just to fill the space.
Don’t be afraid of white space. It’s an ally when communicating visually. Here’s a good article on white space in graphics.
The Rapid E-Learning Blog - effective use of white space in graphic design

Change Isn’t Easy

It’s hard to institute change. That’s what Google ran into. While trying to persuade change can be frustrating there is something valuable in the process.
If change were easy we’d do it all the time and probably mess up more than we fix. The fact that we run into walls and roadblocks requires that we step back and assess the value of continuing versus the benefits of change.
How much effort are you really willing to put into the change? At one point is it not worth it. If it’s important you’ll find a way to get the change implemented. If not, then give up and spend your time and energy on things that will produce better value.

Compromise Can Make You Seem Indecisive

I’ve worked on projects where after a few meetings we ended up with three or four decent ideas instead of one good one. The team would split into different camps and support different ideas. Since they were all good enough ideas and we generally didn’t want to offend others (or seem overly aggressive pushing ours) we’d present all of the ideas to our clients and let them decide.
That’s probably what the Google designers did.

They presented then-CEO Eric Schmidt and other leaders with a set of four different concepts, with themes like making Google more like desktop clients, or differentiating products by color. It sounded like there were too many options and not enough conviction.
This is a lack of leadership. Instead, tell me which one is best and why?
Clients hire you for your expertise. They don’t want to make all of the decisions. In the Google example it looked like they presented too many choices and the lack of clarity made it seem no one was really convinced that one was better than the other.
  • Options are good. You should present options to your clients. But there should be a reason why you’re presenting them. Perhaps each option addresses a slightly different strategic perspective. For example: choose A if you want to go this route. Choose B if you want to go the other. Don’t make both options an A.
  • Present Multiple Treatments. Generally I present three treatments that range from least expensive (basic) to more expensive (most interactive and media intensive). Each choice is a little different and presents pros and cons for each approach. This gives the client some flexibility with a reason for doing so.

Before and After Examples Work

Instead of wasting your time trying to explain what you want to do, build some before and after examples to show your clients. Seeing the difference is better than hearing about it.
If you work in a large organization building the same boring click-and-read content and want to do more, then take that boring content and rework it to show what you want to do. Show them the difference between good and bad elearning.
The Rapid E-Learning Blog - before and after elearning examples
They’ve taken enough bad courses to recognize the difference. Having some examples ready to go is a good way to convince them to make the change. And it also cements your authority as an expert and not just order taker.

Stay Connected with Your Peers

When the initial presentation didn’t work, the Google designers became more strategic by staying connected with each other. This is something you can do, too.
Many times the training and elearning people are spread throughout the organization and not usually connected to each other.  But there’s a lot of power in being connected. In Google’s example, they were able to coordinate some of their design ideas.
I presented to the Humana group in Kentucky. They’re connected and run an internal training conference every year. It’s about as good as any other conference I’ve been to (on a smaller scale). This lets them create a sense of community and ability to share all sorts of expertise. Another group I met with the Washington State government has started doing the same thing by connecting their elearning developers. They share best practices and resources.
If you work for a large organization, see what you can do to connect with your peers. If you need some ideas, let me know. If you don’t have access to others in your organization then join the elearning community and use that as your community of peers.
The Rapid E-Learning Blog - join your peers in the elearning community
Here are a few examples that may give you some ideas. Recently someone wanted to do some benchmarking for healthcare organizations. From there, they created a monthly elearning healthcare chat about difference topics. Someone in higher education saw that and started something similar.
Doing some regular networking is good, but it doesn’t need to be that organized. Just jump into the community when you need some specific help with your elearning projects like how to streamline the content and create a great elearning course.
The article about the Google designer’s is a reminder that working on teams and trying to make change happen can be a challenge. It’s true for Google and it’s true for elearning.
Hopefully these ideas help you move in the right direction. Did you gain any other insights from reading the article about Google’s designers? If so, feel free to share them using the comments link.

Tidbits
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The Art of Leadership and Learning - @JohnMaeda

The Art of Leadership and Learning - @JohnMaeda:
I have to tell you - I haven't been doing much reading in the last 6 months or so. Tell me, with a 12 hour work day and birding to do in free time and a life to lead on top of that, where's the time for this? Anyways, I'm going to learn from an author today. John Maeda the author of Redesigning Leadership is keynoting the conference this morning. I'm curious to know what the talks going to be all about - very exciting stuff since I'm always kicked about learning and I'd love to be an effective leader. Heidi says John can speak to us as a colleague but also someone who can bring views from a different sphere. Currently he's the president of the Rhode Island School of Design.



And so the keynote begins! John was mersmerised by Heidi's intro because it was about us and not about him and that's important as a leader. John is very interested in the idea of how to lead - he sees it as a practice. It began from his curiosity - eg his discovery of the lingo of financial terms. He did an MBA online to decode that lingo. He was a professor by day and a student by night. Leadership comes through living it and it's quite uncomfortable.



Leadership has four stages/ aspects:



  1. Start from foundations
  2. Craft the team
  3. Sense Actively
  4. Fail productives
We're living a lot longer than we did 30 years ago. So a four year college education or the two years masters add-on doesn't cut it for our evolution in this world. So you need to keep learning.



Build the foundations

You can't be afraid to get your hands dirty. MIT was a very clean place for John - RISD is a very dirty place that way. People want to understand and play around - a very elegant thing in John's view. John just got super-promoted and was at the top job of the school very quickly so he didn't really know how to do his job. So he bought a lot of books and he's been learning all the time. He's gotten to learn about art and design at the very core. Take a look at who the Alumni is.



In the first year at RISD, people are supposed to unlearn what they know. For eg: they know how to draw, but the first foundational course is to break it down into drawing simple shapes such as black and white polygons. It helps all the artists understand their craft better by coming down to the foundations.



Maeda is talking about knowledge starting from direction moving to concepts but then experience going to change concepts and affecting direction. So while the first direction is about mastery, the second is about originality. This creates what the human race is all about - innovating and improving all the time.


Craft the team

Figuring out the team thing is quite a strange task. Maeda refers to the American basketball team which had Michael Jordan and the first two times the American team dominated, but then they couldn't get gold. What was wrong?



You look at some oriental buildings in Japan, made of wood and these last several hundred years! In modern construction things don't last even a decade. The secret is in the materials they use by selecting the right wood from the mountains. In your team, the materials are the people.



There's no I in TEAM. There's a lot of I in INDIVIDUAL. There's a WE in WELCOME. John is talking about someone at the omelette station at the breakfast buffet and that server made him feel welcome with his omelette! That kind of power is human power - doesn't come from a dialog box or hashtag. It was because someone believed hospitality and wanted to live that value.



He brings up Marshall Ganz's book about the Power of WE. The book talks of a spiral emanating outwards - every leader leads about stories that lead outwards. It's not about autopilot; it's about engaging. Marshall's book calls leadership a practice. It's a practice that starts with Self - identifying yourself. Then there's the story of US - the connections in the group. And lastly there's the story of NOW, where the SELF meets the US and there's a task to complete. Every leaders story fits this very simple pattern. The only time you need leaders is in times of uncertainty. Story is a critical component in this - they can't hear you if they can't feel it.



Sense Actively

Artists are always doing a wrong thing at the right time! He talks about people wanting to fly kites - what good is that? Well a good thing there is to see and feel the wind. Also it's a good way to experience what it's like from the wind's perspective to see the person flying the kite or the kite itself?



If you look at growth in the last 20 years. Median family income is increasing at a linear pace, but cost of medical care and education has increased exponentially. So the ability to be educated is diminishing given that our capability to fund is becoming more and more difficult. So we need to sense this and find other ways to learn.



If you look at the monopoly in information with the number of printed books. The monopoly of universities such as Harvard, Princeton and Yale until 2000, their monopoly increased considerably. But post that, it fell quite a bit? Is there a disruption there because of the long tail?



It's not longer a heirarchy in organisations these days - it's more an organisational network. The bigger thing is now a trans-organisational network. You're friends with your competitors.



Fail Productively

"Courage lies somewhere between fearlessness and recklessness"-Aristotle

John is showing us some of the scenes created using circuit boards. You've got to see this to believe it. It's art created with circuit boards - showing deep situations like a single fathers, CEO-ness and possession; a guy showing off his new smartphone. He talks about an experience in London - a workshop that involved drawing on sand. He met people from various walks of life. People had several problems and varied situations.



There are two frames to leadership - Traditional and Creative. One being a symbol of authority, other being a symbol of inspiration. Traditional is about Yes or No. Creative is about 'Maybe' - the world is complex and you can be wrong.



"If you manage a team of 10 people, it's quite possible to do so with very few mistakes or bad behaviours. If you manage an organisation of many more it becomes quite impossible." - Ben Horowitz



When you're an A player, your median is quite high on the other hand your median as a leader will be quite low given all the mistakes that you'll make and you've got to be willing to make.



John's book is about an honest recount of what it's like being a leader. He describes it as leading without all of the answers and being open to the critique. It's been a fairly inspirational talk and I enjoyed some of the ideas he threw out though the points I noted down were a poor replacement to his talk.




The point John makes right at the end is that the economy is at a downturn in America. The innovations we're looking at come from Science Technology Engineering and Math (STEM). But a lot of the innovation also needs to come from Art. Yes we have more technology - it's everywhere. We're in a strange race with ourselves. We've always been in this evolution. We used to have a technology called the coffee table. This was before the TV. After the TV, coffee tables became defunct - now people stopped sitting around the coffee table, they sat around the TV now. And in the computer and mobile age, everyone's got a television in their face. It's the reality of the world. Technology realises progress at light speed. Electrons travel at light speed, people don't. We're stuck in a bit of a loop. When computers came first, they were awful and then there was the amazing invention of the CDROM - ability to store and share full colour images; great sounding audio and then movies on your computer. Then we had the web, and the web could do everything in the browser that we did everything we could using the CDROM. And then the mobile came and went through the same evolution as computers and the web. The evolution pattern is the same, culture hasn't moved forward though.



When Maeda compares his time at MIT and contrasts his time at RISD with it. He looks at the combination of Design (making solutions) and Art (making questions). Artists are bold to be cultural entrepreneurs. The intersection is where cool stuff happens. Design is about balancing form and content. John shows the word FEAR written in different typefaces and it's quite amazing how the form changes the way we perceive the content.



And then there's art. Art is harder - by definition it is. People who don't 'get' art are actually getting it because they recognising it is hard. It's about questioning authority. Artists ask 'Why' or 'Why not'. Why would you make art out of glass than drink from the glass? Why would you paint every day? Why not? By forcing us to think and question, we evolve our culture.



VUCA is how the world feels today - volatile, uncertain, complex ambiguous. The anti-VUCA is visioning, understanding, clarity and agility. It's the new VUCA. A new creative way of thinking that changes the way we approach life.



Scientists and artists both ask big questions, but they have different inflections. Both types of questions put together create powerful combinations. Artists are often inspired by scientists to see anew. There are artists who are scientists and vice-versa nowadays. There are designers who are scientists too. Designers are helping us see patterns in complex data. Art is merging with science. Policy makers need artists to help with sense making!



Innovation is the combination of Art and Design. STEM needs to become STEAM with the Art popped in between. Check out http://stemtosteam.org
© Sumeet Moghe
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