Narrowing the Distance

Google’s Chrome web store has been open for a couple days now and there are already hundreds of web apps available.  One such app called sliderocket may be a solution several of you have been looking for to create online training and presentations.

What is it? According to the site, SlideRocket is a revolutionary new approach to presentations. It’s the only presentation software that allows you to create stunning presentations, manage them intelligently, share them securely and then measure the results.

What does this mean in English?  SlideRocket allows you to create awesome presentations that are interactive.  What’s more, it comes with built in analytics so that you can track who’s viewing your presentations, how often, etc…  Another HUGE bonus is that it’s all done in HTML5, so it is viewable on iPads and iPhones unlike flash based presentations.

In the demo I watched, I was able to add interactions, audio, video, images, text, twitter feeds and much more.  The collaboration features are excellent as well.  And the cost… there’s a free lite version, then the full version is $24/month or $240/year.  This may sound expensive but I use rapid eLearning tools like Articulate currently.  The price for the studio version is around $1400 (58 months worth of sliderocket), and this doesn’t include any collaboration or tracking capabilities.   I’m not saying that sliderocket has all of the capabilities of some of the rapid eLearning tools however, so it’s probably not the best comparison.  I am saying you should give it a try though!  See the video below for more information:

The information from this post has been updated.  See http://brandon-hall.com/bryanchapman/?p=231 for more information.

A long time…

I am currently working on a short presentation for a staff meeting at an education cooperative I work with.  After scouring through the web for relevant information, the blog from Bryan Chapman at Brandon Hall Research looks to be the most accurate.  I encourage everyone to check it out now because he is in the process of updating the information this month and your input is needed!

In general, here’s the information he posted:

Ratio for each Type of learning

34:1 Instructor-Led Training (ILT), including design, lesson plans, handouts, PowerPoint slides, etc.

33:1 PowerPoint to E-Learning Conversion. Not sure why it takes less time then creating ILT, but that’s what we discovered when surveying 200 companies about this practice

220:1 Standard e-learning which includes presentation, audio, some video, test questions, and 20% interactivity

345:1 Time it takes for online learning publishers to design, create, test and package 3rd party courseware

750:1 Simulations from scratch. Creating highly interactive content

Check the post out for yourself here.  Don’t forget to participate in the survey while you are there.

I’ve been reading several books lately on the topic of change.  A few titles include Influencer, Switch and Dan Pink’s new book Drive.  For some time now I have been trying to explain to organizations who want employees to implement new programs that financial or other rewards aren’t always the best solution.  It just makes sense to me that giving people extra money to do something is like telling them that it must not be worth doing.  If it was, why would you pay them extra for it?  Anyway, this video goes along with the book Drive.  It’s lengthy, but worth the time (and no I will not pay you to watch it).

I am becoming more and more of a Skype fan every day.  At first I just used it for the occasional instant message or video call.  Then I started using it in place of my office phone.  And just recently my colleague and I used Skype to conduct a full day training session in another state.  So if you haven’t taken full advantage of Skype here are some things to consider:

• The new beta version of Skype allows for up to 5 people to be in a video chat at a time (it is beta though, so don’t be surprised if an issue pops up from time to time).  My organization is starting to use this for shorter more frequent meetings instead of scheduling full day staff meetings once a month.
• Skype offers screen sharing.  In the past I used GoToMeeting ($50/month) for most of the trainings I conducted online.  Now using Skype I can easily switch between a video feed from my webcam and my computer screen if I am showing a PowerPoint (or if I just want people to stop looking at me).
• Skype is now available on your TV!  That’s right, you now have a legitimate business expense if you want to upgrade to a new flat panel (that’s a joke, I’m not a tax person, so don’t complain if you get audited).  It’s still early on and only applies to a few internet connected widescreen TVs (Panasonic and Samsung), but it’s promising none the less.  In addition to the TV, you will also need a special web cam that runs approximately $150.  Check here for more information from Skype.

What other uses are there for Skype?  Looking forward to hearing your thoughts…

I’ve been seeing quite a bit of posts come through on udutu (pronounced you do to… clever, huh?).  udutu is somewhat unique in what it does.  First, it is a type of rapid eLearning software.  One key aspect is that it’s web based, which is nice because it allows for anyone to collaborate on the development of a web based training.  I’ve always found it difficult to get together with the subject matter experts, instructional design folks, graphics people, etc… so this allows everyone to work together a little more seamlessly.  I realize there are other similar web based software apps out there (Shift, etc…), but this is where the next unique factor comes in.

udutu is free.  Or so their website says.  From what I can tell, it’s free to create your own trainings, zip them up and unpack/host them in your own LMS.  They even offer a moodle module to make the process easier if you are using moodle, which we do.  You can host the training on their system, but there is a watermark.  If you pay, you can have the watermark removed.

So far, udutu looks to have a lot of potential.  If there are any experienced users out there I would love to hear your likes and dislikes

Update – August 2010 – Google announced that they will stop development on wave due to low adoption rate.  If you currently use it, it will be available until at least the end of the year.

I’m sure this isn’t new news to many, but Google released their version of web based collaboration software not long ago.  Currently you have to have an invitation to use it (similar to what they did with email when gmail was released).  I finally received an invite and have had a chance to experiment with it.  My first thought is that it will be very cool if you can get people to buy into it.  Personally I use google for email, calendar, document management and other things, so I will no doubt be using Google Wave for collaboration.  Here’s a short video from their “googlewave” channel that explains what it is fairly well:

Link to Video:  Intro to Google Wave

I’m just finishing up with a book by Dan Roam called The Back of the Napkin, Solving Problems and Selling Ideas with Pictures.  There’s a ton of useful stuff in there, but I wanted to focus on one particular piece for this post because I think it is of enormous importance for anyone who presents or develops presentations.

We’ve heard forever that a picture is worth a thousand words.  We also know from research (and common sense) that’s it’s not the best idea to fill a slide with words in front of an audience and just stand there and read it to them.  So the question becomes, how do we use pictures to relay the information we need our audience to know.  I’ll give you a hint… it’s not with random clip art scattered throughout your presentation.

This is where The Back of the Napkin comes in.  According the book, there are 6 questions that can help with almost any problem.  You’ve heard them all before: Who/What, How Much, Where, When, How, and Why.  Where the book goes a step further is by identifying pictures you can use to relay the answers to your audience.  It is as follows:

• Who/What – Portrait (or a stick figure)
• How Much – Chart
• Where – Map
• When – Timeline
• How – Flowchart
• Why – Plot

One important point here is to not get caught up in your ability to draw.  These are all things that you should be able to do in a simple way with chart paper or a more elaborate way with PowerPoint, Keynote, or other presentation software.  Also, the author brings up that there are certain “versions” of the pictures you draw depending on a number of factors.  His book lays it all out.  Check out the website and www.thebackofthenapkin.com.  For more information on this particular section, click on “D. The 6 Way we See and Show” on the interactive picture of a napkin on the homepage.

We frequently hear designers claim to use research-based design principles when developing staff trainings (e-learning or face-to-face).   Without getting into the argument about what qualifies as research-based and what does not (we can save that for a later post), I recommend asking your potential designer to talk you through the research that is applicable to your particular project.  If that person knows it well enough to have a common sense conversation, then they should have a strong enough command to use it.  Unfortunately, “research-based design: has become a tagline from someone’s marketing department rather than the modus operandi of the training design team.  Over the next few months, we will share some of these practices supported by research that are not commonly understood in training design that we have utilized with our clients. Hopefully, you are using them already and just did not know the “name” of the particular strategy or design element.

In a recent online software training package we developed, the modules were created using the principle of errorless learning.  Errorless learning is one example of a design procedure that has been validated by a large volume of quantitative research across diverse populations (you mean we should consider people with disabilities when designing a training??? — YES!).  We were approached to developed a series of training to teach users how to use a software application.  To do this, we incorporated guided practice for the features throughout each module.  Using errorless learning meant that the user could only provide the correct responses during this time.    Here is how the guided practice was structured:  (a) the user was asked to complete a task using the software; (b) only the correct responses were allowed; and (c) if the user did not respond correctly within 4 seconds a visual prompt was provided that cued the user to engage in the correct response.

Here are 2 practical reasons for you to consider this design tip:

1.  The user does not constantly practice incorrect responses. What we know is that if we are allowed to do the incorrect thing repeatedly, we learn that incorrect response pretty well.
2.  Users remain engaged.  Repeated incorrect responses tend to reduce the likelihood that a user will continue on with training.  This is especially important to consider for the trainings that are not required, but are important for staff development.

This concept worked great for this project because the client wanted their participants to be able to USE the software rather than being able to just ANSWER questions about it.  So when working with your designer or developing your next training, consider errorless learning.

A contract is defined simply as an agreement between two parties to do something.  It can be used on anything from an agreement to buy or sell an item to an employment contract.  One thing many do not consider using contracts for however is with learning.

I just finished up doing a year long educational cadre on the use of Universal Design for Learning strategies in a classroom.  Part of the deal was that in return for strategies and software or devices to use in the classroom, participants would meet with me in person at least 3-4 times a year in addition to doing some web based stuff.  Sounds simple enough, but I’ve been in the game long enough to know things don’t always work out as planned.  The last thing I wanted was a project that started with 30 people and ended with five.  This can happen for a variety of reasons, so to help prevent it from happening this time around I created a contract that not only the participants had to sign, but they’re administrators (and sometimes their administrator’s administrator) had to sign.  No one could register before signing and returning this contract to me.  On the contract I included what the expectations of the participants were and what they would receive in return.  If someone did not show up, they would not receive the support and devices that everyone else received.  Also, if for some reason they were told they could not attend a training, I simply pulled out the contract for the administrator so they would realize this had been agreed upon some time ago.  Overall it was a huge success.

The purpose of this post is to get you to think out of the box and take this a step further.  It’s easy to use contracts if you are meeting face to face with people over a the course of several months, but what about using this in your online courses or trainings as well (even if it’s only a one time thing).  A contract immediately provides clear expectations of what is expected of the learner.  They know how much time it requires and have the opportunity to say no (or choose a different time to take the course/training) up front.  This will also help the learner understand what they will be gaining in return for taking the course (a certificate, mandatory training satisfied, a gift card, etc…)

I recommend giving a contract a try during your next training.  If nothing else, the simple act of signing an agreement is likely to increase the completion rate of any of your courses.