Narrowing the Distance

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

Sorry for such a long time between posts.  We’ve been wrapped up in a few big projects that ate up all of our time.  Hopefully things will be better in the coming months.  Anyway, 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.

First off, apologies to anyone who still drops by to see if this blog is still being updated.  Our last post was around 6 months ago, but that’s all about to change.  In fact, Innovative Communications Group has been going through several changes recently.  In addition to expanding our services, we’ve re-designed our website (www.innocommgroup.com) and our blog.  Our new name is Narrowing the Distance, which we believe speaks to what we try to help people do.  This distance may be physical, such as training and support around the globe, or local and apply to effective presentation techniques, learning strategies, resources and more.

Start checking back often or just subscribe to our blog.  Our goal is to role a post out every week with an occasional update in between.

One of the most used technologies to increase my effiency is desktop sharing.  In case you are not familiar with the term, desktop sharing simply allows you to share your desktop with one or more people.  I use it often for training people far away or in different locations, collaborating with colleagues or to troubleshoot technology problems.

If you are interested in giving desktop sharing a try, there are no shortage of available applications.  Among them include:

• GoToMeeting
• Windows Live Meeting
• Vyew
• ShowMYPC
• WebEx
• TeamViewer

There are plenty more options out there, but this is a start.  A few things to note:

• Not all options are free.  GoToMeeting, Windows Live Meeting, and WebEX may offer free trials, but do cost money to keep.  Others, like TeamViewer may offer a free version for non-commercial use.
• Know what you are looking for.  Some options only allow one user to view your computer.  That may work for simple collaboration or technical support, but will hardly work for trainings.

What do I recommend?  Although free is great, I like GoToMeeting.  The cost is low enough and it offers several features that are great for training small groups.  If you need to train a larger group, you can upgrade or purchase GoToWebinar, which allows you to have hundreds of participants and provides advanced features like polling, access levels and more.

I’ve tried many of the other options out there, and while they usually work fine, I find most slow to load and react.  This may work for collaborating with a colleague, but if you are working with a client I recommend spending the $400 or $500 extra a year and use GoToMeeting.  Their newest version has integrated voice capabilities, which is a huge advantage over using a land or mobile line to call a long distance number to communicate (I always just used skype).  Finally, GoToMeeting does allow those you are connecting with to show their screen.  You can take control of their mouse and keyboard or vice versa as well.  Others may offer this same feature, but it’s worth mentioning either way.

I was at a conference put on by the Bob Pike Group not long ago and sat through an interesting session on evaluating your trainings.  They came up with four components you need to measure for effective professional development.  They were:

1. Like It
2. Learn It
3. Use It
4. Make a Difference

Although they didn’t offer many suggestions on how to actually do this, I liked their easy to understand components and data they had showing what organizations typically do.  Turns out that over 80% check to see if participants liked the training, less than 25% check to see if the content was learned, less than 10% check to see if you use it and get this… Less than 3% of organizations surveyed check to see if the training made a difference!

How can we apply this within eLearning?  It’s quite simple really, take a look at the following examples.  Feel free to add to them in the comments section if you would like:

Like It – Did your participants like the training?

• Imbed a survey at the end of your eLearning course.
• Use an external survey application, such as SurveyMonkey, to survey how your participants felt about the training
• Send an email to all participants asking for feedback. If you are tracking who is taking your course, you should already have their email. If not, simply ask for feedback. Sure not all participants will do so, but some will.

Learn It – Did your participants learn anything?

• I usually do this two ways. First, I imbed quizzes or “knowledge checks” throughout my learning environments.
• I also follow up a few weeks later, usually with the exact same questions to make sure knowledge was retained. I typically find that asynchronous online learning results are just as good, if not better, than face to face results.

Use It – Did your participants use it?

• Once again, use an application such as survey monkey or a simple email to ask participants if they are using what they learned
• For clients who need to ensure training goals are being implemented I go a step further. I typically send a web cam to the participant and have them use it in conjunction with Skype, a free instant message and voice of IP application. Once set up, I simply observe the participant in a setting and collect data on their use of the content covered in the training. This is a bit more work than simply sending an email, but much simpler and quicker than driving or flying to observe someone face to face. I can usually collect all the data I need in under 30 minutes instead of taking days to find common dates, travel arrangement, etc…

Make a Difference – Did the training make a difference?

• The answer to this can mostly be found in another post I did a few months ago on Deciding Which Trainings to Move Online. Trainings should be designed with the end in mind. If the goal is to increase sales, I should be able to see if it in fact increased sales as much as I had hoped. No secrets or technology tips here, but yet we still find that only 3% of organizations in the survey check this part out. I suppose they are just creating trainings just to be creating them?

Hope this helps some of you when you are looking at evaluating your training programs. The idea is to find ways to take advantage of available technology for your online or face-to-face trainings and imbed this into your training. Otherwise how will you ever know if your training did what it was designed to do?

In case you didn’t know, I’m a big fan of eLearning. I think it offers many advantages over traditional face-to-face learning environments. However, this doesn’t mean that every training you offer, or want to offer, needs to be given an online presence.

For example, I was working through the process of deciding what trainings would be best to move to an online setting for a small company. This didn’t mean that the traditional face-to-face sessions would stop, just that there would be another option that would allow the organization to reach more people. When I first arrived, the general consensus was that online training was a great way to provide many of the trainings they have been wanting to offer to their audience, but haven’t had time to work on. See my post on Quality eLearning Takes Time to understand why this may not have been the best approach.

So instead, we started talking about all of the things the organization does related to training. They were able to name off the trainings they provided most and commented on how it was eating up all of their time. Now we were getting somewhere… By investing time in creating an online version of a training that is delivered often, you are able to reach an even larger audience while freeing up some valuable time for you and your staff – once the training is created that is.

Unfortunately, after you have a couple of trainings in mind that you would like to take online you are still not out of the woods. There are a few things you need to map out ahead of time to ensure this training is the right training to make the transition. These things include:

1. What is the purpose of this training? In other words, what will the participants get out of it?
2. How will you know the training is successful? Use concrete numbers here. Not “X amount of people will have taken the training“, but instead something like “participants taking the training will increase sales by 30%” or “errors will be reduced by 25%“. See the difference? Knowing how many people participated in your training only tells you how much time was wasted unless you can show results. Tom Kuhlmann gives really good examples of what I’m talking about here in his Rapid eLearning Blog and eBook.
3. How will you measure the results. This is another key point. Many organizations define results without knowing how they are going to measure them. Measuring with a figure you aren’t going to receive for a year from now is a bad idea. Think of something relevant and readily available that you can use.

After working through these key steps you should know if this is really a training you should spend time taking online or not. If so, once finished, you should try the training with a small group of participants and follow up by measuring the results you decided upon in step two. If the results look good, offer to a larger group and repeat. If not, revise and experiment with another small group.

The good thing about creating trainings for an online environment is that they are easy to go back and edit at any time. If one particular part is shown not to work, you can quickly edit and republish. I will provide a concrete example of how I set up a training using this same process in a soon to come post.