I attended the panel discussion on 'the future of rapid e-learning tools' at the eLearning Guild's Annual Gathering in Boston today with a misunderstanding. I thought I knew what 'rapid e-learning' meant. After all, LTI Magazine defined raid e-learning as "courseware (live or self-paced) developed in less than three weeks, where SMEs act as the primary development resource". Bersin used a similar definition: "Web-based training programmes that can be created in a few weeks and which are authored largely by SMEs". Notice how similar these definitions are? They both refer to the authors of this rapid content as being SMEs. But has anyone told the rapid content development tool builders?

The panel consisted of representatives from Adobe Captivate, Articulate and Qarbon, along with Jay Cross (yes, I know, I wondered whether he'd just turned up in the wrong room and, given that he's always got something interesting to say, they just allowed him to join in). Anyway, I got the distinct impression from the vendors that their current market isn't really SMEs at all -it's e-learning people looking to knock up something quick and dirty (my words not their's). One member of the audience even went as far as to say that they wouldn't let SMEs anywhere near these tools, in case the content they produced reflected badly on the training department. Whatever, it's clear that even the e-learning professionals aren't setting such a great example, because all three vendors described poor design as the biggest obstacle to the successful use of their tools (I meant to ask how it was that, given they knew they had this problem, they didn't use their own rapid development tools to produce training in design for their users, but never got the chance).

Anyway, if I was on the board of one of these tool providers (and I am available, at very reasonable rates), then I'd say they're missing a trick. Rather than aim their products at a few thousand e-learning professionals, why not swim in the big pond? SMEs (which means anyone who does a job, including trainers) can be counted in the many hundreds of millions. Many of them would like to be able to make information available in a professional-looking format to others in their organisations. A proportion of these would be prepared to take the time to do the necessary work. And most of these are capable of learning the bare essentials of good design, whether from some form of training package, from exemplars, or simply from their own successes and failures and those of their colleagues. They can certainly learn to use the tools, which although far from being really easy to use, are no more complex than most other applications.

As almost everyone (except some e-learning developers who're unjustifiably worried about their jobs) seems to agree, the future will see a blurred distinction between teachers and learners, between publishers and their audiences. Everyone will be a teacher. Everyone will create content. As Dr Henry Jenkins described in his keynote this morning, more than half of all American teenagers create media content in some way. And with the proliferation of digital cameras, camcorders and music software, most of the oldies are now doing it as well.

If rapid development tools are not made widely available, along with the means of (and removal of barriers to) publishing the output to the organisation's intranet, then SMEs, i.e. us, will have to resort to blogs, wikis, forums and other ways of communicating online content. The results will not be as sexy, but the technical barriers will be non-existent and the deployment just about instant. And instant is about as rapid as you can get.

Feb

22

The Last Post

Instrumentality · The Last Post

In October 2005, I wrote my first post for the Clive on Learning. It was called Bringing e-learning into the twentieth Century. We're now 20 years into that new century and I'd like to think that, thanks a great deal to coronavirus and repeated lockdowns, we now have a pretty good idea of what advantages we can gain by learning online. Paradoxically, we've also realised just how important it is for us psychologically to be face-to-face.

Anyway, this is my 900th and last post addressing issues around learning in the workplace, so I thought I would celebrate that fact with a blast of the trumpet. I am shifting to a new phase of my life in which I will be exploring other interests of mine, including music composition and writing, with an emphasis less on how others learn and more on how I learn and develop. At the end of March, I will share my First Post to reveal what I have been up to in this year of forced seclusion.

For now, I would like to thank the 4 million or so readers of this blog over the past 15 years and wish you well as you continue your careers in learning and development. As we rebuild our lives and economies post-pandemic, you will have a pivotal role to play.

Posted 22nd February 2021 by Clive Shepherd

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Feb

11

The Future of Learning Technologies

If you have an hour to spare (and, let's face it, in the current circumstances, that might just be the case), you might enjoy this podcast hosted by the wonderful Jane Daly. I really enjoyed talking to Jane and reflecting on my career in learning and development.

And I thoroughly recommend Jane's site People Who Know as a rich resource for learning professionals.

Posted 11th February 2021 by Clive Shepherd

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Jul

3

The learning professional as storyteller

Last year I worked on a major project to develop online courses for HR professionals. Most of the content was aimed at influencing behavioural change so, as the principal writer, I decided to major on storytelling as strategy for learning. Over a six-month period, I reckon I must have written hundreds of stories, some no more than simple prompts for reflection and discussion, while some formed the primary means for uncovering ideas and generating insights.

Reflecting on how central storytelling had become so central to my approach to learning design, I thought back to the point at which I really became hooked on this technique. Back in 2003, I devoted a great deal of energy to the design of a new CD-ROM course entitled Ten Ways to Avoid Death by PowerPoint. In blatant disregard of all the usual constraints of time and budget, I set out to design a programme that was both highly interactive and media-rich, engaging as many of the senses as possible.

As the course was nearing completion, I came up with the idea of introducing the programme with a short story, adapted from a classic fairytale. Because the moral of the tale seemed to echo the main message of the course, I added this in, even though I was concerned about starting a course in such a passive, linear manner.

Some time later, I met with a colleague who had been reviewing the course. She had shown it to several managers in her company and got some feedback. I asked if anything stood out that they found particularly enjoyable or memorable - perhaps the games, the multimedia, the illustrations? No, you guessed it, it was the story. It made the point, it stirred the imagination, it stuck in the mind.

You may not be surprised, but I was. Can stories really be more powerful than interactivity in bringing about learning? I investigated further and found a site called storyatwork.com (it's long since disappeared). They said: "We are story-making machines. Cognitively speaking, every experience, every relationship, every object is stored in the mind as a story." OK, but any website that calls itself 'story at work' is going to be biased. What about the science?

Well, Jerome Bruner, the father of cognitive psychology, believes storytelling is hardwired into our brains. The primary reason infants are motivated to learn to speak is because they have stories inside them that they want to share with others. Simple stories like "I fell over" or "I had a bad dream and I'm scared", but stories nonetheless.

In his book Tell me a Story, psychologist and artificial intelligence expert Roger Schank argues that "knowledge is stories" and that intelligence may be more or less equated with the ability to tell the right story at the right time. Even the old-timers agree. According to the old Hopi proverb, "He who tells the stories rules the world". Hollywood already knows that.

When you attend a really good workshop, the one thing you can guarantee is that the facilitator will have some good stories. Perhaps a few are just good jokes, but many will be extremely relevant to the subject in hand. They illustrate a point, they stimulate discussion. That's why it's so much more difficult to run a workshop for the first time - it can take quite a while to come up with all those anecdotes and examples that bring the event to life. It also explains why your average facilitator's guide is never quite enough of a foundation on which to run a workshop - however thoroughly it lists all the steps involved in preparing and running the event, it's inadequate if it doesn't also provide you with a repertoire of interesting and illuminating anecdotes.

There's a clue here as to why so much self-directed learning is dry and boring. The typical designer will work with a subject expert to define the learning objectives and list the important learning points. They will structure this information and support it with visual aids and practical exercises. If they're not careful, what they will end up with is the online equivalent of the facilitator's guide, when what they should have done is spend hours in conversation with the subject expert, wheedling out their favourite stories on the topic - the successes, the horror stories, the amusing incidents.

Even if you don't fancy yourself as a budding chat show host, you are unlikely to encounter much opposition. Subject matter experts will find it much easier to tell stories than to articulate what they know in terms of neat and tidy abstractions. Funnily enough, learners won't be any different. Try as you may to come up with clever mnemonics to help them remember the five stages in this, or the seven elements in that, they're much more likely to recall the tales you have told or the experiences shared by other participants. They'll also waste no time in passing these stories on to their colleagues. After all, they're only human, and if the scientists are to be believed, simply story-telling machines.

Posted 3rd July 2020 by Clive Shepherd

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Five media forms - learning technologies in 2020

Back in 2009, I posted a simple analysis of learning technologies based on Diana Laurillard’s conversational framework. This became the second most popular posting ever on this blog, so I thought I'd give it a further look.

I was particularly taken by Diana’s five media forms (the descriptions are mine):

Narrative media: explain, demonstrate, describe
Interactive media: facilitate reflection, check understanding, encourage exploration, provide feedback
Communicative media: allow exchanges between learners and between learners and tutors / subject experts
Adaptive media: facilitate experimentation and practice
Productive media: allow learners to articulate, express, demonstrate understanding

I was interested to see what light these categorisations would shed on my understanding of the wide range of learning technologies currently at our disposal. The following table is my updated 2020 attempt at allocating technologies to each of the five categories. I have added a column to explain whether digital content would be an input to the learning processes involved or an output.

*Media form*	*Example learning technologies*	*The role of content*
Narrative media	Online videos, online articles and papers, podcasts, software demos, infographics	Content is an input to the learning process
Interactive media	Scenarios, quizzes, simple games, click-through e-learning	Content is an input to the learning process
Communicative media	Social networks, forums, virtual classrooms, online meetings and discussions, webinars, email / messaging	Content is an output from the learning process
Adaptive media	Simulations, AR/VR, intelligent tutorials, strategic games, intelligently curated content, adaptive learning pathways	Content is an input to the learning process
Productive media	Wikis, blogs, spreadsheets, apps for editing text, video, audio and slideshows	Content is an output from the learning process

On re-visiting this analysis, I’m still not sure yet whether these categories move things along. Are some media forms more valuable than others? Are they situational? Should they be used in sequence or in combination? There's plenty of room to take this thinking further.

Posted 8th June 2020 by Clive Shepherd

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May

4

Live online learning is also for special occasions
In my last post, I argued that, although face-to-face learning has been the default since the dawn of time, online learning has changed everything. As we have discovered over the past few weeks, online learning is scalable, flexible, accessible to all but a small minority, economical, environmentally advantageous and, of course, socially distant. What’s not to like?

So OK, there are situations when we simply can’t achieve what we want online, which is fine because, in time, we’ll be able to go back to doing some learning face-to-face. Used judiciously and typically as part of a blend, face-to-face learning is capable of adding tremendous value. But not for everyday learning, for special occasions.

Let’s imagine you’re currently in a position in which you simply have to deliver your programmes online because your classrooms are all closed up. You still have a big decision to make …
1. Should I develop online materials to cover the content of my programmes?
2. Or should I run live online sessions that approximate what I currently do in the classroom?
If you spend most of your time in a classroom, you’ll be drawn to option 2, because the experience will be similar and you will have less work to do in developing materials. But, in doing so, you only take advantage of some of the benefits of online learning - the social distancing, the reduced carbon footprint, the cost reduction. What you don’t get is the scalability and the flexibility. You can’t address as large an audience as quickly as you can with digital content and you can’t offer your learners the opportunity to learning when they want, at the pace they want and in the way they want. So there has to be a good reason for delivering your sessions live. In short …

Live online learning is also for special occasions

So, what are those special occasions? Why do you want to fix your learners to a particular date and time? Here are some arguments:

1
Live events allow for a free-flowing dialogue, something that is simply not going to happen by email, in a forum or on Twitter. Many learning activities, including role-plays, simply have to be live.

2
In a live event, you have the potential to get quick answers to your questions and immediate feedback on your performance. This level of responsiveness can be important in some situations, such as learning to operate a process or to handle customer queries. Generally speaking, a real-time approach gets the job done quickly, whereas it can take ages to resolve an issue while you wait for people to respond when it suits them.

3
Live events can also have more emotional energy (sometimes negative as well as positive) than their self-paced equivalents. Most of us would prefer to watch a big sporting event as it happens rather than see the recording sometime later, even if we do not know the outcome. There is something about experiencing an event as it happens in the company of our peers, whether that’s face to face or online. And this upsurge of emotion is going to make a big difference in terms of what we remember.

4
In the context of a blended solution, live events also act as a milestone to encourage learners to get the self-paced work done. In a course which has no timetable, it is inevitable that individual study will be put off to a later date – after all, learning is rarely the most urgent task on our to-do lists. Even if deadlines are established for self-paced learning, there is always the feeling that these could easily be pushed back if required. However, when a programme is punctuated with live events, there is a massive incentive to get on with your ‘homework’ – no-one wants to be the one who hasn’t got their assignments done.

Choices, choices, choices. To keep it simple, let’s reduce all this to three steps:
1. By default, deliver your learning programme as online content
2. When online content won’t do the job (you want free-flowing discussion, you need to provide instant feedback, you want emotional energy, you want to introduce milestones into a longer programme, and so on) then consider delivering some elements live and online
3. When live and online still isn’t enough (people need to be hands-on, you need full attention, you need maximum sensitivity to body language, etc.) then consider delivering some elements face-to-face
Except, of course, that option 3 is not available at the moment. So, make option 2 work.

Easy
Posted 4th May 2020 by Clive Shepherd

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Apr

21

Face-to-face is for special occasions - 2020 edition

Having spent the past 25 years advocating the greater use of online tools and resources for education and training (not to mention many other aspects of our lives), I've met my fair share of opposition and have to admit that I've been frustrated at how slowly we have responded to the opportunity.

I needn't have worried! All we needed was a pandemic. All of a sudden, it seems quite absurd to question the concept of online learning. For me, this is the silver lining on a very dark cloud.

Of course, the crisis will come to an end and, when it does, we have a chance to re-think before automatically assuming our previous positions. So, should we simply go back to doing as much learning as possible face-to-face? Or perhaps dispense with the idea of face-to-face learning altogether? To answer the question, I return to my post of 9th December 2011. For me, face-to-face is for special occasions.

***

Ask yourself. What proportion of the music that you consume is at a live performance? Chances are it's something between 0 and 10%. What proportion of the drama that you watch is at the theatre, rather than at the cinema or on TV? I'd be surprised if it's more than a few percent. And what proportion of the sport you watch is in a stadium rather than on TV? You get the idea.

And yet, there's a good possibility that those live events that you have attended - music, drama, sports or whatever - are among the most memorable occasions of your life. Perhaps even peak experiences.

If you wanted to up the percentage of time you spent watching live music, drama or sport, it would come at a considerable price in terms of admission fees, travel, time and sheer adrenaline. Chances are that, unless you're rich and with considerable discretionary time, it would be completely impractical. In fact, with all the rush of modern working life, you're probably finding it increasingly impractical to watch TV or listen to radio at the times at which the programmes are broadcast. A great deal of your media consumption is almost definitely asynchronous - under your time control - using downloads, streaming media and the like.

Is it too fanciful to apply the same logic to learning? The default position is now asynchronous and online, giving you complete control over time and place. If you want to share an experience with other learners in real time, you go synchronous, using some sort of virtual meeting platform. If you need a rich sensory experience that you'll remember for years, then spend the money, put aside the time and meet up face-to-face at a conference or workshop.

There was a time when the only way you could listen to music, watch a play or a sporting event, or attend a class was live and face-to-face, because there were no ways to transmit or record these events electronically. Quite clearly those days are gone and we are the richer for it.

Posted 21st April 2020 by Clive Shepherd

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Apr

14

The human obstacle to great e-learning

This week on The Good Practice Podcast, I join Ross Garner and Owen Ferguson to discuss the promise of e-learning.

Posted 14th April 2020 by Clive Shepherd

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Apr

3

Queen of Love

An orchestral re-imagining of Robin Williamson's epic song for The Incredible String Band, conceived for the musical 'U' some 50 years ago.

Play on SoundCloud, on Apple Music, on Spotify

Posted 3rd April 2020 by Clive Shepherd

Labels: music

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Jan

31

Driving behavioural change across the people profession

Six months of highly concentrated effort by the Skills Journey team has paid off with the launch, on January 23, of a major new online learning resource for 150,000 members of the Chartered Institute for Personnel and Development (CIPD).

We worked closely with the CIPD learning team to help produce eight courses aligned to the core behaviours in the CIPD’s New Profession Map:

Ethical practice
Professional courage and influence
Valuing people
Working inclusively
Commercial drive
Passion for learning
Insights focus
Situational decision-making

This was a real team effort with design and development shared across CIPD and ourselves. To get this resource out in such a short time, including the production of 73 new videos and animations, we employed a highly agile and collaborative approach and this certainly seems to have paid off with a fantastic early response from CIPD members.

A big challenge was that we were not focusing on knowledge-based material; we wanted to challenge and shape the behaviours of those working in HR, L&D and OD, not just in the UK but across a wide range of cultures. This led us to adopt an innovative design, centring on storytelling, authentic challenges, personal exploration, reflection and social interaction.

We were determined not to bombard learners with abstract information. We wanted to stimulate insights that would transform practice and enhance the professional standing of those working in the profession. I reckon we have every chance of achieving that.

The courses are free to CIPD members. If that doesn’t include you, you can get an overview of what the resource contains on the CIPD website.

Clive is now Instrumentality

Posted 31st January 2020 by Clive Shepherd

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Dec

7

Juno

.
Something about Quelque Chose

Posted 7th December 2019 by Clive Shepherd

Labels: music Thin air

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Rosie Sherry2:08 PM
I'm yet to see a quality course produced by Rapid Elearning. Could anyone show me one?

I believe elearning content already has a battle to fight to improve it's perception, rapid elearning (to me) just makes the battle harder to fight.

Currently if I had a choice between Rapid Elearning compared to blogs/wikis/forums/etc, I wouldn't go for the first.

The focus on Rapid Elearning appears to be on churning stuff out quickly. The reality of this is that the user needs are often forgotten about.

I'll continue to think the same until someone can convince me other wise!

Driven Systems
Lee Kraus9:29 PM
I have seen some pretty powerful "rapid" content, both internally at our company, (how to complete your time sheet) at the higher ed level, (combining lecture with PowerPoint on business information systems), and externally (help files in Basecamp). I guess the argument becomes are these "courses" to which I am trying to determine if I care.

The focus on rapid elearning is on providing relevant content closer to the time of need, compared to a month later or 6 months later. Does it make sense to engage in a year long development process to create a course in the 2007 tax code changes, just to see 2008 come out? If the content developer understands the learners needs, then they will be met. However, to what Clive is referencing, if the developer is a peer to the learner, then they will most likely create the most relevant content possible because they will best understand the learners needs. I'm all about good instructional design, but these tools allow anyone to create compelling content that engage learners.

I feel like I should say something about using appropriate tools for appropriate jobs here, but I hope we are post that. I am with you Clive, lets put even easier to use tools in the hands of everyone, provide some support, and see where it all comes out.
doofdaddy6:39 AM
I''m with Lee...I've also seen some nice stuff done with the rapid dev tools. As a matter of fact, teh Gold winning submission in Articulate's recent contest is a good example of a decent product that can be produced quickly and at a fraction of the cost of contracting a flash developer.

I've also seen a lot of junk, but that's not the tools fault.

Two points:

Rapid dev tools should be in the hands of more people. In some sense, everyone is a SME and has something to share. These tools allow that to happen. Even if they're not well done, they still capture some knowledge and content that might of value. If anything, there's a searchable artifact. It's elitist to think that there's something wrong with these tools being in the hands of SMEs or non-pros. That's like Hollywood saying the same thing about Youtube. I've seen a lot more creativity on Youtube from novices than some of the crap on main stream TV.

A lot of what is called training is a waste of time and money. Even if the training modules are no good, the fact that I can create them with a rapid dev tool saves me a lot of money and time, and allows me to allocate flash developers to more important projects. Typically, the owner of the awful content is happy with the final product. It's a win-win. The client is satisfied with the product and the organization spent a minimum pulling it together. In this case, the learner is out of the equation:)
Clive Shepherd8:05 PM
I am really enjoying this debate. I suggest you also read what Jay had to say about the panel.
Вячеслав Щинов10:22 AM
Well, if e-learning tools should come to everyone (I agree), then we need more free and open source e-learning software. While in LMS we got at least Moodle (with large and growing community), there are only few free authoring tools. I'm developer of such free tool, and of course I'm very interested in feedback from e-learning professionals (thank you in advance!). Let me introduce it - CourseLab, released last month (int'l version - local version was developed earlier). Is it easy-to-use enough to everyone?

Vyacheslav Shchinov (transcription of my name, that possibly will be presented in Russian characters)
Gary H8:18 PM
I think the problem is that the tools are somewhat behind the times. Web 2.0 tools are probably the rapid eLearning tools we should be looking at. While the current commercial tools can be used to develop good eLearning content and are fairly easy to use, they are not in the hands of the SMEs who could/should use them.

In my organization we cannot afford the price tag for the tools, and the free ones I've looked at are severely lacking. I would rather SMEs post a blog, or email me the PPT file.

Also, deployment is way behind. The LMS model just doesn't work for 'rapid' content. People need quick access to resources, not full-blown courses. Rapid tools should be used to create more resources and less eLearning. If you need a full-blown course, take the time and do it right. There is nothing wrong with an SME quickly putting publishing something in a tool like Articulate Presenter, but in my mind it's not training. It's a resource that will likely be as effective as training and probably reach a wider audience.

If rapid eLearning is for SMEs, then make the tools more affordable and come up with good deployment models.
Clive Shepherd6:17 PM
Gary - you make some excellent points. We do need to make the tools much more affordable and the content more easily deployable without the constraints of an LMS.