So long, Humph

I don't normally blog on a Saturday, but today I have to make an exception. It is with great sadness that I write about the passing of great British jazzman and broadcaster Humphrey Lyttleton, who died today following surgery for an aortic aneurysm.

In the late 1940s and early 1950s Lyttelton was prominent in the British revival of traditional jazz forms from New Orleans, recording with Sidney Bechet in 1949. In 1956, he had his only hit, with the Joe Meek-produced recording of "Bad Penny Blues", which was in the UK Singles Chart for six weeks. In 1967, Lyttelton contributed the trumpet intro to The Byrds' "So You Want to be a Rock and Roll Star". It was while working with The Byrds that he first met and befriended session musician Jimmy Page. Page later founded Led Zeppelin and Lyttelton contributed the coda that would become the opening riff to "Moby Dick".

In 1968, at the request of NASA, Lyttelton went to the United States to play a selection of jazz numbers which were broadcast live to the crew of the Apollo 8 space craft.

In 2001, Lyttelton and his band added traditional jazz elements to the Radiohead song "Life in a Glasshouse" on the Amnesiac album.

From 1967 until April 2007, Lyttelton presented most weeks on BBC Radio 2 The Best of Jazz, a programme which featured his idiosyncratic mix of top-quality recordings of all ages and current material.

In 1972 he was chosen to host the comedy panel game I'm Sorry I Haven't a Clue on BBC Radio 4 which gained a huge and loyal following of listeners, delighted by games like One Song to the Tune of Another, or...

In other words, the teams have to intone the lyrical refrain of one particular vocal composition whilst simultaneously pursuing the melodic line of a dissimilar piece.

They can use Colin Sell if they think it will be a help. They might even ask him to accompany them on the piano.

and the sublime Mornington Crescent (for a full breakdown of the rules of MC, get yourself a copy of NF Stovold’s Mornington Crescent: Rules and Origins (currently out of print). I'd lend you my copy but a Mrs Trellis of North Wales borrowed it and hasn't returned it yet. You are also advised that "your local bookshop might have a copy of The Little Book of Mornington Crescent by Tim, Graeme, Barry and Humph.

So long Humph, like all great individualists you'll be sorely missed. Thanks for the music and the laughs.

Links:

http://www.humphreylyttelton.com/

http://www.isihac.co.uk/

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Informal learning in action: Rapping about Web design coding on YouTube

A programmer friend of mine sent me a link to the YouTube video below. In it, the presenter Charles Lewis who goes by the nom de rap The Poetic Prophet (AKA The SEO Rapper) raps about the fundamentals of design coding for HTML websites and coding for search engine optimization.

You have to be impressed by a guy who can

• Rhyme about web standards
• Align with most of Gagne's Events of Instruction

Very informal, highly informative learning. I think it's fantastic.



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E-Learning and the Economic Downturn: April Update

It's just over two months since I posted on Recession and the Challenge to E-learning. It's a subject that I said I would monitoring as the "Credit Crunch" became a downturn, which may or may not lead to a recession.

As a reminder, at the time I suggested that the appropriate social and economic innovations required to support e-learning were now sufficiently embedded (compared to 2001) to ensure the e-learning industry would certainly survive and maybe even thrive an economic downturn. I tempered this assertion by asking

will the positive economic, organisational, and social value of e-learning outweigh traditional human responses to recessionary times? What strategies can we use to ensure the survival of and even the growth of e-learning as an industry in these changing times?

Now read on...

Some preliminary evidence is now emerging which may indicate that the E-learning Industry is doing quite in the current economic climate. Electric News Net (ENN) has reported that SkillSoft and ThirdForce two of the largest Commercial-Off-The-Shelf (COTS) producers of e-learning content have posted profits for the last quarter and the year, respectively.

According to ENN,

e-learning firm SkillSoft posted another great set of quarterly results with revenues up by 34 percent and profits nearly quadrupling. Coming off the back of a third quarter where profits nearly trebled SkillSoft managed to perform even better in the fourth quarter as it posted profits of USD34.3 million, up from USD8.2 million for the same quarter the previous year.

SkillSoft say that the increase in revenue was down to:

• higher-than-planned rates of contract retention and renewal
• incremental revenues of USD4.6 million related to the amortisation of deferred revenue acquired by SkillSoft in the acquisition of NETg
• incremental revenues from NETg customer contracts which were renewed after acquisition

ThirdForce has seen its operating profit up by 160 per cent for 2007, while revenue increased by 35 per cent for the same period. Since acquiring MindLeaders, the US has become a key market for ThirdForce, and the company says it is targeting US companies in the sub-Fortune 1,000 sector. In the UK, ThirdForce is continuing to see growth in its core hospitality market, adding a number of multi-year contracts with major clients during 2007.

Analysis
At face value, these results look very positive, but these revenue reports are now a matter of history. Certainly in the case of ThirdForce, the results are based on performance before the current downturn really began to bite, and as such I don't know if the results can be interpreted in terms of how the organization is performing in 08H1. It will be interesting to see how their strategy of growing their presence in the sub-Fortune 1,000 marketspace, given the fact that both SkillSoft and ThirdForce are headquartered in the Euro Zone, and given the current Dollar weakness against the Euro.

Similarly, a presence in the UK market would have at one time been viewed as a triple-bound low-risk revenue generator, but again, the current Sterling to Euro differential may mitigate against growth in that territory.

Dilemma
Consider the dilemma for both organizations: they both have substantial interests in territories with weakening currencies. Their sales and revenue numbers for 2008 - say arbitrarily $10M or €7.7M (at December 2007 exchange rates) - would have been agreed in 2007Q3, and strategies would have been put in place to meet those objectives. Now, even if the sales teams hit their targets numerically, they are struggling in a weakened Dollar situation where their $10M is now worth €6.3M - a substantial shortfall in revenue.

However, what's more interesting to me is that both organizations' customers intend to either renew or extend their current contracts with the two content providers. In my view, this indicates the increasingly positive reaction to and growing reliance upon e-learning as means of meeting employee training and development requirements. Is it trend that will be reflected across markets generally?

We'll see.

It's still early days, and no doubt I will be returning to this topic presently.

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eLearning Guild Snapshot Report on Learning Modalities

Newsflash!

The eLearning Guild has just released a Snapshot Report on Learning Modalities.

This 16-page Snapshot Report is available for all Guild Members, including Associate Members.

In this eLearning Guild Snapshot Report we show Guild members’ adoption of various approaches to e-Learning as of March 2008. Our goal is to show where you and your organization are with respect to other organizations.

This report covers:

• Benchmarking what’s hot, what’s not, and the choices your peers are making
• Learning Modality Popularity
• Web 2.0 and Emerging Modalities
• Demographics of Survey Respondents

Here's a taster - there are some interesting results included in the report, including results measuring the take-up of so-called Web / Learning 2.0 technologies: it's lower than you may expect.

You can download the full snapshot report by clicking here or clicking on the image above.

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Instructional Design 101: Orwell's Five Rules for writing good English

Whatever your views on George Orwell's politics, I hope you agree with me that his writing style is the quintessence of English prose. I think that the influential English author and critic's skills are particularly represented in his essays and short stories.

For no reason other than the relevance of his writing to the art of instructional design, content development and writing for an audience, I have decided to post some extracts from George Orwell's essay on Politics and the English Language:

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"MOST people who bother with the matter at all would admit that the English language is in a bad way, but it is generally assumed that we cannot by conscious action do anything about it. Our civilization is decadent, and our language—so the argument runs—must inevitably share in the general collapse. It follows that any struggle against the abuse of language is a sentimental archaism, like preferring candles to electric light or hansom cabs to aeroplanes. Underneath this lies the half-conscious belief that language is a natural growth and not an instrument which we shape for our own purposes.

...here are five specimens of the English language as it is now habitually written.
These five passages have not been picked out because they are especially bad—I could have quoted far worse if I had chosen—but because they illustrate various of the mental vices from which we now suffer. They are a little below the average, but are fairly representative samples. I number them so that I can refer back to them when necessary:

(1) I am not, indeed, sure whether it is not true to say that the Milton who once seemed not unlike a seventeenth-century Shelley had not become, out of an experience ever more bitter in each year, more alien (sic) to the founder of that Jesuit sect which nothing could induce him to tolerate.

Professor Harold Laski (Essay in Freedom of Expression)

(2) Above all, we cannot play ducks and drakes with a native battery of idioms which prescribes such egregious collocations of vocables as the Basic put up with or tolerate or put at a loss or bewilder.

Professor Lancelot Hogben (Interglossa)

(3) On the one side we have the free personality; by definition it is not neurotic, for it has neither conflict nor dream. Its desires, such as they are, are transparent, for they are just what institutional approval keeps in the forefront of consciousness; another institutional pattern would alter their number and intensity; there is little in them that is natural, irreducible, or culturally dangerous. But on the other side, the social bond itself is nothing but the mutual reflection of these self-secure integrities. Recall the definition of love. Is not this the very picture of a small academic? Where is there a place in this hall of mirrors for either personality or fraternity?

Essay on Psychology in Politics (New York)

(4) All the “best people” from the gentlemen’s clubs, and all the frantic fascist captains, united in common hatred of Socialism and bestial horror of the rising tide of the mass revolutionary movement, have turned to acts of provocation, to foul incendiarism, to medieval legends of poisoned wells, to legalize their own destruction of proletarian organizations, and rouse the agitated petty-bourgeoisie to chauvinistic fervor on behalf of the fight against the revolutionary way out of the crisis.

Communist Pamphlet

(5) If a new spirit is to be infused into this old country, there is one thorny and contentious reform which must be tackled, and that is the humanization and galvanization of the B.B.C. Timidity here will bespeak canker and atrophy of the soul. The heart of Britain may be sound and of strong beat, for instance, but the British lion’s roar at present is like that of Bottom in Shakespeare’s Midsummer Night’s Dream—as gentle as any sucking dove. A virile new Britain cannot continue indefinitely to be traduced in the eyes, or rather ears, of the world by the effete languors of Langham Place, brazenly masquerading as “standard English.” When the Voice of Britain is heard at nine o’clock, better far and infinitely less ludicrous to hear aitches honestly dropped than the present priggish, inflated, inhibited, school-ma’am-ish arch braying of blameless bashful mewing maidens.

Letter in Tribune

Now that I have made this catalogue of swindles and perversions, let me give another example of the kind of writing that they lead to. This time it must of its nature be an imaginary one. I am going to translate a passage of good English into modern English of the worst sort. Here is a well-known verse from Ecclesiastes:

I returned, and saw under the sun, that the race is not to the swift, nor the battle to the strong, neither yet bread to the wise, nor yet riches to men of understanding, nor yet favor to men of skill; but time and chance happeneth to them all.

Here it is in modern English:

Objective consideration of contemporary phenomena compels the conclusion that success or failure in competitive activities exhibits no tendency to be commensurate with innate capacity, but that a considerable element of the unpredictable must invariably be taken into account.

In prose, the worst thing one can do with words is to surrender them. When you think of a concrete object, you think wordlessly, and then, if you want to describe the thing you have been visualizing, you probably hunt about till you find the exact words that seem to fit it. When you think of something abstract you are more inclined to use words from the start, and unless you make a conscious effort to prevent it, the existing dialect will come rushing in and do the job for you, at the expense of blurring or even changing your meaning. Probably it is better to put off using words as long as possible and get one’s meaning as clear as one can through pictures or sensations. Afterwards one can choose—not simply accept—the phrases that will best cover the meaning, and then switch round and decide what impressions one’s words are likely to make on another person. This last effort of the mind cuts out all stale or mixed images, all prefabricated phrases, needless repetitions, and humbug and vagueness generally. But one can often be in doubt about the effect of a word or a phrase, and one needs rules that one can rely on when instinct fails. I think the following rules will cover most cases:

1. Never use a metaphor, simile or other figure of speech which you are used to seeing in print.
2. Never use a long word where a short one will do.
3. If it is possible to cut a word out, always cut it out.
4. Never use the passive where you can use the active.
5. Never use a foreign phrase, a scientific word or a jargon word if you can think of an everyday English equivalent.
6. Break any of these rules sooner than say anything barbarous.

These rules sound elementary, and so they are, but they demand a deep change of attitude in anyone who has grown used to writing in the style now fashionable. One could keep all of them and still write bad English, but one could not write the kind of stuff that I quoted in these five specimens at the beginning of this article.

One cannot change this all in a moment, but one can at least change one’s own habits, and from time to time one can even, if one jeers loudly enough, send some worn-out and useless phrase—some jackboot, Achilles’ heel, hotbed, melting pot, acid test, veritable inferno or other lump of verbal refuse—into the dustbin where it belongs."

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An Introduction to Rapid E-Learning Authoring Tools

I've been having a little bit of fun over the last few days.

A friend of mine is developing a very cool tool that will enable courseware developers to easily convert their presentation content into neatly-formatted MS Word documents for distribution to learners. If, like me, you've spent extended periods of time creating manuals from other media formats, you'll appreciate the hard work and, to be honest, tedium involved in generating, formatting, proofing, and finally producing documentation to accompany ILT and WBT courseware.

However, it's a necessary task, and with much grumbling and gnashing of teeth, something I just get on with doing. So anyway, this little EXE file arrive in my inbox a few days ago with some installation and how to use instructions.

Top Tip
Kids - Don't go installing EXEs that arrive in your inbox unless you know exactly what they contain!

I went ahead and installed the program - still in early beta, remember and... it worked! It does exactly what every utility tool should do - simplifying or automating a repetitive, time-consuming, and error-prone activity: in my estimation, this app cuts production time by 80%.

I'll talk more about this program when it's released.

Now read on...

On 19th December last year I posted on a lecture I gave to the MSc in Education & Technology class in the National College of Ireland on the subject of Rapid E-Learning (REL) tools. In that post, I focused on the second part of the lecture, the lab or practical part of the lesson. Today, I'm revisiting this topic and discussing part one of the lecture: an introduction to REL authoring tools, with a particular focus on Techsmith Camtasia.

Quiet down now, and turn off your cellphones please! I've published a PDF of the Introduction to Rapid E-Learning Authoring Tools here if you'd like to download or view it online. The presentation covers:

• Authoring tools used in developing multimedia-based learning content
• How these tools are implemented to develop content using the Rapid e-Learning methodology / approach
• E-learning authoring tools
• Techsmith Camtasia
• Lab – creating a short learning object in Camtasia
  

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Do Generation Xers learn differently to Boomers and the Internet Generation?

A colleague asked me recently "do you take somebody's age into account when designing and delivering training for them?"

As a learning professional in the IT industry, it's my job to provide learning resources for the employees in my organization. Broadly speaking, my colleagues were born between 1965 and 1982 - the so-called Generation X cohort, with a number of people born before this date range (who the Americans call 'Baby Boomers') and a few - increasing - new hires born after this time, variously called Generation Y, the Net Generation, self-regarding narcissists, Generation Next , depending on who you ask.

My colleague's question got me thinking: as well as individual learning styles (VAK, multiple intelligences and so on) are there generational learning styles? More specifically, is it the case that the technology you were exposed to as a child has some effect on the way you learn throughout your life? As an extension of this, are learning professionals using the most effective channels to enable learners to develop their skills, knowledge and experience in further education and workplace environments, or are we 'boxed in' by unconscious biases determined by the teaching approaches, technologies and media we ourselves were taught with?

I haven't carried out much research on this question, but have the educational media types and attendant technologies described in Table 1 'hard-wired' each generation's cognitive processes to acquire knowledge in specific ways?

Table 1. Generational learning modalities

Generation	Paradigm	Educational Media Types
Boomer	Analog	Projected Slides Overhead projector Film Reel-to-reel tape Slide Rule
GenX	Transistor	All the above as well as… Cassette Tape Video tape Electronic Calculator Personal computers (Apple II, Commodore PET etc)
Gen Next	Microprocessor	All the above as well as… CD-ROM (Early CBT) DVD PowerPoint Personal Computers (IBM PC, Windows 3.1) Internet 1.0 (Alta Vista, Yahoo! Discussion Forums etc) Internet Messenger Mobile (cellular) phones
Millennial	Networked	Some of the above as well as… Web 2.0 Web-based training/online educational resources Personal laptops/PDAs Blogs Wikis Podcasts Second Life Social Networking

Marc Prensky would say that there is some validity in this. As he asserted in his seminal article Digital Natives, Digital Immigrants, we can say that there is a well-established divide between those born pre- and post-1990 - Gartner, in their 2008 Symposium, recognized that the generation now entering the workplace "think different" (to appropriate a phrase).

Could the same be said for Boomers and Xers and does this effect the ways people of these groups acquire knowledge? I'm a Gen X kid and I guess we were probably the first generation to have "home computers" (Sinclair ZX Spectrum 16K anyone?) and home gaming systems like the Atari, as well as access to machines like the Apple II and the Commodore PET in a classroom environment. I can't say if having access to this technology changed the way I learned, because using these tools was the way I learned. Similarly, mine was probably the last generation to use log tables in maths class and simultaneously the first generation to use electronic calculators (despite fears at the time that using such gadgets would "weaken the brain" - I kid you not - I heard a teacher use that phrase).

Would I have developed differently if I had been born 10 years earlier and used a slide rule? Or 20 years later, where I could carry out calculations on my mobile phone?

Probably.

I don't know enough about the learning styles of those born in the Baby Boom years to make a judgement about how differently their early development was affected by their environment and the learning tools available to them, but I would make an educated guess that the ongoing learning needs of that generation would require a different strategy to that of Gen Xers, which in turn would require a different approach to how digital natives learn.

Interesting times ahead.

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Top 10 Tools for Learning: Is Workplace Learning Really Still 1.0?

A fascinating debate has developed around Jane Hart's Top 100 Tools for Learning: The Bamboo Project has responded with a commentary called Looks Like Workplace Learning is Still Web 1.0.

First of all I want to congratulate Jane on the effort she has put in to creating this fantastic resource for learning professionals. Her analysis provides a useful overview of the 'state of the art' in tool use in the learning industry and I would suggest highlights the different, maybe even contrasting demands of workplace learning and learning in formal institutions.

Moreover, Jane has provoked a lively conversation about the two approaches taken by commercial organisations and educational/academic institutions; it's not often that we hear people post phrases like "I'm... frankly bothered" (Michele Martin at The Bamboo Project) in the 'learning professions blogosphere' - maybe not often enough.

I've reproduced the two lists of Top Ten Tools (see Table 1) from C4PT for comparison here.

Table 1 Side-by-side comparison of Top Ten Tools

For workplace learning	For formal education
1. PowerPoint	1. YouTube
2. Audacity	2. flickr
3. Articulate	3. PowerPoint
4. Moodle	4. Wikispaces
5. Snagit	5. Slideshare
6. Captivate	6. Voicethread (Free version I'm guessing)
7. Slideshare	7. Audacity
8. Word	8. Moodle
9. Flash	9. Ning
10. Camtasia	10. Jing

The debate that these lists have provoked can be summarised in these key points:

• Workplaces still use a predominantly Learning 1.0 paradigm
• Jane Hart asserts that her analysis demonstrates that

[content] is formal, traditional (Learning 1.0) approaches (i.e. content-based courses, tutorials, etc).

• This manifests itself through what Michele Martin calls the use of a

"push" mode of learning, pushing content to learners, and are focused on creating more structured, formal learning experiences.

This leads to a more "solitary" learning experience for users in the workplace environment. At an organisational level she maintains, this approach reinforces the notion that this is an objective activity imposed upon passive users, rather than a process of active, ongoing engagement that learners have in terms of their personal development and the knowledge and skills enhancement of their colleagues and organisation.

Interestingly Jane notes that workplace learning professionals, while focusing heavily on commercial tools for the development of formal learning solutions - "seem to be using free tools for their [...] personal use."

Educators and academic institutions,

on the other hand, are making use of more Web 2.0 tools, like YouTube, Flickr, Wikispaces, Ning and Voicethread, all of which invite commenting, content co-creation and interactivity.

• By "embracing" Web 2.0 tools, institution-based educators are "creat[ing] more social, collaborative and informal approaches to learning."

What a great discussion!
Before commenting on any of the above, I have to declare an interest in that I am a workplace learning professional, but I have just completed an MSc in Education & Technology and am familiar (as of 2007) with the use of learning technologies and tools in third level institutions. I also contributed to the C4PT survey in March 2008, and my Top Ten list is a 60:40 split between commercial and open source tools: I use both.

In my view, the debate that I have just briefly summarised represents a number of talking points in the learning community:

1. The differing demands of workplace and formal institution-based learning
2. The resources available to commercial and academic organisations
3. Learners' needs in the workplace and in formal learning institutions
4. Personal philosophy applied to learning

1. The differing demands of workplace and formal institution-based learning

Upon reviewing the two lists, the first thing that struck me was the broad equivalency of functionality across the tools represented in the lists (see Table 2):

Table 2 Equivalency among tools

For workplace learning	For formal education
Audacity -	Audacity
Moodle -	Moodle
Slideshare –	Slideshare
Techsmith Camtasia -	Techsmith Jing (a time-limited and feature "lite" version of Camtasia)
Articulate/Captivate	- Voicethread
Both sets of tools enable the facility to share slideshows through audio, images, videos, or text with others online. Voicethread Free enables a degree of limited commenting.
Articulate/Captivate -	YouTube
Both sets of tools enable the facility to share slideshows through audio, images, videos, or text with others online.

That leaves us with Word, Flash, Ning, Wikispaces, Flickr. Back to these later.

Now read on...

Based on the evidence that 75% of the tools in the two categories enable learning professionals to undertake the same activities, but using different technologies (or in the case of tools like Jing, the same technology, just a "lite" version of a commercially available tool), we can say that learning professionals have more in common than they have separating them.

In this context, the development of training programmes and learning initiatives using commercially available (can I say 'industrial strength'?) authoring tools enables learning professionals to deliver content (hosted on an LMS like Moodle for example) to learners in an efficient and effective manner. Based upon my own experience and the observations of others in this field, I would assert that while there is a element of organisational "push" in delivering content to workers, once learners are aware that content is available for them asynchronously, they will integrate these resources into their own personal development patterns.

From the learning professional's perspective, tools like Flash, Captivate, and Articulate have a number of advantages: they are mature, stable products. They enable the development of content across a range of pedagogical methodologies and production processes. Product licensing ensures that learning and support resources are available if needed.

Similarly, organisations require that content be stored on a LMS/LCMS platform, which means that the content must be interoperable with other learning resources, which means that content adheres to learning specifications like SCORM and AICC. Open source products may or may not adhere to these specifications as closely as commercial products. Certainly platforms like Ning, Wikispaces and Flickr do not meet these requirements; what's interesting is that Moodle does, and it is represented in both Top Ten lists (actually higher in the workplace list). Moodle supports blogs, wikis, and discussion forums - all the aspects of a social-constructivist approach to learning. Again from experience I know that these functions are used in the workplace to support learning as well as to enable workers to interact with each other, share knowledge and develop skills. The popularity of Moodle in both lists also suggests to me is that learning professionals in both camps (as it were) desire a stable, integrated platform to host their learning programmes.

Both Michele and Jane are powerful advocates for lifelong learning using social media tools. However, the reality of the commercial environment is that organisations develop products using proprietary technologies, processes and knowledge. Working in such an environment I will tell you straight that there is no way on God's green earth that I would publish corporate learning content, demos or courseware on anything as unsecure as Ning, YouTube, Flickr or Wikispaces where competitors could, by accident or design, access such content. As an alternative, such materials, as well as blogging, knowledge-sharing and social interaction activities take place 'behind the firewall' using tools like Moodle, SharePoint, Lotus Notes or equivalent enterprise solutions. The reality is that commercial organisations charge customers for learning resources and they are not going to sacrifice being an 'earning organisation' to become a purely 'learning organisation.'

As this is the case, I have to dispute the position that social, collaborative and informal approaches to learning only take place in more academic environments; I would certainly say that such activities are more visible and accessible.

2. The resources available to commercial and academic organisations

Another key differentiator between the commercial and academic environments is that broadly speaking, commercial organisations tend to have more resources (i.e. in-house expertise, large ICT departments, money) at their disposal. Certainly if a company has enough employees to merit implementing network-based learning solutions, they can afford to licence enterprise-level solutions that integrate with their HRM and/or CRM solutions. I would suggest that these systems would not necessarily be in the list of nominations submitted by workplace-based learning professionals in the C4PT survey. I know that when I submitted my top ten, I was conscious of the fact that not everyone reading the list would have access to some of the tools I could have mentioned, so in some cases I omitted choices that would have been there in other circumstances. So, for example, I chose to include Audacity rather than SoundForge - both do the same job equally effectively, but the former is open source while the latter will set you back about $300.

3. Learners' needs in the workplace and in formal learning institutions

The learning needs of knowledge workers are different to those of students in formal learning institutions. Knowledge workers' roles and responsibilities direct the way they plan their activities, execute their tasks, and how they reflect upon their actions once tasks (or components of larger-scale tasks) are complete. Further, knowledge workers (unlike academics, for example) are typically required to apply their skill- and experience assets in real-world situations which exhibit degrees of uncertainty about both the situation itself and the desired outcomes. Much of the real-world job of the knowledge worker is more concerned with problem setting, then problem solving. To move from a problematic situation to an actual problem, the practitioner must “frame the problem: …determine the features to which they will attend, the order they will attempt to impose on the situation, the directions in which they will try to change it. In this process, they identify both the ends to be sought and the means to be employed” (Argyris, C. and Schön, D., Theory in practice: Increasing professional effectiveness 1974, p.165). This requirement plays a role in how learning professionals strategise and implement learning solutions for knowledge workers.

Learners in formal learning institutions acquire knowledge for different purposes and in a different way. The purpose of studying and learning in an academic environment is to explore current knowledge, to research, to explore, to be involved in discursive activities. The goal requires either using a different set of learning methodologies and approaches, and commensurately a different set of tools and technologies, or using the same tools in a different way. I think that both options are represented on the Top Ten List: I have illustrated the equivalencies in the toolset above. But given the purpose of learning in this environment, we can say that there are good reasons why tools including Ning and Wikispaces are represented on the formal educational institution list, as these tools facilitate the types of discourse I have just described.

4. Personal philosophy applied to learning

This category is perhaps the most interesting of all: for this is the heart of the debate. And I chose the word "heart" deliberately. I think that it's fair to say that most people involved in learning care passionately about communicating ideas, concepts, knowledge to others.

What is important is that so many people care enough about how we mediate knowledge and ideas to be motivated spend time and effort to discuss this topic in this forum. In my view, that is the most positive outcome of using these technologies to share ideas.

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Learning Evaluation and Strategy: Using an e-learning readiness survey

During this series of posts on evaluating non-formal learning programs, I have mentioned carrying out an e-learning readiness survey without characterizing or discussing how to implement such a research instrument.

This was deliberate; in my view e-learning readiness surveys represent an alpha and an omega of evaluation: on one level they are the starting point for any evaluation of an organization's learning initiative, on another level they define an organization's ability to implement an effective e-learning strategy. As such, they are a bridge between the theory and the practice of implementing a learning program.

Readiness surveys enable the learning practitioner to understand and measure both the effectiveness of organizational learning and to identify the critical factors for success when developing learning programs.

I have found Marc J. Rosenberg's E-Learning Readiness Survey to be a very effective instrument to evaluate both the effectiveness of an organization's learning strategy, and one of the foundations of any serious evaluation of the effectiveness of learning programs.

The questions are grouped into seven areas of understanding:

1. business readiness
2. the changing nature of learning and e-learning
3. value of instructional and information design
4. change management
5. reinventing the training organization
6. the e-learning industry
7. your personal commitment

The questions provided in this survey represent some of the most important strategic issues organizations face when transitioning to e learning. Certainly there are additional questions and issues that deserve attention; add your own, organization-specific items as required.

Downloads:

Marc J. Rosenberg's E-learning Readiness Survey

References:

Rosenberg, M. J. (2006) Beyond e-Learning. San Francisco, CA: John Wiley & Sons, Inc.
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Using quantitative data in learning assessments

To support the qualitative data captured using the retrospective pre-test method, I recommend that you gather significant amount of quantitative data associated with the learning initiative or program you're evaluating.


This can seem daunting and difficult to achieve, but there are a range of accessible sources of quantitative data that every learning professional can use.

Now read on...

Always collect Level 1 attendee feedback forms from classroom-based and synchronous online participants at the end of each individual event: over time you accumulate substantial amounts of valuable feedback about learners' reaction to the initiative. Use Web-hosted feedback forms to collect data from asynchronous participants (i.e. for online and DVD-ROM based content).

Other data can be collected automatically from systems including Web servers, learning management systems and learning content management systems; Horton (2006) describes these types of archive data as “meaningful statistics” (p.102): they record detailed information about what participants did while taking the learning event, particularly in the e-learning channels. You may extend this "meaningful statistics" category to include non-automated but standardised data recording processes such as recording learner attendance captured in the synchronous online and classroom-based context, and off-line learner activity such as DVD-ROM requests. By examining logs and reports from these systems and processes useful data can be collected on:

1. Frequency and pattern of accessing the course
2. Number of slides/pages or learning objects accessed
3. Duration of access to learning objects
4. Number of supporting collateral downloads
5. Feedback submitted
6. Participation in discussion and question & answer sessions
7. Rate if individual learner attendance or online access
8. Rate of attendance or online access by role (i.e. developer, support, business analyst etc)
9. Rate of group level (i.e. Sales & Marketing, Support, Manufacturing, Engineering etc) attendance or online access
10. Rate of attendance or online access by length of service in the organisation (i.e. new hire, with the company one year,1-2 years, 2-3 years, 3-5 years, +5 years etc)

More tomorrow.

References:

Horton, W. (2006) So how is elearning different? IN: Kirkpatrick, P. & Kirkpatrick, J. Evaluating Training Programs. 3rd ed. San Francisco, CA: Berrett-Koehler Publishers, Inc.

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More on Kirkpatrick's Guidelines don't work for Non-Formal Learning programs

In my last posting on this topic, we discussed Kirkpatrick's guidelines for evaluating training programs (see Table 1).

Table 1 Guidelines for evaluating learning

Guidelines for evaluating learning

Use a control group if practical

Evaluate knowledge skills and/or attitudes both before and after the program

Use a paper-and-pencil test to measure knowledge and attitudes

Use a performance test to measure skills

Get a 100 per cent response

Use the results of the evaluation to take appropriate action

In this post, I will outline the difficulties encountered in applying these guidelines to non-formal learning initiatives.

Now read on...

Kirkpatick's approach is incompatible with the assessment of non-formal learning in three ways: firstly, the singular nature of each non-formal learning event means that no control group can exist to measure a difference between a control group and the “experimental group” (p.43). Similarly; a significant number of the learners that access this kind of content do so asynchronously, via a number of different learning channels and over a broad time span in a relatively ad hoc manner. This “just enough, just in time” aspect of non-formal learning is one of its strengths, but it is unrealistic to attempt to measure learning using an experimental method in such an environment.

Secondly, the lack of summative assessment in non-formal learning precludes both pencil-and-paper and performance testing to measure learning. Finally, the distributed nature of access to these events, over both time and location makes achieving a 100 per cent learner response rate (expressed by the value R) impossible. As the content (C) is always available (D) the potential (+) always exists for the current number of learners (N₁) to increment upwards (N₂). A complete learner response rate will always be a hostage to N₂ in this context.

R = R+ N₂

where C (is a known value) and N₁ (is a known value) and D (is a known value) + N₂

It follows that you can never achieve a one hundred per cent response rate. Contrast this with formal training courses. They are, by their nature, finite: each course has a specified duration. Content is delivered to learners in an instructor-led environment in a sequence of modules over the duration of the course. Once the course instruction is complete, members of any given class are required to take a comprehensive summative assessment on the learning objectives outlined in the course, usually within a set time after they complete a course to achieve certification.

Thus R = 100

where C = 10 and N₁ = 12 and D = 10

As a result, a 100 per cent response rate to knowledge and skills testing is achieved.

However, I believe that it is possible to capture and use data with the retrospective pre-test method, and I'll be discussing an approach to undertaking this activity next time.

References:

Kirkpatrick, D. & Kirkpatrick, P. (2006) Evaluating Training Programs. 3rd ed. San Francisco, CA: Berrett-Koehler Publishers, Inc.

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Come along down to Learning Town

One of the early evangelists of E-Learning, Eliott Masie, has launched a Ning-based e-learning social network called Learning Town - A Village for Learning Professionals. It's free and vendor-neutral, so nobody is trying to push their products or services on you (too much: there's always the odd chancer).

At the time of posting, nearly 3000 people in the learning industry have signed up for the network - in 8 days. I think I'm justified in describing this as an internet phenomenon. We'll see in time whether it maintains this initial momentum or whether it will develop a classic "long tail" but if you're in the habit of contributing to the blogoshere or social networking sites, it is in my view a nicely centralised location to interact with you peers.

The site has a broad range of features including:

• Personal Page
• Blog Hosting
• Forums
• Discussions
• Digital Media Content Hosting
• Audio Player
  
  

[my profile page on Learning Town]

For me, one of the most stimulating areas of the site is the innocuously named "Groups" section. Groups provides members with a platform to share, debate, argue, and discuss a range of learning-related topics. I've detailed a list of the most active groups below - as you can see, it's a quite comprehensive range of the types of topics learning professionals encounter while carrying out their work.

Groups

• Instructional Design: For learning professionals that want to discuss Instructional Design strategies and perhaps how to take a new approach in this area.
• e-Learning Dialogues: For learning professionals that want to discuss e-Learning strategies, tips, and tools and perhaps how to take a new approach in this area.
• Podcasting for Learning
• Rapid Learning Design: A forum for learning professionals on creating learning content quickly and effectively.
• Women and Learning: A forum for women learning professionals.
• Mobile Learning Group: For members using/curious about using mobile devices for learning.
• Neuroscience & Leadership: For members curious about neuroscience and it’s connection to learning and leadership.
• Boomer Learning
• 3D Virtual Worlds: This group focuses on learning in a virtual environment.
• Performance Support Group Description: A forum for discussing strategies, tips, and tools that support "learning at the moment of need".
• Learning Leaders: CLO, VP for Learning, Learning Managers Network Here
• Evaluation and Metrics
• Computer & IT Training
• Learning Systems '08: A private GROUP for participants in Learning Systems '08.
• Selling Learning: This is for professionals who are selling or marking learning products or services
• Learning and Careers
• What's it Cost?: This group is geared towards people interested in Intellectual Property and Training. Feel free to discuss!
• Healthcare and Learning
• Higher Ed & Learning: This is a group designed for colleagues in the Higher Education field to collaborate on learning at the Higher Education level.
• Learning Standards: This group is designed for Learning Colleagues interested in learning and discussing more about AICC & SCORM

Come on down to Learning Town - you'll be glad you dropped by!

FOGRA: If there's any Irish Learning professionals out there that is interested in setting up a group on this site, or setting up a similar ideas exchange on a similar platform, let me know - I'm up for it.

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Guidelines for Evaluating Training Programs

An advantage of the retrospective pre-test model is that it can assist in addressing some of the gaps exposed by the lack of range-of-transfer of learning metrics provided by a Level 2 analysis of learners: in effect - to borrow a phrase from Jens Bjornavold – “make learning visible” (2004, p.64). This is essential, because it helps measure learning. In Chapter 5 of Evaluating Training Programs (2006) Kirkpatrick and Kirkpatrick stress the significance of measuring learning, because “no change in behaviour can be expected unless one or more of the learning objectives have been accomplished” (p.42). They set out “helpful” guidelines for the measurement of learning:

Table 1 Guidelines for evaluating learning

Guidelines for evaluating learning

Use a control group if practical

Evaluate knowledge skills and/or attitudes both before and after the program

Use a paper-and-pencil test to measure knowledge and attitudes

Use a performance test to measure skills

Get a 100 per cent response

Use the results of the evaluation to take appropriate action

References:

Bjornavold, J. (2004) Making Learning Visible: Validation of Formal, Non-Formal and Informal Learning: policy and practices in EU Member States1. European Journal of Education [Internet] 39 (1), 69–89. Available from: http://www.acc.eu.org/uploads/
Makinglearningvisible_1.pdf [Accessed 21st February 2007]

Kirkpatrick, D. & Kirkpatrick, P. (2006) Evaluating Training Programs. 3rd ed. San Francisco, CA: Berrett-Koehler Publishers, Inc.

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The unbearable lightness of knowledge working

Here's an interesting meme that's been resonating around the blogosphere: according to Jared Sandberg at the WSJ -

In the Information Age, so much is worked on in a day at the office but so little gets done. In the past, people could see the fruits of their labor immediately: a chair made or a ball bearing produced. But it can be hard to find gratification from work that is largely invisible, or from delivering goods that are often metaphorical. You can't even leave your mark on a document in increasingly paperless offices. It can be even harder trying to measure it all.

In Ireland recently, a survey by the recruitment company Executive Connections suggested that most people in the job market are on the move not, as you might imagine for greater remuneration, but because of a perceived lack of career progression and satisfaction with their current role; people really do have an inherent need for responsibility and competency.

As learning practitioners - and particularly in e-learning - we're aware of the importance of motivating and rewarding learners. Many of us have first-hand experience of the numbingly dull exercise of proceeding through linear CBT-style courseware. We try to design, develop and deliver engaging and interactive learning experiences that will reward our learners, or at least evoke a degree of satisfaction when they accomplish a task or successfully complete an activity, and we also know about the statistics of the high drop-out rates for e-learning programmes.

I'm wondering if there's a relationship between these two phenomena? In my view, organisational performance is highly dependent on worker ability and motivation.

Ability depends on educational development, experience, and training; developing this facility is an ongoing process that doesn't reap immediate rewards. However, motivation can be improved quickly. As a guideline, there are broadly seven strategies for motivation.

• Positive reinforcement / high expectations
• Effective discipline and punishment
• Treating people fairly
• Satisfying employees needs
• Setting work related goals
• Restructuring jobs
• Base rewards on job performance

These are the basic strategies, though the mix varies from situation to situation/workplace to workplace. In the under- or unmotivated worker (including those who drop out of e-learning courses for example) we can say that there is a dissonance between an individuals actual state and some desired state: so how do we resolve this dissonance?

Answers on a postcard please.

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References:

Sandberg, J. (2008) A Modern Conundrum: When Work's Invisible, So Are Its Satisfactions. The Wall Street Journal [Internet]. Available from: http://online.wsj.com/article/
SB120338000214975633.html?mod=psp_editors_picks
[Accessed 28th March 2008]

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Assessing learning programs: advantages and disadvantages of the pre-test design

When choosing to integrate the retrospective pre-test design method into your learning program evaluation and measurement methodology, the selection must take place in the after very carefully evaluating arguments both for and against its utility. The method has many advantages for the practitioner-researcher (see Table 1) but one must be cognisant of the threats to validity. However, in the context of the case study method, triangulation of data from other sources (questionnaires, surveys, quantitative analysis of access logs, LMS records, summative assessments and so on) can be used to counteract or balance such threats.

Table 1 Advantages and disadvantages of the retrospective pre-test model

Advantages	Disadvantages
Simple and cost-effective	Possibility that results were due to history in the job or organisation
Reduces costs and time for data collection and analysis	Possible distortions in retrospective reports because of response shift bias
Gathers data as part of the learning intervention
Compares post-intervention data with retrospective pre-data
Avoids attrition from the sample being measured
Decreases likelihood of testing effects

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Evaluating learning initatives: the Retrospective Pretest Design

The Retrospective Pre-test method is an interesting if controversial data collection design. I will examine its advantages and negative aspects here, as well as an argument for including this strategy in in assessing organisational learning initiatives. The retrospective pre-test method (see Table 1 is an extension of the one-shot case study design where data are gathered from participants following the learning intervention (for example, a series of non-formal Information Sessions).

Table 1 Retrospective Pre-test Design

Retrospective Pre-test Design
Groups		Non-equivalent	Intervention	Observation
Locally-based		N	X	O1	O2
Remotely-based		N	X	O1	O2
<- Time ->

However, participants (N) report on their knowledge, understanding or skills (Observation O1) after the intervention (X), and then also reflect and answer (O2) what they believe their understanding or skill was before the intervention. Rockwell & Kohn (1989) applied this method to testing the effectiveness of achieving program outcomes when interventions such as training programs are implemented and concluded that “using a post-then-pre design [retrospective pre-test] to identify self-reported behavioural changes can provide substantial evidence for program impact”. The retrospective pre-test enables researchers to reduce the response shift bias - defined by Klatt & Taylor-Powell in their 2005 paper Synthesis of Literature relative to Retrospective Pretest Design as

the change in the participant’s metric for answering questions from the pre-test to the post-test due to a new understanding of a concept being taught

- because the participants are able to give pre-test responses which are based on a post-intervention frame of reference.

Using the retrospective pre-test, response shift bias can be reduced increasing the likelihood that the observable results are due to intended intervention effects (Pratt, McGuigan & Katzev, 2001). This proposition is complicated and not without its critics – Theodore Lamb (2005), an advocate of the retrospective pre-test method, describes it as “an imperfect but useful tool.” Robson (2002, p.139-141) expresses concerns that used purely as a quasi-experimental method, this strategy could lead to an internal validity threat through regression to the mean.

References:

Klatt, J. and Taylor-Powell, E. (2005) Synthesis of Literature relative to RetrospectivePretest Design. Presentation to the 2005 Joint CES/AEA Conference, Toronto [Internet] Available from: http://www.citra.org/Assets/documents/evaluation%20design.pdf [Accessed 5th August 2007]

Lamb, T. (2005) The Retrospective Pretest: An Imperfect but Useful Tool. Evaluation Exchange. [Internet] 11(2). Available from: http://www.gse.harvard.edu/hfrp/eval/issue30/spotlight.html [Accessed 21st March 2007]

Pratt, C.C., McGuigan, W.M., & Katzev, A.R. (2000). Measuring program outcomes: Using retrospective pretest methodology. American Journal of Evaluation, 21(3). 341-349.

Robson, C. (2002) Real World Research. 2nd ed. Oxford: Blackwell Publishing.

Rockwell, S. K. & Kohn, H. (1989) Post-Then-Pre Evaluation. Journal of Extension. [Internet] 27(2). Available from: http://www.joe.org/joe/1989summer/a5.html [Accessed 21st March 2007]

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