This month I delivered a special workshop on lean eLearning.The preparation brought to mind my first epiphany about lean eLearning back inthe early 2000s, when I was working on the first draft of my first book, eLearning Solutions on a Shoestring.Even then I had already seen way too many “over-solutions”—usually in the formof far more content than the problem required—and solutions intended to be aone-size-fits-all training answer for employees who were in vastly differentjobs for which one size of training most decidedly didn’t fit all.
The epiphany: Waste
The example I was working with involved the terminalperformance objective, “learner will differentiate heart sounds.” The answer: ascreen with clickable links to different, labeled audio clips of heart soundsavailable free online. Could learners perform after reviewing the sounds? Yes,provided we didn’t ask them to deal with too many at once, and we gave themample opportunities to review. Were stakeholders happy with the solution? Ofcourse not.
Apart from what seemed to be a general distrust of anythingso simple, things quickly fell into the common sins of waste: over-production,over-processing, and waiting.
Although listening to heart sounds is a purely auditorytask, for heaven’s sake, we needed visuals. We needed graphics. We needed anaccompanying printed workbook. We needed more interactivity. We needed acartoon avatar, or animated hearts, or whatever else would delay the project fourmonths and add $50k to what otherwise was a free solution. Again: the learnercould achieve the performance with what was essentially a zero-cost,10-minute-to-build solution.
I’d used “heartbeats” as an example in workshops for acouple of years, and found immense satisfaction in 2006 when Time.com ran apiece about growing concerns that doctors, losing the ability to listen toheart sounds, were ordering expensive diagnostic tests when good stethoscopeskills would do. The solution? Having physicians learn by listening to heartsounds on iPods. So there!
Making lean eLearning
That first book oninexpensive eLearning is now nearly 10 years old and woefully out of date. Thefirst couple of years after publication the industry evolved as new eLearning-coursetools and simple communication technologies came into popular use: this newauthoring tool, that new discussion board format, etc. Then things began toevolve in other ways. Social tools offered vast new opportunities for studentcollaboration. Web 2.0 technologies like YouTube and blogging products put creatingcontent and publishing to the web into the hands of Everyman, not just IT andprogrammers and people with access to servers and expensive photo-editingsoftware.
Lately I’ve seen examples of lean solutions that were theperfect answer to a performance problem. There are things likeSnapguide-created job aids, collaborative Pinterest boards, and six-second Vinevideos. I’ve seen skilful repurposing of the YouTube comments section go fromendless empty responses to lengthy meaningful conversation about a videoscenario. A participant at an eLearning Guild DevLearn DemoFest showcased agreat example of using voiceover with still images to create an onlinesimulation quickly, without the cost of video production. And just yesterday Iwent looking through the library of Articulate-member-created videos in searchof a solution for a colleague.
So consider: What brings the most value? What gets you theperformance you need in the least amount of time at the lowest cost, withouttaking people away from work for longer than necessary, and without piles ofpaper manuals printed, shipped, and never used?
Lean today: Resources for low-cost eLearning design
So what are some lean solutions in 2014?
- Classics, like the Mecklenburg County PublicLibrary-designed 23 Things, that used a blog to deliver a whole, fun course basedon the premise: If they need to learn to use tech, how can we have them use thetech while learning about the tech?
- Snapguide, adelightfully straightforward tool, tutorial built-in, for creating concise jobaids with user-generated images.
- Pinterest,a visual-bookmarking tool allowing quick aggregation from web and user images.
- Better: items allow for comment, and boards canbe collaborative.
- Think: board offering a virtual tour of anemployee’s first day at work.
- Screenrvideos for the Articulate community, with end users sharing their quick solutionsof use to others.
- Apps, not courses: “Apps for the Army.” This one is decidedly not “cheap,” but consider how manyother, wasteful, solutions, they could have developed.
- Embedding.
- Using still images and voiceover instead ofvideo.
- A six-second Vine video showing how to tie aknot.
- Using the YouTube comments section for actualconversation, not mindless commentary.
- My favorite lean solution: Go Google, “Soldier readingbook to child via Skype.”
Still interested in resources for low-cost eLearning design?Tracy Parish is building a wonderfully complete mindmapof tools, grouped by uses. Go contribute.
And go Google! That,folks, is a solution.
So what are your suggestions for or examples oflean solutions?
