Frequent eLearning Guild speaker, author, LearningSolutions Magazine columnist, and self-described eLearning geek MarkLassoff was recognized as a Guild Master at FocusOn Learning 2017 Conference& Expo. Since the Guild is deep into an exploration of digital learning, ourrecent interview focused on the skills developers will need to stay relevant andadjust to learners’ changing expectations and needs. Mark is the founder of Punk Learning and president of LearnToProgram Media, so his emphasis oncoding might be expected; Mark shared his views on other essential skills foreLearning developers as well. This interview has been edited for length andclarity.
Pamela Hogle (PH): The eLearning Guild isfacilitating conversation—including hosting a forum at DevLearn 2017 Conference & Expo—about digital learning and how changes in theway people learn will affect eLearning professionals. What do you see comingfor eLearning developers? What skills will they need? How do you see their rolechanging?
Mark Lassoff (ML): For developers who are alreadyworking, I don’t think their role is going to change all that much, except thatI think they’re going to be more involved in enterprise learning-developmentprojects.
More and more, the tools that eLearning developers have usedfor years have proved limiting as to what you can actually do. And as clientsare demanding more and more simulation, demanding AR- and VR-stylepresentations—programming is part of that, and it’s not going to be enough foreLearning developers to use the current set of tools. They’re going to have toadapt and either learn coding or include developers on their teams in order tocontinue to flourish in the industry.
PH: Is there anything specific that developers shouldlearn?
ML: If you’re going to learn a language, it’sJavaScript. JavaScript can drive everything from the back end of web-basedpresentations to scripting your learning management system (LMS) to presentingaugmented and virtual reality.
I think that JavaScript is the most important language tolearn right now, and I think that’s a great place for people in eLearning tostart because it’s so ingrained already in the tool sets we use, just not in avisible way.
PH: The formats that people are using for eLearningare changing—it’s not just parking a bunch of people in front of the sameeLearning; it’s more personalized, more on the go. Is there anything thatdesigners and developers should be doing to get better at that kind ofeLearning?
ML: What you’re talking about is essentiallyincluding new logic in eLearning that makes the entire experience moreindividualized. Again, it’s coding that’s really the answer there, because withcoding, you can do just about anything you imagine.
You’re limited, when you use a tool, to what that toolpredicts you’re going to want to do. As eLearning becomes more individualized,it’s going to become important to understand the technologies that your LMSsystem and your authoring system actually are using in the background toproduce the output. You just can’t anticipate what you’re going to want to doand what you’re going to need to do, and that’s when you are going to need towrite custom code.
PH: So, it all comes down to how things work andgetting your hands dirty a little bit rather than just using tools?
ML: Anything that’s going to depart from linear presentationmethods—or what I call the “slide and share” method of instruction, that’s beenused in eLearning for years—is going to require a new logic layer. How’s itgoing to know, for example, how to individualize the instruction, based on whatcriteria?
There are some rudimentary things that we can do now withthe current tools, but there are layers of complexity that are going to beadded onto it, that are going to be expected in the market, that we are goingto need to be able to deal with. Which is why, again, I am a big advocate ofthe inclusion of qualified developers on our teams when possible—in order to dosomething that’s individualized and outside the scope of what we think of aspossible right now.
A lot of the best work in our field is being done bycompanies that regularly include programmers on their teams and that are goingoutside the bounds of tools that are used typically in corporate learning toproduce content.
PH: Where does xAPI fit into all of this?
ML: xAPI is a way for any system to access a user’slearning transcript and for any action to be included as part of the process. Alot of that is coded in JavaScript—so a way to access xAPI, often, is with JavaScript.xAPI lets you turn almost anything that is computerized into a learning tooland communicate with a larger course or learning management system. So thetasks that right now have to be done on a computer could be done on an outsidedevice or machinery that simply sends a little bit of text to the xAPIengine—and allow us to measure all sorts of things that we haven’t thoughtabout measuring. But again, I think that one of the reasons that xAPI is beingadopted slowly is that we have a dearth of qualified developers in the field,and in order to take advantage of xAPI, you need to be a qualified developer.
PH: Are there other skills, from the perspective oftraining managers, that are missing?
ML: As far as the training manager, it’s the uptickof expectations on the part of the audience. I’m really fond of saying thatdigital learning is going to be compared to other forms of digitalmedia—movies, video games, etc.—not to other forms of learning as acomparison point. So until we can create digital learning that’s as engaging asa video game, we’re going to look secondary. I think that’s what trainingmanagers need to keep in mind.
It’s been possible for it [eLearning] to be better for along time, but the people who were creating eLearning, and I am going to saysomething controversial here, were instructional designers who over-valuedinstructional design and didn’t include the important components of visual anddigital design, oftentimes.
PH: So, more of a balanced emphasis instead offocusing on instructional design so heavily?
ML: No; honestly, I think it actually favors digitaldesign. You can learn from anything; you can learn from a NationalGeographic piece. They don’t have instructional designers working on it. Tome, it’s the digital that comes first, and it’s informed by instructionaldesign. I’ll take that one step further: If we don’t adopt that kind ofattitude as an industry, we’re going to lose the learning industry to those whodo digital design well.
PH: Such as game designers?
ML: I think there’s a strong possibility. If you havea game designer develop an engaging learning activity, versus what typicallycomes out of our industry, I don’t think there’s really any comparison in thelevel of engagement that’s going to result from that. And I think that whatscares me is that I see no urgency in the industry to change to a more digitalperspective.
PH: Where do you think that change needs to comefrom?
ML: I think we need more of the “rock stars” torecognize and promote that this is happening. I really think we’re going to beblindsided as an industry, as we start to lose contracts to more traditionaldigital designers who engage better. They may not articulate the information inthe most efficient way, like an instructional designer would do. But the gainin engagement will more than make up for that.
We’re going to lose ourselves as an industry to people whoare already doing digital—even people in marketing and advertising. We have alot to learn from all of these digital fields. But we have to be willing to doit, and we have to be willing to skill up so that PowerPoint is no longer goodenough. So that some free imitation of Photoshop is no longer good enough. So thatthe free video editing software is not good enough.
If we’re truly going to be professionals, we’ve got to useprofessional tools; that is one of the steps of creating professional digitalcontent. The other is really skilling up and learning the techniques—thedesign, not just the instructional design but the other aspects of design thatare so missing in our field.
PH: Can we make a list of skills that you see asneeded or missing?
ML: Coding skills, JavaScript specifically; you can’treally isolate JavaScript and just learn that. You need to learn the context inwhich JavaScript operates.
I think the next set of skills is visual design—I don’t knowhow many times I’ve gone to a session that was called “Visual Design andeLearning” that was undermined by the quality of the title slide.
We have to learn the real digital and graphic design. Wehave to learn layout; we have to learn typography; we have to learn the verybasic rules of color and things like that. I think that’s a missing skill set.Some will say, “That’s just taste.” But it’s not. There are definitely ways tocommunicate visually more effectively.
And I think we’ve got to master video and audio, which ispart of digital; it’s all integrated. Post-production and all of that.
If we don’t do it, someone else in digital, who doesn’tconsider themselves part of the eLearning industry, will.
PH: Do you gnash your teeth when you see sessionslike “How to Produce a Podcast in 10 Minutes”?
ML: I think we make the typical choice. When Istarted in the industry, there were two things that were being discussed:Twitter and rapid course development. To which my response was: Maybe insteadof being rapid, we should be good.
We’re always making that choice of quality versus time andbudget. If you can do it in 10 minutes, more power to you. I’ve been doing thiswork for 20 years. If you’re that much better at it than I am, great. But ittakes me more than 10 minutes.
I think the time to do quality work is what’s missing. Andthat’s something that on a macro level—budgets are going to have to increase ifwe’re going to do this stuff well. The time allowed is going to have toincrease. The personnel on it is going to have to increase. But I can’t see amore important corporate initiative than having employees who are well trainedand having training that’s developed, that’s evergreen, for as long aspossible.
PH: Is there anything else that you think isimportant to raise in the context of this ongoing conversation about how learningis changing?
ML: Yes. Stop using the same stock photos. I’ve seenthem all already.
I’ve seen “Hispanic family, celebrating” in 19 pieces ofeLearning already. I say that half-joking, but it’s really a metaphor for theindustry. Not very innovative, doing the same thing over and over again. Andthere’s a great deal of potential—I said this at the closing of FocusOnLearning [June 20 – 22, 2017, in San Diego, California]. The potential is therefor us to be kind of the rock-and-roll of education. We are not weighed down bygovernment regulations, state requirements, teaching to the test. We have theopportunity to do really good, impactful, creative, interesting, and effectivework. And the fact that we keep choosing not to is just a shame.
From the editor: Join the conversation!
The eLearning Guild is exploring the digital learninglandscape next month at DevLearn 2017 Conference & Expo in Las Vegas. Senior learning leaders will delveinto digital learning strategies at the Digital Learning Executive Forum on October 24. The conversation on digitallearning continues, as a special area of focus, throughout the conference,October 25 – 27. Register today!
