EveryJanuary I revisit the previous year’s columns looking for themes, or a commonthread, or sometimes ideas for New Year’s resolutions. This time some keyphrases popped out at me.
Extend the opportunity. It’s so easy to take a tool at facevalue. Try to get beyond the appearance and look at what it can really do. Ablog is an almost-idiot-proof web page; a Diigo or Delicious group can replacehundreds of emails; a Pinterest board can be the platform for a narrative or achronology. Likewise, the ease of creating and uploading and accessing onlinevideos offers huge opportunities for learning if we just look for ways toleverage additional approaches and features. See Making Video More Social.
Remember we are all toothpastesalesmen. Googlesomething, such as “ladder safety eLearning” or “sexual harassment training.”You’ll find 83,417 courses—and three of them will be good. What is it about those three that make them better? What did thosedesigners do differently? Sooner or later we all have to work with dry content,or create policy overviews or “awareness” training. Like the advertising guy who’s trying to find a new and differentangle to sell one more brand of toothpaste, it’s your job to figure out how tomake that content relevant and engaging. Don’t Blame Your Content.
Put your hands in the air and stepaway from the computer. Quit thinking in terms of, “I have to create an online course,” andinstead ask: “What would make a great course about ______? How could I makethat work online?” Don’t start by loading content onto slides and then figuringout what to do with it. Talk to people who have the stories that will make thecontent come to life. See (again) Don’t Blame Your Content and suggestions for using Crooked Lines from Tracy Parrish.
Horse, then cart: What do people need to do? How willyou know they can do it? Don’t fall into the trap of creating instruction, thenrummaging back through looking for 20 multiple-choice questions. The disconnect between workplace performance, courseperformance objectives, assessment, and content is a huge contributor tolearner failure. Beginwith the end in mind: create the assessment, and then design the instruction. Design Assessments First.
Forest, then trees. Be careful of becoming so embedded in conversationswith subject matter experts and piles of content that you lose sight of anobvious or better solution. Talk to some people who don’t know a thing aboutthe subject matter. Ask your kid. Ask Twitter. See Seeing the Forest. (See also James Thurber’s “Here Lies MissGroby.”)
Design, then develop. Many tools promise that with noeffort at all you can create engaging, interactive online training. Not so.It’s akin to saying you can drive a Kia into a carwash and have it come out aLexus. (Big secret: Sometimes, really, all you need is a Kia.) The expectationthat a fabulous end product will come from no work is not very realistic. Takethe time to find a good treatment and craft a good solution rather than justload a bunch of text-based material into an authoring tool. Good eLearning isabout thoughtful design, not software. See How to Be an Overnight Success.
Remember the things you tout may bethe very things other people resist. “People can access information anytime they want! Learnerscan control their own learning experiences! We can cut back on courses!” Recognizethat the usual presenting reasons for resistance (“I don’t havetime/money/training/equipment”) are likely just first-order barriers maskingthe real underlying causes of resistance, like ego needs, comfort with thestatus quo, or perceived threats to job security. The first-order barrier gameis a no-win: No matter how many objections you resolve, there will always beanother. Figure out what’s going on underneath it. See How to Deal with Barriers.
Rethink “good.” The best eLearning is not necessarilythe most expensive, or the flashiest. It may not even follow all the rules forwhat we think is good. The best eLearning solves your problem and gets you theperformance you’re after. See What Is “Good” eLearning, Anyway?
Bea learner. That’s how you get to be a better practitioner. Go to conferences. Take other people’s eLearningcourses. Look at some Snapguides. Teach yourself to play the ukulele. Expandyour surface area and remember what it’s like to be in the learner’s shoes. SeeBe a Learner.
