E-Learning for Newbies, Beginners, and the Confused



E-Learning for Newbies, Beginners, and the ConfusedSummary of questions and answers from the July 26, 2016 webinar by Training MagazineDiane Elkins and Amy Morrisey from Artisan E-LearningWhat is an LMS?LMS stands for learning management system. LMSs are used to launch and track training courses, especially e-learning courses. For learners, an LMS serves as a course catalog where they can find and take the courses they want. Plus, they can see a transcript of all the courses they have completed. For administrators, an LMS is a place where they can pull reports on who has taken what training or who needs to take what training. They can also assign courses based on role or location. Some LMSs include other learning functions such as collaboration and performance management.Follow-on questions from the audience:What is the best way to integrate a current Access database into an LMS? Each LMS is different, so the best thing to do would be to talk to the LMS provider. There should be a way to map your current data into the data tables in the LMS. Based on how the information is set up, this could be an easy task or it could be very involved. Your LMS provider should have experience in this type of data migration. How can you most effectively use Sharepoint to distribute e-learning content if your company cannot yet make the leap into investing in a full-fledged LMS? If you just need to post courses without registration or tracking, you can post them on any web server, and many people have done that on SharePoint. If you want tracking features like what you’d find in an LMS, there are several plug-ins available. This might be the best way to bridge the gap until you have an LMS in place. A quick Google search for “SharePoint LMS plug-in” can get you pointed towards a few of them.What is Section 508?Section 508 is part of the Workforce Rehabilitation Act, which requires that electronic communication (including e-learning) for the federal government be accessible to individuals with disabilities. Typically, this means making sure your courses work with assistive technology such as screen readers and keyboards.Follow-on questions from the audience: Do county governments have to follow Section 508? 508 strictly applies to the federal government. However, many state, county, and local governments have chosen to adopt that standard, as have some private corporations. Some people argue that any organization receiving money from the federal government falls under Section 508. Even if you don’t legally need to comply with Section 508, it’s good to have a strategy for how your content can be accessed by people with disabilities.How do you make good, interactive e-learning that is also accessible? As far as I can tell, one can only create simple e-learning that is accessible but it is basically just showing content and that defeats the purpose of good, engaging e-learning. Your toolbox is a little bit smaller when you are designing accessible content, but you can still create engaging, effective e-learning. The first thing to do is to be very clear on what your authoring tool can and can’t support in an accessible course. One of the big design restrictions is that you can’t make an accessible drag-and-drop question. These questions require both vision and the use of a mouse. (In contrast, a multiple-choice question can be operated with a keyboard and a screen reader.) The key is to focus on good instructional design. You can still tell a compelling story. You can still include realistic scenarios. You can still ask reflection questions. To make sure your courses are still good, focus on what you CAN do, instead of what you can’t.Section 508 resources:Official Section 508 websiteGovernment whitepaper on accessibility for e-learningFree webinar on Section 508 and WCAG (Web Content Accessibility Guidelines)What is responsive design?Responsive design presents content such as a web page or an e-learning course in a way that works well on a number of devices. Think about how Amazon looks different on your phone versus your tablet versus your computer. A responsive e-learning course is designed in a way that buttons and interactive features are easy to use on smaller devices and text is easy to read. The course might simply rescale to fit the device or it might reconfigure the size and position of individual elements.Course viewed on a computer:Same course scaled down and viewed on a phone:Same course that reconfigures to fit better on a phone:In e-learning, what is a page turner?When referring to a novel, “page turner” is a compliment. You can’t wait to turn the page and find out what happens next. In e-learning, “page turner” is a bit of an insult. It refers to a boring course with no real interaction except clicking the Next button to turn to the next page.What does “MOOC” stand for?A MOOC is a massive open online course. MOOCs are generally found in higher education. Courses typically have an instructor, a start and end date, a group of students going through the course at the same time (cohort), and weekly activities such as reading assignments, group projects, papers, and commenting on each other’s work. The “Open” in MOOC means that courses are typically free, and the “Massive” means that there might be thousands of participants. MOOCs offered by universities typically do not award college credit. Common MOOC platforms:CourseraStanford OnlineNovoEdFollow-on questions from the audience:Are MOOCS something relevant in workforce, corporate, employee training? MOOCs are much more common in higher education than in the corporate world. This is because corporations don’t typically want to open their training to the public. However, the format of having an instructor, a cohort going through together, and weekly assignments can be found in the corporate world…they just aren’t typically massive or open.Do you know if there are MOOC courses for e-Learning?? A quick search of Coursera shows a few courses on e-learning and a lot of courses on learning and education in general. Since many MOOCs are provided by universities, the content is likely to be geared towards the educational environment rather than the corporate environment.What does the “m” in “m-learning” stand for?It stands for mobile. M-learning means learning on tablets, phones, and wearables. Some people argue that tablets are not truly mobile because they don’t easily fit in a pocket or purse.What do “AR” and “VR” stand for?They stand for augmented reality and virtual reality. Augmented reality takes a view of a real environment, typically whatever you see in front of you at the time, and augments it with additional information or effects. Pokemon Go is a perfect example. Virtual reality is a fully virtual environment. The entire experience is made up. You might be wearing some sort of virtual reality goggles where all you see is the simulated environment. You could even have tactile elements such as wind blowing in your face from a fan in front of you.Follow-on questions from the audience:Please demonstrate a couple of examples of how I may use augmented reality in my ILT and online courses.Here is an example provided courtesy of SAIC’s Training and Simulation Service Line. For this first-aid course, you put a small marker on your skin. Then you view your arm from a special app on your mobile device. Now, you have a terrible wound that needs first aid. From there, you can walk through a simulation on how to handle this situation. For virtual reality, consider a course on disaster response. You could use VR goggles to walk through a fully simulated town that has been hit by a tornado. You could walk around the town and make decisions about what you see. Any ideas how to apply this technology (AR and VR) at a retirement company? Methods should always follow instructional goals. Look at what you want your learners to accomplish from the training, and then ask yourself if AR/VR will help them get there better. AR tends to work best where there is a physical space and/or there are physical objects involved. For example, you might have learners hold their phones up to a piece of equipment and get information on the component parts. Or you can have them walk around a big corporate campus as part of new-hire orientation and get information on different buildings and departments as they hold up their tablets. Conceptual information may not always be as good of a match for AR/VR.Please share an example of how I may use augmented reality in my webinar or ILT - if that's even possible. You could potentially use AR in a webinar or classroom course in a similar way to what is described here. There’s no reason that classroom participants couldn’t use their tablets in a classroom for the first aid simulation above. You could also use AR for a “field trip” to a job site in an ILT course. Webinars might be a little trickier if you want the learners to do the activity while on the webinar in that they may have to do it at their desks and they’d have to have the right equipment. Perhaps they could use the AR activity as pre-work or post-work.What is Creative Commons?Creative Commons is a type of copyright license wherein the creator of the content still retains the rights but allows others to use it free of charge with certain stipulations. Use of content under a traditional copyright requires the authorization from the copyright holder. Use of Creative Commons content is already pre-authorized with the terms and conditions set by the owner. Creative Commons is different from public domain. When a content owner puts something in the public domain, they are giving up all rights to it. With Creative Commons, the content owner still retains ownership. There are several levels of Creative Commons permission. Some require attribution. Some only allow use for non-commercial purposes or for content that is also given a Creative Commons license.Follow-on question from audience:How about YouTube videos...can we use without permissions? We are not lawyers, so we aren’t able to provide legal advice, but here a few things to think about. In many cases, providing a link to content that is publicly available on the web is acceptable. However, you might want to consider whether that content is legally on the web (i.e., did the person posting it have permission to do so). Many people believe that if the content author includes an embed code with their YouTube video (something they can choose not to do), that implies they are OK with you embedding it in your course. But the content owner may not realize that’s the implication, and you could still run into problems. If you really want to be sure, check to see if the video has a CC license, or contact the content owner for permission.Resources:Creative Commons websiteFlickr search (find license type criteria in left corner)Why is HTML5 significant for e-learning?HTML is the markup language used for creating web-based content. Previous versions of HTML did not allow for rich multimedia and interactions. Because of this, many web authors and e-learning developers turned to Flash for that type of content. The fifth version of the HTML standard allowed for much more robust multimedia and interactions. As the HTML5 standard was being finalized, Apple’s iPad, which does not play Flash content, became wildly popular. Web authors and e-learning developers quickly started moving to HTML5 as a replacement for Flash so that their content would play on Apple devices. Many of the popular e-learning authoring tools output both to Flash and HTML5.Follow-on question from audience:If you do something in HTML5, does that mean it’s responsive? HTML5 does not automatically mean responsive. HTML5 is a language used to create/render browser-based content. Responsive design is one feature that you can choose to include or not include.What is Tin Can API?Tin Can API was the early working name for Experience API, which is also known as xAPI. It is a protocol that governs how learning events communicate with tracking systems. In years past, the primary protocol was SCORM, and it governed how e-learning courses “talked” to learning management systems. xAPI is an updated standard that also allows more flexibility. Rather than just tracking course completion and quiz scores, it can be used to track a whole host of online or offline activities such as watching a video or performing an action.Follow-on question from the audience:How is Tin Can different than SCORM? Both Tin Can and SCORM help establish how learning experiences and learning tracking systems talk to each other. SCORM is an older standard and is specifically for tracking browser-based courses into an LMS. Tin Can is a newer standard and allows many different types of activities to be tracked. Resources:Experience API websiteAudience Questions: Authoring ToolsWhat's the best authoring tool out there? What course development system(s) do you recommend for newbies, beginners and the confused? There are a lot of great tools on the market, and it’s important to find the right one for you…which might be different than the right one for someone else. To get you started, take a look at this authoring tools comparison grid that provides one take on how the major authoring tools are similar and different. Ease of use is one of the criteria used in the grid.Any chance to comment on a comparison with Lectora?? Is Lectora still a worthwhile investment to learn? How is Storyline different from Captivate? The e-learning authoring tools comparison link above should help with all of these questions.Do?you know if Storyline will ever be Mac compatible? We have not heard of any plans by Articulate to be Mac-compatible. Storyline does work on a Mac if you have a Windows simulator, such as Parallels. Several people here at Artisan E-Learning use Storyline on a Mac this way. Anyone able to use Storyline in an ebook? We’ve not tried this ourselves. Articulate has a very active user community. I’d recommend you post the question there and see what folks say.Is there an all-in-one product that covers the purchase of live, prerecorded and self-paced training, the software to deliver the e-learning (live and self-paced), tracking who has attended, badges and awards based on training session attended or taken. I'm looking for the best package for training on software. Do I need to buy a LCMS, Adobe connect, goto.... or is there an all in one package which would be preferred. Thank you! You might be able to find a tool that does everything, but it might not be great at everything. Most organizations choose to implement a suite of products so that each product can be very good at its job. If your organization is brand new to e-learning and needs to make some major decisions about technology infrastructure, you might want to work with a consultant to guide you through the process. A consultant can save you a lot of research time and help you avoid potentially costly mistakes.With Google basically cutting all ties to Flash and Firefox getting close to doing the same, where do you see Flash as an online tool going forward? From our experience, very few people are developing in Flash anymore. Most people are either using a rapid development tool (like Storyline) that outputs to both Flash and HTML5 or are developing in an HTML5-only tool. Some organizations may need to keep Flash capability on their teams because of older content that may need to be updated. Even the Flash/HTML5 authoring tools are working towards less and less dependence on the Flash output option. One element that is still keeping Flash alive is the fact that many organizations are still on older browsers, such as Internet Explorer 9, which do not fully support HTML5. Updating browsers can be a very big project for large organizations, which is why many have not. So for now, the e-learning industry ha a big audience who still needs Flash and a big audience that is ready for it to be gone for good.What is the best elearning format for lab and hands-on training?? Assuming this means what’s the best format for systems (software) training, the three most popular authoring tools for software training are Camtasia, Captivate, and Storyline. All three are excellent choices. Camtasia is more for sit-back-and-watch movies (some interaction is possible), while Storyline and Captivate also offer interactive practices as well as other e-learning features.Audience Questions: Course DesignHow do you make e-Learning most effective for courses such as PowerPoint, Excel, and other tech sessions? When doing software training, it is important to think about what the learners might need to know other than the step-by-step procedure. Take an Excel lesson on conditional formatting, for example. Do they need to conceptually know what conditional formatting is? Do they need to understand the benefits? Do they need to see a few examples of situations in which it would be useful? Do they need a chance to practice? The answer to all of these is probably yes. On the other hand, if you have a new time-and-attendance system, do you really need to include the benefits of asking for time off? They probably already know that. But they might need to know some of the business rules about your time-off policies. So put yourselves in the learners’ shoes and really consider what they need to know to really get the most out of the procedure. How do you create interactivity that helps the learner retain the information best? The key to good interactivity is to make it purposeful. Asking questions just because you can doesn’t really help anyone. One of the best things you can do is to stop thinking about what questions you should ask. Instead, think about how the learner can practice what they are being taught. This will help them try out the most relevant aspects of the content in a way that translates to how they will use it on the job. We use a process called Action Mapping by Cathy Moore to help us think in these terms.What is a good approach to use with Baby Boomers who don't really trust eLearning, or feel that it can never be as good as classroom training? The key to winning over any resistant group is to make sure you are providing value. Someone who is already skeptical (for whatever reason) will be a little less tolerant of boring e-learning that throws information at them that they don’t need. (And really, no one should have to put up with that.) Make sure that what you are designing is relevant to them and will help them do their jobs better. People will respond to that. Also, make sure there aren’t technical or computer literacy obstacles in their way. IWhat are some of your strategies for producing high quality and engaging content when the timelines are always getting shorter and shorter and your SME's are always busy with "more important" work? Good e-learning is NOT quick to produce. Here are a few tips when time or money is tight. (1) Be crystal clear on what you are trying to accomplish and don’t let anything keep you from that focus. An efficient course takes less time to create, so be careful about those who want to add the kitchen sink. (2) Target the “coolness” to the areas with the biggest performance issues. Maybe you can’t make everything as interactive as you want. So find out where the biggest struggles are, the biggest areas of confusion, the biggest areas of resistance, and the areas of the biggest risk if people get it wrong. Make sure you do those parts really well. And if the rest is just simple information that needs to be shared, then don’t overdesign it…just present it. (3) Front load the “coolness.” People form first impressions very quickly. If you can’t make the whole course fabulous, make sure the first few screens are really good so that people buy in from the start.I have been tasked to create an online training session that really is just information- regulations, who, and where. I want to make it more interactive but where to start? The answers to the other questions in this section apply to this question as well. One additional thought is to think about why those regulations are in place and in what situations the learners will need to know those regulations. It’s probably safe to assume that the learners need to know those regulations because there may come a time on the job when they need to make a decision based on what’s in that regulation. Think about that situation and present it to the learners. Be careful about just throwing the details without context. This is common when the subject-matter expert says, “Oh, they just need to be aware of it.” Related blog post: Be Aware of Being AwareWhat is the ideal length of time an e-learning course should be for a group of sales rep with a very limited attention span? There’s no one-size-fits-all answer to this question. Microlearning is a hot buzzword right now, but it isn’t always the right choice. (Microlearning is learning content in very small pieces, such as 5 or 10 minutes.) E-learning courses should be exactly as long as they need to be…not one minute longer and not one minute shorter. Look at what you are trying to accomplish and do what it takes to get there. You may need to consider the sales reps’s schedules so that they can easily take some training while they are waiting for an appointment. That doesn’t mean the course needs to be short…it means that it needs to be well organized into sections that are easy to come in and out of. And be careful about making too many assumptions about attention span. Your sales reps probably sit through one-hour meetings and TV shows all the time. Make your training focused and relevant, because most people have a short attention span for something that doesn’t relate to them.What do you consider the most important things to consider when moving from ILT to WBT? Here’s a blog post with seven things to consider when moving content from instructor-led training (ILT) to web-based training (WBT).I am new to creating eLearning. What I need to know is how do you add the interactivity you were discussing with technical training when you convert previous ILT to the eLT? Even with systems training, Action Mapping can be very useful. Really think about how people will use the information in their day-to-day lives, and give them chances to practice. Keep in mind that they may need to practice more than just entering information. Sometimes putting a number in a cell is the easy part…knowing what number to put in the cell is the hard part. Perhaps that’s what they need to practice. Audience Questions: AudioI struggle with recording audio. I hate my voice and my boss does not like automated voices. Any tips on recording audio? (We use Captivate.) Many people don’t like the sound of their own voices. So start with getting an objective opinion from someone else about your voice. If it still isn’t a good choice to do the recording yourself, start walking around every day with an “ear” out for someone with a good voice. If you’ve got 50 or more people in your office, at least one of them probably has a great voice. You can also use services like The Narrator Files or Fiverr.I want to know more about quick and easy voice recording software that can be used in authoring tools. Most of the major authoring tools have an audio recording/editing feature build in. You can record and do simple splicing and volume adjustments with these tools. At Artisan E-Learning, we use Audacity to create the recording and then import the files into the authoring tool. Audacity has some nice noise filtering tools to get out any background noise.Blog posts on audio:How to Record High Quality Audio for E-LearningTips for Creating Great Sounding Audio in : When You Need a Little AudioAudience Questions: Career ManagementWhat's the best way to transition into an e-learning career? The answer really depends on what you are transitioning from and what aspect of e-learning you are transitioning to. For example, you might want to be an instructional designer, a hands-on developer, or a project manager. In all cases, assume that you’ll need a new set of skills over previous jobs in education or classroom training. There is a TON of information available through groups like Training magazine, the Association for Talent Development, and the E-Learning Guild. In addition to getting the knowledge you need, it’s also very important to practice. If you can’t practice on the job, find a cause that can use some e-learning and volunteer your new skills. This will not only make you better, but if you negotiate it up front, you can put the pieces in your portfolio, which is very important in an e-learning job search.When you're interviewing for an ID position, how do you screen/interview them to make sure they really need an ID and not a PP converter? It sounds like in this scenario, you are the one being interviewed for a job, and you want to make sure the company you are interviewing with really wants your skills. One approach would be to ask them if they have in their company or have seen online examples of the types of e-learning they want to create. Also talk to them about a typical turnaround time for a project and what resources are available. Chances are, if you have two weeks to create a course while you are teaching new-hire orientation and managing the LMS, they are just looking for simple PowerPoint conversion. Audience Questions: Other TopicsIs there a right way to write (or type) e-Learning (elearning, eLearning, Elearning)? Strangely, there is no standard. So pick one and be consistent. We use “e-learning” along with standard capitalization rules for a hyphenated word (where each part is treated as a separate word). So it would be “E-learning” at the beginning of a sentence and “E-Learning” in title case. Examples:E-Learning Fundamentals: A Practical Guide E-learning is a growing field, and many instructional designers are looking to make a switch from classroom training to e-learning.How do you reduce the file size of your e-learning classes? How can you get your e-learning classes to load faster for your learners (especially those using mobile devices)? It’s your media that affects file size the most, especially audio and video. Play with compression settings in your software to balance quality and file size. For example, most narration audio can be compressed more than the default settings without sounding bad, but if you go too far, it sounds like you recorded in a tin can. For audio and video, you tend to have more compression choices in your audio/video software than you do in your authoring tool. Why are you using UMU instead of the Connect tools? (For reference, participants of the webinar entered their questions at and then voted on other people’s questions.) Adobe Connect does have a way to have people enter questions. With several hundred people attending, we knew we couldn’t get to everyone’s questions. We used UMU so that people could vote on each other’s questions, helping us focus on the questions that the group cared about the most.What technology/software do you like to use when showing your e-learning to people outside of your organization? When we show courses to potential clients or during presentations at conferences, we post the files to our web server via FTP software (We use FileZilla). If you don’t have a web server or if you are in a large organization and don’t have access to a web server, you can use third-party options. You might use a WordPress site or open a free account with SCORM Cloud. If you want to create a formal portfolio, check out Behance. What is the trickiest component of creating eLearning that I should be aware of? One tricky part is being ready for all the little moving pieces. Whereas classroom training takes an estimate 40 hours of work to create one hour of content, the effort for one hour of e-learning can range from 50 to 250 hours easily. (Source) There are a lot of skills involved, a lot of people involved, and a lot of technology involved…all in addition to the standard instructional design tasks that you’d have for classroom training. One particular area that takes way longer than you might think is testing…not quizzing the student, but testing your course to make sure it works properly. This is especially true if you want it to work on lots of browsers and mobile devices. The only way to know for sure that it works is to test it. ................
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