It Doesn't Have To Be Boring!

 

I have heard colleagues over the years proclaim some discontent when it comes to developing compliant related courses, such as Code of Conduct or Fraud related courses. The negativity usually centers on the belief that these types of courses are boring page-turners or information dumps, which when viewed this way certainly doesn't make it sound very fun to develop, does it?

Say what you will, but these are actually one of my favorite types of courses to build, and that's primarily because I don't view them as boring page-turners, or information dumps. Instead, I view them as awesome opportunities to develop fun, interactive, story-based masterpieces.

Now you may run across subject matter experts or managers who don't think fondly of creative and fun courses and prefer to play things safe, but don't let that deter you, go for it anyway. I discuss this a previous post titled 'Do Not Go Gentle Into That Goodnight', so check this post out if you need some inspiration to go against the grain a little here.

Check out this course I created called 'Social Engineering', which is a type of fraud scam and definitely falls into this 'compliant course' category. I could have just dumped a bunch of information on some pages, asked a few review questions along the way and called it a day, but that's just not my style! 

Instead I decided work some creativity and fun into the course, which also made it a blast to develop. In this course you go on a spy caper, find clues and capture some bad guys, while all the time learning a thing or two about Social Engineering.

Consider this approach the next time you're faced with content that may seem boring at first. Avoid the information dump, mix in a character or two, and take your learner on a journey. They will thank you for it in the end!


  

DO NOT GO GENTLE INTO THAT GOOD NIGHT!

This particular post isn't going to teach you much, or provide a ton of insight. This is a 'rant' and 'call-to-arms', fueled by recent events that forced me to change Verdana to Arial, change 'Biggest Strength' to 'Core Competency', and totally replace a fun scenario-driven interaction with a traditional and 'safer' information dump! 

As e-learning developers we tend to be creative risk-taking creatures by nature, while our stakeholders/SMEs tend to be more compliant, play-it-safe, traditional, no-risk, detail-oriented, core-competency-focusing, inside-the-box, Arial-using robots. (Can you sense my frustration yet?)

These stakeholders usually win the battle when it comes to the final elements of the course, even though most wouldn't know a good e-learning course if it came up and bit em'.

What's worse is that when we (the developer and expert) disagree, express concern, or present push-back, we sometimes get the labels of being 'uncooperative', 'resistant to change', or 'difficult to work with'. Nobody wants these labels, so what I've witnessed is fellow e-learning developers simply giving up before even being heard! They crumble under the pressure of Corporate America heiarchy, and simply concede before even speaking up (not all mind you).

Now I understand that we all have to change things we don't want to, take the 'human' element out of our courses in place of more corporate speak, use the real-world business woman graphic when we wanted to use something more creative....I totally get it! But I'm not one who's going to surpress opinion or not leverage my creative e-learning awsomeness because of fear of repercussion, and I implore all of you to do the same.

In case you're wondering, I have a few of those 'Resistant to Change', 'Risk Taking', 'Sometimes Uncooperative' labels dangling on me! It may sound silly, but I kind of like them and wear those labels as badges.

I will continue to push the envelope! Continue to treat my audience as a real-person who hates hard to understand corporate speak as much as I do. Continue to try to make my courses fun, interactive and different. I will continue to buck tradition and 'usually' hate Arial font. And I will continue to believe that not every course must comply to some pre-structured 'Learning Model' or 'Taxonomy'.

I saw a commercial the other day that showed me everything I needed to know about a new car and the awesomeness it possesses, and I even knew where I could go locally to get one when the commercial was over. They didn't start that commercial with an 'Introduction', followed by 'Objectives', yet I was still able to glean what I needed. You don't need all that stuff in a course just because some learning model says so.

The best innovations of this world are not spawned from being traditional, following the crowd, and taking no risks. The best innovations come from those that think differently, buck tradition and take risks (Apple anyone?).

I feel like it's my job to speak up when I disagree, to continue to try to leverage new and interesting technologies, to NOT use Arial font because somebody says so, to try to convince my stakeholder that not every piece of information needs to be crammed into the course, and so on and so on.

I encourage all of you that read this to do the same. Don't just cave because you're afraid of getting a bad label. If you err on the side of caution, or don't do something because you're afraid of the very predictable resistance you will get, then you're doing yourself and your 'actual' e-learning audience an injustice.


We must work together with our stakeholders to convince them to take risks, be different and think different, which is a hard proposition considering they are hard-wired this way. Whatever you do though, don't go quietly into that good night, just because you're afraid of what others will think. If you truly believe it, then (as Rocky Balboa once said) "Go For It!".

Do not go gentle into that good night! Rage, rage against the dying of the light!

9 Things You Must Avoid in Your Courses.

I was recently reviewing an elearning course (per the authors request) and some of things I saw is what inspired this post. Now I'll allow some latitude because the author only develops part-time and is somewhat of a newbee, but some of things I witnessed defied what I consider basic common sense. So without further ado I present to you 9 things that should be avoided in your e-learning course. Simply don't do these things and your e-learning will suck much less. (By the way, the course I was reviewing violated 8 of these 9 things).

Notice how I only have 9 things? Everybody does a top 10, but how often do you see a Top 9? Just me thinking out of the box a little (see number three below).

A Must-Have Tip to Save You BooKoos of Time!

Is that how you spell BooKoos? Or is it BuKus? Anyway, in today's environment where everybody unrealistically wants everything yesterday, time saving tips sometimes prove invaluable. I can't remember exactly where I picked up this little gem, otherwise I would give appropriate credit, but it combines two very cool things at once. The first being the use of the 'Format Painter' option in PowerPoint, and the second being the very cool stuff you can find at Microsoft Office Online.

I use this 'Format Painter' technique all the time and get a lot of inspiration from the stuff on Microsoft Office Online, so if you're not already familiar with this information I hope you find it useful. Check out the SCREENR I recorded for the low-down.

Free PowerPoint Course Template

In my continuing effort to aid in your course development endeavors, I give to you a FREE blue/green themed PowerPoint template.

I wouldn't call this a branching scenario course template, but rather a flexible Menu driven template. The way it's set up here the user makes a selection from a Menu page and is then taken to the appropriate page based on what they chose from the menu. It's non-linear allowing the user to choose whatever menu option they wish, in whatever order they wish. The template includes the raw PowerPoint images for easy editing.

I recently utilized this template to create a course covering several reporting options allowed by a system. It was determined that most users would only need the procedures for one or two reports and rather than forcing them to view all of the reporting procedures, this format allowed them to choose a single report and view only that related information.

Even if you don't have a need for this menu-driven navigation you can just ditch the menu page and you should find it useful and save some development time by using the template and the included text boxes, images and clipart.

• To see the template in action Click Here.

• To download the template Click Here. (ZIP file including both the PowerPoint pptx and Articulate ppta file.)

Please excuse any Go Daddy banners you encounter as you view the example. I manage this blog on my own dime and in an effort to save some money I use the free Go Daddy hosting service, which unfortunately forces those banners on you.

Enjoy, and if you happen to use the template drop me a line and let me know how it worked for you.

Ideas to Spice Up Those Title Pages!

Who couldn't use some fresh ideas for their elearning title pages? You only get one chance to make that first impression, so why spoil it with static images and text on your title page?

I got these three ideas you're about to see while watching TV commercials. Come to think of it, I get a lot of ideas from the various presentation styles and effects used in everyday commercials so be on the lookout as you're watching TV.

Before covering the examples, let me explain that these examples are primarily for those using a PowerPoint rapid elearning tool. If you're a flash developer then you could easily create much more complex effects than you're about to see, however my goal here was to spice up those title pages using nothing but the tools and animation options provided within PowerPoint.

Click the image below to see the examples in action with narrated explanations. Don't ask me why, but even though I had my appropriate microphone peripherals in my bag, I used nothing but my built-in laptop microphone for this narration. I like to handcuff myself sometimes to see what I can do with limited resources. It could be better of course, but all things considered the sound is surprisingly not too bad.

If you're one of those people who like to get their hands dirty and disect things (No worries, I am too) the actual PowerPoint file(s) are available by clicking here. Download away!

Check out my previous post titled "Inspiration is everywhere, just look around" for additional ideas similar to these.

Quite Possibly the Single Most Important Element of Effective E-Learning.

Have you ever browsed to a website and, not knowing exactly why, just thought it was cool? On the opposite end of the spectrum perhaps you've browsed to a site and, for whatever reason, just knew it sort of sucked! It's likely that the developer of the first site took some pride in their craft, and the second developer didn't. It's the little things folks that make all the difference.

It's not hard to find examples of this, check it:  Good Site  -  Bad Site

One of the single most important thing you can do on your way to becoming a ninja elearning developer is to take pride in the product you're producing and not overlook the little things that help the overall appearance of your course.

Yes, the content is important. Yes, interactivity is important, and of course tossing in some story-telling, scenarios and such are also vital, but all that can be void if your course looks crappy. It simply ruins the credibility of your product if it looks cheesy.

It could be appropriate white-space, simple drop shadows or reflections on images, the placement and alignment of your text, or even your font choice. Pay attention to these little things and your half way home to creating kick-butt elearning.

Let's consider product packaging as an example. If you've ever opened any product packaged by apple you'll know what I'm talking about here. It's not an exaggeration that it's an actual pleasure to open an apple product. The innovation alone engineered into the packaging is a marvel, but it's the little things that make the big difference. The clever way the product is placed in the package, the easy to remove seals and fasteners and even the material is nice to feel and smell...yes I said smell. I think apple may scent their packaging because it smells good. I've kept every apple package I've ever purchased, that's how good it is! This is the type of craftsmanship and detail you should work into your elearning courses.

Call me a freak, but I actually like taking someones cheesy looking PowerPoint presentation or attempt at a job aid, and dressing it up and adding my touch to it, and I always get the Ooohs and Awwws when they see what I did with it. It gives me a rush and makes me feel good about what I've accomplished. Let's have a look at an example.

The first image below is the 'Before' version of an elearning page, and although it's just a sample I threw together in about 3 minutes, it's realistic because I've seen a ton just like it in actual courses.

Whats wrong? How about the fact that it looks like it took about 3 minutes to make. Totally unrelated image for the content, my least favorite Times New Roman font with the dreaded indent, The whole thing is off-center, there's too much vacant space at the bottom, and it's all capped off with a misaligned generic looking continue button. This is what you shouldn't do and, although they may not be able to articulate exactly why, will turn your reader off quicker than Kanye can insult Taylor Swift.

I spent about 20 minutes reformatting this page and here is my revised 'After' product.

I changed the image to a more relevant image conveying emotion and threw in a perspective shadow to add depth, put the text into a colored box (spent some time here fiddling with the bevel and shadow until I liked the way the box looked), bulleted and spaced out the font, added some font color variation to emphasize some things, changed the font to a sans-serif font, and capped it all off by creating a cool looking glossy continue button in Photoshop (see my previous post on how to create this glossy effect in Photoshop).

It may take a few extra minutes to do these things but the juice will definitely be worth the squeeze and the end result will be a more professional eye-pleasing product that you can take some pride in. These little things can make the difference between a generic amateurish looking course, and a catchy, professional eye-pleasing masterpiece!

No Big Words Please!

Ask anyone who knows me and they'll tell you that I'm an advocate of simplicity. I like the stuff I read to be easy to understand and the things I look at to be easy on the eyes. In other words I despise the overuse of big words and I hate e-learning screens that are a cluttered busy mess. In this post we will focus our attention on the use of big words in elearning, and save the cluttered screen topic for a future post.

Now I happen to work for Corporate America, who in my humble opinion is enemy #1 when it comes to using big words, so I'm constantly saturated with this written vomit. Check out this example which was pulled from an actual corporate email sent to employees.

"As we execute on our 2010 key deliverables, current stakeholder analysis reveals that opportunity exists in the realm of key performance indicators. Company Core Values are cornerstone to executing on our competencies and methodologies, with a focus on business acumen and key company deliverables".

Reading something like this makes me want to (for a lack of a better word) puke! And that's putting it nicely. Why people insist on writing like this will stump me until the day I die! Did they get a new dictionary or thesaurus and thought it appropriate to load their writing with as many big impressive words as possible? Is the 'big word' fairy holding their family hostage demanding they use these words or else? I just don't get it.

I implore you as a developer NOT to write like this, and I used bold caps on NOT with great purpose and intent. Nothing will turn off your viewer quicker than verbosity (or big words). Don't want to take my word for it? Consider the following from perhaps more credible sources:

• "Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication." ~ Leonardo DaVinci
• "Life is really simple, but we insist on making it complicated." ~ Confucius
• "Three Rules of Work: Out of clutter find simplicity; From discord find harmony; In the middle of difficulty lies opportunity.” ~ Albert Einstein

Let's backtrack now and explore how we might better write that monstrosity of paragraph we looked at earlier. Here's my attempt at it:

"Becoming more familiar with our overall business and continuing to follow the policies and practices we have in place will help us meet our 2010 goals".

Notice the exclusion of all the big unnecessary words. All of the following were left out: execute, key deliverables, stakeholder analysis, key performance indicators, competencies, methodologies, business acumen, etc.

In closing, those big fancy words may impress at the staff meeting, but they won't in an e-Learning course. Consider writing your courses so a 6th or 7th grader can read it (That's an 11 or 12 year old). Make your course an 'easy-read' and don't force your reader to pull out a dictionary to figure out what you're saying. Your anal retentive, corporate big-word using SME might not appreciate it, but your audience sure will.

Free Articulate iPad Course..Come And Get It!

I know what you're thinking out there my Articulate peeps! You're short on time and ideas and not only could use some inspiration, but also something pre-built to give you a head-start on your development efforts. Well, look no further, I have your solution.

With this post I offer you (FREE of charge) a pre-built Articulate iPad course for your development pleasure. It includes graphics, animations and syncing all built in, Now all you have to do is open it up, add your content, tinker with your additions then kick back and take all the credit as your peers, manager and stake-holders marvel at your accomplishments.

The iPad was built completely using the shape tools available right in PowerPoint, and the people graphics are standard clipart so if you use them rest-easy when it comes to any copyright worries.

If you use this course leave a comment below or shoot me an email and let me know how it worked for you. ENJOY!

Free e-Learning PowerPoint

Hello e-Learning peeps! In my random browsing I've run across a few sites that offer free e-learning PowerPoint templates for those that use a product like Articulate Presenter to develop e-Learning. Many of the sites charge for these and in some cases it's upward of $100.

I decided to take a crack at this and would like to offer this PowerPoint for FREE. I had Articulate users in mind when I developed it, but it should work with any PowerPoint to e-Learning tool you utilize. Please note that it is void of animation and navigation, so you'll have to insert that yourself. This PowerPoint is designed to kick-start the layout design of your e-Learning course. Included in the PowerPoint are various text effects, call-out boxes and more.

You can easily change the layout, color or any aspect of the template in the slide master or on the individual slides. I used an orange & gray theme in this template but you can easily change the colors to match your organizations brand.

As an added convenience, all images in this PowerPoint are pulled from Clip Art (Some I slightly modified) but they are royalty free and can be used at will.

CLICK HERE to download the PowerPoint, and please leave a comment or shoot me an email and let me know if this was useful, or a complete waste of time.  ENJOY!

At the conclusion of this blog post you will be able to:

So at what point did the practice of having lengthy Objectives describing exactly what the learner will be able to do at the conclusion of the course become the gold standard de-facto approach to elearning design?

Trust me I took the bait and ran with it for years, in fact I even went so far as to have a 'Blooms Taxonomy' list of about 100+ verbs hanging up in my my cube. You know the one's I'm talking about ("Identify, Explain, Utilize, List, etc...). but then I started asking myself; Self! Is there a better way of doing this? Are these Objectives really necessary? I mean will the whole e-Learning universe explode if I don't have an "Objectives" page?

I think I just kept doing it because at some point someone said that it was the thing to do and I just went along with it. Well I'm getting older now and in my old age I tend to go against the grain more. I don't want to be like everybody else. I don't want to follow a million rules. I want to be creative! I want to surprise people. Most great inventors are those who think outside the box and do the unconventional thing when everyone else is being conventional.

Now me spouting off about being different and how you don't necessarily need crafted lengthy objectives is one thing, but me justifying it's validity is another, so here's my attempt.

When e-Learning was in its infancy more explanation was needed to educate the learner. I mean self-paced learning was new to the user, thus familiarity was comon-place and this familiarity included clear objectives at the beginning of the course, much like is done in a classroom learning environment.

Well, over time e-Learning has become familiar to the user and research has justified straying from how you do things in a classroom, not to mention that technology and improved bandwidth have catapulted elearning into the stratosphere. e-Learning must now buck the trend, it must capture the learners imagination and interest and one way to do this is to breach tradition and expectations.

Let me pause for a moment and say that I'm not 100% opposed to objectives, and that they do belong at the beginning of the course, but I think an overall more all-encompassing objective at the begining may be a better option than a detailed itemized list. For example:

Rather than this:
Upon completion of this training you will be able to:

• Identify How to cook noodles
• Describe the different ingredients that compose a good spaghetti sauce
• Explain the different pots and pans needed to cook spaghetti
• Identify the order to add ingredients
• Mix the ingredients together and plate the spaghetti

You might do something like this:

• This course will provide you with the tools necessary to create an awesome pot of spaghetti.

What I'm saying here is that you don't need to list all of these items. In fact listing all of these things could distract or turn off the learner from the get-go! If there's an item they already know or are not interested in then they now know up-front that they are going to be exposed to it. Not a good start to the course!

Don't do things in a course just because everbody else is, or because your SME or boss is expecting it. In fact I'm going through this right now. I created a course that had a more generic overall objective rather than listing detailed objectives. As a matter of fact I didn't even use the word 'objective' anywhere in the course. As sure as ants at a picnic my boss has put me in check on this. Her feedback included this predictable nugget: "There's no clear learning objectives at the beginning of the course". I think my boss is just expecting them and when they are not there they freak out. I will now spend about an hour justifying my design and trying to convince her that these objectives are not necessary. I may lose the battle, but I'm going to fight this battle over and over. My next course won't have them either and I'm sure I'll have to fight the fight again.

I encourage you to fight this fight, argue your decision and don't let SME's and bosses detract from your creativity. Heck, point them to this post and tell them: "See, if it's in a blog it must be OK". Take a risk people, think outside the box and be a risk taker.

I'm out like the objectives in my next course!

Inspiration is Everywhere, Just Look Around!

I look everywhere for inspiration, TV, Movies, Billboards, Magazines, etc. Here are two ideas I got from TV commercials the other night that would work great for your title page. These are very easy to create and provide much more impact than just a static image.

Simple Tips To Reduce Course Maintenance!

Ask anyone who works with me and they'll tell you that post-publish course maintenance is not my favorite thing. You've been there right? You just put the spit & polish on your course, packaged and published it to your LMS and then the next day you get a laundry list of updates. Maintenance is an unavoidable aspect of development. It comes with the territory, however there are some things you can do to reduce course maintenance.

• Avoid using actual names in your course, for if that individual changes jobs or leaves the company it will require changes to your course. Instead of saying "Bill Jones, Head of Security", just say "Head of Security". That way if Bill Jones moves on you don't have to change your course.
  
  
• Link out to often changing processes rather than embedding them directly in your course. These procedures and processes are going to change and if you have the procedure specifics in your course you will have to change your course every time these procedures change. If you link to the procedures instead you will not have to update your course when the procedure change.
  
  
• Avoid over-using system screen shots if possible. Systems usually have scheduled releases and change frequently. If you have screen shots of a system in your course and the system changes (Even slightly) you will be required to obtain new screen shots and update your course. Now sometimes you have to put screen shots, but sometimes you can get away with being more generic. For example; Let's say I'm only explaining a Submit button on a certain screen, rather than include a screen shot I will just include a solo Submit button, that way even if the screen gets a face lift my course won't require maintenance.
  
  
• Avoid using dates in your course if possible. If your course points out specific dates things happened then your course will inevitably become stale and require maintenance. Instead of saying "Released in 2010, Release 6 of Acme system contains the following feature enhancements", just keep it generic and say "Acme system feature enhancements include".
  
  
• If your course has audio, do it yourself. I once commissioned a fellow employee (who had a nice deep radio-like voice) to record the narrative for one of my courses. It was all wonderful until I needed to change something, at which point I was now reliant on this individual and working around their schedule. Worse yet is that this person eventually left the company and I was forced to re-record ALL of the narrative. Not Fun!
  
  
• If you have audio narrative in your course, break it up into many short clips. This way if something changes you only have a small audio clip to update, rather than long one's. I had a colleague once who was creating audio narrative for a course and the audio on each page averaged about 2 or more minutes. I was helping with the technical recording aspect and maintenance was tedious to say the least. For even the most minor change (sometimes only one or two words) my peer was forced to re-record the entire 2 minute clip. Keep em' short and reduce maintenance.

I would love to hear any tips you might have to reduce maintenance, so leave a comment and let me hear it.

Do You Really Need A Storyboard?

I'm often asked my opinion about the relevance of Storyboards in the e-learning development process, so I thought I would address my opinion here in this post. Let me start by saying that if your company's process requires a Storyboard then you don't have much choice, so this post more applies to those who are lucky enough to have flexibility when it comes to these types of decisions.

In my opinion there are situations where a Storyboard makes sense, and situations where it doesn't, so here's my short & sweet take on Storyboard relevance.

Makes Sense:

• When your course includes audio narrative. Having a storyboard with the audio narrative can be useful as a script for you (or your voice talent).

• When there are multiple developers, or a designer/developer relationship. If more than one person will have a hand in the development of the course it makes sense to have a Storyboard to maintain continuity.

Doesn't Make Sense:

• When developing a standard course with no audio. Some argue with me on this one, but I'm sticking to my guns here. With today's technology and environment of rapid e-Learning development you can build the course in your product(s) with the time it takes to create a Storyboard. Storyboards rarely look like the end-product, require a lot of maintenance and with all the interactivity we put in today's courses, it becomes more and more difficult to accurately represent interaction on a static storyboard. Your finished course can be a Storyboard as far as I'm concerned.

I would love to hear your opinions on Storyboard relevance so leave a comment and let's hear ya.