Everything I really need to know about designing effective e-learning, I learned in Comp 101

I spent much of last week attending sessions at eLearning DevCon 2007. As with all e-learning conventions/conferences, the schedule was full of interesting sessions, many of which dealt with new technologies, media, and strategies for providing e-learning to learners.

There were several sessions on gaming simulations, one of the up-and-coming approaches to designing interactive courseware; sessions on using iPods to deliver courseware; sessions on Wikis and blogs and tagging and a number of other new web-based approaches to making e-learning more engaging, interactive, and communal. And many of these sessions had a lot of interesting new information for me.

As I listened to all of these sessions (and more), the overwhelming feeling I had was that I had heard the really important parts before, many times before, a long, long time ago in my Composition 101 course. Running as a common thread through all of the sessions that I attended, as well as the sessions I presented, was a core principle that drives effective e-learning, regardless of technology, media, or strategy. And that core principle is exactly what writing instructors teach in their writing classes.

In a nutshell: Understand your learner (I’ve substituted “learner” for “reader” or “audience,” the terms used by my Comp 101 teacher, but I think it still works).

1. What does your learner already know? Wikis and blogs and tagging are good
   examples of forward-looking approaches to e-learning that are really
   focused on what readers already know and what they need to know.
2. What does your learner need to know? Establishing learning objectives
   is the only way to determine whether what you’ve provided the learner,
   regardless of media, technology, or strategy, has been effective. And
   once you’ve figured out what your learner already knows and what they
   need to know, you can make decisions about all of the rest of the issues
   involved in developing effective e-learning.
3. What’s the best way to get my message to my learner? What is it that
   makes the iPod an interesting technology for conveying e-learning? It is a
   tool that many of our learners already have in their hands, that they
   are familiar with, and that can provide content in ways that make
   sense to them in the contexts in which they actually use the content. The
   iPod is, itself, a fascinating piece of technology, but that alone doesn’t
   qualify it as an effective e-learning technology. The iPod (or CBT, or CD,
   or paper, or any number of other technologies) may or may not be the
   best tool to reach a particular learner at a particular time. But that’s exactly
   what the designer needs to assess.
4. Keep your learner engaged. Once a learner tunes out, nothing else will
   matter. This is what drives much of the layout design, interactivity, gaming
   simulations and similar presentations at conferences. Designers have to
   find ways to keep learners involved in the learning, to keep them moving
   through content, to keep their brains focused on getting from what they
   already know to what they need to know.

I could keep going with examples of how this core principle showed up in all of the sessions that I attended, but I don’t want to beat that horse too long. For me, the most important point is that regardless of everything that’s new in e-learning, the path to effective courseware is paved with very old stone.

The Making of Designers

As a technical writer and a college instructor in English, I was delighted when I found my home here at Allen. I found myself surrounded by the kind of creative, engaging people I'd come to love during my graduate school years. There was Shannon Hale, the instructional designer who sat across from me who had a contract for three young adult novels (she later switched to writing full time and won a Newberry Honor award last year) and Rosi Hayes, an incredibly creative designer next to me who had one master's degree and was in the process of earning another (the first in education, the second one in art). And those were just the designers I met on my first day.

So much for feeling nostalgic over the academic environment I'd come to love—this was the same thing, but with a real-world spin. I couldn't help but want to share this new, fun, and yes, corporate work environment with my fellow post-graduate buddies, to have them perhaps benefit from the luck that had befallen me to have found myself among such a group of coworkers.

It seemed to me that there was a reason all these terrific people had found a home at Allen—which was the work itself. At the university, I'd taken part in some studies done by its center for instructional design to improve the instructional integrity of its courses, writing student outcomes and creating rubrics to strive toward grading consensus, but at that time I didn't fully understand all that went into an instructional designer's job. When I came to this role at Allen, I think what excited me about being a designer was the complexity of it all. I viewed my job as part teacher, part writer, and part programmer. Since that time, I'd have to add that being an instructional designer for e-learning is part graphic designer, part usability tester, part theoretician, and part innovator. Now, as a project manager, I value in my own team the same range of talents. Bob Leavitt is an Allen Design Lead I've had the privilege of working with for the last year, and whom I've come to rely on in a multitude of ways, as he carefully scrutinizes all the design work that goes into a project we're completing for a major financial institution, checking for consistency, instructional integrity, and creativity, strengthening each course during development before it arrives on the learner's computer screen.

A month or two ago, I heard Michael Noble, our Chief Learning Officer, describe our ideal designer as a "Renaissance person"—a person who has the ability to multitask, to successfully display a variety of aptitudes, and who has that certain Je ne se quois that instills confidence not only from our internal team, but from our clients as well. Is it easy to do this? No. But for some of us, "easy" is not what makes for a rewarding project. While observing my fellow designers, I've been amazed at how effortlessly they were able to write for different client organization types and learner audiences using varying difficulty levels of source content and keep not only their sanity, but their creativity intact and refreshed. I think this stems from staying pure to the needs of the audience. Let the managers and project stakeholders concoct their reasons and justifications for a certain curriculum, but for designers, it's all about the learners or nothing else matters. And hitting that learner just right—with regard to time, method, and message—is the true balancing act.

What do you think makes an excellent instructional designer? Let us know! Then we'll post some of your comments and continue the discussion.

iPhone and Mobile Learning

I succumbed to the iPhone hype. I wasn’t going to, but my brother got one, showed it to me, and I was in. Funny thing is, every time I show it to someone, they ask, “Are you happy with it?” Being a first generation product, I know what they’re getting at. They’re saying, “Hey, guinea pig, give me some guidance on whether or not I really want one of those.” Fair enough.

I won’t go into all the details of the ups and downs of the device (including some bugs that my particular device seems to be encountering), but I have been thinking specifically about the iPhone and how it will impact mobile learning.

First off is the obvious – podcasting. When it comes to the iPhone’s delivery of this medium, I think it’s in the bag. After all, the iPod side of the iPhone functions like any other iPod (though the interface is quite a bit sleeker). If you’re thinking of delivering training via podcasting, the iPhone will not disappoint.

Beyond podcasting, though, mobile learning is going to run into some obstacles with the iPhone, many of which happen to be the same obstacles that any mobile device presents.

Following are some of my observations regarding challenges to think about when planning for mobile learning via the iPhone:

Video
While video (like vodcasts, etc.) can be a viable method for the iPhone, delivering video files has some hang ups. First, if delivered as a vodcast, the media must first be delivered to the learner’s iTunes application, where it then is loaded (or “synched”) to the iPhone. As it now stands, this is a cumbersome reality of the iPhone for all multimedia files. I project this will change sometime in the future with the release of a native iTunes application for the iPhone. For now, though, it’s a functionality issue to be aware of, as the process for delivering video media certainly isn’t “on demand” and may involve too many steps for learners to adopt.

Additionally, delivering video via the web to be viewed on iPhone’s Safari web browser is not ideal. First, as I’ll talk about a little further down, iPhone’s version of Safari does not currently support Flash. As a result, Flash delivered video, as found on sites like YouTube, will not work on your iPhone web browser. What’s more, the iPhone does not allow users to save files to a directory on the phone’s drive, meaning a learner can’t download and save a video from the web to their device (or other file of any sort for that matter, as I’ll discuss further).

Finally, even viewing heavy multimedia files like video can be a bit problematic on the iPhone. If a user can access a broadband wi-fi connection, then loading speeds can be acceptable. But when using AT&T’s 2.5G EDGE network (the only option for all iPhone users at this point), they are connecting to the Internet via a (relatively) slow connection, resulting in prohibitively long download times for large files like video.

Downloading Files
Discussing the inability to save video files is directly connected to the next aspect: Delivering documents via iPhone. At this point, it’s possible, given some major caveats. First, file size must be taken into account. As stated above, when relying on AT&T’s EDGE network, download times can be slow. Large files will take a long time to load.

Second, and perhaps most important, files themselves cannot be saved to the device. Yes, you can download and view a PDF in the Safari web browser, but once you close the browser window, if you want to view the PDF again, you must return to the URL and load it again. While not a huge issue at first glance, it is certainly a web usability issue as it goes completely against what users of the web are accustomed to. Plus, it’s simply inconvenient.

Keep this in mind if you’re developing training materials, handouts or other documents for mobile delivery to the iPhone.

Web
As is the case with all web delivery, you have to keep the specs in mind when developing. While web technology continues to become more and more standardized via the major browsers and factors like CSS and AJAX, a wide array of variables still exist. Typically, in e-learning, these factors are mitigated by “controlling” the web delivery, i.e. limiting delivery to a defined resolution on a single version of a single web browser on a uniform platform. This is a time-proven method; but when it comes to the iPhone (and mobile delivery in general), the method must be thrown out the door. While resolution issues are actually handled extremely well by iPhone’s “pinch” touch screen technology, the fact is, you’re dealing with a different browser, Safari, and a different platform, Mac OS X, and chances are, you’ve never dealt with it before in your e-learning endeavors.

I don’t want to be overly dramatic, because Safari is a fine browser, even the iPhone version. And OS X stands on its own for usability, if not for adoption. But the fact is, all web browsers render data slightly differently. Therefore, as you develop e-learning courses that include mobile delivery, you have to face the reality of developing for several browser and platform environments.

For example, non-mobile learners may be limited to IE 6.X, while some mobile learners will be limited to other versions of IE depending on the device they use, and iPhone learners will be limited to Safari. You can develop one solution that works for all three environments, or you can develop three separate solutions. Both options can be done, but both methods involve more programming time and QA, resulting in a greater expense than developing for a single browser on a single platform.

Flash
This is perhaps the biggest obstacle to delivering e-learning via the iPhone. As it now stands, iPhone does not support Flash. Zip. Zilch. No dice. The most widely accepted and implemented technology for e-learning simply does not work on the iPhone. To be honest, I was blown away when I discovered this. While most of my gripes with the iPhone are minor issues that I believe can be as easily overlooked as they can be tweaked, this is one area that has left me scratching my head. I imagine this issue will not be long lasting, but for now, it’s a reality to keep in mind when considering delivering learning via the iPhone.

Conclusion
Now, keep in mind, I do not intend to bag on the iPhone. So far, barring a couple of expected bugs, I’m loving the device. And my belief is that many of the above challenges will be resolved with software upgrades over the coming months and year. But when it comes to delivering mobile learning, the iPhone is just like all mobile devices – challenges exist and must be planned for and addressed.

For a further discussion on the iPhone and learning, you may want to check out Elliott Masie’s initial reaction and thoughts. In the meantime, if you have any thoughts or questions, drop us a line. We’d love to hear from you.