Starting a New Learning Year

At a dinner party I attended the other night, some of my friends started to share stories about their children who are very good at imitation. One story that stood out to me was of a little girl in a department store. She went over to a rack of clothes (her size) and began looking through the clothes around the rack. Every third or fourth item, she would pick up the price tag, look at it, and then continue. She was about 2 years old and couldn’t read, but she had seen her mother perform this ritual many times. She had learned what "shopping" was to her mother and she was adopting a similar practice.

I want to couple that experience with that of my nephew. The other day, he was playing with a computer program he got for Christmas. He was easily maneuvering the mouse and creating pictures with his new Christmas camera. My mother came into the room and was shocked at how well a 5 year old could use the mouse and create pictures montages. She commented, "It took me a long time to feel comfortable using a mouse." But, for him, it’s second nature. He’s never known a world without such technology.

It seems that learning happens all the time, particularly when we don’t realize it. We’re constantly recognizing and creating patterns. Within instructional design, we focus so much on how our audience learns that sometimes we might forget that our own learning style and methods are integrally entwined in all the instruction we design. They influence how we design instruction.

I think it is safe to say that a majority of people stick to the means and methods they learned first or best. They turn to their old stand-bys in terms of design and effectiveness. I don’t think this is a horrible approach; in fact, it is quite natural and most of us function in this way. But, since it is the time of year to create resolutions and to break out of habits, I hope that we look at our own form of learning just as much as we focus on the learning of our audiences. Here are some questions to think about:

How does your learning affect the way you design instruction for others?
What patterns of design could you re-evaluate this year?
Where are you the most comfortable? What will you do to challenge yourself?
How will you use the contemporary patterns of instruction to best reach your audiences?

So, on your list of "things to do in 2009," perhaps after your exercise plan and budget listing, be sure to include an item about evaluating your learning habits.

Seasons Greetings

To all, we wish you a very happy holiday season. At the close of a great - though challenging - year, we begin looking to 2009. There's no question that it will in fact be even more challenging for all of us in the training industry. Here at Allen, though, we believe that it may just be the most rewarding. Nothing great comes without a great sacrifice and investment. This next year, we'll be putting it all on the line for our clients as we strive to make the most of every initiative.

In the long run, that's nothing short of what our mission has always been - to make the client successful, to make your experience working with us the best vendor experience you've had.

Again, our hope is that you'll enjoy the holidays, have fun and be safe. Then, in 2009, let's huddle up, hunker down, and take on all your challenges head on.

From the entire Allen Team, Happy Holidays!

Redesigning in a Recession

The sign to the entrance of our housing community was recently demolished by a distracted driver. The sign was old and not as attractive as some wanted it to be. I’ve been part of the discussion about the new sign. The response to the first set of mockups included comments, such as, “I would like to see something more contemporary, and sophisticated, but easy to read” and “This may be someone’s first impression of the neighborhood and we want to ‘Wow’ them.” The message is clear: we want a modern, appealing and high-impact sign at a decent price.

Many of our clients have similar requests: the training needs to have an impact on performance, needs to be modern, and needs to be aesthetically pleasing. Similarly, both our HOA and Allen’s clients want high impact at a low cost, especially in this economic climate.

The connection between our search for the perfect sign and Allen’s clients’ needs for the right training solution soon came full circle when I was researching off-the-shelf alternatives that companies might use for training if budgets are cut. PowerPoint is a common alternative. Since I think slides are too often poorly designed and used in place of interactive activities in ILT, I decided to see what companies are saying about PowerPoint. I found a recent ISPI article by Joanna Dunlap that encouraged using Petchu Kucha and other presentation methods instead of boring PowerPoint slides. Dunlap’s reference to Daniel Pink’s video that models Petchu Kucha, a Japanese approach to more effective use of slides in presentations, seemed eerily timely. Pink’s topic? Emotional signage.

Although Petchu Kucha has been around a few years and was not created specifically with training in mind, the theories behind it seem applicable to simple training topics. The idea of concise, collaborative, energetic presentations could encourage SMEs to focus on key content and lead trainers to spend more time on application of knowledge through activities. Such changes could mean less slide-staring time for learners. I also found a humorous and insightful video about the poor use and design of PowerPoint presentations.

After reading the article and watching the videos, I realized why I sometimes feel that something is missing in training that I review or draft. That something is the emotional WIIFM element that motivates learners to want to be part of the solution or change. Dunlap’s article and the videos provide a good starting point to answer the question: What can we do to improve the effective use of emotion and empathy in our training?

Meanwhile, the search for our new sign continues. I sent a link of Daniel Pink’s video to the other HOA members. Regarding emtion and empathy... well, we’re now talking about improved lighting and placement so that the sign is more visible.

All right, alright, I get the point

Over 10 years ago, I sat in a Journalism editing course as a freshman. My instructor told us that “all right” is always written as two words—always. I tucked that bit of knowledge away and used it as I developed my editing skills in various discourses. As a university instructor, I would write “all right” and “alright” on the board in my composition classes and ask my students to explain the difference. I would hear a variety of answers, although few were ever correct.

I would explain that the standard in formal writing was still “all right” (since the dictionaries I consulted had “alright” listed as a colloquial version of the word). But, today when I searched a few online dictionaries, “alright” showed up as an adverb, with no note of nonstandard usage. That doesn’t mean I will be using it any time soon, but it might mean I will tolerate it a bit more when I see it used in such a way.

I frequently told my students that language is changing; we are changing it. Spelling will change, definitions will expand, and new rules established. A friend of mine once asked why I attempted to use proper grammar when people just don’t speak that way. But, my question for him was, “Does language evolve because of ignorance and laziness or because it reflects a change in people and culture?” Should we simply concede to incorrect usage because that is “how people speak”? Look at this article for more of a discussion on this issue.

As instructional designers, we are constantly working with language, so we must pay attention to how language is evolving, especially in a culture infiltrated and effected by chatting and texting. And, it might not be such a bad thing to use good grammar as we teach everything else.

I don’t consider myself a grammar snob, and I don’t correct people when they speak (unless they ask me a grammar question), but I really believe the beauty of language is that a person can use it to communicate better and more clearly.

For those of you who can’t help but find grammar mistakes in the world around you, I have included a few blogs that reflect just how important it is use good grammar and correct usage as we design instruction. I hope they provide a bit of humor as well.

The Grammar Vandal

The “Blog” of “Unnecessary” Quotation Marks

Apostrophe Abuse

I’m also including the question and answer page from The Chicago Manual of Style site. Those of you who enjoy why and how language is used will appreciate it.

Economy forces mission critical training programs to forefront...while e-learning expenditures and investment decline.

A preliminary “State of the Industry” report from Training Magazine and Bersin & Associates breaks down some of the expected and unexpected trends of 2008. With a waning economy, cost cutting is occurring within Learning and Development throughout all organization types and sizes, including a certain amount of reduction in staff. As expected, need-to-have L&D initiatives, particularly mandatory/compliance and job-specific training programs, saw growth, while other areas shrank, most notably in the area of IT and executive development.

None of this should be too surprising. What I find interesting, though, is the reduction in spending on online learning. After several years of growth, and the continued promise of cost reduction, e-learning took a noticeable hit this year. Initial indications are that the cost to produce, deploy and manage online learning has not yet lived up to the cost-cutting dream.

Expect more and a further analysis upon the official release of Training Magazine’s 2008 Industry Report.