April 27, 2016 We consider ourselves fortunate when we come across a written piece that exhibits both perceptive reasoning and insightful conclusions. Such was the case for me this week when I came upon the Valerie Strauss’ Op-ed “Answer Sheet” published in The Washington Post, “College counselor: I’m sick of reading about golden kids getting into Harvard. Here’s the story I want to see.” This one’s worth your time and I hope...
April 25, 2016 “Although instructional design typically focuses on the cognitive aspects of learning, a new line of research is now exploring the affective dimension too. Known as “emotional design,” this research looks at the ways a learner’s feelings and mood can influence motivation and learning results.” (from “Why Aesthetics Matter to Learning” by Connie Malamed, published by ATD, formerly ASTD) Unfortunately, the importance of aesthetics in e-Learning design and development is...
April 20, 2016 When selecting your e-Learning courseware, do not overlook a most important consideration —- “Usability!”. Usability, as it relates to e-Learning can be generally defined as to how user-friendly or appealing a program is to its users. In practice, usability goes deeper than this, and is closely related to how much users actually learn from using the selected e-Learning courseware. One of the better explanations of usability for e-Learning comes...
April 18, 2016 I don’t do commercials or endorsements. But, I do recognize leadership in the technology training world. Hence my earlier pieces on the pioneers of the ‘70s and ‘80s — giants like Ray Fox, Gloria Gery, Rockley Miller, Phil Dodds, Paul Tenczar, Bob Yeager, and Phil Dodds —- all Americans. However, I was reminded of another pioneering giant in learning technology this weekend—- an Australian —- when I re-visited his...
April 13, 2016 Learning is diminished when public schools are required to build their school days around continuous testing. Learning has become a victim when teachers spend their time “teaching to the test.” It is time to acknowledge that the fashionable theory of school reform — requiring that pay and job security for teachers, principals and administrators depend on their students’ standardized test scores — is at best a well-intentioned mistake, and...
April 11, 2016 “Some stray thoughts, in no particular order, gathered over time, on the differences between education and training, from the lens of custom content creation for diverse companies across the world. Education (even vocational education) is far transfer; training is near transfer. Hence the obsession of training with application (“I don’t care what they learn; I’m only interested in how they do their jobs better”), with reducing time to competence...
April 6, 2016 Today, let’s focus on the underlying reasons behind e-Learning’s failure to live up to its earlier promise. To do so, I’m going to quote from a very interesting and valid argument put forth by Raj Raheja, “Learning Replaces Classrooms For Naptime”: “Much like monotone lectures or subtitled movies, there’s another contender for the “most likely to put you asleep” award – eLearning courses, often embedded in a LMS (Learning...
April 4, 2016 After a SALT Conference presentation a few years ago, several attendees asked why the focus had emphasized full-motion video and optional word-for-word audio as the key ingredients for successful online instruction. While those observations were accurate, it is also true that instructional designers must return to the basics of “Skills and Task Analyses” for the core content approach to their designs. In addition, technology training is in real need...
March 30, 2016 Rich multi-sensory media — designed for learning — has been with us for more than four decades. Interactive Laser Videodisc (IVD), CD-ROM, DVD, and even interactive videotape were the pioneering technologies. And, today, it’s e-Learning! Yet, e-Learning is singularly failing to deliver on the promise so brilliantly achieved by those earlier multi-sensory technologies. Why have the producers of most e-Learning courseware forgotten the lessons of multi-sensory media’s past successes?...
March 28, 2016 “Sir Ken Robinson says that our education system works like a factory. It is based on models of mass production and conformity that actually prevent kids from finding their passions and succeeding. . . . Instead of trying to mass-produce children who are good at taking tests and memorizing things, schools should emphasize personal development. Not all kids are good at the same things, and the education system shouldn’t...
March 23, 2016 In an article published in “Personnel Today,” there is a quote from Peter Phillips, chairman of London-based Unicorn Training: “Ironically, the birth of the internet caused e-learning to take a giant step backwards. From delivering rich multimedia solutions on CD-ROM, we were faced with delivery via slow dial-up modems, with no audio or video and serious limitations even on the quality of static images.” “It has taken a long...
March 21, 2016 A few years ago I received an interesting e-Mail from Derek Singleton, Product Manager, Applications for Software Advice. Derek wanted me to examine the ideas he was advocating in regard to overcoming the skills gap in manufacturing. Specifically, he advocated three possible solutions and the following italicized sections are his opinions (along with my own comments which are set off with parentheses): A recent Deloitte report estimated that as...
March 16, 2016 Our newspapers and cable news channels are full of politicized “education stories” most every day. One group wants to increase government investment while the other decries even the idea of a Department of Education. I think they’re all overlooking “the forest for the trees!” 75% of the high school students that our education system graduates each year are not likely to earn a college baccalaureate degree. Many of those...
March 14, 2016 Echoes of Marshall McLuhan’s “enclaves” observations appear, too often, in decision-making today. The separation between the levels of corporate hierarchy grow and the gulf between the learning cultures of executive management and its workforce widens. The result, of course, restricts the benefits of our well-intentioned training initiatives. Having lived through the earliest years of industrial videotape training –- with a camera in my hands – an expert to provide...