Breakthrough eLearning Instructional Design

58 TIPS for

Contributing Editor, Chris Benz, The eLearning Guild

58 Tips for Breakthrough eLearning Instructional Design

2012 by The eLearning Guild. All rights reserved. The eLearning Guild 120 Stony Point Rd., Suite 125 Santa Rosa, CA 95401 www.eLearningGuild.com 1.707.566.8990 Contributing Editor: Chris Benz Copy Editor: Chuck Holcombe Publication Design: Nancy Marland Wolinski You may download, display, print and reproduce this material in unaltered form only (retaining this notice) for your personal, non-commercial use or use within your organization. All other rights are reserved. This is a FREE digital eBook. Other than The eLearning Guild, no one is authorized to charge a fee for it or to use it to collect data. Attribution notice for information from this publication must be given, must credit the individual author in any citation, and should take the following form: The eLearning Guilds 58 Tips for Breakthrough eLearning Instructional Design Readers should be aware that Internet Web sites offered as citations or sources for further information may have disappeared or been changed between the date this book was written and the date it is read.

58 Tips for Breakthrough eLearning Instructional Design

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58 Tips for Breakthrough eLearning Instructional Design

Introduction. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .1 About Our Tipsters. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .2 Twelve Tips for Research . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .6 Twenty Five Tips for Design . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .8 Fourteen Tips for Development . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13 Seven Tips for Project Management . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17

58 Tips for Breakthrough eLearning Instructional Design

Introduction
Dear Colleagues, Instructional design (ID) is or at least should be the foundation for effective eLearning. ID drives both development and delivery, and can mean the difference between successful eLearning and something that just wastes peoples time and your organizations money. But whether you are new to ID or have been designing eLearning for a while, its easy to get stuck in certain ways of doing things, and difficult to come up with new ways. So how do you develop something new in your eLearning designs? In early 2012, after completing the program for The eLearning Guilds May 2012 Online Forum on eLearning Instructional Design: Advanced and Breakthrough Techniques, we realized that we had a wonderful opportunity. By gathering ID tips from each of the 14 ID design experts we had lined up to present at the Online Forum, we could share some of that expert knowledge far beyond the event. This eBook is the result of that effort. All 14 presenters submitted tips, for a total of 58. Presenters submitted tips directly relating to their Online Forum presentations or to ID in general. The Guild then edited the tips and organized them into four categories: Research, Design, Development, and Project Management. I hope you get great value from this eBook, and are able to use many of the tips to enhance the way you design eLearning. I also hope you consider attending or presenting at an upcoming eLearning Guild Online Forum!

Sincerely,

Chris Benz Director of Online Events, The eLearning Guild

58 Tips for Breakthrough eLearning Instructional Design

About Our Tipsters

Michelle Costello, Education and Instructional Design Librarian,
Milne Library, SUNY Geneseo Michelle Costello has been at the State University of New York (SUNY) at Geneseos Milne Library since 2007. Michelle recently became Education and Instructional Design Librarian, serving as the librarys liaison to the Universitys School of Education and providing reference help and library instruction to students, faculty, and community members. Prior to this new position, she was part of the Circulation Management Team, where she designed and implemented a new service model combining the librarys reference and circulation desks. Michelle holds a M.L.S. degree from Syracuse University and a B.A. in Psychology and Elementary Education from St. John Fisher College.

Jennifer Cote, Curriculum Developer, Salesforce.com

Jennifer Cote has over 10 years of experience developing instructor-led training (ILT) and eLearning courses. She took one company from zero to multiple eLearning courses within the first year. She has expertise using rapid eLearning tools to create stimulating and effective eLearning courses using narrated presentations, interactive software demonstrations, simulations, and scenario-based activities. She has taught technical courses to high-tech companies worldwide.

Kimberly Davies-Hoffman, Coordinator of Instruction and Reference

Services, Milne Library, SUNY Geneseo Kimberly Davies-Hoffman has worked at the State University of New York (SUNY) at Geneseo since 1999. As an indication of Kimberlys passion and diligence to outstanding library instruction, customer service at the reference desk, and overall collaboration with colleagues and departments across campus, in 2006 alone, she received a continuing appointment, was promoted to Associate Librarian, and received SUNYs Chancellors Award for Excellence in Librarianship. Kimberly earned her M.L.S. degree at SUNY Buffalo and her B.A. degree in French and International Relations at the University of New Hampshire.

Julie Dirksen, Independent Consultant, Usable Learning, LLC

Julie Dirksen holds a M.S. degree in Instructional Systems Technology from Indiana University, and has had nearly a dozen years of experience designing interactive eLearning environments for Fortune 500 clients. She has been an instructional strategist with Allen Interactions, and an adjunct faculty member at the Minneapolis College of Art and Design, teaching courses in Project Management, Instructional Design, and Cognitive Psychology. She also believes that we need to learn how to use the addictive powers of Tetris for good rather than evil.

58 Tips for Breakthrough eLearning Instructional Design

Corey Ha, Instructional Technologist, Milne Library, SUNY Geneseo

Corey Ha has been a technology enthusiast for the past 20+ years with a wide range of experiences. Corey has been involved with K12 and higher education as an applications specialist, learning developer, Web programmer, and systems administrator. In his current role on the Milne Librarys Instruction Design Team, he assists users with integrating technology in instruction. Corey earned his M.L.S. degree at SUNY Buffalo and a M.S. degree in Information Technology at Capella University.

Dick Handshaw, Founder and President, Handshaw, Inc.

Dick Handshaw is a consultant, speaker, and champion for real innovation and quality in ID. Dick is a pioneer in the field, with more than 30 years of experience as a learning and performance-improvement professional and entrepreneur. In 1985, he founded Handshaw, Inc., a company that today is a leading provider and innovator in the design and development of learning services and solutions. Dick has served as a consultant for many organizations to help them establish a results-oriented learning strategy, methodology, and practice, and he is a respected thought leader who has presented at various international conferences.

Charles Jones, Instructional Systems Specialist, U.S. Department of

Veterans Affairs Charles Jones has been developing interactive Web-based training games and courseware on healthcare topics for the U.S. Government since 1998. In 2010, the Strategic Health Care Communications Group gave Charles an e-Healthcare Leadership Award for Best Internet Site in the category of business and process improvement applications or products for a physician-oriented Web-based learning game. In 2004, Nielsen Norman Group named his government intranet site as one of the worlds Top 10 government and public-sector intranet designs. Charles holds a Masters Degree in Education with a specialization in distance learning for adults.

Jean Marrapodi, Ph.D., Chief Learning Architect, Applestar Productions

Jean Marrapodi currently works at New England College of Business as an ID and faculty member, teaching communications and management courses. Jean has more than a decade of experience in the eLearning field, where she has worked in the financial, retail, and healthcare arenas, and serves as a volunteer in the non-profit sector. She holds a Masters degree in Online Instructional Design and a Ph.D. in Adult Education, both completed online at Capella University. She is a Certified Professional in Learning and Performance, ASTDs highest credential.

58 Tips for Breakthrough eLearning Instructional Design

David Metcalf, Ph.D., Senior Researcher and Director, Institute for

Simulation & Training METIL, University of Central Florida Dr. David Metcalf explores leading-edge innovations in learning. Specific areas of focus include learning-business strategy, performance measurement, operational excellence, outsourcing, blended learning, and mobile learning. David was formerly the Chief Learning Technologist at RWD Technologies. He joined RWD with the sale of his NASA Kennedy Space Center (KSC) laboratory spin-off company, Merrimac. Prior to the spin-off, he was the Lead Multimedia Designer at NASA KSC. David is the author of several recent works including Blended eLearning: Integrating Knowledge, Performance Support, and Online Learning; mLearning: Mobile Learning and Performance in the Palm of Your Hand; and mHealth: From Smartphones to Smart Systems.

Brendan Peterson, Manager, Training and Certification, Salesforce.com

Brendan Peterson has designed, developed, and managed eLearning for over a decade. He has worked as a Learning Strategist at DigitalThink, as a Learning Solutions Architect at Apple, and as a Curriculum Developer and Manager at Salesforce.com.

Gina Richter, Instructional Designer, First Data

Gina Richter is an action-oriented lifelong learner with a zest for life, a good imagination, inquiring intellect, ingrained ethics, and a desire to excel. That is why online learning was the perfect way for Gina to obtain her M.S. in Instructional Design / Online Learning and move forward in her career. She is now pursuing her doctorate. With over 10 years of experience in the analysis, design, development, delivery, and implementation of learning, she continues to bring passion to the table in her pursuit for the right learning solution, at the right time, through the right delivery methodology.

A.J. Ripin, Director, Future and Emerging Technologies, Moving Knowledge, Inc.
In his current role, A.J. Ripin leads collaboration and discussion with world leaders from industry, healthcare, academia, military, and nonprofit organizations. Before joining Moving Knowledge, A.J. served as a Co-founder and Principal of Mem-Cards Corporation, where he worked with the likes of Tom Peters, Jeffrey Gitomer, Stephen Covey, and Ken Blanchard, and developed hundreds of job aides and mobile-performance-support guides. He also participated in the U.S. Secretary of Educations Innovators Roundtable on the Integration of Education and Technology. He is a graduate of the University of Hartford, where he earned a B.S. in Business Administration with a concentration in Entrepreneurship.

58 Tips for Breakthrough eLearning Instructional Design

Judy Unrein, Senior Instructional Designer, Nike, Inc.

Judy Unrein specializes in designing eLearning and blended-learning solutions. Judy speaks and writes regularly about learning design and technology for a variety of organizations and publications. She holds a Bachelors degree in English, and both a M.B.A. degree and a M.Ed. degree in Instructional Design. She has worked in the learning and development industry since 1997 as a trainer, project manager, and learning designer.

Inge de Waard, eLearning Coordinator, Institute of Tropical Medicine

Inge de Waard is an internationally engaged eLearning coordinator and researcher at the Institute of Tropical Medicine Antwerpen (ITM) in Belgium. She is an international speaker who has consulted for eLearning start-ups in South Asia, Africa, and Latin America in addition to eLearning projects within ITM. Working frequently with partners from developing countries, she is involved in mobile and Web-based learning projects in different low-resource regions throughout the world. Involved in eLearning since 1999, Inge has a background in pedagogy and IT and she combines both spheres to ensure optimal Technology Enhanced Learning for all stakeholders. She is also an active member of several international learning organizations.

May 1 7 & 1 8, 201 2

Advanced and Breakthrough Instructional Design

How can you take your instructional-design skills and techniques to the next level? What are some of the newest innovations in instructional design? What does the research tell us about which design techniques really work and which ones dont? If you want to design increasingly compelling online learning experiences, or just need some fresh ideas, join the authors of this eBook at this upcoming Online Forum.

Learn more at http://bit.ly/olf94info T H UR SDAY, MAY 17, 2 012

OPENING SESSION

FRI DAY, MAY 18, 2012

ADVANCED DESIGN TECHNIQUES

101 - Demonstrating Instructional Design Value through Results, Dick Handshaw, Handshaw, Inc.
ADVANCED DESIGN TECHNIQUES

401 - Whats Your Story? Using Personas to Focus Your ID, Brendan Peterson & Jennifer Cote, Salesforce.com 501 - The Advantages of MOOCs for an International Learning Audience, Inge de Waard, Institute of Tropical Medicine
BREAKTHROUGH DESIGN TECHNIQUES

201 - How Rapid Development Tools Influence Your Design, and How to Not Let Them, Judy Unrein, Nike, Inc. 301 - Flash and Beyond: Making eLearning Accessible, Charles Jones, U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs
BREAKTHROUGH DESIGN TECHNIQUES

402 - Designing for Flow: Creating Compelling User Experiences for Learning, Julie Dirksen, Usable Learning, LLC 502 - Beyond ID: Moving from Filling Training Requests to Improving Performance, Gina Richter, Behavior Learning Systems, Inc.
CLOSING SESSION

202 - Library as Catalyst to Collaborative Instructional Design Initiatives, Michelle Costello, Kimberly Davies-Hoffman & Corey Ha, Milne Library, SUNY Geneseo 302 - Chiropractic ID: Adjusting for Alignment, Jean Marrapodi, Applestar Productions

601 - Evolving Possibilities for eLearning Design, David Metcalf, Ph.D., University of Central Florida, and A.J. Ripin, Moving Knowledge, Inc.

How to Attend...
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58 Tips for Breakthrough eLearning Instructional Design

Twelve Tips for Research

Before you start designing your next course, do some research on an ongoing basis on general ID techniques, strategies, and trends, as well as on the specifics of your learners and your subject matter. (Reading this eBook counts! So does talking with other designers.) Even if youve been designing for years, theres always something new or at least new to you and learners needs and preferences can change over time. Research is one of the best ways to ensure that your designs stay fresh and relevant, and that you dont burn out doing the same old thing. Here are some ways our tipsters stay informed.
If you are able to, regularly attend workshops and conferences on instructional design and instructional technology. These will keep you apprised of the newest developments in the field and are a great way to network. Make sure you take the time to go to events outside of formal sessions; these are often the best times to meet new people and talk about the ideas discussed during the formal sessions. In addition, take advantage of conferences and workshops outside of your specific field or area. (For example, if you are an academic, go to a corporate-focused conference.) Michelle Costello Play Plants vs. Zombies. Seriously, play the video game Plants vs. Zombies, www. plantsvszombies.com/, (or some equivalent video game) and look at how the game does a few things. It: Provides feedback to help players adapt their performance Uses scaffolding to gradually develop skills Balances the challenge to match the learners ability Uses incremental increases in complexity to teach highly complicated tasks Julie Dirksen Expose yourself. To other ideas, that is. If you havent experienced a wide range of learning experiences, go out and find them. Rather than letting authoring tools tell you how to design, learn from what you like and dont like. Judy Unrein Keep building relationships and asking questions to integrate into the business. This will enable you to create integrated learning experiences. Gina Richter

58 Tips for Breakthrough eLearning Instructional Design

Understand your learners. Use focus groups to ask questions, gather information, and define the characteristics of your target audience. Brendan Peterson and Jennifer Cote Keep an eye out for peers on your campus or in your organization who are taking on new projects and are asking for help in their instruction. If you can successfully work with this one new person, they will spread the word to others and you can build your portfolio one case study at a time. Michelle Costello Ask the subject-matter expert how well the learner needs to perform the task. If learners would do it with the assistance of a job aid, assess them doing the task with the job aid. There is no need to teach something to mastery if people will always look up that something. Think mail merge: After you understand the concept and walk through it the first time, there is no need to do it without assistance unless it will be a daily task. Use the help file as needed in the future. Jean Marrapodi Stop thinking about courses and start thinking about integrated learning experiences. Gina Richter Training personas should be fully fleshed-out characters with pictures and back-stories that identify characteristics of your target audience such as skill level, experience, and job role. Brendan Peterson and Jennifer Cote Offer workshops for any new ideas you glean. If you are able to teach others what you have learned, it will not only help you gain a better understanding of the content, but show those around you what you can do for them. Michelle Costello Scratch. In The Creative Habit, Twyla Tharp explores the idea of scratching for ideas, or looking for inspiration in small things such as everyday conversation. Some of my best ideas for interactions have come from small nuggets that Ive added on to. Once the idea is developed, you can figure out what tools you need to make it happen. Judy Unrein Provide informal credits or bonuses for learners who offer substantially relevant information. All organizations have employees that, from time to time, have great ideas on improving efficiency or saving costs. Create a workplace environment where employees can share these ideas with the training department. When you use such an idea, make sure you give that employee credit or a bonus for promoting knowledge sharing. To avoid misunderstandings, make sure youre clear up front on what is substantially relevant. Inge de Waard

58 Tips for Breakthrough eLearning Instructional Design

Twenty-five Tips for Design

The core of instructional design entails envisioning learning outcomes and determining the learning tactics and strategies for producing these outcomes with your learners. Our tipsters share some of their best ideas for designing effective learning.
Design for flow. Match the level of difficulty to be slightly but only slightly out of reach of the learners current ability, and match that with corresponding opportunities to practice and coast a little. When a challenge far exceeds a learners ability, it quickly becomes frustrating. And when a challenge is far too easy for a learner, its boring. But something that is slightly too hard can be a satisfying challenge, while something that is a little bit too easy can be a satisfying opportunity to coast for a few minutes. Julie Dirksen Dont take a training order; ask questions to determine the business drivers, processes, culture, and technical infrastructure, and learn how you will measure success. Then, in context, build knowledge and change behaviors and/or attitudes to improve performance. Gina Richter If a SME cannot articulate the big idea of a desired course in a single sentence, they do not know what they are looking for. Help them refocus by asking, What do you want your learners to be able to do at the end of the course? Then drill down and ask, What things do they need to know to do that? Jean Marrapodi Do the right amount of analysis and design before you begin creating eLearning modules. Avoid the temptation to dive into eLearning development until you have a clear task analysis that will help you, your subject-matter experts, and your clients clearly understand the desired learning outcomes. Dick Handshaw Start big. Start by dreaming up the learning experience you would like to create if time, money, and skill were no object. Then take the kernel of what makes that experience compelling and whittle down to what your resources let you do while keeping that kernel intact. Judy Unrein Dont let informal learning scare you. Embrace the concept, and put structure around it to align the learning with organizational goals. Gina Richter

58 Tips for Breakthrough eLearning Instructional Design

Use training personas to ensure that your content is the right tone and level for your audience. Brendan Peterson and Jennifer Cote Instructional design is vital, and so is information design. One of the first steps you should take as you begin to design for different delivery modalities is to decide on the user interface and experience, and begin with a clear end state. Its fundamental to ensure a communication structure that does not get in the way of learning, whether youre using a social-media tool, mobile delivery, computers, or whatever. Be aware that the user experience can change by interaction from tablet to mobile to laptop to face-toface. Information design needs to account for these variables. A good example of this practice is pretotyping, a technique that Matt Landis of Google has been using to rapidly design the user experience, information design, and instructional design using a simple paper-based method. David Metcalf and AJ Ripin Design with accessibility in mind. During the audience-analysis portion of your course design, you might typically ask questions about the diversity of the audience, as well as what kinds of tools or processes they use in completing their jobs. This is where you can consider the needs of your learners with disabilities. These disabilities might include blindness, visual impairment, or color-blindness; deafness or other hearing impairments; speech impairments; or issues with mobility, dexterity, strength, or the ability to reach. Some instructional designers view accessible design as an afterthought, to be included after they finish developing the course. This is ineffective. You should incorporate accessibility into the training design from the initial stages of development. When designing a button, for example, have you ensured it is viewable to learners who are color-blind? Can a screen reader identify that button and its purpose to a visually impaired learner? Can a learner who is unable to use a mouse use the keyboard to tab to the button, or use a keyboard shortcut to activate the button? If the button starts some narrative audio, have you provided closed captioning for that audio? Designing for learners with disabilities is just as important as designing for other learners. Considering these needs in the initial analysis and design steps will help ensure eLearning that is accessible for all. Charles Jones Remember, social learning has been around longer than we have been alive. Now we just have tools that make social learning possible globally. Leverage these tools! Gina Richter Stimulate your learners to share their information, trust their expertise. When building courses, leave room for learner input. Learners are on the work floor or in the field, so they know what is really happening and have relevant information to share from their experiences. Add a real-life cases section for each learning topic and ask learners

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to upload videos or pictures right from the field. This has a double benefit: you get relevant examples you can use in future courses and the learners feel respected in their work. Inge de Waard Instructional design should be an iterative process. Throughout the process, dont forget to circle back to goals, objectives, business drivers, and success measures. Gina Richter Scaffold the learning. Give learners lots of support in the beginning, then take away supports little by little to move them toward independence. Jean Marrapodi Design for accomplishments. Use a combination of immediate, short-term, mediumterm, and long-term goals to have your learners accomplish things with your content. So instead of having a sales course thats structured with a module about determining customer needs, followed by a module about product features and benefits, followed by a module about the sales process with the client, learners instead have a series of goals, and if learners fail at any goal, they must practice and try again until they succeed. Here are some sample goals: Immediate: Gather relevant data about different customers and their needs. Short-term: Determine a product and sales approach for different clients based on their needs. Medium-term: Succeed in closing with the client (make the sale, get the meeting, get the referral). Long-term goal: Hit your sales quota for the quarter and win a trip to Hawaii. Julie Dirksen Use your learner research to create training personas that represent archetypes of your target audience. Brendan Peterson and Jennifer Cote Assessment does not always mean a test. How will the learner demonstrate mastery? More often than not, it is through doing something, not knowing something. Knowing enables doing. Jean Marrapodi Design for color-blindness: When designing accessible eLearning, most designers focus on the visually impaired who are using screen-readers or other assistive devices. But what about learners who suffer from color-blindness? The National Center for Health Statistics reports that nearly three million Americans are color blind. Not all of your learners view colors the same way. For this reason, you should avoid using color

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to convey information, such as click the red button or the correct answer is highlighted in yellow. One way to ensure accessibility is to provide sufficient color contrast. Insufficient contrast between foreground and background colors can make a screen inaccessible to color-blind learners. And since most color-blind individuals dont have low or no vision, they dont need to use a screen reader or other assistive technology. An easy way to ensure sufficient color contrast is to use a free color-contrast checker such as the ones at http://webaim.org/resources/contrastchecker/ and https://www.ssbbartgroup.com/reference/index.php/Color_Contrast_Checker. Simply enter the hexadecimal values of your foreground and background colors into one of these tools, and the tool will tell you if there is sufficient contrast. Charles Jones There is a difference between assessment and evaluation. Assessment evaluates the learner while evaluation evaluates the learning with an eye toward improvement and/or results. Formative assessment examines the learner for development or mastery as the concept is forming; it may indicate the need for more work, re-teaching, more practice, or it may identify mastery. Summative assessment occurs in the end state, determining the learners mastery at the end of the module or program; you should also use it to evaluate how well the learning enabled the learners mastery. Jean Marrapodi Write learning objectives for your training persona. This allows you to focus on what your learners need, and omit objectives that are not important for your learners. Brendan Peterson and Jennifer Cote Tony ODriscoll says, Content may be king, but context is the kingdom. Dont just dispense information; use simulations, case studies, scenarios, and anything else you can to make the learning relevant to the job task your learners need to perform. Allow immediate opportunities for learners to practice their new skills on the job with coaching and feedback. ELearning without coaching usually doesnt work. Dick Handshaw Create a matrix to align all your training activities and content with your anticipated outcomes. This helps SMEs see how their nice to have material is not helping to promote the course objective. Jean Marrapodi Create social spaces where learners can start, join, or add to the discussion on the subject matter. Creating courses is important to help your learners stay on top of what they need to know. However, its crucial that they can discuss the information you provide or the topics you ask them to follow. When learners discuss what they know, or they share their remarks on the subject, they reflect on the content. Reflection is a deeper learning action that allows a longer memorization to take place and it stimulates peers to do the same. Inge de Waard

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Dont build a spaceship when a wagon will do. The goal is to get learners from one place to another. Handing the learner a wagon may be all you need to do. Think job aid. Jean Marrapodi Manage your learners cognitive load. Ruth Clark has pointed this out extensively, and plenty of research backs it up. For example, dont give your learners something to read and something to listen to at the same time. Dick Handshaw Sketch. Paper is probably the most flexible sketching medium. Its also cheap and highly portable. If you are very fluent in visualization or mind-mapping software, that can work well, too, but dont start designing in an actual authoring tool. Judy Unrein

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Fourteen Tips for Development

Once your design is ready or at least ready enough its time to start gathering and developing the learning content, using the tools, and building the structure required to execute and support your learning tactics and strategies. Our tipsters provide some ideas for bringing your design to fruition.
Create a ubiquitous learning environment to meet your (global) learning population and their own diversity of devices. As computing devices continue diversifying, you need to ensure that your learners can access your learning environment independent of device, as well as independent of time, location, and context. Every second lost on searching for the right device is a loss of money and motivation. Inge de Waard Develop content that uses context, stories, and characters based on a training persona. Creating a narrative-driven, scenario-based training experience is much easier when you have a clear picture of your main character. Brendan Peterson and Jennifer Cote Make sure you are evaluating learners against intended outcomes. Each evaluation question should map to an outcome. Jean Marrapodi Only use social-media tools whose affordances fit your learning/teaching goals. Socialmedia tools are just that: tools. Embedding them will not ensure good learning outcomes. To use these tools to their fullest potential, you the instructional designer must learn their benefits and downsides in relation to in-depth learning. You must walk the talk to create strategic, impactful social-media learning decisions in your design. Inge de Waard Use the accessibility panel: Adobe Flash and Captivate both provide an accessibility panel to help developers create accessible learning products. This panel allows you to provide a name and description of your entire Flash project, each movie clip, and each screen object. You cannot use the panel with graphic symbols or static text, so be sure to convert each symbol into a movie clip and use dynamic text. Charles Jones

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Use prescriptive feedback all the time. People dont learn much by just reading. The teachable moment in any eLearning course comes when the learner makes a mistake in a simulation, exercise, or when answering a question. When they make the mistake, you have their attention. Use feedback to explain why their particular choice or answer is incorrect and how to figure out the correct approach. Dont just spoon-feed them the correct answer. Dick Handshaw Build your expert learning environment in The Cloud for immediate knowledge exchange. Experts in any field or profession already are at the top of their knowledge. But in this rapidly evolving era, any knowledge has rapid turnover, so even experts need to keep their eyes and ears open for new evolutions and insights. If you bring your international experts together in a learning environment located in The Cloud and facilitate active learner participation, you will need only minimal course architecture and you will get an optimal exchange of ideas. From that starting point, you can build knowledge iterations where your experts feed their insights and new knowledge to the training managers, and subsequently to the instructional designers that developed the learning environment. An organization that can keep its top knowledge workers in immediate communication with the training department will be able to keep up with the latest insights and evolutions, which will drive a general feeling of expertise throughout the organization. Inge de Waard Test a prototype with sample learners and solicit their design advice. No one knows better than your learners what they need in order to learn. Just ask four to six sample learners to use a prototype module that embodies most of your instructional strategy. In two-to-three hours they can determine whether your instructional strategy will be successful or not. If it isnt working, they can probably tell you what to do to fix it. Dick Handshaw Use interval spacing of content tied to Kirkpatrick Level 3 (behavioral changes over time) as a solution.1 Reviewing information at spaced intervals based on the learner and the content can help transition material from working memory to long-term memory, and thereby create more effective learning. Linking this to a time-spaced method of evaluating training effectiveness with Kirkpatricks Level 3 makes good sense, not only to reinforce the learning but also to show the value of the learning if you access someones actual performance based on what they have learned a week, a month, or a quarter ago. This will show not only deep, effective learning but demonstrate putting that learning into practice.2
1

Ebbinghaus, Hermann. Memory: a Contribution to Experimental Psychology. New York: Dover Publications, 1964. Print. Kirkpatrick, Donald L. Evaluating Training Programs: The Four Levels. San Francisco: Berrett-Koehler, 1994. Print.

David Metcalf and AJ Ripin

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Dont apply accessibility to everything: Screen readers will read everything that has a name or description. This includes the entire Flash project, each movie clip, and each screen object. Sometimes, all this reading will be too much. In many cases, the name and description you assign a movie clip will satisfy accessibility requirements. In this case, use the accessibility panel to provide a name and description, but be sure to uncheck the option to make all child objects of that clip accessible. This way, learners using screen readers dont hear a description of the clip and of every child object. Whats a good rule of thumb? If you were describing this movie clip to me over the telephone, would you give me a general description, or would you tell me about each and every object in that clip? How you answer that question should help you determine the items to which you should apply accessibility features. Charles Jones On using audio and Podcasts to deliver instructional materials: While we have all heard of cognitive load theory (72 items is what the human brain can hold at one time), when it comes to audio content it may be better to use a rule of thumb of 52. When someone hears information, five and seven items may be the logical limit on information clumping. Keep this in mind, especially when delivering audio content over mobile devices. Shorter bursts of information may be appropriate. David Metcalf and AJ Ripin Closed captioning is not just for the hearing impaired: While many developers ensure their courses work with assistive technology, dont forget learners who are hearing impaired. These learners generally dont use assistive technology, but instead depend on course developers to include closed captioning. Adobe Flash provides components for generating closed captions, and Adobe Captivate supports synchronization of audio with text. But these tools can also help learners who are not hearing impaired. Heres an example: An employee working the graveyard shift on a hospital ward is completing her eLearning course requirements. Because she does not want to wake any sleeping patients, she lowers the volume on her computer to barely audible levels. Giving her the ability to press a CC button on the Flash player lets her complete the training without disturbing her patients. Charles Jones

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Build suites of apps for mLearning. As weve built a series of mobile-learning solutions in the past years, weve discovered there is no one app that can do it all. Instead of trying to rely on one app, conduct a proper job-task analysis or cognitive-task analysis to determine the needs of a particular role. Then map those needs to capabilities across multiple apps for learning and human performance. For example, when traveling in a foreign country, learners may need an app that has information about the country, another app that has maps like Google Maps, another app that has information on language, and another app that has specialized information about their role in that country or their business activity while there. To expect one app to do all of these things is not likely to produce success. Rather, provide a suite of carefully organized apps with a checklist or job aid to provide mental scaffolding for which app to use for a particular task within the overall task or mission. Also, monitor the development of Web apps (mobile Websites). The mobile versions of Twitter.com and Linkedin.com look and act just like the native apps, and Web apps offer better flexibility in distribution, greater uniformity across different platforms, and lower costs. David Metcalf and AJ Ripin Google Form is one of the many free document types available in Google Docs, http://docs.google.com. Google Form is a great tool for collecting information from learners, such as for a survey or assessment. Although Google provides some options for simple form customization through Themes, controlling the look and feel of a form beyond the default requires CSS coding. There are many tutorials available on the Web. Here is the before-and-after of a form I created, and then customized with CSS: Before CSS customization: https://docs.google.com/a/geneseo.edu/spreadsheet/vie wform?formkey=dG52ejVZSmZQam9Da1FFemtySExwZXc6MQ After CSS customization: http://eres.geneseo.edu/library/instructionaldesign/majorconcepts.html Corey Ha

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Seven Tips for Project Management

These days, many instructional designers also serve as project managers. If youre one of these designers, you need to look beyond instructional design and development to make sure that you and your colleagues have the resources they need to deliver on time and on or under budget. And even if you dont manage the work of others, you still need to manage your own work. Here are some great project-management suggestions from our tipsters.
Plan to fail. One of the best ways to keep tools from dictating your designs is to be an experienced, skillful, and confident designer. That takes practice, knowledge, and time; failure can be one of the best teachers. Make sure your project plans arent so tight that you cant try new things and discard them along the way. Judy Unrein Take notes at every instructional-design meeting. It helps you and others keep track of what was discussed at the meeting, it can act as an effective reminder for future meetings, it helps minimizes assumptions, and helps keeps everyone on the same page. Corey Ha Use training personas to help multiple instructional designers focus on the same learners. By targeting each course toward a specific persona, designers will be able to home in on the specific needs of the audience, creating consistency for learners. Brendan Peterson and Jennifer Cote Start with a clear end state. Weve often heard Gary Walker talk about the importance of having a clear vision of what your end state of success looks like and following that through in project design as well as instructional design. This will help ensure consistent outcomes for key performance indicators and stakeholder expectations. Following this simple guidance can also help you build a clear pathway to Kirkpatrick Level 4 evaluation of the effectiveness of learning at a strategic level. David Metcalf and AJ Ripin As a new instructional designer, you may want to start with small, manageable, and measurable projects. Get your feet wet with projects that have a realistic timeframe and attainable goals, then move on to bigger projects. Make sure you break larger projects into smaller chunks and create timelines. Schedule time on your calendar to work on these projects; this is how to keep yourself on track and make sure colleagues cant claim that time for meetings. Michelle Costello

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Use training personas to create learning paths, marketing materials, and clear messaging around whom your training is for, and what people will learn. Brendan Peterson and Jennifer Cote At instructional-design meetings, ask yourself What are we trying to accomplish during this meeting? You can ask the person you are working with what are the top two areas youd like to work on today? Its always helpful to focus on whats at hand and work on the task. Corey Ha

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