Will at Work Learning

Effective E-learning with only Audio and Photographs

Is this effective e-learning?

Click here to see e-learning using only audio and photographs.

Sure, it's missing interactivity, retrieval practice, and a focus on application; but it does hint at the emotional power that can be created with good simple design.

Present Like Steve Jobs? Yes, BUT...

Here's a nice presentation about what makes Steve Jobs a great presenter.

Check it out, then read my comment below:

Here's my comment on this:

Okay, Steve Jobs is great at giving a product-sales presentation. No doubt about that. But let's not generalize this too far. In my field, the learning-and-performance field, many of the recommendations made here are spot on (for example, keep slides simple and relatively undecorated), BUT some are not relevant (for example, "and one more thing") and some important things are not mentioned (for example, provide people with practice opportunities, etc.).

Jobs also has a big advantage that most of the rest of us don't have. He's a celebrity. For some reason, deep in human evolution, this gives him our loving attention.

Presentation characteristics depend on the audience, purpose, etc. If you acted like Steve Jobs at a scientific convention, you would not be trusted. If you acted like Steve Jobs in training people, you would not create long-term remembering of key learning points.

Again, I'm not criticizing Job's presentation skills. He's perfect for his audience and purpose. I've even used him as an example for some of my training-and-development clients. It's just that we have to be a little discerning in deciding what we can use of Jobs' repertoire for our particular purposes.

Good Info, Bad Design

Here is an example of e-learning for e-learning's sake.

I think a table would have been much more valuable, and I'd like a search capability. Also, what if I want to know whether to buy an organic tomato or not?

http://www.consumerreports.org/cro/food/organic-products-206/test-your-organic-iq/index.htm

The information may be good, but it's hard to get to.

Rewards for Learning? Be Careful!!

Jonathon Levy, currently Senior Learning Strategist at the Monitor Group, tells the story from his days as Vice President at Harvard Business School Publishing. The story is funny and sad at the same time, but it’s very instructive on several fronts.

Levy’s client decided that he would award end-of-year Christmas bonuses based on how successful his employees were in completing the Harvard online courses. Levy advised against it, but the client did it anyway.

The results were predictable, but they might never have been noticed if Jonathon’s Harvard team had not integrated into all their courses a tracking system to provide themselves with feedback about how learners used the courses. The tracking system showed that learners didn’t read a thing; they just scanned the course and clicked where they were required to click. They just wanted to get credit so they could maximize their bonuses.

Although very little learning took place, everyone was happy.

• Learners were happy because they got their bonuses.
  
• The client (training manager) was happy because he could show a remarkable completion rate.
  
• Line managers were happy, because the learners wasted very little time in training.
  
• Senior management was happy because they could demonstrate a higher rate of utilization of online learning.

What can we learn from this?

1. Be careful what you reward, because you might get the specific behavior you reinforced (course-completion in this case).
   
2. Completion rates are a poor measure of training effectiveness. Same as butts in seats.
   
3. We need authentic measures of training effectiveness to prevent such silliness.
   
4. Instructional-design activities benefit when good tracking and feedback mechanisms are built into our designs.