Will at Work Learning

Purchasing eLearning Tools? Consider Adobe!

I'm writing you from the eLearning Guild's annual conference. I went to a session presented by Silke Fleischer and colleagues at Adobe and was blown away by the work Adobe is doing to create products that support learning and related efforts. I then asked a number of industry thought leaders who confirmed my interpretation: Adobe is now a 500-pound Gorilla, likely to continue out-investing their competitors and thus creating better and better products for folks like us to use.

If you're considering elearning tools, you owe it to your organization to consider Adobe products. I have no financial relationship with Adobe, by the way. This is not to say that other products aren't worthy and/or do some things better than Adobe products. My thinking is this: Companies who invest in their products are often more likely to be there for you in the years to come. I've seen many clients who started using a particular tool five-to-ten years ago, and they are basically stuck with it because of their large installed base of learning courses.

Here are a few of the things that made me wake up and take notice:

1. Adobe's update cycle on Captivate seems to be shrinking, as they are aggressively moving forward in the development of Captivate 4.
2. Captivate is being used for many purposes, including the development of Podcasts, Advertising, etc.
3. You can embed a working Captivate file into Adobe connect and then have webinar or online-learning participants each interact with Captivate objects.
4. PDF files can now include fully-functional interactive images. So documents are not static anymore!!
5. Adobe is working on a new platform called AIR, which will enable the compilation of many types of objects for display and interaction.

m-Learning Device is Coming: Apple iPhone

Apple's new iPhone is really quite amazing. I'm not usually a gadget guy, but you ought to check this out. It really has some great potential as an m-learning device. It will have some of the same limitations of any m-learning device, but it does give us a good glimpse of the future. Check out Steve Job's introduction of the iPhone by clicking here. Job's keynote is not only interesting for the content. It's great theater as well. I clicked on it to find a quote, but I ended up watching almost the whole damn keynote. I found it inspiring. And I don't think it was inspiring because I was once the proud owner of the first line of the Apple Macintosh's---the one's with the 128K disk drives. SMILE.

Of course, there is always a downside isn't there. Check out this article from the NY Times on how Apple is restricting iPod and iTunes users in using music files. Is Apple in danger of losing it's Teflon-coated image as the good-tech angel?

You can hear an analysis of the iPhone and Apple's stock option troubles on the radio show OnPoint.

Lev Grossman wrote the following in Time Magazine.

"Everybody hates their phone," Jobs says, "and that's not a good thing. And there's an opportunity there." To Jobs's perfectionist eyes, phones are broken. Jobs likes things that are broken. It means he can make something that isn't and sell it to you for a premium price.

This brilliant business analysis ought to relate to our industry as well. What's out there in the training-and-development, e-learning, learning-and-performance field that is broken? What can we fix? What can we get people to actually pay for?

Stay tuned for my answers to these questions over the next couple years. And leave your comments about what is broken and what can be fixed.

Emerging E-Learning Technologies Reports

Dr. Gary Woodill, Senior Researcher at Brandon-Hall Research has recently released the second in his three-part series on emerging e-learning technologies. These reports briefly cover the emerging technologies and methods, and then---for each topic---provide an exhaustive set of references and web links.

I have to admit to being amazed at the breadth and scope of these reports. These reports won't be for everyone---they're much too packed with reference-like information---but for someone like me who likes to see what I've failed to learn as of yet, they're wonderful.

I'd recommend these reports for folks who are responsible for their company's Learning R&D efforts, for those interested in brainstorming new e-learning design options, and for academics and researchers who want to see what the new areas are.

These reports aren't perfect, of course. I wouldn't expect such an exhaustive research effort to be flawless.

The reports don't provide an organizing framework for understanding how these technologies might interface with the flesh-and-blood machinery of human learners. The danger is that readers who willy-nilly act to employ these technologies may not get the learning benefits they might expect---or, they may create negative outcomes.

Some technologies were not described at all, although they may be in the third report. One e-learning technology I'm passionate about wasn't mentioned---learning-follow-through software, which facilitates training transfer by encouraging learners to implement their after-training goals, by getting managers involved in the process, by recording actual work follow-through, and by keeping the learning conversations going after the formal learning events are finished.

I've written about this technology before, both in a software review and a book review.

This software is a paradigm buster---one of e-learning's killer aps---but these reports don't mention the technology at all. See Friday5s from the Fort Hill Company and ActionPlan Mapper from ZengerFolkman as the two exemplars of this technology.

To reiterate, the weaknesses of these reports are minor in comparison with their strengths. For those who really want to delve into what's out there, Gary Woodill has provided a great service in these reports.

1. Emerging E-Learning: New Approaches to Delivering Engaging Online Learning Content
2. Emerging E-LearningTechnologies: Tools for Developing Innovative Online Training

One of the reasons information like this is so critical is that too many of us associated with e-learning have not really pushed ourselves to develop models beyond the page-turner, the multiple-stupid interaction page clicker, the game show, the webinar, and the branching simulation.

We need to be more creative---testing our ideas of course in the crucible of the real world---but really working on alternative models. Compilations of ideas (like these reports provide) are very helpful in this regard, again with the caveat that these technologies absolutely have to be designed with the human learner in mind and tested for learning effectiveness.

Training Media Review Authoring Tools

Training Media Review reviews are now available on both a subscription basis ($229 per year) or a daily basis ($25).

The current issue reviews authoring tools such as Lectora, Captivate, Articulate, Camtasia, and ViewLet Builder. You can check out all these reviews for only $25 by buying a one-day subscription.

Product Review: ActionPlan Mapper

This is a review of ZengerFolkman's ActionPlan Mapper. Let me provide a little background so you'll understand my conclusions.

In 2002 I wrote an article on e-learning’s unique capability—that it was one of the few learning media that enabled us “to have meaningful and renewable contact with learners over time.” I argued that e-learning was a tool, and that we ought to figure out what it does well and maximize the advantage of that capability—as long as our e-learning methods are aligned with the human learning system. No sense utilizing an e-learning method if it doesn’t facilitate learning and performance.

I wrote about several learning factors that seemed ideal for e-learning. I also challenged the industry to get its butt in gear. At that time I didn’t see many applications of e-learning that took advantage of the connectedness capability. I just reread that article in preparation for writing this blog piece. It was really quite brilliant—even though I must say so myself—and I recommend it highly. You can purchase it for five bucks at www.work-learning.com/catalog/. Go ahead, make me rich.

A few years ago, I also taught an online class entitled Leveraging E-Learning. One of the suggestions I made in that class was that we ought to use our new-found internet/intranet capacity to connect with our learner’s managers as well as our learners. I even developed some rudimentary templates that outlined how this could be done.

Although I’m recounting my former brilliance for you in the hopes that you’ll hire me as your learning consultant in the near future—and to make myself feel good during these dark winter days—true geniuses don’t just rant and rave, they make things.

Today’s training-genius award goes to the folks at ZengerFolkman who developed the ActionPlan Mapper (www.zfco.com/apm.asp). They have given me renewed faith that eventually e-learning will meet its promise.

The ActionPlan Mapper is a web-based hosted solution that is available 24/7. It was designed to help training participants take what they learned and apply it to their jobs. As Kelly Clayton, Product Leader for the ActionPlan Mapper, has said, “What we’re trying to prevent is the Monday-morning problem. People go to a training course, they take notes, they have discussions, they get energized, they’re roaring to go, but when they get back to the job on Monday, they are overwhelmed with their normal workload and the momentum for action fades to oblivion…The ActionPlan Mapper works by prodding the learners, reminding them to stay focused and keep pursuing the action items they previously resolved to accomplish.”

 

Review Details

From the two intensive demos I’ve seen, the ActionPlan Mapper is a great tool. From a learning-to-performance perspective, it creates some powerful learning effects:

1. It indirectly reminds learners of what they learned, helping them to remember what they learned long enough to put it into action.
2. It spurs workplace action by regularly reminding learners that they ought to be working to implement what they learned.
3. It helps learners keep a focus on their intended post-training actions.
4. It brings managers into the process of training implementation, making them partners and/or drivers of training application.
5. It can be used to hold learners accountable for their action plans, helping to significantly lift the priority of training implementation from a “nice-to-do” to a “must-do.”

Although no formal evaluation studies have been completed as of yet on ActionPlan Mapper (maybe they haven’t heard of LearningAudit.com), I’m willing to bet that learners who use ActionPlan Mapper will be at least 50% more likely to utilize (on the job) what they learned in the classroom or in an e-learning course. I actually think performance improvements could be more like 200 to 300% for many post-training situations, but I’m being conservative because results always depend on many variables. Besides, a 50% improvement in on-the-job application is huge already!

The cost of the product seems reasonable to me, especially given the upside I just discussed. For only $40 to $250 per person (depending on several factors), ActionPlan Mapper is yours! The thinking behind the design is that simpler is better. Clayton claims that what ZengerFolkman was aiming for was a product that people would find easy and intuitive to use. As long as they have a web connection, people can use ActionPlan Mapper anytime anywhere to stay in touch with their action-planning projects. This design strategy is paying off as clients are using the tool beyond the training context for development planning, follow-up to performance reviews and strategy sessions, and more.

Description by way of Screen Shots

(Note: You can click on the screen shots to enlarge them.)

On the first screen below, participant Bob Sherwin has two action-planning “projects.”

   

 

The second screen shows Bob’s goals for his action-planning project, “Becoming a Better Manager.” The grayed ones are already accomplished. The goal 4.4 has a lock next to it to indicate that it is a private goal (only viewable by participant, not by his or her manager).

 

Participants are prodded and reminded with emails from the system. They can also be encouraged to focus on their goals by their managers. In fact, the system seems ideally structured to encourage conversations on tasks central to business goals and organizational success.

The third screen shows the manager’s view.

 

More complex systems like Microsoft Project are available for some similar applications, but these are not really suited to the kind of use envisioned by ZengerFolkman. A product offering similar capability in providing training follow-up, FridayFives, is offered by the Fort Hill Company (http://www.ifollowthrough.com/).

A bright idea.

Since it’s easier for me to come up with ideas than it is for these folks to develop these products, here’s an idea, for what it’s worth.

I’d like to see these systems augmented to create a parallel structure to provide direct learning reminders and/or practice opportunities. For example, for a leadership course, learners could be given periodic scenarios related to managing people. Learners would have to decide what to do in these leadership situations. These scenarios would help remind learners of what they learned and thus make it much more likely that when faced with similar situations on the job that they’ll remember how to perform successfully. The learning research shows clearly that such “retrieval-practice” opportunities are great to prompt long-term memory. The leadership scenarios would also provide learners with feedback and help them assess their competence, thereby giving them a heads-up to the kinds of information they could look for as they attempt to learn on the job.

Other reminder systems and retrieval-practice systems could be developed as well.

Still, bottom line, I love the ActionPlan Mapper concept. It's simple, but it drives training transfer. It's relatively inexpensive, but it utilizes one of the uniquely potent characteristics of online learning---the connection we can have to our learners and their managers. Way to go ZengerFolkman!!