elearning by Self learning

I would like to share my experience of self learning through The Rapid elearning blog. The Blog shares practical tips and tricks to help you in understanding and creating elearning. It is hosted by Tom Kuhlmann who has over 15 years of hands-on experience in the training industry and currently runs the community at Articulate. The blog has quite a few good articles on best practices in elearning. I must add that the blog has great elearning environment. It is highly engaging with various demos with audios. While surfing this blog I got an experience as on how an elearning learner feels while taking an online course. The topics I enjoyed most are:
· How to Create E-Learning Courses That Don’t Waste Your Learner’s Time
The article gives an insight about the two categories of learners:
o The learners are taking the elearning course because they have to, and not necessarily because they want to. For them, it’s a matter of getting in and out quickly and then back to work. It’s just that many elearning courses are compulsory and the person taking it isn’t motivated by learning the content.
o The learners are taking the course because they want to. While their motivation is different, they also want the course to be focused and a good use of their time.
Considering the fact, that the both categories of learners need to gather essential information, take the required quiz, and get on with their lives; Tom has given guidelines on how to avoid wasting learner’s time.

· The Single Most Important Word in Your E-learning Design Arsenal:
The article discusses how to reach at a solution as a learner. While designing scenarios, it is essential to avoid jumping to the obvious solution. In order to avoid obvious solution, it is crucial to ask Right questions. The articles give a fair idea on how to ask right questions.
· What We Can Learn About Instructional Design from Post-it™ Notes
The article talks about why do people use Post-it™ notes, cheat sheets, and other job-aids to help them do their jobs? And, how does this relate to elearning?

· Here’s How to Avoid Needs Analysis Paralysis:
This article talks about best practices in need analysis and gives the essence of the need analysis -Keep this goal in mind: create courses where the content is real to the learners.
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So happy learning.

Who is the boss- QC or Client?

There are two types of courses created in elearning practices:

• Zero Defect courses from QC test but are entirely rejected from the client.
• Courses rejected at QC test plan, but are accepted by the client with minor concerns.

Which is a better situation than other? I am sure none of them is an ideal situation, but both are real and practical.

This generally happens with legacy clients and projects; the role of an instructional designer seems very restricted. Templates, standards related to graphics, language and QC are already established. For all good reasons neither the project team, nor the client is ready for change. In such cases, an ID can only innovate various techniques of introducing content, and assessments to achieve the defined objectives. For a content developer who is working on such projects for long , standards related to formatting, graphic and QC are not a big challenge. In most of the cases, these experienced content developers produce Zero Defect courses for QC testing.
I have seen such courses being entirely rejected from the client. Each rejected course from client is a bad experience left with the client and of course de-motivating for entire team working on it. I have also experienced that courses which get rejected at QC test plan, are accepted by the client with minor concerns.

This leads to two inter related questions –

How relevant and successful is the QC test plan?
In which situation, do you think the ID should be held responsible for the rejection?

While debating on these issues, I have come across two very strong opinions:

First opinion says ID in first situation should not be held responsible as his course has passed QC test with Zero defect. He had followed all the defined standards religiously.

The second opinion supports the ID in the second situation. ID should not be held for the QC defect. The ID has done complete justice with his role, in understanding content and designing assessments and activities as per the client’s expectations.It says that to follow defined standards is secondary if we compare it with the understanding and creating a course up to the client’s expectations. QC test plan is led out to define standards as basic general rules to maintain consistency across the entire project. Whereas, understanding the content for each new and different course and designing it to the client’s expectation is a bigger challenge and responsibility, which in this case has been handled successfully.

I am leaving this debate open to all, would like to know your interpretations and opinions, before I conclude.

Using Grammar Statistics in MS Word

We could use Microsoft Word's Grammar Statistics feature. Below is a demo of how to set up MS Word and start using the grammar statistics.
(click post title to open this post and view the animation below)

5 Sure Shot Ways to 'Muck Up' Your Learning Scenario

"Learn all you can from the mistakes of others. You won't have time to make them all yourself," said Alfred Sheinwold an eminent bridge player.

Here are some mistakes that I have made when creating learning scenarios for scenario-based learning. Try them to 'Muck Up' yours!

1. Think creative writing and include problems and challenges that are rare and few.
2. Think wide-based usage and create characters that are non-representative of the target learner group.
3. Think novel writing and use long descriptions of people, places and events.
4. Think technical writing and make them non-conversational.
5. Think mystery writing and leave a lot to learner’s imagination.

Scenario Based Learning- Let’s Muck Up!

Adding to Puja’s list of how to muck up scenarios, while writing for scenario-based learning, here are few common ways to do so:
1. Ignore learner’s socio-cultural values.
2. Ignore learner’s contextual setting i.e. climatic, geographical, and economical conditions.
3. Ignore simple sentences. Unload all the information into maximum of two dialogues.
4. Ignore the learning objective and highlight rest of the scenario.