eLearning Roadtrip

Great Advice in Less than 140 Characters

During the recent DevLearn 2010 #DL10 conference I had the pleasure of participating in the closing panel hosted by Brent Schlenker where my co-presenters - Richard Culatta, Aaron Silvers, Gina Schreck, Jane Bozarth and Cammy Bean - and I each had 5 minutes to share a big idea with our DevLearn colleagues.

It was one of the best presentation experiences I've ever had. Thanks again to my co-presenters for being the wonderful people that they are, each and every one.  

One of my favorite moments came when Cammy Bean offered some sage advise on the topic of social media manners. Go, Cammy!

Fast forward a week. I've had social media, analytics and transparency on the brain. I have also continued to  noodle out loud on the topic of digital manners. The question I posted today looked something like this:

To which  Dr. @JaneBozarth responded

Yes!! Thank you Dr. Jane!

And then, just as she did at DevLearn (#dl10), @Cammybean reiterated what IMHO should be the golden standard for guiding our community's online behaviors:

@janeBozarth and @cammybean to the rescue.

Sometimes the best advice comes in less than 140 characters.

mLearnCon Trip Report

Kudos to the eLearning Guild for last week's exceptional inaugural mobile learning conference in San Diego. Having been actively following mobile learning developments during the past 6 years or so (and wondering what it would take to tip this obvious, self-evident next step of connecting people to information when and where they want it into general practice) it was enormously satisfying to see, feel and hear the energy and enthusiasm. Thank you Brent, Mary, Juli, Steve, Luis, Heidi, David and Bill for a great event.

Aaron Silver (@mrch0mp3rs) was a most excellent host and facilitator of the mLearning Future Zone, while Neil Lasher (@neillasher) was "Cage-master extraordinare" in the MOSH Pit (and thanks to both for including me among their cast of characters :-) Both Aaron and Neil convened a great group of people who have been innovators on the edge (both leading and bleeding) of mlearning. As with any new technology applications, there are lots of little things that practitioners can't anticipate until they get into the middle of rolling out a new program. So many great conversation, discussions and debates....I know I came home a lot smarter.

Highlights of the conference for me included a great panel discussion about future directions for mLearning with Kris Rockwell (@hybridkris) from Hybrid Learning Systems, and Judy Brown (@judyb) from the ADL. It was super excellent to spend time with Silke Fleisher and Eric Converse from ATIV (This is the company that developed the great mLearnCon conference program app. I like it so much I am getting one like this for the WCET conference in November.) Silke is a friend and co-conspirator from my Adobe eLearning days, and it is very exciting to see the success that ATIV is having as a mobile app development shop. It is always a treat to see Michelle Lentz (@writetechnology), Jeff Tillet (@mojotillet) and Mark Chrisman (@badsquare).  Watching Allison Rossett (@allisonrossett) falling in love with the new iPad that she bought on her way to the conference was particularly amusing.

One of the best parts of my conference experience was having the opportunity to go toe-to-toe, "mano-a-mano" with Clark Quinn, (@quinnovator) in The Great Debate: HTML5 or Flash? Not surprisingly, I took the pro-Flash position. It's not so much that I love Flash, per se - It's just that I have been really irritated at the lack of accurate information about the current state of Flash and HTML5 as it affects elearning designers and developers. Having spent several years inside Adobe, I know the Flash platform story fairly well. Perhaps more importantly, I know how much elearning people currently depend on Flash. For the past 13 years Flash has been the gold standard for creating interactive online content. Our industry has been and will continue to be highly dependent upon .SWFs, at least in the short run and probably for longer than that. While we are all certainly moving away from our dependence on SWF animations toward more rich internet applications (RIAs), apps and richer video and audio experiences, there is going to be a period of time where we will need to be aware of what our customers and stakeholders need for dealing with the needs of their customers and stakeholders. If they can't play their content and launch rich web experiences we produce when and where they need it it really doesn't matter how we feel about the tools that we think we should use, does it??

My friends from the Adobe Platform group shared a number of slides with me to help tell the Flash side of the HTML v. Flash story. I've included some of their info and a number of other slides (including a few funny screen shots of how Apple and Adobe to continue to poke at each other as they position around these issues) that you can download here. Download Final mLearn Con Flash and HTML5. for distrib

Enjoy!

My "Roadtrip Service Announcement" for the eLearning Guild.

Every so often I am reminded that while eLearning may be a practice that some of us have been doing for a long time, for many others eLearning is a great big shiny world of new opportunity. Whether you are an old-timer or a newbie, staying on top of what's going on is critical for future success.

Sage Road and WCET recently completed a learning technologies industry overview, paying particular attention to finding associations that provide community, collegiality and resources for people working at some point along the elearning value chain. Frankly, we did the work because we wanted to know where WCET fit in that particular ecosystem, which groups were already providing services (so we could avoid stepping on their toes), and which other like minded folks with whom we could collaborate going forward. And we have our niche pretty well identified and defined. More on that in an upcoming blogpost.

Let me start by saying that there are a lot of groups out there doing great work to help (online learning pros, educators, trainers, sales trainers, product roll-out specialists) learn how to leverage eLearning more effectively. I participate in many of them. e.g., Going to the USDLA conference next week. Keynoting at the upcoming Sloan -C summer 2010 conference. Chairing the 2011 program committee for ASTD TechKnowledge. And, of course, we're hosting what will be a great event for WCET's Annual conference in La Jolla

And still, I find that when it comes to finding information I need for making eLearning work that the place I personally turn first continues to be the eLearning Guild. As many know I've been a long-time Guild member. So when people ask me where they can go to get started learning about elearning, I almost always point to the Guild first.

As this has happened several times this week I thought it appropriate to post my "RSA" for the month - If you are just getting started with eLearning you should check out the Guild. Lots of great resources. publications, and magazines and research reports. In fact, there is a rapidly growing series of Getting Started Research Reports, more than 50 articles tagged “Getting Started” and published by Learning Solutions Magazine. Lots of data about the broad eLearning ecosystem, such as salaries and most typically used tools.

As the Guild CEO, David Holcombe, has noted "We’re actively reach out to those who are new to e-Learning because eventually they all become seasoned high-end e-Learning pro’s. Whether you work in education or government, small business or large enterprise, I think you will find the Guild to be one of your best friends if you want to know how to create and build elearning solutions of all kinds, from courseware to mobile apps.

The Pecha Kucha Instructional Design Smackdown Challenge

While at DevLearn this past November my friend Jay Cross asked me to participate in a video interview. Jay is maniacal in his devotion to "walking the talk", using new media and pushing people out of their comfort zone. I love that about him. Even though my appreciation means that I have to be okay with the occasional video conversation.

Jay asked me where I though elearning was going (based on DevLearn presentation I had just completed) and I responded with some highlights from the preso. A few days later I saw a discussion of the interview between two people I follow on Twitter, suggesting that I only talked about the "what" of the future, not the "how". Well, of COURSE I jumped in and asked if they really expected that one should take on a problem/solution answer with elearning people in less than 5 minutes - in some circles we would still be defining this thing that we do!  Well, not too surprisingly both jumped in almost immediately, saying "yes!, underscoring the value in getting to the point. And in that instant I uttered something to the effect that "well, then maybe it's time for a pecha kucha ID video smackdown".

According to Wikipedia, Pecha Kucha (ペチャクチャ), usually pronounced in three syllables as "pe-chak-cha", is the onomatopoeic Japanese word for the sound of conversation. The equivalent term in English is "chit-chat".  Pecha Kucha events were originally conceived as a venue through which young designers could meet, show their work, exchange ideas, and network. They usually consist of around a dozen presentations, each presenter having 20 slides, each shown for 20 seconds. Each presenter has just 6 minutes 40 seconds to explain their ideas before the next presenter takes the stage.  The format keeps presentations concise, fast-paced and entertaining. In 2004 PK events began running in a few cities in Europe, and has since spread virally since has become a worldwide phenomenon, now running in more than 260 cities all over the world.

Young designers? Well, why not young INSTRUCTIONAL DESIGNERS?? Or old instructional designers who still have a few tricks up their sleeves? Why NOT encourage big thinkers to capture the essence of a position, a platform, a solution, whatever, in 20 slides, 20 seconds per slide, timed. 6 minutes, 40 seconds to share.

Maybe it was Jane Bozarth who mentioned "smackdown". Or maybe Janet Clarey. In any event, next thing I knew we had a pecha kucha ID video smackdown tweetstream going on. All kinds of (instructional design people who use Twitter) people wanting to get in on the fun. 

Several suggested refinements involving kimchi, mudwrestling, jello, tequilia and a few other suggestions best left alone.  I was also getting a few direct messages from people saying "you know, I don't really know what you are talking about, but as long as I don't have to wear liederhosen and a beanie in public I'll be okay with whatever it is."

Something uttered in the tw-heat of the moment should not constitute a binding agreement, so I wasn't planning to hold anybody to doing anything...nevertheless, I'm thinking that maybe its time to introduce The Pecha Kucha Instructional Design Smackdown Challenge. Still not sure what the Challenge part of this is, yet - except to challenge you all to think about how you might describe your ID work and what you love about it in 20 slides, 20 second per slide.

Cammy Bean and Koreen Olbrish and I are doing a presentation at the upcoming Learning Solutions conference;  I have included a pecha kucha component to our session. I have no doubt we will be exceptional.

Aaron Silvers' Mentat Beard (yes, it's a nom de plume) has written a fabulous rap entitled ADDIE is a Methodology not a DESIGN that is an obvious candidate for a pecha kucha interpretation.

I am working with Megan Raymond to host a pecha kucha activity at the upcoming WCET Annual Conference in beeeeyoutiful La Jolla, CA. Nov 10 - 13. (I will be doing a separate blog post about the WCET Call for Proposals in the next day or so, so stay tuned!!) We're looking for big thinkers who have something to say about accelerating the adoption of learning technology innovation in post-secondary education settings. in 6 minutes, 40 seconds!!

We have challenged Brent Schlenker from the eLearning Guild to bring his bongos and triangle to San Francisco for DevLearn 2010 to get us started with DevLearn pecha kucha. Actually, it wasn't much of a challenge - he VOLUNTEERED to bring the bongos and triangle.

So. Who's else is in?

New Skills for IDs

During the week of March 22-26 I'm taking the Roadtrip to Orlando Florida to participate in the eLearning Guild's Learning Solutions (formerly Annual Gathering) Conference. Cammy Bean, VP Learning at Kineo and I are going to be co-hosting a session on Tuesday 23 March as part of the Guild's eLearning Foundations Intensive. We'll be exploring the topic of how instructional design for the classroom differs from instructional design in elearning. (Yes, we were both a little surprised by that title, too. But then we got it...)

And then Friday morning 26 March Cammy Bean, Koreen Olbrish (CEO of Tandem Learning) and I are going to be sharing what we have learned about New Skills for IDs. Now, in the spirit of true disclosure, none of the skills that I see being demanded of today's IDs are particularly new. But I have come to realize that some of the choices one makes about which skill one chooses to develop has a lot to do with where one ends up spending one's professional time. And that, IMHO, makes this a topic worth talking about.

Cammy, Koreen and I share a deep interest in Instructional design for technology-mediated learning.  Each one of us comes at our elearning/design practices from different perspectives, experiences and professional training, but it's interesting to see how in spite of those difference we all speak the same language of ID.That is a very good thing about the systematic processes that seem to shape elearning practice, if you think about eLearning in a "big tent" kind of way.

But OMG ID practitioners love to fuss about the models we use to articulate and share our unique brand of workflow management!!! VERY strong emotions about the process models used to represent the process of ID. Why, just earlier today there was a momentary bit of Friday madness via Twitter with some of my favorite eLearning tweeters - Gina Minks (@ginaminks), Cammy Bean (@cammybean), Koreen Olbrish (@koreenoldbrish), Aaron Silvers (@mrch0mp3rs), Brent Schlenker (@bschlenker), Chad Udell (@visualrinse), Dick Carlson (@techherding) about our favorite ID girlfriend, ADDIE!!

You Remember ADDIE, right? The Analyze, Design, Develop, Implement, Evaluate ADDIE that has become the quintessential visual representation of Instructional Design practice? Even if many IDs themselves roll their eyes when this acronym is mentioned. Because it's not like we really hate it...it's just that it is NOT a learning model. It is not even really a design model. It is most certainly a process workflow model. And most of those of us who call ourselves IDs already know how our work flows.

(Parenthetically - I think that the description of ADDIE that currently sits on Wikipedia needs some work. Just in case anyone here wants to take a shot at a revision.)

So I've been giving far less thought to process and workflow, and far more thought to competencies and skills. When I think about how instructional design skills tend to be taught we sorta pretend to follow the ADDIE model or some analogue thereof. And I've noticed that our various personal iterations of models like ADDIE typically reflect the environments in which we work. That suggests that the notion of a one-size-fits-all workflow, except at the most conceptual of levels, really doesn't hold up very well.

Cammy and I have been spending a fair amount of time lately looking at ID job descriptions to see if our workflow process models and the public expectations of what folks like us are supposed to be able to do are aligned. We're finding that the job descriptions tend to cluster essential skills in a framework that looks a bit more like this:

 

This is all I really want to say about the sessions for now. Except to tell you that I really have been giving very serious thought to how to bring the Pecha Kucha ID video smackdown challenge I've issued to Jane Bozarth, Clark Quinn, Janet Clarey, Tim Martin and several others to life in this session. Wayne Hodgins has given me a crash course on the fine points of Pecha Kucha, and I expect that we will have a demo of such.

No doubt we will have some fun ways sharing some of the things we've learned. Please take a look at Cammy's blog if you'd like to contribute to this conversation - and of course feel free to post a comment or note if you have things to say to me directly.

I'm Baaa-aaaaaack...

Some times are better for listening than for talking and writing. The Sage Road team been doing a lot of listening these past few weeks, thanks to being involved in strategic planning work with several of our clients.

But I am getting ahead of myself. First things first. I'm back online. It was good to take a break from blogging, and now I have a few things on my mind that I'm ready to talk about. Look for posts on topics including:

(1) A brief summary of my January visit with the Presidents' Forum in Dallas. This is a group of executives  who head up some of the best known online universities in the US. Join me to learn more about one of their key quality initiatives, called Transparency by Design.

(2) Closing thoughts about this year's ASTD TechKnowledge (TK10). I was a member of this year's program committee. I decided to volunteer after listening to chatter about last year's event, when I decided that I preferred to be part of the solution.

(3) Some highlights from the recently completed WCET's strategic plan for 2010/11, and a few ideas about accelerating the adoption of innovative technologies in practice.

(4) Last but certainly not least - A request for ID job descriptions! Cammy Bean and I need your help to build the "Great ID Skills Wordle" for our upcoming session at this year's eLearning Guild Learning Solutions conference in Orlando, FL.

2010 is going to be a very interesting time in the world of technology-mediated learning. Looking forward to sharing the Roadtrip with you.

eLearning Guild DevLearn 2009 Trip Report

I received a very nice direct message from Shanta Rohse (@shantarohse) yesterday, alerting me that she'd used one of my DevLearn 2009 presentation slides in her recently featured blogpost in eLearning Magazine. I am super flattered that my "Hype Cycle Meets the Innovation Adoption Curve" (Think Gartner Hype Cycle meets Everett Rogers) graphic captured Shanta's attention, excited that this simple illustratation captured some of the same unease about where the elearning profession seems to get stuck for her that it does for me. Of course it's fine with me if she wants to share, are you kidding?? Shanta, thank you for the attribution.

I was also very pleased to see that the eLearning Guild Research Report on User Generated Content by two of my Sage Road associates, (Managing Director) Beth Davis and (Research Associate) Dr. Colleen Carmean, was also highlighted in Shanta's blog post. The research report is almost done. Really. I confess that I am holding up the final manuscript as I make some final edits. I want it to be ready for prime time. Look for us around the first of the year,

Anyway, I was so pleased about Shanta's very nice comments that I decided to add a "PS" to my DevLearn Trip Report posting. Imagine my surprise to discover that the post had never made it to the published blog. It was still hanging there, in "DRAFT" form, waiting for me to wrap things up. Apparently with all the excitement of the past few weeks, I had forgotten to toggle, tag and publish. Not as embarrassing as forgetting to include the "D" when sending a direct message to someone on Twitter. (In case you don't tweet...if you don't include the letter "D" and your friend's Twitter name, then you end up sharing your special private message with all followers and Facebook friends.) So many social media faux pas, so little time. 

Enough. Sorry about the delay in getting this posted. DevLearn 2009, was a great event. Without further ado, here is my DevLearn 2009 Trip Report.

• The Sage Road Solutions crew spent November 10- 13th in San Jose, CA with more than 1300 DevLearn 2009 attendees (#dl09 for those who care about things like hashtags.) We were busy - Beth Davis and Colleen Carmean presented the results of the LMS Deep Analysis report we recently completed for the eLearning Guild this past October, 2009. Colleen and Beth presented the results of our about to be published analysis report entitled The User Generated Content Revolution. I presented the results of Beth Davis's and my industry overview report entitled Navigating the Learning Technologies Metaverse. Look for this published analysis sometime around the beginning of 2010. Colleen and I were both a part of the Research Panel session along with Analysts Janet Clarey from Brandon Hall Research, David Mallon from Bersin Associates and and Kevin Martin from Aberdeen Research.

• Kudos to the eLearning Guild DevLearn team. Brent Schlenker, Mary Alexander, Juli Balding, and the entire eLearning Guild crew gave us a well organized, well run conference. From program to logistics, things really worked. 

• Yay for eLearning. As someone who has been around the space for a while, there is a prickly, uneasy excitement in the air that we haven't felt in our industry for the last 10 year. Yes we all know that the recession continues and the things will never be the same, and we have to get leaner and meaner and smarter and better. Yes, we know that this means getting serious about improving our own professional skills so that we can better anticipate where our customers stakeholders want us to take them.  Still, as I look at the movement on the merger and acquisition front, and watch what's happening in proprietary education, publishing and personal communications technologies, 2010 looks like is going to be a big and better year for some of us, and NOBODY wants to be left behind.

• Adobe Learning Summit.  Not exactly part of DevLearn, but still an important part of the DevLearn experience in San Jose. This had been one of my signature events when I worked you know where. Would have been super easy to kill it when I left. But thanks to the loud enthusiastic voices of the elearning community  Adobe didn't do that.  Instead, Shantanu Narayan, the CEO of Adobe Systems, Inc. was the featured keynote speaker at this year's ALS. Very, very nice.

• Mark Oehlert and Social Media Camp. It was hard not to stop by on the way to and from other sessions, by virtue of its crossroads location AND because there were always so many people clustered around. 

• Breakfast Bytes. I like the round-table, informal discussion format better than the mini-presentation format we used this year. Aside from this very minor nit I continue to appreciate the opportunity for time that encourages discussion. Even at 7 am.

• Time with Cammy Bean.  Call me old-fashioned. it was great to have some F2F time. I really appreciate the design sensibility that Cammy brings to her work. We are collaborating on research that we'll be presenting at the Learning Solutions conference in March. Stay tuned for more on that.   

• Almost as good as being there. Thanks to our community's increasing facility with social media tools and techniques, one can participate in F2F events from just about anywhere. This year's DevLearn was a perfect example of that. No doubt, we are not a sharing-impaired people. Here are links to several of great summaries of featured DevLearn events and activities from Clark Quinn, Steve Howard, Avron Barr, Aaron Silvers, and Koreen Olbrish. 

• The Twitter Backchannel. Search on #dl09 using your browser - and yes, that is a smaller case d as in dev, smaller case l as in learn - and you will see what I mean.Tracy Hamilton ( @hamtra) has compiled a Tweetbook for your convenience.

• #Lrnchat at DemoFest. I think it is totally funny that Brent Schlenker made accommodations for all the Lrnchatters to get their weekly fix in the midst of DevLearn's big techno-reception. 

The keynotes were great, the sessions engaging, the camaraderie excellent. One of the high points of the autumn 2009 season. Certainly looking forward to Learning Solutions in March, 2010.