Clive on Learning

UK-based learning and talent analysts Elearnity have come up with a new service geared specifically to the UK and European e-learning market. Called Vendor Perspectives (slightly ironic as 'vendor' is very much a US expression, where we tend to say 'supplier') the service provides intelligence about available solutions to potential buyers in all the usual product and service categories, including custom content providers, authoring tools, learning management platforms, etc.
Vendors pay to be included, although this buys them no influence on the ratings they receive, which are calculated by Elearnity based on their own knowledge of the market and interviews with a selection of the vendor's clients. Customers get to see Summary Perspectives for free but must pay for 'Deep Perspectives' (is that a mixed metaphor?).
In principle, I like the idea, because it is really hard for potential customers to make sense of all the competing solutions available and objective advice is hard to come by. I know this service is already available in the USA from Brandon Hall, Bersin and others, but the European market is different and local suppliers may not get much of a look in.
For this service to really take off it must first of all get buy-in from vendors. I know that quite a few LMS providers are on-board but this is not enough, because in many ways products like these are truly global in scope. The main regional variation come in terms of services, particularly content development. It will be interesting to see whether Elearnity will be able to persuade enough developers to throw their hat in the ring. The next big question is whether they will stay on board if they get rated harshly.
Another complication is how Elearnity treats open source products. Can you really get a true picture of the LMS market without an appreciation of what Moodle has to offer?
I hope the service takes off, because customers could do with the help. What it mustn't do is crowd out the smaller, niche players without the big marketing budgets.

This week sees the release of my new book, Digital Learning Content: A Designer's Guide. The book is for anyone with an interest in helping others to learn. You may be a teacher, trainer, lecturer or coach. You may be a subject expert with knowledge you want to share or an experienced practitioner who wants to pass on their tips. You may already be a creator of learning content, looking to update their skills. Whatever your interest, this guide will help you to design learning materials that really make a difference.


Digital learning content takes a wide variety of forms, including tutorials, scenarios, podcasts, screencasts, videos, slideshows, quizzes and reference materials. The book provides you with fundamental principles that you can apply to any content creation activity as well as practical information relating to specific content types.
Here's the table of contents:

1. Making the most of this guide
2. Coming to terms with content
3. Building on sound foundations
4. Determining roles and processes
5. Working with subject experts
6. Starting with some universal principles
7. Exploiting the power of interactivity
8. Working with the basic media elements
9. Distributing your content
10. Assembling your toolkit
11. Creating learning podcasts
12. Creating learning slideshows
13. Creating learning screencasts
14. Creating learning scenarios
15. Creating learning videos
16. Creating learning tutorials
17. Creating quizzes
18. Creating reference information
19. What does exemplary digital learning content look like?

The book is currently only available through Lulu, priced at £19.95 or local currency equivalents. Distribution through Amazon and other online book-sellers will commence in the next few weeks and e-book versions are in development.
If you're at Learning Technologies in London this Wednesday or Thursday, stop by the Onlignment stand (133)  where we'll have plenty of copies for you to leaf through.

As I've just returned from a week walking in the sunshine of Almeria, I'm probably the last to comment on Apple's announcement of it's publishing platform for multimedia text books on the iPad. If you missed it, see iBook Author here. 
Let's be absolutely clear, there is nothing whatsoever new about the idea of interactive multimedia books. As Managing Director of Publishing for Epic, back in the 1990s, I was involved in quite a few CD-ROM projects that mirrored quite closely was is envisioned for the iPad. True we were restricted to distributing on PCs via the offline medium of a laserdisc, but the creative product was almost identical. You may remember the wonderful interactive products that Dorling Kindersley produced back then, not to mention Encarta. And there's nothing stopping you from creating interactive multimedia 'books' now (I hesitate to keep using the term 'text books' because surely that's exactly what they're trying not to be) - you just set up a website. Last time I looked, HTML was quite capable of displaying pages of text, combined with pictures, video, animations, audio and games.
The difference is that iBooks Author creates a tightly formatted, packaged product that can be sold, just like a CD-ROM or a paperback. It's also likely to offer a more elegant user experience than you would normally expect when exploring a work in a web browser, but without all the connections to other resources and the opportunities for interactivity. So who benefits? Well, Apple of course, because they take 30% off the top of every sale. Big publishers will have another route to market which could be attractive if very significant numbers of students use the iPad as their primary computing device and not some other smart phone, tablet or laptop. They won't be too bothered about the authoring tool, because they are probably already using something like Adobe InDesign to lay out their print versions and would prefer to output directly from this. Self-publishing authors will enjoy using the tool, assuming their ideas exploit the multimedia concept in some way. If all they are offering is text, they can publish to Kindle and iBooks already using their word processor.
But what are the implications for learning in the workplace? Probably very little, because text books have very little relevance to training. Highly interactive, multimedia content is obviously of more interest, but then all the e-learning authoring tools will get you to that same place sooner or later. The main issue is that, in the workplace, the iPad still has very low penetration - growing yes, but still early days. If an employer wants to hand out iPads by the truckload, the last reason will be because of the availability of electronic books. If the devices are going out there for another reason, then any e-learning content developer will be happy to go along for the ride.

The Blue Eskimo training and e-learning work and salary survey for 2011 makes interesting reading but leaves many important questions unanswered - at least for me. In total, 813 people from Blue Eskimo's client databases, predominantly UK-based, completed the survey. Blue Eskimo is a recruitment consultancy, so it is possible that this skews the results somewhat, because presumably only people interested in getting work will be on the database in the first place.
Participants were mostly from the private sector, with 32% working in IT training, 21% e-learning, and 20% soft skills training. Of these, 13% were designers and 27% trainers, with the rest in various management and sales roles. Some 80% were in permanent positions.
Some key findings:

• Salaries were holding up well for permanent employees, although 60% had not received an increase in the past year.
• There was a definite downward shift in daily rates for contractors, with more people moving into the sub-£300-a-day bracket. This would not be surprising if most of these contractors were classroom trainers. With a lot of redundancies in L&D, supply of freelancers is bound to increase and that will affect rates.
• Some 80% work longer hours than they are paid for, a few more than 20 hours a week. This seems to me to be a sign of organisations pushing harder to get more work from less people. It might also mean that those in work are prepared to put up with a lot because at least they have a job.
• Most are quite or very happy with their work (let's face it, there are worse fields in which to work) and 70% feel challenged/stretched - perhaps there's a relationship.
• On the other hand, nearly 60% are considering changing jobs in the next 12 months - that's assuming they can find one.

So why are there questions unanswered? Well, for me, the really interesting data would come by comparing the data for those primarily involved in classroom work and those in e-learning. You would expect very different results in times such as these. Let's hope Blue Eskimo break this out next year.

The recent release by Trivantis of Snap! Empower, a rapid Flash interaction builder, for the princely sum of $99, got me wondering if I have any idea any more of what an authoring tool is worth. Empower looks like it is much more powerful than Articulate Engage, which sells for four times as much, and almost certainly cost Trivantis much more to develop. So why the low price? Presumably Trivantis feels that there is a vast market of enthusiasts on the look out for Flash authoring tools - certainly way beyond the numbers employed in e-learning development - and they're a price sensitive lot who are only interested at hobbyist prices. They may be right - and the interest which is shown in free and low-cost tools on Jane Hart's C4LPT site bears this out - but does this really help us to determine what a tool is actually worth?
Time was an authoring tool cost at very least $1K and often much more. Popular tools such as Captivate, Articulate and Trivantis' own Lectora still do. If you're a serious graphic designer, you'll pay $3K for Creative Suite; and audio and video engineers pay similar prices for their software. These tools are expensive because they cost a lot to develop and the target markets of full-time professionals are relatively small. 
The same goes for just about any trade or profession you can imagine. Getting yourself kitted out with the right tools and equipment costs many thousands. These investments may seem substantial, but over time represent a very good investment indeed when related to the income that they allow the purchaser to generate.
For the same reason, I have no problem with the idea of spending $1000+ on a tool, assuming it is something I am going to use regularly to help me earn a living. If any employer balks at spending this much to equip their employees to do their jobs properly then they need better accountants - they simply don't understand what tools are worth.
If, on the other hand, you are talking about toys as opposed to tools of the trade - and I like toys as much as the next person - then $99 seems about right. When I buy a toy I have modest expectations about utility and don't expect any support. In fact many toys never get used. If Empower proves to be much more than a toy then that's fine, I'll enjoy using it. But I wouldn't choose it over another tool on the basis of the price, because when you invest in the tools of your trade, quality and functionality are what you depend on - price is secondary.

I'm finding it hard to regain my focus after the holidays. It only takes a couple of weeks for me to shift my attention almost entirely to matters other than learning technology, so I shouldn't have much trouble retiring when the time comes. So, this post acts as a way for me to re-focus on the issues that need addressing in 2012.

In the Western world at least, we will continue to feel the effects of the worst squeeze in my lifetime. That means lots more job losses, constrained budgets and a lot of defensive decision-making. I don't think I'm being negative in saying this, just realistic. This comes at a time when the nature of work itself is changing, as Lynda Gratton describes in her book The shift: the future of work is already here. I will return to this book in future posts, but for now here are two short extracts:
Our assumptions that general skills will be valuable has to be questioned. It seems clear to me that in a joined-up world where potentially 5 billion people have access to the worldwide Cloud, the age of the generalist is over. Instead, my prediction for the future is that you will need what I call ‘serial mastery’ to add real value. Our assumptions about the role of individualism and competitiveness as a foundation for creating great working lives and careers have to be questioned. In a world that could become increasingly fragmented and isolated, I believe that connectivity, collaboration and networks will be central.I believe that there are serious implications in what Lynda has to say for those working in learning and development:

1. You will not be sufficiently marketable if you do a bit of everything in much the same way as everyone else. True we need some managers to pull everything together, but working for these people will be specialists, whether that's in highly-technical subject areas or in new, more scalable approaches to learning, i.e. those that make use of technology. It doesn't take a genius to work out that when there are less jobs available overall in l&d at the same time as a critical skills gap in learning technologies, there's an opportunity there just waiting to be taken.
2. Teaching and training has historically been a rather isolated profession, particularly for those spending their lives in classrooms. To keep up-to-date and search out opportunities, l&d professionals need to be more connected than ever before. To some degree that can happen in traditional ways, but more than likely it will mean networking online.

I'll leave you with those thoughts. The new year is under way. Let's make it a good one.

Throughout my book The New Learning Architect I take time out to look at real-life examples of learning architects in action. In this final profile, we look at the work of a learning architect who has worked within what is very much a top-down learning environment and on a very large scale. Dick’s work at learndirect helped to ensure 2.8 million people across the UK were able to make a start on their learning journey.

Delivering the UK’s largest online learning service
Dick Moore was Director of Technology at learndirect over nine years. Operated by Ufi Ltd, learndirect’s mission is to transform skills, productivity and individual lives by providing the best of online learning. As an adult learning provider delivering widespread access to online training, learndirect has become one of the leading contributors to the UK government's skills agenda. Since 2000 it has used technology to enable more than 2.8 million adults to gain the skills they, their employers and the economy need, helping them on their way into further training or employment.

Over Dick’s nine years at learndirect, he had to completely re-engineer the offer. With 500K enrolments per year, a significant number of whom have a relatively low educational level, Dick had the task of developing a technological architecture that was not just functional, but scalable, reliable and capable of providing a positive user experience.

In addition to rebuilding the learning platform Dick was asked to reduce his budget by 50% and to deliver twice as many releases per year. Dick achieved this by bringing much of the work in-house (insourcing) and creating a user panel involving all key stakeholders. They consulted and listened to the advice of usability experts, and employed an agile approach which involved a great deal of prototyping.  Dick believes that involving users throughout the systems design rather than just at the end during testing is advice that is often given but seldom taken.

The basis of learndirect’s offer
At the core of learndirect’s provision is a ‘supportive triangle’ which includes the learning content itself, the system and the support staff at the 1000s of learning centres where many students take the first steps back onto a new learning journey. Many of the courses provided by learndirect lead to National Vocational Qualifications (NVQs), which require evidence rather than test-based assessment. The system, therefore, has to accommodate the storage and management of hundreds of thousands of pieces of evidence stored as an ‘e-portfolio’.

The learndirect offer is essentially one of formal learning with assessment, with an emphasis on vocational and skills-based training leading to nationally-recognised qualifications. While formal, the process is essentially bottom-up, in that the courses are typically chosen by learners (‘pulled’) rather than imposed by employers (‘pushed’).

The measure of learndirect’s success is the unit cost per enrolled, completed and successful student. Retention is key, so a high emphasis is placed within learning centres on ensuring that customers (learners) have appropriate threshold skills. Students are assessed to see whether they really have the time and the motivation to complete a course. This is particularly important because the courses are low cost to the learner and therefore not always highly valued. Another technique is to use entry-level taster courses, which give local tutors on the ground a chance to check out a student’s propensity to learn.

Once students are enrolled the next priority is to keep them on track. With no formal teacher to engage students, the content and the system have to deliver the learning experience supported often by learning centre staff and on-line tutors. Importantly, learners need a way to chart their own progress across time and tutors need to be able to keep an eye on this as well.

Dick was particularly concerned that the system was all very simple and accessible: “Learning is not always fun; however it is rewarding, like the gym. When you’re learning, you’re trying to rearrange your mental model. And with assessments to complete as well, there’s going to be an element of fear. In a situation like this, you need to avoid all extraneous noise.”

The system was re-designed so that the interface persisted while the student was working with content, so they could send messages at any point. And because a typical learning episode was a whole morning or afternoon, it was absolutely critical that the student didn’t lose their work through a connection problem. Any incident of this sort would be remembered by the student for a long time and would cause them to lose confidence in both the system and often in themselves.

Harnessing informal learning
There was an assumption that students would jump at the chance to use chat rooms and forums, however without active support and guidance such chat rooms were often ‘like the Marie Celeste’. Dick believes that they would have been more successful if tightly integrated with individual courses, but as optional extras they didn’t work. Whereas, these sorts of communication technologies can be highly successful in tutor-driven courses that are delivered in cohorts, for learndirect students the informal learning element came in the learning centre or at home, person-to-person. In Dick’s view “it is almost an oxymoron to try and control informal learning.”

Still, customer satisfaction was 94% and has since improved beyond that. This rating reflects students satisfaction with their experience and he believes also reflects an increase in students’ self-esteem. As Dick explains, “If you can give people an experience that makes them feel good about themselves, they’ll feel good about you!”

Providing tutor support
An important element of the learndirect experience is that students know they have a tutor and someone to ask for help. Tutors have their own interface to the system, organised according to their workflow. This requires them to validate student outcomes by looking at scores, reviewing any free text responses and messages, and then writing a note to the student. As this process became regulated by the system, it improved retention and success. Before, this was largely dependent on a particular tutor.

The tutors received online training in using the new system, primarily with the aid of short screencasts which allowed them to watch and practise at the same time. The screencasts also constituted a valuable on-demand learning resource. Again Dick placed a high emphasis on simplicity: “It seems the glossier something is the more we tune out. Perhaps we are conditioned by adverts.”

What learndirect has achieved
Dick’s success in creating a scalable and highly accessible learning platform can be demonstrated by some of the numbers:

• 8,200 people log on and learn with learndirect every day;
• more than 2.8 million learners have taken a learndirect course;
• 90 per cent of learndirect learners are qualified below level two or are assessed as having a basic skills need;
• 433,000 Skills for Life test passes have been achieved with learndirect;
• altogether, more than 467,000 online tests in literacy and numeracy have been taken with learndirect;
• 23,396 people have achieved an NVQ through learndirect;
• learndirect has worked with over 5,000 businesses through Train to Gain, resulting in more than 10,000 qualifications;
• learner satisfaction with learndirect currently stands at 96%.

Technology should be architected to deliver a service not a solution, having the audience at the centre of your design and architecture and ensuring that your systems are instrumented such that you have a measure of the client satisfaction rather than relying on ‘happy sheets’, completed by those for whom the experience was a success, is an architectural imperative.


Dick Moore has worked as an educational technologist for 30 years and now runs his own company Moore Answers Ltd, an IT interim/consultancy and change management house that is particularly keen on charities, education systems and infrastructure. Dick was until May 2010 Director of Technology at learndirect, one of the largest e-learning organisations in the world with some 3 million learners on the system and delivering 500,000 enrolments annually.


Previously Dick was Vice-President for Systems and Information at a Los Angeles-based dot.com company thedock.com, an industrial auction site, and before that was Director of ICT at both Sheffield College and Doncaster College, two of Europe's largest Further Education institutions. During the 80s, he was Director of a new media company Interactive Media Resources, working with interactive video and educational software, where he wrote educational software and simulations for The Stock Exchange, Shell and Tandy Corporation, amongst others.


Dick has a BSc in Botany, specialising in Taxonomy, and is a trustee of the Association for Learning Technology and chair of their publications committee.

Before I take my leave for Christmas, I thought I'd provide you with this summary of all my posts on Clive on Learning in 2011. I've marked with asterisks a few posts that were particularly significant from my point of view.

December
Where is the model for e-learning?
Massively scalable training *
Face-to-face is for special occasions *
Can we dispense with email?

November
Profile of a learning architect: Darren Owen
Shepherd accused of sensationalist claptrap
Beware who's selling informal learning *
Blending is a continuum
Want to write? Get on a train
Why does learning content seem so much more exciting on an iPad?
Reading from a script is not for me
Over-engineered for information transfer, under-engineered for learning *
Storyline and ZebraZapps: seriously powerful, seriously simple

October
Portrait of a learning architect: Rob Bartlett
Cases in custom content development: tentative suggestion 2 – never regard a job as finished
Cases in custom content development: tentative suggestion 1 – consult early and widely
The Big Question: Does Gamification have a role in Workplace Learning?
Cases in custom content development – 4
Cases in custom content development – 3
Cases in custom content development – 2
Cases in custom content development – 1
You can't get a cloud in your hand

September
Profile of a learning architect: Charles Jennings
Sometimes you need to take risks to avoid risk *
Asynchronous and online should be the default to argue against *
The Big Questions: Issues and Trends
Profile of a learning architect: Julie Wedgwood

August
The prodigal Apple
A book – is it a method or a medium?
The corporate classroom as therapy
Presentations in the cloud
What I learned about webinars from Adobe
Everywhere you look there's an app
What low growth and high debt mean for l&d *
Michael Allen's e-Learning Annual 2012
Fotolia ticks the box
Practical guides rolling off the press
Questioning social media *
Profile of a learning architect: Bill Sawyer

July
Give Cruella a chance
Social learning is not the same as social media
Knowing where to look is more valuable than knowing what *
What managers really want
The big question: How do you make e-learning fun?

June
Profile of a learning architect: Tiina Paju-Pomfret
The l&d professional as curator *
Clips and tips are what you want when you're on the move *
The Big Question: Breaking down the organisational walls to learning
Creating Inspired Activities & Interactions for Effective eLearning
Why we need less instruction *
Just enough information to permit practice and no more *


May
Profile of a learning architect: Peter Butler
What I read on my holiday: Drive
CEGOS 2011 survey provides many new insights
What I read on my holiday: Switch
What I read on my holiday: Better by mistake
CIPD survey shows the cuts are hurting L&D


April
Profile of a learning architect: Rob Bartlett
Talking about blended learning – part 5 – in conclusion
Talking about blended learning – part 4 – selecting media
Talking about blended learning – part 3 – selecting methods
Talking about blended learning – part 2 – analysing the situation
Talking about blended learning – part 1 – foundations
Developing is not for everyone
The Big Question: How do you respond to the ‘I want it now’ demand?
A question of balance *


March
Profile of a learning architect: Sebastian Graeb-Konneker
Adventures in self-publishing II
50 tips for better presentations
Adventures in self-publishing I
The Kindle – what is it good for?
The Big Question: how to assess informal learning
Can self-study be social? *


February
The New Social Learning – a review
Profile of a learning architect: Nick Shackleton-Jones
Fresh thoughts on competence and consciousness *
Relevance drives out resistance *
Social learning handbook – a review
Social media for trainers – a review


January
Avoiding humiliation
Learning by making stuff
Straightforward with a human touch *
Laura's learning cupcakes
Totara: re-shaping Moodle for corporate use
Can the ‘big LMS’ break clear of formal training?
Back in business
If in doubt, do it yourself

With most learning media, there is an expectation of how it should look and behave based on the mass media. We can benchmark what we do against 1000s of everyday examples. We can model our learning videos on what we see on TV and on YouTube. We can model podcasts on what we hear on the radio. We have endless examples from print media and the World Wide Web on which to model our text-based materials. And even when it comes to learning sims, we can relate what we see to our experiences with video games.
But when we think about page/screen-based, tutorial e-learning, there really are no mass media parallels, unless of course you count business presentations, and in most cases they set a very poor example. So, our stakeholders have no standards by which to judge what we produce and no common vocabulary with which to engage with us. As designers, we don't have that steady stream of everyday examples to give us inspiration. E-learning has no counterpart in the mass media and I believe this explains to some extent why we don't always achieve the standards we would like to see, even after 30 years of trying.

Some fantastic progress has been made recently in realising the concept of massively scalable education. You've probably already heard plenty about the Khan Academy, which has contributed to the maths education of millions, as well as the free online courses being run by faculty at Stanford University. An Introduction to Artificial Intelligence, led by Peter Norvig and Sebastian Thrun, attracted some 160,000 enquiries, of which 25,000 or more have made it through to its conclusion. If you are not familiar with these projects, you can see Khan, Norvig and Thrun discussing the implications of their work in Reinventing Education - 45 minutes of very watchable YouTube video (thanks to Seb Schmoller for alerting me to this).
Interested as I am in all this, my work is not in education, it is in training. There is, of course, an overlap. Both aim to impart knowledge and foster cognitive skills. But in a training context this is very rarely the endgame. The goal is typically to develop competence, the ability to do a job. And while you can do a reasonable job of measuring knowledge and some cognitive skills using a computer-gradable, online assessment, the majority of competences require a human eye. Of course, graduates of Norvig and Thrun's course may one day be able to use sophisticated artificial intelligence to assess skills like interviewing, graphic design, welding or using Photoshop, but for now the only reliable judge is another human.
So, yes, you can teach maths and science to millions at practically no cost using videos and quizzes, and this is a fantastic step forward, but can we make similar gains in the teaching of other skills? Currently, skills development is a labour-intensive and very costly business, typically involving a great deal of face-to-face contact with a trainer or coach. Some individuals, some organisations, some countries have been able to afford this and will be able to sustain this investment even in a harsh economic climate. That leaves an awful lot of skills gaps and unemployed people.
So what would a massively scalable online training programme look like? Well, it could, like the Khan Academy and Stanford courses, make extensive use of online media to impart ideas and demonstrate skills. Trainees could, themselves, supplement these resources. It would be easy enough to use forums and all sorts of social media tools to allow these ideas to be discussed by trainees. So far so good, but now comes the difficult bit - providing opportunities for practice. So many online training courses over-focus on knowledge and cognitive skills, because these are the only computer-assessable elements, but competence comes through practising and obtaining feedback, not taking tests. With a little care, you can dream up activities which provide the right level of authentic practice to meet the trainee's need. The problem comes with providing feedback. If trainers do this, then any hopes of massive scalability go out the window. Which is why trainees need to do this for themselves.
Can trainees be relied on to provide each other with reliable feedback? I believe so, given very clear criteria and plenty of examples of what is acceptable and what is not. They may even be more rigorous in applying these criteria than the professionals, because it is in their interest for course completion to be held in high esteem. Yes, there would have to be checks and balances to protect against abuse - as there is on Wikipedia - but even this could, if necessary, be peer-driven.
I know there will be examples of situations where peer-review of competences will simply not work, where only the eye of an expert will do. But I'm also sure that there are plenty of situations where this approach would solve a lot of problems. What's more, I'm inclined to give it a go.

Ask yourself. What proportion of the music that you consume is at a live performance? Chances are it's something between 0 and 10%. What proportion of the drama that you watch is at the theatre, rather than at the cinema or on TV? I'd be surprised if it's more than a few percent. And what proportion of the sport you watch is in a stadium rather than on TV. You get the idea.
And yet, there's a good possibility that those live events that you have attended - music, drama, sport or whatever - are among the most memorable occasions of your life. Perhaps even peak experiences.
If you wanted to up the percentage of time you spent watching live music, drama or sport, it would come at a considerable price in terms of admission fees, travel, time and sheer adrenaline. Chances are that, unless you're rich and with considerable discretionary time, it would be completely impractical. In fact, with all the rush of modern working life, you're probably finding it increasingly impractical to watch TV or listen to radio at the times at which the programmes are broadcast. A great deal of your media consumption is asynchronous - under your time control - using iPods, hard disk video recorders, streaming media and the like.
Is it too fanciful to apply the same logic to learning? The default position is now asynchronous and online, giving you complete control over time and place. If you want to share an experience with other learners in real time, you go synchronous, with Skype or web conferencing. If you need a rich sensory experience that you'll remember for years, then spend the money, put aside the time and meet up face-to-face at a conference or workshop.
There was a time when the only way you could listen to music, watch a play or a sporting event, or attend a class was live and face-to-face, because there were no ways to transmit or record these events electronically. Quite clearly those days are gone and we are the richer for it.

I was interested to read the following news in a post by Scott Gavin:Atos, the largest IT services firm in Europe, is going to do away with internal e-mail. Atos CEO Thierry Breton says that only 15 percent of the 200 e-mails his staff receive on average are valuable, and that staff are wasting between 5 and 20 hours a week handling e-mail. Instead of e-mail, he wants staff to use instant messaging and other chat-like communications media.The same story was picked up by Mark Bethelemy in Internal Communication - Beyond Repair?
There's no doubt the employees at Atos are getting too many emails, as we all do. On the other hand, a fair number of these - 30 per day/week (it doesn't state) - are, apparently, valuable. That's a lot of communication that needs to be protected. While some sort of policy response is obviously called for if some of Atos' employees are wasting half their working week handling email, banning this medium completely in favour of a synchronous alternative may be a little rash. Babies and bathwater come to mind.
First of all, can a synchronous communication channel, like instant messaging, do as good a job as email when it comes to handling all that valuable and necessary communication? Maybe, if the aim is to quickly resolve an issue or make an arrangement, but only if all of the parties that need to be involved are available at the same time. Communication through synchronous media is quick and relatively informal, but it is extremely intrusive. Before we forget, asynchronous media, such as email, have a lot going for them. You can (although many choose not to) control when and where you access and respond to emails. You don't have to be open to email communication at all times, which means you have a fair chance of getting some concentrated work done. You can also take your time and provide a considered response to an email; there is no opportunity for reflection with instant messaging.
There are also practical advantages to asynchronous media, not least the fact that you get to keep a record of the communication. I have 100s of mailbox folders in my email application and these provide an absolutely invaluable way for me to stay organised and cut down on hard copies. If I worked within a large organisation and it had a really great online project management app, then that would be even better, but my clients and my collaborators are all over the place and I really do need to look after myself.
If I was CEO of Atos, I wouldn't ban email, but I would seek to change the way it is used. First of all there's the junk mail. Presumably they have spam filters to remove the obvious stuff, but all staff should be encouraged to divert what they don't need to their own junk folders. Probably a much bigger issue is that far too many people are copying far too many others on emails which are of limited value to them. This can be stopped with a few simple policies: Only copy other employees in on an email when they might need to take action as a result or they simply must have a record of the communication; and certainly don't copy attachments to people who are not required to read or store them.
Email has served us well for 30 years. While it is over used and other channels have emerged which do a better job of handling certain types of communication, there are plenty of circumstances in which email is the right choice. We just have to use it intelligently.

Throughout my book The New Learning Architect I take time out to look at real-life examples of learning architects in action. In this profile, we look at how on-demand learning can be integrated with formal training to provide the basis for a highly-successful software launch.

Hewden Stuart plc is the number one plant hire and equipment rental company in the UK and Europe. The company has approximately 1600 employees geographically dispersed over the UK in 100 branches and one head office in Manchester. Darren Owen started work with the company in 2005 and became involved with Project Horizon, a major enterprise resource planning (ERP) project. He ultimately became the training lead for the launch of the system.

The problem was how to get 1600 employees trained in eight weeks. The audience ranged from those who hadn’t been in a classroom for 30 years to some who couldn’t wait to get started. A proportion was worried that the new system might mean a cut in jobs. Some were relatively tech-savvy but many did not even know how to turn a PC on. Under the new system, everyone was going to be using a computer and in a very different way to the old DOS-based systems which the company had used previously. As Darren explained, “They needed bringing into the 21st century.”

Gently, gently catchy monkey

Darren did consider using e-learning for the formal element of the training, but quickly realised that this was inappropriate for the audience at this point in time. He explains: “Hewden excelled at technical training, in other words pulling a CAT digger apart and repairing it, but getting employees to learn a new computer system – certainly on this scale – was something new. The face-to-face aspect was really important.”

Darren also looked at using assessments as part of the course, but the senior leadership in the company felt that this may damage morale. Instead the plan was to give the authority to the trainers to keep an eye on the learners and highlight individuals that may need extra support or training. Most employees attended classroom events, but in some cases the anxiety level at attending a course was so high that they provided 1-2-1 tuition in a small number of cases.

In an effort to make the training as friendly as possible, the classroom sessions were run by the trainees’ colleagues rather than by outsiders. These were trained first and went on to become ‘super-users’ who could provide support when the project went live.

No more door stops

Another important aspect of the project was the support that was provided to employees in terms of on-going reference material. Darren explains: “We could visit any branch and see old training manuals wedging doors open and I just didn’t want our manuals ending up being used the same way. ERP implementations are notorious for the volume of change and most of it at the last minute. We also couldn’t justify the huge printing and distribution costs for paper based manuals, particularly when they would inevitably change very quickly.”

Hewden took what was for them a big leap into the unknown by using LearningGuide as a platform for reference materials to support the roll-out. Employees were introduced to LearningGuide in the classroom, where it was used as the basis for exercises that simulated the real-world environment. It was also here that expectations were clearly set that there were to be no printed guides.

The performance support strategy was to use LearningGuide as the first line of support, followed by support from the trainer and, if all else failed, a call to the help desk. At first the habit was to follow the old familiar route and to ignore the online resource, but that habit has since been reversed. When people rang the help desk, they would send them a link to the LearningGuide. It also helped that Hirewire, a new intranet, was set up around the same time by the corporate communications team, and this got employees used to going online for important information. In addition, support material covering the Microsoft Office applications was added to the LearningGuide system, further reinforcing the trend.

The LearningGuide materials used to support the ERP system were developed mainly in-house but with help from a supplier. Darren admits this was a big job, but is sure the effort was worthwhile: “The performance improvements were very visible. We knew whether or not they could follow the new process and work with the new system. In that respect it was pretty black and white compared to some other training programmes.”

Darren was born in 1975, obtained a BSc in Computation at UMIST and has since obtained 11 years’ consulting experience in the field of technology education, covering government, private and public sectors. Having worked in over 30 countries, Darren has learnt to adapt the style of his training programmes to suit learning styles, personality and cultures. He is now working in Canada on a major global ERP project.

Jay Cross, someone who I respect immensely professionally and like as a person, has accused me, with some justification, of 'sensationalist claptrap'. At a time when, in the UK, we are in the middle of the Leveson enquiry, which is looking at the 'culture, practice and ethics of the press', Jay's comment hit home. No-one has been more angry than me as, every day, more evidence is revealed of the disgraceful practices of the UK tabloids, yet  perhaps, in my own small way, I am as guilty as any.

When I started blogging, I saw it primarily as an activity for personal reflection, a way of clarifying and externalising my thoughts. And when you start blogging that's pretty well all you can do, because it takes time to attract readers. Over time, as more and more people followed my blog, it became apparent that what I said could have a positive or negative impact on other people, much like a column in a newspaper.

It soon also became clear that blogging had become the domain of a select bunch of die-hard enthusiasts and was never going to become a tool for the masses, for whom Facebook status updates and tweets are more than adequate forms of expression. As a result, I came to the conclusion in 2009 that blogging is journalism, pure and simple.

In 2010 I took this analogy a step further, when I posted why we're all headline writers now:
"... we’re all becoming skilled headline writers, or at least we should be. With emails and blog posts, our messages will never get read if the headlines are not sufficiently enticing. With tweets, SMS and status updates, all typically short messages, the message itself has to become a headline. If not, it will be scanned in a microsecond and quickly cast aside."In many ways I preferred it when I could write whatever I thought on my blog and no-one noticed. But I have to accept and take responsibility for the fact that my blog is in the public arena and that, if I am just a little clumsy in the way I express my thoughts, I can hurt people.

My crime, by the way, was to suggest that you beware who's selling informal learning. My point, slightly tongue in cheek, was that many commentators on learning and development, myself included, are getting on a bit, and have maybe forgotten how useful formal learning can be when you are a novice. Only a thought.

There is no doubt whatsoever in my mind that historically we have underplayed the importance of informal learning, whether that's experiential, on-demand or social. I'm equally convinced that, with the proliferation of great social networking tools and the ever-increasing confidence that learners are displaying when it comes to managing their own learning, informal learning should rightfully play a central role in our future learning architectures.
But I'm also as sure as I can be that we will still have plenty of need for formal learning in the workplaces and colleges of the future; that means a curriculum, professional tuition, formal materials and some form of assessment. Why? To some extent because employers need assurance that critical skills and knowledge are in place. But mainly because employees themselves want to equip themselves with the core competences of their new trades or professions and it is really important to them that there is tangible evidence of their achievements through some form of certification. Perhaps even more importantly, lacking the elaborate mental schemas of expert practitioners, they desperately need structure and support; they don't know what they don't know and they don't know how best to address this.
Therein lies my concern. Experts suffer from the curse of knowledge. Their responses to the demands of their everyday jobs are mostly automatic. They find it really hard to empathise with the difficulties encountered by novices. They find formal, structured learning interventions tiresome and patronising, largely because they no longer need the formality and structure. They cannot remember that once upon a time they too were beginners. They can no longer see the relevance of qualifications, forgetting that qualifications are only important if you don't have them.
Given that it takes at least ten years to become expert in anything and often longer, most experts are older, and informal learning tends to be most strongly advocated by older, very experienced, expert and independent learners, i.e. those for whom informal learning is the preferred option and all that is needed. And before you say anything, I will happily put myself in this category. I haven't been on any sort of formal course related to my work for more than twenty years and definitely prefer to manage my own learning. When I was in my 20s and 30s it was a different story. I set out to take advantage of every formal learning opportunity I could. I collected qualifications and professional memberships, because at that age it's what you do if you're reasonably ambitious.
Models like 70:20:10 only serve to confuse. As Ben Betts explains in The Ubiquity of Informal Learning, the model implies that we should be putting 70% of our effort into experiential learning and 20% into social. Yet, if the model has any use, it is not as a prescription for future projects but as a way of reflecting, as we look back on our careers, how much we have learned in different ways. Our learning architectures do need to encourage and support the experiential, the on-demand and the non-formal, but we shouldn't forget that the 10% can be an important catalyst for all other forms of learning, and a lifesaver for novices.
So be cautious of oldies like me if, in their enthusiasm, they over-sell the idea of informal learning. We have forgotten what it's like to be a beginner.
P.S. I may be about to break my 20-year fast when it comes to formal learning. I am seriously considering joining one of the new series of free, online courses being offered by Stanford (see post from Stephen Downes). I rather fancy the one on human-computer interaction.

Sometimes it seems that the more you think about blended solutions, the harder it is to define what is and what is not blended. This decision is complicated by the fact that there are so many aspects of an solution that you can choose to blend:

Learning methods:You can blend the educational and training strategies that you use (exposition, instruction, guided discovery, exploration).You can blend the social contexts in which the learning takes place (the learner alone, the learner with a teacher/trainer/coach, the learner with a group of peers).
Learning media:You can blend the primary medium used to deliver your methods (face-to-face, offline media, online media, telephone).You can blend between asynchronous media and synchronous media.
I'm coming to the conclusion that blending is a continuum, from not blending at all at one extreme, through to very significant shifts in methods and media within a single solution. Let's look at some points upon this continuum, starting with the least blended:

1. You use a single method and medium throughout, e.g. (1) reading from a book, (2) coaching face-to-face.
2. You use a variety of methods, albeit within a single social context, and a single medium, e.g. (1) a classroom course with case studies, presentations, discussion, role-play; (2) an e-learning course including demos, simulations, quizzes.
3. You use a variety of methods, employing different social contexts, but still only a single medium, e.g. (1) within a face-to-face classroom course, there is a mix of self-study, one-to-one coaching and group work; (2) within an online distance learning course, there is a mix of self-study, one-to-one support, asynchronous collaboration and live online group sessions.
4. You use a variety of methods, employing different social contexts, but this time you use a variety of media as well, e.g. a mix of face-to-face workshops, self-study with printed materials and CDs, online forum discussions, telephone tutor support.

Clearly number 1 above is not blended and number 4 is, from any perspective, but what about 2 and 3? They are blended in some respects but not others. And does it really matter whether a solution can be defined as blended or not? Surely the only important issue is whether it works.
It would be easy to argue that, with so little agreement on definitions, the concept of a blended solution is not actually that useful, but I can't accept that. So many solutions, particularly in workplace learning, employ a single approach throughout when this doesn't really deliver the results. The approach may work for some aspects of the solution but not for all. A good example would be a stand-alone classroom workshop that attempts to deliver a body of knowledge, as well as provide opportunities for practice and discussion. The classroom may do a good job of the latter but not the former. And it ignores the fact that learning continues beyond the classroom into the workplace, and may need to be supported by coaching and reference materials. The whole idea of blending is to use the right methods and media at each and every step in a solution, and not only the obvious formal elements, but the non-formal, the on-demand and the experiential as well.

I've been trying to figure out for years now why sitting on a train is such a productive environment when it comes to designing and writing. It has occurred to me in the past that, when I'm struggling to get something done, I'd be better off getting a ticket to somewhere - anywhere - and not getting off until the job's done.
Obviously this doesn't work if the train's so crowded you have to stand. That's why at peak times I'm happy to pay for a first class fare if it means I can concentrate properly on what I'm doing. The economic argument is straightforward: the additional cost of a first class fare v the value of a really productive work environment. In other words, think of the fare as an investment, not an expense.
Which doesn't explain why the environment is so productive. There's one obvious reason of course: you are at least partially protected from interruptions. Yes, you can get calls on your mobile and yes, with a good signal, you can receive emails, but somehow it seems so much easier to put these to one side and get on with the job. But there's something more. Something about the way you are cocooned in a tight space with just your screen in front of you. Something about the motion of the train. It just works.
Of course, the same argument works for learning. A train journey is also ideal for reading, viewing, listening and interacting with learning materials, particularly on a tablet (see Why does learning content seem so much more exciting on an iPad?). And with a set of noise-reducing headphones, you really can escape into your own little world.
Three posts this morning. How come? I travelled up to London yesterday and returned just now. On the train.

I'm convinced that the future of e-learning will be on tablet devices. Not so much performance support, because you need that to hand every minute of the day and a smart phone is the obvious vehicle. But for learning, a tablet seems such a perfect fit. Since DevLearn last week, when it seemed every other person was carrying an iPad, I've been trying to figure out just what it is that tablets offer as a delivery medium for learning which a laptop can't do equally as well. I'm still not really sure but here are my first thoughts:

• There is still a degree of novelty about using these devices. That will fade, of course, but for now using a tablet seems more fun, more contemporary, more engaging.
• A laptop is a tool associated with work, with all sorts of stress-inducing negative connotations. It's a 'lean forward' device, goal-oriented and pressured. A tablet comes with no such baggage. It's much more likely to be used in a 'lean back' mode, which is more conducive to reflective learning.
• A tablet is portable enough to use on a train or a plane, or when you're hanging about waiting somewhere. But it has a big enough screen to display just about any learning content with ease. And screen resolution is only going to get better.
• The display on a tablet is bright and colourful. Somehow everything looks more vibrant and exciting. More importantly, you can only look at one app a time, so you're not constantly distracted by what's going on in other windows.
• Tablets are extremely easy to set up and use. They are computers but they don't look like them. It's hard to imagine a learner so technophobic that they couldn't use one with ease.

That's a lot of reasons, and I've only just started.
No wonder every tool vendor is rushing to make sure they can output to every tablet device out there, especially the iPad.

This time last year, I wrote the following in the Onlignment blog under the heading Why I’m not going to speak from a script again:For some reason, there are lessons that take a long time to learn – however often an action leads to negative consequences, you just seem bound to repeat it. One lesson I really hope I have now learned is that reading from a script doesn’t work – at least not for me. In the past few years I have tried this in numerous situations:

• giving speeches (such as at the E-Learning Awards a week or so back)

• when presenting a Pecha Kucha (that’s 20 slides each displayed for 20 seconds if you’ve yet to be initiated)

• when recording a screencast (it sounds so much better when improvised)

• when recording a podcast (free-form interviews work much better)

There are good reasons for thinking that reading from a script will work. After all, the best TV presenters do it convincingly. And you can be absolutely sure that you’re going to cover every point clearly. However, reading from a script doesn’t work well in a face-to-face setting because it forces you to lose eye contact with the audience for sustained periods. And even when you’re recording a voice-over it’s really hard not to come over as wooden and rather boring.Can it be made to work? Well, perhaps, but professionals have one of two advantages: either they’ve got the luxury of a teleprompter, which allows them to retain eye contact with the audience or camera; or they’ve rehearsed well enough that they’ve got so familiar with the words that they only need to refer to them periodically. As Mark Twain said,”It usually takes me more than three weeks to prepare a good impromptu speech.”I’ve made two resolutions. First, to avoid having to use any type of script if at all possible. Far better to trust in your instincts and talk around some key headings. Second, where a tight structure is absolutely essential, make sure I write the words in a form that suits being spoken and not read, and then put in the hard work as actors do and learn your lines.As a natural speaker, my father is my model here. He would quite happily get up and speak at any occasion. He never prepared and he never had a single note. He just said the right thing without fuss and sat down again. No slides and few jokes, but effortless.So, last night I tested my resolve from last year and delivered my speech at this year's E-Learning Awards without any script at all. I had a rough outline which I sketched out in Evernote and revised periodically over a couple of weeks. I added to this on the day to include references to new data such as the release of Towards Maturity's 2011 benchmark report and Donald Clark's review of the UK e-learning sector. This would have been more difficult to achieve with a highly formal speech. I ran through the key points in my mind perhaps four or five times on the day to make sure I wasn't going to forget anything important, such as thanking the judges for all their hard work, but I was only memorising a sequence not a form of words.
Did it work? Yes. In fact it worked just fine. It is much more engaging for an audience to hear you speaking naturally rather than reading aloud, and it is much more enjoyable for you as speaker. You've just got to trust yourself. After all, every one of us speaks on a whole variety of topics to a whole load of different people every day of our lives. Why should a formal event be any different?

I've seen some really good examples of self-study e-learning in the past few weeks. First when I sat in for a day judging for The E-Learning Awards and second during the Demo Fest at DevLearn 2011 here in Las Vegas. These were programmes that delivered on the promise. They tackled a topic that for which e-learning was an appropriate solution and they didn't compromise in making sure that there was a successful learning outcome for the learner.
On the other hand I've seen some terrible stuff over the past twelve months, and I've met plenty of people outside the ed-tech community who have admitted to me that they can't stand e-learning. This should not be the case, at least not on such a widespread scale. After all, we've been doing this for at least 30 years now under various guises. We should know what we're doing.
There seem to be two problems. We over-engineer for information transfer and we under-engineer for learning.
Let's take the first. Cammy Bean did a great job in her session yesterday, called Clicky, clicky, bling, bling, of drawing attention to the absurd lengths to which we sometimes now go supposedly to engage the learner. It's gloss. It's razzmatazz. Sorry, but for me it's a turn off. Extravagant, glitzy graphics don't entice me to pay attention; they signal that I'm about to be presented with a commercial. It's time to put the kettle on.
Mostly, the developers of these programmes are going to these lengths because they know that they're really just passing over information. They feel embarrassed about this, so they want to compensate with all sorts of extra goodies. But surely all that matters is that the information is relevant and useful. If it's not, why are you delivering it at all? If it is, aren't there simpler ways of putting it across? What's wrong with a nicely written and well illustrated web page or PDF? When I'm looking for information on the web, I don't complain if I get presented with simple web pages or YouTube videos. In fact I'm really happy with these. Equally I don't complain when the books I read are full of words. Surely that model's worked well now for hundreds of years.
The second problem is that so many e-learning programs simply don't take people far enough on their learning journeys. Yes, they present the underlying facts, concepts and processes. Yes, they may include some modest case study or scenario, perhaps just some sort of quiz. But it takes a lot more than one superficial practice activity to build a skill. Usually our first attempt at any new skill serves only to alert us to its difficulty. It's a case of conscious incompetence. It takes repeated practice with realistic challenges and personalised feedback to build the confidence required to go to the next step. Designing this stuff is difficult, but then no-one said instructional design was easy.
Perhaps what I'm saying is this. Do less formal e-learning. Use other, much more straightforward media instead for information transfer. And the e-learning projects that we do undertake we should do more thoroughly, making sure that our learners really do achieve the required competence. Don't over-engineer, don't under-engineer. Get the balance right.