E-Learning Council

 

By Mary Word

The core of David’s talk concerned the creative use of video and clips. We have all seen the talking heads, emblematic of much of the video used in courses, and although a big step up from reading text on a screen, it is still a passive activity. But there are ways to use a talking head to better engage the learner. One easy way is put it in an unexpected place. Instead of having it as the content on the page, use it to ask a question in a quiz, or act as the feedback to a question.

Put key information in the video, and when it finishes, question the user about the content. If you do this please ask them about something you really want them to learn, not something that just proves they saw the video. I once had to take one of those online driving safety courses. One of the course videos was about car crashes (actually, most of them were…) and I took notes about braking distances and car speed and other pertinent data, only to be asked what color the girlfriend’s blouse was. I had to re-watch the darn movie to get that important bit of information.

Allow the user to pause the video, to have control of how they watch it. Or set points in the time line that pause the video and display a question or show an explanation of the action before continuing. A good example is a cooking video that pauses at points in the process to point out details and help the user understand exactly what is being demonstrated.

Have the user try to figure out a conclusion from what they are seeing. David showed us a very cool New York Times page with several little videos of people saying something, and you have to spot which ones are lying and which are telling the truth. The conference audience participated with suggestions of ways to improve the interactivity, such as a show me button to annotate the video—how do you know they are lying? What are the visual cues to look for?

He showed us a video with an introduction featuring a girl who is explaining what to do. After her spiel, the user is supposed to perform an action of some sort. While waiting, she does not go to a still image, but fidgets in a small loop, which saves bandwidth while providing some interest for the viewer.

I do wonder if this can be counter-productive. I used to have an ancient computer game of a table of card players. You could pick the other players. If you did not respond in a certain time—left the game or got distracted—they would have conversations among themselves, and I would sometimes not play just to see what they said. You don’t want your content bridges to be more interesting than the course itself.

More to follow.

 

By Adib Masumian

According to the Yankee Group, 38% of American workers are part of the mobile workforce. The speed and flexibility of mobile training is imperative to enhancing the learning experience and productivity of the modern workforce. Organizations need systems, processes, and managers that can handle the growing mobile workforce effectively. This panel discussed how training strategy and tactics need to evolve to accommodate the movement away from the desk.

The panelists included:

• Carl Hooker—Director for Instructional Technology, Eanes Independent School District
• Dave Stachura—Sales Enablement Program Builder and Social Learning Learning Management Systems Expert, AMD
• Marcus Turner—Chief Technology Officer, Atomic Axis

The panel was moderated by Sanjay Nasta, Chief Executive Officer of MicroAssist, Inc. and Atomic Axis and founder of the E-Learning Council.

In this blog post, I will cover some of the most salient talking points that the panelists discussed.

Sanjay kicked off the conversation by asking Carl about his justification for buying 8,000 iPads for Eanes school district. Carl responded by pointing out the importance that educators should be placing on “return on learning.” Leveraging technology can quantifiably level the playing field. Instead of accepting the traditional bell curve, where you have the best-performing students in the middle and stragglers and prodigies underperforming in the margins (either because the class is too easy or too hard), educators can place technology in the hands of students, which can empower them to participate in more critical, collaborative activity, bringing stragglers up to speed and keeping prodigies sufficiently engaged.

Carl also noted the importance of observing how students are developing 21st century skills. Thus, educators should focus on how students are collaborating in the classroom using technology, not old metrics like improved math scores. Carl closed his remarks by citing some encouraging statistics, such as how 85% of kids are more motivated to learn when they can enjoy more immediate access to educational technology. In addition, by making kids active learners, their retention has been shown to increase to a whopping 90% from only 5%.

Sanjay then went on to ask Marcus about one of his passions, the intersection of technology and learning, and why Marcus felt that this was such an important subject. Marcus started off by declaring that “technology is the ultimate platform.” This is especially true when it comes to mobile, chiefly because of mobile’s inherent just-in-time capabilities. Since most of us are now welded at the hip to mobile technology, we can see that being able to access bite-size bits of information on demand has never been this efficient—indeed, information as a whole has never been as readily available as it is to us today.

Afterwards, Sanjay proceeded to ask Dave about his conception of an ideal mobile workforce and what effectively training them would entail. Dave noted that mobile is absolutely the method of choice used by salespeople consume information. This includes training, too. Furthermore, Dave highlighted the importance of “meeting the sales force where they are”—in other words, if they’ve already got their phone on them all the time, then it would prove most effective to deliver the training over their phone during the lulls in their schedules, like when they’re in transit. This method, Dave contends, has a more lasting impact than forcing the salespeople to sit down for a scheduled training program. For example, attending a class on-site is a less convenient option for salespeople, and thus an immediately less appealing one. In such a scenario, attendees would be more likely to forget what they’ve learned more quickly than they would if the training were delivered to them on a mobile medium at a time convenient for them.

In sum, the panel yielded an enlightening discussion on the inroads mobile has made thus far into such disciplines as sales, education, and more. A video composed of segments from the panel discussion will be made available soon. In the meantime, please share your thoughts with us on the highlights we’ve written here.