#ict4d challenges to deliver sustainable #mLearning in developing regions

In a previous post I linked to a presentation by John Traxler, focusing on the discrepancy between current mLearning projects constructed by the mLearning research community that are often lacking rigorous evaluation and sustainable options, and the mobile corporate world pushing for scalable, sustainable mobile projects that are based on pragmatic, transparent facts.

The video below is provided by the University of Kwazulu-Natal, the recording can be downloaded from their seminar website here. The video you see here is the low bandwidth version, but on their site you will find a high resolution version (which works great on a television set as well).

John highlights the lack of mLearning pilots being evaluated in full, and the lack of reports on mLearning projects that did not reach the goals they were build for. For - as he points out - full reporting of mLearning endeavors will allow all of us (academics, corporations, ict4d community...) to really engage in meaningful education through mobile devices (if such is possible), all the while allowing both local (not localized) and really contextual pedagogies (based on pedagogies that are meaningful within the culture in which education will take place) to be developed, leading towards meaningful education through the use of mobile devices (or any ubiquitous technologies).

All through his talk he links to the philosophical undertow of technological beliefs that have and are coloring our contemporary development in mobile learning, and as such risk being at the core of what is and is not working with target populations that are not fully understood. For - as John mentions - if you go in as a technologist, any project will be evaluated based on technology, while if you are an educationalist, chances are all results of a project will be linked to education... and so on. What we need is an interdisciplinary understanding of how learning works, how it differentiates between cultures/regions/groups... and if how these differences can give rise to educational solutions that are sustainable, scalable yet at the same time can be adjusted to local needs and pedagogies.

Well, not sure if my brief transcript is clear, but the presentation surely works inspirational.

Business models for #gaming #medialearning2011

A panel of game developers who all shed their light on how they got their games funded/financed during the media and learning conference in Brussels, Belgium. It was amazing to see that the main route was via government funding (national). In-game advertising was not discussed (though would be interesting) and no corporate sponsors were mentioned either, though I can imagine that Disney would be interested in providing Disney land decors for an educational game?

Below you will find my transcript of what was said
Members of the panel: Lieve Achten (empowering via gaming), Balthazar Fernandez-Manjon from Universidad complutense de Madrid, spain (computer science background working on eLearning platforms and standards) and Swen Vincke from Larian Studios, a gaming company who built the fabulous MonkeyTales game to enhance math skills for all learners.
Getting money from the parents, as they want the best for their children.
Quickie on Monkeytales math for different ages, international (currently UC,US, Belgium, Poland... growing). The game adapts with an algorithm which enables the program to see how s/he good that student is, the program will adapt to the capacities of teh child in order to keep a motivational pace going that will stimulate the child and not demotivate it.
So even if you take it as an adult, the program will give you increasingly difficult challenges.

Which partners, main challenges for these funding partners
Lieve, works very low-tech so sponsorship for logistics (classrooms, providing students, ...) so she went to the ministry of education and youth to collaborate on this project. She got a lot of skeptical remarks on the 'serious game' idea.
She emphasizes the need to find out what language the different stakeholders understand, so diversifying your business and logic case.
At this stage the governments are more positive towards educational gaming.
Her games are aimed at disabled learners. The teachers are involved from early on (learning labs). The game starts from real life school content, translated to their own experience, then redesigning it towards a game. The teacher often get coaching roles, which the learners can connect to. Once the ball is rolling, it becomes easier to get funds. A game must also feel un-learning, otherwise, with too much pedagogy, the learners think 'get a life' and leave it.

Swen: governments are quite open to it, but frightened by the cost of building a 'real' game. The challenge is to put yourself out there against the competition, so you need research proof that the game HAS impact. So get research funds, manage the enormous amount of curricula. so you will need to be able to sell on the international market, this makes it depending on the curriculum standards in all these countries (quite challenging). you need to demonstrate that the kids will learn more by playing this game. But every algorithm takes years to develop, implement and evaluate. So time is an important factor. You also need to offer the learner a satisfying feeling, the game must deliver what it says it delivers AND without exploding in your face as you are playing it. So finding the strong common denominator with regard to public expectations. Strong surplus of gaming is memorization, by playing it again and again.Multiple disciplines need to be collaboration to get a game going.

Balthazar: problem to incorporate each of the stakeholders language to get positive results on your demand. You risk a deadlock if one of the key stakeholders stalls. The qualitative methodology of the game is also essential. The pedagogical end of the game is tricky, for educationalists come with a long list of learning needs. you need to combine all of the stakeholders concerns to get a high quality result that can stand the test of time and learning. Funding is also a challenge: ministry of education, but a lot of paperwork, but once the money is provided by the government, sometimes the gov contacts the gaming industry, they want to make a clear profit out of it... and this risks your project to become obsolete or missed. So what Balthazar did: sell it to Harvard. This enabled them to get local funding, as the local gov saw the Harvard sell as a quality mark. You must also make the game sustainable (will it be able to shift to 3D, new computers, new devices...), how will you tackle this? You need to make any educational game update-able. Games should be authentic learning. So in-game assessment should be integrated as well. Otherwise you have a discrepancy between learning (gaming) and assessment (paper and pen). The game must also be secured, at all levels... so this costs as well. And if a security breach happens... you risk liability. this is the reason Balthazar builds simple user games, not multi-player games as security is different for each of them.
Working with national standardization institutes of a country REALLY helps in getting funding, as this includes national compliance across that nation.
Games are the new narrative of education, previously it was movies. In the end games could be monetized. (Refers to scratch platform of MIT)

Remarks from the audience
Currently there is no serious game market. Military is one of the key funders of serious games, but what about ethics?

The funding risks killing the serious game market. As the research is subjective, but far too much money is spend on poor research. But the consumer market could be revived. But another risk is the open content which risks killing developing countries as well.

There is a discussion on ethics because of the negative views on killing games. So how to bridge learning and gaming via gaming traditions (shooter up...).

Another option is the learning apps that are on the market, and the completely self-generated games. But to produce this, it takes expertise and you always will and this takes years. That is why teachers will not be able to build games just in a jiffy.

Three wonderful resources for eLearning

The last couple of weeks I have encountered some very useful resources, so I wanted to share it. The text accompanying the resources is taken out of the documents themselves. I found all of the documents relevant: the first for practical eLearning development, the second for getting a more in-depth understanding of lifelong learning options, and the 3rd one to get a better understanding of the effect (or non-effect) discussion still accompanying blended learning.

Choosing authoring tools by ADL (29 April 2010): the purpose of this paper is to help those involved in the process of choosing authoring tools to make an informed decision. The paper presents a range of considerations for choosing tools, whether as an enterprise-wide acquisition or a single user purchase, and includes a sampling of current tools categorized according to the kind of product they are intended to produce.

Good practices and methodologies for HEI (Higher Educational Institutes) using ICT in the different fields of LifeLong Learning (30 October 2010).
The report is summarizing the outcome of a long research work that we made with the partners during the project based on a detailed research plan. We collected with different techniques possible Good practices of ICT use in the European Higher Educational arena, and categorised them in 9 territories and 8 areas. (See more details in the research plan.) Upon agreed definition we selected (shortlisted) those where at least two criteria of excellence could be observed. The partnership then gathered detailed data about the selected practices with different techniques, most commonly by updating or making interviews with them.
Finally 35 detailed cases were quantitatively analyzed by a common grid of 30 questions in 8 areas from management to communication. The analysis show the most frequently cited common elements in respective areas that lead to good practice, as well as territory specific outcomes where some aspects were cited only in one or two territory cases.
(Yes, this is really a report with formal language).

Evaluation of evidence based practices in online learning: a meta-analysis and review of online learning studies (September 2010).
A systematic search of the research literature from 1996 through July 2008 identified more than a thousand empirical studies of online learning. Analysts screened these studies to find those that (a) contrasted an online to a face-to-face condition, (b) measured student learning outcomes, (c) used a rigorous research design, and (d) provided adequate information to calculate an effect size. As a result of this screening, 50 independent effects were identified that could be subjected to meta-analysis. The meta-analysis found that, on average, students in online learning conditions performed modestly better than those receiving face-to-face instruction. The difference between student outcomes for online and face-to-face classes—measured as the difference between treatment and control means, divided by the pooled standard deviation—was larger in those studies contrasting conditions that blended elements of online and face-to-face instruction with conditions taught entirely face-to-face. Analysts noted that these blended conditions often included additional learning time and instructional elements not received by students in control conditions. This finding suggests that the positive effects associated with blended learning should not be attributed to the media, per se.

#lak11 getting #learning #analytics on track demands interdisciplinary teams and connectedness

Grasping all the factors of learning analytics is at the core of LAK11 course. In the first week John Fritz took the mic of the Elluminate session (you can see the recording here) and got all the LAK11 participants introduced to learning analythics.

In order for learning analytics to take off, strategies must be in place that clearly recommend teacher or trainer interventions to pick-up those learners who are at risk of dropping out of courses or trainings.

Need for interdisciplinary teams
While listening to his presentation, I immediately got the idea that the mere fact of learning analytics is interdisciplinary. You cannot analyze learner metrics and hope to take educational action, if the educational intervention team is not connecting different fields together.

John mentioned in this presentation that the biggest question for learning analytics is: how do we move on, where do we go from here? John mentioned that most educational and training institutes are still at the analysis stage, but they do not move on to an intervention stage to get their learners on track. I think this is part of the fact that within institutions interdisciplinary teams are scarce. Learning analytics demands more than the data, it demands true understanding of learning theories, of sociology, of instructional design, of psychology, IT (if not more). So if an institute wants to cross the barrier of mere analyzing their students, they will have to build a framework, or at least see if framework builders are willing to work together in their institutes.

Is there such a thing as zone of proximal development for researcher teams?
I feel that if a new research that expands across many fields of interest has any chance of succeeding, it must connect experts from all of these fields. That is easier said then done, as the diversity of fields might put the experts so far away, that there is no common ground on which to stand and understand themselves. So, getting together a mix of disciplines is not enough. In a way all of these experts must be within their own zones of proximal development, their knowledge must be close enough to be able to link to the newly to construct knowledge in an understandable way.
If an interdisciplinary task-force to work on learning analytics and its strategies needs to be put together, I think the profiles of this team must be overlapping just enough to allow cross-understanding.

Self-regulated learning
John also talked about giving the learners the tools to adjust their learning. This is a huge meta-learning challenge, for it demands that learners understand many of the factors that influence their learning, which seems difficult to me. Nevertheless, what John says about this is interesting. It might help some students, but at the same time I feel that if even the researchers do not come up with strong solutions, how can we put most of the burden on the learners? (but I do agree with John that learners must also take responsibility for their learning). John mentions a great resource for research on self-regulated learning: Zimmerman.

Ethics, technology and learning

This last couple of days have drained my spirit, mainly because my ethics were challenged on different levels. I did not find the energy to write about it until today and it is with a sad heart that I reflect on why I have felt a bit in despair.

Why do governments politicize education? (Becta in the UK, long-term vision in Belgium)

Belgium and long/short term educational vision

In Belgium education was in the hands of a visionary politician for some years. During his reign long-term vision constructed results in getting young learners from other national backgrounds integrated in our school system (and society), and in restructuring education so it would no longer be discriminatory for youngsters who were not good in languages/maths but good in technical intelligence. He was a visionary politician because he cared about results and he crossed political boundaries while gathering his cabinet (people with lots of experience and who belief in durability, loose from political views). After yet another fall of the government a different politician became minister of education, a different one though from the same political party. He had a short term vision and wanted to profile himself, he immediately started cutting initiatives. Which one’s? the ones that got good results with young learners from vulnerable socio-economic groups and the restructuring theme that would rectify some of the big Belgian education problems (e.g. less respect for hands-on jobs).

But a society is only as strong as its weakest link: get everyone educated in something they feel comfortable with to build a strong society.

Becta in the United Kingdom

Becta is the government agency leading the national drive to ensure the effective and innovative use of technology throughout learning. It got great results and – in my opinion – Becta single handedly got Britain into the 21^st century teaching by taking all (well, many) of the teachers along the learning path into the knowledge era. They produced an amazing amount of publication, accessible to all and tackling technology/learning issues that matter to many of us.

But the government changed, and because of this Becta will be shutting down in November 2010, in spite of many good learning outcomes and products.

So why do governments politicize learning?

Why can the military achieve what civil society cannot

In the last weeks I had the pleasure of meeting people actively involved in training soldiers. I am against violence, and I do belief no one on earth, no country, should have a military, but e.g. civilian aid army. But I cannot deny that the military offers opportunities for some young adults that they would otherwise never have (but they also risk their lives). No matter what group of human society, it is always a group of humans with all their nice and less friendly characteristics.

While talking to the teachers and exchanging ideas I wondered how they managed to reach learners that society could not reach. For example: many young recruits do not master basic calculations and/or reading/writing skills. This means that society and its education missed the boat. It is true that this is a joint responsibility, schools, parents, government should work together to improve the overall state of human comprehension in our young people.

The strange thing is military does reach them, and some of these young adults actually learn content that they did not absorb before (although I assume they had the chance). So why is that? Is it because the military actually use learning techniques that attract these young adults? (e.g. some of them got a Nintendo DS to learn simple math skills. Why? All of the peers were using Nintendo DS to play games, so if anyone was using a Nintendo DS, the peers would think “ah, he or she is playing a game” – so not loosing face while actually learning to count.

Another thing was language: recruits got language training, okay basic, but still it worked and they were actually eager to learn more (at first only words were offered, but on demand of the recruits complete sentences were offered for learning).

With new technology they were also provided just-in-time first aid help lessons, with simulations they were trained for in-the-field situations….

Say results would show learning outcomes improve drastically with the use of simulations, games… (Which is proven for some digital learning activities), than why can’t the government invest more money in them to reach those hard to reach learners that the military actually reaches?

Why is it still about technology and not about learning?

All of us that depend on funding know that if you stick the latest technological hype into a funding proposal, linking it to learning in some way or another, you have a far bigger chance to get your proposal accepted. Currently European politicians linked to EU funding say: we should get more learning results from the learning projects that run/ran, what are the long-term results (if any)? And indeed learning results are what count, not the technology. But is learning today actually about learning, or is it just another economic reason to sell stuff to regions or people that sometimes simply do not have the budget to sustain these technical solutions once the funding stops?

What are we to do?

How can we all insure that no matter what, learning and human consideration will improve with any technology for learning we introduce? How can we put education on the foreground and not technology? How can we opt for long-term actions leaping across political boundaries instead of ‘look-at-what-I-did’ projects from short term leaders?

Please, make eLearning simple! The eLearningQueen does it…in a Survival Book

Sometimes you just want to read a fun book about your profession. Fun, exciting, a good overview is all I need at times. So what a great find I had, because the eLearningQueen (= who is a Dog, who has an human assistant: Susan Smith Nash) manages to do just that! Read this book (this is the link to the free version, which will only be here for a limited amount of time!), it gives a nice, light and fun overview on eLearning.

Even the (sub)title is fun: “Elearner survival guide: Everything you need to succeed in the wild and wooly world of mobile learning and e–learning, and hybrid college, K–12 and career courses.”

Susan writes with wit and clarity, her blog is captivating and … I am jealous (in a good way) of her writing and learning skills. So, I will take what she wrote and how she wrote it with me, to contemplate on what I will do in the next couple of months.

What does Susan tackle in the 295 pages of her guide? She tackles all the topics in fluent and short paragraphs, and linking it harmoniously to relevant research.

• She begins with what eLearning is, and covers some of the known terms (e.g. push<=> pull);
• There are also hints on what study skills we will all need to succeed in eLearning (self regulation, checklists, practical steps, collage credits, free online software training,…and twelve very useful sanity-saving tips)
• Chapters 3 and 4 cover writing skills, dividing it into technical writing and research writing tips.
• Mobile learning and Web2.0 are covered in short, but very understandable paragraphs. In this section Susan also looks at practical adaptation in a k12 (teenage students) setting.
• Getting personal with looking at profiles of eLearners and careers.
• Now, and this part I truly LOVED immensely (because it linked me to some persons from my past, which… I did not take into account in the last couple of years). Susan managed to clarify to me that personal hero’s of whatever discipline can be linked to eLearning: picking up examples from the wonderful poet Maya Angelou , and the great political activist and anarchist Emma Goldman – need to read ‘Living my Life’ again, a.o.
• The last chapter focuses on institutional challenges and eLearning, or what they mean to the eLearner, which is also very relevant if you are linked to an educational institution.

So, I am very grateful to Susan for this unexpected book treat, I will ponder on what she wrote, and how she wrote it for my seclusion week is coming up. This means I go home, buy everything to last me a week (at least), cut off my internet connection, log-off my phone, leave the door bell ringing, push all humans out of the house… and do whatever I want, when I wanted, completely disconnected… for one week. Time to meditate about where I am going, and looking whether my passion is indeed still fulfilled with the work I am doing, at the place I am doing it. I have radically changed my life a couple of times trying to synchronize my professional life with learning passions and up until now it has worked. Professional satisfaction is crucial for me, for it takes up most of my waking hours. But fine-tuning is still needed, so meditating is a good path and eye opener.

Blooms taxonomy for a digital world, including mobile learning

Andrew Churches is curriculum manager of computer studies and teaching and Learning technologies at the Kristin school in Albany Auckland, New Zeeland. His educational wiki, called educational origami, was voted as the best wiki in 2008 and in 2009 he was again nominated for best educational wiki.

What makes his wiki so interesting is that it focuses on the core of TELearning, the learning itself. He does this in a variety of ways, but what caught my eye (Thanks to the formidable Wilfred Rubens), was how he uses and interprets Blooms taxonomy for this digital age.

Bloom’s taxonomy was not revised by Andrew, but by Lorin Anderson and David Krathwohl, who published their findings in 2001. The key change in Anderson's and Kathwohl's approach was that they added verbs rather than nouns for each of Bloom’s categories, and that they pushed creating to the top of the thinking skills. So where does Andrew’s wiki come in? Well, the way Andrew makes Bloom’s revised taxonomy relevant is amazing.

In just 75 pages Andrew succeeded in giving me a deeper understanding of everything I collaboratively set up with learners and link it to Bloom’s learning framework. In just a couple of hours time (= reading through the pdf) I could pinpoint mobile learning inside Bloom’s framework and I could see where some defaults were located within some of the mobile cases I have co-developed. Admittedly the ideas that popped-up should be investigated, but it gave me an extra insight to work with.
For example: as mobile learning is on the rise, more voices add to the idea that mLearning has been focusing too much on the technology and not enough on the learning process (at least if you sift through the papers). If I go through the six levels of the revised taxonomy of Bloom, I can see that throughout some of the mobile projects I did not include any or too few tools to give learners access or building blocks to get access to all levels. In the mLearning projects I have had the pleasure to co-design, I did include ‘remembering’ tools (mgoogle, but no tool to enable – or give attention to – mobile bookmarks like e.g. mobile delicious. On the ‘understanding’ level, I feel a bit more comfortable as we did include personal commenting, mobile Facebook… and other tools that could lead to a better understanding. A mobile mindmapping tool might have been nice though, the only thing is, that a mobile mindmap demands more space to keep an overview, so that might be problematic with mobiles. On the applying level I think we did well: we demanded the learners of the Tibotec mobile project to share and upload stuff, so that feel okay. On the ‘analysing’ aspect however, I feel the least comfortable, as analysis demands tools that just… take up more space than available on a small mobile device (an iPad or netbook might do the trick though). There are some tools for mobile analysis, but still the human brain likes an overview of data (spreadsheets), graphics… so unless a mobile device is provided with a beamer so you can project unto a wall of some kind, analyzing certain information from your mobile keeps on being tricky.
The ‘evaluating’ level was okay, as well as the ‘creating’ level (skype, shozu, fring to exchange notes, cases and collaborate).

So overall I am happy with what we do on the mobile space, but there is still a lot of room to improve the learning, especially if mobiles are the only tool to get to the learning. If you ever did a Bloom analysis on any of your mobile learning or eLearning projects, let me know, I would love to read up on them.

Is your global eLearning2.0 content censored? You better take a look

With the recent Iran election, censorship is again high on the political agenda. But censorship does not only affect citizenship on a political level, it can also effect learning potential.

eLearning is relying increasingly on a mix of social media and delivered content. And in this ever growing world, the learners are dispersed and global. This combination of factors can result in courses that are not always accessible to all.

If you deliver online content and you enable your learners to stay in contact with one another through various social media, you can suddenly discover that the links or portals you provide become subject to censorship depending on the region in which your learner is situated or your content is delivered.

Let me take a Belgian example. At the Institute of Tropical Medicine we research HIV/AIDS amongst other 'tropical' diseases. This results in the need to survey different target groups that are relevant to the HIV/AIDS disease. One of the key issues in HIV/AIDS is sexuality and as such the content of the delivered courses might be perceived as sexually explicit. One of the many target groups is also the gay male community, which will have homosexuality as one of the key words in its description, another target group are drug users, making it difficult to build a survey that does not explicitly put names of (illegal) drugs into the survey.
Depending on the country some content related to drugs, homosexuality and sexually explicit content can be censored and as such result in limited content access for learners from a specific region. That is: if a search on keywords is conducted by gatekeepers in those regions.
If you deliver content with these keywords but in a medical platform, it is much easier to keep in touch with the relevance of those keywords to the content. But if you add social media to your courses as an added bonus or place for discussion, it might be much more difficult to keep the link between relevant content and those keywords clear for all.
As a result some of your content might be censored, although the content and its related discussions are relevant to the medical objective. And because you, as an eLearning provider are living in a different part of the world, it can sometimes be difficult to account for possible drawbacks in that type of content delivery.

There is a website that tries to track different types of censorship in the world: the Open Net Intitiative. The initiative is taken by American Universities and is as such biased (every region has its own 'normal' censorship options). For example the website mentions 'illegal' drugs, but depending on the region some drugs are illegal and others are not, so that is not an objective term to use. Nevertheless the site is interesting because it gives an idea of where in the world certain types of censorship occur.

The site also offers you a way to add to the censorship data statistic by participating through the crowdsourcing principle and using HerdictWeb.

The global world does bring along different aspects and mindframes for eLearning content delivery. It keeps on surprising me.

#ela2009 thursday sessions: Boots on the ground - the only way to ensure impact in ICT4D projects

Ignatz Heinz from Avallain Education for Development, Switzerland
(A man in black with a obvious ethically, warm heart. he has dark hair with a wave in it and a kind face.)
Ignatz focused on major issues to consider when starting an eLearning project:

• sustainability is key, not the (high tech) technology proposed (do not push technology)
• no longer open arms, if eLearning does not suite the audience needs, it won't take off anyway
• too much thinking too early from too far away is wasteful
• what does not work here, does not work anywhere
• simple here is not simple there and complex here is not complex there
• keep things in proportion to the local scale
• the world is flat! e.g. solar panels are available locally, so look for local solutions
• Potemkin, Potemkin, Potemkin: effect of 'projects-that-cannot-fail', but that are not sustainable but that was marketed for the wrong reasons = 'jungle of smiles'
• Believe too much or too little in government (lobby, shifts...)

They do early feasibility tests and look locally for technical solutions, which I like enormously.

Information: http://www.avallain.com/e4d

(sorry for the blurry pictures by the way, my camera lens was smudged and I only noticed once I was back)

My top ten tips for getting started with eLearning:

The eLearning Guild is putting together a list with top tips for starting with eLearning. Anyone who wants to contribute can send their tips to the eZine, maybe our tips will get quoted and published.

It ain’t always easy to dive into eLearning. It always looks much easier than it ease. Although everyone learns most from their mistakes, it does save a lot of money if you keep some tips in the back of your mind.

If you are indeed considering to start with an eLearning project, you might want to demystify some eLearning myths... just read this short list of eLearning myths to get your mind focused before leaping into any project.

Here is my top ten list of things you need to consider when you start with an eLearning project.

1. Try it for yourself and learn: if you have never developed an eLearning course: follow at least one full online course and if possible with a renowned institution or company. There is no substitute for real life experience if it comes to eLearning. While following an online course, keep track of your thoughts, ideas and learning processes. You can start your Personal Learning Environment if you feel up to it. Keeping track of your knowledge at all times will facilitate retrieving your knowledge later on. This will come in handy once you start developing your own courses.

2. Clearly indicate your learning objectives: learning objectives are at the core of the activities of your eLearning course. Any content can be stripped down to its learning objectives. Analyzing your learning objectives will also increase your understanding of what it is you want your learners to achieve. This in its turn will allow you to decide which type of eLearning activity should be developed (educational games for simulations, quizzes to check information assimilation, discussion forums for looking at in-depth understanding or group work…)

3. Develop your own content: try to limit the amount of content that is outsourced. Most of the time content needs to be updated regularly; you will pay too much if you need to ask outsiders to update it for you. If you develop your own course, you will be able to keep it updated. If you do outsource it, ask the outside developers to make the course generic so you can adjust it to your need and possibly reuse it in other courses.

4. Interactivity is crucial: do not limit your project to (multiple choice) quizzes, but see if you can fit in interactions between peers and peer-to-tutor: discussion forums, letting the learner build part of a course, providing knowledge not only information.

5. Use social media: use social media as a means to increase the peer-to-peer and peer-to-tutor interactivity. In this day and age you should implement social media in your new eLearning projects. If you are not accustomed with social media (or web2.0) enroll in a couple of social media applications (Flickr, Friendfeed, blog, twitter…) to feel what it can add to a course. Social media will allow your learners to learn in an informal way, thus adding to there lifelong learning skills as well.

6. Address different learner skills: use text, pictures, video, and audio in your provided eLearning content. By diversifying the content you address different learner types which will increase your learner’s satisfaction.

7. Bite size content for easy updating: in this rapidly evolving era, it is essential that you can keep your content easily updated at all times. Especially if your content is specialized or provides just-in-time learning. Use software that makes it possible to quickly put in new information.

8. Bite size content to keep your learners focused: try to limit scrolling down webpages or multimedia courses that extend 20 minutes in total. Keep your content bits small, this will keep the learner motivated to go on and give them a sense of speed. It is much better to have ten chapters that each take up to 15 minutes to learn than to serve your learners one lengthy 150 minutes piece of content. You want to keep your learners focused, so give them time to breath.

9. Take low resource learners into account: not all learners have access to high speed broadband connectivity. If the technical reality of your learners is very diverse, it is good practice to provide your learners with a CDRom containing the eLearning content and basic plug-in’s needed to open your eLearning content.

10. Test everything in a pilot course: first you test your course on a small group of people you know, than you gather a pilot group of learners that are part of your learner target group. This pilot group of learners will allow you to learn, see if your learning objectives are indeed reached, adjust your material were needed, see whether the student investment time you had in the back of your mind is indeed realistic and … start the real course with the knowledge that it will be a rock solid eLearning course.

Yes, eLearning thrives on creativity and organizational capacities. Looking forward to reading your tips!

(image from http://lals.la.psu.edu/ling001/myths/intro/index.php)

When an economic crisis hits eLearning, what do managers have to say about it?

I really need your help here, if you are a conscientious eLearn provider, please add to the discussion (on your blog, forum, here,… anywhere). I came across some old school thinking and solutions regarding eLearning (see below).

There is an old economic tendency that in times of crisis the training department budgets get cut. For more then one reason I tend to disagree with this tendency. When a crisis hits your organisation or company, that is the right moment to rethink training and boost it. The same with R&D (research and development), because it is by rethinking you can outrun your competitors. If something did not keep you from a crisis, something is amiss and new methods can help you overcome them. You need training to get people thinking out of the box (or broaden their box) and you need training to implement new methods that will counter the crisis within the company quickly.

Last week I read an article on the subject in the sciencedaily, which was also listed in and prlog and in innovationsreport (it is a press release issued by Online Educa Berlin - OEB): “The present world’s economic woes are opening up new opportunities for innovative forms of education and training such as informal learning, e-learning and blended learning. Faced with shrinking budgets, the use of learning technologies is becoming increasingly attractive for businesses: This was the appraisal articulated by the consultants and training professionals who responded to an impromptu survey undertaken by the international e-learning conference Online Educa Berlin.”

In the press release there are some nuanced quotes and then a very scary one. A nuanced one from Sue Martin from Global Certification Portfolio Manager at SAP: "In times of tight or zero travel budgets and increasing environmental awareness, the importance of learning technologies has to be given a second look.”
Yes, I agree. A second and in-depth look at training (face-to-face and eLearning) is the way to go. But will eLearning cost less than face-to-face? Well, not sure, certainly not in the beginning of the development. And the myths of eLearning could pop-up again too.

With this in mind I predict a growing need for more qualified eLearning evaluators. They will enable management to get a good idea of what works most efficiently (yes, I am also an eLearning evaluator) and it will result in solid eLearning.

But then the article lists a very scary quote!

Christophe Binot, E-Learning Manager at the French oil firm Total, adds: "The newest solutions make it possible to turn a PowerPoint presentation into a course for a thousand employees within two hours. The ROI outperfoms training in a classroom."

What the HUH!!! eLearning is NOT about turning some kind of stupid non-descriptive, non-assessing powerpoint into a course! Can you imagine the non-interactivity of these powerpoints?! I mean in TWO HOURS! Oh my lord and goddess! How can OEB keep this quote in a press release? They know better than that. Okay he will be a keynote speaker at their conference, but looking at what is quoted here, I can almost imagine what his speech will be about (but I give him the benefit of the doubt, miss quotations have been made before).

Maybe winter is getting to me... darn dark clouded days...

My top 5 list of agonising eLearning Myths

Through the last decade some myths got their paws on eLearning. And although a lot of us try to get these myths banned, they keep popping-up whenever I have an introduction talk on eLearning. Because these myths keep on roaring their ugly heads, I have written down my top 5 list of agonising eLearning myths to use them in a small booklet I am working on. I also added my short reply to these mythical questions.

I bet you know (some of) these myths and I am especially interested in your replies. Please feel free to make your own list and send me your blogpost so we can share expertise (or laughs).

1. It is all about Technology

No way, eLearning is all about engaging humans and using technology as an instrument to help people learn. It is a misconception that an eLearner has no social contact with other e-course members. Well-constructed eLearning is about human interaction (discussions, group work...) and monitored and/or guided by tutors, subject matter experts and peer learners. eLearning is all about Learning and human interactions.

2. Everyone knows what eLearning is!

Not at all! Everyone has her or his own definition, even between eLearning professionals there are discussions on what eLearning is or should be. Before starting an eLearning project it is essential that you discuss with all the stakeholders of what there definition of eLearning is and how they see the project being developed.

3. eLearning saves money!

Would not that be nice! Unfortunately eLearning costs. It demands a financial investment in hard- and software (the latest can be kept to a minimum), infrastructure and last but not least in teachers, tutors, developers. In a lot of cases corporations and institutions ask for ROI (return on investment) but what you definitely also need to consider is return on human investment. eLearning costs, but it has definite learning and human benefits.

4. eLearning saves time!

Luckily eLearning takes time. If you want learners to learn content, you would want to invest a lot of time thinking about content, learning objectives, pedagogical methods and all around interactivity. eLearning takes time because it is about teaching people new skills and getting them to rearrange the knowledge they have with updates, new ideas and so on.

5. eLearning is putting text online and adding multiple choice questions!

Argh! There is no course on earth that will have great learning outcomes if this is the only thing you provide to your learners, so why would this approach work for eLearning? eLearning is about interactivity, addressing different learner skills, challenging learners and making them take initiatives... keep your learners active and do not mock them by delivering them boring old-school mash.

‘Cartoon by Nick D Kim, nearingzero.net. Used by permission.’

CIDER free online presentation on 'Emotion, Learning and the Online Learning Environment.'

Looks like a worthwhile and inspiring presentation coming up:

The Canadian Institute of Distance Education Research, University of Athabasca, presents the next presentation in their series of free CIDER sessions. Their next session features a presentation and discussion with Dr. Marti Cleveland-Innes from Athabasca University and Zehra Akyol from the University of Calgary.

Title: Emotion, Learning and the Online Learning Environment.

I did not find any digital information to enhance this presentation, so I will copy the CIDER information:
"In spite of evidence that more and more students are engaging in online learning experiences (Alan & Seaman, 2006), clarity about the transition to a new learning environment is still at arm's length (Cleveland-Innes, Garrison & Kinsel, 2006). In addition, the impact of the emotion created by dealing with this new environment on learning is virtually (pun intended) undiscovered. In this session, Dr. Marti Cleveland-Innes and Zehra Akyol will review theory and data regarding emotion in online environments, with opportunity for discussion of the effect of emotion on teaching, learning and instructional design.
In addition, this presentation corresponds with the launch of a web-site to support continued discussion and research on emotion and online learning. The web-site will be introduced at the end of the session."

Let's face it the bridge between emotion and online learning needs to be bridged, so this will surely give some great content to reflect upon.

When: Friday, June 20, 2008, 11am-12pm Mountain Daylight Time (= 19 PM London, UK)

Where: Online via Elluminate at:
https://sas.elluminate.com/m.jnlp?password=M.8B71B60F2931D029AC3837DC06B70D


Pre-Configuration:
Please make sure your Mac or PC is equipped with a microphone and speakers, so that we can use the Voice over IP functionality built into the web conferencing software. Please note that it is extremely important that you get your system set up prior to the start of the event. Please don't wait until the day of the session to do this. Information on installing the necessary software and configuring your PC is available at http://www.elluminate.com/support/ in the "First Time Users" section.

The session will be recorded and available for future playback from http://cider.athabascau.ca/CIDERSessions/

Why newbie’s doubt jumping into eLearning - INAS’ biggest concerns

During one of the afternoons of my first work visit to the INAS in Rabat, Morocco there was a meeting in which I would present the methodology of ITM and focus on eLearning. I choose to start from the concerns people in INAS had to build an informal presentation build on Q&A and nourished with examples from medical courses and methods we have build at ITM which were running on my computer. By running the examples on my computer without having to connect I could assure the participants that sending a CDRom with the courses on them would be an option for low connected areas. If the remote areas would have access to a computer with CDRom, that is.

All the participants in the meeting were in favor of eLearning.

Questions that came up (and some of them are very familiar questions that come up globally – maybe we should build a FAQ with answers that all of us professionals can use while addressing a new group of future eLearners):

• Is Morocco, meaning specifically the technical conditions needed for eLearning, ready for eLearning?
• Are learning results the same for face-2-face courses and TELearning courses?
• How do we cope with the lack of non-verbal communication that some teachers use to reconstruct their lesson as they are giving it in a face-2-face environment?
• How do we cope with the diverse connectivity issues throughout the country?
• How can we make sure the learners are in fact the ones that do the tests/exams?
• What can we do to avoid a feeling of loneliness with the learners when the only contact they have with their peers is through online communication?
• Is eLearning interesting for all kinds of learning, or is it unusable for certain educational fields?

I tried to give comforting answers wherever possible, but of course engaging in eLearning has so many factors, that a lot depends on the preparation and the willingness of all the professionals involved to succeed. But as long as a small group stays motivated, it will work.

Pointers for me for future presentations on this topic:

Ask for who is learning through the computer in an informal way (to build a case that people are gaining up on their knowledge by the use of a computer anyway).

The answers I gave to the Q/A session will be posted later on. Jetlag is getting to me.