instructional design – Page 12

Hurrah! The ID/TC Education Resources Page has been updated on Techcommgeekmom.com!

Posted on July 17, 2012July 17, 2012 by TechCommGeekMom

Hello everyone!

It feels like it’s been a long time since I’ve posted here, but it’s only been a week. I do try to post something original here at least once a week as best as I can.

But right now, I’m mentally wiped out, so it occurred to me that now is a great time to update some of the pages here as best as I can.

So, for easier reading, I’ve updated the Instructional Design/Technical Communications Education Resources Page (otherwise known as the ID/TC Education Resources Page). If you click the link above in the navigation, that will take you directly to that page.

Now, upon first inspection, it will look pretty much the same, with the same links to helpful articles.

But now after a few additions and some reorganization, all 158 credentials are listed and organized by credential. Specifically, they are split up between Bachelor’s degrees, Certificates, Specialist degrees, Master’s degrees, and finally Doctorates. I’m hoping that this reorganization will help anyone who is looking for that next avenue themselves. Many of these programs are online too, so be sure to check them out. Even my own alma mater, NJIT, is listed in the Master’s programs. 😉

As always, if you have a suggestion for a higher ed program related to technical communications, e-learning or m-learning, please let me know so I can add it to the list!

Enjoy, and thanks for continuing to support techcommgeekmom.com!

Uncategorized

What do learners using m-learning want–what they really, really want?

Posted on June 23, 2012 by TechCommGeekMom

Today, RJ Jacquez posted the following question on his Facebook account:

“If you asked ‘Learners’ on mobile what they wanted in #mLearning would they know? I’m not convinced they would.”

My first thought was that Spice Girls song–“So tell me what you want, what you really, really, want….” 😉

When I thought about it more seriously, I deduced that I don’t think learners would know what they want either. (Or in the words of the same Spice Girls song, the response of the average learner would be “I wanna really, really, really wanna zigazig ah….”)

Like most people involved in UX and e-learning/m-learning strategy, I’ve been taught the mindset of how to anticipate the moves of the average user. Must like what I talked about in my Adobe webinar, Transition from Content Consumer to Content Creator: Dual Viewpoints, to truly be an effective technical communicator–no matter the specialization–one has to look at things both from the end user perspective as well as the creator perspective. So, in addressing RJ’s question, unless someone is a professional student, I don’t think the average person–adult or child–thinks about how they learn, or what method works best or them, mobile or not. The average learner doesn’t know what they want or need until they don’t have a feature or do have a feature, for the most part.

I find that I think about such things because not only do I have non-verbal learning disabilities that made me more aware of what worked and what didn’t, but I also grew up having an educator dad whose hobby was reading up on learning styles and that kind of subject matter. And just for the record, despite recent reports that said that learning styles are a bunch of hooey, from personal experience as well as being the mother of a learning disabled child, I am a firm believer in learning styles and being aware of trying to make adaptive or flexible learning possible. My son and I are visual/sensory learners. We both have sensory issues, but for a person to describe an object verbally versus presenting the object in front of me to see and touch, the latter experience will always stick with me more. (I do know other learning disabled people where the opposite situation is true– they have no problem with verbal descriptions, but have a hard time with reading or retaining information from a demonstration.) Heck, it’s been a while since I’ve said this, but I used to claim that most of what I learned was from TV, not from other sources! (I watched a LOT of TV as a kid, including educational stuff, but plenty of pop culture that has served me well over time.)

That said, it helps that there are those of us that are on top of learning presentations, and trying to find ways to make learning accessible, comprehensible, and enjoyable–an “ACE” product (I should copyright that acronym now!). Learning policies and procedures, for example, especially on a topic that perhaps one might not have anything to do with, should be done in a way that makes it “ACE,” and e-learning and m-learning specialists can work on ways to facilitate learning using new technology for better information retention. I had that sort of experience myself. At my last consulting position at a global financial firm, I was required to take P&P courses, even though they were about financial transactions in banking, and I worked on an intranet site that had a) nothing to do with the banking end of the business, and b) I had nothing to do with any financial transactions whatsoever. But because there was online training that could be tracked, and the courses were relatively short, I got the basic foundations mastered to be compliant, and I could move on from there. I’ll admit that I even remember parts of it as well, because of the interactivity in the online course.

User strategists–whether they work in mobile worlds or not–are specialists who know from training and professional experience what works and what doesn’t work on a website, from both the front-end of a website as well as some of the back-end as well. Simple things, like evaluating typography, color schemes, and content are all part of that person’s job. The average end-user doesn’t really think about what he or she is looking at on a website that deeply. We’ve all encountered good websites and bad websites, and we put up with bad websites out of necessity sometimes, but it’s a UX specialist’s job to rid the world of as much bad design and as many bad experiences as possible, anticipating how end-users would use a website. The average Joe will understand sometimes that something isn’t good, but might not always know what it is that doesn’t work well. The average person doesn’t think about functionality of a site until it’s not functional. The average person doesn’t understand the complexities of what e-learning and m-learning specialists are trying to do to help learners attain the main goal, because it’s the end goal which is what’s most important, namely that information retention learned through a course–any course through any medium–can be used thoughtfully and effectively. Pull any guy or gal off the street, and they wouldn’t know the first thing about it. They’ve never thought about it. It is like asking people why they like a certain ice cream flavor–they just do. (But what they don’t know is that ice cream manufacturers do a lot of testing on what are popular flavors and tastes in different areas before putting their products out on the market.) The average person just goes about his or her business, and when it comes time to be learning something, whatever means is put in front of that person is how he or she will learn it.

So, does that mean that we shouldn’t put so much time and thought into the process? Heck no! We should continue to put a LOT of time and thought into the learning process! Mobile is a big mover and shaker with this, because it is making information so accessible–even more than conventional paper books or any other media out there right now, short of in-person, one-to-one teaching. More smartphones are bought on a daily basis globally, and the tablet market is starting to catch up with that. Even in areas like third world countries, people have smartphones. What a fantastic opportunity to reach out to help others learn and help themselves and work globally instead of in isolation! But how is that done? It’s done through careful thought about how the information is disseminated in a way that the information can be retained and used. It needs to be ACE. We need to spend the time to make it the best learning experience possible, even if the average learner has no clue as to what they want in a learning experience. In the end, if learners are able to use the information, understand the information, and recall the learning experience as a positive one, isn’t that the measure of what they want from learning? If they don’t get anything positive out of the learning experience, then they learn they don’t want THAT.

Being a newly minted graduate school graduate who did her entire degree online, I know that my fellow students and I would quickly be able to evaluate what worked and didn’t in various courses. For example, presenting all the assignments, reading documents and forum links in the course description in Moodle instead of utilizing the weekly scheduler was BAD for learners. Having experiences both inside and outside of Moodle to do our assignments were good for learners. It really varied from course to course, and some professors learned from end-of-the-semester feedback, and others did not. Each course and each learning experience has different requirements. It is up to those who are developing the curriculum and helping to disseminate the curriculum to decide what’s the best delivery method, especially because the learner usually doesn’t have a clue.

As m-learning and e-learning specialists–and this really applies to all technical communicators, it’s our job to provide the most concise, clear and cogent information we can to the public, and that means anticipating those average person thoughts or moves in using anything we create. To me, that’s what makes the job challenging and exciting. It’s especially fulfilling when you know that you’ve got it right, and the end user doesn’t know why it’s so great, but it just is.

Uncategorized

Whitepaper: The Future of Mobile Learning: Empowering Human Memory and Literacy

Posted on June 20, 2012July 16, 2015 by TechCommGeekMom

Yes, it’s official. I’ve written a whitepaper.

Actually, I wrote it a while ago, but just haven’t gotten around to reformatting it. This is actually a paper that I wrote for one of my classes recently just before I graduated, and it was edited by Mayra Aixa Villar. When editing the paper at the time, it was she who suggested that I either present this somewhere, or post it as a whitepaper here on my blog. Since I’m not able to get to any professional meeting anytime soon, I’m taking the latter suggestion, and posting it here. So, before anything else, many thanks to my friend Mayra for not only editing and providing criticism on this paper, but for helping me feel confident to put my work out there. (Muchas gracias, mi amiga querida!)

That being said, this whitepaper is entitled, “The Future of Mobile Learning: Empowering Human Memory and Literacy.” The basic concept behind this is that many of the basic elements that humankind formulated to enable memorization and literacy throughout history are basic elements that are used and needed in formulating the foundations of creating effective m-learning.

I hope my readers like the paper and find it helpful. Please download, pass around, and/or refer to this page! (Oh, and if you’d like me to present this somewhere, let me know! ;-))

Whitepaper: The Future of Mobile Learning: Empowering Human Memory and Literacy

Edited to add July 2015: This paper has now been presented three times as of July 2015, at the 2014 e-learning 3.0 Conference at Drexel University, at the 2015 STC-PMC Conduit/Mid-Atlantic Technical Conference, and as a presentation/workshop at the 2015 IEEE ProComm.

mobile, singular experience, Uncategorized

Project Tin Can: Good Communication or just a Tin Can Alley?

Posted on May 27, 2012May 29, 2012 by TechCommGeekMom

Something I’ve been hearing about lately is something called, “Project Tin Can,” and it’s been a topic that seems to come back again and again in reference to m-learning. “Oh, I think great strides are being made with ‘Tin Can’,” or “I think ‘Tin Can’ might help to solve that problem in how it relates to m-learning,” I’d hear. I knew it has to do with how scoring and assessments are done, but what is it beyond that? Why should I even begin to pay attention to this?

Of course, I had to start doing some research, because if this is a hot topic that affects m-learning, I need to be on top of it, right?

First, if one doesn’t have an understanding of SCORM, one has to understand that first. SCORM, for all you technical communicators that don’t know, is best explained by Rustici Software, which works very closely with the ADL who set these standards:

SCORM is a set of technical standards for e-learning software products. SCORM tells programmers how to write their code so that it can “play well” with other e-learning software. It is the de facto industry standard for e-learning interoperability. Specifically, SCORM governs how online learning content and Learning Management Systems (LMSs) communicate with each other. SCORM does not speak to instructional design or any other pedagogical concern, it is purely a technical standard…. The SCORM standard makes sure that all e-learning content and LMSs can work with each other, just like the DVD standard makes sure that all DVDs will play in all DVD players. If an LMS is SCORM conformant, it can play any content that is SCORM conformant, and any SCORM conformant content can play in any SCORM conformant LMS. (See http://scorm.com/scorm-explained/ for more details)

Okay, so we have a set of standard for e-learning so that all content can work together congruently.

Great! So, why mess with what works?

Well, SCORM was developed about a decade or so ago, and while it’s worked great, a lot has changed in how educational content is delivered. A decade ago, we didn’t have smartphones in the same way that we do now, and tablets were still thought of as either pads of paper or slabs of slate that you wrote on with chalk. Mobile devices took off in the last few years much faster than anyone anticipated. Obviously, if there are new means of technology, there are also new means of learning and delivering learning content to learners. ADL, the SCORM proctors, realized that they need to stay ahead of the curve and start looking new solutions as mobile technology started to integrate into daily life.

While I had heard of Tin Can, it most recently was brought to my attention by Chad Udell of Float Learning. Float Learning is hot on the trail of TinCan, as evidenced by their May 2012 newsletter. Chad posted this link on Twitter to the following article by Reuben Tozman of the edCetra Training Blog: Instructional Design Tips for Tin Can, which talks about how Reuben and his company started to use Tin Can to start using methods that had their foundations in SCORM for a project, but ultimately needed the flexibility of Tin Can to evolve and progress with the project. I also looked at this article by Ben Clark of Rustici Software, as posted by Aaron Silvers of ADL on “What is Project Tin Can?“, which basically outlined what Tin Can was in broad terms, but it wasn’t completely clear to the “lay person” like me.

The most helpful thing in helping me understand what Tin Can is was to listen to episode #7 of “This Week in M-Learning” with RJ Jacquez and Rob Gadd, which can be found either on this website or on iTunes. They had Aaron Silvers and Jason Haag of ADL as guests on the show, and being that both Aaron and Jason are very much part of and deeply into the Tin Can project, they were excellent sources to consult.

The following are the notes that I took from the conversation (and hopefully I’m summarizing and paraphrasing most of the conversation correctly–let me know if I have any inaccuracies):

First and foremost, both SCORM and TinCan API (as it’s now known) are not standards, but rather they are specifications. SCORM is a widely adopted and used specification, but it’s still just a specification, not a standard. That’s an important distinction to make up front.

From there, it was explained in the podcast that Project Tin Can started around 2008, when ADL started looking at whitepapers and various resources to determine how they were going to develop new standards within SCORM to develop a platform that could move forward rather than a specification. With social media starting to have a stronger presence in the world, especially on mobile, something was needed that wasn’t being pre-defined or pre-described yet was something that SCORM tried to addressed. For example, how could people have ubiquitous access to online data? How could a self-sustaining, open source system be created in the process to build this new specification/platform/standard using as many ideas as possible to push the evolution of the system continually into the future?

Tin Can API–the end result thusfar of that research–is a major component of tracking of learning activity in next generation of SCORM.

RJ asked a major question in the podcast, which was, “What is the big deal of Tin Can?” It’s a valid question, after all. Aaron, Jason, and Rob (who is using Tin Can at his mobile technology firm) explained that Tin Can allows for mobile SCORM tracking to work optimally, both offline as well as online. The spec is meant to help level the playing field so that the content can plug into new platforms without losing content in transfer, giving it far more flexibility and ease to help mobile technology use SCORM specs.

It was noted that the need to be simpler was key for implementation; it needed to be more flexible than SCORM, so the concept behind Tin Can is not only to use it for e-learning and m-learning, but to provide deliverables of different code libraries that go beyond online learning. It was noted that Articulate Storyline is using a simpler version of Tin Can rather than SCORM, but it’s more capable in its deliverable, and Blackboard is using a form of it as well.

Another big point was that Tin Can API can be initiated with informal training and not start with an LMS (Learning Management System). The idea is that learning not initiated with an LMS would take credentials from social media sites like Twitter, Facebook, or Google (I believe Pinterest and Klout have these kinds of sign-ins). The idea is that by obtaining credentials from such sources, the content from a Tin Can-compliant app would already knows who you are. In other words, if you are already authenticated through a single sign-in ID, the app will be able to collect activity and log it. It was noted that not a lot of overhead to search for content, and Tin Can would allows smaller companies to do it for their projects.

So, the burden is lighter than SCORM. An LMS isn’t needed but it can integrate with an LMS; it is not specified to be a stand-alone but rather could expand the capability of any enterprise system by taking data about what you are doing in one place and allow other systems can see how you are performing, making it interoperatable and ubiquitous. Tin Can is meant to find a common ground to help look at data in context, helping disparate systems talk to each other.

As Tin Can API is a spec in early stages, it’s evolving very quickly thanks to
the project being highly community-based, in which things change quickly in weeks and months instead of over years like SCORM. Between the huge community support–slightly like crowdsourcing through specific online social media and other outlets– and getting some smaller m-learning “boutique” firms jumping in now, Tin Can is gaining great momentum. Rustici Software has been doing the research for ADL; ADL proposed what they wanted from their requirements, and Rustici were fortunate to get the job of bringing it to fruition. Aaron and Jason explained that Rustici released workable prototype that was incomplete–but workable–implementing the concept of using an activity stream in the Tin Can spec. (An example of an activity stream that they gave was Facebook’s layout.) Even after the initial project was completed, Rustici continued to build it out and offered what they did as open source, and their continued work was adopted readily by the Tin Can community.

So–the podcast was pretty informative and yield some of the best information to understand.

It seems to me that Tin Can API is still something to continue to watch, whether one is an m-learning developer, or even as an instructional designer or m-learning specialist. My impression was that Tin Can is meant to eventually go beyond m-learning and e-learning, and extend into other mobile applications as mobile technology specifications and standards evolve. Single-sourcing is a huge issue in mobile technology, and it seems to be that this is a project that is very much centered on making that happen.

For more information on Tin Can API, I recommend visiting the links above, and give a visit to http://scorm.com/tincan/.