Every two years I take my car in and have the emissions tested.  The goal of the test is to certify that my car meets specific emissions standards.  If the car passes, I am certified and I can move on.  However, if it doesn’t pass, then my car has to go under a different series of tests (and perhaps repairs) to get up to the appropriate standard and certified.  Of course, this takes more time.

As I was waiting in my car, I was reminded that a lot of what we call "elearning" is similar to the emissions testing process.  The purpose of the course is not to learn, but instead to demonstrate what we already know.  If we don’t pass the certification, then just like the car, we have to go through a remedial process.

When I worked for a healthcare organization, we did a lot of training like that.  We weren’t really training the staff since they already knew the subject matter.  Instead, we were certifying that they knew it.

Like the healthcare industry, there are many industries that require annual refresher or certification testing that has little to do with learning.  In those cases, the goal is not so much to teach new skills; instead it is to certify existing knowledge.  Of course, when a person doesn’t pass the certification, it identifies a clear learning opportunity.

One of the frustrating parts of the emissions testing is that, while the actual test only took a few minutes, waiting in line to take the test took a lot longer.  This is especially true if you wait until the last Saturday of the month when all of the other procrastinators also show up.

Sitting in the car and waiting in line is not very productive.  The same can be said for those people who already have existing skills and yet have to go through an "elearning course" before they can be tested.  The ideal situation is to create an environment to assess the person’s skills and then direct them based on their results.

If the person can demonstrate the skills and knowledge, then go ahead and certify them, so they can go back to work or surf the Internet.  If they can’t demonstrate the skills and knowledge, put them on a path to get it, and then reassess them later.

A Real-World Example

I was talking to a colleague recently who works for a very large financial institution.  Needless to say, they have many certification and annual refresher training programs.  The problem he ran into with his courses was that many of the employees already knew the information, but the organization still made them go through the entire course before they could be tested and certified.

This was a great source of frustration for the employees.  In addition, most courses took anywhere from 30-60 minutes to complete and each employee had to take a number of them throughout the year.

Let’s look at this from a financial perspective.  The organization has over 30,000 employees.  Just a ball park figure shows that 30,000 hours at $50 per hour is $1,500,000 …for one course!  That’s a lot of money and lost productivity. 

Surely there was a more efficient approach to meet the regulatory requirements and get the employees certified.  There was!  Here’s what his team did to create a more efficient elearning certification process.

• They contacted their law department to better understand the real legal requirements and certification process. 
• They found that in many cases they weren’t legally required to deliver a "course."  Instead they only had to document that the employees were certified and had a certain level of understanding.
• With this new information in hand (and the legal department’s blessing) they changed the structure for many of their courses by allowing the employees to test out of information they already knew.

And, what type of results did they get?

They found that for the more complex information, if they offered a pre-assessment, about 30% of their employees could skip past the course.  They also found that in some of their simple 15-30 minute courses, almost 70% were able to skip past the course and be certified.  Run some numbers on paper and you’ll see the savings add up quickly.

Our industry is always talking about demonstrating a return-on-investment and this seems to be a slam dunk.  There’s no better way to show your value than to demonstrate that you’ve created a more efficient way to certify your employees.

 

Of course, this approach doesn’t work for every industry or every elearning course.  But it does for many. If you do a lot of regulatory training, now might be a good time to rethink your elearning strategy.  Get with your legal department and find out what the exact requirements are; and then build a course that helps you meet them.

Many of you are in industries that require certification and regulatory training, I’m interested in hearing some of your best practices.  Feel free to post them in the comments section.

Next week, I’ll share some simple strategies on how to design your elearning courses to meet your legal needs and get people back to work.

It’s a tricky balance working with customers.  They commission the elearning courses, pay the bills, and are the ultimate authority for their elearning projects.  So you have to listen to what they want.

On the other hand, a demanding customer can negatively impact the elearning course by making demands that don’t fit sound instructional design. 

I once worked on a project for a group of CPAs.  They wanted to entice young people to consider a career as accounting paraprofessionals.  So we created a number of design treatments that attempted to make the world of accounting seem exciting to young people.

All of the treatments were rejected because of this or that reason.  Mostly, they were too out of the box for the client.  The person who headed the project said, "You know, Tom, I really like these ideas.  The problem is that all of the other people on the board are a little uptight so we should probably not get too wild with these ideas."

Well sure enough, we didn’t.  We built the project exactly like the customer wanted.  I was inexperienced at the time and catered to our customer’s every demand and ended up with a subpar product.  After viewing the final project, the customer stated that it was kind of flat and boring and not really what he had envisioned. 

Now it could have been the subject matter (I don’t know enough accountants to be sure), but my guess is that we spent too much time listening to the client and not enough trusting our expertise.  Had I been more proactive and assertive, we could have had better results. 

The challenge is figuring out how to balance satisfying the client, who can sometimes be misinformed, and getting a good elearning course built. 

Here’s how you do it. 

1. Make a personal commitment to excellence.

The best way to manage your customer relationship is to earn a reputation for doing a good job.  In my wallet, I have a card that I’ve had since I first started working.  It is the essence of how I do my work.  The card states, "Always maintain a ’service-first’ attitude.  Make it a rule in everything you do to give people more than they expect to get."

You cannot control anything but yourself and what you do.  If you’re committed to a quality product and helping people, you’ll get through your work (and life) with much more joy and purpose.

2. Leverage your expertise. 

Perception is reality.  Regardless of whether you’ve done one project or one hundred, the customer thinks you’re the elearning expert.  Act like it.  Without sounding like a know it all, be prepared to explain your ideas and why they will work for the course.  One of my favorite books is E-Learning and the Science of Instruction because it has some good research-based information that I can easily share with customers who ask to do something that I don’t think will work.

Going back to my CPA project, my problem was my lack of experience working with customers at a higher level.  I was intimidated and not prepared to offer my expertise.  I acted like a beginner and I’m sure that didn’t inspire the customer’s confidence.

3. Be a good listener.

You’re there to help solve a problem.  Listen to the customer’s needs and really focus on a solution that will help the customer.  Ask good questions.  The more you get the customers to talk, the more likely they’ll believe you’re the expert.

My wife once told me two things.  The first is that I should always ask three follow up questions when talking to people.  And the second was something else.  I wasn’t listening.

4. Establish clear milestones and timelines. 

One of the biggest time wasters and causes of frustration is lack of communication about the project goals.  Work with the customer to set clear objectives and expectations.  This helps move the project forward.  It also helps keep things from going off track.

Project managers talk a lot about scope creep.  No, not the guy trying to cover halitosis in the cubicle next to you.  Instead, it’s when project demands start to creep outside the scope of the project.  This is common on elearning projects.  Having clear objectives and expectations helps solve this problem.

5. Earn the customer’s attention. 

I once heard Dr. Phil tell someone that "the difference between winners and losers is that winners do the things that losers don’t."  Be prepared.  Be on time.  And most importantly, be proactive.

This is a competitive world and there’s always someone who can do your job better for less money.  Earn a reputation for having all of your stuff in order.  Don’t waste time and don’t wait on the customer before you respond to needs.

I know so many elearning developers that will put work on hold until they get to meet with the customer or get more direction.  It’s almost as if they relish the times when they aren’t in touch so that they can relax.  Take Dr. Phil’s advice, and keep on moving.  Do the little extra things that tell the customers you’re paying attention and committed to their success.

6. Give the customer choices, but not too many.

If you come to the project with only one idea, you open the door to all types of issues.  If you come up with too many ideas, it becomes debilitating, because you’ll spend too much time going through all of the options.

Come prepared with at least three treatments of an idea.  I usually create a straight forward linear course, one focused on content sharing and some interactivity, and then one where I can craft a more real world environment for the learner.

I’ve seen designers build the course treatment they want to do and two others that were so obviously not the right course, that by default the customer always chose the "right" one.

7. Give them the fuzzy thumb. 

This is an emergency trick and requires the utmost skill.  I don’t recommend it for amateurs.  In fact, I am a little leery to share it with the public.  Usually I reserve this advice for a quiet corner in a noisy pub…and only in the strictest confidence.  I’m assuming that you won’t share what I’m about to reveal.

People have a tendency to offer input because they want to feel like they contributed.  Many times this input is of no value.  In fact, sometimes it might even derail a project if the customer demands you implement it.

I have a photographer friend who came up with the "fuzzy thumb technique" to counteract this tendency. When he submitted photos to the customer for review, he’d always slip in one with a fuzzy thumb in the image (or some other obvious issue).  It never failed, the customer would focus on the thumb and he’d be able to steer them to the better photos and avoid the customer making demands that hurt the project.

Offer a document with typos, or face an object the wrong way.  Do whatever it takes to draw the attention to an obvious error.  The "fuzzy thumb" allows customers to give feedback and it usually makes them feel good (and sometimes superior) because they spotted an error.  In return, you get to do the project your way with little interference.

I built a quick demo to explain more about the fuzzy thumb technique.  I included some of the PowerPoint animation tips I provided in the previous post to give you some more ideas. 

Click here to view "Fuzzy Thumb" tutorial.

Note: Be forewarned that this trick takes the skill of a magician and could backfire if not done properly.

These tips will help you do a good job and please your customer.  You’ll no longer have to kowtow to a misinformed or problem client who can put a damper on your desire to build excellent elearning courses.

Stock images from stock.xchng, a great site for free stock photos. 

PowerPoint is a very capable animation program.  In fact, I’ve seen some animations that were so advanced I would have thought they were built with advanced animation tools.

In this post, I’ll share three impressive, yet easy-to-do animation techniques that you can use right away in your elearning courses.  Your courses will look nothing like ordinary PowerPoint slides and they’ll be more effective and engaging.

Before you learn to make your own animations in PowerPoint, it’s a good idea to understand some basic animation concepts.  I recommend visiting the Cartoonster site below since it does a nice job of introducing some basic animation concepts.  Most of the concepts that you learn at Cartoonster can be applied in PowerPoint.

Click on link to visit the Cartoonster site.

Create Key Frames

At the most basic level, animation is the cycling of key frames to give the illusion of movement.  Key frames are snapshots of an image at a single point in time. 

A simple way to see key frames in action is to create them in PowerPoint using the duplicate slides feature.  Here’s how you do it.

1. Create a slide and add an object.
2. Insert a duplicate slide by selecting the slide thumbnail and typing CTRL+D.
3. On the new slide, slightly move the object to a new position.
4. Repeat until you create the number of images you need.
5. As you cycle through the slides you’ll see the animation effect.

Motion Path

Motion paths allow you to create custom paths for your objects.  This means that you can have your objects go anywhere you want on a screen and follow the path you choose.

Combine motion paths with some of the other animations and you can create a very nice animated sequence that could look like it was created in Flash.

1. Select your object.
2. Go to Custom Animation> Add effect.
3. Select a desired motion path.
4. Apply the motion path to the object and modify the timing and effect settings.

Flash Once Animation

Many people seem to gravitate towards PowerPoint’s wipe, fly-in, and fade animations.  Those seem to be the most popular.  The Flash Once animation is not that well known.  It’s kind of like the Cinderella of PowerPoint animation, only popular with local exhibitionists.

Flash Once does exactly what you think it would do, it flashes once and then it disappears.  What this lets you do is put a series of images together that can appear in sequence and give the illusion of motion.  Here are two ways you can use the Flash Once effect.

Apply Flash Once to your key frame objects.  This allows you to create an animated sequence on one slide.

1. Create a series of key frame objects.
2. On each slide, group the object together to make sure it is one object.
3. Move all of the objects to one slide.
4. Apply the Flash Once animation. 
5. Select a custom time to speed up the effect.
6. Layer the objects based on the desired sequence.
7. Set to animate after the previous.

Tip:  to cycle through the layered objects, use the tab key.

Use Flash Once instead of the motion path.  Motion path is kind of stiff when you move an object around because the object does not rotate with the path.  With Flash Once, you can move the object over a desired path and have it rotate to follow a more natural movement.

1. Create an object.
2. Add Flash Once animation.
3. Copy and paste the object on screen.
4. Move the object along a desired path.
5. Rotate the object as needed.

I made a quick demo with four tutorials to show you some of the ideas I shared in the post.

Click here to view the animation tutorial.

With some practice, you can create very sophisticated animations in PowerPoint.  I like to take clip art people and then break them apart to have separate body parts.  Then, like Dr. Frankenstein, I can assemble them the way I choose and use the body parts to quickly create animations.

I’ve got some more PowerPoint animation tips to share, but for now, I’ll let you practice these.  I’d love to see what you’re able to do.  If you’re up to the challenge, create some animations and send them my way.  Perhaps, they’ll make it to the blog.

Building an elearning course can be time-consuming and costly.  Because of this you don’t want to waste your resources by making your elearning course more complex than it needs to be.  Instead, your objective is to create the best elearning course you can with the limited resources you have.   

Identify the Course’s Purpose

The intent of most elearning courses is to change performance.  However, the type of course that’s usually built focuses on sharing information rather than performance improvements.  This happens because most people focus on delivering content rather than on changing performance. 

Your first step is to get your client focused on the real performance goals and then guide them to the right type of intervention.  Sometimes it means they don’t need an elearning course.  In that case you save time and money by not building the elearning course.

However, if they still need (or want) an elearning course, then determine what type of course they need.  By identifying the type of course you are building, it’s easier to determine what resources you can commit.

Understand the Type of Course

 

Elearning courses typically focus one of two things: sharing information or changing performance. And, within that framework, there are basically three types of elearning courses.    

1. Communicate information with no performance expectations.   Information-based courses communicate new information but have no built-in expectations of changed performance.  A good example is a course that highlights new features of a software application.  You learn about the new the features but you aren’t required to do anything with this new information.
2. Give step-by-step instructions that have specific outcomes.  These courses are focused on procedures and how to do something.  They’re made up of repeatable tasks that are very close to what the learner will do at work.  A good example is showing someone how to complete a worksheet or use software.
3. Share guidelines to help the learner solve problems.  The most challenging courses to design are those where you teach principles or guidelines versus repeatable steps.  You really have to understand the nuances of the learner’s situation and how the principles can be applied while respecting the fact that each application is somewhat unique.

All three types of courses can be as simple or complex in design as you want to make them.  Keep in mind that the more complex the course is, the more time and effort it will take to build it. 

Your best bet is to minimize the complexity and free your resources for the projects that are going to make the most impact. 

Manage Your Resources Wisely

When you build your courses, use an approach that is appropriate to the type of elearning course you’re building.  Just like my recent post on the elearning hierarchy, the goal is to free up your resources so that when you need to create the more complex work, the resources are available. 

Here are a few tips to help manage your resources:

• Reading is best done offline.  Many elearning courses require a lot of reading.  If most of your course is text-based, find a solution that best supports reading rather than building a course.  Remember, the goal isn’t necessarily to create a course.  Instead, it’s to deliver content that helps the user.  This might be accomplished without a "course."

  If you do need to create an elearning course, then build one that summarizes key points and then push the learner to a PDF or other format that is better for reading.

• Teach people to find information rather than just giving it to them.  I don’t know how many times I’ve worked on projects where all I did was reuse content that was already available on the company’s intranet.  If that’s the case for your course, save time and money by just pointing people to the right resources. 

  Better yet, build your course on how to find the resource rather than just giving it to them.  This is more performance-based and in the long run helps the learners find the information on their own, which might reduce the need for additional courses in the future.

• Break the content into bite-sized pieces.  If someone wants to know what time it is you don’t tell them how to build a clock.  In a similar vein, too many elearning courses offer more than is needed. 

  If you break the course content into pieces, you can offer both the "need to know" and "nice to know" content.  At the same time, the learner has the freedom to get what is needed. 

  I like to create "coursels" (as in course morsels) where the key content is broken into manageable chunks.  I’ve built courses where the coursels are combined as a whole course, yet they are offered as separate links that work more like a web page structure than a traditional elearning course.  The content is all in one place.  There are distinct measurable courses.  Yet, the user has quick access to the most critical information. 

• Keep the course simple and focused on its outcome.  Too often we want to make a course "engaging and interactive" and yet it turns out to be a bloated product that takes more time to create and more than likely bores the learner anyway.  Instead of getting cute with the project, make sure that it is focused and meets its objectives. 

  If the course is supposed to share information, give me the information.  I don’t need a role playing scenario or play a Jeopardy game to get it.  On the other hand, if I need to learn principles or guidelines, don’t just dump a bunch of information in my lap.  Instead build a relevant case study or scenario and let me practice what I need to know.

To build good elearning courses means that you have to know what type of course you’re building and get the most out of your resources.  Learn to differentiate between information and performance based courses.  Then move your resources to those courses that are going to have the most impact.

2007 has been a wild ride.  Five minutes after launching this blog, our servers crashed.  And then five minutes after that I got a few hundred emails telling me that the servers crashed. 

After a few hectic minutes, we got the servers back online.  I answered all of those emails (with the help of a Starbucks Venti Americano).  And, it’s been smooth sailing ever since.

Highlights for 2007

• You are 14,000 strong.  In less than five months, over 14,000 of you have subscribed to this blog.  Thank you to all who subscribe and participate in the blog.  I appreciate the emails I get and all of the kind comments.  I even appreciate the critics…most of the time.
• You have written close to 800 comments.  I enjoy the comments and the many great ideas and links that come from you.  In addition to the comments, each Tuesday after the post goes live, I get a few hundred emails.  This makes for an exciting and busy day, as I try to respond to all of the emails I get.
• You are global.  My favorite part of the blog is communicating with people from all over the world.  I’ve connected with people from all of the continents, except Antarctica (they’re too cold to build elearning courses).  I’ve even gotten emails from countries that I didn’t know were countries.  Shhh!  Don’t tell my kids.  They still think I’m smart.

And Now for the Top 10…Drum Roll, Please

I assembled my crack team of blog researchers and analysts and we were able to pull together the top ten most popular blog posts of the year.

1. What Steve Jobs Can Teach You About Designing E-Learning
2. Warning: Using the Wrong Images Can Confuse Your Learners
3. 5 Ways Web 2.0 Can Make You a Better E-Learning Designer
4. What Everybody Ought to Know About Using PowerPoint for E-Learning 
5. Little Known Ways to Create Your Own Graphics Using PowerPoint
6. Go Beyond Information Sharing – 5 Ways Your E-Learning Courses Can Create Understanding
7. Why Course Navigation is Less Important Than You Might Think
8. Create Engaging E-Learning Courses You Can Be Proud Of
9. How to Get Your Learners to Remember More
10. The Secret to Creating Your Own PowerPoint Templates for E-Learning

Tip:  A good way to quickly scan the blog post titles is to click on the archives link on the bottom.

Final Thoughts

It’s no surprise that three of the top ten posts reference PowerPoint.  While it’s fashionable to criticize PowerPoint, many in our industry still use it to build their elearning.  It’s a good tool and easy to use.  In fact, I think it’s still one of the best tools to build elearning, period. 

Speaking of PowerPoint, here’s a bonus template to bring in the new year.  The zip file includes the .pot, background images, and the color scheme for those who use Articulate Presenter.

Click here to see the demo template.

Thank you for reading the blog posts, adding your comments, and sending emails.  I truly enjoy hearing from you. Keep the comments coming.  Also, if you have ideas for things you’d like to see me cover in the blog, send them my way.

2008 is going to be a great year! I look forward to what’s coming down the road.  Wait until you see the next generation elearning tools.  They’re pretty slick.

Have a great New Year!