Online Learning Takes Special Skills

What skills are needed to successfully learn from online training? Are there some users that will never be successful using eLearning? Are the skills needed to learn in a classroom environment different from skills needed online?

Here are some thoughts.

Classroom-based training requires:

• Listening comprehension
• Ability to pay attention for long spans of time
• Oral expression/ Ability to put thoughts into words
• Colleague collaboration / Teamwork

Online training requires:

• Reading skills
• Independent study skills
• Self-pacing and time management
• Self motivation and discipline
• A learning space created by user

Now the argument can be made that a lot of these skills apply to both classroom and online training. However it seems that certain skills seem more important for certain delivery methods.

As more and more courses move online we need to be more thoughtful of our design. We need to realize that some users might not be great readers, have a lot of self-discipline, and/or have time management skills. So how can we improve? What can we do to help out our learners?

Ideas to help learners that struggle in these areas:

Lack of Reading Skills

• We’ve all heard that “a picture is worth a thousand words.” Images can really improve the learner’s comprehension and speed up the learning. This is true for all levels of readers.
• Be sure to “chunk” text, use bullets, and make it “scannable“.
• Use audio and instructional video.

Lack of Independent Study Skills

• Add a forum or discussion area.
• Put the learners into virtual groups and have them do some online training and then hold a team discussion over the phone/email.
• Hold live WebEx sessions to connect with others.

Lack of Self-pacing and Time Management

• Make the courses short. This helps learners be able to complete training even if they only have a few minutes to dedicate.
• Indicate how long each module/lesson will take. This will allow learners to plan.

Lack of Motivation and Discipline

• Make the course visually appealing and interactive. (scenarios, quizzes, games, etc.)
• Content should be applicable to the learner’s job and interests.
• Possibly have the learner agree to a training schedule and have “check-in” points where they must indicate their progress.

Lack of Learning Space

• Tell learners what is expected. They should know that they need to find a quite place (free of distractions) before beginning the course.
• Provide a list of tips to create a virtual learning environment. Maybe they could turn of their phone, close all other computer applications, shut the door, put a sign on the door, put earphone on instead of listening through the computer speakers, etc.

What thoughts do you have?

Highlights from E-Learning 2.0 LinkedIn Discussion:

Anne Petersen: “One skill they definitely need is the skill to read instructions – and follow them”

Marian Heddesheimer: (for virtual classrooms) “Technical skills, like setting up audio and camera properly.
Moderating skills like allowing students to use their mike or camera.”

Ian Simpson: “My experience is that somehow e-Learning sharpened or at least underlined the distinction between good and not so good student performance.”

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eLearning games and interactive flash templates that you can insert into your favorite rapid eLearning tool.

10 Design Standards to Create Better eLearning!

If you’re thinking about creating eLearning courses you’ve probably started to think about standards. eLearning content needs to follow standards just like classroom manuals and material. When content is standardized it makes it easier for the learner to understand and quickly process the content. They stop noticing inconsistencies and focus on what you’d really like them to – the meat!

Once you’ve come up with your own list of standards, make sure that everyone on the team has them (and lives by them). Don’t be soft. Enforce the standards and maybe even create some templates that are already “standardized”. You could also implement a final Q/A checklist that makes the designer complete a checklist that they followed each standard. After awhile following the standards will just become second nature.

Here is my list of 10 things that I’d include in my list of “standardized items”:
1. Bolding: Decide how to use bolding. To emphasize, as headings, for sections, to indicate actions?
2. Italics: Are hyperlinks italicized? What about names of documents, screens and systems?
3. Fonts: Choose 2-3 fonts and decide which one is for headings, body text, and possibly image design.
4. Colors: Find colors that contrast well. There are many different websites that help create color schemes and check contrast. Just a tip…stay away from lime and purple text.
5. Layout: Design 5-10 different layouts and let the team use them. This saves time because each page doesn’t have to be custom designed each time. It also trains the learner to know how to understand your pages. Consider using e Learning templates.
6. Grammar and tense: Are you talking directly to the learner? Past tense or present tense (maybe future)? Should you be formal or informal?
7. Images: Will your images have shadows, rounded corners, feathering, borders, reflections, be square?
8. Buttons: What buttons will you always use? You might need buttons for next, back, jobaids, exit, simulation, more info, tips, play, course evaluation, get help, FAQs, feedback, and replay.
9. Logos: What logos will you have displayed? Company, department, none?
10. Text Size: What size are the headings? How about the body text?

Bonus List:
- File types: What types of files are allowed and function in the course? (.mov, .swf, .avi, .png, .wmv, etc.)
- Icons: Create a library of standard icons such as: caution, checkmarks, notes, numbers, arrows, etc.
- Interactivity: How do you tell the user to do something? Click the XXXXX button or Click XXXX? Do you bold what action the user should take?
- Bullets: What shape of bullets will you use?
- Course player/GUI: Create a standard interface for all courses. This allows the user to get used to how to navigation and use the courses.

Even More Tips from the Comments Section…Thanks! (view comments below)
- Component names: What do you call parts of the screen? Drop-down menu or List box? How to you tell them to access these components? Select, click, choose, enter, type, etc.

- Capitalization: Make it consistent throughout. For instance, are you capitalizing button names (on the buttons and in instructional references — all lowercase, all caps, title case)? What about certain terms (and if so, which ones)?

Here’s a nice article on Legibility from Adobe Magazine.

I know that I’ve missed a bunch. What others would you include?

(Check out amazing eLearning Games, Flash Interactions, PowerPoint Backgrounds, and e Learning Templates)

Which is Best…Classroom vs Online Training?

eLearning is better than classroom training!

Ok…I’m just being sarcastic. eLearning is actually just different than classroom training. They both have their pros and cons. I want to list a few areas that are positive “pros” for eLearning.

Geography
At times you need to train people that are dispersed geographically. They may be in various buildings or working from home. You could send a trainer out to each area or you could have participants come to a central location. There would be considerable travel and time involved.
Online training could help. There would be no need for travel and each participant could save quite a bit of time and take the training in the office/home.

Trainer Resources and Scale
There are times when you have a big system roll-out or maybe even a company merger situation. When large roll-outs occur, do you have enough training resources? Do you have enough time to put a lot of participants through a classroom experience? Do you have trainers who are up-to-speed on the content?
In these situations online training may be able to supplement and/or replace classroom instruction. Online training could help take the load off classroom crowding. These courses can also go out to many users at the same time.

Maintenance
There are certain courses that seem to always be changing. The system is constantly being updated, the policies keep changing, and the product details are a moving target. How will these changes be handled? How will you update material? How will the trainers get the new knowledge? Will you need to retrain those who previously attended the course?
Online content can be changed once from one location. There is no need to get trainers up-to-speed and no need to reprint materials. You could also quickly create a “recent changes” course to send out to previous attendees.

Facilities
Training facilities are expensive. You may need computer labs, projectors, space, whiteboards, supplies, admins, and more. You also many need multiple building locations.
With online content the user just needs a computer. Now to be fair, there are some eLearning costs that we could consider as “facility”. For example, you need development software and possibly at learning management system (LMS) to launch and track the courses.

Consistency
There are amazing trainers in the world but they each have their own way to training and they don’t say the exact same this each time. Even trainers from the same company may be teaching different topics. Consistency is a concern with classroom content. If your content must be the same each time, then eLearning is a good choice. The course content and delivery is exactly the same each time.
Does the content and delivery need to be the same each time? Does the content need to be customized for different audiences?

Learning Styles
People learn in many different ways. Some like reading, others listening, and others watching. An online course can offer many different ways of learning. Images, audio, text, animation, case studies, games, etc. can engage learners.

As I said at the beginning of this post, classroom and online training both have their pros and cons. Some content seems to lend itself more towards one or the other. Do your research and choose the method that is best for your project/organization. (or maybe even use both)

What other benefits can you think of? Leave a comment.

(Check out amazing eLearning Games, Flash Interactions, PowerPoint Backgrounds, and e Learning Templates)

Best Practices for Creating Online Courses

New Article: Online vs Classroom Training Benefits

Just published a new article on EzineArticles.com comparing the benefits of online vs. classroom training

Creating Flash Templates for eLearning

We’ve been building a lot of eLearning Flash templates lately and I started to think what I’ve learned that I might be able to share. Lots of people like to use templates to start a project. It speeds up development time and can help new users build some great content without having to know how to build it from scratch. However there are a few things that, if done properly, help the templates to be more user-friendly.

Here are my 6 tips to build Flash eLearning templates that are more user-friendly:

1. Frame Labels – Use Them
Frame labels are an easy way to ensure that the flash movie always goes to the section that it should. For example if you want a button to go to your 1^st section when clicked, then add a frame label to the 1^st keyframe of that section. Call the frame label something easy like “1^st section” for example.

Instead if you were to just tell the button to gotoFrame (3) that would work assuming that your 1^st section starts on frame 3 but what happens if someone adds a frame? All of a sudden your section’s start frame has moved. It’s cleaner to just use frame labels.

2. Guide Layers – Insert Them
You need to ensure that the user knows how to properly edit your file and what you expect them to edit. Guide layers are a great way to give instructions.

To insert a guide layer select Insert / Timeline / Layer. Then right-click on the layer title and choose guide. Notice that the layer icon changes to a hammer.

Guide layers allow you to put instructional text that won’t appear in the published swf file. Include your instructions on what to edit and you can also include boxes that show a user how large a text box or image can be.

3. Lock Layers
When you’re done creating the template, lock all of the layers that don’t need to be edited. This keeps the user from accidentally selecting an incorrect layer/frame. This can be especially confusing if your content is layered and the user needs to select a content behind another asset.

4. Put Actionscript on its Own Layer
Don’t make it hard for a user to find your action script. In other words, don’t put it on individual symbols if you can help it. Go ahead and create a separate layer and call it “actions”.

5. Create Folders in the Library
The library can get crowded very quickly. Create folder in the library to help separate the assets. If your flash template has multiple sections then create multiple folders. You could also name the layers so that it gives a clue to the user if they should edit assets or not.

For example, you could put an “x” in front of a folder’s name if it should not be touched.

6. Build Assets in Flash
Build as many of the assets within Flash. Since Flash is vector based that means anything you create can be easily resizes without worrying about making it look bad. Don’t import bitmaps. If you create your layouts in Flash your users can then resize things as they see fit and it will still look good.

I hope this gives you some ideas to make interactive Flash templates a bit more user-friendly.

If you’d like to see some examples check these out:
Interaction Pack – Grudge
Interaction Pack – City Rays
Interaction Pack – Clean Corporate
Interaction Pack – Pulsing Dots

New Articles: eLearning Templates and Design

Just published 2 more articles on ezinearticles.com.

eLearning Development Using Templates
Article focuses on how templates help you build eLearning more rapidly.

10 Online Training Do’s and Don’ts
Article discusses 10 things to think about when starting an eLearning team and course.

If you’d like to see some sample Flash eLearning templates here are a few (from e-LearningTemplates.com):
Interaction Pack – Grudge
Interaction Pack – City Rays
Interaction Pack – Clean Corporate
Interaction Pack – Pulsing Dots

eLearning Template Site is Momma Approved!

I know that that entire eLearning World has been waiting on the edge of their chairs for this announcement…

Brother Shawn has officially launched the e-LearningTemplates.com site! After many rolls of internal red tape and endless hoops to jump through, it has also been certified “Momma Approved“.

The site offers games:

• Course Style Kits – Everything you need to create an awsome course!  These kits include graphic layouts, the board game challenge, multiple color themes, people, quizzes and many flash interactions.
• Games – Right now we have 4 games to choose from. (Millionaire, Pyramid, Jeopardy and Board Game.
• People – Need some people that are cut-out and ready to drop into your course? Need multiple poses of the same person? We have multiple business and casual pictures.

These templates work with most rapid development tools (Articulate, PPT, Presenter, Captivate, HTML)

 Remember that an online course may be well written but if the learner isn’t visually attracted to the course, they will never read it.

Want to Build Your Own eLearning?

So, your company wants to start building online training. You might be asking yourself:

• Where do I start?
• What people do I need?
• What software is needed?
• What concerns need to be addressed?