In a delicious headline appearing in the “The New York Times” this week we read, “WE HAVE MET THE ENEMY AND HE IS POWERPOINT!” This particular article by Elisabeth Bumiller was focused on the opinions of many of our military leaders. Let’s look at some of their direct quotes: General James N. Mattis of the Marine Corps, the Joint Forces commander, said this month . . . “PowerPoint makes us stupid,” General...
So, why do you invest time in training your company’s workforce? And, for that matter, why does your organization commit dollars to training initiatives? Those answers seem obvious, don’t they? “Our people will acquire the skills necessary for improved performance and that will result in a better bottom line for our company?’ In a perfect world, those answers are completely valid. ‘nuff said. But, it’s not a perfect world and those answers...
So, you’re looking to buy e-Learning courses that actually work? A good objective! However, not easily accomplished! Why? Today, the e-Learning marketplace is full of junk. Adapted PowerPoint presentations; adapted written procedures; “slide” shows without audio; words, words, words on almost every screen. Very few individuals will learn anything from those e-Learning courses. They’re junk! They confuse the buyers because they offer little return. They are titles without substance. They are worthless...
What force separates the winners from the losers in today’s marketplace? The same force that has shaped survivors throughout history — change! Since the beginning of time, it has been those who have learned to control change that have prospered. How does an organization acquire the skills and knowledge to meet the challenge of change? Through TRAINING ! A successful company needs managers and planners who can see the potential of the...
Learning is not merely memorization of information. Learning is the mental response to informational stimulation, which turns into reflection and new awareness. Meaningful learning initiates action and change, which results in heightened values and skills. Very few individuals will possess the gifts necessary to create meaningful instructional design. And that fact, coupled with high production costs, is why the “do-it-yourself” purveyors will fail. Today, learner-controlled e-Learning is the best answer for effective...
In a month (May 16-19), Chicago will host the “ASTD 2010 INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE & EXPOSITION,” http://www.astdconference.org/ The American Society for Training and Development (ASTD) is the largest training society in the world. Individuals from more than seventy countries will attend. While the actual conference sessions may be useful to some of you, even better conference choices, for those who want to understand both the current and future trends in learning, are the...
The importance of aesthetics in e-Learning design and development is often ignored. For some unknown reasons, the creative artistry that more often distinguishes the great learning experience lies unexplored. And yet, every program or production that we remember is most often the one that appealed to our senses that, in turn, stimulated our mind to learn, absorb and retain. While we all know the importance of the SME, the computer programmer, and...
“Usability,” as it relates to e-Learning, is a very important concept. In simple terms, we define it as how user-friendly or appealing a program is to its users. In practice, usability goes deeper than this, and is closely related to how much users actually learn from using the e-Learning courseware. Many of the usability concepts that need to be considered from the end-user’s perspective are closely linked to the instructional design and...
PowerPoint is the major enemy of e-Learning. It has distorted the learning values of this new education/training tool. It has turned off millions of individuals who would otherwise be motivated by the potential of the e-Learning medium. In short, PowerPoint has done much more harm to e-Learning most of us can possibly imagine. Why!?! Too few, charged with making training initiative decisions for their organization, have very little real understanding of the...
An opinion piece in “THE WASHINGTON POST” last week summed up, very well, the ideas advocated in several of these previous BLOGs. The piece was entitled, “A New Agenda for School Reform,” by Diane Ravitch. I’m going to quote a couple of her more salient observations. “I used to be a strong supporter of school accountability and choice. But in recent years, it became clear to me that these strategies were not...
The rapid development and changes in technology over the last decade has had a resounding impact on the learning industry. Technology, coupled with the explosion of knowledge requirements in the information age, has led to the emergence of new learning modalities such as e-Learning, Simulations and Gaming. With the recent flood of new products in the market, customers are faced with an extensive range of programs that have been developed without assurance...
In today’s BLOG we’re going to list the more important elements involved in the instructional design of e-Learning. Let’s start by listing today’s objectives: • We will describe the restrictions of, and conditions for, effective on-line learning environments. • We will list the features and benefits of effective on-line learning systems. The realities of e-Learning are as follows: • Because of most corporate infrastructures, e-Learning is not part of the video world....