Essentials of eLearning Course Design (in your LMS!)

eLearning course design is a definite skill.  It's more than just good instructional design (although if you want a good course it needs this too), it's about putting your course together in a way that works best for learning and the learners.  There a raft of tools out there, but what if you're using your LMS as the authoring tool for your learning?  (okay if your LMS doesn't contain authoring tools stop reading, or actually keep reading and then start making the case to change it).  Can you make good elearning and good looking elearning using your LMS?

One of the biggest misconceptions I fight against on an open source platform like Totara LMS (or Moodle for that matter) is the way that a course must look.  The problem of course is that often the preconception is right in the way that the vast majority of courses are put together in the same scroll down the page like a long list way.  There's nothing wrong with this, and of course there's lots wrong with this too.  A lot of it comes down to personal preference, but I never met anyone who really liked excessive scrolling down the page.  To add more to this there's something wrong with your course if it's largely text based.  Hey it works for a blog (I hope) but a course page needs a simpler interface more simple recognition and less reading.

Yuck!! It has loads of activities but just rolls on down the page and is a real turn-off!

From the depths of my teaching memory I remember the first and perhaps most important rule of teaching; know your audience. Same is true for elearning; and whilst I appreciate how difficult that is when you have to provide a course for such a potentially wide range, principally your business type is known.  If it really isn't known and you really don't know your audience at all then you must prepare for the lowest common denominator, that usually means providing a course for a lower level of literacy - that's where the graphical elements come in.  It's no mere coincidence that road signs across the globe use simple graphic indicators rather than wordy sentences - quicker recognition and regardless of your ability to read the language.

So giving your course a bold graphical interface is a really good idea, but that doesn't mean you can't include instructions, aims or other wordiness required by your subject matter.  What I would do though is try to limit this away from your main course page as much as possible.  For my courses if I want to state the aims or learning objectives for the course I would much rather put them in to a pop up or side bar than direct in the course flow.  That may go against the grain for some of you, but whilst a learning course absolutely should have learning objectives, it may not be absolutely necessary for those to be raised on a flag and given the highest priority to the learner.

If you can put together the resources etc you want to support your course, whether that be background reading, pre-course reading, additional information or a vital part of the course in a list of sorts then you can do this - and then get away from the list and go to icons for the resources.  If you're going to go with a book type design for your course and step people through page by page, don't just put all your resources in the pages.  It's frustrating for learners to have to read everything; particularly if they pretty much get it all from the start.  I prefer the pull approach to learning, say 'here's the extra resources if you need/want them'.  That means that all your resources form a part of the course library if you will, as the learner needs to dip into the library they can - you could use book icons or something similar to unlock all the resources or if you only have one or two you may have direct (preferably) graphical links to them.  Don't forget to use roll-over links and titles for the icons so that you get the best of both worlds.

I have pretty much the same approach with the activities as the resources.  I list out all the bits I want to include in the course, then I hide them away (in Totara you put them in a hidden topic section).  This then gives me the flexibility to set up my main course page using the simple html editor built in to my system.  This means that I have all my activities and resources built and in the system but hidden so I have a blank canvas to design how my course looks and feels.  What I try to do then is fill the visible area in as engaging way as possible and use my icons to hyperlink to the resources and activities that I have hidden.  It's not that I don't like Moodle or Totara icons, just that I can have more flexibility in how they look.  If you don't know how to write effective html then use either the built in editors for a Moodle based LMS or their equivalent.  I like to use the table function in Totara because I can split apart my icons really easy and use the hyperlinks to have all my links occupy the main screen piece.

The last bit that really needs thought is the other areas of your course page - of course this depends somewhat on your system, but Totara has a stack of 'blocks' that you can move around the outside of the main screen area.  You can actually increase the size by removing these all together, but I like to remove them from one side only as you get more central screen space but you also retain the ability to bring in the blocks and the functionality they bring with them.  My favourite of all is the html block - this is cool as it gives you the same equivalent space as the main screen space but conveniently split away in a side block.  You can use two or three of these to house all your resources in a neat way.  You can also use the label resource function in Moodle or Totara to bring in separators and split up the big block into layers.  I love the course completion status block on Totara as it is a great way to show your learner their status (and technically the objectives too!).

An example of a clean interface course - big launch and easy side buttons!

So that's it really, be creative in the way you use your LMS and don't just accept the built in icons and vertical display as the way it has to be.  Your LMS is about learning, you just have to use it that way!

The Nth Degree - what's in a name?

So after the last year or so of publishing my blog under the name the Learning Technologies Blog it dawned on me slightly ironic that in such a creative and inspiring world, here was my attempted words of wisdom with possibly the most dull and uninspiring sounding title since 'My Blog'.  The quest for a new title led me to look inwards - that's where the N comes from - but it left me several characters short of anything witty (but was more satisfying to my ego at least).  Anyway, cutting a short story long I went on to launch The Nth Degree - not yet a registered company for my awe-inspiring literary work (note; still to come) but hopefully a reasonable play on words that says a little bit about what this stuff is about and maybe shows at least a modicum of imagination if not inspiration.

That leads me to the 'what's in a name?' question the title of this blog poses.  The fact of the matter is that you will rarely find a more emotive subject than the naming of something.  It really doesn't matter what the thing is from the naming of your first-born and heir to the cat, car or even your LMS. Yes I know, the LMS gets its name out the box right?  I mean Total LMS is just that and SABA is SABA right?  But we deal mostly in the Open Source world and in that world your LMS isn't called Moodle (thankfully) or even Totara (although I like the big tree analogy of course); just like when you theme and brand it, you actually get to name it.  I'm lost in the number of i- or e- somethings (and no, now criticism if that's where you ended up) but I love it when an organisation truly starts to think about what their learning is all about and therefore what name they give to their LMS. 

Last blog I talked about one of my favourite subjects ownership, and I think naming your learning system is another way of taking ownership of the system.  If you get a new baby (okay I'm skipping some details here) you don't just accept the name the hospital gives you, it takes weeks and sometimes months to settle on a name (men; I realise the decision isn't yours but let's go along with it here..).  It's a big decision as you think about schools, life and what it would be like living that name (although if you're famous it's obviously a different criteria).  The same should be true of your learning systems; no-one expects to see their system reach into its twenties, but you are probably planning a few years of the system and want something that in two months isn't going to be a decision you (or even the LMS) wishes you hadn't made.

This is short and simple advice, but naming is best done with some others.  Like the best aspects of learning, collaboration is the key.  Bounce your ideas of others and test them out in conversation and be open to the suggestions of others.  I know one organisation that held a competition for the best name and logo for their system - a brilliant idea that got engagement prior to the launch and saved me heaps of time with designers!  One stage further would be to get those suggestions and put them out to the general vote - it's the sort of thing that's great for engaging stakeholders and a way of advertising without just saying 'look what's coming'.

Lastly remember that a rose by any other name would smell as sweet - that doesn't mean ignore what I said above, but remember that if you call your rubbish LMS a rose that's not what it may smell like to learners.  Likewise calling your LMS, child, cat etc a great name is no subsitution for raising it properly and looking after its growth and well-being.

Finally (like that's supposed to mean one more than lastly I know), if your LMS doesn't or can't really be named, give me a buzz when your 'licensing' expires in another 30 months and let's talk about how we can do this sort of thing better.

It's all about Ownership

So you buy a new car and it's yours right?  Well, at least finance dependent and the day you pick it up etc… but let's assume you're a cash buyer and you drive the car off the lot. It's yours.  You tell everyone it's yours, you show off your new car and you probably don't let anyone else drive the thing because… well… it's yours right?  We even ironically do this with houses that we may never get to truly own in our lifetime (and who knows in a generation or two's time if anyone will ever own a house they didn't just inherit or win?).  Surely it's the same with your Learning Management System or LMS?

No.  Not always and often not at all.  The hardest implementations of Totara that I'm involved in are the ones where it seems no-one really wants to rise up and claim the awesome system we've just put in place for them.  The madness is that a house, a car and an LMS all benefit immensely from taking ownership and responsibility and ultimately you mould them so that they become an integral part of you or your organisation.  Of course maybe owning an LMS is a bit like a dog or children.  When working well it's yours and your proud of them, when they misbehave and pee in the wrong place (hopefully the dog rather than children) you make a hasty retreat and they become your partner's responsibility not yours.  No, that doesn't work, really someone has to own your system, but who?

I've talked in previous blogs (did anyone read them?) about who I believe should own the LMS in an organisation.  Let's take that a little further this time.  I think that an LMS is all about Learning (yes, read my earlier blog on that and re-read, it's all about learning).  That means the LMS should have its ownership roots firmly planted in that area, whether that's in Learning and Development, HR or Capability type parts of your organisation.  That's only really half the story, this is where governance and key stakeholders come in.  It's an imperative for a successful implementation that your LMS has some high-level support from somebody organisationally important - they may not be the owner but they are your top level guidance and offer key backing.  That top-level exec must be a fan of what you are trying to achieve and you must sell them the vision, you can then flow behind them delivering your message.  For want of a better term this person is often referred to internally as the 'sponsor' or even primary stakeholder.  Whilst they are incredibly important to your success, they're not actually the owner so they need to be great at a distant rather than too heavily involved in the project/learning.

The owner is different again, because the owner is going to really shape the LMS and drive it forwards.  This has to be someone with a passion for what the system is going to do (not necessarily the system, but that helps too).  This person has that learning focus, drive and as much responsibility as possible in that area.  But going back to my earlier car analogy they're a bit like a rich car owner - rich enough to pick the right LMS hopefully!  They own the car, they decide where it's going and how it gets used, but the driving?  No, there's staff for that.  The next role may be as important as the owner and sponsor, but almost certainly gets paid a lot less money.  In my analogy this is the driver, the driver in reality is the system administrator or sys-ad.  I've often seen the sys-ad very successfully falling into the lap of what was previously a training co-ordinator.  Ideally they have a great knowledge of how to get things done in training/development/learning and are used to organising things like face-to-face training sessions or meetings without a great deal of fuss.  If ever there was a need to have a switched on cookie in your org this would be it.  As I said before, you may not pay them the most but value them if you have a good one as they will do more than just drive your car for you, they'll service it, and get it running in a way that you hadn't even thought possible.

So with a sponsor, owner and sys-ad in place, it's time to drive your vehicle around your organisation.  Everyone will look at you and be envious of this beautiful machine you have and want a go.  So show it off by all means, keep control, but allow others to be stakeholders in it too - let them own a little piece and make that their own whilst keeping your overall vision communicated and intact.  Once you reach this stage you may be ready to "Love and let go of your LMS" as I once wrote.

As a final note, if your system owner or sponsor or sys-ad doesn't fall anywhere in any learning or training function, you will struggle and that's probably pretty obvious.  Your LMS is also an IT system, so if the above roles don't touch on IT, you've probably got it wrong too.  I'm not saying your owner needs or even should be in IT, but somewhere along the line you need IT to be a stakeholder.  My advice on this would be to do that at the start of your project so that they're on-side with what you're doing and at a high enough level that it doesn't come back down from above later in a way that's damaging. 

Lastly remember if no-one owns your organisation in your organisation, then you are just renting space, and that's a different market altogether - and a dangerous place for something as important as learning to sit.  Remember Life for Rent by Dido?  Bit like that.

Are you Agile enough for Learning Technologies?

The world of learning technologies is fast moving it's true.  I run lots of projects that move me both geographically and sometimes even philosophically.  Someone asked me where I was based yesterday at a meeting in Wellington (and as I sit on my third flight in the last 20 or so hours it seems reasonable that) I replied "the cloud".  But the one that has caught me a little recently and firmly given me a shunt to analyse my style of project management, is the desire for organisations to report on every minute detail along the way.  Now I'm (clearly) not a dedicated project manager (what are these strange beasts anyway?), but I do manage a lot of projects; mostly of a similar nature around the implementation of Totara LMS or Moodle/Mahara.  I manage projects using a kind of approach that seems logical and able to keep up with a rapidly changing environment.  Until recently I never thought about what that actually was enough to give it a label, I knew it wasn't the waterfall style or Prince2 stuff I remember from my military days, but I didn't realise unwittingly that I'd stumbled on to the polar opposite of Prince; Agile project management.

To me being agile is a pretty good word for what I do so I instantly connected with it and read a little more.  If you're reading this article to find out about Agile Management go and read the proper stuff or at least check out Wikipedia and find out what more edumacated people think, but if you want what I believe is at the heart of agile then read on and I'll tell you how I think it relates to your elearning projects.  Agile management of my projects (yes in my speak) is all about making things run smoothly, cutting down on unnecessary stuff and perhaps most importantly of all, empowerment.

Smooth runnings; sounds a bit like that great John Candy movie Cool Runnings (hey, great may be a bit strong, but it was fun) and it almost is that laid back attitude.  As a project manager the job is to not do everything and plan everything down to the nth degree, but to make everything run smoothly.  The difficult part in projects is where hand-overs occur or where people have to work together.  If you can facilitate these by providing the right environment and using the right tools and connecting the right people, stand back and watch the results.  To me the right tools are things that entice collaboration like Dropbox and Trello (if you've not checked out this little collaborative tool, it's really great).  Stuff where sharing and communication is what you do.  I'm sure some of you love MS Project but I don't.  It's too rigorous and not enough people have it.  You have to share by saving and sending and PMs tend to lock it down in that old knowledge and power tradition which goes against everything agile.  It's just a tool I know and Gantt charts and Project programs can work well, but the overcomplex chart scares me and makes the whole project feel over-prescribed to me.

Project Padding; this is the unnecessary stuff which seems to justify why so many PMs charge so much for their services.  For me this is bringing in 5 people to a meeting that is about management and just needs the manager involved.  Trying to pre-plan for every possible eventuality is a ridiculous concept to me.  One thing about the unknown is that it tends to stay that way until choosing to reveal itself.  I believe you should allow time and resource for the unknown, I believe you should be prepared for the unknown to occur, but listing all the unknowns is just something that isn't possible, so why waste masses of project time on it?  I think risks and changes need to be highlighted for sure, but you can't mitigate against every possible outcome without even knowing what the risk is.  Possibly the biggest project padder for me is reporting.  Shock horror all round!  You don't want to produce daily, weekly, monthly, hourly reports??  No, frankly I don't want to really report at all.  To me the agile project reduces the need for the formal planned reports because the project runs and everyone can access a 'live' report at any time and speak to the right people.  Trello is such a tool, we also use collaborative tools like Work Flow Max where clients can see what's going on with tasks and hours and all that jazz.  If I update a task in Trello it sends an email to subscribers so they know.  I do believe in regular catchups too, but meetings have to be the single greatest padder ever invented by businesskind.  Again, meetings are a necessary part, but meet when you need to, have regular catchups that are short, sweet and to the point and if you absolutely must meet, have an agenda and stick to it and don't let the meeting degenerate.

Power to the (right) People; so to me the biggest down-side of the old-fashioned waterfall PM is that everything is set in a complex array of dependencies and responsibilities which actually defines what each person can do and then follows up with reporting, meeting and strict protocols to ensure that everyone is a slave to the almighty plan.  Plans are a bit like models (not the thin otherworldly creatures on the cat-walk mind); some are good, some are not so good, but all are essentially wrong.  As a physicist by training I've seen everything from Newton's laws of motion to Einstein's relativity - they're models to explain what happens in reality, but the truth is they are mathematical approximations to reality and are fundamentally flawed by the unknown.  Without getting terribly deep (not my speciality obviously), a project plan is a similar hierarchical approximation of what is actually going to happen.  If you accept it's 'wrong' you'll be fine.  It will change and it needs to be living and breathing and you (the PM) can't control it alone, you've got to let it go and release control.  To me this is where agile comes in to its own.  Rather than me try and get constant updates on the bit Bob is doing, I let Bob set the original milestone and just update it as we go.  Power for that part goes to Bob not to me.  I need to know, but if I'm using the right approach and tools I will.  Likewise I don't need reports when things are on track; I like exception reporting whereby I need to know if there's an issue.  Otherwise I'll just see things happen using my tools as we go through.

Of course as a final note the best laid plans of mice and men are also known to go to rats if you don't mind me mixing my metaphors.  There's only one way to handle a project that goes wrong and that's roll up your sleeves and get stuck in, throw what you can at it and don't be afraid to evaluate your own performance before getting to heavily into others... hopefully that's not something that happens too often.

Servicing your LMS

In New Zealand it’s the WOF (Warrant of Fitness) in the UK it was the MOT, but whatever you call it and wherever you are there’s something you should do every year (or 6 months if you drive an old car like me) to make sure your car or beloved motorbike (incidentally worth several time what my car is worth) is actually fit for purpose.  Funny thing is that organisations invest significantly in their Learning Management Systems (or LMSs) but how often do they ever check on their fitness for purpose?

First thing to realise is that if you don’t regularly service any piece of equipment for an extended period of time it falls out of shape.  Try skipping the dentist a few years and see what you get… the trick is to keep servicing, keep checking and never letting it get too far out of shape.  I play sport and have done since I was… well it’s been a while and long as I can remember.  Give or take an injury or two I’ve never stopped playing and that’s probably why I’m still able to play at a reasonable level at my ripe old age.  Again it’s harder to start up again then to just keep going, it’s that regular servicing that keeps things working the way they should and stops you getting strains in the most inconvenient of places.

There are lots of places to get your LMS serviced, from the official places that only check fitness (and won’t make any corrections) to large chains of garages and even the dodgy little place round the corner (and some cowboys to boot).  Picking the right one is best done by listening to people, trusting what you see, hear and feel and ultimately by the way you feel when you drive away.  Same thing for getting someone to service your LMS.  There may not be that many LMS service centres, but don’t forget there are millions of cars (yeah, even in New Zealand) and relatively few LMSs so it’s all relative.  Funny thing is the same rules apply, you have to listen to what other people say, looking and evaluating as you go, but ultimately how you feel after the service period is the best way of knowing whether you should return.

Of course an LMS and  a motor vehicle are hardly the same things at heart, in both cases how you use the thing is perhaps more important than the technical capabilities of the thing itself.  The difference in your LMS WOF is that it is as much about how you use it as it is about the way it works, it’s a meeting of man and machine and the overall effectiveness that counts.  As ever in Learning Technologies you need to choose your mechanic wisely and find one that really speaks your language not just the mystical language of tappets and bearings.

Finally remember that when your vehicle is failing badly it may just be time to trade it in or buy a new one.  If you (or your predecessor) roped you in to a long-term deal (I still can’t believe some vendors persist in this) you may have to suck it up for a while but you should already be eying up and checking the performance of the new model.  If you haven’t considered looking at Open Source too, then you probably have already limited yourself to the expensive European market without considering those ‘other’ vehicles that are technically far better at a fraction of the cost with more options and add-ins than you can shake a stick at (the one you should have beat your predecessor with for tying you in for this long).

As a post-statement remember that everything above holds firm equally for motor vehicles and LMSs, but in absolutely no way bears any relevance to your partner.  Servicing, trading in and upgrading are thoughts that should go no further and a lock-in period (even if that period is ‘til death) is part of the deal if you want to secure the ultimate package.

eLearning is all about learning - your LMS should be to!

What's the single most important thing about elearning?  Simple, without a doubt it's learning.  When we looked at our (Kineo Pacific's) vision and mission statements a while back I was insistent with the other managers that we used the expression learning in everything we do.  I think sometimes we think this is obvious, maybe a given or just plain old-fashioned thinking, but the rule is in the name itself.  I dub it the 90/10 rule (not to be confused with 70/20/10 which I can't be accused of spearheading) - although as usual the irony is not lost on me that actually the word elearning is only 9 letters long so I probably should dub it the 8 out of 9 rule or the 88.9% rule, but that just sounds silly so the 90/10 is what I'm going with.  (note if we include the dash e-learning could fit the 90/10, but I'm all for losing the dash so I have a clash of ideals here).

It's a pretty simply philosophy really, if you focus on the 'e' too heavily you're going to neglect the learning; and what would be the point of elearning if it wasn't for the learning part?  My advice is to focus on the learning, the e (which just stands for electronic in case you were wondering) is merely the medium.  In reality this means if you put all your efforts into a system that looks good but has no focus on the learning you set out to achieve, you'll probably end up with a nice looking technical manual or a gimmicky piece that you can show people, but that doesn't really achieve your objectives (yes you need some of them in a learning piece).  Don't get me wrong, I'm not a great fan of 'by the end of this module you will' and then a straight testing of those, but if you don't have some objectives for your learning then you could quite fairly question why you were forcing people to do it all.  How you go about sharing those with the learners is another story for another time.

So on to learning technologies too - for a distinction I look at learning technologies as being the systems and frameworks upon which your elearning sits and operates in (the environment if you will).  Several times recently I've heard people say that there's no learning in an LMS.  I have to say that the only reason to agree with this is that you don't have a decent LMS or you're not using it the right way.  Now of the LMS, learning accounts for a third of the acronym for a good reason; yes it's there to manage and yes it's a system, but a good LMS is ALL about learning.  It's sometimes said that the LMS is just the classroom for you elearning, this is simply just half the picture (I'm getting confused with halves, thirds and 90/10/88.9% but stay with me).  A great classroom can make quite a difference, with smart boards and multimedia tools, but an LMS goes so much further; how about the ability to use those asynchronous tools in a way that is more than just as a place to post?  What if your forums could automate actions, send reminders and prompt your learners in the way a good trainer would?  What if your LMS could provide assessments that were not just assessing but actually providing a learning experience and giving feedback and learning opportunities along the way.  What if your LMS provided access to further learning, even selected and pointed you in the right direction and showed you what you need to progress?  What if your LMS became a social learning platform too - grouping and assigning you more than one trainer could on there own?

Hopefully the above gives you some idea - it's not about just providing the environment, it's about providing a learning environment that can actually promote, initiate and help you to increase the learning.  Yes it's a tool, but to a certain extent it's a facilitator just like a good coach or trainer - to me that makes it a major part of learning and not just the classroom.  If you apply that thinking when it comes to selecting your next LMS, perhaps I'll hear from you...

Unlocking the Power of Hierarchies

I like the "unlocking the power..." type title, makes it sound like I've got something really cool to share rather than my usual level of diatribe around elearning and learning technologies. I actually think this is a vital topic though, I work with a large number of clients who use learning management systems (principally Totara LMS and Moodle) and the importance of structure is so important to the usability and eventually the ultimate success of the LMS. In fact for me it's really the separating factor between Totara and Moodle; Moodle is essentially a course management system rather than an LMS and that's principally because it's about launching and tracking elearning modules. Totara has wider management, blending and reporting; but it might just as well be a CMS (albeit a blended one) without making use of the hierarchical features and the proper set up of the hierarchies.

Totara works with two key hierarchies (it has another couple in there, but we're talking structure here) that so many other functions rely on, namely Organisation and Position. Some systems have one and you can usually achieve most of your aims off this, but two really allows you to replicate matrix type management set ups which are so common in business today so particularly useful. As with all user data this is best if it can come from a single source of truth and this is often held by your HR system (or HRIS), but just creating a sync and saying job done is not the same as really setting it up to maximise your use; this takes a planning stage that is not about IT, it's about managing and leveraging off your data.

Step one is to simply review the structures and integrity of the data you hold (regardless of whether it's in your HRIS or a spreadsheet). The number of times clients are prepared to spend money on a data sync to pull across bad data is a constant source of surprise to me. I think there are two key things here, one is if your data is correct and the second is it usable. Correctness means does the hierarchies in your data actually match the way they are in your organisation and also are people actually in the positions in the organisation that your data suggests? A fairly simple review of your organisation should answer the first one and the second either requires a knowledge of your people and the organisation or a known correct source of data.

Step two is then to prepare your data by fixing any issues in step one. For structures you need to basically go through the process of creating org and position charts, I like to do this on a whiteboard in a traditional org structure type diagram before converting to a spreadsheet - if you need some examples email me (nigel.young@kineo.co.nz). Fixing the correctness is twofold process; firstly you have to correct what is wrong using your correct source of truth (this could be a big task that involves investigation) and secondly you have to fix the process that has allowed the data to move so far away from the desired levels of integrity.

Step three is the most commonly missed step and involves an understanding of how your LMS works and how the data is going to be used. You need someone with a good knowledge of both their system and L&D to go through how the system works and how it uses these to work. We do this in configuration workshop and also reinforce during administrator training at Kineo Pacific. Without this knowledge you can make assumptions about your data that will affect the way the system ultimately performs. An alternative is to make sure that someone like me is involved in step four to cover this!

Step four is the actual setup and data mapping - this is where we take the hierarchies from your system and map them into your LMS. This is either setting up the automated sync or it's setting up the spreadsheets for doing it in a slightly more manual way. In Totara you can also build and enter completely manually through the system, but this is a last resort rather than the preferred way.

Sorted. Now there in the system we can use them! I'm going to cover that in the next blog, this will probably be in a couple of days time flying the opposite way across the Tasman, but by next week I promise!


- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

Location:Over the Tasman