The Internet Goes to College

From Infobits

"The Internet Goes to College: How Students are Living in the Future with Today's Technology" (September 15, 2002) reports on the findings of a Pew Internet & American Life Project survey of U.S. students at two-year and four-year public and private colleges and universities between March 2002 and June 2002. Some of the study's findings include:

-- 79% of college Internet users say the Internet has had a positive impact on their college academic experience.

-- 73% of college Internet users use it for research more than they use the library.

-- Nearly half of college Internet users email ideas to professors that they wouldn't dare say in class.

-- 56% believe that email has enhanced their relationship with professors.

The complete report is available on the Web.

OLL More Tom Kelly

Cisco's approach is not for everyone. They have more money and infrastructure and change than just about anyone else. At Online Learning, Cisco's Tom Kelly shared a list of lessons learned and they are universal. This is how you do it.

Lessons Learning (the Hard Way)

• Don't own it all -- control is not success
  
• Processes must change or don't bother
  
• Portals are views into content, not separate repositories
  
• Business should drive eLearning -- not training or HR
  
• Small, short modules, not whole courses
  
• In-class, on-line, or self-paced -- options and blends
  
• Content management enterprise-wide, not "training content"
  
• Focus 50%-70% of the effort on informal/unstructured content
  
• Ask the audience, not the SMEs or trainers -- "Learn what?"
  
• Pretest, prescribe, posttest -- measure everything
  
• Solve job-related problems, job tasks... not training problems
  
• Attack business problems, not training problems

• IT is your very best friend... but don't ignore Marketing

VNU has posted Tom's presentation on the web. With sound!

Learning (mostly "e") links

Jane Massey's report on Quality & eLearning. 82% of the 433 respondents are from the EU. All sorts of users evaluate quality along two dimensions:

1. Does it work for all users without technical glitches?
   
2. Is its design appropriate to the learner's need and context?

15% rated eLearninging's overall quality to be poor. 46% rated it fair. In the EU private sector, 72% rated eLearning quality poor or fair. Less than 1% of the respondents rated eLearning excellent.

Related site: European Training Village/Cedefop (the European Centre for the Development of Vocational Training)

Other interesting links

Accenture Outlook Journal. Good articles on Human Performance.

Learning Systems Architecture Lab at CMU

Paper on Web Services from Element K

IDC's eLearning in Practice White Paper

Engrish (Japanese English)

What is the optimal eLearning strategy? by Tony O'Driscoll

ISPI PerformanceXpress

F**ked eLearning

Several people approached me after my presentation to ask how to convince their bosses to invest in internal marketing. I suggested they point to the failure of programs at other organizations. Anecdotal research suggests that only half the workers invited to participate in eLearning ever show up. Half of those who start a program drop out before completing it. Problem is, anecdotes are not proof. To be persuasive, we need names and numbers. Examples with teeth.

It’s tough to get failure stories. Generally, they’re swept under the rug. In the old days, it would have been impossible to collect stories of projects that bombed. Things are different today.

Walking the Expo floor at Online Learning, I bumped into several dozen people who are working for different organizations than they were last year. I talked with a similar number of “consultants” with no consulting assignments or jobs which will disappear within the next six weeks. Ah, the secrets they know.

Do you have a story to share? Email me with the subject: F**ked eLearning. I promise complete anonymity. What's really going on in eLearning? Got any horror stories to share?

OLL Handouts

Handouts from many of the sessions at Online Learning 2002.

Clouds Over Anaheim

"Building Better Employees"

Grace does not seem taken by KnowledgeNet's demo.

Watch for news about these guys.

A pal from SmartForce days ends up where
my instructional design career began.

Looks a little confusing to me.

eLearning People ???

Allison Rossett

The shootouts are great for people who author
programs in less than three minutes.

Last week's traffic

Webtrends reports the following traffic at www.internettime.com Sunday through Friday of last week:

4,780 unique visits
3,836 visited once
944 visited more than once

More people visited www.internettime.com than attended Online Learning. (Not that they spent as much time here.)

A new first: This blog was the most popular page on the site, just barely edging out the eLearning Jump Page.

This week's numbers are skewed because things are shifting to a new host.

OLL Nielsen & Flanders

On Wednesday morning, I dragged myself out of bed to listen to Vince Flanders and Jakob Nielsen critique webpages in what was falsely billed as "USABILITY WRESTLEMANIA."

Vince is author of Web Pages That Suck and a very funny fellow. (When Gloria met Vince and said, “Hi!”, Vince replied “Not since 1970.”) Jakob is a useability guru whose own site is visually dull because he refuses to use graphics.

Jakob and Vince gave two-minute reviews of websites. Live. We start with the California Department of Motor Vehicles. Confusing. Activities and information buttons intermingled.

U.S. Airways. Let’s make a reservation. Unlike the DMV, you can tell where you are. Reservation is up front while most people would want to do research first. Which Hartford airport? The page would not work for the visually impaired, because the “Continue” button would have dropped off the right side of the screen. One of the Hartford choices is a private airport that U.S. Air does not fly to.

What are the three worst things designers do? Vince:

1. You gotta know your target audience. You should be able to figure out what someone is doing within four seconds. The Suttleworth site addresses the needs of the designer, not the reader.
2. Inappropriate use of technology. See webpagesthatsuck.com.
3. Poor navigation.

Vince’s best things people do.

1. Target audience. You’re all going to die! Buy life insurance.
2. International Herald Trib site. Select font size, one or three columns. An amazing tour de force. (Glish.com enables you to change font face.)
3. appropriate tech. slide a frog.

Jakob pointed out these web sins:

1. No prices. Not providing information people need to know.
2. Big blocks of text.
3. Inflexible search. Needs prioritization.

Jakob’s “what people do well”

1. Search boxes are more prevalent
2. Fewer gratuitous, bandwidth-hogging images
3. Real-time update inventories, “Only two copies left”

Too bad Vince and Jakob wouldn't wrestle or even argue. (Their websites praise one another.) Vince at least showed up with garish wrestling garb. I had hoped they'd dig into some eLearning pages, but I guess that's a bit much to hope for when the vendors in the Expo are footing part of the bill. Can't bite the hand that feeds and all that.

Design Not Found

Bad Designs

Interface Hall of Shame

Usable Web

OLL Photos

Blogging can be like eLearning the boss forces her subordinates to take home. Its 1 am; I am starved for sleep, but I want to turn you on to some photographs of this event over on Stephen's Web.

OLL Tuesday

After three full days of jabbering with people about eLearning, I’ve had it with details and am reflecting on the bigger picture.

eLearning has outlived its usefulness.
Some people say I invented the term eLearning. I am CEO of eLearning Forum. But the word eLearning causes more trouble than it’s worth. Arguments over its definition divert our attention from performance improvement. If it gets the job done, who cares what it’s called? In several conversations, we banned the word eLearning. It pressured us to talk about outcomes rather than techniques.

Clark Aldrich responds that,

Its not the learning.
During our presentation this afternoon, Lance said that it’s not the “e” that’s important, it’s the learning. I interrupted, saying I disagreed. It’s not the learning that’s important. It’s the doing that’s important. If the learning doesn’t change behavior, it is irrelevant and of no interest.

Intermingling disparate eLearning is not always good.
Online learning comes in two distinct flavors, each with its own sense of urgency and political support.

1. HR’s eLearning that focuses on career development, compliance, and plugging skill gaps.
   
2. Business Unit eLearning that helps customers, workers, partners, and suppliers accomplish objectives. Business eLearning, like all business projects, demands accountability.

LMS
Two years ago, the LMS question buyers asked was “Docent or Saba?” Everyone assumed that you had to have an LMS. Today the common wisdom is that you don’t need an LMS for learners outside the firewall, e.g. customers. Unless you’re certifying learner accomplishment, you may not need much of an LMS inside the firewall either. LMSs pass information up, in the form of reports; they don’t do much to improve the experience of the learner. At first this seemed natural. As Allison Rossett has said, “We switched from counting butts in seats to counting hits on websites.” If performance gains are the measure of success, why bother counting the intermediate steps?

The Vibe at the Expo
Traffic was okay, but then again there were not as many aisles as in previous years. Visitors appeared more sophisticated, armed with specific questions, and less gullible than before. Vendors fielded more clueless booth people (you used to be able to talk with the primary developer or CEO) and group presentations. Three rows of chairs, a canned pitch every 45 minutes, reminds me of geeky software shows. Customers with eLearning experience don't need to hear the old any time, any place story any more.

Attendance is down.
How many people are here? I’ve heard a variety of numbers. One semi-official tally says 4,000 participants. Subtracting vendors and freebies knocks this down to 3,000. A couple of people estimated 2,500 legitimate, paying participants. The numbers are down; the sophistication's up.

Maturation
The eLearning marketplace is maturing more quickly than the shows. People spent more time in sessions and less in the Expo. I heard a number of complaints about presentations that were geared to newbies. Also, I heard complaints about too many sessions competing for too few slots.

“People love to learn but hate to be taught.”

OLL2002 Tom Kelly

Tom Kelly
VP Worldwide Training at Cisco

In the good old days, Cisco rolled out a new product every 4 days and acquired a new company every 15 days. Philosophy is central deployment, decentralized development. Four years ago, John Chambers decreed that Cisco would embrace eLearning. The train was leaving the station. Unfortunately, everyone took off in their separate rental cars.

Competence? Our industry has been lukewarm on competence for at least the last two decades.

eLearning is not just e-Training. At Cisco, it’s information, communication, collaboration, and training. It’s all about content. We care about whatever makes people effective. Don’t focus on how to put courses online; rather, figure out how to make people successful.

FELC – 24,000 sales people in the Field eLearning Connection
73% more productive
75% accelerate selling ability

Partner eLearning Connection
72% cut costs 50+%
74% accelerate my ability to sell by 50% or more
76% more satisfied by 50% or more
56% increase sales/revenue by 50% or more
73% are more productive on the job

These metrics are about business impact.

Mfg: 40% improvement in time to competence

Soon to introduce Customer eLearning Connection
Free now, probably for cost later on as a subscription, price rising as you go deeper.

IP Centric Multimedia Studio
$7.5 million four-studio video broadcast facility
40-50 live events/month
12000 VODs/quarter
1000 online meetings/quarter
cheaper than teleconference

4-6 hours after an event, Chambers’ message is available anywhere in the world.

“Rich media works.” Cisco believes in the power of video. The nine-person video staff reports to Tom. There’s no chargeback for this. It’s corporate infrastructure.

Measuring ROI
· Cost avoidance
· Time efficiencies (which does not count opportunity cost of learners who learn in half the time)

Savings from eLearning last year = $133 million ($73 million in avoided costs, $60 million in time efficiencies.)

foundation essentials
executive involvement (Chambers doesn’t just talk about it; he uses it.)
learning=communication
innovate + standardize
it’s all about content

Informal content not well supported in the marketplace

OLL2002 Gloria Gery

Gloria Gery blows my mind. She looks for all the world like an old-time schoolmarm and yet year after year, she comes up with an inspiring message.

This morning she said “We’ve engineered the supply chain to the fourth decimal. We’ve done the same in re-engineering our processes and customer relationships. Human Capital Management comes next.”

Gloria says that we can’t define eLearning as installing an LMS. We’re not about KM or documents or technology – What’s important is the performer, to be able to name that tune in one note, to perform in exemplary fashion. We have to understand the work that people do. Most of all we have to be able to sit in the learner’s chair, to find out how the work comes at them. For the call center, we shouldn’t model how things should go theoretically. (Gloria’s visited many a call center – and they are reminiscent of a Charlie Chaplin movie’s factory frenzy.) This feel for the context enables us to shift the responsibility for success to the situation.

On a recent visit, Gloria found call center reps who had to deal with a dozen software apps acquired from mergers, a nearly impossible task. They had to construct mental maps of complex processes just to function. We need to put the real truth into our training. We need to understand what really goes on. Courses are necessary but not sufficient. We must have a strategy. Architecture is a part of it. Courses are a part of it. But we must understand people, how they learn, how they collaborate, how inquiry teaches, how we learn from observing models, incremental development of understanding.

“I was born when White Out was a technological innovation. I remember when I first saw word-wrap; everybody came over to take a look. How young are you?” asked Gloria.

In addition to eLearning, think as well of automating the task, teaching, providing content, supporting processes, supporting collaboration.

Why should we have to live with error messages like “File sharing illegal error?” Look at the evolution TurboTax. Simplify, simplify. `

Repetition is the mother of impression.

What are the best strategy and tactics to accelerate performance improvement? Our job is to develop computer-mediated environments that fuse, integrate…

You need to look at examples – they’re on the web. You purpose is to enable performance, not to implement eLearning. If not us, who? We must partner with our business clients and make life better for people who are skilled.

OLL2002 Clark Aldirch

Clark Aldrich described the state of eLearning. We’ve had the first high-school fling. It wasn’t the right person but we still want to do it again. There’s a greater need for honesty, smarter relationships, more accountability. The term blended has outlived its usefulness; what else is new? SCORM compliance is not testable. It’s supposed to mean something but it doesn’t. Let’s get real.

Online Learning 2002

Sunny morning across from the Magic Kingdom.

My first session on Monday was a good one. Michael Allen showed an enticingly simple template-driven simulation. One situation: Mia leaves a message that her husband just died of cancer and she needs time off. Right away, learners are dealing with a serious situation that demands a response. As Mia’s boss, what do you do? Document? Refer Mia to Employee Assistance? Grant Mia bereavement leave? (Among other things, the audience referred Mia to the Employee Assistance Program. Red flag! That was premature.) This vignette was memorable, certainly more so than reading a manual from personnel. Instead of a book, we learned from a very human situation. Good design trumps fancy technology.

Steve Downes

Stephen Downes, Senior Research Officer eLearning, National Research Council Canada, Institute for Information Technology.

Steve is the author of Stephen’s Web and a candid observer of the eLearning scene who’s even more skeptical about what’s going on than I. We met at a party at the Sheraton Anaheim that was wall-to-wall with Canadians; there had to be at least a hundred of them! (Eh!) Steve and I found common ground on the folly of LMS, the dire situation of copyright in the U.S., the role for global courseware, the wrong-headedness of “library” sales, the absurdity of standardized testing, and the extremism of us folk south of the border, among other things.

We’re going to try to blog Online Learning together. Steve is securing a wireless connection on the Expo floor. We’ll probably cross-post to one another’s blogs. Your questions and comments are not just welcome but encouraged. Give us some motivation to do this by responding to what you read here.

Post Script. It appears that Steve won't be attending sessions. Also, the first comment we received asked that we not work together on things:

It’s a small world after all. This morning a comment appeared on the blog entry I posted last night. A fellow from China suggested Steve Downes and I keep our stories separate, to avoid confusion. He’s translates Steve and me into a blog in Chinese!

OLS Power Customers

Ted Lehne, Delta Airlines
Thomas Perham, Microsoft
Nanhi Singh, Nokia
Susan Johnson, Department of the Army, eArmy U

What’s your biggest challenge for 2003?

• Tom: Hard sell to the training organization. People like travel, what
  they know. Getting agreement on infrastructure across 23 business units.
  Cultural differences.


• Ted: Obviously, finances are important in the airline industry. Challenge
  is to support demand for eLearning.


• Nanhi: People don’t believe that eLearning can work for technical training. Bringing everyone under a common LMS.


• Susan: Can’t cope with the demand. The solution is meeting soldiers’ need for education. 25% of the participants had not been to college at all. Participation
  in post-secondary education expected to grow from 20% to 50%.


• Jill: The promise of eLearning is to deliver more with less money. This
  means driving costs out of the program. This is tough – lots of the suppliers
  to eArmy U are educational institutions. The EPI (education price index)
  is increasing more than the CPI (consumer price index).