I've been reading an interesting book, Made to Stick by Chip Heath and Dan Heath.  Chip and Dan are both educators that decided to come up with a framework for making ideas stickier.  Why does an urban myth like the story about a man's kidney being stolen stick while truly important ideas such as the different sides in Iraq don't?  

The Heaths find that the key to creating traction is to take an idea and present it as Simple, Unexpected, Concrete, Credible, Emotional, Story.&am ... Read More »

Charles Jennings, global head of learning for Reuters,  talked about is a 'conspiracy of convenience' at the Global Summit 2006  in Australlia.  Mr. Jennings believes that most corporate learning initiatives are misplaced.  Training managers assume that there is newly acquired skills and knowledge will automatically translate into performance improvement, which will then flow through into the business benefit.   "No one measures the outcome properly and there is little or no business impact.  Nothing has really happened, but everyone's happy" says Mr. Jennings.  "These changes mean that knowledge workers actually need less knowledge to do their jobs than they did a generation ago. Formal training is less effective as the amount of information increases and its shelf life becomes shorter."

He calls this the 70:20:10 rule. "About 70 per cent of organisational learni ... Read More »

"In times of change, learners inherit the earth while the learned find themselves beautifully equipped to deal with a world that no longer exists." Eric Hoffer

E-Learning Guru has an interesting article on the birth of the modern theory of  adult learning.  A young director of adult education organized a course on astronomy and arranged for a local university professor to teach the class. Although initially enthusiastic, the students quickly became bored with the passive lecture experience and attendance dwindled until the course was finally canceled.

Trying again, the YMCA director rescheduled the course and this time invited a member of the amateur astronomers' club to lead the group of students. As soon as the students arrived for their first class, the new teacher escorted them to the roof of the YMCA and asked them to gaze into the night sky. While they looked up, the teacher asked them what it was they noticed most and what they wanted to learn. Their questions formed the basis for the rest of the course an ... Read More »

A study by Katzenback Partners, LLC confirms that at large companies, workers turn to each other rather than management to solve the problems:

• 65% of people say "employees rely on themselves and co-workers to provide solutions and solve problems" (only 30% rely on managers)
• 90% say they have someone at work they turn to when they need to get something done.  52% of the time it is a co-worker rather than a boss. 
• 57% of employees believe that ideas for making the company more successful come from all levels of employees.

This indicates that there is a substantial amount of tribal learning happening at companies.  Is it possible to capture this knowledge?  Is it possible to track this learning?  Is it possible to facilitate this learn ... Read More »

We had a excellent lunch and learn session yesterday entitled -- "E-Learning:  How much does it cost?"   This session was driven by our customers--How much does it cost?  is the most frequent question our customers ask.  Debby Kalk (Cortex Learning), instructional designer extraordinaire and Scott Rehling, the master of all things audio and video (Lava Studios) were part of the panel.

Interesting comments:

• Using a professional for audio recording can be frequently cheaper than doing it yourself.  You save enough on editing costs to make up the difference.
• Use multiple speakers when recording audio for E-learning.   That way if you need to update your audio and you can't find your original speakers you can add another voice easily.  
  < ... Read More »

What comes first Content or Platform?   This is a question that Anand Subramanian asks on his blog at Tata Interactive Systems.   His conclusion --  “In eLearning, system/platform is an enabler. Most important is the content (learning material) that needs to be delivered by the platform/system.”

I do agree with him that the technology is an enabler to the learning process.   New technologies can enable new modalities of learning--the internet in general and blogs, forums, wikis make interactive distance learning possible for example.  Furthermore, both content and technology are driven by organizational strategy and learner needs.  

Will Thalheimer did an informal poll of learning professionals asking how the highest level of assessment they did (based on Kirkpatrick's Four Levels).  He found:

• 11% said they did NO evaluation
• 26% said they did Level 1 smile sheets
• 48% said they measured Level 2 learning
• 15% said they measured Level 3 on-the-job performance
• 0% said they measured Level 4 business results

Why?  In my experience we've found it hard to move beyond Level 1 smile sheets.  There are methodology issues, of course, but frequently we've been prevented from moving past Level 1 assessments because of political and even legal issues.  In our e ... Read More »

Paul T. Walliker from Caterpillar University has an interesting article on Learning Circuits blog about the relative cost of instructor-led vs. e-learning.  Caterpillar University has constructed a mathematical model based on key cost components:

• Course Development costs:  Caterpillar uses a 3:1 ratio between instructor-led training and e-learning development time. 
• Salaries
• Time Required to Prepare for and Conclude each class
• The cost of Instructional Material
• Allocated cost of classroom
• Learner Opportunity Cost:  E-Learning covers the same material in half the time.
• Read More »

We've just added an audio interview with Debby Kalk on Instructional Design to the MicroAssist website.  Debby covers a variety of topics including:

• What is instructional design?
• When do you need an instructional designer?
• When to use e-learning vs. using classroom led training.
• The advantages of custom curriculum
• Training for Knowledge vs. training for skill.

Click to Listen