Tip 52: "If there's one thing I never want to see
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Tip 80: Take a Scroll on the Wild Side
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Tip 80: Take a Scroll on the Wild Side
Scrolling isn’t new. It was around in the Dead Sea a while ago according to our Google research. But for a long time it was verboten in e-learning. Now with the surge in the need for sites to work on multi-platforms, scrolling is certainly taking centre ground on the web, and is working its way in there for e-learning too.
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Tip 79: Getting your head around Design Thinking
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Tip 79: Getting your head around Design Thinking
Design Thinking is a bit of a trendy term these days. It’s what they do at Toyota when designing a new high-end car (and hopefully not recalling it three years later). It’s what they do at IDEO when designing a fancy new product. What is it and how can we apply it to learning design? Because really, design is design no matter what you’re doing.
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Tip 78: Lead with Marketing, not Learning
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Tip 78: Lead with Marketing, not Learning
People talk a lot about making the learning experience engaging. Usually what that means is that there’s good content, presented in an interesting way, usually with some nod to interactivity, inside the modules or elements of the blended programme. And it might well be engaging – but that’s subjective. A screen of text might be engaging, if I’m engaged in the subject. And a lot of so-called engaging interactions? They probably distract and irritate as often as they engage.
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Tip 77: Better E-learning – the Pixar way
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Tip 77: Better E-learning – the Pixar way
When it comes to strong narrative and characters, combined with technology – sorry, e-learning market but Pixar knocks us all into a Spacemen’s helmet. They’ve shared their 22 tips for great storytelling. How many of them can help us make our e-learning better? Less than infinity. But not much less...
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Tip 76: Using Learning Technologies to Build Vocational Skills
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Tip 76: Using Learning Technologies to Build Vocational Skills
The vocational landscape is changing. All of us in learning have a responsibility to make the experience better for learners coming through. They’re tomorrow’s employees and leaders. How can we support them better?
Here are seven quick tips to consider...
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Tip 75: Find your Narrative Flow
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Tip 75: Find your Narrative Flow
Writing exceptional elearning scripts isn’t as easy as it looks. Often, when elearning designers are handed a pile of content, they lovingly create a detailed outline and then string their slides together. The end result? A series of content slides stuck together, jumping from idea to idea: this slide makes this point; this slide makes that point. In other words: an information dump. And nobody wants to live in a dump.
Designers often leave out an essential ingredient – a common thread that weaves it all together – that can turn an information dump into a memorable story.
So how can you find your narrative flow? How can you turn that content into a story? Let’s look at four simple strategies you can use to find your flow.
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Tip 74: Effective Learning Scenarios
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Tip 74: Effective Learning Scenarios
You know that we’re all about goal-based scenarios at Kineo. Let people do things, make mistakes, get support. So as in life, so it should be in e-learning. Find out in this snappy new one minute animation how to do it.
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Tip 73: Keeping up with the Jobsians
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Tip 73: Keeping up with the Jobsians
So, unless you’ve been under a rock for the past couple of years you’ll have been hearing about this wonderful new HTML5 technology everyone’s getting all excited about. And even if you have spent the past two years on an extended potholing trip, it’s likely that at least someone you know, probably someone important – actually, probably you – bought themselves an iPad and will be very keen to ensure that they can access e-learning content on their shiny new tablet. And how’s that going to work?
Responsive e-learning on older browsers? No problem... Here’s some things you should know:
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Tip 72: Make it Tactile and Touchable
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Tip 72: Make it Tactile and Touchable
Imagine, if you will, something that has been well-designed. What qualities do you notice about this thing? Does it have the right weight in your hand? The right texture? Does it feel comfortable when you sit down into it? How does it make you feel?
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Tip 71: Making More Interactive E-Learning
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Tip 71: Making More Interactive E-Learning
What does interactive e-learning mean to you? Take a moment to close your eyes and imagine…
We’re guessing you didn’t see a NEXT button when you closed your eyes (if so, you may not have opened them again). It’s not about clicking the NEXT button. And then the NEXT button again. It’s about what happens in between. And it’s not a fancy animation with lots of whizz and bang. So that’s what’s it’s not. Well then – what is it?
Let’s look at some simple tips for including more meaningful interactivity in your e-learning programs without blowing your budget on expensive programming and complicated exercises. But first, let’s think about what interactivity means.
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Tip 70: Finding the Drama: Adding Value to Source Content
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Tip 70: Finding the Drama: Adding Value to Source Content
We all know by now—hopefully!—that what makes for an engaging and interesting e-learning program is not screen after boring screen of text bullets.
But sometimes, this is just what you’re handed. Let’s say your Subject Matter Expert hands you a PowerPoint deck or word document—there’s always a risk that you’ll simply regurgitate that source content. After all, you’re busy, you’ve got a tight deadline, and it’s just plain easier this way.
But think about the people who will be sitting down in front of their computers to take your elearning program. Have mercy on them and find a way to add some value to that content in an imaginative way. Here are two tips to get you started:
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Tip 69: You can with Tin Can
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Tip 69: You can with Tin Can
If you haven’t heard about Tin-Can yet, you certainly will soon, so we think a quick tip is in order.
The Tin Can API is the next version of SCORM being curated by ADL. Tin Can has the potential to greatly expand what we track and how we track it.
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Tip 68: Going Social - Let's Get This Party Started
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Tip 68: Going Social - Let’s Get This Party Started
Social Learning is one of the current darlings of the L&D world, with everyone trying to jump on the social bandwagon. It’s like there’s a party going on and everyone wants to be in the kitchen. We’re on board with the bandwagon, as it’s really about finding ways for us to connect more naturally with to others to share and gain knowledge and improve performance.
In a recent anonymous survey conducted by Jane Hart (founder of C4LPT and the Social Learning Centre), 90% of respondents, “think that learning from collaborative working within your team is “essential” or “very important”, whilst conversations, feeds, personal and professional networking, curetted content and using Google to search the Web are also rated very highly.“
So what’s an organisation to do? And how can you get going with social? We’ve got three tips to share here – really just the tip of the iceberg…
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Tip 67: Sharpen Your Axe
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Tip 67: Sharpen Your Axe
Have you ever worked closely with a subject matter expert who politely hands you a 112 slide PowerPoint deck and says that’s the content to include in your 20 minute course? Have you ever gasped in utter despair and not known what to do with all that content except create text bullet after endless text bullet?
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Tip 66: Implementing an LMS
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Tip 66: Implementing an LMS
Kineo's LMS Consultant Andy Wooler shares his top tips on implementing an LMS.
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Tip 65: Choosing an LMS
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Tip 65: Choosing an LMS
Here at Kineo, we love open-source, and are firm advocates of Moodle and Totara LMS (a custom distribution of Moodle for corporate) which we employ as our preferred learning management system for client solutions. However, with so many LMS options out there - both proprietary and open-source - it can be a bit of a minefield.
So, where do you start? To support you in your decision making, here's ten things you need to know when it comes to selecting an LMS for your business.
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Tip 64: Write the Questions First
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Tip 64: Write the Questions First
"Live the questions now. Perhaps then, someday far in the future, you will gradually, without even noticing it, live your way into the answer." ~ Rainer Marie Rilke, from “Letters to a Young Poet"
Words to live by. And, it turns out, words by which to design instruction.
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Tip 63: Putting Mobile in Your Blend
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Tip 63: Putting Mobile In Your Blend
You know you need to do blended learning. You know you should be thinking about mobile. But how (and why) would it fit? You’ve got questions. We’ve got answers. Caution – some of the answers are also questions. Stay with us... Starting point: Always ask ‘Why make this mobile?’’
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Tip 62: Top Testing Tips
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Tip 62: Top (Christmas) Testing Tips
There isn’t much that screams ‘Christmas’ quite like ‘Quality Control’... right?! Ok, maybe not, but the Kineo Elves have been busy cooking up some Top Tips for a warm winter’s testing.
You may find yourself becoming your own QA department if you’re producing e-learning in house, or you’re setting expectations with a partner on QA standards. And whatever you do, of course you’re QA-in-chief for your own work. In all cases, remember to get a full low-down on both client and co-workers’ expectations for each project: technical specs, structure and functionality, style and branding, tone of voice, any other nuances, etc. The info you need is out there somewhere, so don’t be a Scrooge – get the team sharing!
With that in mind, here are a few tips. Apologies in advance for any seasonal punnery. QA doesn’t extend to removing gags, it transpires.
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Tip 61: Making it Shine from the Inside - Reflection Counts
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Tip 61: Making it Shine from the Inside - Reflection Counts
“Mirror, mirror on the wall, who is learning here at all?”
We’ve all seen a lot of elearning fall flat for a lot of reasons, but one of the biggest reasons is that it’s often simply used as a vehicle in which to dump impersonal information. Are you in the e-learning at all? To paraphrase Lionel Ritchie (something you should do very carefully): Hello – is it you you’re looking for?
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Tip 60: It's a stream, not a course...
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Tip 60: It's a stream, not a course...
Many traditional elearning instructional designers cut their teeth designing self-paced elearning programs. We create events.
However, the talk of the town these days is that learning is not an event. People don’t plop in front of an elearning program or sit in a classroom and BAM! – they’ve got it all rock solid. Instead, we’re talking about streams of activities that may happen over extended periods of time as individuals explore and master topic s or content areas. Instead of events, we hear about “learning experiences” and “activity streams”.
So how do traditional instructional designers stay relevant? And is that even possible? Let’s dip our paddles in the stream and explore together…
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Tip 59: Making the Leap from Classroom to Self
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Tip 59: Making the Leap from Classroom to Self
Here’s the scene: you’re charged with converting a classroom training program (or an online webinar) into a stand-alone self-paced e-learning program. The classroom trainer hands you his or her PowerPoint deck, lovingly patting it and saying “It’s all there. Let me know when that e-learning is done, won’t you?”
But it never is all there, is it? Sometimes there’s too much, sometimes there’s not enough. What can you do?
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Tip 58: Dish out the Gossip
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Tip 58: Dish out the Gossip
Did you see the elearning that that team created? You know the one that was really boring and no one could remember a thing about? Remember how every screen was packed with information and endless text bullets? And how the learners were completely bored but had to sit through it because it was compliance training?
Did that pique your curiosity a bit? Do you want to dive in a little deeper with us? Maybe even – gasp! – gossip about that whole experience? Well then. Let’s grab a cup of coffee and pull up close to the table and gab about gossip…
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Tip 57: Applying Rapid Design to Classroom PowerPoints
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Tip 57: Applying Rapid Design to Classroom PowerPoints
The reality of the day-to-day life of those of us working in internal training departments is that we’re often tasked with the daunting job of quickly turning classroom training into online experiences. You know that if you had the time or the budget you could do something really amazing that would change behavior and give the learners something to talk about.
But for this project -- time, budget, or some other constraints dictate that all you can do is take the classroom trainer’s existing PowerPoint deck and publish it online.
We totally feel your pain. Here are three simple tips you can apply those PowerPoints and get something up that’s good enough and on time.
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Tip 56: Let your right brain do the design
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Tip 56: Let your right brain do the design
At last month’s ASTD we spent some time with Michael Allen and his team, which is always fun. Michael’s a great guy and always talks a lot of common sense about e-learning design. His session at ASTD spelled out – literally – why you need three M’s in your e-learning, and why you shouldn’t let your left brain drive. Top tip material if we ever heard it...
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Tip 55: Eat more eLearning pie
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Tip 55: Eat more eLearning pie
Many elearning designers get into the field because of a love of learning, a creative itch, or a passion for technology and making things work. But these are just pieces in the pie that make up what we do as elearning professional. Your main three are: Learning & Pedagogy, Creative, and Technology. Let’s not forget the fourth piece of the pie: Business.
In this top tip, let’s pull up a seat at the table and eat some pie.
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Tip 54: 3D or not 3D?
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Tip 54: 3D or not 3D?
We’ve been looking at 3D environments recently. What’s their potential for learning, and when are the right times to use them?
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Tip 53: Bringing the legalese down to earth
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Tip 53: Bringing the legalese down to earth
If you ask a crowded room of eLearning designers to describe the most boring content they’ve had to work on recently, the number one answer will probably be compliance training. It’s not the lawyers’ fault – but we’ve got to do something about it.
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Tip 52: "If there's one thing I never want to see again...”
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Tip 52: "If there's one thing I never want to see again in an e-learning module, it's...”
...Complete this sentence in 20 words or less. That was the starter for 10 (well, 20) that we kicked off a few weeks ago in the Elearning Professionals Group on LinkedIn. So far we’re over 100 responses in. They range from the simple to the profound to the directly opposing (Fight! Fight!), to the surprisingly funny for e-learning. Some people had more to say than 20 words. That’s ok. You all obviously hate any instruction text anyway.
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Tip 51: Lightening the Load
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Tip 51: Lightening the Load
We sat in on a great session called ‘Learning with the brain in mind’ at Learning Technologies 2011. As so eloquently and effectively demonstrated by the two speakers in this session, (Itiel Dror and Chris Atherton), the human brain can only do so much at once. So, when designing e-learning, we need to we do whatever we can to lighten the load. Let’s look at how we can take a load off.
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Tip 50: Beyond the Next Button
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Tip 50: Beyond the Next Button
We’ve written recently about treating the Next button with a bit more love. At Learning Technologies, we listened to Andy Jones from Thomson Reuters share his experiences of pushing beyond it. To where? Let’s find out...
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Tip 49: Action Mapping Made Easy
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Tip 49: Action Mapping Made Easy
Cathy Moore has set our little e-learning world alight with her action mapping techniques. The Kineo design team are big fans. We joined her recent session at Learning Technologies on ‘Action mapping for great e-learning’. If you’ve not tried it as a technique, you really must.
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Tip 48: Don't Badmouth the Next Button
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Tip 48: Don't Badmouth the Next Button
Get rid of Next buttons, we often hear. They're boring. So last decade. Everyone hates them. Really, though? Really? We rush to their aid, and modestly suggest if you don't like Next buttons, maybe there's a deeper problem with your course. Take a seat on the couch...
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Tip 47: Three Christmas Holiday Wishes
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Tip 47: Three Christmas Holiday Wishes
As the holiday season rapidly approaches we turn our thoughts from all things e-learning to mistletoe, egg-nog, and stocking stuffers.
Of course around here we stuff our stockings not with candy canes, but with e-learning top tips. So here are three wishes for you this holiday season.
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Tip 46: Take a Risk
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Tip 46: Take a Risk
'Everything is just a copy of a copy of a copy'. It's a post-modern mantra, but we're here to prove it wrong. Things can be different. Change is nothing to fear. So how can you create something original? In just a few easy steps you can transform your e-learning into something unique, something that's never been seen before.
Here's an early new year's resolution for 2011: it's time to take a risk. And here's how to do it...
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Tip 45: Video – Bring Out Your Inner Guerrilla
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Tip 45: Video – Bring Out Your Inner Guerrilla
When is the ‘right’ time to use video in your e-learning... Well, is your course based around telling a story? Or showing people how to deal with difficult customers? Or are you struggling to bring the SME’s passion and knowledge across in words? If so, then video might just be the way to go.
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Tip 44: Where's the Humanity?
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Tip 44: Where's the Humanity?
At its core, e-learning is really about helping people. Through the countless e-learning programs created every year, e-learning practitioners help people to gain new insight and understanding, do their jobs better, advance their careers, nurture the plant, and take care of their families.
Unfortunately, a lot of e-learning falls short of the helping people mark. Instead, it locks people into a boring procession of pages, the only salvation for which is the blinking next button. The zombies take over in the design. And learners emerge from the far end feeling like the living dead.
Here are three simple ways you can stop the horror and put the humanity back into your e-learning programs.
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Tip 43: A Shot of Theory – Gagne's 9 Events
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Tip 43: A Shot of Theory – Gagne's 9 Events
The Nine Events of Instruction might sound a bit daunting. But don’t be alarmed. These nine steps, defined by Robert Gagne, are the basis for what a lot of people refer to as “sound instructional design.” So what’s it all about?
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Tip 42: Bring the Learner into the Design
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Tip 42: Bring the Learner into the Design
Who’s at the heart of the eLearning design process? Why the learner, of course! And yet, the dear learner so often lies lonely and forlorn amidst the piles of binders, the loads of text bullets and the pages and pages of content. So how can you bring them front and center? Why, bring them into the design process!
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Tip 41: Learning from the Ad Men
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Tip 41: Learning from the Ad Men
ELearning programs have a lot of competition out there. An employee needs to take a 20 minute program on health and safety, but the lure of other shiny objects is strong: work deadlines, websites, social networking applications, the guy in the next cubical.
Who’s got it figured out? Why the advertisers, of course. TV Commercials, prints ads have a way of drawing us in, capturing our interest, creating the desire, and then -- when they're really good -- getting us to make the big purchase.
Some of us have recently gotten hooked on the show Mad Men (a stylish tale of a 1960’s New York advertising firm). While life today may not be as boozy as all that, we like to take a page or two from advertising and marketing. Let’s explore the classic copywriting model called AIDA and think about how we can apply that to eLearning projects.
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Tip 40: Three Ways to Use Scenarios
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Tip 40: Three Ways to Use Scenarios
We’ve all heard the story by now that storytelling enhances learning; that sharing relevant examples helps both the expert and the novice forge connections with the content to ensure knowledge transfer. We’ve heard that flight simulators save lives and that practice makes perfect.
And yet, scenarios and simulations can feel intimidating. They take time. And money. And fancy 3D worlds with blue-haired avatars.
We’re here to say that it can be all that, but it can also be something simpler.
So let’s look at three approaches to creating scenarios in your e-learning – a bit of a scenario spectrum as we go from simple to more complex.
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Tip 39: Using Audio in E-learning
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Tip 39: Using Audio in E-learning
When should you use audio in e-Learning? Do you need to include audio to meet the needs of auditory learners? Do you also need to include text for visual learners? What’s the best use of audio?
These questions and more set e-learning teams screaming. So how can you quiet down the storm and provide some sound reasons for when and why to use it? (This, of course, assumes that you have the technical ability to run audio in your e-learning).
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Tip 38: Say It Loud, Say It Proud
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Tip 38: Say It Loud, Say It Proud
An important part of ensuring retention – that is helping your learner remember what they’ve learned so they can actually go back and use it on the job – is practice. Practice makes perfect.
Sometimes the best way to practice is to recite things out loud.
Are you one of those people who talks to yourself while working through a problem at the computer? Do you mutter things out loud when you think no one is looking? Does this help you work through the issue? Does this help you…gasp…learn?
We think so. And we think there’s a place for out loud in self-paced e-learning.
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Tip 37: Menus that make sense
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Tip 37: Menus that make sense
The menu in any e-learning course or learning site is a little glimpse into the minds of the design team. Were they thinking about the learner, or were their heads elsewhere when it came to designing the menu? Here are a few pointers to make sure your menu design shows you’ve got your head screwed on.
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Tip 36: Why a Shot of Theory is Good for You
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Tip 36: Why a Shot of Theory is Good for You
“It’s just a little pinch. It’ll hardly hurt and then it will be over.” Tell that to a four year old, sitting in the doctor’s office awaiting a shot.
But it turns out to be true. You take a deep breath, feel the pinch, and then move on. OK – maybe you cried a lot. Maybe your arm feels bruised. But if you’re good, you might get a lollipop from your mommy.
We’re not talking about administering vaccinations to all you learning designers out there – although it would be nice if someone could develop a vaccine for bad e-learning! – but rather suggesting that all of us take some time to learn about learning theory and instructional design theory. Sounds painful, but really, it’s just a pinch…
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Tip 35: A Shot of Theory - Elaboration Theory
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Tip 35: A Shot of Theory - Elaboration Theory
When teaching someone a new fact or task, it’s best to start simple and then drill down into the more complicated content. Sounds pretty simple, right? Perhaps even intuitive.
But far too often trainers dive right in to the deep end, overwhelming learners from the get go with nitty gritty details and complicated rules.
So how can you combat that tendency? How can you structure content so learners can access and make sense of it from the start?
Well there’s a theory about it, which Charles Reigeluth appropriately termed the “The Elaboration Theory”. Reigeluth is a professor in the School of Education at Indiana University, Bloomington.
So let me elaborate…
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Tip 34: Christmas special: What's in your blend?
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Tip 34: Christmas special: What's in your blend?
What will it be? Turkey, stuffing and cranberry sauce? Or perhaps you’re more of a nut roast, with all the trimmings? When it comes to blended learning, there’s many different ingredients to choose from, both offline and online, especially if you serve your blend using an online collaboration tool like Moodle.
What can you throw into the mix to make your learning as appetising as possible and packed with variety and punch? Here’s a few ideas to help you shake it up.
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Tip 33: A Shot of Theory - Keller's ARCS Model
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Tip 33: A Shot of Theory - Keller's ARCS Model
If you know us at Kineo, you know we don’t like to get too bogged down in academic theory. We tend to the pragmatic and practical – what really works in learning design?
That said, it’s good to brush off the books now and then and revisit some of the formal theories behind how adults learn and how that can be applied to e-learning.
This is our first in an occasional series on learning design – little shots of theory to give you some foundational background or to refresh what you may already know. We start with John Keller’s ARCS Model of Motivational Design.
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Tip 32: Getting to Rapid by Cutting the Project Bloat
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Tip 32: Getting to Rapid by Cutting the Project Bloat
Rapid e-learning doesn’t have to mean sacrificing quality. Nor does it mean using a specific tool. Sometimes, rapid just means you get it done rapidly. A cigar is just a cigar.
Kineo recently completed a project for Canon in 17 days, using high-end Flash for delivery. This award-winning project shows that you really can create quality at speed. But it did mean doing things a bit differently: cutting down on the process bloat, avoiding lengthy project plans and design documents, and getting to a working version as quick as lightening.
In this tip, we’ll look at trimming the project fat so you can deliver sooner.
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Tip 31: Speak Easy - Writing in a Conversational Tone
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Tip 31: Speak Easy Writing in a Conversational Tone
The best self-paced e-learning programs are accessible and easy to understand.
Learners get the message. They might have to think about the content – and we hope they do – but they shouldn't need to agonise over the meaning of every sentence.
This week, we share some quick tips to improve your e-learning writing – be it for audio narration or on-screen text.
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Tip 30: Show Don't Tell - Three Ways to Help Your SME See the Forest and the Trees
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Tip 30: Show Don't TellThree Ways to Help Your SME See the Forest and the Trees
Helping Subject Matters Experts (SMEs) get from a flat document to an actual piece of e-learning can be quite a leap. Learning designers often have the same problem, even with years of experience at creating e-learning. You scope out your course or experience in a Word document and then hand it off – perhaps to a builder or maybe you do it yourself – to create something jazzy in Flash or Articulate. It’s only then that the light bulbs go off – “Ahh, I see how it’s going to work!” or “I didn’t know it was going to look like that!” or “I get it now – can we do it this way instead?”
In this week’s top tip, we’ll share some ideas that work for us – ways to create a visual and comprehensible design sooner rather than later.
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Tip 29: Five Ways to Help Your Learners Space Out
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Tip 29: Five Ways to Help Your Learners Space Out
We were all guilty of pre-exam cramming sessions. On more occasions than we’d like to admit, we stayed up all night before a final exam to stuff every last bit of learning we could into our little brains. Perhaps you did that once or twice yourself. But how much did you actually retain from said session? Enough to ace the test, I’m sure. But did you actually walk away from the experience with any lasting knowledge?The spacing effect tells us it’s much better to study for that exam – not in one intense burst – but rather in sessions that are spread out over time.So how do you do that in the e-learning arena? This week, we’ll suggest five simple ways to help your learners space out for more effective results.
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Tip 28: Staying on the Cutting Edge
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Tip 28: Staying on the Cutting Edge
It’s possible that you know what you’re doing. You have a firm grasp of the tools you use to build e-learning and you know how to design just the right solutions for today's learners.
But right now is but a brief moment in time in an ever-changing technological landscape. We’ve seen some big shifts in the e-learning world in the past 10 years. I mean, c’mon – it wasn’t even called e-learning until, when? 1997-ish, right? What’s coming and how should you – a learning professional – prepare yourself for the road ahead? This top tip will help you stay ahead of the curve.
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Tip 27: Tear Down the Visual Wallpaper
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Tip 27: Tear Down the Visual Wallpaper
It is time to tear down the e-learning wallpaper and take heed of some top tips on using graphics for instructional use.
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Tip 26: Our Objection to Learning Objectives
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Tip 26: Our Objection to Learning Objectives
After reading this post, you will be able to:
explain two of the reasons why we don't like traditional learning objectives
describe your own view of learning objectives
develop an alternative approach to listing learning objectives in your next e-learning course
Do your e-learning programs typically start with something like this? Quite gripping, isn't it?
Let's talk about some other options.
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Tip 25: Top Ten Webinar Tips
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Tip 25: Top Ten Webinar Tips
We will be looking at webinars over the next few editions of our newsletter. We will also be running an online seminar on running webinars later this summer.
But to get the ball rolling, here are our top ten tips for running successful webinars.
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Tip 24: Yamming it up with Yammer
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Tip 24: Yamming it up with Yammer
Twitter + your company – rest of world = Yammer?
Previously we wrote about Twitter. Hard to miss Twitter these days, it’s the talk of the town. As you, and probably your mother knows, Twitter is a 140-character microblogging platform. It’s different from an instant message system which lets you talk in real time with one person. With Twitter, you talk in real time to a whole crowd. This is great when you’re sharing the love with the big wide world and want to seek expertise and input from those outside your company’s walls. But sometimes you want to tap the expertise inside your walls.
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Tip 23: Twitter - 5 Tips for Tweeting
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Tip 23: Twitter - 5 Tips for Tweeting
When Oprah joined Twitter a few weeks ago, everyone started claiming that Twitter was all over. But those of us in the know, 'know' that we're just getting started. Not tweeting yet? Kineo’s new VP of Learning Design, Cammy Bean, tweetingly invites you aboard.
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Tip 22: Shoot This - 5 Tips for Video
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Tip 22: Shoot This - 5 Tips for Video
After many years in the wilderness of e-learning, with fear for its safety – video’s back, baby. It’s about as cheap and quick to produce as audio and can do a whole lot more. What can it do for you? A few points before you shoot…
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Tip 21: Listen Carefully
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Tip 21: Listen Carefully
Audio. It’s cheap to do and quick to make. But so is a pot noodle – and we all know, you shouldn’t add those to your e-learning. So when does audio enhance, and when does it start to be more noise than content? Here are some tips for using it sensibly in e-learning.
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Tip 20: Six Steps to Effective Tutorials
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Tip 20: Six Steps to Effective Tutorials
If you’re going to develop e-learning rapidly, you need to start with a model in mind. A model will help you to be consistent, to develop to good design principles, and to create a consistent experience for your learners. One tried and trusted model that should be in any designer’s toolkit is the Knowledge and Skills Builder model.
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Tip 19: Five steps to great podcast interviews
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Tip 19: Five steps to great podcast interviews
Last time we looked at getting yourself set up for success with podcasting. This week we get down to the basics of making the podcast interview itself sound like…well, like someone might actually want to listen to it.
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Tip 18: Five pointers for podcasts
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Tip 18: Five pointers for podcasts
They’re quick, easy to produce and can add great value to your e-learning. Maybe podcasts are the quintessential rapid e-learning? We’d encourage any designer to consider adding value to their e-learning through podcasts. Here are a few pointers for making the most of them.
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Tip 17: Five questions to ask about authoring tools
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Tip 17: Five questions to ask about authoring tools
One of the mantras of these crunching times is (or at least should be): if it’s worth doing, you better have a look at doing it yourself, before you pay someone over the odds for it. Ok, so there’s probably a snappier version of that statement. Let’s just say ‘You should look at rapid e-learning authoring tools’. You won’t have to look too hard – the market’s flooded to its banks with them. But what’s right for you? Here are five questions to ask during your search:
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Tip 16: Ten tips for online tutors
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Tip 16: Ten tips for online tutors
As e-learning evolves, one welcome trend is the movement away from large formal courses and towards more informal methods - providing support to your learners by any means necessary. Open source tools like Moodle provide very cost effective ways of providing what one expert has called ‘surround sound’ support to learners. One of the more cost effective, and high-touch ways of supporting learners is through online tutoring.
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Tip 15: Doing product knowledge right
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Tip 15: Doing product knowledge right
If you’re in retail, you know that despite all the cuts you need to make, you can’t cut back on supporting your front-line sales team. More than ever, they need to know how to connect with customers, recognize opportunities to sell, and have the product knowledge information at their fingertips. But you’ve got to do it faster and cheaper than ever. How can rapid e-learning help? Get the design right and you’re on your way.
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Tip 14: Love your SME
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Tip 14: Love your SME
The Subject Matter Expert and the Designer: This week we look at the need for a little love and understanding...
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Tip 13: Happy new cost-cutting
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Tip 13: Happy new cost-cutting
The only way to start 2009 is to show how you’re going to do more for less. If your boss hasn’t asked you how you’re cutting costs in e-learning yet, it must be because your name is towards the end of the alphabet – because believe us, the conversation is coming. So, there are three quick tips from us for making your e-learning more cost effective in 2009.
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Tip 12: Have I got your attention?
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Tip 12: Have I got your attention?
Ever been bored by e-learning? Ever seen an opening screen riddled with bullet after bullet of objectives, with a ‘screen 1 of 98’ counter in the bottom right, as if to say ‘think you’re bored now? Just you wait until screen 45…’
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Tip 11: ok, here's the scenario...
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Tip 11: ok, here's the scenario...
A lot of effective e-learning relies on a goal-based scenario approach. What are they and how do they work? Let’s not fret about definitions and instead look at what goes into an effective goal-based scenario.
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Tip 10: The scope's the thing
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Tip 10: The scope's the thing
Why do e-learning projects go wrong? Often because the scope wasn't clear. It ends up too big to achieve with the budget or the timeline, or not achieving the aims that the stakeholders had in mind, or delivering the experience that learners need. So what can you do to ensure you’re building on solid foundations? Follow these steps for a rapid approach to scoping e-learning.
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Tip 9: A little less conversation, a little more action
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Tip 9: A little less conversation, a little more action
“If I'd had more time, I would have written a shorter letter.”T.S. Eliot (probably)
In an earlier insight, we talked about the value of dialogue, and how it can give your e-learning pace and authenticity. A client recently talked to us at Kineo about how some of their in-house programs were suffering from too much dialogue, with the result that the learning points were getting lost. So as a companion piece to an earlier insight, here are a few words of caution about dialogue in e-learning.
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Tip 8: E-learning: why it delivers better performance.
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Tip 8: E-learning: why it delivers better performance.
Last week we looked at some of the arguments for e-learning from a cost viewpoint. You may find your stakeholders saying “We get that it’s cheaper. But is it better?” Here are some of the reasons you can use to explain why e-learning’s better than classroom – most of the time.
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Tip 7: Making the business case for e-learning
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Tip 7: Making the business case for e-learning
The new economic realities mean that every manager up and down your organization is going to have to fight to spend money on anything. You can expect e-learning to come under as much scrutiny as the next line item. It pays to be prepared. If you’re responsible for commissioning e-learning or running an internal team, be ready to fight the good fight. For this insight, let’s concentrate on the cost savings from e-learning, compared to instructor led alternatives. Here are a few bullets to have ready when someone comes asking why we should spend on e-learning.
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Tip 6: Feedback
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Tip 6: Feedback
We’ve looked in our previous e-learning tips at mistakes and the key role they play in e-learning design. But a mistake’s not worth making if you don’t learn from it. We’ve all been there: the e-learning leaves you hanging with the worst feedback you can get: ‘wrong – try again’. It can sound enigmatic coming from Yoda, but it doesn’t really cut it as feedback in e-learning. To make sure your mistakes are coupled with support and feedback that will actually help learners, follow these tips.
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Tip 5: Working mistakes into your design
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Tip 5: Working mistakes into your design
Last week we explored the value of mistake-driven e-learning. If you can home in on the mistakes, misperceptions and performance gaps that’s causing 80% of the issues for your target audience, you’ve got the fodder for creating e-learning that adds real value. E-learning can do this by creating safe environments in which your learners can make mistakes, and providing the coaching and support to reduce risk that they’re repeated on the job.
How to work mistakes into your e-learning design?
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Tip 4: Make more mistakes
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Tip 4: Make more mistakes
Samuel Beckett described his approach to life as ‘Ever tried. Ever failed. No matter. Try Again. Fail again. Fail better.’ Too existential for you? Try American actress Tallulah Bankhead: “If I had to live my life again, I'd make the same mistakes, only sooner.”
What’s the point? Mistakes are good. They’re our best teachers. So how to get mistakes into your e-learning?
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Tip 3: Narrative and e-learning
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Tip 3: Narrative and e-learning
For the last few weeks we've talked about stories in e-learning and why they're a great way to make your e-learning memorable, authentic and engaging. What else can you do to bring a narrative into e-learning? What are the practical points when it comes to writing dialogue?
The bookshelves heave with screenwriting manuals. Save yourself a few quid and start with a few basic tips for good dialogue writing in e-learning.
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Tip 2: Getting stories into e-learning
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Tip 2: Getting stories into e-learning
Last time we wrote about the benefits of stories in learning. They're easy to remember, they're compelling, they're great shorthand for real experience, and of course they're authentic, which is maybe the most compelling aspect of all.
So how can you bring stories into your e-learning? Here are some practical tips.
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Tip 1: Learning starts with a story
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Tip 1: Learning starts with a story
Someone once said all learning starts with a story. They probably went on to tell a story about how they realized that. Right idea. If you can hook and engage your audience up front, all the more likely they'll stay the journey. Stories are one of the best ways of doing this.
So why are stories effective? What's in a good story for learning?
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Top Tips app for iPhone
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Top Tips app for iPhone
E-learning can bring great benefits to any organisation - if it's designed well.
With the Kineo E-learning Top Tips app, you’ve got a whole design team on your side to help make sure your e-learning is designed to succeed.
You can download the app here.
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