Nice Fortune article commemorating the arrival on the scene of the Xerox office copier fifty years ago.
There’s one view of the history of e-learning that traces its lineage back through multi-media training, personal computers, and ultimately to mainframes.
It’s hard to argue that that historical thread doesn’t exist.
But my view of the history of e-learning is that its Big Bang was the arrival in the 1960s-70s of the copy machine and the electric typewriter.
Those two tools were really the first ubiquitous electronic teaching technologies.
Yes, television, movies, filmstrips, 35mm slideshows, audio tapes, and mainframe computers existed but they weren’t easy to use for teaching.
With an electric typewriter and a copy machine any teacher or professor could be an instructional designer and a content author.
Handouts of all kinds were possible. (The word “handout” itself became common.)
A thick, dense textbook could be turned into an “instructional system” by typing, photocopying, and distributing a syllabus, instructional objectives, study guides, quizzes, and so forth (and then having students navigate through them).
In many ways personal computers in the 1980s/90s and the Internet in the 1990s/2000s added technological oomph to instructional principles and practices that had first flourished in the age of photocopiers.
An advantage of Kirkpatrick’s four levels of training evaluation is their wide adoption.
They are a tenet of the training profession.
But one disadvantage is that Kirkpatrick’s four levels give trainers a different mindset than the rest of business people.
Business people typically think in terms of effectiveness (results) and efficiency (costs). What does something cost, and does it work?
But Kirkpatrick’s four levels focus on four levels of effectiveness (with costs being addressed in Phillips’ fifth level of ROI).
A second disadvantage of Kirkpatrick’s four levels is that trainers often do not have access to the data needed for its upper levels of evaluation.
Trainers are service providers, and service providers simply aren’t given easy access to performance and business data. (Studies show time and again that most training evaluation is Kirkpatrick Level 1 reaction data.)
What if trainers had had a different model of training evaluation (see graphic above) for the last 50 years?
What if trainers had focused on both efficiency and effectiveness, just like other business people?
And what if trainers had accepted that they need to focus on evaluation data that they can collect (or estimate) themselves?
And then — if available — data that requires client cooperation to collect?
What if, for the last 50 years, trainers had been used to calculating — as Level 1 evaluation — cost data that they can collect independently: total costs, time, reach, scale, and so forth?
And what if Level 2 evaluation had been effectiveness data that they themselves can collect: reactions, usage, observations, performance on exercises, and so forth?
What if Level 3 evaluation had been efficiency data that required client cooperation (and thus was tougher to get): cost/time of follow-up coaching and OJT, cost of errors and accidents, and so forth?
And what if Level 4 evaluation had been effectiveness data requiring client cooperation: test results, supervisor feedback, job performance, business results, ROI, ROE, and so forth?
I think that if trainers — for the last 50 years — (a) had been routinely focusing on costs as readily as smile sheets and (b) had come out of the closet about the difficulty of obtaining performance and business data — the training profession would be very different today.
More business-like, more in sync with senior management, more skeptical of fads but at the same time more open to efficiencies.
Selecting an LMS may or may not be pleasant — depending on your particular experience — but it’s the sort of process that everyone can at least relate to.
You figure out what you need, narrow down a list to a few, test-drive those, and select the best.
Implementing an LMS can be a much more complex endeavor.
Implementation is a devilish mixture of technical and human issues.
Here are some things that have to happen.
Making these things happen involves technical knowledge, orchestrating two organizations (the user’s and the vendor’s), and project management.
Upfront
Realistic expectations and candid conversations between user and vendor (the rosy selling process is over now).
A user implementation team that has the right people (both senior-enough and crossfunctional-enough representation).
A project management system good enough to handle technical decisions and multi-stakeholder approvals (more than just who-does-what-by-when).
Business Processes
Clarity about processes and rules (like who approves enrollments, who gets what report, and a zillion other things).
A philosophy on changes (do we change our processes to fit the system or customize the system).
Technical Stuff
System integration (connecting to other big systems).
System configuration (the decisions and setup about how the system runs).
User interface and customization (what do people click on to do what, and what does it look like).
Data migration (moving data from an older LMS or other system).
Content upload (populating the LMS with courses).
Getting Ready for Administration
Assigning the administrator role to someone(s).
Getting trained by the vendor on the system.
Setting up a custom-support system.
Getting Ready for Governance
Who’s going to make policy decisions (about what goes in the LMS, who can do what in it, and a zillion other things).
Who’s going to check that the LMS is doing what it’s supposed to be doing (look at reports, monitor complaints, and so forth).
Testing
Testing all aspects of the system before going live.
I wrote earlier that Brandon Hall Research is moving away from the Hollywood produce-and-publish model of research.
We want to be more two-way and closer to those who want our research.
Here is the result: the Brandon Hall Research Center.
Here’s how it works:
Member organizations join.
They have access to all of our past and current research.
At Brandon Hall Research we’ve followed an approach to research similar to movie-making in Hollywood.
In Hollywood someone comes up with an idea for a movie, they pitch it, make the movie, release it, and hope that people come to see it.
We’ve approached research the same way.
But things are much more two-way these days.
I was at [...]
Interesting video by PossibiliTEAMS and TBD Consulting showing a ropes course-type teambuilding exercise conducted in Second Life.
It’s tempting to say, “I can see how OTHER things could be done in a virtual world, but NOT teambuilding.”
But as virtual worlds become more and more immersive (3-D, high-def, bigger computer monitors, better sound, more realistic [...]
I’m doing a free webinar on Selecting a Learning Management System on Thursday, August 20, 1:00pm-2:00pm Eastern.
I’m going to be describing a five-step process for selecting the best LMS for your organization and some keys for success.
Register here.
Here are the slides from my webinar about using Second Life for workplace learning:
Using Second Life for Employee Training
View more presentations from twerner.
Gary Woodill tagged me to list 15 books that have stayed with me.
In no particular order, and off the top of my head:
Science and Human Behavior — B. F. Skinner
In Search of Excellence — Tom Peters
Improving Performance: How to Manage the White Space on the Organization Chart — Geary Rummler and Alan Brache
The Team Handbook [...]
Brandon Hall Research has launched a second Awards program to showcase learning technologies offered by vendors.
The entry deadline is September 18, 2009.
These slides give an overview.
2009 Brandon Hall Excellence in Learning Technology Awards
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Tom Werner writes about innovative practices and technologies at Brandon Hall Research and is particularly involved in the company's Excellence in Learning Awards program.
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