I agree, but how did this situation come to exist? Based on my own experience as an elearning manager within a corporate, and more recently as a consultant, I have some thoughts about why the relationship often works this way.

In his post, Clive touches on the first one:

When employers purchase an e-learning product or engage with a developer, they choose on the basis of production values rather than learning design, because they have neither the time nor the inclination to test out materials with real learners.

I’ve seen many examples of this, but it’s a problem that existed long before elearning. The same can happen when commissioning external providers of face to face training. The focus is on the delivery and collateral rather than the learning and business outcomes. Trainers are often selected, quite literally, on the basis of style over substance.

This is closely related to the second problem. When I was getting started with elearning, I was given all sorts of advice, but one of the more frequent suggestions was to produce “high profile content”; that is, content that people would talk about because it had the “wow factor”. The trouble is, that ends up being “wow those graphics were amazing”, or “wow I think 3D models are cool” when it should be “wow I’ve learned so much by doing that!”.

Who are we trying to impress with this high profile, “wow” content? It’s usually stakeholders and senior managers, because we want their buy in as way to ensure that we can do more of this.

The trouble is, once we’ve opened this box, it’s almost impossible to put thing back in again. We establish a situation where elearning is perceived as something that must have high production values, and anything else is considered to be sub-standard.

This also relates to the problem of procurement models and IT involvement. In the past, it was not unusual to see the commissioning of a piece of elearning treated as a software purchase, and for some organisations that’s still true today.

There are two problems with this;

First of all, a software purchase is usually sourced based on factors such as integration with existing systems, and the availability of support. Effective learning outcomes will not be high on the list. IT then end up making decisions about the choice of vendor; something which should be the domain L&D.

The second issue is how these things are paid for. A software purchase is usually treated as capital expenditure, and in many organisations something can only be a capital expense if it is above a certain cost (perhaps £30-£40,000). So what do you do? You make your elearning content more media rich in order to push up the cost, because you couldn’t get the budget if you wanted to spend less. Sounds crazy, but I’ve got plenty of experience of this!

How do we overcome this? Like Clive, I’m not completely sure, but I do know that it involves L&D keeping their focus on being business people rather than show people.

This chapter proposes that whilst the instructional design process for a 3DLE differs to that for more traditional learning interventions, it is a modification and extension of existing models rather than a replacement. It explores how the Analysis, Design, Development, Implementation and Evaluation (ADDIE) model can be used.

It attempts to contrast the differences by providing a narrative about two different design processes; one for a 2D synchronous environment and one for a 3D synchronous environment. It highlights that in a 3DLE you are required to create the context and environment as well as the content and activities. Whilst the 2D scenario was the work of one instructional designer in a matter of hours, the 3D scenario was developed by a multi-disciplinary team over a period of weeks.

It lists some key design points:

• Create the right context – the context may change during the session but it should always foster collaboration, help achieve specific learning goals, foster peer to peer interaction and provide the right context for learning to occur.
• Create specific objectives, but don’t tell the learner – Instead of spelling out the objectives, let the learners explore and discover them themselves.
• Provide minimal guidelines – Provide just enough guidance to achieve the learning goal.
• Encourage collaboration – If required, create a context where collaboration is necessary.
• Allow opportunities to demonstrate learning – Provide the opportunity for safe practice as well as instructor and peer review.
• Build in incentives – Use tokens to incentivise learners, but avoid making it appear to game like.

It goes on to explain how the ADDIE model can be used to ensure that what is created in the 3DLE is instructionally valid. The key elements to be considered are grouped under the ADDIE headings.

• Analysis – as with any learning intervention, we start with analysis.
• Task, concept or skill – can the task, concept or skills be appropriately taught in the 3DLE?
• Environment – In what environment should the learning occur? Realistic or stylised? Does the environment need a level of stress to be introduced?
• Technical considerations – Ensure that the available infrastructure can support the desired environment.
• Learners – Ensure that learners are ready and prepared to use the 3DLE. provide pre-training if required.
• Design – Apply appropriate instructional strategies.
• Synchronous or Asynchronous – Should the environment be synchronous and instructor led or asynchronous and self paced?
• Sequence and instructional elements – Define the specific learning activities and their ordering.
• Environment and structures – Design appropriate structures within your environment.
• Design outside of reality – Using scenarios that are impossible in the real world can create a sense of excitement and fun, and enhance the learning.
• Consider the debriefing – The debriefing is important for reflection. Decide who will run tis, and the manner in which it will take place.
• Storyboard – Create storyboards and ‘walk though’ the scenarios before committing to development.
• Develop – Create the environment; this may be custom developed, configured or purchased.
• Implement – Roll out the 3DLE to the organisation.
• Evaluation – Evaluate throughout the process, and measure learning and as well as the quality of the 3DLE.

This chapter also provides guidance for working with a third party virtual world vendor, and lists five key points:

1. Tie your request to a business need – the vendor should understand the business requirement or academic need
2. Know what to expect – Inform yourself about the vendor landscape
3. Be specific about your requirements – Be clear about what you need
4. Do your homework – Research the vendor
5. Visit the virtual space yourself – Test driving the virtual environment is essential. Viewing a recorded example is not enough to be able to make an informed decision.

It’s not my reading of any of these conversations that they want to see the current conferences replaced (although I may be wrong), but rather that they want another option (something ‘alternative’ rather than ‘an alternative to’).

Of course it’s easy to be critical of the status quo, and much harder to change it. This quotation from Terry Pratchett says it very nicely.

“So many people tut and say “Someone should do something”, but so few step forward and say “…and that someone is me”

With that very much in my mind, it happened that a couple of weeks ago I was talking with Jane Hart when the topic moved on to conferences and the usual ‘someone needs to do something’ conversation followed. What was different was that we decided we would be the ‘someone’ who did something; and so Learning Camp was born.

We’ve started the ball rolling over at http://learningcamp.org and if you have any desire to take part in or attend the first event, or help shape what it could become in the future, please complete the survey and follow the Twitter account for updates – more information on both can be found on the Learning Camp website. There’s not much on the site at the moment, but I can promise you that more will be happening in the next few weeks.

And finally, if you’re one of those people who has ever suggested that ‘something should be done’ you can expect to hear from us soon. Together we have an opportunity to do something, so now’s the time for all of us to either put up or shut up.

During the after awards drinks, Jane Hart and I were discussing the lack of any awards that encouraged the use of social learning tools.

Well, earlier this week I was a participant in a meeting between the eLN and Bizmedia, and I’m pleased to be able to say that as a result of that there will be a new category introduced for the 2010 Awards – “The best use of social media for learning”.

The official launch will take place at Learning Technologies in January.

Back in the summer I wrote an article for Saffron Interactive titled ‘The Advance of Social Media’. Its key message is that social media is now a mainstream activity and that organisations that attempt to ignore it, do so at their own risk.

If you’d like to read the full article, it is available to download here in PDF format, along with a number of other great articles in Saffron’s Advance series.

Despite the title, the article seems to be more about the shortcomings of companies, and why that makes them unsuitable as users of microblogging. To quote the article “Nevertheless, I think there are several fundamental reasons why companies are unsuited to microblogging,…”.

The article goes on to list 5 reasons why companies are not suitable;

1. Companies are incapable of dealing with things in real time
2. Companies are incapable of brevity
3. Companies are not open
4. Companies are neither altruistic or reciprocal
5. Companies do not have distinct voices or personalities

I don’t think I’m alone in being relieved I don’t work in a company that behaves as described in the article. One which is probably not fit to deal with its customers, is certainly not fit to manage and develop its employees and is unlikely to have a very bright (or long) future.

The biggest problem with the article, is of course that all five of the statements are wrong. Many companies are very good at dealing with things in real time, and can be both brief and open. Altruism and reciprocity are not unknown qualities in the world of business. Virgin, Disney and Nike are just a few examples of companies with a distinct voice and personality.

If you actually read the story, you’ll find the tone is clearly tongue in cheek, but that won’t stop some people attempting to use this as evidence that Twitter has no place in business.

As part of the event, Matt Brewer of Chubb Insurance and I ran a collaborative session to identify what eLN members wanted to see in an LMS that was fit for use in 21st Century organisations. I’m really pleased to say that we have taken the output of that session and produced a report that can be freely downloaded from the eLearning Network website.

Download: 21st Century LMS

It’s released under a Creative Commons licence, so please do share and remix it.