One of the things that I am constantly struggling with is the difference between what I call eLearning and eInformation (or eInfo). Wikis, blogs, RSS-feeds are all great stuff and have definitely changed the way we communicate with each other in the online world. However, when I see how it is used in training most of the time it seems that it's mainly for passing on information. That to me is not necessarily the same thing as training. Of course we can learn a lot from reading a wiki, blog or RSS feed, but that is not much different from picking up a book or magazine or newspaper other than the possibility of frequent updates.
So how can we use these tools in a behaviour/thought-changing way? How can we encourage people to look at them and to actively participate? One of the things that I implemented on my royalty forum is a peerage system. Those who offered valuable contributions were created a Duke, Duchess, Earl or Countess. It greatly improved the quality of the discussions. Other, similar systems have been implemented elsewhere, including rating systems where users (read participants) would rate each other's contributions. Rewards/bonuses could be attached to this as an additional encouragement tool. You can also think about measuring activity/participation in these online tools and dish out rewards or recognition based on that. Another way to improve usage could be encouraging create writing in order to really bring the content to life and make it interesting to read. Turn your wiki or blog into a page-turner!
That doesn't anser my question on how to use the tools in a behaviour/thought-changing way. I'll have to give that question a bit more thought... Watch this space and/or contribute your own thoughts!
One of the things that annoys me the most about wikis/blogs/rss-feeds is that they can normally only be used online. We use our internal wiki a lot for a ton of things. But if I don't have internet access, I cannot read or contribute and usual that's the best time for me to do so as I won't get distracted by email/IM etc. (Yes, I know I can switch those off, but come on... ;-) ) This also creates a challenge when you want to use these tools in an eLearning environment. An online tutorial can often be downloaded and taken offline. Not possible (afaik) with a wiki, blog or rss-feed. But... I can't imagine it being so difficult to change that! After all, we have had offline usenet newsreaders for years. I think making the content available offline would be another great step forward in the eLearning world.
Tuesday, August 29, 2006
Wednesday, August 23, 2006
teambuilding with eLearning
I'm currently working on a 1 1/2 day teambuilding event for one of Novell's departments in The Netherlands. As I was working out all the activities I started thinking about how to do "teambuilding" with eLearning. Initially I was a bit sceptical, but then I started to think about teams in the "e" world, especially in the world of gaming.
When I was in college I was totally addicted to playing MUDA on bitnet, a predecessor of the role-playing games like World of Warcraft etc. these days. Now in MUDA it was still pretty much a solitary quest to become a Wizard, but in order to make it to Semi-Goddess I defintely had to do some networking with the "Gods" :-) These days however, the role-playing games have much advanced. Battles that are fought are definitely a team effort as Nathan Kracklauer also explained during the eLearning Developers conference where he showed us a really cool team-building simulation his company had built.
So yes, teambuilding in eLearning is definitely an option! Think about online treasure hunts where different teams have been given different clues and have to work together to come to a solution. Or if you are dealing with people who are very resistent to eLearning, have your virtual teams create an eLearning lesson that is fun and interesting and have them present it to the other teams in the Virtual Classroom. Not only do they then have to research how to make eLearning fun (ha!), they also demonstrate it to each other!
When I was in college I was totally addicted to playing MUDA on bitnet, a predecessor of the role-playing games like World of Warcraft etc. these days. Now in MUDA it was still pretty much a solitary quest to become a Wizard, but in order to make it to Semi-Goddess I defintely had to do some networking with the "Gods" :-) These days however, the role-playing games have much advanced. Battles that are fought are definitely a team effort as Nathan Kracklauer also explained during the eLearning Developers conference where he showed us a really cool team-building simulation his company had built.
So yes, teambuilding in eLearning is definitely an option! Think about online treasure hunts where different teams have been given different clues and have to work together to come to a solution. Or if you are dealing with people who are very resistent to eLearning, have your virtual teams create an eLearning lesson that is fun and interesting and have them present it to the other teams in the Virtual Classroom. Not only do they then have to research how to make eLearning fun (ha!), they also demonstrate it to each other!
Sunday, August 20, 2006
estate agents / realtors
Not sure about the rest of the world, but in The Netherlands there's a big change happening in the way people sell their house. Estate agents (realtors in the US) are facing fierce competition from online estate agents. The difference? The person wanting to sell their house has to take the pictures, write the ad, and show potential buyers around. All things that the regular estate agents would normally take care off. The benefit? Waaaaaaaaaaaaaay cheaper as you're paying a lot less commission with this do-it-partly-yourself approach.
So what does this have to do with eLearning? Well obviously estate agents are going to have to look at doing things cheaper if they want to compete with the online services. One traditional way of cutting costs has been not to sent employees to classroom training. Said employees also will need access to accurate and recent information on-the-go. Enter eLearning... Information about houses, neighborhoods, estimates, crime rates etc. etc. can all be made available to the estate agent on their PDA or mobile phone. Ok, so that's passing information, how is this eLearning? Well, imagine training somebody in how to estimate the value of a house. Rather than spending a lot of time and money taking them to various houses, why not let them walk around in a virtual house, goggles and all? Allow them to 'touch' items in the house, play with lightfall, view etc. This would also allow the trainees to easily compare different houses at the switch of a button. They could have an online tutor there, giving them feedback on what they regard as good and not so good things about the houses they are 'viewing'.
Take it a step further and potential buyers could have access to this type of information/experience. Useful if you're looking at houses that are far away from where you now live!
And where did all this come from? Well, I'm in the process of selling my house and am kinda hoping to get a call from my estate agent tomorrow that an offer has been made. Fingers crossed!
So what does this have to do with eLearning? Well obviously estate agents are going to have to look at doing things cheaper if they want to compete with the online services. One traditional way of cutting costs has been not to sent employees to classroom training. Said employees also will need access to accurate and recent information on-the-go. Enter eLearning... Information about houses, neighborhoods, estimates, crime rates etc. etc. can all be made available to the estate agent on their PDA or mobile phone. Ok, so that's passing information, how is this eLearning? Well, imagine training somebody in how to estimate the value of a house. Rather than spending a lot of time and money taking them to various houses, why not let them walk around in a virtual house, goggles and all? Allow them to 'touch' items in the house, play with lightfall, view etc. This would also allow the trainees to easily compare different houses at the switch of a button. They could have an online tutor there, giving them feedback on what they regard as good and not so good things about the houses they are 'viewing'.
Take it a step further and potential buyers could have access to this type of information/experience. Useful if you're looking at houses that are far away from where you now live!
And where did all this come from? Well, I'm in the process of selling my house and am kinda hoping to get a call from my estate agent tomorrow that an offer has been made. Fingers crossed!
Monday, August 14, 2006
expert locators
Couldn't sleep again... but if all goes well the jet lag should be gone now. And the good thing is that while I was lying awake another thought occurred. Well, more than one actually, but this one applied to eLearning...
I'm sure you're all aware that our online world is changing. Web 2.0 and Learning 2.0 are the latest buzz-words that every eLearning developer should be aware of. Part of this new (r)evolution is social networking. Places like MySpace, Friendster, OpenBC, LinkedIn etc... Another related thing that my colleague Ray first made me aware of is the Expert Locator. A database with people and their skills so you can easily find what/whom you need.
We also almost all carry a cell phone and/or PDA. Now imagine that you are allowed to take these items on a plane again (sigh) on a long-distance flight and that you're actually allowed to keep them switched on. Suddenly it starts to beep. You look at it and it tells you that one of your LinkedIn contacts is on the same flight. (S)he gets the same message. You don't know yet who it is though, as they first have to allow you to see their details (and you have to allow that they see yours). Much like most IM clients really. But wouldn't it be cool to be notified if any of your contacts was close? And of course you should be able to automatically connect to their profiles to give you a reminder about what the connection is etc.
Now don't get me started on the potential of this for "plane-dating" :-)
I'm sure you're all aware that our online world is changing. Web 2.0 and Learning 2.0 are the latest buzz-words that every eLearning developer should be aware of. Part of this new (r)evolution is social networking. Places like MySpace, Friendster, OpenBC, LinkedIn etc... Another related thing that my colleague Ray first made me aware of is the Expert Locator. A database with people and their skills so you can easily find what/whom you need.
We also almost all carry a cell phone and/or PDA. Now imagine that you are allowed to take these items on a plane again (sigh) on a long-distance flight and that you're actually allowed to keep them switched on. Suddenly it starts to beep. You look at it and it tells you that one of your LinkedIn contacts is on the same flight. (S)he gets the same message. You don't know yet who it is though, as they first have to allow you to see their details (and you have to allow that they see yours). Much like most IM clients really. But wouldn't it be cool to be notified if any of your contacts was close? And of course you should be able to automatically connect to their profiles to give you a reminder about what the connection is etc.
Now don't get me started on the potential of this for "plane-dating" :-)
Sunday, August 13, 2006
refrigerators
Before finally going back to sleep I started thinking about refrigerators. Yes, a little bit odd in the middle of the night, but there you go... I'm sure you've all heard about those smart refrigerators, that have internet built in and that can order new supplies if/when you run out. Since these refrigerators are already connected to the internet, why not educate its users on food? Think about pop-ups or mouse-overs that show what ingredients are in a certain product with explanations of all those mysterious E-numbers... Think about learning to cook specific recipes or what you can still make that's healthy with the few ingredients you have (rather than go out and buy fast-food!).
By the way... I had a friend in college, Joep, who was a crazy about his refrigerator. We joked about it sometimes and in the end I had him go to a store with a crate of beer and several boxes of pizza. He then tested the refrigerators they had in that store (with permission) to find out which refrigerator would suit a student best. His own focus was mainly on how much noise it made, or as he put it "is she humming nicely"? He wrote up his test and published it in the magazine of our student's union of which I was chair woman at the time. Good old days :-)
By the way... I had a friend in college, Joep, who was a crazy about his refrigerator. We joked about it sometimes and in the end I had him go to a store with a crate of beer and several boxes of pizza. He then tested the refrigerators they had in that store (with permission) to find out which refrigerator would suit a student best. His own focus was mainly on how much noise it made, or as he put it "is she humming nicely"? He wrote up his test and published it in the magazine of our student's union of which I was chair woman at the time. Good old days :-)
thoughts running through my head
It is 2:56am and I guess I'm suffering a bit of jet lag as I can't sleep... While I was desperately trying to get to sleep I was thinking about the past week when I attended the E-Learning Developers Conference in Salt Lake City. The two people that made the biggest impression on me there were Brent Schlencker who runs a great blog on eLearning and Nathan Kracklauer from Enspire Learning, who has some great ideas about instructional design and how to make eLearning more fun. Then I started thinking about the chaos of my flight back home to The Netherlands after the news broke about London and how air-travel in the future could get really boring if you aren't even allowed to bring a book on some long-distance flight. Then BANG! This idea came to me... What about applying eLearning to air-travelers? Wouldn't it be really cool if for example you could start learning a foreign language while you're on your flight? Most long-distance planes now have this personal entertainment system and it can't be that hard to design something for that. And perhaps even charge a small amount of money for learning the basics of a language? Or how about getting some eBooks on that system? That way passengers can still read while they're on that long flight. Make the books interactive and the fun gets even better!
So these thoughts were running through my head and stopped me from falling asleep again. Then I started thinking about something my NLP trainer, Christiene, once jokingly said to me about my "idea-generator". Why wouldn't I drop all my ideas (and oh boy, I have a few) into a blog, just like Brent did? And I got so excited that sleeping was totally out of the question and I had to get up and create this blog. So here goes... I'll be adding thoughts to this blog as they come to me. Some of my ideas may already exist, some may be new. I'd be very interested in your comments on them. And who knows what our eLearning world will look like in the (near) future, or our air experience for that matter :-)
So these thoughts were running through my head and stopped me from falling asleep again. Then I started thinking about something my NLP trainer, Christiene, once jokingly said to me about my "idea-generator". Why wouldn't I drop all my ideas (and oh boy, I have a few) into a blog, just like Brent did? And I got so excited that sleeping was totally out of the question and I had to get up and create this blog. So here goes... I'll be adding thoughts to this blog as they come to me. Some of my ideas may already exist, some may be new. I'd be very interested in your comments on them. And who knows what our eLearning world will look like in the (near) future, or our air experience for that matter :-)
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