November, 2008

By Steve Pena Senior Instructional Designer and Implementation Consultant SyberWorks, Inc.

“Ok, we bought an LMS, put up a course and turned it on. We can start using this thing tomorrow.” So says your manager, as you look at him half in shock, and half with that can-do serious face that has got you this far.

Of course nothing is that easy. Listed here are ten tips that you can apply to make your LMS implementation go more smoothly. If you decide on these “philosophical” issues before you start an implementation, it will progress much faster.

Naming Conventions – Every data category needs a naming convention. Some might be very specific – for example: 'Smart' Class IDs — ABC-SAF-1-English-11-16-2008 — Where you have a code for your company (ABC), the category of the subject (Safety Level 1), the language it is being offered in (English, Spanish, Hindi), and the date it is offered (November 16, 2008). Or it can be a simple code like 'Safety101'Think about the people who will need to use this information and how to make these conventions both easy for them to identify and understand, and for you to organize. Here are some LMS areas where you can effectively decide on such conventions: UserIDs – employee numbers, email addresses, auto-generated?Passwords – email addresses, user-defined, or a fixed standard password changed by users when they log in for the first time?Courses – simple or complex coding structures?Classes – simple or complex coding conventions, or something in between?Course categories - subject-driven (safety, operating systems, nursing); organizational (Management, Corporate Mandatory, New Hire); something else?Hierarchy levels - Organizational or geographical?Reporting Needs – Perhaps better defined as “who needs to see what information.” Think of the different groups in your organization – students, managers, administrators, upper management, training managers – each of them probably needs different training information at different levels of detail.

For example, students might need detailed transcript reports, to let them know exactly where they stand in their training. Managers or supervisors may need to see who in their group is doing their training and who isn't – giving them a tool to remind the people who must still complete their training. Upper management probably wants total numbers, without details – such as percentages of people in their organization who are training according to plan, and percentages who are not – broken out by the separate groups they are managing.

Don't forget that these are training reports only - they aren't about job performance, pay scales, or anything outside the training realm. So be sure to investigate and understand your whole organization's training-information needs. You can then define the reports that need to be built to provide that information, including hierarchy-based reporting structures.

Catalog Management — Think of how you want to organize your course catalog. Some organizational techniques may be: Offering certain classes to specific groups in the organization – A hospital group may want nurses in a specific hospital to take classes only at that hospital, and not at any another facility.Creating a separate pricing structure for certain large customers – They might need their own catalog.Management leadership programs – You may want to limit courses and classes by management structure.By third parties – Such as, offering different distributors different course offerings.

All such cases separate out a portion of your entire catalog for a specific group. So consider defining those groups, and make sure you are able to deliver only the training products that you want them to access.

e-Commerce If you are going to offer your courses and classes through an e-Commerce portal, you will need to identify a merchant account that will handle all credit-card verifications and back-end banking. Authorize.net and Paypal are popular examples of such organizations.Competencies and learning paths – Many companies spend countless hours defining learning paths for attaining job roles, promotions, or other corporate goals. These are often scattered and loosely defined, or are adapted throughout the organization with no standardization. If you need to implement these types of plans, first spend some time understanding what is currently defined in your company and if it needs to be standardized (perhaps even streamlined) for training purposes.Branding – Some LMSs let you customize the look and feel or your training site. Determine what those needs are for you. Will your training portal need to parallel your company's existing Website design or its intranet's look and feel? You'll save a lot of time if you gather all company graphics (such as logos and special pictures you will need) and define the color schemes you want to use before your first LMS implementation meeting.User Information – There are many ways to get user information into an LMS. This will be defined by your organizational needs, for instance: You are an online learning provider - In this case, people will probably need to register for training through an online process.You have a stable employee work force - Here, you might need only an initial user-information upload, after which you can maintain the information manually through user editing screens.You have a very mobile work force - Maybe a nightly feed from your HR system would work best?So you should define your organization’s user base and your administrative capacity, and then select the appropriate loading and updating process for your user data. Certificates – Do you want to issue certificates to students who pass courses? If so, then define upfront what the certificates will look like and which course/class information will appear on them.Interfaces – Will the LMS need to connect with any existing corporate systems? These may include an HR interface, or a backend link to order data on your accounting system. Define what your needs are in this area. Talk with your IT department to see how hard it will be to create such connections, and how long it will take to get your project on their active project list.Help Administration – Who will handle help-desk requests from students? Will the requests be centralized in the training department or de-centralized to information experts throughout the organization (IT, course subject matter, networking, and so on). Depending on the size and needs of your organization, most LMSs allow you to disperse this help-desk load. So be sure to identify the people who will fill these jobs, especially their email addresses and phone numbers.

Finally, print this article and give it to your manager. It will help them understand the size of the job you face. Some of these items can be defined and decided easily, while others may take some time and involve other organizations (like marketing, IT, accounting, and sales).

A very simple installation, where all of these items are defined ahead of time, could be done within days (or a couple weeks). But for larger organizations, an LMS installation could easily require months before all necessary decisions are made and everyone reaches accord. Either way, this list should give you a good start on that process.

About the Author:

Steve Pena is a Senior Instructional Designer and Implementation Specialist at SyberWorks, Inc., Waltham, Mass. SyberWorks is a custom e-Learning solutions company specializing in Learning Management Systems, e-Learning solutions, and custom online course development.

View the original article here

November, 2006

(Part 2 of 4 Part Series)

By Dana Fine, Senior Instructional Designer at SyberWorks, Inc.

In our first article, we looked at developing a ‘circle answer conditional’ learning activity and discussed some variations relating to various types of scenarios. In this example, the learning activity is “conditional” because the user has a choice of answers and the learning activity will respond a certain way, depending upon the answer that the student selects.

Today, we will examine the 'drag and drop, many to one correspondence' learning activity and provide some variations, so you can see how this learning activity may be used in various learning scenarios. Again, I would like to stress that any number of learning activities can be developed using Flash, with varying levels of difficulty and sophistication. The selection of these four learning activities is by no means exhaustive or definitive. This series provides a framework for how you can go from concept to learning-activity development. As with the first example, we will provide a link to a sample for your viewing. Let's begin.

Description:

This learning activity consists of a list of elements that each fit into a category. More than one element may be dragged to a category, but each element may only be dragged to one category. In other words, the same element cannot be dragged to two categories. However, different elements may be dragged to the same category. After the student successfully drags the elements to the correct categories, the student gets a congratulations screen specific to that learning activity.

Functionality:

First, instructions appear describing the learning activity, with directions. The student then drags the first-column choice on the left side of the screen to the second-column category to which he believes the first-column choice belongs. If he is correct, the first-column choice aligns next to the second column choice, and he will hear audio indicating that his choice was correct. If he is incorrect, the first-column choice returns to the first column and he may hear audio indicating that his choice was incorrect. More than one element in the first column may belong to a choice in the second column. After the student has successfully dragged all choices to the correct second-column categories, the student sees a congratulations screen and hears applause.

A Drag and Drop, Many to One Correspondence:

INSTRUCTIONS:

You are placing new supplies/merchandise into the correct cart for distribution by department. Drag the supply/ merchandise to the correct distribution cart:

Picture or chart indicating elements and categories available: Example, fill in for your learning activity:

Picture or chart indicating questions and answers available: Example, fill in for your learning activity:

Element heading (Supplies/Merchandise)Category Heading (Distribution Cart)

The first column is randomized so that the student has to find the correct answer. (We need the question template to show us the correct answers before we randomize them.)

Ending Text Message (may be a picture) Audio is generally applause. Example, replace for new activity:

Fractions are fun! Congratulations!

Here is a link for you to check out the “One to Many” learning activity http://www.syberworks.com/onetomany_sample.html

Below are some variations of the 'Drag and Drop, One To Many Correspondence' examples where this method of learning is useful:

Example: 1 In a project management course where users would identify logical steps of a process by identifying their sequence within multiple project stages.

Example: 2 Diagramming a procedure in a complex manufacturing setting where learners are being certified on various tasks as part of their job requirements.

So, until next time, have a great month!

Dana Fine is a Senior Instructional Designer at SyberWorks, Inc. SyberWorks is a custom e-Learning solutions company that specializes in Learning Management Systems, e-Learning solutions, and custom online course development. Dana is also a frequent contributor to the Online Training Content Journal

The Online Training Content Journal 

The Online Training Content Journal blog looks at best practices, techniques, and trends in online training development and e-Learning instructional design.

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Safety Training: places available in November and December 2014

    Sorry, I could not read the content fromt this page.

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November, 2009

By David Boggs, CEO and Founder of SyberWorks, Inc.

The Web is where many of our customers and users will increasingly “live” for their information needs. This means that anything we do to both deliver e-Learning and spread the word about our products and services “over the Cloud” will both serve our audiences and build our businesses.

Most of us already deliver e-Learning over the Web in a variety of ways, but the following Web channels also may be used to promote our products and services:

Search enginesWeb blogsWebinarsWikisYouTube

These are all places where your e-Learning business can live on the Web to good advantage. But people must first be able to find you there. So let’s first discuss:

Remember when your parents bought their first encyclopedia, to bring the world’s knowledgebase into your home? How times have changed. Now, the Web itself is the world’s knowledgebase, and engines like Google are its keyword-searchable Index. In a very real sense, if an e-Learning product or service isn't widely present (and readily found) on the Web, it doesn’t exist.

Why do I add “readily found”? Because peoples’ willingness to wade through masses of text (and pages of Google hits) is limited. So even if you do have a Web presence, you also need to worry about where you show up in browser search results. Even I rarely venture past the first three pages of Google hits. So in effect, three Google pages (about 36 items) is my personal Search Horizon. And if your firm’s products or services fall beyond it in my searches, then you’ve fallen off the edge of my informational world. I won’t know you exist until a different search pulls you inside my Search Horizon.

And the key to making that happen is to broaden your presence on the Web, increase your organization’s “hit rate,” and raise your position in search-result lists. This article and the next will help you do just that, by promoting yourself on as many different Web sites as are appropriate for your products and marketing plans.

Blogs are basically online chat rooms about specific topics. Google any area of interest to you, your company, or its markets, and you’ll probably find online blogs that are already discussing it. Track those that seem well targeted to your markets. Watch them. And as much as possible, throw in your own expert comments, advice, and product links. Or if you see a need, consider starting your own targeted blog.

Every time you post a blog comment (or use any of the other web sites we’ll discuss), you add a tiny piece to your presence on the Web. Google and other browsers can find these pieces, and by scattering as many of them across the Web as possible, you’ll gradually draw yourself into potential customers’ Search Horizons.

“Web-based seminars” are done in so many ways, using so many technologies, that a summary cannot do them justice. They’re like Online, Instructor-Led classes, delivered in real-time to free or paying customers or prospects. They may be lectures, workshops, or presentations delivered across the Web, and usually involve audience interaction (which differentiates them from “webcasts”).

Just Google “webinar” and you’ll find millions of links about them and specific webinar offerings. But also examine your own LMS/LCMS system. It may already include web-conferencing capabilities that you can use to deliver your own webinars to both prospects and customers, both quickly and inexpensively.

The bottom line here (as elsewhere) is that if your products or services lend themselves to promotion via webinars, consider trying them.

When you Google a topic of interest to you, your company, or its markets, you'll frequently find related Wikis at or near the top of your results. That's because so many other people have found and viewed them. So when you do, check them out. And if you see anything blatantly incomplete or incorrect in them, fix it, and make sure your firm's name and products are at least mentioned in your addition. (By definition, you can edit most Wikis once you "join" them.) Who knows, you may even decide to write and post your own Wiki.

Either way, you'll expand your firm's promotion and presence on the Web, and make it easier for existing and potential customers to find you there.

This is a great place to make promotional videos available for anyone around the world to view. More can be said about this than a short article permits. And not all e-Learning products lend themselves to promotional videos. But if your products or services could be promoted through short videos, then get to know YouTube.

The above are only a few of the more "mainstream" Web avenues for getting your organization and its e-Learning products before your audiences. In Part 2, we'll explore some less obvious channels, ones that you might not have considered!

David Boggs is the Found and CEO of SyberWorks, Inc. in Waltham, Massachusetts. He has been involved with computer and web-based training for more than twenty years. Before founding SyberWorks, Dave was the VP of Sales and Business Development for Relational Courseware. He holds a BS in Physics from Union College in Schenectady, NY, and an MBA from the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University in Evanston, IL.

SyberWorks, Inc. is a leader in providing Learning Management Systems and custom e-Learning Solutions for Fortune 1000 corporations, higher education, and other organizations. Located in Waltham, Massachusetts, the company serves the multi-billion-dollar e-Learning market. Since 1995, SyberWorks has developed and delivered unique and economical solutions for creating, managing, measuring, and improving e-Learning programs at companies and organizations in the United States, Canada, Europe, and other countries.

View the original article here

November, 2009

By David Boggs, CEO and Founder of SyberWorks, Inc.

The Web is where many of our customers and users will increasingly “live” for their information needs. This means that anything we do to both deliver e-Learning and spread the word about our products and services “over the Cloud” will both serve our audiences and build our businesses.

Most of us already deliver e-Learning over the Web in a variety of ways, but the following Web channels also may be used to promote our products and services:

Search enginesWeb blogsWebinarsWikisYouTube

These are all places where your e-Learning business can live on the Web to good advantage. But people must first be able to find you there. So let’s first discuss:

Remember when your parents bought their first encyclopedia, to bring the world’s knowledgebase into your home? How times have changed. Now, the Web itself is the world’s knowledgebase, and engines like Google are its keyword-searchable Index. In a very real sense, if an e-Learning product or service isn't widely present (and readily found) on the Web, it doesn’t exist.

Why do I add “readily found”? Because peoples’ willingness to wade through masses of text (and pages of Google hits) is limited. So even if you do have a Web presence, you also need to worry about where you show up in browser search results. Even I rarely venture past the first three pages of Google hits. So in effect, three Google pages (about 36 items) is my personal Search Horizon. And if your firm’s products or services fall beyond it in my searches, then you’ve fallen off the edge of my informational world. I won’t know you exist until a different search pulls you inside my Search Horizon.

And the key to making that happen is to broaden your presence on the Web, increase your organization’s “hit rate,” and raise your position in search-result lists. This article and the next will help you do just that, by promoting yourself on as many different Web sites as are appropriate for your products and marketing plans.

Blogs are basically online chat rooms about specific topics. Google any area of interest to you, your company, or its markets, and you’ll probably find online blogs that are already discussing it. Track those that seem well targeted to your markets. Watch them. And as much as possible, throw in your own expert comments, advice, and product links. Or if you see a need, consider starting your own targeted blog.

Every time you post a blog comment (or use any of the other web sites we’ll discuss), you add a tiny piece to your presence on the Web. Google and other browsers can find these pieces, and by scattering as many of them across the Web as possible, you’ll gradually draw yourself into potential customers’ Search Horizons.

“Web-based seminars” are done in so many ways, using so many technologies, that a summary cannot do them justice. They’re like Online, Instructor-Led classes, delivered in real-time to free or paying customers or prospects. They may be lectures, workshops, or presentations delivered across the Web, and usually involve audience interaction (which differentiates them from “webcasts”).

Just Google “webinar” and you’ll find millions of links about them and specific webinar offerings. But also examine your own LMS/LCMS system. It may already include web-conferencing capabilities that you can use to deliver your own webinars to both prospects and customers, both quickly and inexpensively.

The bottom line here (as elsewhere) is that if your products or services lend themselves to promotion via webinars, consider trying them.

When you Google a topic of interest to you, your company, or its markets, you'll frequently find related Wikis at or near the top of your results. That's because so many other people have found and viewed them. So when you do, check them out. And if you see anything blatantly incomplete or incorrect in them, fix it, and make sure your firm's name and products are at least mentioned in your addition. (By definition, you can edit most Wikis once you "join" them.) Who knows, you may even decide to write and post your own Wiki.

Either way, you'll expand your firm's promotion and presence on the Web, and make it easier for existing and potential customers to find you there.

This is a great place to make promotional videos available for anyone around the world to view. More can be said about this than a short article permits. And not all e-Learning products lend themselves to promotional videos. But if your products or services could be promoted through short videos, then get to know YouTube.

The above are only a few of the more "mainstream" Web avenues for getting your organization and its e-Learning products before your audiences. In Part 2, we'll explore some less obvious channels, ones that you might not have considered!

David Boggs is the Found and CEO of SyberWorks, Inc. in Waltham, Massachusetts. He has been involved with computer and web-based training for more than twenty years. Before founding SyberWorks, Dave was the VP of Sales and Business Development for Relational Courseware. He holds a BS in Physics from Union College in Schenectady, NY, and an MBA from the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University in Evanston, IL.

SyberWorks, Inc. is a leader in providing Learning Management Systems and custom e-Learning Solutions for Fortune 1000 corporations, higher education, and other organizations. Located in Waltham, Massachusetts, the company serves the multi-billion-dollar e-Learning market. Since 1995, SyberWorks has developed and delivered unique and economical solutions for creating, managing, measuring, and improving e-Learning programs at companies and organizations in the United States, Canada, Europe, and other countries.

View the original article here

November, 2005

By Dana Fine, Senior Instructional Designer, SyberWorks

What turns your best dress into a showstopper? Accessories. And what turns your online course content into dazzlingly useful learning content? Learning Activities. What is a Learning Activity? In e-learning content development, we use all forms of questions for test and quizzes:

Multiple correct, which presents a number of choices as answers to a particular question. There may be more than one answer to this question. The students chooses all answers that are correct.Single correct, which presents multiple choices as answers to a particular questions. One answer of the possible choices is correct.Item matching, in which there is one column of possible answers that relate to another column of questions. Item matching is commonly used for matching the correct term to the definition.Fill-in-the-blank, in which the students enters the correct word or words that complete a sentence.True/false, in which the student answers whether a statement is true or false.Short answer, in which the student enters a one to two sentence answer to a question.Essay, in which the student responds to a question with a page (or more) long response.

All of these question types are useful for testing knowledge gained from taking a course, as well as testing the level of knowledge prior to a course. In addition, such questions are useful in the course itself as learning checks. The learning check enables the student to determine whether he understands the material. Most companies consider these questions to be adequate learning activities. However, learning activities can be much more. Learning activities that are simulations can involve the student and give him a safe environment in which to practice skills gained through the course.

Learning Activities are interactive activities that help to explain concepts and involve the student with hands-on learning. This may include all forms of drag and drop questions (one to one correlation, many to one correlation) as well as interactive ordering of graphics or text, and finally, simulations.

An IDC article and survey, Technology-Based Simulations: Cloning the Work Environment for More Effective Learning, June 2004 by Michael Brennan, states, “By 2008 the use of simulations will quadruple.... Simulations provide a parallel universe in which employees hone their skills... Innovative companies have realized this, and others will follow.”

Simulations are currently the most expensive learning activity. Simulations must be individually designed and programmed. For example, suppose you have a sales course in which you are testing the sales student's retention of the message that the company wishes to deliver to its customers. You could do a question workshop: several questions that give situations requiring an action in multiple correct or single correct formats. Another, more entertaining, method would be to have the sales person run through a scenario in which he indicates what he would do to sell his product. The learning activity indicates whether the customer would buy this product based on those actions. This feedback could be indicated by a graph indicating customer readiness to buy. It could also be complimented by video, in which the customer appears aggravated when the sales person gives his message incorrectly and pleased when the sales person gives his message correctly.

Online courses are taken privately and at the student's convenience. If the student requires several attempts with a particular scenario, praise the student for continued effort and eventual competency.

Adding humor to simulations and learning activities is essential yet can be controversial. As the simulation developer or content developer, you do not want to add any humor that could be perceived as offensive, sexist or worse, unfunny. To extend our sales example, when the sales person is unsuccessful at selling his product in the learning activity, you would not want your customer video or simple animation of the customer to offend the sales person. Yet you want him to laugh and try again. Perhaps the customer morosely shaking his head and leaving the room, with text indicating how the sales call went dreadfully south would be acceptable and could be done in a humorous fashion. You would not want this animation to be disturbing – the customer should not shake his fist and yell for a restraining order against the sales person, for example.

In the past, I participated in designing a simulation of patient anesthesia. The computer program consisted of a patient on the operating room table and two dials that the student could turn. One dial administered oxygen, the other dial administered anesthetic. The patient's parameters could change (height, weight, age). As the student administered the anesthesia, a graph showed the patient's stats. If you administered too much anesthesia the patient would die! It was a great simulation, but scary. The death knell of the patient was accompanied by funeral music. . Ouch!

On the other hand, sometimes we encounter simulations and learning activities that add nothing to the content or the course. They are superfluous, added to maintain interest. You must be very careful in these instances. If you want to add something to maintain interest, it should still be useful and explore some aspect of the topic. A Flash movie of interesting fractals may be colorful and fun - useless in a course that is not about fractals, art or Flash. For example, suppose you are teaching contractual document details. You can still relate the content of the course to a learning activity in which the student must put the correct elements from a list into three different types of contracts. As dry as you may think detailing the elements of a contract might be, if you add audio that indicates whether the addition was right or wrong, you can keep your student's interest. “Wrong!” can be contrasted with “Oh, not that element, it does not belong” said in a beautiful feminine voice. The second response can add a smile and cause the student to remember how the contractual elements are added to a contract. A booming male voice that states, “You sir, are correct!” can bring that same acknowledgement.

In conclusion, questions and quizzes while useful are not the end of interactivity. We need to provide the means for simulations inside online courses to provide the hands on learning that students need. Through clever activities that allow seeing the consequences of your actions on the simulation model, we can provide activities that enable retention of material and practice. If these activities lead the student to greater understanding, we have provided not only an entertaining activity but also great value for our online courses.

Dana Fine is a Senior Instructional Designer at SyberWorks, Inc http://www.syberworks.com. SyberWorks is a custom e-Learning solutions company that specializes in Learning Management Systems, e-Learning solutions, and custom online course development. Dana is also a frequent contributor to the Online Training Content Journal.

View the original article here