Earlier this year, Chris Adams and I submitted our proposal to speak at the 3rd annual mLearnCon in June.  We planned to tell the stories of how and why we developed mobile learning solutions for at least three of our clients.  By the time we got to San Jose, however, we only had one complete story to tell.                  What I learned at the conference is that we are not alone. Generally speaking, what I heard from the experts is, "now is the time for mobile learning, but…"  The "but" is the part that got in the way of our other two success stories.  I came to the conference for answers to questions. Instead, what I found were others with similar uncertainties of how to build and implement mobile learning solutions. Like all good conferences, mLearnCon offered a wide variety of topics.  I chose to attend sessions on selling mobile learning to the enterprise, timing the introduction of mobile learning, and so on.  Chris, on the other hand, fed his insatiable appetite for knowledge in various development-focused sessions.  The remainder of this blog will certainly not satisfy those with similar tastes but Chris will address that topic in another post. Heading into each session I had several questions.  How do you develop mobile learning for an organization without a standard set of devices?  (In my opinion BYOD, or Bring Your Own Device, doesn’t answer that question.)  Is there a delivery platform that is going to win out (like Flash did)?  How do you satisfy a client accustomed to the rich media associated with traditional development tools and delivery methods?  Tablet or smart phone?  Nothing I heard convinced me that learners will be taking courses on iPads instead of computers in the next few years.  I’m not nearly as convinced as one of the keynote speakers at the conference was that our kids won’t be going to traditional 4-year colleges in 15 years.  If a person doesn’t perform his or her job on an iPad, then I don’t see why he or she should take courses on one. Two tenets of mobile learning that resonate with me are the immediacy and the size.  We have always sought to develop bite-size learning objects that learners can get into, complete, and of course log completion of in a small amount of time.  Likewise, we try to make learning easy to access.  Unfortunately, learning management systems sometimes make that an impossible goal.  What’s faster and more digestible than content delivered on your tablet or phone?  The story Chris and I were able to tell is a great one.  We developed a mobile solution for the Coast Guard to enable maintenance technicians on an 87’ cutter to access and complete Maintenance Procedure Cards (MPCs) on a hand-held device.  Each morning the techs "check out" a tablet and use it to view videos, drawings, and so on that enables them to service assets on the ship.  They can also log notes and progress.  At the end of the day, they check the tablet back in to record data in a management system.  It is not without its kinks, but it is a mobile solution that closes a performance gap. While I didn’t walk away from mLearnCon 2012 with solutions to the challenges posed in the other two opportunities that we were to discuss, I at least learned that we’re asking the right questions.  It seems as though we’re catching this wave pretty early and we just have to figure out how best to ride it out. David Carmichael, Vice President, Operations at Handshaw, Inc.

Most moderate to large organizations now have a learning management system (LMS) to track learning and development.  LMSs may even track certifications, skills, or competencies.  Some are even starting to apply gamification strategies and include achievement "badges" and leader boards.  But two recent experiences have me thinking that perhaps the LMS should be replaced by a new category of application: the Accomplishment Management System or AMS. The first experience is my recent re-read of Thomas Gilbert’s Human Competence.  This foundational book on performance improvement challenges us to measure and engineer accomplishments rather than activities.  Gilbert’s "First Leisurely Theorem" describes worthy performance as a ratio of valuable accomplishments to costly behaviors. Noted performance improvement practitioner Carol Panza, speaking at a recent ISPI Charlotte chapter meeting, gave an excellent framework for distinguishing accomplishment from behavior.  Just think about any task you perform that has been automated - like creating a business document.  Thirty years ago, the behavior may have involved handwriting a draft with a pad and pencil, then loading paper into a typewriter, then typing out the final version.  More than one resource may have been involved in the effort!  Now, the behavior almost certainly includes opening a word processing application - maybe on a mobile tablet.  But the accomplishment - creating a business document - has remained constant.Just from this one example, it becomes clear that if we want to store meaningful information about learning and development, we should look to accomplishments and not behaviors. So, where’s my AMS? More on that next week in part 2 of this blog series … Chris Adams, Learning Technology Consultant at Handshaw, Inc.

So, where’s my AMS? A quick Google search returns no results for the system I’m after.  There are a few entries for "achievement management systems" targeted at K-12 education, but these are focused on student achievement - on enhancing the traditional grade book using technology.  Unless enlightened teachers are allowed by school systems to base grades on meaningful performance, these systems won’t meet the need. The second experience shaping my thinking around the AMS is the E-Learning Guild’s recent mLearn 2012 conference. I was there to co-present a case study in mobile performance support with David Carmichael and within 5 minutes, we both noted that the conference was overrun with information about a new technology: Tin Can.  The Tin Can API is the first part of the intended replacement for the ubiquitous but aging SCORM standard.  SCORM is the standard by which e-learning content and LMSs communicate.  Tin Can seeks to update the standard to use current and near-future web technologies. One of the most exciting things about Tin Can is that it uses a simple subject-verb-object or, "I did this," format to track learner actions.  You could as easily say, "Sally attended a mentoring session," as you could, "Charles completed a compliance course."  This greatly extends what LMSs can track today and COULD be a basis for accomplishment tracking.  A look at the list of proposed standard verbs (quoted here from www.scorm.com) shows a few rays of hope for accomplishment management: Verb Result experienced, read, watched, studied, reviewed, learned Completion attempted, performed, played, simulated, answered completion, success, score, (interaction details) completed, passed, failed Special Interacted (interaction details) Achieved completion, success, score, (interaction details) Attended Completion taught (by), mentored (by) Completion Commented Comment Asked Question created, authored, wrote, edited, blogged, shared, posted completion, success, score As you can see, a few of those verbs are well suited for tracking accomplishments.  Created fits the needs of our earlier example, while authored, wrote, edited, blogged, shared, posted, performed, and even answered fill similar roles.  But, a great number of the remaining verbs belong to what Gilbert calls the "Cult of Behavior."  I’d like to see some additional accomplishment-related verbs become part of the standard like: built, assembled, generated, designed, decided, and approved.  In the meantime, how could Tin Can help LMSs become AMSs? I think the key is for learning and development areas to transition into performance improvement roles - first by employing good, performance-based instructional design.  If we first seek to identify the real accomplishments required of the audiences we serve, we can align our own learning and development accomplishments - including the tracking, measurement, and management of accomplishments rather than just activities. What about you?  Do you have an AMS?  Have you seen one?  What accomplishments are you tracking?  What verbs could help your LMS become an AMS? Chris Adams, Learning Technology Consultant at Handshaw, Inc.

I conducted the first two days of our four day Results-Based Instructional Design Series for a new client last week and it was a great experience for me and hopefully all the participants. As usual, my clients taught me at least as much as I taught them. This was a small group, but it certainly was one of the most energetic groups I have worked with. The manager of this group has been a training manager with another organization with a background in pharmaceuticals. The other members of the team are new to training and all are accomplished subject matter experts in pharmaceuticals and manufacturing. I thought SME’s with industry specific backgrounds more so than training might struggle a bit with the detail and rigor involved with the instructional design process.   However, this was not the case and this is the part where I began learning from them. My expectations were proven wrong. Their ability to approach the instructional design process without preconceived ideas of their own made them more open and receptive to the principles I have been using and teaching for decades. This group probably produced two times the work output during the class than what I normally see. While I still think it is more difficult for a subject matter expert working alone to design good learning programs, I do think that when they are able to separate their roles of subject matter expert and instructional designer, they can be very successful. As we produced actual work samples of task analysis and performance objectives, one person served the role of the subject matter expert and the rest of the team served as instructional designers. As we switched to different projects, a different person assumed the role of the subject matter expert. I was amazed at how well this worked. So what I learned was: You can be a subject matter expert at heart, but when called upon to play the role of instructional designer, with a good process and good skills, you can design perfectly good instructional materials…

In the last guest blog post, Chris Adams described how Thomas Gilbert’s Human Competence is challenging him to measure and engineer accomplishments rather than activity.  I’m reading the book also and I have already noticed how the "accomplishment" mentality has expanded my view of goal identification. During an initial analysis conversation with key stakeholders on a project, we began talking about project goals.  The client had a long list of tasks that they needed their learners to be able to do in a new system.  It was pretty clear that we’d have no trouble identifying the project’s instructional goals.  However, I wanted to understand more about the real accomplishments the client expects from their learners.  To learn more I asked questions about the gap that led them to select and adopt a new system, what they were hoping to accomplish by implementing the system, and who is currently their best performer.  Then I brought the conversation around to measurement - what would indicate that their learners had met this accomplishment and how were they planning to measure success?  The stakeholders didn’t have all the answers, but asking these types of questions definitely got the conversation going and I’m pretty sure they were thinking about their answers long after the call ended. As instructional designers we need to identify the instructional goals, or behaviors that the learners need to exhibit on the job, in order to develop effective training.  Bringing a performance perspective to this work, where we look at accomplishments in addition to behaviors, improves the outputs of our instructional design process and our client relationships, allowing us to recommend solutions that more comprehensively meet our clients’ goals.  This perspective also provides us with the information needed to more accurately and completely measure the success of the training solutions we provide to our clients. Beth Hughes is a Senior Instructional Designer at Handshaw, Inc. She takes projects through the entire process of instructional design and development, incorporating learning principles, instructional needs, and methodologies into the best learning solution for each client. Beth earned her M.Ed. in Instructional Systems Technology from UNCC.  

While I have been spending a lot of energy on Performance Improvement lately, the discipline most of us in the learning profession use most of the time is Instructional Design.  This week I will be finishing the Results-Based Instructional Design Series with a client. They already completed the first two days of in-class instruction and team-based practice. They took about a month to do a great deal of homework based on the first two days. The payoff will be that they will have four completely designed training programs by the time we finish their final two days of in-class instruction and practice. Not bad—four days of class and four completely designed training programs. On the 21st of this month, I will be headed to the Midlands ASTD Chapter in Columbia, SC for a breakfast meeting. This group also chose an instructional design related topic. Their presentation is called, "Learner Validation: Why Guess When You Can Measure?" This is a practice that I have been using since my graduate school days at Indiana University. In my very first big corporate project for the former First Union National Bank back in 1979, I had the opportunity to design and develop my first eLearning course, even though it wasn’t called eLearning at the time. I had an idea of how and why my instructional strategy would work in the delivery option, but I really didn’t know for sure if it would work, since I had never seen a program like the one I was building. So I selected ten learners from my sample audience and asked them to help me validate my design strategy. I asked them to take about 45 minutes of instruction from an early microcomputer attached to a video cassette player while I observed them and asked questions. On the first try, my strategy failed miserably.  "Not my fault," I said. "I’ve never seen this done before."  So, I tried another approach based on what I observed and asked the same ten people to help me again. This time, they figured out what I was trying to do and gave me lots of direction on what to do to make it really work for them. I followed their advice and made the changes they recommended. They asked me to see the final product, so I tested the 45 minutes of instruction with them once more. It worked and they loved it. The success of this one program built the foundation for the rest of my career. Were it not for what I learned from my learners about designing eLearning back then, I probably wouldn’t be part of this company and I wouldn’t have the honor of working with some of the best instructional designers I know. So, that’s why I say, "Why guess when you can measure?"

I volunteered to write a guest blog this week while Dick divides his time between presenting to the South Carolina Midlands Chapter of ASTD and serving on the board of an NC community bank.  Usually, when I volunteer, I have an idea of what it is I want to discuss.  This time, I had no clue, but since Dick said that September’s focus is on Instructional Design, I’ll follow suit by describing what we’re doing at Handshaw to evolve our methodology. A couple weeks ago, Dick and I had the pleasure of meeting with a graduate of Florida State’s Instructional Systems program who now lives and works in the Charlotte area.  Because most of our designers were schooled on the Dick and Carey instructional design model, and it’s the basis for our methodology today, Dick couldn’t help but to ask for some inside stories on Walter Dick, a former professor at Florida State who co-authored the model.   His former student described Walter Dick as a great professor and a regular guy, with whom she actually recalled playing on a softball team.  I can only assume Lou Carey is similarly down to earth.  She was in fact a graduate student when she began to collaborate with Walter Dick on The Systematic Design of Instruction.  So, I walked away from the meeting with not only a new colleague, but also a reminder of the origins of the Dick and Carey model and a sense that neither would take issue with our tweaking of their model. For years we have inserted what we call the "Blueprint" phase into our methodology, where we work collaboratively with our clients to arrive at agreed-upon design recommendations.  This phase is a departure from the traditional Dick and Carey model.  Now, as our company continues to evolve, we’re looking for further opportunities to expand our methodology in a manner that’s representative of the types of projects on which we work.   Whereas the Dick and Carey model focuses and begins appropriately with the identification of an instructional goal, Handshaw’s cause is slightly different.  There are certainly instances where clients approach us with a clearly defined instructional objective (derived from a business goal and performance goal) on which we can begin our Analysis process.  However, more often, we are tasked with first identifying the business goal either because we need to justify the project to stakeholders or we want to ensure alignment of our efforts for the success of the project and/or future relationship. As a result, lately we have debated the inclusion of the tasks required to define the business goal (and associated performance goals) in our standard methodology.  Our Production team will meet later this week in an effort to (among other things) standardize our Intake phase and determine how (or if) it should be represented in our methodology.  It’s important to our practice that we continue to evolve and refine our methodology since instructional models are not set in stone.  Regardless of the outcome, my new colleague’s description of her softball-playing instructional design professor leads me to believe Walter Dick will be just fine with whatever updates we make to his model.     David Carmichael, Vice President, Operations at Handshaw, Inc.   

My friend George Piskurich, who has written text books for instructional design, once said that, "Instructional design is a terrible, wonderful thing." I think we can probably say the same thing about the use of PowerPoint in the e-learning world. PowerPoint is easy, it’s ubiquitous and in e-learning it can be insidious. In my opinion, the quality of e-learning is worse today than at any point in my career. And PowerPoint may be to blame—or is it? PowerPoint slides are a great way to distribute information. We can all create them and they don’t require a lot of time. If they are used for what they are good for—conveying information— they are indeed a wonderful thing. Most of us are familiar with Harold Stolovitch’s famous quote, "Telling Ain’t Training." With that in mind then, it is safe to say that conveying information, no matter how easily and well it’s done, is not training. And that brings me to my point about the "teachable moment." I have asked many e-learning developers if their learners actually read or listen to all the information they pack into their courses. Without fail the answer is "no." So it seems Mr. Stolovitch is right, people don’t learn from information alone. People learn through practice and feedback. The "teachable moment" in e-learning comes from that magic moment when a learner tries something in a simulation, or picks the wrong answer to a challenging question, and is presented with a hint or feedback. This is when learners stop everything and pay attention.  How you manage this magic moment of attention and interest is the most important part of your e-learning course. There are two basic ways you can use practice and feedback to improve learning from your courses. First, you must create those "teachable moments" by giving your learners the opportunity to do something and make a mistake. Second, you must make the most of those moments by providing an opportunity for the learner to try again, perhaps with a hint or some new knowledge, which enables him or her to succeed. Achieving success by following guided feedback from an incorrect response is the best form of feedback. So, maybe PowerPoint doesn’t get the blame for all bad e-learning. It’s PowerPoint alone without some form of practice and feedback that can cause our e-learning to fail. In future blog entries I’ll address some specific strategies that create opportunities to achieve the "teachable moment" in e-learning. In October, I’ll be sharing my ideas about e-learning design with the ASTD Hawkeye chapter in Cedar Rapids, Iowa. Part One of Three in series

In my last blog I talked about the importance of the "teachable moment." Now, let’s get down to the practicalities of making the teachable moment work for you. I can’t stress enough the critical links from task analysis to performance objectives to measurement strategy and instructional strategy. It is very difficult to begin designing a learning solution when you don’t know the output that is required from your learner. It’s that old "Start with the end in mind" thing that Stephen Covey always talked about. A simple flowchart showing what people have to do and what they have to know in order to complete a task is all that is required. This type of task analysis is usually easy for your clients and subject matter experts to read and understand. Performance objectives serve as a written agreement among designers, facilitators, SMEs and clients describing exactly what the learner outcome will be in performance terms. Perhaps their most important purpose is to help us design our measurement strategy. Apparently we all love multiple choice questions, because I see them used a lot, likely because they are easy and fun to create in e-learning. But a multiple choice question can’t measure everything. Only a well written performance objective, based on a task analysis, can tell you what type of measurement instrument to use. Remember, in the instructional design process, the output of one step is the input to the next. Instructional strategies don’t just happen because something sounds cool to do. They happen for a reason.  It stands to reason that once you know how to measure the successful completion of a task, you will know how to teach a task. If you look at your testing instrument, it will become obvious how to teach to that test. And in the training world, teaching to the test is usually a good thing. If you have done all this, you will be focusing on tasks, results and outcomes more than content. Content may be king, but as my friend Tony O’Driscoll points out, "Context is the kingdom." Only real experience through job-like simulations and decision points of questions can put your content and learning in context. Learners quickly forget what they read or hear. They remember and master what they do in the context of what they have to perform on the job. To get them to the teachable moment, give them some practice, give them some feedback, and they will gain the confidence to learn the rest on the job. I will be teaching all of this in a new workshop entitled, "e-Learning starts with Instructional Design," in Cedar Rapids Iowa to the ASTD Hawkeye Chapter on October 11th. Part Two of Three in a series

We have defined the "Teachable Moment" as the point at which the learner has been asked to do something or answer a question and has failed, or maybe succeeded by guessing correctly. It is at this point that we have that individual’s attention and it is what we do next that will help that person discover and learn. Since multiple choice questions are so popular, let’s start with one. Suppose I select a wrong answer to a multiple choice question, and the only feedback I get is that my answer is incorrect. My incorrect response is scored and I go on without really knowing why I was wrong. But suppose instead I get a well written hint that makes me think. I try again, and this time I get the correct answer. Even if I only get the correct answer because I guessed, I still get a message telling me why my answer is correct. Right or wrong, either way I learn something. And, if I get the wrong answer on my second try, I still get a message telling me the correct answer with an explanation of why it is the correct answer. We have been writing prescriptive feedback at Handshaw since I started the company in 1985. I know this practice isn’t new, but I see a lot of e-learning with no prescriptive feedback. I can guess the reason people don’t use prescriptive feedback is because it takes time and effort. I once had a developer tell me that he was so busy he "had to take the path of least resistance and just get it out there." I can understand his predicament. But what about all that content that we pack into all those text screens with a few decorative graphics that every developer I’ve ever asked says people don’t read anyway? You might find it easier to present simple concepts with a question or simulation exercise and let the feedback do the instruction. If learners get things right the first time, they don’t have to read or listen to all that content. If they guessed the correct answer, they have the option to listen or read. If they have done something wrong, you can be assured you have their attention. They will listen, read, and learn. The approach I just described also makes e-learning that is self-paced and personalized—something e-learning is supposed to offer our learners. Sure, we’re all going to have to make those informational programs from time to time. But, when you are designing something that will require learners to be able to perform important tasks and use knowledge to solve problems, prescriptive feedback used during the teachable moment is the most efficient and effective way to get the job done. Part three of three in series