This tweet from David Hopkins
‘Click next’ eLearning resources … haven’t we got beyond that yet?
— David Hopkins (@hopkinsdavid) August 7, 2013
generated some reflection in relation to my last role…
Despite me having the title of Learning Technologies Manager and the organisation generally defining ‘elearning’ as ‘click next, self-paced’ modules I was able to utilise a range of methods and media to meet needs that had previously been meet via traditional eLearning and physical classroom activity.
In 10 months I:
Produced a handful of taking head videos and placed them on our internal collaborative platform , Jive.Produced 15-20 screencasts and placed them onto Jive.Produced a handful of audio interviews.Created a single ‘go to‘ L&D group on Jive. This served as both a space to start, encourage and participate in conversations as well as a ‘marketing’ space for our activities.Designed a game involving a range of posters each including a different QR code which would link to various multimedia assets.Hosted the multimedia elements mentioned above on a Vimeo Pro account which provided immediate access coupled with an element of security.Used SurveyMonkey to revolutionise our assessment process and move it toward the Brinkerhoff Success Case method.Used Jive to create an activity that mirrored a real life customer interaction which created strong intrinsic motivators to utilise the provided performance support tool to resolve the ‘situation’.Introduced the concept and practical application of ’spaced repetition of learning’ using Retenda, in order to support the activity mentioned above.Used Adobe XI Pro to create a range of FAQs documents and checklists.Used tools such as Powtoon and Sparkol to create a range of animations to support various activities.Facilitated various online sessions using Adobe Connect.Used a Pro Scoop.it! account to curate content on a range of subjects.In short, I was able to operate up to, and indeed beyond, the expectations of the role, without ever having to go near an LMS or an authoring tool.
Was it easy? – No
Did everybody ‘roll over’ without a fight? – No
Did I experience some challenges? – Yes
Did some of the activities take longer than they really needed to due to the ‘engagement’ that needed to be done? – Yes
Did I win a lot of fans along the way as a result of sitting down with them and talking through their problem, my proposal and their fears? – Yes
Would I take this approach again? – Absolutely
Regular readers will know that I’m not one of the ‘Burn the LMS/authoring tool‘ fraternity as I truly believe they do have a place, depending on what you are trying to achieve, so I wouldn’t have been averse or afraid of using them should the solution to the problem have dictated it – but here’s the interesting thing….. it never did.
Not in all the time I was there or the many pieces of work I was involved was a ‘piece of elearning in an LMS’ or an ‘exodus to the classroom‘ ever the right answer.
Makes you wonder how many times as an Industry we’ve gone down the wrong route for fear of challenging, for worry of what people will think of our ‘off the wall‘ ideas???
So over to you…
Where have you come up with an alternative to the ‘old favourites’ approach?
Were you allowed to progress it?
What was the impact on your relationship with the original requester, when (and if) you produced an alternative to their request.
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