2. Provide Assessment Feedback
Assessments or tests should not be available simply to learn about how much or how little a student knows. Assessments should also help a student learn what they don’t know or don’t understand. Use this opportunity to help the student by explaining why an answer is what it is or reinforce information they got correct.

3. Bring the Teacher Back
Many eLearning sites focus away from a teacher or a guide and focus strictly on the content. This can work in many situations but think of a student walking into a classroom without a teacher. With just a book of information, the student may not relate to the content or understand their goals and objectives. A teacher is often a delivery system of information and each teacher brings their own approach while bringing life to a subject. Students enjoy knowing there is someone they can connect with.

A teacher or guide can be video or animated. They can be human, animal, alien, or even an inanimate object. They can be a constant or show up from time to time, introducing information, asking questions,  delivering details, providing step by step tutorials, and expressing real life examples and situations.

4. Get Hand’s On
Another engaging tool in our belt is our ability to create hands on experiences. A student can learn a lot quickly when they have a virtual way of interacting with something. Realtime 2D and 3D (like games use) can allow a student to “touch” an object by clicking and dragging to turn it around, clicking on different parts to get details, and even changing variables to see how they change how the object works or an end result.

Getting hands on does not have to be the best of the best technology. You can have a mathematical formula that has fields the student can type numbers into. As they type them in the answer changes. With this, a student can explore relationships between numbers and answers. Simple and effective.

5. Taking Notes
I don’t know about you, but I would be hopeless without my notepad, and I hate the idea of entering a classroom without a way to get notes down. Create a simple notes button that lets a student type something they want to remember. A student might need to know something specific, they might want to write down a relationship between something else they know to help them retain or comprehend information.

You can keep track of the page the student is on and allow the student to see all notes or the notes on a a specific page they are on. They may be able to click on the note to jump to the page they were on when they typed it. They can email or print the notes as a reading guide. You might even provide a button next to each paragraph that places that paragraph into a document for further review. There are many approaches to taking notes (that I will discuss in an upcoming article). To jot down an idea here and there and having it always available is a powerful tool in eLearning.

Don was a VP at Apple and started the Nielsen Norman Group with Jakob Nielsen (You designers know who that is). Brilliant guy. If you need some good holiday reading check out his many books. It was great of him to visit with us. Thanks Don.

There are many methods used in  rapid eLearning and eTraining. Train the trainer, live events, role play scenarios, simulation, user competition, knowledge bases, and discussions are several ways we can educate and train individuals and groups on how to understand a situation and solve problems. Illumen looks at a simple process, or curriculum in education and training; present > explore > assess.

Present
We can present a problem, an objective, subject material, and statistics, to name a few. Develop awareness of a given subject or product and then begin to add in details. If this foundation is not developed properly, our next step or exploration can take significantly longer to develop proper skills.

Explore
Once a foundation has been set, exploration can begin. Are there interactive tools, challenges, or games that can allow someone to change variables and get unique results? Can they role play different situations with guides and feedback along the way? Can they chat or interact with others learning the same material? Hands on experience will begin to develop skills past being a knowledge base. This is where critical thinking and problem solving begin to evolve into skills that can be used in real life scenarios.

Assess
We must understand that assessment is not just a tool used by a facilitator to grade and measure progress, but can also be used to allow the learner to check themselves. Assessment isn’t a means to an end, it should lead right back to present and explore materials and situations. Assessment does not have to be in the form of a standard multiple choice test. It can be in the form of a tool or challenge. The key is to define what it is that is important to know, properly measure an ability to know, and provide feedback, when needed, on how it can be known.

Each of these three steps are open for interpretation and depend on the end need. Get to know your users and stay creative about learning and training approaches. Once we develop curriculum that present, explore, and assess subjects and materials, we begin to develop the skills nessesary to interact with real world problems and define proper solutions.

This year, the Showcase celebrates the evolution of adult learning and performance, with an emphasis on the role of new media and interactive methods in business and institutional training. The Showcase provides a full day of educational sessions for all levels of experience. More than 30 speakers will explore all aspects of elearning—instructional design, development tools, media resources, virtual classrooms, social and interactive applications, mobile learning, rapid elearning, and more. Attendees will have an opportunity to create their own schedules from a variety of topics or follow one of four Showcase Tracks, including Simulations & Social Media, eLearning Tools & LMS, Online Design, and Management of eLearning.

More information about the event and registration can be found at the Chicago eLearning & Technology Website.

Illumen will be at the event showcasing our eLearning applications and offering information on the process and development of technology and learning based solutions. We hope to see you all there.

June 8th, 2009  ::  IBM Innovation Center  ::  71 South Wacker Drive  ::  Chicago, Illinois 60606

Learn, Benchmark, Collaborate, Compare and Plan at Learning 2009!  - Elliott Masie

Learning 2009 (www.learning2009.com)  ::  November 8 - 11, 2009  ::  Orlando, Florida

1. Limit Your Limitations
   It is often said that the difficulty in developing mobile experiences is that there are too many custom devices, all with unique technologies that need unique solutions, and therefore too many limitations to justify the development price. In reality, you can often find that two or three devices, or types of devices, make up a majority of what your audience uses. This may not always be the case, but survey your audience, you may find out that that most use iPhones and Blackberries, or maybe they tend to use more generalized cell phones. There is nothing wrong with developing towards a couple specific types of devices if it makes sense. By understanding what devices are typically used by your audience, you can limit the limitations, save time and money.
   
2. Adjust the Experience, Not the Goals
   Even while limiting your limitations, they still exist. Mobile devices tend to have smaller computing power, smaller screen real estate, and limited browser or application capabilities. It may be difficult to continue the same exact user experience across this constrained platforms. When extending an application through a mobile device, the user experience can change, as long as it follows the goals, objectives, and brand that is needed to make the final solution a success.
3. Use the Screen as a Window, Not a Content Perimeter
   While the screen real estate is smaller on a mobile device, it can be used as a window into a greater user experience, rather than the edges of the screen acting as a perimeter for the content. The iPhone is a great example of this. Even with a small screen, users don’t feel they are being limited by it. Often, with a flick of their finger, additional content slides in from just out of view. When content slides into view from outside the borders, or from the out-of-view area that surrounds the screen, it establishes an environment that goes outside of what is on screen. This can greatly reduce the claustrophobic feeling of a small content area.
4. Don’t Forget Marketing
   It is easy to get caught up defining a new training application or website. “Build it and they will come” does not always work when your audience doesn’t know of it’s existence, services, and benefits. Don’t forget to define a marketing plan for the mobile version of your course or marketing aid. Market the app as an extension of their abilities, not an extra thing to do. Advertising can be as important as the application itself.
5. Remember You and Your Administrators
   You and your administrators are part of your application’s audience. You may have different goals than your trainees but you need to continue your experiences through mobile devices as well. It may be important for you to review analytical reports during a meeting or author content while sitting on a train headed farther and farther away from your desktop computer. Whatever you need to do, make sure if is factored into the overall solution.
6. Look Towards the Future
   A lot of time can be spent developing mobile solutions. Mobile devices are changing rapidly. Developing scalable solutions and reusable components are the best approach to offering training and marketing experiences that last.

1. Analytics
   Refers to the analysis and derivation of data into usable information or statistics. Analytics are often presented visually or numerically and are used to understand your audience, where they are succeeding, where they are failing, your site’s use, and any other number of variables.
   
2. Animation
   Animation can be broken into two areas. First, it can be presented as 2d or 3d, and in a realistic or stylized representation of objects, people, and places. They take place over time and are often used to visually describe a story, a theory, an idea, a process, a feature, or a benefit. Second, animation can be used within a user interface to lead the user’s eye to focus on something specific or guide them to the next section within a course. The iPhone is a good example of this.
   
3. Avatar
   A virtual representation of a user. Avatars take on many styles such as cartoons, real photos, and even an image of a favorite sport, hobby, pet, or event. Avatars can help users customize their experience and interact with others.
   
4. Audience
   An audience is a group of users and often stands for a single user. A user can be a student, participant, and administrator.
   
5. Blended Learning
   A learning approach that blends or merges several different methods or types of learning together to form a cohesive experience. Blended learning could take a distance learning based course component, a live learning event, and an interactive virtual challenge and develop them into one user experience.
   
6. Brand
   Brands set the overall look and feel of a company, site, application, or other entity. They represent the values of the community, culture, and objectives through images, colors, shapes, logos, and layouts. Brand can go much deeper than visual ques alone and can effect how a company acts towards each other and other companies, how they develop ideas, etc. Brand recognition occurs when a company, like Apple, Nike, Google, and BMW are recognized by their brand and brand elements.
   
7. Chunking
   Involves the development of content and other materials into short, brief, bite size pages and sections that can focus the user facts, theories, processes, and ideas to increase their understanding and retention.
   
8. Content Management Systems (CMS)
   Application for delivering, tracking, and managing content and communication.
   
9. Engage and Engaging
   Refers to  a user’s favored interest in a website, component, and experience. An engaging experience often refers to an experience that immerses the user in materials or an environment. Engaging experiences often lead the user through text, video, animation, challenges, games, communication, or 3d environments.
   
10. Facilitator
    A course instructor, teacher, or helper who aids training and learning in an online, student based environment.
    
11. Haptics
    Input device that provides forced feedback to add a sense based approach to interaction. Haptics can range from a vibration pack in a game controller to a laparoscopic tool that hooks to a virtual 3d patient. See our post on Haptics.
    
12. Information Architecture
    Deals with the structure, management, layout, organization, and categorization of content. It allows users to more efficiently and effectively find information and work through information. It also provides methods for loading information faster.
    
13. Instructional Designer (ID)
    Someone who practices instructional learning theories to streamline experiences and courses by tailoring them to a specific group of users and audiences.
    
14. Interactive
    A hands-on ability to change and explore an object within an environment. Interactivity usually provides feedback to an interaction. With interactivity users can play with an iPhone without buying one, click and drag a scalple to make a virtual incision to learn surgery, and can move sliders around to adjust colors on a website.
    
15. Learning Management System (LMS)
    Application for delivering, tracking, and managing content and assessments for training and education. An LMS acts as a foundation for information and materials that make up a course or curriculum. For the user, it provides for navigation, the process of learning, and assessment tools. For the administrator, it provides the ability to add/adjust content and review reports on all aspects of the user and the site’s use. SCORM is often used as a platform to plug-in 3rd party and custom made courses and tools.
    
16. Metaphor
    Is the virtual, often stylistic, representation of a real life thing or interaction. In a computer, windows on a desktop, file folders, painting in an image editor are all examples of navigational and interactive components that derived from their real life counterparts. Metaphors are used often as users often find them intuitive because they can quickly find a relationship to what they already know.
    
17. Personas
    Fictitious characters who represent unique groups of users. Personas are used to understand how different groups of users will use a website or application. By focusing on how a persona interacts with a website, navigates to content and through content, understands and retains the content, we can begin to understand the different user experiences that occur.  See our post on Personas.
    
18. Virtual
    A non-physical representation of a person, environment, object, or situation. Virtual solutions allow users to interact or train with others in a simulated or made-up environment. Marketing uses virtual solutions often. If you want to buy a car you can visit their website, view and interact with the car, change it’s characteristics, and drive it without ever seeing or touching the real thing.
    
19. User Centered Design (UCD)
    Design philosophy which focuses  on the goals, objectives, needs, and limitations of the client and the audience. UCD integrates into a development process by specifically detailing and exploring approaches that fulfil the goals and objectives.
    
20. User Experience (UX)
    The experience a user receives when interacting with a product, service, or idea. It is how these interactions are perceived, how they are used, and how information is gathered. See our post on the User Experience.

More to come. And let us know what terms we have not yet added!