Moodle Pros and Cons Update

With all the hype surrounding the upcoming arrival of Moodle 2.0, I thought it might be a good time to revisit what we love and hate about Moodle 1.9.  In a previous post, "Moodle Pros and Cons" I set out on a mission to build a robust list of Moodle Pros and Cons that would be a great resource to someone researching whether Moodle would fit their needs.  I thought a list created on my own would not be nearly as useful as a list created with the help of fellow moodlers who come from different perspectives so I created a wiki page and posted a call for help compiling the ultimate Pros and Cons list.  While the response wasn't enormous there were some great pros and cons added to the list from Joseph Thibault and other fellow Moodlers.  Now that we are getting ready to say goodbye to Moodle 1.9, I thought it would be a good time to post the updated pros and cons list and send out another call for help adding more pros and cons to the list.  If you have any contributions please click on the link below to add your thoughts to the Moodle pros and cons wiki page. 

• Click Here to Contribute to the list of Moodle Pros and Cons

Moodle Benefits	Moodle Drawbacks
Open Source - Free to download and lots of great plugins to customize to your needs. - Joe Deegan	Reporting - There is no simple way to run a site wide report with users grades in multiple courses. You are stuck going into each course site to view one courses grades at a time or using the overview report to view grades for one user at a time. - Joe Deegan
Great Community - There is a great community of Moodlers more than willing to help you solve any problems you may come across. - Joe Deegan	User management - No easy way to manage groups of students. It would be much easier if there was a way to manage groups site wide rather than on a course by course basis. I need to use groups for position and region which requires a lot of maintenance of the groups in each course site. - Joe Deegan
Customizable - There is a huge selection of plugins and add ons freely available to help you customize Moodle to your needs. - Joe Deegan	Takes a little tech savvy - Not just any trainer or teacher can download Moodle and be up and running with a quality LMS. It takes a little tech savvy and access to IT Dept resources to implement. - Joe Deegan
Widely Available - Most low cost hosting solutions on the web will install Moodle for you at no cost through simple scripts or an easy to use interface (which makes starting up much easier than having to know/install php, etc.) - Joseph Thibault (MM - GC )	Closed - if you're looking to create an open repository of information that anyone can browse and engage, Moodle is not necessarily the best tool. You can "open" your Moodle, but most installations require registration, and even more courses require course passwords (enrolment keys) - Joseph Thibault (MM - GC ) Actually, it is possible to set up a Moodle site so that anyone can read without registering and without login. And anyone can edit via self registering.
Sell content - one of the less talked about benefits is that for small businesses, Moodle offers a fully capable course delivery and sales platform. Just plugin your paypal email address and list prices. Though users will have to register before being able to make a purchase (which might be viewed as a drawback) - Joseph Thibault (MM - GC )	the admin side is not very user friendly. many info on the web but its not that easy getting used to the Moodle logic as admin, especially as the whole thing is strictly course oriented (as pointed above). also the "helps" are rather brief and hardly offer help for a begginer. but generally i do like moodle. guess im just a cons kind a guy...
Familiar - During workshops I like to put teachers at ease by letting them know if they've filled out an online application or form, they can master Moodle. All activities and resources are driven by similar form templates (title, description, etc.), if teachers can look past the fact that there are a lot of choices, working with Moodle to build content is easy - Joseph Thibault (MM - GC )	The Real Cost - Upside Learning wrote a good post highlighting some important factors to take into consideration before implementing Moodle. While Moodle is free to download but in reality the costs can add up if you go with a "Do it yourself" approach. - Joe Deegan Click here for article from Upside Learning
Content - Moodle's backup and restore functions are two of my favorites. The shear number of sites and courses on the web is HUGE...so if you're willing to do a little research/searching odds are you can find a pre-constructed course that the author is willing to share with you. Check out sites like Moodlecommons.org and Moodle.org 's course exchange for free resources - Joseph Thibault (MM - GC Related Posts: Moodle Pros and Cons Why Moodle?

Moodle Pros and Cons

Making the decision to go with Moodle over other Learning Management Systems can be a very difficult decision, especially when you don't have the experience to know the benefits and drawbacks of Moodle. Something that can be very helpful in this decision making process is feedback from Moodlers on the Pros and Cons of Moodle. In an effort to help those struggling with this decision I am looking for your help constructing a list of the pros and cons of Moodle from multiple perspectives and opinions. A list created on my own will not be nearly as complete as a list constructed with your help. Help make the Moodleverse a better place by sharing your experience.

I have kick started the list with a few pros and cons on a wiki page. All you need to do to contribute is click on the link to the wiki page below, click the "Edit" option on the wiki page, and add your contribution to the list. There are a few more details on the wiki page but wikispaces has made it very simple for all of us to collaborate on this list. Also, don't be shy to get a conversation about the pros and cons of Moodle started by leaving a comment here or using the "Discussion" option on the wiki page. So, what are you waiting for? Make the Moodleverse a better place by clicking on the link below and contributing to the list.

• Click Here to contribute to the list of Moodle Pros and Cons

I kick started the list with the pros and cons below. These are some of the major pros and cons that stick out for me from the corporate perspective. Hopefully this will spur some ideas for you so that the list of pros and cons can grow. Thanks in advance for your contributions.

Moodle Benefits	Moodle Drawbacks
Open Source - Free to download	Reporting - There is no simple way to run a site wide report with users grades in multiple courses. You are stuck going into each course site to view one courses grades at a time or using the overview report to view grades for one user at a time.
Great Community - There is a great community of Moodlers more than willing to help you solve any problems you may come across.	User management - No easy way to manage groups of students. It would be much easier if there was a way to manage groups site wide rather than on a course by course basis. I need to use groups for position and region which requires a lot of maintenance of the groups in each course site.
Customizable - There is a huge selection of plugins and add ons freely available to help you customize Moodle to your needs.	Takes a little tech savvy - Not just any trainer or teacher can download Moodle and be up and running with a quality LMS. It takes a little tech savvy and access to IT Dept resources to implement.

Related Posts:

• Moodle Pros and Cons Update

Why Moodle?

Why Moodle?
One of the most frequently asked questions I get from blog readers is "Why did I choose to go with Moodle" over other Learning Management Systems. The answer is simple; Moodle gives you the most bang for your buck, especially if you don't have a lot of bucks. A huge factor in my case is that I had zero budget to implement eLearning in my organization so I didn't have many options. However, when it comes down to it, Moodle met most of the requirements I had listed out and met those requirements at the lowest cost by a long shot. I spent a lot of time researching LMS systems that added on a lot of expense for bells and whistles that my organization didn't need so why pay for it when with Moodle all you need is a little hard work.

However, Moodle is not all rainbows and unicorns. Although Moodle is turning out to be a good fit for my situation, it is not the ideal solution for all organizations. It is important to do your research and testing before making the leap to Moodle or any Learning Management System. Below are some factors I took into consideration and some tips that may help you in the LMS selection process.

Making the Decision
Thinking back on my LMS decision making process there were 3 key steps I took which helped me narrow down the huge amount of options and make a final decision. This is just a high level description of the steps I took to come to a decision that works for my organization. There are many more details to drill down into but I could go on all day with the small stuff.

1. Write an RFP - Writing a request for proposal (RFP) really helps you to analyze what exactly you need in an LMS. Starting out by describing everything you want to use the LMS for in an RFP helps to ensure that you take everything into consideration before making a final determination. If you go straight into the research without listing out your requirements it can be easy to get swept away in LMS features that you may never have use for and end up overpaying for a system that you don't need. You also want to make sure that you don't make the mistake of going with an LMS that doesn't meet your requirements and end up having to go with something else down the line. For more information on RFP's and samples to help you get started, check out this blog post about LMS RFP's by Tony Karrer.
   
2. Research - Plan on spending a lot of time with Google researching the wide array of LMS options. Don't get stuck in the research phase forever but make sure to talk to plenty of LMS vendors and take the time to view their Demo's. A great resource that got me off to a good start was eLearning Guilds 360 report on Learning Management Systems. This gave me a good starting point of LMS's to begin researching. Because there are so many options with subtle differences it is a good idea to put together some kind of tool to take notes while viewing demos so that later on you can easily compare the key differences and narrow down your options. I put together a simple excel spreadsheet that later turned into a great tool for narrowing down my choices. Once you have your list of contenders narrowed down you can send them your RFP and start testing out their trial versions.
   
3. Get your hands dirty - This is the most important step of the LMS selection process. Don't make any decisions until you dive in and test out the trial versions of your finalists. This can be a little time consuming but actually putting together a sample course and testing out administration features tells you a whole lot more about the LMS then any demo will ever tell you. Many LMS vendors provide trial versions and in Moodle's case it is a free download anyway so you can test out the full version at no risk. This is how I ended up deciding on Moodle. I was able to easily get it up and running on my own and it met most of the requirements I had described in my RFP.
   

Going through these steps helped me come to the conclusion that Moodle would fit the needs of my organization at the lowest cost. You may come to the conclusion that you would be sacrificing too much by going with Moodle. Either way it's important to do the work involved in selecting an LMS before you go too far down the wrong path and waste money. Do you have any suggestions that will help others decide whether Moodle is the right choice? If so, please leave a comment with your suggestions, tips, or questions.

In this post I brought up that there are a lot of pro's and cons to Moodle that are helpful to know about when trying to decide on whether Moodle fits your needs. In a future post I will be asking for contributions to a list of Moodle pro's and cons that will help others in the decision making process. I hope you'll contribute your opinions of Moodle for the sake of others struggling with the decision.

Moodle 1.9 eLearning Course Development by William Rice

As I have been working my way through a Moodle implementation I have used several different resources to find answers for my Moodle questions. While the moodle community is fantastic for finding quick answers to random issues, I have found that Moodle 1.9 by William Rice is a great resource for support from installation to setting up class pages.

Other Moodle books I have used in the past are either directed to the LMS admin installing and maintaining the database or the Trainer/Teacher creating class pages. William Rice does a great job of covering all aspects for those of you out there who are doing it all which I am sure is more and more in the current economy.

Something I like about this book is the plain language it is written in. Often times when I am reading forum posts in the Moodle Community I get lost in the "Techno Speak" and it seems like some of the Moodle gurus out there are trying to show off how much they know by explaining in a way that few people will understand. The downside to this plain language is that in many cases you don't get the whole story from the instructions in the book and will need to refer to the Moodle community to fill in the blanks.

Overall it's a good book to get you started with Moodle but it's also important to know that not all of the issues you will come across are covered in this book. It's a great reference to have on your desk while working your way through a Moodle implementation but you will also want to have the Moodle community bookmarked for the unique situations that are not covered in detail in the book.

Software Implementation Training Plan

I've been working on what I consider a large project and I am hoping to use this post as a sounding board for my plan. The project involves training approximately 180 users on a ERP software program in a chain of retail stores. Please leave a comment if you have any suggestions that can contribute to the success of this software implementation.

The overall plan consists of a blend of training solutions including eLearning, Instructor Led Training, and Job Aids. Each phase of this blended solution is designed to further the learners understanding of the software and ensure transference after the training has taken place.

One month before the software is implemented, users will begin completing a series of weekly eLearning assignments covering the basics of the system. eLearning is an ideal solution due to the fact that it is a geographically distributed workforce and we do not have the resources for a multi day instructor led course. The eLearning tutorials developed in Adobe Captivate and delivered through Moodle provide the learner with the skills required to complete common everyday tasks.

Instructor led classes will begin 2 weeks prior to the implementation. The ILT classes pick up from where the eLearning courses left off by covering more advanced topics and providing the opportunity to discuss unique situations. The eLearning classes will help the learners to gain pre requisite knowledge while the ILT course will help them achieve fluency in the program. A major benefit of the ILT class is that it will provide what the eLearning was missing by covering the "what if" situations.

The ILT classes will conclude by introducing the learners to a job aid in the form of a Wiki. Rather than developing a standard technical manual with detailed instructions I have created a Wiki using MediaWiki. The Wiki is packed with step by step instructions covering everything in the system. In previous software implementations this has been a big help in reducing tech support calls post implementation. That first couple of weeks after the implementation is always hectic but the Wiki helps the users with quick and easy access to step by step instructions just in case they don't remember everything from the eLearning and ILT courses.

There's the plan now I just need to execute. After a lot of hard work I am seeing the light at the end of the tunnel and can't wait to finish off this project.

Managing Users in Moodle

This week I was able to overcome what I thought would be one of the most difficult hurdles in a Moodle implementation. I was having nightmares about setting up and maintaining over 1000 user accounts. I knew that Moodle had some options to make this easier but didn't realize just how easy it would be.

Moodle provides a couple of different options for managing users in bulk (at least I am only aware of 2). You can connect to an existing database which is ideal in most circumstances but takes a little more knowledge of databases then I currently have. Or you can take the less tech savvy approach and upload users in bulk using a text file. The downside to this is that you still need to list out each user on the text file. I didn't want to deal with having to create this text file so I went to a friend who is a software developer for help. He was able to whip up a report that listed out all the information I needed in the text file for each Moodle user. Then I was able to simply copy and paste the report into a text file, upload it to Moodle and Bam, every user profile is setup. Something else great about this is if I need to update existing user profiles I can just upload an updated text file and it will make all of the changes. What would have taken days ended up taking a few minutes with the help of my handy Crystal report.

Problem solved for now but after talking with my software developer friend it sounds like it might not be too difficult to connect Moodle to an existing database for an HR program with all of the needed user information. This way Moodle would automatically be updated when information is updated in the HR program. For now I will be sticking with maintaining user profiles via text file but will move towards the database options once the dust settles from the initial implementation.

Please let me know if you have any suggestions for methods of maintaing users in Moodle.

Characters for eLearning

I am working on an eLearning project where I will be using a character that will be the learners tutor throughout the module. I am toying with the idea of creating a cartoonish character and in my research I came across SP Studio which is a very cool site that makes it easy to create custom south park cartoon characters. That's me as a South Park character by the way, yes I am addicted to my Blackberry. I won't be able to use the South Park characters for my eLearning project because there is not enough flexiblity to move the arms around but I will definitely keep this in mind for future projects. It's a great way to add a little fun to an eLearning course.

At this point I am leaning towards using vector clip art to create the character. Although it can be rather time consuming to edit the points of the vector to get it just the way you want it but it's quicker than drawing the images in Photoshop, Illustrator, or Flash, at least for me it is. Tom Kuhlmans post on the Rapid eLearning Blog inspired me to go the vector route.

The other option I am considering is going away from the cartoonish look and taking photos of an employee of the company. I have done this in the past and it was nice to have the flexiblity of asking the person to pose any way you wish rather than struggling with editing points in vector images.

The plan from here is to play around a little more with vector images and if that ends up not working out I will go the route of taking pictures. Unless of course myself or somebody else out there comes up with a much better idea...

Custom Reports in Moodle

This week I had some time to moodle around in Moodle. I really haven't dug too deep until now so this was definitely an eye opener. I didn't realize how easy it was to set up. One thing that did trip me up though is customizing reports.

Moodle has some great standard reports but it doesn't appear to be too easy to customize them. I'm looking to make the simple modification of adding a column of information and from my small amount of research, it looks like you have to get into the root folders and edit the PHP. Is this true? Is there an easier way? I have a work around for what I need to do now but I will definitely need to do more research on this as I am sure we will have a need for customized reports in the future.

To Moodle or not to Moodle

To Moodle or not to Moodle, that is the question. I have come to a crossroads with a project that I have written about before. I am currently in the process of developing a series of eLearning courses that are part of a blended management training program. At this point, I have 3 of the 6 courses complete.

Here is where it get's interesting, an associate installed Moodle to start playing around. It's up and running, just needs to be used. So here's the decision, do I migrate from simply uploading these courses to MS Sharepoint like usual, or do we get crazy and try to implement these new courses on Moodle.

I am struggling with the decision of whether I want to make the leap to Moodle because I can't think of a good reason other than to try out Moodle. Here are some factors to consider; the majority of the courses require the learner to submit a project for completion. Only one course has a quiz. I have no experience with LMS's, but from what I understand the biggest benefit is tracking the results of quizzes etc. Is that a benefit to me if I only have one quiz? But then again, there are probably a lot of features that will help with logistical tasks.

I am going to have to invest some time in playing around with Moodle to see if it is worth changing what we are doing now. But will I really know until I try it out??

Progress on Management Training Program

Months and Months ago I mentioned how I am starting my first larger scale eLearning project in a posting titled Manager Training Program. I am now knee deep in the project and learning a lot along the way.

I designed and developed a prototype for the first course and it is under review now. I am expecting that there may be some barriers I have to overcome due to the fact that this is a big change in how we facilitate training programs, and nobody likes change.

Due to budgetary restrictions I am limited to Power Point in combination with a PPT to Flash Converter as my authoring tool. This has actually gone surprisingly well and I am having a hard time figuring out what the major authoring tools out there have over power point when it is used with a Flash Converter. This has proved to me that the instructional design truly is the most important part. With good design, a power point can become a high end eLearning module.

So far the only hiccups I came across along the way was finding a good ppt to flash converter. I went through several trial versions finding something that worked well with MS Office 07. In "Better than Bullet Points" by Jane Bozarth, she recommends a product called PowerConverter that works with MS Office 07 but I was not happy with the results. PowerConverter did not like anything that used "Motion Path" animation. After testing with the trial versions of several different products, I ended purchasing the PPT 2 Flash Converter by Wondershare and so far it has worked well. I was not able to get it to work with PPT 07, but after saving the file as a PPT 03 it worked like a charm. I also had a little trouble removing the control bar from the flash player but the support staff quickly responded with a solution. The quick response from the support staff is what prompted me to make the purchase. Good job Wondershare.

Moodle Frustrations

I am seriously considering bringing on Moodle as our company’s first LMS but I am a little nervous about setup and support. I recently had a discussion with a high school teacher going through the aches and pains of using Moodle with his classes and he is having a much harder time getting other teachers in his district to take advantage of Moodle.

Although I work in the corporate sector, I work with a team of “Trainers” that could be described as Teachers. I have a hard time getting the Trainers to take advantage of any technology that might be a little complicated. If they become frustrated on their first experience there is a rare opportunity for a second chance. I would hate for this to happen with any LMS.

So, how do you overcome the support hurdles that may come along with an open source solution such as Moodle? I referred the Teacher to Moodle.com for outsourced support but I wasn’t able to give him any kind of cost estimate.

I’m coming to the conclusion that I need to give some of the more expensive options a second and third look. Although they are more expensive at startup it may be cheaper than occurring expenses at each roadblock with a Moodle implementation.

Any nuggets of wisdom out there?

Serious Games

If you have read my previous posts Proving ROI in Training and One small step for eLearning, a giant step for the company you know that we are focusing on improving product knowledge amongst our sales staff. One of the methods I decided to implement to improve this deficit in product knowledge is online games. Luckily I don’t work for one of those organizations scared of the word “Game” so I did not have to overcome that objection.

I used Quia to create a few games that resemble “Who wants to be a millionaire” and “Jeopardy” which turned out to be a smash hit amongst the sales staff. Prior to the games it was always memorizing info from documents and flash cards then being tested on it. They loved the fact that they didn’t have to read the same thing over and over in an effort to memorize the information, to only find out that they didn’t retain much come test time.

Being that sales people are generally competitive, they loved that they were able to challenge each other to a game. They were so distracted with beating their co worker that they forgot they were actually studying and learning. Several inventive sales leaders developed round robin tournaments and awarded the winner with a free lunch. Overall it was a smash hit because it was a fun and different way to approach a boring subject.

I received several emails on the first day of the games being available asking when I was going to add new questions and games since they almost have all of the current questions memorized. I wasn’t expecting this but the games were so popular that they are already stale after just a couple of days.

So I am already to the point where I need to create more games and freshen up the current ones with new questions. The only problem is that it was not easy coming up with the questions and it’s going to be hard for me to come up with more.

I have decided that I can kill 2 birds with 1 stone by having the sales staff come up with the questions and submit them to me so I can use them for more games. Not only does this make it easy for me but they will retain more by creating the questions then they will by playing the games. The process of thinking it through and coming up with questions is sure to help them memorize the information.

But how do I get them to put in the effort to create new questions that are of high quality? What’s in it for them? Being that they are commission driven sales people it may be most effective to compensate them somehow. I am pondering devising some kind of contest or reward system to incentivize it. But, is that even necessary? Is there a way I can motivate them to put in the effort required to create new questions without rewarding them monetarily?

Once I figure out a way to motivate sales people to submit questions to me I will be looking into expanding my game creating from just Quia to other resources listed at the link below. I came across this link from a post on Brent Schlenkers blog Corporate eLearning Strategies and Development blog
http://mashable.com/2008/01/04/20-tools-for-creating-your-own-games/

Just in the nick of time!

Just as I was looking into purchasing Camtasia Studio by Tech Smith I came across a blog posting on Tony Karrer's eLearning Technology blog just in the nick of time. Tony posted links to free downloads of Snag It and Camtasia. I have been a long time user of Snag It and love it for screen shots. It is very handy for creating software training materials. I recently used the demo version of Camtasia to complete a software simulation project and it worked out great. I just installed Camtasia and can't wait to put it to use on a larger scale project.

Post about free Snag It and Camtasia downloads

We Need a Wiki in a Wiki

It’s obvious that a Wiki would be a great help in my organization. A few years ago we started using SharePoint and now we are SharePoint junkies. The problem is that our SharePoint intranet has grown so immensely that it is now difficult to find information you need in a pinch. The search features are weak and there is now so much information available that we need a quicker way to get an answer in a pinch. I believe a Wiki would be a great addition to our systems so that it is easier to access commonly needed information quickly. People don’t want to look for the manual then scroll through the manual to the appropriate chapter to find their answer.

So, we know we need a Wiki. Now, how do we make it happen?

Here is what I have identified as our options:

• SharePoint Wiki – SharePoint 07 offers some basic Wiki options that would probably satisfy our needs. The problem is that we will not be upgrading to SharePoint until the end 0f 08 and we can’t afford to wait that long. Plus it would be nice to have some more robust options.
  
• Install behind firewall – One of our tech support guys has experience with PHP and MediaWiki in particular so I am hoping to leverage his experience and install MediaWiki behind the firewall. I proposed this to IT management and I am hitting some roadblocks that I might not be able to get through. Our server farm is stretched too thin and we are preparing for an infrastructure upgrade so it wouldn’t be a good time to install anything additional to any of our servers. This is still being discussed but not looking good.
  
• Hosted solution – This is what I am leaning towards at this point. There are a ton of free hosted solutions that will most likely get the job done for us. The problem is that there are so many options that it is overwhelming. There are quite a few hosted solutions that specialize in Media Wiki and I have also been referred to PBWiki and Project Forum.
  

At this point I am leaning towards a free hosted solution that will let us get started and prove the value of a Wiki. Once I can prove its worth through a pilot Wiki and we complete our system upgrade I am sure that IT will not have a problem with installing media wiki behind the firewall so we can expand our Wiki. If I am able to prove the value and IT agrees to install MediaWiki behind the firewall it would probably be best if my data is already in MediaWiki so the data can be easily transferred and I am familiar with MediaWiki options.

I decided a good topic to cover for the “Pilot” wiki would cover how to find and use what you need on our SharePoint intranet. We recently acquired another company who will be integrating into our intranet next month and this might be a good tool to help them familiarize themselves with SharePoint. By using a Wiki for this topic I can decrease the amount of time it will take for them to become familiar with the new tool.

Now I just need to figure out how I am going to measure its effectiveness. This is going to be tough because there is no baseline to improve upon. They are not using SharePoint now so it is impossible to say if people have been making more efficient use out of it. The best option I can think of is to track the number of hits and relate that number to a number of unnecessary emails or phone calls that would have been made if it were not for the Wiki. If I can prove that the Wiki is being used then the benefits should be evident.

After I finish this initial project it should be easier to prove an ROI for other projects. In particular I would like to use a Wiki for tech support questions and it will be easy to show a decrease in the number of tech support tickets opened. Our tech support staff tracks all of their tickets through a program called Bridge Track which should make this easy.

Great blog post on starting a blog

Proving ROI in Training

The company I work for has a tight grip on the training budget this year and if I want to make eLearning a priority in future budgets I need to make the ROI on eLearning obvious. As you may have seen in the previous post, I am attempting to do this by replacing some content that is currently delivered through instructor led training. By doing that I could easily point to the salary of the trainer and the cost of paying our employees to leave the store and sit through training. This would result in a large amount of money that I could point to as ROI and hopefully this would cause some alarms to go off among the VP’s.

I brought this idea to my supervisor and he likes it but he’s steering me in a different direction. He would like me to create some kind of tool or eLearning course that will help our sales staff with product knowledge because this is a current focus of the training dept. I am happy that he would like to use eLearning for this but it will not be easy to make ROI blaringly obvious in this situation. Because we are not currently spending anything on this training it’s hard to say how much we are saving by delivering it through eLearning. If we already had an instructor led course that covered this subject it would be easy to calculate the cost of the ILT versus the cost of the eLearning version.

Where there’s a will there is a way! I came up with a couple of ideas of how I can prove ROI on this project:

1. At completion of the project, I need to show how much I improved product knowledge and somehow try and correlate that to a dollar amount if possible. I can see how much product knowledge has improved by developing a baseline of product knowledge at the beginning of the project then compare that to the level of product knowledge at the end of the project. I will develop this baseline of knowledge by conducting some kind of assessment at the beginning and end of the project then compare the results to see how much their knowledge has improved. The assessments will also make it easy for me to see what areas of product knowledge they need more help in. Once I know how much knowledge has improved I need to correlate that to some kind of dollar amount or value. That’s where I’m stuck.


2. Another way to prove the value of eLearning with this project would be to calculate how much this would cost if we did it through instructor led training then compare that to the cost of eLearning. I’m sure the cost of eLearning would pale in comparison to rolling out an instructor led course. The only problem with this is that ILT may not even have been a consideration for this.

I think it would be best to go with both of these solutions so I can point to all of the positive way’s that eLearning has affected our financial situation. The more pros I have to point to, the better.

One small step for eLearning, a giant leap for the company

Now that I am on a shoestring budget I have been making more of an effort to find low cost solutions to implementing eLearning. In my research I came across a website called Quia that I think will be a perfect fit for helping us get our feet wet in eLearning. It’s no high powered LMS, but it will let us create all kinds of assessments and track the scores. In addition to assessments, it also has an interface for creating fun games and activities. I think that by using Quia assessments and games along with power point shows, reading assignments, and conference calls we can construct a low cost distance education course. This may seem like a small step for eLearning, but it is a giant leap for my company : )

Here comes the tricky part. I need to find a subject to cover and preferably it is a subject that is currently being covered in an instructor led course. Ideally, I would like to take a portion of the content of an instructor led course and convert that to eLearning so that I can reduce the amount of days/hours required to complete the class. If I can point to a dollar amount that I saved by converting this material to eLearning I am more likely to turn some heads and get more leeway in the budget. By doing something simple that has a positive ROI I can begin to win the VP’s over and make eLearning a priority in next year’s budget.

So that’s the plan! Create an eLearning course that will replace a portion of an instructor led course and make the ROI blaringly obvious.

Opportunities for Performance Support – Allison Rossett

Another DevLearn workshop I got a lot out of was “Opportunities for Performance Support” with Allison Rossett. I was excited to meet Allison because she is a professor in the educational technology program at San Diego State. I am starting the Ed Tech program in January and can’t wait to get started.

This workshop was right up my alley because it covered what I do at work every day. I love creating job aids because they allow me to make a bigger difference across the organization. If I teach a class I am only reaching a handful of people but by creating a job aid I can reach every person in the organization.

This workshop helped me develop a new way of looking at training initiatives. I think sometimes I have a tendency to assume some kind of training course is the best way of handling the issue and this workshop helped me realize that this is not true. In many cases if not most, a job aid or tool can be more effective than investing in ILT or eLearning. I learned to always ask myself “Do they already know how to perform this task?” If they do already know how to do it, will throwing more training at them help? By providing a job aid that makes the task simpler for them you can have much better results than investing in training and more training. By making more of a focused effort to look for “Opportunities for Performance Support,” I can make more of a difference in my organization with less effort and time.

Allison has written several books on the subject and I look forward to reading them. First on my list is Job Aids & Performance Support which seems to be a more updated version of her earlier book First things fast.

Chronically Underfunded E-Learning

Until recently I was working with a decent budget and the broad guidelines of getting us started on e-learning. Senior Management recognizes e-learning as an opportunity for our training dept to take a giant leap forward and more importantly, achieve a better ROI on our training efforts. That is of course until we hit a slump in sales. As sales go down, so does the training dept’s budget which is bad news for my e-learning project. I saw this coming but reality set in last week when I was told that not only has the e-learning budget been reduced, it has been eliminated until next year at this time.

I am determined to find a way to get my feet wet in e-learning so what are my options? I have already played around with a free authoring tool called Course Lab. So far I have been very impressed with Course Lab especially since it is a free product. However, Course Lab is useless if I cannot make the courses available to anybody. I was hoping to be able to upload the zipped SCORM package to a document library in Sharepoint 03 but that didn’t work out so well.

I have the ability to create classes, now how do I make them available to the rest of the company and how do I track it’s use? And here’s the twist, how do I do it for free? In my quest for the answer to this question I came across Moodle. At first Moodle seemed too good to be true but I soon realized that it was more complicated than I thought and that we would most likely need to hire help if we were to go down this avenue. Moodle may be cheap but most companies are going to have to shell out some cash to either have it hosted or get help with the implementation. So, even though it’s cheap, it’s not free. The Quest Continues!

The Quest is continuing with the book E-Learning Solutions on a Shoestring by Jane Bozarth. This book is reccomended to “chronically underfunded trainers” such as myself. I’m hoping that this book leads me to the promise land of effective e-learning at the low, low, price of FREE!