I reluctantly jumped on the Twitter bandwagon about 3 weeks ago and while I am experiencing a little information overload, it has been fantastic. I was reluctant to start using Twitter because of the amount of information I am already consuming through Google Reader and on LinkedIn. Although I am already taking in a lot of information I was looking for a better format for discussing this information with other corporate training professionals. Turns out that Twitter is a great format for discussions and I am also finding other benefits that I was not expecting.
Twitter is known as being great for engaging in discussions but I am also finding it works as a great filter for the overwhelming amount of information I am taking in through Google Reader. I spend a lot of time skimming through blog posts in my Reader and only read the posts that catch my attention. I have noticed that with Twitter people in your network help reduce the amount of skimming needed by posting links to the great posts they have already found. Because of this I am spending less time skimming through my Google Reader and more time on Twitter looking at links passed on from people I am following. It will be interesting to see how my time spent reading blogs from my Reader is affected by finding all the juicy information without the skimming on Twitter.
While Twitter is helping me find great information easier, the downside is that there is a constant stream of information flowing down my Twitter page. To deal with this I am using Tony Karrer's "Skim Dive Skim" approach. When I first started with social media I felt the need to read every post and RSS feed as if they were all an important email. In my short experience I have learned that you really shouldn't try to read everything and you'll get more from the experience if you scan through and find what is important to you. While skimming can be a dangerous habit I am finding that I am able to find a lot more valuable information and waste less time reading information that is not important to me.
Now that I am sold on the benefit of Twitter I am working on creating a larger following so that I can get even more value from the experience. It is obvious that by having a larger number of followers, it is easier to engage in discussion and create a larger network. But, it is also as important to have a quality following of professionals with common interests and challenges. I'm starting to get annoyed with the spammers who follow me in hopes that I will automatically follow them back and I am only following people when there is a potential for us to engage in conversation and learn from each other.
I'm looking forward to seeing the value of Twitter increase as I connect with a larger network of people. If you're on Twitter, let's follow each other. If you're not on Twitter, jump on the bandwagon because you're missing out. You can find me on Twitter @joe_deegan
Related Posts:
Sunday, June 21, 2009
Tuesday, June 9, 2009
Manual Grading in eLearning
We all love multiple choice, true/false, matching or any kind of quiz questions that can be graded automatically by an LMS. We also know that these types of questions are not very effective but we keep on using them because they are easy to come up with and don't require manual grading. This leaves us with the dilemma of cutting corners and using auto graded questions or sucking it up and putting in the hard work to manually grade essay questions and assignments submitted to the LMS. I've decided to suck it up and sacrifice automatic grading for more effective assignments that will need to be graded manually. Now I have the challenge of coming up with a plan to manage the grading of these assignments for +1000 employees.
My plan of attack for managing the manual grading of these assignments is to have supervisors grade and provide feedback to their subordinates. This will take the load off of me and I believe learners will get more out of the experience because they will receive more valuable feedback from their supervisor rather than some guy they barely know(me). Sounds like a simple plan but now I have to put on my "Trainer" hat and train supervisors how to grade these assignments submitted through Moodle. Although this plan does still require work from me to train supervisors how to grade and provide feedback on the assignments through Moodle, I believe the benefit of learners receiving valuable feedback and coaching from their direct supervisor out weighs the work required to train supervisors and definitely beats grading them all myself.
I'm curious to hear how larger organizations handle the manual grading of assignments submitted through the LMS, or do large organizations avoid anything that needs to be manually graded? The +1000 employees that I am dealing with is small beans for a fortune 500 organization but they also have a lot more resources at their disposal.
At this point, I can't imagine handling the manual grading of assignments any other way than having supervisors take on the task but I am very curious to hear what other organizations are doing to handle this task. Please leave a comment if you have any suggestions of how to handle this challenge.
My plan of attack for managing the manual grading of these assignments is to have supervisors grade and provide feedback to their subordinates. This will take the load off of me and I believe learners will get more out of the experience because they will receive more valuable feedback from their supervisor rather than some guy they barely know(me). Sounds like a simple plan but now I have to put on my "Trainer" hat and train supervisors how to grade these assignments submitted through Moodle. Although this plan does still require work from me to train supervisors how to grade and provide feedback on the assignments through Moodle, I believe the benefit of learners receiving valuable feedback and coaching from their direct supervisor out weighs the work required to train supervisors and definitely beats grading them all myself.
I'm curious to hear how larger organizations handle the manual grading of assignments submitted through the LMS, or do large organizations avoid anything that needs to be manually graded? The +1000 employees that I am dealing with is small beans for a fortune 500 organization but they also have a lot more resources at their disposal.
At this point, I can't imagine handling the manual grading of assignments any other way than having supervisors take on the task but I am very curious to hear what other organizations are doing to handle this task. Please leave a comment if you have any suggestions of how to handle this challenge.
Monday, June 1, 2009
Jumping on the Twitter Bandwagon
Okay fine, I'll check out Twitter and see what everyone is talking about! Until now I have held out from jumping on the Twitter bandwagon because of the overwhelming amount of information I am already taking in through Facebook, LinkedIn, Blogging and my RSS feeds in Google Reader. However, it is all of these resources that are encouraging me to start using Twitter. The final tipping point is that my Summer school course, "Technologies for Teaching" covers Twitter and it looks like some class activities may take place using Twitter. So, I finally set up an account @joe_deegan.
I am hoping that Twitter provides what Facebook and LinkedIn do not, a running conversation with other professionals in the Training and Development industry. It's easy to get conversations going on Facebook, but I like many other people use Facebook for family and close friends who would be bored to death if I started tweeting about eLearning or corporate training in general. I use LinkedIn for professional networking but it is more difficult to get conversations started on LinkedIn. Most of my use of LinkedIn involves using discussion boards or starting email conversations with connections and very rarely do I receive responses to status updates. From all I hear about Twitter, it sounds like it is much more conducive to starting these "live" ongoing conversations about training and development.
So far, so good! It's a much quicker setup than Facebook or LinkedIn. I was impressed with all of the tweeters it pulled out of my Gmail account for me to start following. I am getting up to speed on Twitterisms with Michelle Martins blog post "Your guide to Job Search, and Personal Branding on Twitter." She has quite a few links to articles that will get me up to speed quick. One thing I am unsure of is whether I should "protect my updates?" I am thinking no so that I can be found in Google searches etc.
I'm excited to see what Twitter brings to the social networking table and I hope I get a lot out of it. If you are tweeting, help me get some conversations started by following me @joe_deegan.
I am hoping that Twitter provides what Facebook and LinkedIn do not, a running conversation with other professionals in the Training and Development industry. It's easy to get conversations going on Facebook, but I like many other people use Facebook for family and close friends who would be bored to death if I started tweeting about eLearning or corporate training in general. I use LinkedIn for professional networking but it is more difficult to get conversations started on LinkedIn. Most of my use of LinkedIn involves using discussion boards or starting email conversations with connections and very rarely do I receive responses to status updates. From all I hear about Twitter, it sounds like it is much more conducive to starting these "live" ongoing conversations about training and development.
So far, so good! It's a much quicker setup than Facebook or LinkedIn. I was impressed with all of the tweeters it pulled out of my Gmail account for me to start following. I am getting up to speed on Twitterisms with Michelle Martins blog post "Your guide to Job Search, and Personal Branding on Twitter." She has quite a few links to articles that will get me up to speed quick. One thing I am unsure of is whether I should "protect my updates?" I am thinking no so that I can be found in Google searches etc.
I'm excited to see what Twitter brings to the social networking table and I hope I get a lot out of it. If you are tweeting, help me get some conversations started by following me @joe_deegan.
Saturday, May 23, 2009
Promoting Social Learning
You've got the cool new informal or social learning tool up and ready to go now you're ready for the masses to arrive and start using it. Then comes the harsh reality that it is hard work promoting the use of informal or social media tools within an organization. Not everyone is as quick to jump on the bandwagon as many tech savvy instructional designers are. So, what are some ways to encourage the use of social media tools that are obviously beneficial to the workforce?
I come across so much information conveying how effective social media/web 2.0/informal learning is the wave of the future in instructional design. Well, I am having a hard time riding that wave. I recently implemented a Wiki and discussion forums for different uses. The Wiki is used to retrieve process and procedural information while the discussion forums are used to share best practices much like LinkedIn forums. Now that I have these resources implemented I am attempting to get past the more challenging hurdle of getting the workforce to use them.
Solutions:
While I still have a long way to go, I have had marginal success promoting these social media resources by providing Formal Learning opportunities where the workforce is directed to use these resources for a specific activity. The end goal is to create Informal Learning opportunities where the workforce is seeking out these resources and pulling out information on their own but I have come to learn that this does not just happen, at first learners need to be directed and guided through social media resources. Here is what I have tried so far in my pursuit to reach the tipping point.
I'm sure that I am not the only instructional designer struggling with social or informal learning tools. If you have experienced any "wins" or "losses" in promoting social learning please leave a comment and let us know what has and has not worked for you.
I come across so much information conveying how effective social media/web 2.0/informal learning is the wave of the future in instructional design. Well, I am having a hard time riding that wave. I recently implemented a Wiki and discussion forums for different uses. The Wiki is used to retrieve process and procedural information while the discussion forums are used to share best practices much like LinkedIn forums. Now that I have these resources implemented I am attempting to get past the more challenging hurdle of getting the workforce to use them.
Solutions:
While I still have a long way to go, I have had marginal success promoting these social media resources by providing Formal Learning opportunities where the workforce is directed to use these resources for a specific activity. The end goal is to create Informal Learning opportunities where the workforce is seeking out these resources and pulling out information on their own but I have come to learn that this does not just happen, at first learners need to be directed and guided through social media resources. Here is what I have tried so far in my pursuit to reach the tipping point.
- Formal Training - Including social learning tools in formal training courses early in the employees career helps to ingrain the use of the tools into the organizations culture. For example, if you are rolling out new software and these social media tools contain instructions for the software, it is crucial that the social media resources are covered in the formal training for the software rollout. The learner is going to see more benefits in the resource while they are still struggling to learn the software. If they experience a few "wins" by solving issues using these resources then they are likely to continue to use the resources in the future.
- Assignments - One of the most difficult challenges in promoting social learning is providing opportunities for the learner to have a positive experience with the resource. A great way to do this is to design a formal learning assignment or activity that helps the learner to experience the benefits of the resource. This goes against the end goal of having the learners pull the information on their own rather than being directed but I have found that a formal learning solution can help jump start informal learning. Once the user has become familiar with the resource and seen the benefits through an assignment such as a scavenger hunt, or a structured online discussion, they are more likely to go back on their own.
- Contests - Another form of a formal learning activity that can help promote the use of social learning tools is to create some kind of a contest. This can be a little more difficult to design but adding a little competition into the activity adds motivation for the learners. Examples for contests could be the greatest contribution made to a wiki or something like the most questions answered in a discussion forum.
I'm sure that I am not the only instructional designer struggling with social or informal learning tools. If you have experienced any "wins" or "losses" in promoting social learning please leave a comment and let us know what has and has not worked for you.
Thursday, May 14, 2009
What's in a name?
I ran into a strange problem using an html file produced in Camtasia by TechSmith and delivered through Moodle that must be common amongst Camtasia and Moodle users. Hopefully this post will prevent others from making the same easy mistake.
I uploaded all of the necessary files produced by Camtasia to Moodle then created a link on the course site to the html file but received a strange error when opening the link. I had no clue what was causing the problem because I wasn't doing anything different so I did a quick search and found this post on the Moodle forums that helped me solve the issue. After reading this post I realized there was something different about this file, I left a space in the title. Apparently Moodle doesn't like any spaces or special characters in the file name because Camtasia uses windows naming conventions while Moodle uses Linux. It was the stupid space that I had in the title causing the error!
Quick Fix:
The quick fix for this is to rename the Camtasia project without spaces or special characters, reproduce it, then upload the new files to Moodle. Create a link to the new html file without spaces or special characters and voila!
Long Fix:
If you are like me and no longer have access to Camtasia or just feel like doing a little extra work you will need to go with the long fix. Because I don't have Camtasia anymore and can't reproduce the project, I had to go into the html and XML files to manually edit the file names. It's really not that difficult but is a little more tedious. After renaming the files, open the html and xml files in an editor (I used Dreamweaver) and run a "find and replace" for every file name that you changed. It's not just the flash file that you need to change the name of, you also need to change the names of the javascript and XML files. Once you have changed all of the names you can upload the edited files to Moodle, then create a link to the html file and you are in business.
It was an annoying issue but easy to resolve with the help of the Moodle community and it always feels good to solve a problem. Now that I have this bit of knowledge I'll make sure to avoid spaces in any files I use that will be going on Moodle just to avoid the trouble.
I uploaded all of the necessary files produced by Camtasia to Moodle then created a link on the course site to the html file but received a strange error when opening the link. I had no clue what was causing the problem because I wasn't doing anything different so I did a quick search and found this post on the Moodle forums that helped me solve the issue. After reading this post I realized there was something different about this file, I left a space in the title. Apparently Moodle doesn't like any spaces or special characters in the file name because Camtasia uses windows naming conventions while Moodle uses Linux. It was the stupid space that I had in the title causing the error!
Quick Fix:
The quick fix for this is to rename the Camtasia project without spaces or special characters, reproduce it, then upload the new files to Moodle. Create a link to the new html file without spaces or special characters and voila!
Long Fix:
If you are like me and no longer have access to Camtasia or just feel like doing a little extra work you will need to go with the long fix. Because I don't have Camtasia anymore and can't reproduce the project, I had to go into the html and XML files to manually edit the file names. It's really not that difficult but is a little more tedious. After renaming the files, open the html and xml files in an editor (I used Dreamweaver) and run a "find and replace" for every file name that you changed. It's not just the flash file that you need to change the name of, you also need to change the names of the javascript and XML files. Once you have changed all of the names you can upload the edited files to Moodle, then create a link to the html file and you are in business.
It was an annoying issue but easy to resolve with the help of the Moodle community and it always feels good to solve a problem. Now that I have this bit of knowledge I'll make sure to avoid spaces in any files I use that will be going on Moodle just to avoid the trouble.
Monday, May 4, 2009
Continuous Learning Experience
Through experience I am learning that training should never be a one time event, it should be a continuous learning experience. As a corporate trainer it can be all too easy to facilitate the class (off or online), collect your smiley sheets, and check the class off the list as done forever. It feels great to mark the task off the list but it can also be a recipe for disaster. This raises the question, "What are the best "Continuous Learning" solutions?" This post highlights some of the wins and losses I have had in creating continuous learning experiences.
I have recently been working on a lot of technical training projects for a recent software implementation. The learners completed a series of eLearning tutorials and a day long instructor led training class but that was not enough to help learners retain the knowledge needed to use the software fluently. In an effort to provide a continuous learning experience I implemented a Wiki using MediaWiki. Myself and a few others filled the Wiki with detailed instructions covering every procedure the software is used for. It is now a great resource for quickly finding answers especially in the first couple of weeks after the software implementation. The instructions in the Wiki served as a great reminder of what they learned in the eLearning and instructor led courses to get them through the tough times.
However, the Wiki did not fulfill all of the learners needs. Many learners had a difficult time fully understanding the in's and outs of unique situations by reading instructions on the Wiki. They needed to interact with somebody who could answer their questions and provide perspective unique to the situation they are dealing with. The problem with this is that the technical support staff was too busy to provide the one on one coaching that many people needed. To address this issue I implemented a help forum on the organizations Moodle LMS where learners could go and post their non urgent questions. At first I thought it would mainly be the tech support staff answering questions in the forum but it turned out to be other tech savvy learners who caught on to the software quickly that were able to lend a helping hand to their colleagues by answering questions. The great thing about this is that the quick learners who were answering questions were learning more by answering questions. The forum turned out to not only be a great tool for reducing tech support calls, but it was also a great tool for both novices and experts to learn about the software.
The wiki and help forum turned out to be great resources but this was not until I could overcome the major hurdle of getting people to use these resources. In any organization, it can be difficult to attract participation for tools like this even if the information is valuable. I still don't have the participation I would like but as I continue to advertise within the organization, I'm gaining more and more visitors in each of these resources. The bullet points below highlight some of the advertising successes I have had:
I have recently been working on a lot of technical training projects for a recent software implementation. The learners completed a series of eLearning tutorials and a day long instructor led training class but that was not enough to help learners retain the knowledge needed to use the software fluently. In an effort to provide a continuous learning experience I implemented a Wiki using MediaWiki. Myself and a few others filled the Wiki with detailed instructions covering every procedure the software is used for. It is now a great resource for quickly finding answers especially in the first couple of weeks after the software implementation. The instructions in the Wiki served as a great reminder of what they learned in the eLearning and instructor led courses to get them through the tough times.
However, the Wiki did not fulfill all of the learners needs. Many learners had a difficult time fully understanding the in's and outs of unique situations by reading instructions on the Wiki. They needed to interact with somebody who could answer their questions and provide perspective unique to the situation they are dealing with. The problem with this is that the technical support staff was too busy to provide the one on one coaching that many people needed. To address this issue I implemented a help forum on the organizations Moodle LMS where learners could go and post their non urgent questions. At first I thought it would mainly be the tech support staff answering questions in the forum but it turned out to be other tech savvy learners who caught on to the software quickly that were able to lend a helping hand to their colleagues by answering questions. The great thing about this is that the quick learners who were answering questions were learning more by answering questions. The forum turned out to not only be a great tool for reducing tech support calls, but it was also a great tool for both novices and experts to learn about the software.
The wiki and help forum turned out to be great resources but this was not until I could overcome the major hurdle of getting people to use these resources. In any organization, it can be difficult to attract participation for tools like this even if the information is valuable. I still don't have the participation I would like but as I continue to advertise within the organization, I'm gaining more and more visitors in each of these resources. The bullet points below highlight some of the advertising successes I have had:
- Cover Resources in Formal Training Courses - I made sure to include training on using the Wiki and help forum in the formal eLearning and Instructor Led courses as a form of advertising and to set expectations of when to use these resources. In the past, employees of the organization have had a tendency to quickly call the tech support staff when they didn't know how to do something so we needed to break this habit.
- Advertise anywhere and everywhere - The more chatter there is about the resources the better. I had success by advertising in the company newsletter and the internal company intranet. Employees refer to the newsletter and intranet for the latest news so these were ideal places to advertise the successes people were having using these resources.
- Get the power users involved - I mentioned that there was a tendency in the organization to rely on the tech support staff when you have a software question. To break this habit we needed to change the habits of both the employees and the tech support staff. Rather than firing off the answer to the question I encouraged the tech support staff to coach the employee on how to find the answer to their question using the Wiki and Forum. Once employees realized that if they call tech support, they are going to be coached on using the Wiki and Forum the calls start dwindling and participation in the resources increases.
Sunday, April 26, 2009
Moodle Experimentation Scare
I freaked myself out this morning after making a small change which took down all of my sites on the same domain as my experimental moodle. Yesterday I installed Moodle using Fantastico on my hosted web server account and everything went great. I had one notification in Moodle telling me that I needed to change a setting in the .htaccess file. After finally finding the .htaccess file I found that there was not a single line of code visible. I decided to type in the line of code that the Moodle notification told me I needed to change. This line of code took down my portfolio site and a project site I am working on for a friends business along with my brand new experimental moodle installation. Needless to say this scared the crap out of me so I fired off an email to the support team at Everity web hosting who responded within minutes with a resolution to my problem.
Everity had the site back up in minutes and found a solution to the notification Moodle is giving me. Turned out I was not able to change the line of code which was "register_globals=off" on my server so Everity is moving it to a server where this setting is to "off" by default. It's going to take a few hours before I can be sure that the problem is solved but it sounds like a good solution. Everity provided great customer service with a quick response and resolution to my problem.
Once my experimental Moodle installation is back online I will be forging ahead by customizing the theme and setting up a course for an instructional design class I am taking in the Ed Tech program at SDSU. Hopefully I won't have any more scares but even if I do I am sure I will learn from it.
Everity had the site back up in minutes and found a solution to the notification Moodle is giving me. Turned out I was not able to change the line of code which was "register_globals=off" on my server so Everity is moving it to a server where this setting is to "off" by default. It's going to take a few hours before I can be sure that the problem is solved but it sounds like a good solution. Everity provided great customer service with a quick response and resolution to my problem.
Once my experimental Moodle installation is back online I will be forging ahead by customizing the theme and setting up a course for an instructional design class I am taking in the Ed Tech program at SDSU. Hopefully I won't have any more scares but even if I do I am sure I will learn from it.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
