Title - Developer's Journal Spacer The eLearning Developers' Journal showcases the latest strategies and techniques for designers, developers and managers of e-Learning. Review the archive below and you'll find a number of great Sample Issues that you can download right now! Only Guild Members have access to every issue of the Journal - and the entire online archive. To become a Guild Member today, simply click on 'Join The Guild' or 'Upgrade Membership' from the main menu. Spacer March 10, 2003 Repurposing Taped Video for e-Learning, Part II: From Hard Drive to Optimized Video File By Stephen Haskin Video is an increasingly important part of e-Learning and there are many ways to deliver it to the learner's desktop. With the right tools, making use of these delivery options is easy. This week, learn how to move digitized video to the Web, to CD-ROM, or to DVD from your hard drive. These strategies will save you time and effort and you'll be glad you did! You must be a Guild Member to access this issue of the Journal. Click on 'Join The Guild' or 'Upgrade Membership' from the main menu to become a Guild Member. SCORM Deployment Issues in an Enterprise Distributed Learning Architecture By Jeffrey C. Engelbrecht SCORM incompatibility across multiple Web domains is not a frequently discussed problem, but it exists, and in some organizations presents a major obstacle to enterprise-wide distributed learning. In this article, you will learn how these issues may affect your organization, and some strategies that may help you work around them. E-Learning: You Build It -- Now Promote It By Jay Cross If you build e-Learning, will they come? Studies show that they generally won't. But e-Learning designers, developers, and managers can fix this! With tried and true marketing strategies like branding, positioning, and segmentation, you can influence target learners to come. Here are the "first steps" to making this a reality in your organization. Communities of Practice for Professional Development By Heidi Fisk & David Holcombe Based on lessons learned over the last year from the development of The eLearning Guild, this articles outlines a number of key success factors that can help you build and manage more successful COPs for your learning communities. You may also discover that there's much more to the Guild, and the services provided to members, than you may have thought... Launching e-Learning: Success Factors for Getting It Right By Carolyn Suneja PPG Industries decided to revitalize its Quality program with e-Learning - targeting their top 2,000 managers. Overcoming a conservative culture, varied systems, and low bandwidth, this small team developed an award-winning program and identified a number of success factors along the way. Here's you chance to learn fro their experience! Establishing and Fostering Collaborative Online Communities in the Workplace By Katherine J. Werner As organizations grow into global entities, the need to develop communities of practice (CoP) is also growing exponentially. There are many key factors to ensuring that your CoP is successful and you'll find a great summary of them in this article... You need to have a sound strategy, and good technology to support that strategy. Learn how Tellabs tackled this challenge within their decentralized Product Services Training group using Groove. Steps to Creating a Content Strategy for Your Organization By Ellen D. Wagner, Ph.D. Content always plays a critical role in supporting the learning function in organizations. It has now evolved to become a key resource fueling organizational innovation. To leverage intellectual property in support of this role across the enterprise, the first step is to develop a content strategy. In this article, allow the experts to show you how to take your learning to the next level... An Accessible e-Learning System: From Concept to Prototype By Martie Buzzard The Oklahoma Department of Rehabilitative Services' need to develop a fully accessible e-Learning course that conformed to Section 508 requirements was the motivation behind an exhaustive search for tools and design strategies to support the challenge. Finding little to support their efforts, they adapted tools and developed their own guidelines and templates. If you're not currently designing fully accessible e-Learning, you soon will be. This article is packed with strategies, checklists, and references you can use today! Achieving Maximum Return on Instruction (ROi) with e-Learning By Conrad Gottfredson, Ph.D. Optimizing return on e-Learning requires an implementation strategy that helps learners get all they can -- and need -- from the courseware. Involving more than just instructionally sound e-Learning, the implementation should be a blended learning system that includes both on-line and off-line components. From the learners' guide through on-the-job coaching to management participation, only a comprehensive plan will maximize results. Developing e-Learning In-house: A Nonprofit Case Study By Kathy Napierala and Lynn M. Tveskov United Way's foray into e-Learning was confronted by a number of challenges: a small budget, a small team, and resistant learners. Learn how this non-profit consensus-driven organization overcame these challenges to create not only a successful e-Learning program, but also a highly functional template that could be applied to all future e-Learning development efforts. DOWNLOAD THIS SAMPLE ISSUE - August 27, 2002 - High Resolution Outsourcing Your Blended Learning By Heidi Fisk Outsourcing should not mean that you're going to lose control of your department, minimize your staff's involvement in training, or lessen the reputation of the training department -- in fact, it should have the opposite results. In this issue, you'll get the nuts and bolts of outsourcing your blended learning solutions. Hey, I Don't Cost You Money! I Make You Money By William Horton Radical thought: e-Learning doesn't cost organizations money, it makes money. In this humorous (but practical) article, you will discover how to sell e-Learning, as well as how to use e-Learning to get to market quicker, promote products and services, and sell conventional training. Download this issue... Teach in Your Pajamas: Becoming a Synchronous e-Trainer By Karen Hyder Distance learning always appealed to me, but I doubted the technology could ever make the experience equal to the classroom. I feared the interface would seem sterile and cold and that students wouldn't participate. What I found out, with simple adjustments to my communications, was much different. Here are my "lessons learned". Developing Best Practices for Knowledge Work: USD plus KM, Supported by Software By Cindy McCabe and Chet Leighton The traditional process-driven approach to developing best practices has been a top-down model, which assumes that there is one "right" way to perform. We believe that developing best practices for knowledge workers requires a different approach -- one that takes into account both the task and the performer. Here is a best practice model that blends ISD and Knowledge Management by using performance support software. How to Determine the Real Cost of e-Learning Programs By Kevin Moore & Greg Harmeyer Since the advent of training, all those involved in profitability or Return on Investment (ROI) have struggled with how to accurately cost learning programs. e-Learning is no different! Paying attention to the variables will increase the probability that you won't go over your budget... or if you do, that you'll certainly know where it happened! Talk the Talk: Sound like a Project Manager By John Hartnett With the explosion of e-Learning, many instructor-led and traditional training managers suddenly find themselves in an unenviable role of being software project managers. Newly-minted Project Managers can never show weakness in front of their bosses or their vendors. If you've ever wondered about "taking discussions offline," "QA'ing and alpha," or budgeting for a "golden final release" of your e-Learning project, read-on. Training Goes Hollywood: Movies and Interactive narrative in Soft-Skills Training By Paul Clothier Why are e-Learning adoption and completion rates so dismal? Could one key reason be because so much e-Learning is BORING?!?!?! The interactive narrative approach applied to the design of your e-Learning will make it more engaging, more interactive, more relevant, and have your learners asking for... more! This article explains the key elements of this design approach. Bring Top Classroom Features Online - No More Boredom! By William Horton and Kit Horton Traditional classroom training has a number of unique benefits that have been difficult to replicate online. The good news is that technologies are changing rapidly and now, with a little effort and imagination, you can bring top classroom features online! Here's a practical look at how you can integrate lectures, examples, stories, demonstrations, and animations in your e-Learning with low-cost solutions starting right now! Improving Online Sales Education: Learning Styles and Streaming Media By Ronald B. Marks There are several reasons for the interest in in applying e-Learning to sales education. However, e-Learning has not yet fulfilled its promise, primarily because much of what has been produced to date is overly text-oriented and does not accommodate diverse student learning styles. Increasing media richness, especially through the use of streaming media, can address both of these problems. The Power of Simulation-based e-Learning (SIMBEL) By Randall Kindley, Ph.D. Creators and managers of e-Learning are under pressure to obtain the highest leverage possible in every learning experience. Simulation-based e-Learning (SIMBEL) offers the optimum experience in may cases, especially when blended with instructor-led activity. Simulation makes it possible to maintain learner enthusiasm and to support real performance change. This article presents a delivery method that can surprise and delight learners and managers alike. Instructional Design Certification: Are We Ready Yet? By Suzy Cox Instructional Designers lack formal processes for gaining acceptance as professionals in the field. This makes it extremely difficult for employers to know who to hire and what to expect of an "instructional designer". Does the field of Instructional Technology at large, and e-Learning in particular, need to implement certification procedures? Here's one very interesting perspective on this thorny issue. The New Frontier of Learning Object Design By Ellen D. Wagner Ph.D. Learning objects appear to have significant potential for creating highly personalized learning programs, easily updated courses, and performance support tools. However, as e-Learning has become heavily dependent on technologists, producers, and funders, learning designers have lost their voice and often seem to drop out of the conversation. Learning designers must think about better ways to conceptualize and create resources and programs. Here are some promising leads... DOWNLOAD THIS SAMPLE ISSUE - June 18, 2002 - High Resolution Peer-to-Peer Computing, Improve Your Interface, and more... By Bill Brandon This weeks issue of the Journal highlights commentary from Bill Brandon, the Journal's technical editor. You'll find four brief and interesting articles on peer-to-peer computing, instructional design-speak (just what is SOAP anyway?), improving your interface, and curriculum planning and knowledge half-life. What is Personalized Learning? By Margaret Martinez, PhD. The Learning Orientation Model is an adult learning view of the key sources of individual learning differences. The model portrays how three construct factors interact, and it suggests specific strategies for accommodating learning needs for online audiences. The model provides a missing link in the instructional design perspective -- an understanding of the impact of emotions and intentions on how individuals want or intend to learn differently. Stolen Moments for Learning By David Metcalf Wireless e-Learning is growing in importance as part of a blended learning solution. More important than the technology is how you develop content and structure the learner's experience. The "instant learning" involvement with wireless is more like performance support than training. It can not be delivered using the same techniques as other web-delivered learning content. How to Build Composite Learning Progressions Using Approximations By Bill Brandon With all the new media and delivery choices available today, static courses are no longer the default for learning. This article will help you learn how to approach the creation of the new composite learning environments. Here's a step-by-step process for quickly and easily describing job tasks, choosing instructional methods, and choosing delivery formats to create successful planned learning progressions using approximations. Developing e-Learning Simulations With Tools You Already Know By Mike Smialek Simulations can be very expensive to build due to the time it takes using traditional e-Learning tools (not to mention the learning curve required). This article will introduce you to capabilities of a tool that you probably already use -- Excel -- that is also an excellent simulation development tool. Here's a step-by-step process for quickly and easily creating rich simulations for a fraction of the cost you'd expect. Six Principles of Effective e-Learning: What Works and Why By Ruth Clark, Ph.D. To readily identify effective e-Learning, we need fewer end-user and expert opinions and more data. Decisions about e-Learning courseware must begin with an understanding of how the mind works during learning and of what research tells us about the factors that lead to learning. Here are six principles that have emerged from controlled experiments in how to best use multimedia to optimize learning. DOWNLOAD THIS SAMPLE ISSUE - September 10, 2002 - High Resolution Beyond Interactivity: Immersive Web-based Learning Experiences By J. Alan Whiteside, Ph.D. Instructional designers can take many cues from successful immersive experiences found on the Web. While only some training solutions call for the use of the most immersive technology, the principles used in these contexts apply to most e-Learning. This article defines an instructional approach that will engage more than just a small amount of learner attention and lead to more significant and substantial learning. First Project: An e-Learning Odyssey By Jean Marrapodi and Tracy Byrnes At Private Healthcare Systems (PHCS) Corporate Learning Services we decided to begin the journey into e-Learning. We pulled together a team of technically experienced people - then our troubles started. None of us had ever implemented a web-based e-Learning project from conception to completion. Nor had we ever worked with an authoring tool, a learning management system, graphic or animation software. Here is what we learned... Rapid Task Analysis: The Key to Developing Competency-based e-Learning By Conrad Gottfredson Ph.D. Rapid Task Analysis (RTA) is a systematic process for identifying job competencies, up front, in the design phase of e-Learning development. Done right, RTA can deliver an instructionally sound, competency-based plan for producing all the learning modules for a course. Ignored, and you stand a high probability of producing e-Learning courseware that won't deliver much strategic or instructional value. Here is a step-by-step explanation of how to make RTA work. Simulations: Creating Engaging e-Learning Worlds By Eric Parks Ph.D. There is a simulation designer waiting to emerge in each of you. In designing e-Learning, we create worlds in which learners live for a few minutes, an hour, or even a day. We must ask ourselves -- would I want to live in that world? Is it interesting, engaging, and challenging? Here's a set of simulation design guidelines you can put right to work. Reach Warp Speed with CourseBuilder's Interactions By Ann-Marie Grissino It's the end of the month and your online course prototype deadline is looming ahead. You've written the course content as tightly as possible, supported concepts fabulously with animated graphics, and chunked just the right amount of information for each e-Learning page. But, you know that you must engage the learner more by inserting something that requires the learner to act. Your instinct tells you that interactivity is the way to go. But, how? Putting the Learner Front and Center By John Kruper e-Learning products, in spite of careful research and design, frequently fail to provide a satisfactory user experience, and drop-out rates between 30% and 75% prove it. e-Learning is treated as a disposable commodity, and e-Learning providers are constantly challenged to prove their worth. User centered design gives us a chance to "get it right" from the start. Knowledge Sharing 101: Get the Ball Rolling with an Online Knowledge Base By Anne-Marie Murphy When the National Finance Center (NFC) decided to create a Knowledge Base to supplement their performance improvement efforts, the challenge was to figure out what would go into it and how to build it. The Knowledge base now serves multiple audiences with different support needs. Use this amazingly detailed account as a guide to your own knowledge management initiative. Putting It to the Test: Quality Control for e-Learning Courses By Barb Lesniak In the e-Learning development cycle, the alpha and beta tests are essential to ensure the quality and usefulness of your course. Unfortunately, these two steps are often done incorrectly or skipped entirely. Reviewing the specific objectives and guidelines for the pool of testers, and making sure they are followed, guarantees that your program is truly complete and is a characteristic of a professional developer. It's All G(r)eek to Me: Terms You Should Know By Bill Brandon Our understanding of interactivity and its role in e-Learning is evolving. This issue looks as some research around interactivity, and also at some developments in learning theory. Another buzzword often thrown around in e-Learning is "XML" or Extensible Markup Language. But do you really understand what XML is and how it can be applied to e-Learning? In this issue we review XML and its relationship to the structure and portability of e-Learning applications. Designing e-Learning for the Global Audience By Bjorn Austraat Translating e-Learning courseware into other languages is only a small piece of the answer to taking that courseware to international learners. Throughout the planning and design stage, internationalization has to be an organic part of every decision. There are dozens of challenges in the typical project. Here's a checklist to get you started. Authoring Simultaneous e-Learning and Print Courses By Larry Ford Combining web-based training and paper-based manuals can be a cost-effective and timely way to provide training to a busy and diverse workforce. This article and its supporting online documents show how one small company provided e-Learning by using an inexpensive and quick method for delivering multiple-media training. Storyboards: Ready? Set? No! By Chris Frederick Willis The best opportunity to ensure on-time e-Learning development within budget and scope comes after the storyboards have been approved but before actual interactive development begins. Here are four steps that will get your team off to a good start. DOWNLOAD THIS SAMPLE ISSUE - April 9, 2002 Issue - High Resolution Storyboard Readiness Checklist Repurposing Taped Video for e-Learning, Part I: From Tape to Hard Drive By Stephen Haskin Technology for delivering video in e-Learning programs has made great advances in the last five years. But most video is still on tape and not available to your online offerings. Here is the first part of a simple step-by-step tutorial that will get your video out of the vault and online... Implementing Effective Course Design with Reusable Learning Objects - Part II By Peder Jacobsen and Kim E. Ruyle In this second article of a two-part series, you will gain an in-depth understanding of how Deere & Company leveraged reusable learning objects to support their course design. Discover the technical underpinnings and design considerations of working with RLOs. The authors learned a lot from this project and they share their lessons learned here. If you are considering using learning objects, you must read this article! Guided Discovery Teaching Methods and Reusable Learning Objects - Part I By Kim E. Ruyle and Peder Jacobsen In this first article of a two-part series, you will get an in-depth look at how Deere & Company designed and developed an e-Learning program that takes advantage of guided discovery teaching methods and leverages the power of reusable learning objects to solve a critical business issue. This excellent article adds to the growing body of case evidence that learning objects really can be reused! Read and learn how they did it... DOWNLOAD THIS SAMPLE ISSUE - February 3, 2003 Issue - High Resolution In Tune With The Times: Berklee Media's Custom LMS By Maria Leggett Projects as ambitious as creating your own learning management system can be completed relatively quickly, given good tools and a well coordinated development team. Read how Berklee Media, a division of Berklee College of Music, built an online extension school and career center -- including an LMS -- on a six-month time line using open-source software. Macromedia Flash MX and XML: More Than Just Movies By Gregg Wygonik This issues looks at how we can use XML and Flash MX to represent the user interface and the sequence of content, not the content itself. The project demonstrates how to build a small "shell" application in Flash MX that will be able to work for many projects without the need to recompile anything. Here's Looking At You: Image Compression and Optimization Techniques By Jacqueline D. Beck M.ED. and Bill Brandon Images included in e-Learning applications have a profound effect of the learners experience. Fundamental decisions about image compression and optimization, made by the developer, will determine these outcomes. Yet these can be confusing choices to make, and painstaking to execute. Here are the basics and a step-by-step guide to the process. Synchronized Course Maps on the Fly By Ann-Marie Grissino and Jim Allman We wanted a course map object for a six-course curriculum. It had to be one that project writers could use to add and test course information with a minimum of effort and training. We found that client-side JavaScript offered the perfect solution. size="2" face="Tahoma">