Education Technology & More « Education Technology & More

Vendor Management

March 1, 2012 by Ed

In education and in technology alike, working with vendors and third-party developers is essential. There is simply, no way around it. In many cases, organizations develop long-term relationships with vendors they have successfully used in the past. This is a standard and recommended practice. As we all know the vendor selection process can be nerve wrecking and time consuming. So, if it is financially viable I strongly suggest developing a long-lasting relationship with at least one primary and one secondary vendor for all of your outsourced services.

One of the key misconceptions and mistakes made by managers is thinking that once a vendor has been selected for a particular project or for a long-term portfolio contract, that they can simply forget about them until it is time to deliver. This is a recipe for disaster, as the functional manager has essentially relinquished all control and management to the vendor, who may not always be on the right track with the project, and may sometimes have other priorities. Ultimately, it is up to you to protect the interests of your organization.

Once a vendor has been selected, especially if is for a long-term basis, they become a resource. And like all resources under your preview as a manager they must be managed. Here are some suggestions on how to make the best of a long-term vendor relationship :

Nothing replaces a clear and definitive RFP: No matter how accustomed a vendor is with your internal processes and however informal the relationship may be, it would behoove you to draft a comprehensive RFP defining the project at hand as if you were to bid it out. This process allows you to clearly define the project before bringing it to the vendor and will allow you to knowledgeably articulate the project’s scope .
Know your vendor’s strengths and weaknesses: Just like individuals, production and development vendors have strengths and weaknesses. It behooves you to know what those are. For instance, a particular project may call for a specific framework or development language that is not a strong suit for your regular vendor. Knowing enough to go with another vendor that specializes in the required framework will save you a lot of heart ache in the future.
Become a project manager: Many vendors include a project manager on their end but you should not depend on them to dictate the flow of the project. Once a vendor agrees to meet your stated time line, you must work together to ensure that they stay on pace throughout the process. Regularly scheduled updates are a good idea.
Monitor workload: Like an employee, it is possible to over extend a vendor with too much work. It is important to have alternatives in line in case your primary vendor already has a full workload.

Posted in Concepts & Philosophies | Leave a Comment »

Capabilities of e-Learning 2.0 Solutions

February 28, 2012 by Ed

Many organizations are looking to integrate e-Learning 2.0 technology into their education/training portfolios but are not quite sure how exactly they can leverage these open tools to facilitate learning. Below, I’ve listed a comprehensive breakdown on the potential implementation of two e-Learning 2.0 technologies, a wiki and a blog.

These particular implementations were developed within the context of a professional surgical association. The breakdown categories include:

Scope: What is the overall purpose for implementing this solution
Capabilities: What will users be able to do
Learning Effectiveness: How will activity on this site be leveraged to promote learning.

WIKI

Scope: To provide a collaborative surgical resource for both public consumption and to support member research efforts.

Capabilities:

Create/Edit posts on valid surgical topics
Categorize topics for easy access and efficiency
Support text content with images
Format text for emphasis

Learning Effectiveness:

Members looking for research or presentation materials can to turn to the wiki as a trusted source for supplementary information
Residents can use the wiki as a reference to help support their studies
Public non-medical professionals can turn to the wiki as a trusted resource information of procedures, pros/cons, and prospective hazards.

Blogs

Scope: To provide a platform for surgical professionals and the organization’s leadership to address high level surgical concepts and pressing issues surrounding surgery and surgical training.

Capabilities:

Authorized members can create weekly/monthly/daily blogs based on chosen surgical specialties or modern issues/concerns facing modern surgery.

Learning Effectiveness:

Surgical professionals and the organization’s members may have open access to blog entries to share important views and coverage of on pressing surgical topics.

The Take Away: A well-developed wiki can become a great learning resource for any industry that can be utilized by professionals and trainees to share important technical information. A well-developed blog can be a great compliment to your wiki and can help your organization build an online identity and personality. Organizations looking to implement e-Learning 2.0 technologies should first conduct a similar analysis/breakdown of their prospective implementation before committing to it.

Posted in e-Learning | Tagged e-Learning, Education Technology, Instructional Design | Leave a Comment »

e-Learning 2.0: Content Producers vs. Content Consumers

February 28, 2012 by Ed

Over the last few years, I’ve had the privilege of working on implementing private versions of many of the popular web (learning) 2.0 technologies such as a video/image sharing sites), wikis, and social networks for various clients including learning institutions and non-profit professional associations.

The goal for these systems was to create a private community in which members could collaborate and share important educational material such as medical procedural videos and images. What we discovered in the last two years of operation is that as popular as these concepts and systems are, most people just want to consume and have no intention of becoming content creators. Like all web 2.0 media, there is a core of members who produce content but for the most part, the organization’s staff is left to produce the content on behalf of the society for its members to consume. It so happens, many organizations create much of this material easily via their annual conferences, so they do end up with a lot of media to share.

The take away: If you are looking to launch any learning 2.0 technologies, you should be aware that the bulk of your community activity will involve consumption. So, it is important to identify the content producers beforehand and confirm that they can produce enough content to sustain a healthy level of activity.

Posted in Content/Curriculum, e-Learning | Tagged e-Learning, Education Technology, Instructional Design | Leave a Comment »

Effective e-Learning Modules: 2010 Bronze Medal Winner on HIPPA Compliance

February 23, 2012 by Ed

Teaching principles can be extremely difficult and frustrating as there is not a definitive process or procedure governing the application of a principle. Individuals are left to interpret identified guidelines and hope that their understanding of those guidelines is accurate enough to comply with the principles you are striving to uphold.

The below HIPAA Compliance module is a good example of effective e-Learning lesson.

I’ve listed a few reasons why I enjoyed this module:

It does a great job in simplifying what many people see as a complicated policy. It distills HIPAA to its most basic principles and demonstrates how important and easy it is to comply.
The module handles the principle content type by breaking down the guidelines and rules that make up the principle. Once those guidelines are identified, the module utilizes case based practice scenarios to ensure the learner knows how to apply the principle in a real world situation.
It is clear who the direct audience is as the module is clearly branded and directly addresses the learner as an employee of the company sponsoring the training. It proceeds to explain why the employee needs to know this information and how the HIPPA regulations apply to their organization in particular.

Learning objectives are not obviously stated but they are loosely inferred by the way the module presents what will be covered and why. The importance the module places on being in compliance with the policy implies the result of taking the lesson will be the ability to recognize and fix violations to comply with regulations. Undoubtedly, this course would be much stronger if the objectives were clearly stated, giving learners a definitive goal and measurable outcomes.

See for yourself..Please Click link image below to view module.

Posted in Concepts & Philosophies, e-Learning | Tagged Education Technology, Instructional Design | Leave a Comment »

Avoid boring e-Learning lessons

February 22, 2012 by Ed

We’ve all experienced horrible instruction at one point or another. You may remember torturous hours stuck in class or an employee training in which you would rather stab your eyes out than endure one minute more of a boring instructor droning on about one thing or another. You are totally disengaged from the material you are supposed to be learning, but you are stuck there.

Unfortunately, this dilemma has transferred over to the e-Learning era. One of the mistakes commonly made when implementing e-Learning solutions is improper use of the proven instructional methods. As we have previously discussed, merely presenting course material on-line is not nearly enough to create an effective lesson.

Engaging students in an on-line environment can actually be more difficult than engaging learners on site simply because they often have more distractions and in most cases they can leave. Of course, organizational mandates may eventually force users to sit through a boring course but chances are, that is all they are doing, sitting through it. The below presentation offers some great advice that may help spare your learners the slow death of a boring lesson.

Most of these tips seem like common sense, but are overlooked nonetheless. Some of the take away tips include:

Know your audience
Cut the clatter.
Simplicity is paramount
Use clear and direct language
Keep it brief
infuse humor when possible

See for yourself….

Dump the Drone: Livelier Elearning

Posted in Content/Curriculum, e-Learning | Tagged content, e-Learning, Education, Education Technology concepts | Leave a Comment »

Root Causes Behind Ineffective Learning Solutions

January 29, 2012 by Ed

In a previous post, Instructional Design: What is Important?, we discuss some of Dr. David Merrill’s views on the principles of Instructional Design, and the ineffectiveness of many e-Learning solutions, which in Dr. Merrill’s words are mere “information dumps”.

After pondering Dr. Merrill’s views, I now offer some more thoughts on what I think the root cause of “information dumps”.

I think the root cause of “information dumps” is a combination of the accessibility of modern web development technologies and the lack of understanding of the principles of Instructional Design. For many people, presenting the information is enough and they have the technical ability to make it available, so they do. They don’t know enough to know that is erroneous thinking.

Another contributing factor resulting in an ineffective learning solution is the misperception of what “cool”, high-tech is and what is truly effective. Frequently, a sponsor’s/client’s ideas of what they want the e-Learning solution to do is in direct conflict with effective instructional design. I come across this often in developing continuing education solutions for professional associations such medical or legal societies.

Many professions require licensed individuals to earn a certain number of continuing education credits to keep their license to practice. This mandate is to help ensure that folks are updated on important advances in their field but it also leads to many learning implementations that focus more on the accumulation of quick credit and not on the deploying the methods and processes that can truly enhance the learning potential of a particular course. In such cases, the Instructional Designer must perform a critical balancing act between delivering what the client asks for and delivering a solution that actually facilitates learning.

Posted in Content/Curriculum, e-Learning | Tagged Education, Education Technology, Instructional Design | Leave a Comment »

Moodle Tips: Clean Course Layout

January 26, 2012 by Ed

Course layouts are often times unnecessarily cluttered, particularly those in Moodle. The Moodle work flow can get a bit hectic if you are not careful. This tends to happen when courses contain many objects and activities per lesson and the object are placed without any regard for navigation or labeling and lack proper instruction. Nothing frustrates a student more, than not knowing what to do or where to go. If students begin to feel lost, they will lose motivation to learn.

Luckily, many of these frustrations can be avoided simply by putting some thought into the layout of your course. Moodle’s support for html makes it extremely powerful as you can use the html to include images and font formatting to make your course instructions and labels really point out. In my experience, many people do not fully utilize this simple functionality. Simple design elements and graphics can make your course room look a hundred times better. Another easy tip, is to try to sort course activities in order of priority. There is no sense in placing objects out of sequence.

The following videos provide some good examples on how to create a simple and effective course layout structure.

Good Moodle Course Using Weekly Format

Layout & Appearance on Moodle

Posted in LMS | Tagged e-Learning, Education Technology, Moodle | Leave a Comment »

Instructional Design: What is Important?

January 25, 2012 by Ed

Instructional designers are well aware of Dr. David Merrill and his contributions to the development of Instructional Design. The below video provides a great introduction to Merrill’s thoughts on Instructional Design and what he feels should be the focus of our design efforts.

Professional trainers and course developers tend to rely on various development models, the most common being ADDIE (Assessment, Design, Development, Implementation, and Evaluation) and are often engrossed in heated debates regarding the efficiency of one model over the other. That being said, it is interesting that Dr. Merrill does not mention ADDIE or any development model at all. Instead, his three main principles are rather simple and common sense ideas that we nevertheless tend to ignore.

However, it is important to note that following some form of a standardized model can help developers identify the best way to implement these principles into their courses to mitigate the risks of your course resulting in a meaningless heap of information, or as Dr. Merrill calls it, “Information Dump.” I think the dilemma of the “information dump” that plagues much of available instruction is definitely related to not following some sort of structured design model and more importantly lack of sufficient analysis. The ADDIE model can be restructured and implemented in various ways, so it does not necessarily need to be restricted to a formal linear format but I believe that even the most loose application can help avoid some of the issuers Dr. Merrill discusses.

In particular, I think skipping the analysis and design layers of the ADDIE model can directly lead to these problems, such as lack of clear objectives, and misdirected efforts, which will lead to not addressing the real issues that can effect learning. A proper performance and needs analysis can help avoid this lack of focus.

Merrill On Instructional Design

The ADDIE Model Instruction Design Process

Posted in Concepts & Philosophies, Content/Curriculum, e-Learning | 1 Comment »

Differentiating Instructional Methods & Instructional Media

January 24, 2012 by Ed

As we have previously discussed, one of the common mistakes people make when developing e-Learning solutions is focusing too much on the technology and not enough on content and proper instruction. The reason for this is typically a lack of understanding of the instructional design process and it’s relation to developing e-Learning courses.

Typically, all effective training share four elements;Content, Learning Outcomes, Instructional Methods, and Media. Ineffective courses typically ignore all but the media as they are seduced by the accessibility of modern e-Learning technologies. To help resolve this issue, course developers must first understand each of these four elements.

Content refers to the material being presented to the learner.
Learning Outcomes define exactly what the learner will be able to do after completing the course.
Instructional methods are the actual instructional techniques that are often used to facilitate learning. These include use of audio, text, animations, images, and practice exercises with feedback mechanisms.
Media are the mechanisms used to deliver the training to learners. These mechanisms include print, on site instructors, video, computers and e-Learning technologies such as Learning Management Systems.

Instructional Methods and Media are commonly confused as they seem similar on the surface. One of the challenges in designing an effective course is figuring out how to properly integrate all of the instructional methods elements in the best possible configuration without sending the user into cognitive overload. I think the trick is figuring out how to incorporate the audio, text and images in a way that they don’t run into each other but compliment each other instead. A good way to look at it would probably be to think of a power point presentation. Best practices dictate that presenters only display key points on actual slides and go into further details during the presentation itself. I would think the similar practice applies here. Your narration should not just read the exact text that is on the screen.

When possible audio should be used to describe images and point out factors that you think will not be obvious to the learner. Then, you can use supporting text to fill in any gaps in knowledge you feel should be obtained in that particular screen. It really does seem to be a delicate balancing act.

The following video does a great job in differentiating Instructional Methods from Instructional Media and continues on to explore how instructional methods impact the cognitive learning process.

Posted in Content/Curriculum, e-Learning | Leave a Comment »

Another LMS: efront

January 19, 2012 by Ed

If you are looking to deploy a LMS but lack the technical expertise or the funds to implement a Moodle or Blackboard implementation, efront may be an interesting option for you. The efront LMS is designed specifically for the small – medium-sized organization in mind. Open source and pay versions are available.

One for the major detractors I’ve encountered from users regarding some of the more popular Learning management Systems is their overwhelming and over complicated feature set. Most common folks, do not need the super granular configurations that Moodle provides and just need a basic yet functional delivery mechanism. That is where efront may come into play. Some of the intriguing elements of efront is it’s bundled support for open web technologies and standard LMS functionality and simple graphically oriented user interface.

The below videos provide a good introduction to efront and its feature set.

A short introduction to eFront LMS

How can eFront LMS CMS be used? eFront Presentation Open Source

What is eFront LMS CMS? eFront Presentation Open Source

Posted in e-Learning, LMS | Leave a Comment »

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