Session 1002: Letting Go of the Words - Writing eLearning Content That Works (Ginny Redish, Chris Willis)

Ginny Redish is a founder of Redish & Associates, Inc and an author. Chris Willis is CEO of Media 1.

The theme of this presentation will be "Content as Conversation". Introducing the concept of eLearning as conversation and writing eLearning content as conversation will be topics covered.

Information gets from the designer/developer to the learner in the old model by means of 'one-way transmission'...from PC to student. Faulty because one way does not allow for active questioning...they get what they get. Instead, an improved model involves an innate understanding between the designer/developer and learner. An important concept to remember is that learning is not pouring information into the learner's head, but rather a conversation (involving concepts like Active Learning, Hands On, Brains On, and Active Engagement). (Side note - I really like the concept of 'brains on' learning...what a great term...)

Write Conversationally...

Think of what you are writing as part of a conversation, rather than cold hard fact (isn't this what I was doing before the powers that be told me to trim back the verbiage?). The presenter recommends developing and using personas in eLearning (yes, Topher, you might have been right...the human face makes the instruction process much more conversational and, as such, much more comfortable for a learner...makes them feel understood).


We can learn useful principles from linguistic research on conversation...

HP (Paul) Grice holds four maxims of conversation. They are assumptions about conversations and contain expectations we all have as speakers and listeners in a face-to-face conversation:

Maxim 1 - The Maxim of Quality (Truth) - Do not say what you believe to be fault, Do not say that for which you lack adequate evidence

Maxim 2 - The Maxim of Quantity (Information) - Make your contribution as informative as is required for the current purposes of the exchange, Do not make your contribution more informative than is required.

Maxim 3 - The Maxim of Relation (Relevance) - You can talk about stuff, or you can talk to people...

Maxim 4 - The Maxim of Manner (Clarity) - Avoid obscurity of expression, Avoid ambiguity, Be brief, Be orderly


Writing eLearning content as conversation...

Applying Grice's maxims, here are some guidelines to writing eLearning as conversation:

- Don't hog the conversation
- Take turns by including useful headings
- Start with the context - on pages, in paragraphs, in sentences
- Write the conversation - active voice, personal pronouns
- Respect the learner's time - short sentences, strong verbs
- Be clear - use simple words, explain technical terms
- Think in scenarios

Steve Krug's book, titled "Don't Make Me Think", was referenced as a goldmine and the presenter mentioned that, based on this book, she should write on called "Don't Make Me Read" (again, based on Grice's maxims).

Activity involving the fumigation of yams (not as scary as it sounds) illustrates that information usually comes to us from SMEs with specifics up front and general topic info at the end. The problem of creating coursework laid out like that is that once a learner starts to read, you have a couple of seconds to catch them. If they see "Methyl Bromide" up front, they won't read on and realize it's what they need to read about "fumigation of imported yams". Give the topic first...sound advice.

When people get instruction without context, do they wait for the rest of the instruction or do they jump to act? Great question...even on the sentence level, we should be putting the context FIRST rather than anywhere else (Ex: Give the context before the required action).

Active versus passive voice was covered (I'm in heaven)...while passive is more conversational, active is more direct and the subject/verb agreement indicates a more direct correlation between the action and who should do the action. Fine line to tread...Ginny also brought up using writing to "you" (the learner) and how it personalizes the material to the learner without getitng too bulky. (Note - This is a practice I'd like to start implementing more and more in our own product, despite provider opposition).

Steps, not paragraphs...awesome. Anytime you have a list where you are repeating 80-90% of the information, with only 10-20% differentiating, use a table rather than paragraphs or lists. Awesome again. Tables work because of their "If/Then" setup.

Summary/Conclusion

eLearning is a converastion in which you should be accurate, brief, relevant, and clear. The most important thing we can remember in all of this, while we may keep in mind these adjectives it should be, is that it is a CONVERSATION, not a dictation or lecture.

I could not be happier that this was my last session that I attended...not because I'm glad the conference is over, but because this was BY FAR my favorite session. It took my English teacher disposition, paired it with eLearning practices and...wow...just wow. I learned a bit about why and when to use lists, headings, and tables, but I also was able to relate (hardcore) to Ginny as a linguist and as a 'wordy' overall. (The fact that she dropped my term (Verbal Economy) a couple of times after I brought it up couldn't have made me more proud).

Again, landslide victory - this session was the perfect ending to a perfect week...great, great, GREAT presentation Ginny...thank you so much!

Session 504 - The Evolution of All Things 2.0 (Brent Schlenker)

Had to take a break here...my hands are starting to lock up on me, I've been blogging so much. Brief overview of this can be summed up thusly:

Learning in Web 2.0 should be 5able:

- Searchable
- Linkable
- Editable
- Taggable
- Feedable

And the greatest quote, lending credibility to 2.0: WE are smarter than ME.

(Example: Journey found their new lead singer, Arnel Pineda, on YouTube)

Keynote Speaker - Day Two - Bill Tancer

From Bill's bio: Bill Tancer is the world's preeminent expert on online behavior. He is general manager of global research at Hitwise, the world's leading online competitive intelligence services company. He is widely quotede on the latest Internet trends. He appears as a frequent guest on CNBC and has been quoted in major print and online media. Bill writes a weekly column for Time magazine called "The Science of Search".

(Bill won his science camp talent show by reciting Pi to 200 digits...I like this guy already)

It all started with a junk email from Time.com, that Bill almost deleted, asking if he wanted to write a column. Instead of deleting it, Bill replied to it "sure". Lesson one = check your junk email!

Mystery Searches, Prom Dresses, and the Ultimatum Theory

Bill showed an example of data collected by Hitwise - 1/1 to 1/5 had the most search traffic, annually, for diets than any other time during the year. The lowest, conversely, was in and around Thanksgiving. This trend exists year after year.

The most popular retail search is for Prom Dresses and, again, the real spike occurs in early January. The problem with this, though, was that retail stores began marketing their dresses in March. The disconnect was clear. Hitwise aided the industry by providing the data and, essentially, expanded their sales period of prom dresses from March - May to January - May, doubling their annual sales. Awesome use of the data!

Prom dresses aside, engagement ring sales, in brick and mortar, spiked the week after Thanksgiving. Bill's data showed it was actually the week before Thanksgiving (for what reason {"I'm not going home empty handed"} he's not sure), but, again, HitWise data was pointing out an inefficiency in the marketplace.

Women Wrestlers, Economic Predicitons, and The Narrative Fallacy

Dancing with the Stars is a popularity contest...and, therefore, searches on the stars could, essentially, predict who was going to win...or so Bill thought. Stacey Keibler came in as the most searched, Drew Lachey and Jerry Rice second and third. But Stacey didn't win...what happened? What was the intent of the search? Five words - Hot Pictures of Stacey Keibler...perhaps the 'searchers' weren't really Dancing with the Stars fans...

You have to go beyond the search term and look at the actual intent of the search - and, thus, The Stacey Keibler Correction Coefficient was formed. Intent as well as content...Other areas of application included unemployment filing and home sales. Not nearly as interesting as women wrestlers, though...

Cognitive Dissonance and the Adult Entertainment Industry

Cognitive Dissonance means to answer a question posed to you in the best possible light. Observed behavior doesn't contain CD, but how you sayyou behave differs from how you actually behave. Bill asked the audience how many people frequent adult entertainment sites, and nobody raised their hand. Would this not, then, dictate that the internet is porn free? Of course, we know different...(not from personal experience, mind you)

Somebody's not telling the truth...this is one of the most extreme examples of CD. Narrative Fallacy was also covered, referring to when you sample a large amount of data, it's very easy to look through the data and filter out, if you will, the data that suits your needs best. The remaining data is left by the wayside...

An example of Narrative Fallacy - The CEO of Estee Lauder said that as times got tough, sales of more affordable luxuries (in this case lipstick) go up. HitWire study of this trend just happened to coincide with the Stock Market crash. The study showed that while sales of lipstick went up, it was more to do with the "Lipstick on a Pitbull" comment than the 'affordable luxury' concept.

Is eLearning Recession-Proof?

As the economy has been going down, users are stepping away from online commerce and focusing more on online education...a form of 'self-betterment'. Interest in eLearning went way up as the economy went way down. An interesting trend with this data - Individuals in the higher income brackets showed the greatest increase in visits (going from about 9% to about 13%), whereas it actually dropped in lower income brackets.

Summary/Conclusion

- Observed behavior provides unique insight into changing consumer sentiment.
- eLearning, both from the perspective of insitutions and platforms, is moving opposite of the economy.

Great presentation, overall. The fact that eLearning is going in the opposite direction of the economy is a great sign for those of us in this industry. What's more, this might actually be able to drive more for us, whereas other departments are going through cutbacks. This data will definitelybe used when I get back...hopefully for some Captivate 4 love!

Session 208 - Using Wikis in Instructor-led Training (Rachel Troychock)

What is a Wiki? A collaborative, sharing, creativity-based information community...they're editable, linkable, searchable, and, again, collaborative.

It all started for KPMG based off of two concepts - Web 2.0 and Going Green. Specifically, they used Sharepoint, as part of 2.0, which was, in essence a team blog. From there, there was a Kickoff Meeting, which consisted of clients and management. This spawned a design meeting and one of the initial kickoff questions was "Can we embed a PowerPoint on a Sharepoint page?".

Fast forward, acceptance later, Train the Trainer sessions occurred, allowing the training staff to illustrate their knowledge of the new 2.0 concepts. Once the trainers were trained, the actual participants received their training. With all trained and the functionality in place, the only thing left was to establish a Support Team for this new technology.

The way they utilized Wikis in four separate generations. These included:

1st Generation - Replacement of paper guides, Wiki pages, Document repository
2nd Generation - Glossary
3rd Generation - Online activities, capturing of feedback
4th Generation- Threaded discussion for question box

From an ROI perspective, using Wikis in instruction saves 10,000 sheets of paper per 30 person instructor led training session. Beyond this, the costs of printing and shipping were saved, along with there being a more flexible development period and development time was cut in half. User response was overwhelmingly positive, citing that the Wiki was great and that they enjoyed not having three ring binders.

Overall, for me, these are awesome concepts to listen to, but given the nature of my organization, it's hard to conceptualize where any of this will fit in. One thing that started circulating around my head again was the concept of Epic Forums...an online community that would allow Epic users to submit and answer one another's questions. But it comes down to, again, the life or death nature of a wrong answer - a lot can happen if something's not answered right in healthcare. Nervewracking, but I think there is something there that can be worked with...more to come on this, I'm sure. (And, BTW - Ideas always welcome!)

Session 104 - What Activities are Needed? (Patti Shank)

How do songbirds learn their songs?

Objectives for this presentation are to (1) Determine which practice activities are needed and (2) Consider ways to build these activities online.

Focusing on the "How-To's", the presenter used an example of performing a workplace violence threat assessment. The overall goal is to make selecting activities easier and make the activities mroe valuable. Out of the three steps (Uncovering the DOs, Converting the DOs into activities, and Selecting media to support), we mainly focused on the second step.

We looked at the first step briefly - Uncovering the DOs (recall facts, find and make use of information, etc.). Basically, this is task identification. Look at the DO types and assign them to specific DOs. Once you've identified these tasks, or DOs (if you will), you need to identify the practice activities. The overall flow looks like this:

Do Types --> DOs --> Practice Activities --> Media

An example would be as follows:

(5) Complete Needed Steps --> Perform a Threat Assessment --> Threat Assessment Completed and Submitted to HR --> Threat Assessment form, etc.

Another general breakdown of this concept: What do they need to do? What don't they know how to do? What can they do to learn it? What do we need to help them learn?

Overall, this presentation covered assigning appropriate activities to appropriate tasks, all the while making sure these activities are appropriately administered (ex: If the DO is online or computer based, the activity should be, as well). A nice, in-depth look at instructionally appropriate activities for specfic learning tasks.

"The songbird must babble before they can sing" - but the songbird must listen to another bird, not pop radio...

Keynote Speaker - Day One - Jeff Howe

The Suburban Morons...seriously? Fluevog? This guy's already a class act in my book, content aside...

*ahem*

Crowd Sourcing - The analogy goes like this: A lot like Old Faithful...but it's not about the water that sprays out, rather it's about what's below the surface...the magma, the pressure, etc. It's not something I've ever really thought about before, or really knew about - but I've participated in it more than I've known.

Practically, I can't see a tie in to what we do, but that's not to downplay it in the slightest...it just means my industry is a bit more tight gripped in the way we do things. Thinking to other, less rigid industries, I can see an amazing amount of applications.

Crowd Sourcing = cheap labor, input for free...and you can't argue with that.

My apologies...I got so engrossed in Jeff's presentation that my details are a bit sparse, but there are four tenets that lend themselves to the rise of Crowd Sourcing. They are:

1.) The Amateur Renaissance
2.) The Open Source Revolution
3.) The Democratization of Production
4.) The Rise of Online Communities

Again, great presentation - I can definitely see value in Crowd Sourcing for other industries. I don't know that I'd ever be able to find a use for it, creating CBT for the Healthcare industry (specifically, an EMR with very specific processes), but who knows...they said four years ago that CBT wouldn't work either!

Up and running

Well, I swore I'd never blog again...but, given that I'm here, amongst my peers, immersed in the glorious technological glow of eLearning...time to start again.

I'm currently at AG09 and soaking in the first keynote...sounds good so far...more to come.