August
2000 Meeting Notes
Observer: Eilif Trondsen
Issues raised on Live eLearning during and after Jay’s "context setting" presentation:
• What are acceptable delay times during synch transmission?
• Who (what companies) are using which products? [ET: And it would obviously be interesting to know what are the reasons why a certain vendor’s system is chosen over another--and in some cases this may be because of the simplicity and user-friendliness of certain systems (many users have made this comment about Placeware) or low maintenance cost, for instance]
• These synch eLearning systems [ET: as all other eLearning systems, I guess] are mostly focused on capturing and delivering explicit knowledge and thus miss out on most or all of the more implicit knowledge. [ET: Can some of the implicit knowledge be conveyed via voice intonation and how the material is presented orally? And is this one of the positive aspects of doing live video as the communication-- through body language etc--can become more multidimensional and thus perhaps pick up on the more implicit elements?]
• How many users can effectively participate in a live eLearning event? [ET: I presume this becomes a function of how much, and what type of, interactivity you want/will have during the event, and how many facilitators and people will be involved on the "delivery end"]
• What are the technology issues that may arise in live eLearning events? How problematic are they and how common are such problems? Do learners have to download special software (players) and so on? [ET: increasingly, I think, more and more vendors use a technology that does not require anything on the user’s computer (client); this is certainly the case with Placeware but it should be noted that some (many?) vendors are mostly PC-centric and may not (yet?) support Macs.]
• Is video used often and what are the issues relating to this? [ET: It is interesting that many vendors prefer to use fixed phone lines to get high quality audio for the event--and most feel this is VERY important (if audio quality is not very good this can undermine the eLearning effectiveness significantly; this is therefore interesting in the context of the recent migration that seems to be taking place towards "voice over IP," where quality is still not up to par yet; at least that seems to be the conclusion of most analysts who follow this field]
• Learning effectiveness resulting from live eLearning events and what metrics can and should be used [ET: The best measure of eLearning effectiveness is how BUSINESS PERFORMANCE has been impacted; but, of course, it is extremely difficult to either correlate (with a high degree of confidence) or, even more difficult, determine CAUSATION from learning to business performance as so many different factors (beyond learning or training) come into play. However, the combination of user satisfaction (and feeling that the eLearning events meet the needs and expectations of the learners) while business performance is improving is probably a pretty satisfactory state of affairs, and one that probably means a pretty good ROI]
• One problem reported in some live eLearning systems has to do with downloading the material, especially the vugraphs or graphics that were used in the event. [ET: As most people still like to have hard copies of material, this points to an important aspect of eLearning: either "hard copies" of the material used in the presentation should have been delivered to the participants; or it should have been available on a web site where the learner could go and access it and download or print it off; or the material should be printable or downloadable directly from the live eLearning system used]
• Jay noted that he had tested out some of the products and had difficulty concentrating; e.g. the event did not succeed in getting his attention sufficiently. [ET: I wonder if he would probably pay equally less attention during a regular classroom session? He might just have too much on his mind. (Admission from Jay: In many face-to-face events, I feel social pressure to at least seem like I’m paying attention to the presenter.) ….But as with any other learning event, what is needed to get someone’s attention and get the learner to concentrate on the event and thus be more likely to learn? Great (e.g. highly RELEVANT) content, good (DYNAMIC/high energy) delivery, etc. But it is clear that many (perhaps more and more) learners (the younger they are the more this is likely to be true) like to multitask, even during a learning event, and thus might send the teacher or other students private notes while the presenter is doing his/her thing. Is this a bad thing? Not necessarily. They could be communicating about the presentation and relating the material to job tasks etc and then focus in on the presentation when the most relevant material was discussed]
• The issue of finding time and avoiding (workplace) disruption during a live eLearning event came up. What should be done to avoid disruptions? [ET: This can be an issue and is definitely one major reason why I prefer to do these events at home--and since I also have a newer and better machine at home--but then mostly in "archived mode" (and thus turning a synch event into an asynch one. While this removes the possibility of real time interaction, it gives you a chance to REFLECT more, take the time you need, and then use e-mail or phone to follow up with either the presenter or other participants later. (Jay: I enjoy having the ability to fast-forward at will.) As we all have less and less time for "separate learning events" during office hours (a strong argument for embedding smaller learning events into regular work processes) this issue of learning at work and/or at home is one of those issues that might become more and more contentious in the future. This issue is also very interesting in the context of the increasing number of programs where companies provide employees with free (or very low cost) computers, printers and Internet access so they can learn. Will this be limited to learning how to use the computer and the Internet, or are companies hoping that more and more at home learning will replace learning/training that previously was done during regular working hours? Unions are among those watching this carefully].
• The issue was raised about the best role for a mentor or facilitator to make the learning event as effective as possible. One thing might be to prepare pre-work or homework that should be done before the live eLearning event to make it as effective as possible (such as getting hard copies of materials, perhaps), doing a demo of the equipment etc before the live event. An important element here is also the SOCIAL SETUP; such as making participants familiar with the others who are participating so that they can interact (for example, via real-time chat that now comes with most systems) and form networks and learning communities, etc. Someone commented that besides judging instructors by their (domain) expertise and competence, one should also take into account their ability to use humor, their resiliency, quick response time, etc. These are all qualities that make a great instructor but it is generally recognized that even if you are very good in conventional (classroom) formats this does not mean you will be equally effective in a technology-mediated environment.
• "Feedback is currency of learning" and "Interactivity is about communication protocol" (Rob Harris) and a good instructor is one who finds ways to connect well with learner and can respond at the right times (perhaps even when just noticing signs in learner’s body language--and this may be difficult to pick up on a live eLearning event) with the right content and comments.
• Key to eLearning success may be to focus on what one can do with eLearning THAT YOU COULD NOT DO IN THE TRADITIONAL LEARNING PARADIGM. [ET: one of these things could be, for instance, to form various types of learning communities where people with similar needs, interests, etc could collaborate and communicate and thus learn informally through the use of a variety of synch and asynch technologies]
• One of the surprising things that InterWise has found in how customers use their technology is the extent to which they edit the proceedings of a synch event and make small "knowledge objects" or nuggets available from the knowledge capture that was done during the event. They have found that this enables a wider audience to access these ON DEMAND (when they have the greatest need). Estee referred to this as "articulated knowledge capture," and seems to be enabling a "bridge" between eLearning and knowledge management [ET: The increasingly fuzzy boundaries between these two domain areas is something we have addressed at various points in our LoD reports and Bulletins, as we have long argued that eLearning often tends to be too much focused on formal courses, as opposed to informal learning activities that are more "knowledge management"-related (often with smaller chunks and with closer linkage to actual work). Will the increasing use of "learning objects" and better taxonomies and metatagging and use of better search engines move us further away from the formal course-based eLearning towards the informal eLearning and knowledge management-related end of the spectrum? And will this reduce the importance of "instructional design"--as this would seem to have more of a role in a formal curriculum and courses than in a world of small objects and performance support?]
• Both Mary Alice (of InterWise) and Estee feel that SPEED TO MARKET (which certainly drives more and more companies these days) is one of the key drivers towards greater use of synch technologies and live eLearning. And as people increasingly don’t have time to take courses (how many have you taken during the last few years?) we will see greater and greater use of and interest in learning objects. [ET: which LMS vendors are most aggressive and have the best visions for how this will all work in the future and what are they doing to implement it? Harvey Singh of MindLever.com--who has attended some of our eLearningForum meetings, even though his company is located in Raleigh, North Carolina--seems to be moving in the right direction. Have any of you checked this out and who else are doing the same or even ahead of MindLever.com?]
• As more and more content is finding its way onto the web, how do you judge quality? Do you trust the author of the content? What criteria and metrics do you use? What role will users’ feedback (such as in ePinions.com) play and how trusted will these systems be?
• Mary Alice suggested that increasingly, eLearning will become part of "the operating system" and the "fabric of business." Thus the system will increasingly enable the capture of "spontaneous learning opportunities as learning becomes embedded into the infrastructure--thus it will become a natural part of what we do and not something we do "separately." [ET: This thinking is very much aligned with the thinking of a working group that convened at SRI recently--with representatives from HP, Ariba, VerticalNet, Autodesk, Knowledge Navigator, and SRI--to explore "Collaborative Commerce," which we see as the "next generation eCommerce" where PEOPLE play a larger role next to the transactional elements that are currently focused on. This will become more and more important as collaboration and online communities focus on INNOVATION AND CREATIVITY. Let me know if this is something you are interested in]
• Estee challenged us by suggesting that we may now be at a point where we need a "NEW EPISTOMOLOGY" for the new economy; e.g. a "A NEW ASSUMPTION SET." [ET: This could be VERY interesting. Any suggestions? Should we set this up as a separate topic for threaded discussion? Yes.]
• Someone suggested that it would be great if "we could do for eLearning what CNN did for news." Perhaps we are on our way towards this kind of situation as more and more small, current news items of the web and learning objects can be easily accessed and linked to learning needs and to more formal learning processes.
