I read an interesting report from the eLearning Guild on
Rapid eLearning Authoring: Top Tools. The author Joseph Ganci, talks about the “Toolmaker Dilemma” of developing a tool that is both powerful and easy to use. The premise is that these two qualities are at odds with each other. The more powerful, (or flexible), a tool is, the more options you have as an author, and in turn more complexity.
Ganci goes on to present a great analogy as he describes a fictitious tool that has one button on the screen that says Click me. When you push the button something happens. Easy to use? Yes. Powerful? No. The next version of the tool comes out with two buttons, which is multiple times more powerful because you can now push the buttons in different order to do multiple things. New buttons get added with successive versions of the tool until ultimately you have one thousand buttons on the screen. Is the tool powerful now? Absolutely; the options are limitless. Is it easy to use?...
Ganci presented this as a great lead in to his analysis of different rapid eLearning tools, but it got me thinking about eLearning development in general. In the Federal Government we use levels to describe interactivity of eLearning. There are four levels ranging from the simplest, primarily text-based and linear page-based level one; to the most complex level four simulations that use multiple types of media and have multiple decision points for learners. Despite this classification, one of the challenges for developers and agencies is that one person’s level two eLearning does not necessarily map to another person’s level two. Of course, this has big implications when scoping a project. It also has big implications on the way a development team designs and produces the training.
The “two-button” eLearning solution would be a tightly defined, template-based solution that has a finite set of possibilities including the methods available to the ISD for presenting the content, the types and quantity of media an artist can create, and the type of functionality a programmer can accommodate.
On the other hand, the “thousand-button” solution provides a universe of options, hopefully driven by choices of how best to teach specific content to a specific audience.
With complexity comes additional time and cost, so realistically, how can we maximize the value to the Federal government with effective learning solutions?
At the end of the day, it is all about accelerating someone’s ability to perform on the job. Training and performance support must be focused on helping individuals achieve desired organizational goals in the fastest way possible. From this perspective, the question of “two-button” verses “thousand-button” solutions is the wrong question. Another way to think about it is not as an “either-or” question, but rather a “when” question.
It is helpful to imagine a funnel with the earliest conceptualizing of a project taking place at the widest part. This is where you bring a “blue sky” mind set to bear on the problem to be solved. This is the “thousand-button” part of the project. Necessarily, it is complex, because there are a lot of considerations, including budget, schedule, nature and current state of the content, learner profile, technical infrastructure, size of the solution, to name a few. As you continue to design the solution, you move down the funnel. With each new question and answer, a further refinement, until ultimately a solution, born out of a thousand buttons of possibility, coalesces into a finite set of options resulting in a more streamlined and rapid development process.
While this makes sense at a certain level, it is never so cut and dried in real life. Good performance improvement solutions rely on multiple creative decisions being made from the first analysis to the final delivery. The solution will metamorphose at least twice throughout the process, from concept to written content, and then again from written content to pixel on screen. Collaboration between functional groups is required throughout the process to ensure instructional integrity and to maximize the value of visual media and functionality.
So what can we take away from the “one to one-thousand buttons” analogy that will help us design and develop truly effective performance acceleration for agencies? I suggest two things:
A common pattern for eLearning is to have a few pages of text and graphics, possibly with some narration and animation, punctuated with some variation of a multiple choice knowledge check. The pattern looks like this: page, page, page, page, knowledge check, page, page, page, page, etc. In this example there is more or less equal emphasis visually and instructionally on each page of content, and the path of the learner is relatively consistent and metered.
- Instead, identify instructionally high-return opportunities within a given performance solution. This might be interactions that allow learners to practice and ultimately demonstrate their understanding of the content in a semi-immersive way, either through use of branching scenarios, story, or gaming. Let’s call this a performance-based interaction. Treat other material as scaffolding for this primary interaction, and apply rich media and programming accordingly. The pattern for this might look like page, page, page, performance-based interaction, feedback and summary; or performance-based interaction, feedback and summary, page, page, page, performance-based interaction again. In this example, we are emphasizing the performance-based interaction, with secondary information to support the learning process. The performance-based interaction is something you would engage with, potentially “playing” multiple times, experimenting with different decisions and outcomes.
- You can think of “2-button” and “thousand-button” solutions at a couple of different levels. In the above example the focus is on calibrating effort within a single project in order to maximize the overall effectiveness and engagement of the solution. It’s a “mixed-button” solution. Another way to think about it is where the initial effort is focused on creating the optimum template for a given type of content and audience. The initial effort is akin to a “thousand-button” solution; however, the follow-on development is a “two-button” solution as the template is implemented.