Trainers Talk Tech

I'm proud to say that I've witnessed a couple changes in the conference this year...all for the best.

1) Free Wireless - FINALLY, after 10 years of squawking, ASTD heard the masses and are providing free wireless throughout the conference center. As you may or may not know, many of us were tweeting non-stop about this last year. Its good to hear that someone was listening.

2) Expo is PACKED with vendors - 61 to be exact. That's the largest Expo we've ever had. In 2003 and 2004, we were struggling to get 20. So nice to see.

3) Seeing lots of people from previous conferences - does this mean that TK 2010 is turning into a repeatable conference? Data showed that for most folks attending this conference, it was their FIRST educational technology conference. Maybe not anymore! This is my 10th conference as a speaker, 11 total. I feel so old...someone called me an old timer yesterday...Hmm....

I'll be running around like a crazy man at ASTD TK 2010 this year (what else is new) and I look forward to seeing friends and associates I only see at these shows! If I haven't yet met you in person, PLEASE take a second to say hello. If you have a burning questions about eLearning technology, please come up and ask. I love to talk tech!

I have three main questions that I will be asking folks at the conference. These will also be a big part of the video blogging I will be doing on site. Here they are:

1) Is Crapid eLearning an issue for you in your firm? Almost a year ago, I predicted a decline in the quality and interactivity of eLearning programs because companies will no longer be investing the time and energy into high quality design and development of their online training programs. Instead, they spend $2000 on a piece of "do it yourself" eLearning development software and telling their ID and training folks to learn it and use it. Other bloggers have coined the phrase Crapid eLearning, and I like it so much, I'm going to continue the trend. However, I'm interested in hearing opinions about whether or not you are investing in big budget eLearning, or whether or not you have purchased a development tool to "rapidly develop" eLearning. Of course, your honest opinions about whether or not its Crapid eLearning s up to you!

2) Is SCORM and development standards such a big deal anymore? I don't know...they seem to have fallen out of favor. If so, what are all the LMS folks doing about it? I develop a ton of eLearning every year...only three or four programs have to be wrapped in a SCORM wrapper for delivery. What else is going on? Am I missing something?

3) Are we seeing a loosening of budgets around professional development, either stand up or via eLearning? Are companies still leaning towards a "wait and see" model? Have they opened the door for contractors/consultants again? Are job req's coming for Training and Development folks? I have folks I mentor and coach who are graduating MA Ed's and are wondering what the market will look like in 4-6 months when they walk down the aisle and flip their tassel. I'm the eternal optimist...I want to be able to give these folks real answers rather than the typical rosy Thomas perspective.

I'm at the airport getting on the plane to Vegas. The Force of Nature will be landing at 1:00 Vegas time...Look Out Sin City!!! Training and Development People are coming to TAKE OVER!!!

While conducting the ASTD Essentials webinar this week, I encountered a bit of a shock. Well, perhaps shock is too strong a word, but I definitely got rattled a bit. Let me tell you what got under my skin.

Part of my first day of training is a big session on my idea of an eLearning development "Dream Team":

• Project Manager: The project manager is responsible for ensuring that benchmarks are hit and that everyone is working together to create a fantastic finished project. This person should create a project plan to make sure that time lines and responsibilities are visible to all and that everything runs smoothly.
• Instructional Designer: The ID is the person who is a training professional and has taken the time and energy to follow an instructional design process to come up with the training program. This person creates the templates, storyboards and diagrams necessary to facilitate training through the electronic medium.
• Graphic Designer: The graphic designer is the person who creates all the graphical elements of the eLearning program. This person makes the buttons, the background pictures, and anything else that isn’t explicitly textual.
• Multimedia Designer: Sometimes called the “New Media” designer, the multimedia designer is the person who is responsible for creating and editing digital movies, programming Flash movies, or working with 3-dimensional animation software to create simulations and other effects. Many times, the Graphic Designer and the Multimedia Designer are the same person.
• Developer: This person receives the information and training program information from the instructional designer, the graphics from the graphic designer and the multimedia from the multimedia designer and programs the training.

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Berrett-Koehler Publishers, with whom ASTD and I have an ongoing copublishing relationship and who recently helped ASTD develop the digital version of the Handbook, will be publishing all of the chapters of the ASTD Handbook for Workplace Learning Professionals as stand-alone digital whitepapers as part of a series they’re calling Fast Fundamentals. I'm Chapter 23: Authoring Techniques and Rapid eLearning!

The Fast Fundamentals series will have a dedicated page on the Berrett-Koehler web site, the centerpiece of which will be a unique search engine that will allow readers to find a digital whitepaper on a specific workplace challenge. This page is currently in beta-testing - take a few minutes to try it out!

After you click on the link and the home page opens, choose a Topic from the menu. A list of Challenges will pop up. Click on a Challenge, and a Solution—a list of whitepapers—will appear. Click on one of whitepaper options, and the first page of the whitepaper is revealed with an option to purchase the content. To try out this unique whitepaper concept click here !

Berrett-Koehler will be adding explanatory text and the ability to search by author name and by title of the whitepaper soon. The scheduled launch date for this service is February 19th.

The Fast Fundamentals whitepapers will sell for $3.95 to $9.95 depending on length, but for the first week—from February 19th to February 27th—Berrett-Koehler will be selling them all for the special introductory price of $.99 each. The book is huge - it retails $139.00 and has 49 chapters... but look - if you want to buy the entire book via this introductory price it could save you some serious money. The book has less than 50 chapters...that means for this 99 cent special, you can get the whole shebang for less than $50.

If you want to save some trees, this could be a great opportunity to pick up the whole book at a substantial discount. Here is the link again.

Since the ASTD TK show, people have been hot on these three software packages: Articulate, Captivate and Lectora. On my webinar series, with email and via twitter, people have been asking me about these packages. Here is my summary of each - I actually replied to someone on LinkedIn about a month ago. Here is a copy of that interaction.

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As always, ASTD put on a great show in Vegas. I am looking forward to following up with all the new people I met and learned with. I cannot wait until '10!

I had three sessions I conducted: Two Creation Stations and a Tech Intensive. I have to say that the Tech Intensive was a blast. I had about 80 people in the room, and we talked at length about the Adobe CS4 Web Suite. 90% of it went well, but I had one SoundBooth snafu and one Flash ActionScript 3.0 snafu. Before the session, I said to myself that I'd create an interaction using ActionScript 2.0 because I know that cold, but then reminded myself that I made a pact to only program in ActionScript 3.0. I know how to get things built, but some of the calls are still new to me. I forgot to add the

(event:MouseEvent):void 

to my function call. Grr...Oh well. We laughed and got it working when I finally relaxed enough to think clearly. Building a site in the privacy of your office is much different than building in front of a room of learners!

Here are links to my materials from the sessions. If you were not able to attend, I understand! Here are the materials in PDF format:

Creation Station
Flash CS4: Get a Taste of ActionScript 3.0 Hands On! : PDF File

Tech Intensive
Integrating Adobe Creative Suite to Maximize E-Learning Development
PDF File
PowerPoint File

Also, if you attended my Tech Intensive, you remember that we built a "New Hire Orientation" online guide for Tommy Gun's Garage, a dinner theater and "speakeasy" out of Chicago. I thought you might like to see what I built for the client.

View the comp here.

Its just the prototype in a flat Photoshop file, but you can see what a little time and attention can do for good web design.

Thanks for talking with me, laughing with (at) me and having a great time in Vegas at the ASTD TK show.

Now, go build something cool!

P.S. I haven't forgotten to put the David Pogue Web 2.0 list up from the first day of the conference...It will be up soon...

I will be presenting at the ASTD TechKnowledge Conference in Vegas this year. This will be my 9th year presenting. My first presentations were in October 2001. Yeah...one month after the world blew up. Needless to say, the conference was much smaller than expected but was still fantastic.

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