Trainers Talk Tech

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!!!

I have been hunting for a way to test my SCORM packages before sending them to my customers for review, and with the help of one of my clients, I found an excellent resource.

SCORM.com has an excellent tool called Test Track. It allows you to upload your SCORM .zip file into a working/testing location that gives you everything you need to evaluate and debug your SCORM packages. The link is:

http://www.scorm.com/scorm-solved/test-track/

I always get so freaked out when sending SCORM packages to clients without testing...the debug process can be a pain. This tool, which is FREE, found a silly "&" in my .xml which I was able to fix before sending the final versions to clients.

Did you catch that this tool is FREE!??!

SCORM scares and frustrates me, but this is an awesome tool from Rustici Software that made my life so much easier today. I set up my free account and will be living here as I develop eLearning for my clients. Thanks scorm.com!

This past week I finished up my last ASTD Essentials Webinar Series and again had a "virtual" room full of highly engaged, highly interested learners. It was interesting hearing from this group: they are all going to be the eLearning Obmudsmen I commented on in an earlier post. As I was going through the software examples and demos, I started getting some really good questions about process. I have a standard routine that I use when building my eLearning project from scratch, and I thought that it might be of benefit to my reading audience.

After meeting with a client and getting my first installment check (!), we start the following process:

1) Instructional Design Phase

Some of my clients have at least an outline of the content to the site, some have complete storyboards, but most are somewhere in between. Its my team's responsibility to take what they have and build out a storyboard for their review. We use a PPT based storyboard to document screens, activities and simulations in a way that makes it easy for the client to see how their program will function and flow.

Read more »

Leo Lucas is an eLearning consultant who has made a series of SCORM templates that are inexpensive and easy to implement. I talked about his site at ASTD TK all last week, and I wanted to link to his site from here. I spent about $500 here and it has saved me hours and hours of work around simple SCORM implementation.

Thank you Leo!

Visit the software section for Flash, HTML and developer toolkits which make SCORM less painful to implement.

http://www.e-learningconsulting.com/