My Angel's Bithday Slideshow: Sunil’s trip to Hyderabad, Andhra Pradesh, India was created by TripAdvisor. See another Hyderabad slideshow. Take your travel photos and make a slideshow for free.
Friday, May 27, 2011
My Daughter's BirthDay
My Angel's Bithday Slideshow: Sunil’s trip to Hyderabad, Andhra Pradesh, India was created by TripAdvisor. See another Hyderabad slideshow. Take your travel photos and make a slideshow for free.
Sunday, October 17, 2010
35 More Qualities of the Ideal Instructional Designer
The effective instructional designer should:
Competently Work with SMEs
1. Put one’s ego aside when necessary and accept client feedback openly and non-defensively in order to nurture client relationships.
2. ‘Effectively channel’ SME’s—competently work with a ‘brain dump.’
3. Be a good listener. Tease out and focus on outcomes.
4. Be a good interpreter.
5. Ask a lot of questions.
Design and Develop Effective and Creative Content
6. Have good analytical skills.
7. Extract information from SMEs and structure and organize content it in a way that makes it easy to learn.
8. Organize information well. If it’s not something the learner can easily find, it’s not really there after all.
9. Conduct research and synthesize information from a variety of sources.
10. Write well-defined measurable objectives based on the needs of the learner.
11. Write well.
12. Have a capacity for ideation. This goes beyond thinking about learning and teaching and relates to the discovery of truth.
13. Communicate well both visually and verbally.
14. Create learning sessions with information that is useful and applicable to the learners’ real world—i.e. in the workplace where transfer of knowledge can occur.
15. Be a flexible problem solver who can apply instructional design concepts appropriately to unique situations.
16. Keep the problem uppermost while designing solutions.
17. Create deliverables that are learner-centered.
18. Create connections for the learner to the instruction, learning objectives and business goals through ID principles, multimedia design, activities and feedback.
19. Engage the learner with writing, layout, imagery, theme and activity/feedback.
Have a Passion for Learning
20. Be obsessed with learning everything, but be prepared to take action before you have learned everything you might want to know. Be courageous about the choices you will have to make. (Chris Barnes)
21. Have some experience as a teacher, lots of experience as a learner and a passion for learning.
22. Have a background in education coupled with curiosity and a love/hate relationship with technology.
23. Learn quickly and break things down in a way others can learn the information.
24. Engage in cross-disciplinary knowledge, consult with others and expand one’s own knowledge base and perspective constantly.
25. Have a passion and a thirst for learning. Be a learner’s advocate. Have a passion for truth, the ability to see things as they are (e.g., critical reflection), and a commitment to the learner.
Develop Business Savvy
26. Focus on expected business outcomes and design as leanly as possible to reduce time to proficiency and control costs. To be able to build a business case for learning and demonstrate why their solution will work cost-effectively.
27. Create an effective design within the constraints of a project regarding available technology, budget, time and human capital.
28. Be a skilled advocate for learning, for the audience, and for an effective process in order to gain resources and influence decisions.
29. Know how to facilitate—to teach a SME how to use a technology or demonstrate a new technique. It also helps guide design choices when you know how to facilitate.
30. Be cross-culturally competent and understand the needs of a global audience.
31. Be proficient in three areas; instructional design, instructional technology and project management. Like a three-legged stool—if one leg is missing or shorter than the other it is very difficult to remain seated.
Strive for Personal Growth
32. Have humility. This is a trait that many professors lose when they gain tenure. A great instructional designer, like a great teacher, is a servant-leader.
33. Have a passion to impact the lives of people in positive ways through designing suitable learning interventions.
34. Appreciate and value one’s—however small or big it may be—and really believe that someone’s life is getting impacted as a result.
35. Feel ‘powerful’ in helping people become more effective in their personal and professional life and rise to the responsibility of doing that work effectively and to the best of one’s ability.
Friday, August 27, 2010
Five Essential Elements of an e-Learning Module
Well defined scope and objectives:
Every e-Learning course must have a main objective that explains the need for this course and helps in developing the course outline. A well-defined course objective also facilitates the mapping of the content for the course.
Defining the scope and objectives for any e-Learning course will not only guide the development of the course but will also help any reader figure out whether the content is relevant and decide on the logical flow of the content. This will also enable the learner to understand what he will be gaining by taking this course.
Comprehensive yet relevant content:
It is important for an Instructional Designer to understand the content that is to be developed for a course. He should understand the context in which the course is going to be taken by the learner – the what, why, and how of it.
Next, consider the authoring tool. This is a tool that helps the Designer to not only create content but also to package it and send it to the end user or the client. Deciding on the appropriate authoring tool is one of the primary jobs of the Instructional Designer because it is useful in the development of interactive training content which is the backbone of any e- Learning course.
It is very essential for the Designer to decide on the content based solely on the course objectives rather than thinking about what the client wants. More often than not, the client is the major driving force in the development of content for a course. This process is highly detrimental for the course that is going to be developed as well as for the Designer. It will stop the Designer from using his creative talent and knowledge to develop the content.
Easy GUI:
Good visual design does contribute in creating an effective learning environment for the learner. It helps the learner to understand what he sees on the screen, understand the purpose of the elements and thereby, learn about the content by focusing on it. The benchmark of a good training module is not just the content but also the interface and the look and feel of it. A bad interface can lead the learner to believe that it is a sheer waste taking the course. On the other, a simple yet engaging interface helps the learner understand the efficacies of the course better. The challenge for the Designer is always to create something simple and interesting by blending aesthetics with functionality. A lot goes into developing an engaging course that sparks the interest of the learner and makes him want to continue with the course.
High Interactivity:
Having a course which is highly interactive is a good way to ensure the success of the developed course. Page-turners are definitely out of question these days unless there are restrictions for the course. People prefer learning by doing to learning by reading (and answering questions at end). The most common way to make a course interactive is by the use of simulations and scenarios. Simulations model the real world and give a scope to make mistakes yet not get penalized and learn at the same time. Similar is the case with scenario-based learning. It helps in creating engaging learning opportunities that mirror the real life and thus enable the learner to learn by making mistakes.
Well-designed Assessment:
It is imperative for any e-Learning course to have assessment provided along with, be it inline testing or assessment at the end of the course. The assessment should map to the objectives and reinforce learning. Ideally, the assessment should help the learner clear all his doubts based on the course and at the same time, learn a little bit more about the same. A good e-Learning course should provide immediate feedback so that the learner is able to judge how well he has understood the content of the course. The feedback shouldn’t be such that it discourages the learner and makes him feel like he doesn’t know anything, it should reinforce learner. A feel good factor is very important for the learner after he takes the course along with the assessment.
Every e-Learning course must have a main objective that explains the need for this course and helps in developing the course outline. A well-defined course objective also facilitates the mapping of the content for the course.
Defining the scope and objectives for any e-Learning course will not only guide the development of the course but will also help any reader figure out whether the content is relevant and decide on the logical flow of the content. This will also enable the learner to understand what he will be gaining by taking this course.
Comprehensive yet relevant content:
It is important for an Instructional Designer to understand the content that is to be developed for a course. He should understand the context in which the course is going to be taken by the learner – the what, why, and how of it.
Next, consider the authoring tool. This is a tool that helps the Designer to not only create content but also to package it and send it to the end user or the client. Deciding on the appropriate authoring tool is one of the primary jobs of the Instructional Designer because it is useful in the development of interactive training content which is the backbone of any e- Learning course.
It is very essential for the Designer to decide on the content based solely on the course objectives rather than thinking about what the client wants. More often than not, the client is the major driving force in the development of content for a course. This process is highly detrimental for the course that is going to be developed as well as for the Designer. It will stop the Designer from using his creative talent and knowledge to develop the content.
Easy GUI:
Good visual design does contribute in creating an effective learning environment for the learner. It helps the learner to understand what he sees on the screen, understand the purpose of the elements and thereby, learn about the content by focusing on it. The benchmark of a good training module is not just the content but also the interface and the look and feel of it. A bad interface can lead the learner to believe that it is a sheer waste taking the course. On the other, a simple yet engaging interface helps the learner understand the efficacies of the course better. The challenge for the Designer is always to create something simple and interesting by blending aesthetics with functionality. A lot goes into developing an engaging course that sparks the interest of the learner and makes him want to continue with the course.
High Interactivity:
Having a course which is highly interactive is a good way to ensure the success of the developed course. Page-turners are definitely out of question these days unless there are restrictions for the course. People prefer learning by doing to learning by reading (and answering questions at end). The most common way to make a course interactive is by the use of simulations and scenarios. Simulations model the real world and give a scope to make mistakes yet not get penalized and learn at the same time. Similar is the case with scenario-based learning. It helps in creating engaging learning opportunities that mirror the real life and thus enable the learner to learn by making mistakes.
Well-designed Assessment:
It is imperative for any e-Learning course to have assessment provided along with, be it inline testing or assessment at the end of the course. The assessment should map to the objectives and reinforce learning. Ideally, the assessment should help the learner clear all his doubts based on the course and at the same time, learn a little bit more about the same. A good e-Learning course should provide immediate feedback so that the learner is able to judge how well he has understood the content of the course. The feedback shouldn’t be such that it discourages the learner and makes him feel like he doesn’t know anything, it should reinforce learner. A feel good factor is very important for the learner after he takes the course along with the assessment.
Thursday, August 26, 2010
Tackling the SMEs
E-learning courses become 100% effective only if the right amount of information is presented in the right fashion, to the right audience. The Subject Matter Experts or SMEs play a crucial role in providing us the right amount of information.
A lot of Instructional Designers face difficulties in extracting the right info from the SMEs...Here are some tips that would help you tackle the SME issue to a great extent. (Tips courtesy: Article written by Tita Beal, Training Magazine Events web site)
1. Do your homework carefully so you can begin an interview with a clear explanation of what you want to discuss, why, and how long it will take (under 30 minutes), as well as a list of questions with space to write answers.
2. Train yourself to take continual notes while making eye contact in case your experts balk at a tape recorder. Make code symbols (e.g., asterisk, check, etc.) as you write to remind yourself where there's an important point, a follow-up question you need to ask, or a "to do" item.
3. Begin the interview by setting the right collaborative tone. For example, "I'm going to ask you some questions that will sound simple, but sometimes are hard to answer. And don't worry. If you want, I'll show you my first outlines and drafts so you have a chance to correct anything I didn't get right, and add anything you may not think of today."
Beal learned to do this the hard way when an expert got furious at her for asking "stupid questions" but later had the good grace to apologize and say, "Your questions about needed results and assumptions were so simple, I should have already thought through the answers. I felt stupid so I called you stupid. Apologies. Can we start again?"
4. If you need the experts' continuous support, consider giving them an invitation to speak in an on-site or online panel to the participants.
5. Don't make busy experts teach you their expertise. They'll become very impatient and exasperated. If you can't understand a technical term but sort of understand what the expert is talking about, spell it phonetically and ask someone else or do some research. If you need to understand a concept or term to make any sense of the conversation, ask something like, "If we have to explain this to new hires or newly promoted people, how would you define that in simple/plain English?"
6. Don't get into semantic arguments. You may need to develop "behavioral objectives" a certain way or you may have strong opinions about what is a benefit vs. a feature. However, just listen to the expert's discussion of needed performance, results, and ways to assess quality of performance. You can create the perfect statement of objectives or list of features/benefits later.
7. Listen for generic concepts and skills underneath the specific details that experts will discuss.
8. Finally, a last resort: If someone refuses to answer your questions with dismissive comments like, "Sales reps know all that," start packing up and say very politely, "I guess this training program isn't needed. I'll explain that to X." (X = the expert's own manager or a senior executive who has requested or approved the proposal to develop the training program.)
A lot of Instructional Designers face difficulties in extracting the right info from the SMEs...Here are some tips that would help you tackle the SME issue to a great extent. (Tips courtesy: Article written by Tita Beal, Training Magazine Events web site)
1. Do your homework carefully so you can begin an interview with a clear explanation of what you want to discuss, why, and how long it will take (under 30 minutes), as well as a list of questions with space to write answers.
2. Train yourself to take continual notes while making eye contact in case your experts balk at a tape recorder. Make code symbols (e.g., asterisk, check, etc.) as you write to remind yourself where there's an important point, a follow-up question you need to ask, or a "to do" item.
3. Begin the interview by setting the right collaborative tone. For example, "I'm going to ask you some questions that will sound simple, but sometimes are hard to answer. And don't worry. If you want, I'll show you my first outlines and drafts so you have a chance to correct anything I didn't get right, and add anything you may not think of today."
Beal learned to do this the hard way when an expert got furious at her for asking "stupid questions" but later had the good grace to apologize and say, "Your questions about needed results and assumptions were so simple, I should have already thought through the answers. I felt stupid so I called you stupid. Apologies. Can we start again?"
4. If you need the experts' continuous support, consider giving them an invitation to speak in an on-site or online panel to the participants.
5. Don't make busy experts teach you their expertise. They'll become very impatient and exasperated. If you can't understand a technical term but sort of understand what the expert is talking about, spell it phonetically and ask someone else or do some research. If you need to understand a concept or term to make any sense of the conversation, ask something like, "If we have to explain this to new hires or newly promoted people, how would you define that in simple/plain English?"
6. Don't get into semantic arguments. You may need to develop "behavioral objectives" a certain way or you may have strong opinions about what is a benefit vs. a feature. However, just listen to the expert's discussion of needed performance, results, and ways to assess quality of performance. You can create the perfect statement of objectives or list of features/benefits later.
7. Listen for generic concepts and skills underneath the specific details that experts will discuss.
8. Finally, a last resort: If someone refuses to answer your questions with dismissive comments like, "Sales reps know all that," start packing up and say very politely, "I guess this training program isn't needed. I'll explain that to X." (X = the expert's own manager or a senior executive who has requested or approved the proposal to develop the training program.)
Thursday, August 5, 2010
Creating Scripts and Storyboards for e-Learning
After a thorough needs analysis and design document is approved, the development of scripts is the first step in the creation of programmer ready materials, called PRMs. The script or storyboard is simply a screen-by-screen description of what students will see, hear, and do when running the program. Once the designer completes the script, it becomes the guidebook for all other team members: artists, audio/video producers, and programmers.
Depending on the project and the background of the development team, Instructional designers will create either scripts or storyboards. Both formats serve the same purpose, and include the same descriptive elements, but vary in their layout and treatment of graphics.
Scripts typically use verbal descriptions of on-screen graphical items while storyboards use sketches or clip art to visually depict required art elements. Because of the time it takes to create even rough composite artwork, a scripting approach typically takes less time, but storyboards provide a more complete picture of what the final program will look like.
Regardless of the format chosen, every script or storyboard has the following eight major elements:
Project Information includes the name of the client, curriculum title, course title, date, draft or version number, and script page number.
Screen Label indicates which screen of the program is being described. Sometimes screens are called frames or events. These screen labels are generally coded with both a lesson number and screen number. For example, Screen 03-0090 refers to lesson 3, screen 9. The extra zero at the end of the screen counter leaves room to fit additional screens into the script in the future. If you wanted to add a new screen in lesson 6, between the existing screen 12 and 13, the revised script would reference the new screen as "06-0125." While this labeling system might seem hidden at first glance, it can save a lot of time and energy later. Since artists name graphical images using these numerical screen labels as file names, this system avoids the need to renumber all the screens in the script whenever a new page is added.
Audio/narration is specified in the script if the technology used supports it. Typically an audio voice over (sometimes labeled VO in the script) of the narrator is used. Sometimes the audio segment of a script specifies "Play dramatic music," "Buzzer sound on incorrect answer," or some other sound effect.
Video clips, if used, are described in the script, giving both camera direction and writing out the actual dialogue for on-screen actors. Descriptive notes to the director are included, such as "executive at her desk," "prestigious environment," or "slow zoom as she reaches her conclusion."
Graphics are provided in the script as a verbal description of what should appear on screen, or a sketch. The purpose is to help both the reviewer (client or subject matter expert) and the artist who must create the final images, to visualize what the designer has in mind.
Descriptions might be "Show group of business people around a conference table, gender balanced and multiculturally diverse" or more vague like "Computer on desk." General descriptions enable artists to apply their own creativity and resources. At the same time, given only a loose interpretation, the final graphic the artist creates may not match what the designer had in mind.
On-screen text section of the script describes which words will appear on the screen. In many Web-based training programs that can not support audio, text is the primary learning media, thus this section of each script page may be quite long. In other programs where audio narration is the primary instructional media, the text is used to reinforce the audio. In these cases, the text is likely to appear as brief bullet points or short statements.
Navigation and interactivity describes the action items of the program - - what can the student do on this screen, and what will happen next. Standard navigation options include phrases such as "Next button moves to next screen in sequence" and "Menu button jumps back to Main Menu." These types of options that are available from every single screen often are excluded from the description. Once noted on the first script page, navigation is assumed to be constant. Other types of interactivity might be "Answer A: Play buzzer sound and display in feedback window, 'That's incorrect. Try again.'" Or even directions related to the theme or metaphor,
Ex:"Clicking elevator doors causes doors to open, followed by interior elevator scene and movement to fifth floor (topic name / lesson number)."
Notes is the final section in a script that provides an area for any additional comments that do not fit easily into one of the above categories. This informal area allows the designer to communicate directly to an artist or programmer. Comments might be: "The corporate culture is very Generation X. Let's make this opening screen colorful and extreme. Feel free to get creative!" or "This question segment needs to be tracked for final report purposes. We need to track specific answers in addition to correct/incorrect information."
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