5 eLearning Mistakes and How to Avoid Them - Trivantis

1 5 elearning mistakes and how to Avoid ThemAn eBook by Trivantis Based on original content by Joe Ganci of eLearningJoe 2016 Trivantis Corporation. All rights reserved. Trivantis Corporation311 Elm StreetSuite #200 Cincinnati, OH (877) is a free eBook. You may view, download, print, and reproduce the contents in unaltered form for personal,non-commercial use or use within your organization. All other rights are , Lectora, and CourseMill are registered trademarks of Trivantis Corporation. Responsive Course Design is a trademark of Trivantis Corporation. All other names are trademarks of their respective reach Joe Ganci, email or of ContentsMistake 1: Skipping the Vital First Steps 5 Mistake 2: Making Big Design Mistakes 9 Mistake 3: Not Thinking of the Technology 18 Mistake 4: Ignoring the Mobile Revolution 20 Mistake 5: Not Evaluating the Results 21 IntroductionTrivantis had the pleasure of hosting Joe Ganci for a webinar, titled 5 elearning mistakes and how to Avoid Them (Examples Included!)

2 The content of this eBook is adapted from that webinar and Joe s expert insights on eLearning Ganci is President of eLearningJoe, LLC, a consulting and training eLearning company located outside of Washington, Joe has been involved in every aspect of eLearning development since 1983. In this eBook, you ll learn Joe s insights on the following: 1. Vital first steps that people often skip2. Instructional design Mistakes that kill learner engagement3. Why you must think about the technology 4. Ways to build a better mobile course5. How NOT to evaluate results5 eLearning Mistakes and How to Avoid Them5 Mistake 1: Skipping the Vital First StepsDon t rush in, open your authoring tool, and immediately start to build training without giving it some thought. Picture an iceberg. The completed training that learners see (tip of the iceberg) is a culmination of many stages and elements (majority of the iceberg under water) that should be done if you want successful training.

3 So, you need to prepare ahead of much preparation is required?Training You SeeSubject Matter ExpertsInstructional Design CostsDevelopmentTechnologyAssessment StrategyImprovements Over TimeJoe s iceberg example shows how much preparation is required below the surface65 eLearning Mistakes and How to Avoid ThemLet s take a look at what s vital during each step of the development t Ignore the Analysis StageMake sure you re preparing for the actual learner audience. If you don t, it s like packing for vacation and not knowing whether you re going to the beach or the mountains. You really want to know who your audience is and what you need to prepare for. Focus on DesignIf you don t focus on design, your layout may look rushed or incorrect. Make sure you have templates set up with your navigation schemes in place. Anything that s not specific to one screen should be considered ahead of time. Joe says, This is going to save you so much you time and money because it s going to allow you to focus on the content you re creating and not on how to implement that navigation bar or that background image or whatever on that slide.

4 Lectora eLearning authoring tool makes it easy to add a background slide that would be applicable to a whole course, but you may also want to change it out. That s why you need to build a file that has all the more permanent elements in it, like backgrounds, navigation, templates, themes, etc. Make these decisions as far in advance as possible to Avoid doing unnecessary rework after the the Development StageIf you re working on a team with multiple people designing and developing, you may run into miscommunication. For example, the instructional designer should make sure to provide clear instructions to the developer. Joe explains, You want to make sure that the developer is not going to be assuming things and that the designer is giving the developer what they need. Otherwise, the developer won t be able to create the course the way the instructional designer intended. It s crucial for developers to follow the instructional design, especially if the client already approved that design.

5 Put Quality Assurance Before Implementation and EvaluationQuality assurance is something that gets skipped too much. Why? Often a customer will say things like Hey, we re rolling out a new process or procedure, a new software application, and we need to have eLearning created for it. Many of these clients are doing eLearning for the first time, so they may assume things that are eLearning Mistakes and How to Avoid ThemExperience the power up for a free30-day eLearning Mistakes and How to Avoid ThemFor example, they may want extremely short timelines for getting a course developed. As a result, the quality assurance step is often skipped to accommodate these short timelines. Inevitably, any quality problems will then appear when the course is deployed, which is a terrible, terrible time to do that, says Joe. It puts everybody with egg on their face, and in the end, nobody s happy. Get Your Questions AnsweredMake sure you have all questions answered and a clear understanding of what you re building.

6 Otherwise, you ll overestimate or underestimate. Joe also says to watch out for people who will want to develop the very best thing possible. It shouldn t take two months instead of two weeks to build eLearning that s only slightly better. Maybe it s super cool and all that, he says, But it s only incrementally better than the version would ve been after two weeks. By getting all questions answered, you can make sure people are not making wrong assumptions and underestimating or overestimating because in the end, that ll ruin your Your Audience and Its NeedsToo often, the audience and its needs are not taken into account. Many times a company builds learning for its audience without an understanding of what that audience really needs. Even if the training is well done, employees taking the training will reject it if they don t need the information, so the learning won t be used a huge waste of the Strengths and Weaknesses of eLearningeLearning has tons of benefits, but make sure each situation is appropriate for eLearning before you begin developing.

7 For example, in some cases, a blended training approach may better suit the learning needed. Prepare Design Guides, Templates, Models, and MoreMake sure to have your guides and templates created first. This will save significant time and the Right ExpectationsKnow who your stakeholders are (the people expecting you to create quality eLearning ), along with your learners and anyone else involved (like your boss). Make sure you set expectations with these people from the start. If you make a promise you can t fulfill, they ll be disappointed. Don t have a superman complex, thinking that you can finish everything without taking into account possible problems outside of your control. It s always better to under promise and over deliver not to do the eLearning Mistakes and How to Avoid ThemMistake 2: Making Big Design MistakesCreate Objectives That Are TestableOne huge design mistake is having objectives that aren t testable. Failing to include objectives is also a big mistake.

8 The best design approaches challenge learners and make them active not passive members of training, where they re challenged to solve a problem, not just watch help you write objectives, use Bloom s Taxonomy. Both the terminal objective (the end result of the learning) and also the enabling (supporting) objective should be testable. For example, let s take a look at two bad objectives: Terminal objective: The learner will know how to write a proper business letter. Enabling objective: The learner will know how to write a proper salutation. The problem with these example objectives is that you can t test the verb know. Instead, you should replace know with a verb that makes sense for your learner and content. This is important because the whole point of the eLearning is to make sure learners are achieving their eLearning Mistakes and How to Avoid Them10 CategoryDescriptionKnowledgeAbility to recall previously learned to grasp meaning, explain, restate to use learned material in new to separate material into component parts and show relationship between to put together the separate ideas to form new whole ideas and establish new to judge the worth of material against stated words to use at the knowledge level include define, identify, list, name, recall, recognize, record, relate, repeat, underline, and verbs to use for comprehension include choose, cite examples of, demonstrate use of, describe, determine, differentiate between, discriminate, discuss, explain, express, give in own words, identify, interpret, locate, pick, report, restate, review, recognize, select, tell, translate, respond, practice.

9 And verbs to use for application include apply, demonstrate, dramatize, employ, generalize, illustrate, initiate, interpret, operate, operationalize, practice, relate, schedule, shop, use, and verbs to use for analysis include analyze, appraise, calculate, categorize, compare, conclude, contrast, correlate, criticize, deduce, debate, detect, determine, develop, diagnose, diagram, differentiate, distinguish, draw conclusions, estimate, evaluate, examine, experiment, identify, infer, inspect, inventory, predict, question, relate, solve, and words to include for synthesis include arrange, assemble, collect, compose, construct, create, design, develop, devise, formulate, manage, modify, organize, plan, prepare, produce, propose, predict, reconstruct, set-up, synthesize, and words to include for evaluation include appraise, assess, choose, complete, critique, estimate, evaluate, judge, measure, rate, revise, score, select, validate, and 's Taxonomy5 eLearning Mistakes and How to Avoid Them11 The key words, especially in the higher levels, are verbs that you can test against.

10 The best verbs show that your learners know the material. Take a look at our previous example objectives, now with verbs that show action. Terminal objective: The learner will demonstrate how to write a proper business letter. Enabling objective: The learner will demonstrate how to write a proper salutation. Using the word demonstrate means that the learner will actually show how a proper business letter is written. In addition, the word demonstrate is measurable. The word know is eLearning Mistakes and How to Avoid ThemHow to Succeed in the Design ProcessADDIE: Analysis Is NecessaryADDIE (Analysis, Design, Development, Implementation, Evaluation) has been around forever. Some people don t like ADDIE, but here s what Joe says about it: In some way or another, you re going to be analyzing, you re going to be designing, you re going to be developing, you re going to be implementing and evaluating. It may not be this exact order idea, but certainly it makes sense to analyze everything first.