Comments on LMS Vendors

Helen asked me to talk to people about LMS providers. (Note: an LMS stands for a Learning Management System. BHU is our LMS. It is hosted by a company called Meridian.)

At the conference there are several LMS vendors who all want to sell you there stuff. I talked to about 4 vendors and it was very overwhelming. They all have some great features and, of course, seem better than BHU – at least on the surface.

After one session, I talked to an e-learning consultant and asked his opinion on the best LMS providers out there. He said that he really couldn’t answer that question w/o determining our needs, which would require an in-depth discussion.

Here are a number of features and factors we should consider based on my discussion with the consultant and my observations from other LMS demos:

• The consultant said that we would probably want a hosted solution (ie the system is hosted on the vedor’s servers, not ours).
• We should look for a short term contract or even a free trial so that we don’t lock ourselves into a system that doesn’t work for us
• He said that it should be customizable and that we should be able to customize and configure the system ourselves.
• He said that a lot of the system we need depends on our compliance issues. What kinds of computers and internet speeds does the LMS need to operate on/with?
• A lot of the LMS systems that I looked at generated a course schedule based on the user profile. For example it can create a bank of courses for a user depending on their job title or location. I don’t believe that we currently have this functionality, but it would be great.
• Many of the LMS systems had a calendar feature. So you could view all of the live training you were scheduled for as well as the course offerings.
• One of the vendors (a higher end vendor called Plateau) also had courses linked to performance evaluation. I think this is what we’re trying to do by hosting the GLP on BHU
• The manager’s view for Plateau had an individual supervisee and team view. It also had metrics via graphs and pie charts which were pretty compelling.
• The consultant said that we should ask LMS vendors how they demonstrate a return on investment (ROI) for their clients. This is a particular weakness of BHU. We don’t have good statistics about how, when and where people use the system.

As I learn more, I’ll add it to the comments of this post.

Time and Team to Develop E-learning

In talking to two different vendors (Redwood e-learning systems and Allen Interactions), it seems that most of their products take 6 weeks to conceptualize with about a team of 4-8 people. This team is comprised of instructional designers and subject matter experts.

Development time takes between 4-8 weeks. The team is comprised of 1-2 Flash programmers and a graphic designer/illustrator.

$100 Talking Head

I spoke to someone from Redwood e-learning systems. They’re an e-learning vendor like Allen Interactions and Allen communications. They had some impressive products. I said that we weren’t really looking at full scale courses at this point. They explained that they also do free-standing animations. For example, if we want an animated figure that talks, they could record the audio and make the graphics for us for $100! This seems like a viable low-cost solution to me. Only drawback is that their Canadian (just kidding!)

Here’s their website so you can check them out: www.redwoodelearning.com

Session 3:Forget What You know About Instructional Design and Do Something Interesting!

This session was lead by Michael Allen, the CEO of Allen Interactions. (Allen Interactions is the company that has been designing the CDA course.) I missed his talk last year so I was looking forward to this session all day. Overall the session was pretty good, but a little disappointing. It’s difficult to apply broadly his principles to our stuff when all of his examples use a level of interactivity in Flash and gorgeous graphics that we/I are unable to match.

Some of his message is really obvious. Of course none of us want to create courses that are just about clicking the “next” button or reading text on screen. I mean, who wants to create boring content?

But he did give some overall ideas that I think can help us.

Success = getting people to do the right things at the right time. It’s not about knowing. It’s about DOING. How do you get people to actually do it??

Three success factors:

1. We need to enhance the learner’s motivation to learn
   What can we do to increase the learner’s motivation?
   If you have low budget, put most of resources toward motivation. If you have high motivation to learn, learner can even learn from PowerPoint slides.
   
   MY COMMENT: Jim has mentioned this before – and it’s a big issue for us. We need to instill the motivation to learn/develop as part of our corporate culture.
   
2. Focus learners on behavior-enhancing tasks
   Focus them on things to DO, not just to read
   
   MY COMMENT: I really like this concept. The question is how do we make “doing” activities in a low-tech environment.
   
3. Create meaningful and memorable experiences
   If you want people’s behavior to change, they have to remember it. Have to make learning relevant!
   
   Michael Allen says: You will increase effectiveness if tell learners that you’re going to be looking at their performance 4-6 weeks.
   
   MY COMMENT: Can we commit to testing learners 4-6 after taking a course? Memorable e-learning? I may have to bring some of the glitz from Vegas back to the computer screen in Watertown. Get ready for some bright lights!
   

Other comments from Allen:

Every brain is wired differently from every other brain, individually processing information in ways unique to that wiring. If only give learners one path, adult learners push back. Adult learners need to follow what they’re interested in.

MY COMMENT: This seems to point toward non-linear design.

People are natural explorers. Repetition and rehearsal are critical for the successful creation of long-term memories. E-learning should be something you can experiment and play with. People want to tell you in e-learning what you need to know. Need to put some mystery in e-learning. Clarity = boring.

MY COMMENT: Yep, he’s not so into the learning objective thing. He thinks that should be demonstrated. Not told. I dig it. I just think it can be really hard to do. On the flip side, the CDA course has that flexibility in it. But it also misses a whole bunch of things and needs a facilitator. Point is – if e-learning is the only source of the content, it still has to be complete.

Misunderstood principles:

- Content is king - nope, the experience is the most important thing

- Experts are the best SMEs – actually experts know too much and don’t remember not knowing. Recent learners are the real experts people who can remember not knowing the content or learning the skills. (always double check things with the learner, obviously)

- Finish analysis, then design - design aids analysis. Prototypes generate questions. Analysis is never finished.

- Tell, then test – boring! Better to test first, then tell. That is, demonstrate the need for information so that learners are thirsty for it.

TAKE AWAYS: My ramblings on how this may apply to our current courses
- can we put in a story for BoBFAM? Maybe we can have several employees as characters with their questions/concerns about the company. “I’m here to work with kids, not money. Why do I need to know about the business?” “Sarbox – is that contagious?”

- maybe worst-case or disastrous scenarios for BoBFAM. Ie center with terrible numbers. We loose gazillions of clients. Then different things you can do to “fix it” e.g. better customer service, more organized financials, upping enrollment, managing labor. Yeah, a “fix the business” slide sounds like fun.
- put in myths and myth busters? Eg our profit margin. McDonaldizing child care??
- need stories from the e-team members and others featured in WeBFAM. “When I first came to BFAM…” “My favorite memory from working here….” “What is most special to me about the company”

Session 2: Facilitation Skills for E-Trainers

This was a session dedicated to classroom trainers who are beginning to facilitate online training. The speaker, Jean Barbazette, gave some great tips and suggestions. I’ll go over the jist of the talk here, and for those of you that are interested will give you a copy of the speaker notes that have much more information.

First Barbazette gave us a self-evaluation that split us into a trainer “type” as follows:
Instructors = people who feel comfortable giving directions and taking charge
Explorers = people who are good listeners and create an open environment for free expression
Thinkers = people most comfortable helping the learner generalize conepts from the reactions to a learning experience
Guides = people how help learners apply how to use new learning to in their own situations

Then the speaker tied these trainer types to five steps of adult learning (these apply to more than on-line facilitation). There’s much more about these steps in the handouts.

1. SET UP: The instructor sets up the learning activity. Explain the purpose, what particpants are going to do and give the “why” (w/o giving away what is to be discovered)
2. DO: Learners participate in a learning activity eg discussions, demos, simulations and lectures.
3. SHARE/DISCUSS: Learners share and interpret their reactions to the activity
4. REFLECT: Learners identify concepts from their reactions. This is the “so what did I learn” step.
5. APPLY: Learners apply concepts to their situation. The “so what now” step.

The idea is that you need to have an element of each of the trainer types to accomplish all of the five steps listed above. For those of you that are interested, I have a copy of the assessment, so you can take it yourself and identify your strengths and weaknesses.

She emphasized that you must get to the REFLECT step that “thinking” type trainers do well. Otherwise, the users never learn the content on a conceptual level. They can only apply what they learned to the specific situation that was presented to them – they can’t extrapolate to new situations.

The speaker gave several different techniques we can use to facilitate e-learning that are all in the handout I can give you.

One last tidbit, she said that the user needs to interact at least once very four minutes. This may be a poll or a whiteboard brainstorming session or a puzzle. But there needs to be something to keep the learners engaged.

Session 1: E-Learning Warning Signs

The first session I went to was about e-learning warning signs. The talk was given by Marc J. Rosenberg of Marc Rosenberg and Associates. He gave 10 different issues to watch out for. I’ve summarized and included some of my own comments for each one.

1. Technology as a substitute for strategy
- Technology is balanced with other critical success factors
- Technology is added iteratively and carefully, and verified before long-term investments are made

MY COMMENT: I think we do ok on this one.

2. Weak focus on business and performance requirements
- Emphasize critical learning needs, even if it means cutting back on variety
- Why catalog everything, when you can focus on the three things your CEO identifies?
- Use e-learning only when warranted, rather than as a miracle cure
- E-learning is linked directly to business requirements
- E-learning efficiencies have been clearly demonstrated
- Your metrics are business metrics

MY COMMENT: I think we’re ok on this one. From what I know, our training decisions come from MAT/E-team and Jim and Linda. They obviously know our business needs and have a good sense of the field. I still think a needs analysis would be a good idea at some point to really assess what kinds of content are most necessary. I wonder if it’s possible to survey Directors and RMs at the ALC this year?

3. Poor collaboration with IT
- Develop a joint e-learning technology strategy
- Recognize and respect the expertise and limitations of the other side: learn each others’ jargon
- Allow time for network testing
- Both sides create liason positions
- Share successes

MY COMMENT: I can’t really speak to this. I know Helen and Joe have done a lot of work to bridge with IT. But I know we don’t do network testing and sometimes have issues come up, such as the new intranet portal, that we can manage and communicate about better with IT.

4. Minimal e-learning expertise
- e-learning expertise is a bit of rock science and is worth investing in
- new skills are very important so professional development is very important
- have a good esen of balance between internal and external skills.

MY COMMENT: Hooray! This is Helen, MaryK and I. This conference and Mary’s upcoming conference and our access to Lynda.com point to our investment in professional development.

5. No attention to the unique attributes of e-learning design
- Need to recognize the differences between quality classroom and e-larning design and delivery
- you assign e-learning development projects to qualified staff
- you employ instructional design techniques in specific ways to get the most out of your e-learning programs

MY COMMENT: I think we do a fair job of creating interactive courses. Certainly CDA does a good job of it. Essentials is a step below. Our courses can be more engaging, but I think we do a good job with considering the tools we have.

6. Weak assessment
- Need to assess e-learning on a wide array of different measures
- Track impact in addition to satisfaction and learning gain
- Document business benefits of e-learning
- Prototype and pilots are used to test e-learing deliverables before rollout
- E-learning project management has evaluation component.

MY COMMENT: I think this is a particular weakness of ours. We don’t know how our courses impact the business, the cost of training, etc. We don’t have any ways for users to provide feedback and we don’t have measurement for change.

The Kirkpatrick level of assessments
Level1: reaction, did you like it?
Level 2: learning: did you learn anything?
Level 3: behavior: did you change your behavior?
Level 4: impact: did it make a difference?

It doesn’t seem that we’re assessing on any of these levels – and that’s a big problem.

7. No focus on workplace learning
- Work more closely with line organizations to build learning directly into work processes.
- You seek to improve work processes and documentation as important in reducing the amount of training required.
- Need to provide performance support. E.g. Starbucks used to get orders wrong. Training – didn’t work. Now they write on the cup – so they can’t make a mistake.
- Align e-learning with actual work. Don’t take them out of work context.

MY COMMENT: The learning bursts get to this. We’re trying to align our e-learning with work in the centers. But I think we can do this better. An interactive P&L, etc. Taking tasks that people in our organization need to do and providing tools to be able to do that.

8. No governance
- Collaborative process between various training organizations in company.

MY COMMENT: This isn’t as much an issue for us because we only have one training department at BFAM. Still, we do get different ideas for what different courses should cover. We can do a better job of communicating our initiatives and getting buy in.

9. Weak sponsorship
- Identify sponsors willing to put some “skin in the game”: invest, participate, promote, share risk, role model

MY COMMENT: I don’t see this side of our work at all, but my impression is that we have great buy-in and support from the e-team. Dave made a big plug for BHU last year at the Leadership Conference. Based on the discussion in the conference session, I realize how unique and wonderful that is.

10. Failure to manage change
- “If we don’t change direction, we’ll end up where we’re headed”
- Balance change management. Change management isn’t the same as marketing and communication.
- Set proper expectations and incentives
- Build support at all levels, including the front-line. Need buy in from managers. Need to launch e-learning to managers in addition to users.
- Implement change management before the change itself.
- Commit to sustain the change long after initial deployment
- Early adopters may not be your most important audience
- Understand resistance and inability to change – they are different
- Recognize that implementation is not behavior change
- Think big, start small, scale fast
- View change management as a long-term effort
- Promote BENEFITS, not features

MY COMMENT: We did a good job to launch BHU to directors at the ALC and to launch to teachers later in April. But we really need to make sure directors push and advocate for BHU. We need to make sure they can answer the question: Why are we doing e-learning more than classroom training? And why is e-learning important.

The speaker emphasized ways to sustain momentum. So that we don’t just launch courses and then let them flounder. We need to do things to keep users’ hearts and mind with us. Publish success stories about how e-learning is affecting change in the BHU catalog, for example. Provide resources, such as the BHU helpdesk, guide to online learning, etc to support them.


TAKE HOME MESSAGE: The presenter suggested that we focus on weakest points and improve them. In my mind, where we really need to think hard about our metrics and aligning our courses with performance measures.

ASTD 07 Introductory Session

There were two speakers to kickoff the conference. The first was the CEO of ASTD, Tony Bingham. The other was Thorton May a “futurist” – an e-learning guy that consults and teaches at a couple of different business schools.

Take away messages from their talks:

With the advent of Web 2.0 (I’m still not completely sure what Web 2.0 is…), the Web is becoming much more of a pull technology than a push. By that I mean that users are now generating content. NOT having content placed on them.

The popularity of Wikipedia, YouTube, Flickr and Myspace point toward the trend of user controlled content. It is user created, user filtered and user sorted.

How does that impact organizations?
- Liberate yourself from content control. Let the community filter and review. (for example, think about how Amazon ranks content based on user comments and rankings).
- make content more compelling. Using game/quiz shows. Personal stories (like NPR’s StoryCorps)
- It’s not as important that content is relevant. It’s more important that it’s RELEVANT.

Have to create a DEMAND for knowledge. “Learning is the information age’s vegetables.”

Interesting misc. fact: 80% of podcasts are listened to on a computer (not an MP3 player)