Learning Management System shopping mistake #1

Hands-down the most common mistake (in my opinion) companies make in shopping for a learning management system (LMS) is not clearly and in writing defining their needs.  Your needs depend on what information you need from the LMS, how you will access and use it, how you currently serve your community of learners, and also how you would like to be serving your learners.  There is much introspection that should take place, and your needs should have been whittled down from your ‘wants list’.  There are so many LMS vendors out there, that not having this done beforehand and you open yourself up to vendors defining the value proposition for you not based on your needs―but on their systems’ capabilities.  As they say, caveat emptor.

- Alex Santos

Alex is a co-founder and Managing Member of Collabor8 Learning, LLC, an instructional design and performance management consultancy. His firm collaborates with organizations to enhance the way they develop  and train their people. To learn more about Collabor8 Learning, click here.

Alex can be reached at 786-512-1069, alex@collabor8learning.com or via Twitter@collabor8alex.

E-learning standards and consistency―Don’t leave home without ‘em

As an instructional designer, it is critical to the success of any e-learning project to nail down some basic design standards prior to your beginning any development work.  A well written and thorough document takes time however, and you will find many clients unwilling to invest in this necessary step.  Whether working solo- and more importantly when designing and developing e-learning in a team environment―I encourage you to fight for the time at the very least to nail down some basics.  Skip this step at your own risk.  Done right, you can literally shave days off the project plan by investing this time up front.  Or, as I tell our clients, “I understand you don’t have the budget to allow us to develop a design document Mr. Client, I believe you will have the time later on to come back and fix all of the inconsistencies in the course that will pop-up.”

There are simply too many variables, interface options, fonts, colors, and other user interface tweaks available in today’s authoring tools to forego this critical step.  You wouldn’t pressure your homebuilder to lay the foundation to your new home before the architect has completed the plans for your home, would you?

Don’t allow yourself to be pressured into skipping this all important step.  To read more about what’s in a solid design document, click here.  

- Alex Santos

Alex is a co-founder and Managing Member of Collabor8 Learning, LLC, an instructional design and performance management consultancy. His firm collaborates with organizations to enhance the way they develop  and train their people. To learn more about Collabor8 Learning, click here.

Alex can be reached at 786-512-1069, alex@collabor8learning.com or via Twitter@collabor8alex.

The online learning sector is burning up!

“We think this industry of online education is in its infancy and there will be lots of approaches. We’re very confident in our approach.”

- Lynda Weinman, Owner of Lynda.com

Very interesting development I just read about this morning, as it appears Lynda.com will be expanding very soon.  Also of note, they've been around for 17 years, profitable for the last 15 of those.  Ammunition for prospective clients who are always asking me, "Do you think there is a market for my training if we put it online?"

6 E-learning blogs you should be reading

There are many e-learning blogs out there, but these are a few of my favorites.  I didn't use any scientific process to arrive at them (i.e. site traffic, analytics, etc.), other than I regularly get very useful and immediately practical tips and tricks from these blogs.  Additionally, they aren't the only industry blogs that I read or have an affinity for.  Simply stated, I gravitate towards these due to their usefulness for me and my work.

1.       ASTD's Learning Technologies Blog- Formerly the Learning Circuits blog, this excellent resource is now housed by ASTD- The world's largest professional association dedicated to the training and development field.

2.       The Rapid E-learning Blog- Practical, real world tips for e-learning success.

3.       Rapid eLearning | Adobe Captivate Blog- Conversations on Captivate, Presenter and eLearning.

4.       Cammy Bean's Learning Visions- Musings on eLearning and instructional design from Kineo's VP of Learning Design.

5.       E-learning Queen- E-Learning Queen focuses on distance training and education, from instructional design to e-learning and mobile solutions, and pays attention to psychological, social, and cultural factors.

6.       eLearning Technology- Tony Karrer's eLearning Blog on e-Learning Trends eLearning 2.0 Personal Learning Informal Learning eLearning Design Authoring Tools Rapid e-Learning Tools Blended e-Learning e-Learning Tools Learning Management Systems (LMS) e-Learning ROI and Metrics.

How about you, what are some of your favorite e-learning blogs?  I'd love to know where you get good tips and tricks for your work.

- Alex Santos
Alex is a co-founder and Managing Member of Collabor8 Learning, LLC, an instructional design and performance management consultancy. His firm collaborates with organizations to enhance the way they develop  and train their people. To learn more about Collabor8 Learning, click here.

Alex can be reached at 786-512-1069, alex@collabor8learning.com or via Twitter@collabor8alex.

Can I have a few target learners to evaluate the instructional design? No.

Many of my instructional design colleagues throughout the years have expressed frustration at the seemingly little to no time to conduct the scantest of needs analysis, yet there is another omission to the traditional ADDIE model many seem to overlook.  I’m talking about a formative evaluation of your materials by a small subset of your target performers.  Here at Collabor8, we push our clients to allow for a very iterative process very similar to Michael Allen’s SAM- but there is a limit to what a client will allow.  It seems to me the minute the finish line for a project is in sight, any formative assessment and tweaking to the instructional strategy that might involve additional time and/ or money are usually rejected off hand.  Have you had similar experiences in some of your projects?    Please comment.