Correctly Attributing Creative Commons Photos in your E-learning Projects

One consideration when working on any e-learning project that both instructional designers and the subject matter expert (or client) have to decide early on is what look & feel to give a project.  By look and feel, were not just talking about the user interface for the course.  The imagery you use should follow similar design influences to avoid giving the project an amateurish or incoherent look.  For example, when building an e-learning solution for a bank, they made clear to our team that clip art or “anything that looked cartoon-ish” was unacceptable in their culture and should be avoided in the project.  They felt it would diminish the serious of the compliance topic we were going to teach. 

Couple this design consideration with a very little to nonexistent budget for the purchase of stock photography or a dedicated graphic designer and your new project can quickly turn into a nightmare.  One thing you can do to alleviate this constraint is to use imagery distributed under a creative commons license.  In order to do this however, it is important for you to properly follow any attribution guidelines requested by the provider of the image.  This infographic can give you some pretty good best practices to follow when using this type of image. 

Where can you find these images you ask?  Two of my favorite sources are Wikimediacommons.org and creativecommons.org.

- 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.

Enable Social Learning just like Zappos

If I had a dollar every time someone asks me to give them an example of social learning, I’d be a… (insert your favorite pile of money phrase here) -ionnaire.  You know the old saying.  The term itself has become very muddled from its roots back in the days of Vygotsky and Bandura, with visions of today’s web 2.0 and social networking technologies.  Let’s get something straight here, once and for all-

Put your instructional design or performance management toolbox away here.  You’re not going to be designing any social learning today.  Social learning happens mostly serendipitously, and not be design.  Look for employees learning from one another, from a customer, or from some resource outside of your organization.  Yes, that’s right, from OUTSIDE of your organization.  Believe it or not, your networked employees are learning all the time from within and from outside of your organization.  Take it from one of this decade’s most innovative and forward thinking CEO’s,  Tony Hsieh from Zappos―

“Hsieh’s biggest bet is that Zappos has more to learn from smart people outside the company than inside it.”

That’s right, one of Tony’s biggest bets going forward is squarely on what we endearingly call― Social Learning.

- 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.

MOOC Lessons for Designers from the Coursera fiasco

Dr. Fatimah Wirth did not have a good week, and many instructional designers rushing into developing a MOOC should take heed.  This relatively new learning platform has the potential to revolutionize and disrupt education as we know it, but it is not without its pitfalls.  A week into the launch of a new course entitled “Fundamentals in Online Education” (ironically), glitches in the course forced her to send out the following message to her more than 40,000 registered students―

"We want all students to have the highest quality learning experience. For this reason, we are temporarily suspending the 'Fundamentals of Online Education: Planning and Application' course in order to make improvements. We apologize for any inconvenience that this may cause. We will inform you when the course will be reoffered." Read more here.

1.        Instructions have to be crystal clear,

2.       Don’t underestimate technology selection when designing a MOOC,

3.       Select the right technology for the level of collaboration in your class, and test, test, test, and

4.       Once your course development is done, have others field test it and play devil’s advocate with your activities. 

This last lesson is critical, as we designers sometimes fail to predict how learners will interact with a particular technology.  In this case, Dr. Wirth surely thought it a workable exercise to have students place themselves into groups by putting their names on a Google spreadsheet―would you have foreseen students going into said spreadsheet and deleting columns and rows with other students’ names in them?  There are some more concrete examples of what went wrong with this course over at online learning insights, and let’s hope this course is re-launched soon without these glitches.  MOOCs are hot, and they’re here to stay―but designing them will require some new thinking on your part.  I also suggest learning and studying the experiences of trailblazers in this arena such as Dr. Wirth.

- 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 saves the day

This piece by our former governor of Florida Jeb Bush does a great job of illustrating several advantages of moving education online.  The learner in the piece, Kaleigh, was not just motivated but determined to continue her education under very difficult circumstances.  Due to a medical condition, it was simply impossible for her to complete a traditional “one-size-fits-all” classroom education.  Fortunately for her, online education was able to meet her needs where a more traditional approach was simply not feasible. 

This is a case where e-learning clearly saved the day, and not just states but companies can learn much from these cases.  In this case, e-learning:

1.       Met the learner at the point-of-need,

2.       Gave the learner the flexibility to learn on her own time, at her own pace, and presumably on her own device,

3.       Provided an alternative to a traditional education where a more traditional education was impossible, and

4.       Likely saved the state money in the process.

More importantly for me however, is that e-learning enabled Kaleigh to continue to grow and develop.  Jeb makes a wonderful observation at the end of the piece that is not to be missed-

“While digital learning may not be the best way to learn for all students, it is the best way to learn for some students.”

While I could write an entire post about the qualities that make Kaleigh an ideal virtual learner, I’ll leave you with this―many of your employees face challenges to their continued development.  These challenges include everything from a hectic schedule to a poor manager who does not coach properly or allow for sufficient training time.  E-learning can be blended into your existing training strategy to help eliminate several of these challenges.  

- 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.

Social learning can energize your Employee Wellness Plan

Many trainers and instructional designers operate under the umbrella of a human resources team, and as such should always be looking to support HR initiatives.  One initiative that is growing in popularity as companies look for ways to reduce the costs of health insurance for their workforce are employee wellness plans.  How can you contribute to an employee wellness plan in a meaningful, measurable way?

One idea by John Andrews and Ted Rubin I recently came across can really have a huge impact not only on your company’s bottom-line, but in your employees’ (i.e. customers) waistlines.  Here’s the thought, Nike has gamified fitness with its Nike+ Fuel Band, Nike+ Connect and accompanying iPhone app (Android app coming soon)- why don’t you set up a little friendly competition in your workplace with badges or prizes for your customers reaching fitness milestones?  The milestones could be as simple as number of pounds lost, inches off the waistline, or simply consecutive days meeting a fitness goal.  You could even have teams within your company competing for prizes.  Also, don’t limit yourself to Nike’s product line if your company is more of an Android shop.   There are competing products already on the market such as fitbit, JAWBONE’s Up product, LarkLife, Amiigo, and other activity tracking wearables are entering this space as well. 

Yes, this initiative will require an initial investment in your employees but it pales in comparison to the social learning that will take place once your employees’ are more aware of the impact of their daily habits.  Measured properly, you may even be able to track cost savings in conjunction with your group benefits coordinator on the HR team.  This is a really powerful social learning strategy which can pay big dividends to your company and you should seriously consider bring it up at your next human resources meeting. 

- 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.