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Possibly I’m fooling myself that there ever was quality tech support, at least that you didn’t pay a massive fee to use. It seems that any support person I talk to on the phone or online has one of these issues:

1. They blame me for not understanding why their product doesn’t work.
2. They don’t understand the nature of my problem because they aren’t actually familiar with the software.
3. The tech support line has a phone queue so long that by the time the person in question can talk to you, you actually went out and bought a new computer.

Fortunately you can find a lot of information in posts online, forums, blogs and other similar repositories of information. But a lot of times it seems my results are like this…

http://xkcd.com/979/

Phasient has always offered this service and the people answering the phones work with elearning and can actually answer questions.  Sometimes they can even answer questions about the specific course because they have helped write or produce it. We certainly encounter questions that stump us, but we pride ourselves on working our best to find a feasible solution in a reasonable time.  That’s something that people should be able to count on.

- Sonya Nichols, Project Manager
email sonya@phasient.com

Explaining technical subjects or those with a lot of jargon and acronyms is never easy, especially if you are on “the outside” or new to the concept.

Sometimes a dictionary and thesaurus is the answer. Sometimes it’s a visual and needs graphics.  Either way you are looking for the “I GET it! Ok, now I UNDERSTAND!” moment of learning.

Recently I came across an interesting idea on how to share the moment of understanding.

Dance

For example: If you are looking for something technical to explain to people outside your field, Ph.D. research will usually cause heads to nod that yes they do understand when really they were lost after about three sentences. John Bohannon created a contest called “Dance Your Ph.D.”.  The concept is pretty simple: take complex scientific research, break it down and perform it as an interpretive dance. This international contest is sponsored by the journal Science. You can watch his talk at TEDxBrussels from November 2011 or check out the videos from the contest.

Now I know what you are thinking. Dance? How is a bunch of twirling around going to help my learners understand anything?! Since I kind of doubt many bosses are going to go for running out to hire a choreographer, videographer and studio time, here are some things the rest of us can take away from the idea:

-Break complex concepts and ideas down and create a visual representation of each piece.

- Think beyond the typical images, pie charts and PowerPoint when creating visuals. Keep in mind that the visual that gets your learner to the “Ah ha!” moment is your goal—which is not necessarily the prettiest or flashiest.

What are some other ways to think outside the box?

Katie Lund, Project Developer
email katie@phasient.com

Today’s blog is one in an occasional series that focuses on essential skills for employees in today’s workplace. Phasient partnered with ATW Training and Consulting to develop interactive, online courses on leadership, communication and teamwork. These blog posts pull out some of the key ideas from those courses.

As a leader, it is critical for you to set and follow through with goals for yourself, your team and your organization. You can use the acronym SMART to develop goals that strengthen your potential for achieving results.

SMART goals are :

1. Specific
   Specific, clear, and concise goals describe the who, what, where, when, and how of a goal.
2. Measurable
   Putting a measure on a goal allows you to see how much must be done in order to be acceptable and determines your progress. Measurable goals should be quantifiable with a number or percentage.
3. Aligned
   Aligned goals support the organization’s mission statement and goals so all members of the team are working toward the same goal. Aligned goals ensure that individual successes add up to organizational success.
4. Realistic
   Realistic goals are achievable for the individuals to whom they are assigned. Are they willing and able to complete the goal?
5. Time-bound
   Goals must have time frames with designated end dates to keep you motivated. Adding a time component reduces wasted time and completes the SMART goal.

This content is based on the CLaaS Employee Development Library course Goal Setting for Leaders. Interested in learning more? Visit our website for more information on purchasing the CLaaS Library Leadership Series.

Q.  Tell me about ATW and the training you provide.

A. ATW is committed to “unleashing human potential” through a variety of learning and development approaches.  While our main thrust remains instructor-lead training for staff and leaders, we also offer a variety of on-line and off-the-shelf training products. ATW trainers and facilitators are a group of results-oriented individuals who excel at finding out what conditions need to improve in order for individuals and organizations to succeed.  Providing the solutions to making those improvements has been our greatest achievement.
Q. What is your approach to training?

A. Our approach to training is to partner with our clients, so that all possibilities can be explored.  We place the client at the center of the process, and customize our solutions to their particular needs.  That’s the only way to deliver training solutions that yield results.

Q. How do you use blending learning to present the Employee Development course library developed with Phasient?

A. The Employee Development library has taken our training to a new level.  Blending the course offerings with our instructor-led programs has added a new dimension of learning for our clients.  By adding in the library as an additional resource, learners have information that can be accessed at a time, in a place, and at a pace that fits each learner’s needs.  This adds a whole new dimension to the process where the client can use the programs before the training in a pre-training information activity or can be used after the session to reinforce key content.

Q. How do your clients and learners respond to the courses?

A. The response has been very positive.  The interactive, self-paced programs provide an excellent resource with a level of content and application that is not seen in most programs.   Learners have reported being totally engaged, and find each course challenging and rewarding all at the same time.  That’s a pretty good combination.

It’s easy to know that learners understand the content when they answer the question right the first time (assuming that you’ve provided plausible detractors), or when they only get one chance. But what about when the learner misses on the first attempt and gets to try again?

For true/false questions (or any question with only two possible answers), it’s not that tough to get it “right” the second time. If learners know that they just have to sit through a little feedback for the chance to click again, are they really listening to (and learning from) that feedback? Or is the theme from Jeopardy playing in their minds and drowning out the voice of the narrator? Even if a question has 3 or 4 answers, it doesn’t take long to click through to find the correct one.

How do you handle this in your eLearning courses? Do you count the number of attempts? Do you limit how many attempts a learner gets? How do you identify and follow-up with learners who need more help? What if a learner’s understanding of a topic has legal consequences, such as in many compliance courses?

- Sue Cloud, Courseware Services Manager
email sue@phasient.com

-Get your learner involved! To keep their attention, have them interact with the content. It will be harder for them to stay attentive if they are only being narrated to for the entire duration of the course. Try adding activities as well as interactive assessments.

-Allow the learner to go at their own pace. We all read and comprehend things at a different rate, so giving the learner the time they need to study the material is important to their overall comprehension. Try letting the learner click on the screen when they are ready to proceed to a new concept or section. It’s also a good idea to let the learner revisit any previous sections as they see fit, in order to review and further engrain the material.

-Assuming you “get the learner involved” as we mentioned, you’ll want to give them quality feedback for activities and assessments that you toss their way. They need to know how well they performed in order to comprehend how much of the subject they are grasping and what they need to brush up on.

For more eLearning tips and tricks, take a look back through our archive of over 100  articles here on the Phasient blog!

Using new authoring software has caused me to rethink this. I have new tools in my arsenal with many options on how to get from points A to B and A to C and A to D to C to Z (you get the idea). At the heart of the issue is something fairly important: the objective for the learner.  Is the objective to complete a test or perform a task? If it’s for compliance it really might be that the poor learner just simply has to suffer through every last word on every page. If it ISN’T for compliance or something with very specific requirements like continuing education, then why not give the learner options to let them skip what they know?

In the end, it’s really important that you don’t make the navigation so complex that learners can’t find their way. Similarly, they shouldn’t be able to easily skip information or tasks that are key to your objective. Since I’ve already praised Angry Birds in a previous post, I might as well be a full commercial for the Apple iPhone and say how appreciative I am of their simple, clear navigation. Buttons are always in the same place and tend to perform the exact same function in every screen. Before I go off the deep end with navigation much like the Family Circus dotted lines (again with the 80’s …I know), I’ll try to keep my iPhone navigation in mind.

- Sonya Nichols, Project Manager
email sonya@phasient.com