Learning Conversations

"Content is King!"

So goes the mantra of elearning development companies the world over. But what sort of content and what sort of king?

For most (corporate) consumers of elearning, content means self-study modules, that sit in some sort of delivery system.

In academic and formal education settings e-learning has a completely different connotation – involving collaboration, assessment, eportfolios etc – which is beginning to filter into the corporate space, but very slowly.

This linear type of learning material has its origins in military training – where a behaviourist approach to learning is the most appropriate. This sort of approach often includes elements of watch, try and test. The user is expected to learn that a particular stimulus or event requires certain responses which have pre-defined by the organisation. Successful completion through the learning materials is seen as a measure of competence.

That's the basis of the whole SCORM approach to learning content - linear learning objects with simple assessed tasks. Nice and simple - but even the creators of SCORM say it's not for everyone.

I am not arguing for a wholesale ditching of this type of learning material. It has its place. But I am arguing for a rethink of what we mean by learning content, and in particular how we deliver and market it.

Why do we use online content?

We put materials online for many reasons:

1. It allows us to have one, central copy of the materials, which we know is always up-to-date, and allows us to devolve distribution costs such as printing to the end-user;
2. It allows us to make use of multi-media elements that are not available in printed format, such as animations, simulations, video and audio;
3. It allows us to offer hypertext navigation within the materials – and thus multiple navigation routes;
4. It allows users to perform searches of the materials, in order to find the ones they want, and also to search within the materials themselves to find the bit they need;
5. It allows users to use the materials in ways appropriate to their needs – eg. Using their browser functions to change text size, bookmark particular sections, highlight key parts and take notes for future reference – or extracting the content to be used offline – perhaps as printed materials, or in a PDA, or a video iPod;
6. It allows users to connect with other people who are using the materials – perhaps creating reviews, adding ratings or making recommendations;
7. It allows materials to be targeted to particular users based on prior history, on stated preferences or on management requirements;
8. It allows users to interact with the materials, by taking the parts that are appropriate to them and reworking them into their personal knowledge-base, or by communicating and collaborating with distant colleagues or subject matter experts to implement the ideas.

Some of these reasons are about pure “content” design, others are about the delivery systems that we put into place through which users will get to the content.

Redefining the monarchy

Let's take a look at the above set of reasons and use them as a basis of analysing a typical content module.

1. Reducing distribution costs is one of the main reasons organisations choose to put materials online, yet often with little thought about how people are going to find or be told about the new materials, or of updates to those materials. Every online learning initiative should be surrounded by a communications and marketing strategy which ensures the right people see the materials at the right time. Otherwise it is just like putting a book into a library without adding its details to the index or informing the librarian.
2. Often online materials are simply text and graphics with any animations simply to add some visual interest. It's rare to find content that makes full use of the multi-media capabilities afforded by the online environment. This is mainly (and rightly) because, to create them with high-production values, would be beyond what most organisations would be prepared to pay. Yet, in the world of rapid/disposable elearning, it is not necessarily that expensive - as long as you accept the limititations of the rapid/disposable approach.
3. Most elearning modules offer very limited navigation options. Many of them are simple linear learning modules, which are fine for a particular purpose, but not useful at all for people wanting to find specific sections, pages or terms.
   
   It's like taking a book, removing the contents page and the index, and only giving it to people one page at a time, in the order we set, at the place we dictate (at a computer screen).
   
   At least with a book, I can work through sequentially, dip in randomly, find sections or pages of interest, and even read it in the bath. Taking the analogy further, when we give people a click-to-reveal “interaction” that's like going back to the lift-the-flap books we had when we were learning how to read...
4. It's very rare to see search capabilities implemented within learning packages (although Articulate Presenter does this well). And it's rare to find a content delivery system that enables learners to search for packages (even if metadata has been provided as part of the SCORM manifest).
   
   Unless learners are directed (somehow) to specific materials they are unlikely to find them. This is exacerbated by the fact that most organisations' content delivery systems are hidden away from the search tools such as Google that many learners will be using on a daily basis.
5. Much of the output of learning design takes away from the user the control they may expect when using online resources. For example disabling right-click, using fixed-size windows, removing the browser tool bar etc. Now there will be times when some or all of those techniques may be appropriate. But I would argue this should be the exception rather than the norm.
   
   Printing is another issue. I can't tell you how many times I've sat with a learner working through a learning module who's asked if they can print it to read & scribble on offline. It's hard to tell them that they'll have to print each page individually. That's another learner who's had the control they expect taken away from them.
6. Allowing users to connect with other people who are using the materials – perhaps creating reviews, adding ratings or making recommendations – is more a function of the delivery system rather than the content (unless the content is totally embedded into the delivery system pages). We do need an alternative model for learning management systems (as proposed by Tony Karrer a while back) I've long argued for a model based on that of the successful ecommerce providers such as Amazon, where the learning content is the product. The reviews and ratings would provide critical metadata for the learners.
7. Allowing materials to be targeted to particular users based on prior history, on stated preferences or on management requirements is exactly the Amazon model. It would provide a combined performance support and knowledge provision system. If combined with user generated content and a means of finding other people in the organisation with similar interests you then have an extremely powerful and effective learning marketing system – where learning can become an integral part of the organisational culture, rather than just an add-on.
8. Many learning materials are designed so that they cannot be disaggregated into their component parts. Yet the prevailing culture, as shown in iTunes, Youtube etc is changing the way people think about content. They expect to be able to take the bits that are relevant to them and remix it into their own content collections. In learning content terms, this could mean enabling individual media elements to be embedded in an individual's blog or home page. Which would potentially mean disaggregating large content modules. Or providing categorised RSS feeds which enable individuals to automatically pull down new content items that fit their search or filtering criteria.

Keep the learner at the centre

Now, I know that some of these ideas may be mutually exclusive. Keeping the learner at the centre of our thinking when designing content and configuring delivery systems will help us to decide which approach is best for that particular situation.