If you were disappointed with rapid e-learning tools in the
past, it's worth taking a second look. We've seen some subtle
enhancements and twist-the-box thinking that have had a dramatic
impact.
Still seeking a definition
The conversation about a definition of rapid e-learning was worn
out almost before it began. Overnight, developer tools that
existing users know take months to master had rebranded
themselves as "rapid e-learning" tools.
Unfortunately, until there is consensus, all commentary addressing
the topic has to weigh in. Therefore, according to Learning
Circuits, the term "rapid e-learning" encompasses tools that
automate the creation of e-learning or convert PowerPoint slide
decks into web-based learning content. These tools are relatively
easy-to-learn, as well as easy-to-use. The average knowledge worker
should be able to master the core features of a rapid e-learning
tool in less than a day, with some basic training.
Ironically, the conversation on defining rapid e-learning most
likely won"t subside soon because rapid e-learning tools are
evolving to meet the market need. The core problem is one of supply
and demand.
The content glut
Nearly a year ago, Tony O'Driscoll, a key learning strategist for
IBM, told an attentive crowd at ASTD Charlotte that the codified
information base of the world is expected to double every 11 hours
by the year 2010. As this crescendo of content reaches critical
mass, so does the demand for better insight into this information.
To more rapidly distribute this new knowledge, workplace learning
professionals (WLPs) need to transition from flat content (such as
text) to dynamic, rich content that conveys meaning through fewer
words and evokes more engaging mental stimulation.
Rapid e-learning tools and technologies are uniquely poised to
address the need for wholesale distribution of knowledge for
millions of communicators because, by their very design, they are
familiar, easy-to-use, and increasingly affordable, at least the
products that survive market forces will be affordable. But the
adoption of rapid e-learning is still in its infancy. By most
estimates, we are just passing the early adopter stage, moving
toward adoption by an early majority. Most estimates, however, are
based on the notion that rapid e-learning"s primary value is in
addressing learning problems, rather than as a communication
alternative for flat content. If the latter premise holds true, the
demand for rapid e-learning technology may far surpass
expectations.
Rapid e-learning pioneer Jennifer DeVries has an apt analogy: "I
see rapid e-learning like the desktop publishing industry of 20
years ago, when desktop publishing was relegated to the one person
with the big computer who knew the specialized software and laid
out all of the documents. Then MS Word came along and it included
many desktop publishing features, giving everyone the ability to
create reasonably attractive material on a PC using this very
simple software. I think rapid e-learning tools are going to
transform the e-learning industry in much the same way, so that
e-learning development will become more accessible to the general
public."
Imagine a future in which anyone in your office has the power to
create dynamic learning content in just a few minutes, post it to
the intranet, and make it available in nearly the same amount of
time that it takes to post a memo.
The future is here
One of the biggest challenges with accepting rapid e-learning as a
content area is that many people, including many of us who
frequently use rapid e-learning tools, don't fully understand the
depth of possibilities within the tools.
According to Silke Fleischer, product manager for Adobe Captivate,
"People just don't know that they can do these things. There's
still a lack of awareness that anybody can create Flash-based
content without knowing Flash. We see it all the time, people
really don't know what Captivate is. Once they see it, they're
blown away."
On the one hand, it's easy to dismiss Silke's comments as marketing
rhetoric. And while she's certainly doing her job by trying to
position Captivate in the best light possible, she's also got a
very valid point.
Using any of the top contenders in the rapid e-learning space,
developers can quickly create more visually appealing content that
learners can interact with, and through which WLPs can track their
selections, collect their answers, and generally gather customer
(or learner, or prospect) intelligence. Developers can do this with
core web technologies, too, if they know what they're doing. Rapid
e-learning not only flattens the content development curve, it also
has the potential to bring the world of business intelligence
closer to mere mortals like you and me. Indeed, the question often
asked is "Can everything be done via rapid e-learning tools?" The
answer: "Not everything, but more than you think."
Rapid e-learning is being used successfully to address a broad
range of training problems from simple knowledge transfer courses
to robust simulations and interactive assessments. The market is
starting to see practitioners leverage the toolsets to go beyond
what was once possible, including
- using Captivate to throw together a podcast in minutes
- using PowerPoint as the dynamic branching engine before porting
content through Articulate Presenter
- replacing traditional tools with rapid e-learning tools to
enhance designer creativity
- using rapid e-learning tools on traditional projects to produce
initial prototypes and get early (and high-level) stakeholder
buy-in.
Smarter tools, smarter users
Most practitioners agree that when Adobe acquired Macromedia,
Captivate was slow, tired, and overworked. Developers knew they had
to save often and keep files small. One developer confessed that
she even had to revert to a non-rapid approach to design because
she couldn't afford the time lost in recovering from crashes. Since
then, however, the Captivate development team has overcome key
performance problems. Although it took some time to release under
the Adobe brand, the latest version of Captivate is more stable,
and it includes some subtle enhancements that developers can
leverage for big gains. Chief among these improvements is branching
technology, which on the surface appears anemic, but when it is
leveraged correctly it can dramatically improve the interaction
experience.
In addition, Articulate (the other major force in the rapid
e-learning niche), recently released Engage, a product that
introduces a new category of visually dynamic content. Engage won a
Brandon Hall Excellence in Learning Award even before it was
released because it creates visually engaging, instructionally
smart interactions in just minutes. Engage is a great example of
the paradigm shift in the rapid e-learning sector, tools geared
toward raising the bar on design, not just addressing the
time-to-learner issue.
The best news isn't really in what the tool vendors are doing, but
rather in how designers and developers are succeeding in leveraging
those tools. Jason Peterson of Accenture, for example, uses an
approach that leverages Microsoft PowerPoint, Articulate Presenter
and Quizmaker, Adobe Captivate, and NextUp's TextAloud to create
online competency modules, as well as demonstrations and
simulations. Increasingly, developers are not settling for a single
rapid e-learning tool, but rather, combining them to produce the
results we need. As Peterson's example illustrates, practitioners
are bundling the tools, templates, media, and usage instructions
together as frameworks so that co-workers and partners can leverage
these solution sets to solve similar problems.
For instance, my company has been using rapid e-learning tools to
create content snippets that could then be blended into more
traditional e-learning frameworks, such as Dreamweaver templates.
DeVries and her colleagues at Blue Streak Learning have been
blending rapid e-learning in the other direction; they're using
Flash content in a Captivate course to add functionality that can't
be created in Captivate. "Captivate is the shell, and we create
Flash objects to insert in it." While DeVries (and many others)
wouldn't consider that a pure rapid e-learning product, more and
more of these types of solutions are under development because
people are looking for faster, cheaper, better ways to solve their
problems and they aren't concerned about the categories or
brandings of the tools.
Of course, developers have always used a mix of tools to produce
results. The paradigm shift is that the people creating these
innovative solutions aren't developers, in many cases, they aren't
instructional designers either.
Who is using rapid e-learning
Jack Makhlouf, vice president of customer learning for Articulate,
says that two camps have been the primary drivers behind the rapid
e-learning market: workplace learning professionals and sales
representatives. "Because training departments don't always have
enough resources and have a backlog of training, they found an
avenue through which they could serve their audience. Rapid
e-learning is easy-to-use and easy-to-develop, and developers could
put it in the hands of subject matter experts outside of learning
and development." For the WLP, the biggest windfall has been
serving the many requests that they couldn't serve in the past.
Makhlouf adds that the sales and marketing groups drove early
adoption of rapid e-learning. Unable to get what they needed out of
the often overworked learning and development team, these groups
were accustomed to coming up with information solutions on their
own. When they saw that they could adopt rapid e-learning tools and
produce product and sales training quickly, they quickly jumped on
the bandwagon.
However, the early promise of rapid e-learning was that it would
put the power to create e-learning into the hands of subject matter
experts. While that promise has certainly been fulfilled in many
cases, the key stakeholder is seldom a pure SME. They are, instead,
what is typically referred to as a "content owner." Content owners
are usually the individuals within the organization who have the
highest incentive to communicate ideas or concepts, such as product
or marketing managers.
As WLPs found they could meet more demand and sales and marketing
groups realized they could create their own learning, many decided
to partner. What has emerged is a model in which the instructional
designer serves as a content expert and the SME leverages that
expertise to produce better learning content.
The model of the SME as e-learning developer seems to be going
strong. Increasingly, though, this model is being usurped by a more
collaborative model that capitalizes on the SME's strengths while
avoiding some of the pitfalls. For example, William Horton
Consulting found that in many cases, the best way to work with SMEs
was to create a workflow, or framework, that could be used in a
team approach to create the overall solution. Putting too much on
the SMEs plate was ineffective because the SMEs didn't have the
appropriate level of competency in learning.
According to Kit Horton, "The first thought was that SMEs would be
able to participate more heavily in the process. We would provide
them with PowerPoint templates to fill in, and we wouldn't have to
do much work on the back end. Well, that didn't work. Subject
matter experts many times don't know how to teach; they just know
their subject. We found that a better solution was to craft a sort
of questionnaire for them to complete. All they had to do was
supply information that they had been asked for; they did not have
to think much about how that would be presented to the learner. We
then funneled all the information in these questionnaires to people
who use templates."
Increasingly, we're seeing partnerships between SMEs and
instructional designers to produce more effective solutions with
rapid e-learning tools. According to DeVries, "The SMEs may produce
the source content, in PowerPoint or Office format"but that base
material gets greatly enhanced when a professional instructional
designer adds interactions and edits the material." DeVries goes on
to underscore client education as one of the critical success
factors. "I think one of the keys to making this work is to help
people understand the value that an instructional design
professional brings to the team just as we understand the value
that a web professional brings to a professional website."