Day Three: Future of the Internet, ILT to E, and Second Life

The third day of The eLearning Guild’s 2008 Annual Gathering just got better!

The Future of the Internet

John Patrick, author of Net Attitude, started us off with his keynote about The Future of the Internet. John believes that we are only seeing about 5% of what the Internet will do. He used these terms to speak about the future:

Fast, Always On, Everywhere, Natural, Easy, Intelligent, and Trusted.

He talked a lot about businesses that are simply accommodating the Internet vs. those that are embracing it to provide their customers with choices. He had some very funny examples of extremely poor customer service that the audience could clearly relate to.

I was totally surprised to find out how poor Internet access is in the US. We rank 14th in the world, apparently. The big companies and lobbyists keep up from having the super fast connections that are already available to folks in other places. It was kind of upsetting.

Patrick also had a lot of amazing visions for what the medical field could and should be doing with the Internet to serve their patients. I just never really thought about it before. Yeah, why can’t I get my detailed medical history online? Why don’t doctors have our information in a database where they can access it easily? People worry about personal data being out on the web, but Patrick pointed out that currently our information is just sitting in an envelop on a shelf somewhere. Many, many people handle these records that contain our sensitive information (and we don’t know who they are). Those files get passed from doctor to doctor, mailed, transported – how is that safe and secure?

These issues of customer service really got me thinking. We need to start demanding more for the services that we pay for. The Internet should be about power to the people or the “Power of the click”, as John Patrick puts it.

Mission Possible: Successful Conversion of ILT to E

Rebecca Anderson, Training and Development Manager at the State of Arizona – AHCCCS, gave an incredibly useful talk, Mission Possible: Successful Conversion of ILT to E. This session is probably the one that most directly addresses the work I need to do right now. She shared her story of taking traditional classroom training programs and getting them online successfully. She laid out her process like this:

1. Tool Selection:

• She created a criteria-based raking sheet and tested three products in detail (after doing a lot of research and watching many, many demos in order to narrow it down).

2. Team Selection Criteria:

• Good computer skills
• Adventurous/willingness to try new things
• Work independently AND collaboratively
• Sense of humor
• Diverse
• Writing skills (critical)
• Training experience helpful, but not critical

What I found really interesting is that she said the two SMEs she hired who were tech and web savvy were a lot easier to get up to speed and performing successfully than the two traditional classroom trainers. She said it was harder for the training professionals to unlearn their ideas about training and teach them the ways of eLearning design than it was to teach the techies.

3. Process:

• Created a user group consisting of someone from policy, legal, and a supervisor, a higher-level manager who can make decisions and find support, SMEs. This group tears apart existing training material and asks of each element, “Why are we teaching this point”?
• Then each designer is assigned a topic and reviews the material, creates a storyboard, and sends it to the team for review. (Notice that this step is not going back to the SME.)
• Only after the storyboard is approved does the development happen.
• The module then goes back to everyone for review/QA

Anderson shared a great free mindmapping tool called FreeMind. I have tried many mindmapping tools, but this one seems to have some improved output options. I might be giving this one a try (when I get back on my Windows PC).

Another great tip Anderson had for constant assessment and improvement of her training courses was her follow-up methods. Right after the training she interviews each student by phone. After 30 days she contacts their supervisors and asks about any changes in performance. She then calls them again after 90 days to see if the changes in performance have remained. She really feels that these one-on-one interviews are the most valuable way to go.

At the end of the presentation Anderson shared with us photos of herself completing a ropes course. As she told the story she compared it to her experience of conversion to eLearning. It was an exemplary training technique in action and her story was very moving. (Yes, I got teary).

After the session I just couldn’t get myself out of there. I kept asking her more questions. What a wonderful and generous person! You could really see her heartfelt commitment to pass on her informed knowledge on to others embarking on this quest.

I’m Busy Enough… What Do I Need a Second Life For?

OK, I can’t really say this particular session directly benefits my work right now exactly, but “Never say never” someone said to me today. Plus, I got so much good stuff out of the previous session I thought maybe I deserved one purely for fun. It was also an opportunity to hear from someone at the New Media Consortium (NMC) – an organization I’m very interested in.

Alan Levine is Vice President, NMC Community and CTO for the New Media Consortium (NMC). His session began with an awesome slide show illustrating many examples of the diverse creativity being built in Second Life. Then he talked a little about NMC and the Horizon Project. Very cool.

Next he appealed to the skeptics in the audience with statements like these:

“How do those people have time to do this?”

“The graphics suck” (Something gamers say)

“There’s nothing to do in there.”

Levine talked about peoples’ fear and the bad experiences that newbies often do have when they enter SL for the first time. He talked about barriers for entry: long learning curves, system requirements, and a slow startup time. (It can take awhile to learn how to walk, fly, and become functional – it takes “Evolution time”).

He showed us this SL satire site.

But, check this out. Gartner Says 80 Percent of Active Internet Users Will Have A “Second Life” in the Virtual World by the End of 2011.

He launched into some explanations of SL’s thriving economy and then we finally got to watch his demo. He took us to the NMC island and we checked out a classroom. Just as Anders had done, he demonstrated the new voice capabilities in this virtual world. I think this is really the technical enhancement that can help learning professionals see the potential of this kind of environment. It could be good for role-playing, simulations, and social networking (of the professional kind).

I furiously tried to record the locations he was visiting so that I could teleport there tonight. I am definitely going to check out the David Rumsey Maps in SecondLife!