aLearning Featured in “Managing eLearning” Podcast!

Curious about where associations are with elearning these days? Looking for a quick summary of the aLearning: A Trail Guide to Association eLearning book so you can decide how it can help your association or your client associations?

With many thanks to Jon Aleckson for bringing out the best of our conversation, I’m happy to provide this link to a podcast that covers these very topics and much more:

http://www.webcourseworks.com/blog/association-elearning-book-helpful-vendor-client-relationship

If you’re looking for ways to make sure your content and delivery modes are aligned, your membership is ready for elearning, the options you’re considering are affordable and do-able (does your staff have the skill sets?), and that you have all the information you need to make the best decisions for your association — this book will recover its cost many times over for you.

Just $25 for the download or  $35 (plus shipping) for the print version, you’ll have a manual that will take you step-by-step through each decision and action. If you follow the process outlined in the trail guide, you’ll have completed your elearning strategy, budget, and implementation plans by the time you reach the last page.

For a review, see a sumary of Bill Brandon’s review for the e-Learning Guild’s Learning Solutions e-Magazine.

What Makes Online Learning Effective?

Isn’t this the million-dollar question? No? A couple hundred thousand, maybe? (Okay.  Maybe the answer is only worth a few hundred dollars.)

Whatever the value, a variation of this question has generated a terrific discussion in the ASTD LinkedIn group. The original post from Donna Gilliland, President of MOSTraining, Inc. read:

“Online Live Training: what challenges do you face? Have you started delivering training live online training yet? If so, which of the following tools to you use?”

She listed:

• GoToWebinar
• WebEx
• Telspan
• Others? 

Then she asked, “What do you find to be your greatest challenge in training live online?”

Several people chimed in, all of whom seemed to be focused on two key areas:

• Presenters’ skills
• Tools/technology

What’s missing here?!?

CONTENT!!!

Yes, I’ll keep preaching this. Yes, my face is blue from repeating it over and over. And no, I’m not tired of repeating myself quite yet.

Why is content so important?

Because if your content doesn’t match the delivery mode, it doesn’t matter how interesting, entertaining, adept, practiced, experienced or knowledgable your instructor/facilitator/trainer is, the online event will fail. Completely.

If your content doesn’t match the delivery mode, it doesn’t matter how many polls, chat and breakout rooms you use, how pretty your slides are, or whether you use phone or VOIP, the online event will fail. Utterly.

So I’ll say it again: your content needs to be presented in a way that enables your learners to learn. Sounds obvious, but failing to do this is the primary reason most online events fail.

Webinars are a great example. They’re easy to conduct and attend, relatively inexpensive, and everyone seems to be offering them. Even when they should be doing something else (see When A Webinar Is a Bad Idea).

Only after you’re sure you have decided on the best delivery mode for the content you’re training should you be thinking about how you’ll handle the technical side of things, and choose the instructor.

Period. End of discussion.

Now, if you’ll excuse me, I need to get some pink back into my face

Help with eLearning at Bargain Prices

When you’re considering venturing into elearning for the first time or expanding your offerings, you’re always looking at an investment. And as a responsible steward of your association’s budget, you want to make sure your investments are sound and your justifications for those expenditures are solid.

If they’re not, the board of directors will never approve them, right? And even if they did, you’d toss and turn at night, wondering what you’ve gotten yourself into.

Two new resources are now available to help you!

Tagoras has just released a condensed version of its Association E-learning: State of the Sector report. In 61 pages you’ll get the key data from a survey of nearly 500 trade and professional associations about their e-learning activities. Available at just $99, this sort of research at this price is unheard of — and aLearning commends Tagoras for their willingness to make their study available at a more affordable cost without loss of value.

What does the report mean to you? Benchmarking. Examples. Contacts. Case studies.

More than that, you’ll discover what your options are. You probably have more elearning possibilities than you think. Options are everything. Examples and a proven track record to support them are priceless.

Follow this link to order your copy: http://www.tagoras.com/catalog/association-elearning-condensed/

And for guidance on what to do with those options — how to fit elearning effectively into a full education curriculum and create an elearning strategy, you of course need to get a copy of (warning: shameless plug ahead) aLearning: A Trail Guide to Association eLearning. At just $25 for a downloadable copy or $35 (plus shipping) for a printed version, you won’t find another resource as packed with examples and how-to information on this topic anywhere.

To learn more about the book or to order your copy of aLearning, just click the blue and orange “Buy Now – Lulu” button on the left.

Together the two resources will cost you less than $140 — a small price to pay when you’re considering spending thousands in software, hardware, consulting, and other services and products.

Go into the process of building your elearning program as informed as you can be. Build credibility for yourself and support for your initiative. Don’t wait.

Example of a PowerPoint…

… that would make a deadly Webinar: http://www.slideshare.net/RowanManahan/power-point-20th-anniversary-cinderella?src=embed

Okay, maybe it would be funny for the first few minutes…. but can you imagine sitting through an hour or so of this as a Webinar presentation?!?!?

Thankfully, as far as I know, that wasn’t the intent of this slideshow.

But keep it in mind when you’re creating the PowerPoints for your next Webinar. Or show it to your member volunteers if they’re the ones creating it.

Sometimes an example of what NOT to do is even more effective than a good example.

Larry Sloan’s post on Acronym, “Difficulties in Managing Web-based Seminars”  tackles the challenges of Webinars from a little different angle, but when it comes to this elearning modality, best practices are just that.

And bad practices can haunt you for a long, long time.

Busy Strategizing

Though all has looked quiet on the surface, it’s been very, very busy behind the scenes at the aLearning Blog. Here’s what’s been going on: aLearning: A Trail Guide for an Association’s eLearning Strategy.

Yes. A book. A book about three seemingly disparate things: Associations. Strategy. eLearning.

It’s the book I wish I’d had when our association headed into online learnig — and me, with experience developing elearning! So I can imagine how lost many association execs and learning professionals feel when they need to sort it all out.

No wonder so many associations lack a workable elearning strategy, as Jeff Cobb discovered in his newly-released report. His blog summarizes the issues very well. I agree with his advice:  ”…start viewing e-learning as s strategic part of your mission and your business and begin treating it like the substantial, long-term asset it could become.”

 aLearning: A Trail Guide for an Association’s eLearning Strategy will be available in 3-4 weeks. From lingo you need to know, to deciding whether an LMS is necessary for you or not, to conducting needs assessments and scans, including deciding what you need to offer and the best modalities for each topic (yes, Learning 2.o is discussed), all the way through to estimating costs, issuing an RFP and selecting a vendor — this book includes activities, charts, examples, and a case study to help you work through each step in the process as you go.

You’ll end up with  more than a workable (and flexible) strategy — you’ll have covered some essential steps necessary for creating your business plan as well.

If you’d like more info on the book, please e-mail me directly. Watch for more here soon!