E-learning ain't what it used to be

The interactive self-study lesson that we commonly refer to as an e-learning module has a very long history, going back to the late 1970s and the very first micro-computers. For close to forty years we have witnessed little change in the way these modules are designed, developed and displayed, even though the delivery channel has shifted from floppy disk to videodisc, from CD-ROM to the web browser. That is until now.

Let�s just remind ourselves of the traditional approach. E-learning modules have typically been designed according to a slide-show metaphor, with a fixed size window displaying a succession of frames containing multimedia elements and interactions. The learner makes progress through these frames in simple sequence or as a result of conditional branching depending on their responses to questions. The modules are developed using an �authoring tool� that sits on the developer�s computer and then delivered in finished form from some portable medium, such as a disk, or from an online platform such as a learning management system.

So how did the slide show metaphor originate? I suppose for anyone working in learning media prior to computers, then fixed size windows were the norm, whether we were talking pages in a book, overhead and 35mm transparencies, or video frames. E-learning was simply more of the same, with the extra sparkle of interactivity to provide the potential for non-linear progress through the frames. Similarly, the use of desktop tools to develop e-learning would have been an extension of traditional practice as would the convention of delivering a finished product to an LMS. Business as usual.

Which sort of made sense before the World Wide Web. Web pages, as we all know, do not have fixed widths or heights. They are as wide as the user�s browser window (which typically depends on the device being used) and as long as is necessary � the user simply keeps scrolling down until the bottom of the page. This highly flexible approach has worked so brilliantly that now more than three billion people around the world navigate information in this way with ease. Finally, 25 years after Sir Tim Berners Lee launched the World Wide Web, the e-learning community has woken up to this reality. People want to access learning materials in the same flexible ways in which they access all other online information.

They would also like their learning materials to display a little intelligence, just like Amazon, Google, Facebook and all their other favourite sites � and by this they mean that they want to be recognised as an individual. Just about every page of every major web site is composed on the fly in response to user interaction, not prepared in advance in a one-size-fits-all fashion. That�s how you get recommendations, notifications, help and advice, gamification, discussions and all those other useful things. So why are e-learning modules zipped up into a package and uploaded to an LMS in the same way we might have sent a book off to be printed hundreds of years ago. All this makes no sense in an online world.

Which brings us to the way that the modules are created in the first place. No web site is developed offline using a desktop application any more. Yes, that�s right, none. And that�s because web sites need to be updated at a moment�s notice; they are also the work of teams of people who need to work together collaboratively from remote locations. You can only do that online. The e-learning world has to think similarly. Looking forward, the only sensible way to develop e-learning modules is online, not with desktop tools like Storyline, Captivate and Lectora but with new tools, some from the same vendors and some from unexpected new sources.

Yes, e-learning is finally catching up with the World Wide Web. The self-study materials of the future will be responsive to the capabilities of different devices, more often than not they will scroll rather than flip from frame to frame, they will be created online and delivered dynamically to ensure an individualised experience. All of this is already happening, of course, but 2018 might finally see us kiss goodbye to the slide-show metaphor once and for all.

Adding the human touch to digital learning content

Learning is a very human experience. To learn successfully, it requires us as human beings to exchange information, give and receive feedback, share perspectives, engage together in practical activities, support each other through the bad times and get together to celebrate our successes. People need people.

According to Dr John Medina, 'Our ability to learn has deep roots in relationships. Our learning performance may be deeply affected by the emotional environment in which the learning takes place.� The foundation for a good relationship is a teacher or trainer � or writer of learning content � who is credible with learners. This person needs to be friendly and show respect for learners while at the same time setting high standards and exhibiting confidence in the ability of learners to achieve great things. In short: 'Relationships matter when attempting to teach human beings.�

In an ideal world, we would probably provide personalised support for every learner, but this gets more and more unrealistic as online learning groups get larger. We need to find ways to retain that essential human quality to the learning experience even when we have a great many learners.

One way we can all do that is through the content that we provide to learners � the videos, the podcasts, the self-study materials and the job aids. It is easy to see these as impersonal �corporate� resources but they don�t have to be like that. Content is just another way of connecting �teachers� with �learners�.

The best content provides no barrier to this connection. Just like when you read a great book � you�re not interacting with paper, you�re participating in a storytelling experience. That�s why videos are so popular in online courses � they provide that all too important �teacher presence�. But interactive content and reference materials can achieve similar results.

Professor Richard Mayer�s 'personalisation principle� holds that you will achieve better results with multimedia learning content when you adopt a friendly, conversational tone, a phenomenon which he attributes to the fact that this more closely resembles a person-to-person interaction. Text that uses a formal, impersonal, third-person style tends to make the author seem invisible, whereas the use of first-person narrative makes each student feel as through the teacher is communicating directly with them.

Learning designer Cathy Moore has long railed against what she calls �corporate drone�, a formalised style used often in workplace learning materials, which comes over as impersonal, lacking in authenticity and un-engaging. Like Richard Mayer, she argues that when you write learning content in a conversational style, there is a greater chance that the learner will react to the content as they would to a real teacher; in effect, the teacher communicates to them personally through the medium of the computer, much as they would face-to-face or through the pages of a book.

Professors Clifford Nass and Byron Reeves argue that our interactions with computers are fundamentally social and natural, just like interactions in real life. We respond emotionally to the human characteristics exhibited by on-screen text and voiceover. Even though we know very well at an intellectual level that we are only interacting with software and not directly with a real person, emotionally it matters to us whether the software communicates with us in a polite and friendly manner. Similarly, Mayer found that people learn better from a human voiceover, rather than one synthesised by a computer, further emphasising our desire for a more human relationship with our virtual teacher.

With the increasing focus on artificial intelligence (AI), we might be led to believe that the human touch is becoming less of a necessity but the only difference with AI is that we don�t have as great a need for real, human teachers to give their time to individual students. The tone adopted by an AI environment still needs to be friendly and encouraging and, of course, every phrase employed by an AI interface has been input at some point by a real person. He or she would be well advised to remember that learners want to be treated with humanity.

The changing skill set of the learning professional

Skills define us. They are what make us useful and productive. They are the foundation of our achievements. On our death bed, it is our skills that we will reflect on with pride.

These could be physical skills � our ability to knit jumpers, drive vehicles, perform gymnastics, play the violin, cook tasty food, swim or make beautiful furniture. They could be social � our ability to make good conversation, present to an audience, flirt with the opposite sex, negotiate deals or handle customer complaints. Or they could be cognitive � our ability to write poetry, perform mental arithmetic, fix faulty equipment, solve crossword puzzles or program computers. Yes, skills are what make us what we are.

�What we are� is constantly changing as we continue to develop our existing skills and take on new challenges to respond to a changing world around us. Learning professionals are no different. Perhaps more than ever before, we need new skills to respond to the developing expectations of both employees and our key stakeholders, and to take advantage of the fantastic opportunities afforded by technology.

What's changing?

It comes as a surprise to no-one that learning professionals are operating in a very different world to those of a generation ago. I�d like to highlight four changes in particular that impact heavily on the skill set of the learning professional.

Change 1: From events to processes: It is, of course, still commonplace for learning solutions to be delivered in a single hit, whether in the classroom or as a piece of interactive content. However, there is a much greater realisation of the inadequacies of this approach, as new learning achieved in this form is rarely properly consolidated and is liable to rapid decline.

Blended solutions, with ingredients that are distributed over time and properly embedded in work performance, are much more likely to achieve success. Rather than delivering events, learning professionals will increasingly be establishing processes that blur the distinction between formal and informal learning.

Change 2: From face-to-face to remote: There is no doubt that a face-to-face learning experience has the potential to be more engaging and more memorable than something similar experienced online. Not convinced? Just think back to those big sporting, musical or theatrical events when you were they on the day � we bet they stick in the memory.

But on a day-to-day basis we don�t always have the luxury of being there in the flesh. Learning is an everyday experience that we can routinely participate in remotely, typically online and, more often than not, through mobile devices.

Digital learning, in all its forms, requires new skills of the learning professional. And let�s remember there can be no such thing as a technophobic professional, in any field you can imagine.

Change 3: From dependency to empowerment: Historically, learning professionals everywhere have wished for a time when learners could take a greater responsibility for their own development. Over the last few years, as people almost everywhere have gained near-instant, every day, any place access to mountains of information, they have got used to the idea that learning is something you just do as it pleases you, without reference to their employers or to �teachers�.

This is what we always wanted. Now it has happened we�re maybe not so sure how to cope with the change. Empowered learners enjoy being in control; they expect quick solutions to their problems; they don�t take any one person�s opinion as gospel; and they realise that everyone, including them, is now a teacher as well as a learner. The days of the �sage on the stage� seem numbered.

Change 4: From same time to own time: All through history, humans have been busily devising ever more ingenious ways to communicate both at the same time (face-to-face, on the telephone, through TV and radio, using Skype, web conferencing and so on) and in their own time (through drawings, signs, mail, print, tapes, discs, downloads, streaming, web sites and much more). Although education and training has employed both options, the overwhelming majority of learning experiences has been live, whether on the job or in a classroom.

Learning in real time has advantages: it is energising, immediate and social. It is also difficult to organise, inflexible and hard to scale. We have so many tools now to support learning in your own time, as and when it suits learners, that the balance has started to shift. The best blends will still include live experiences, face-to-face or online, but most of the time learners will be firmly in control of their schedule. And that changes things for us, as learning professionals, as much as it benefits learners.

Three essential skill areas

The changes I have described above influence the skill set of learning professionals in interesting ways. Some skills have and always will be important, some remain but are de-emphasised to some degree, others are very new.

The analysis that follows defines three skill areas, each encompassing four roles. This method of categorisation is not so important. What matters is the new picture it paints of the world of the learning professional. Note that I am not suggesting that everyone working in the profession needs all these skills � some will generalise while others specialise.

Interacting with stakeholders

Architect: The learning architect looks at the big picture, fashioning an environment for a given population in which learning can prosper in all its contexts � formal, non-formal, on-demand or experiential. The learning architect puts in place the policies, budgets, tools and technologies that enable learning from the top down and the bottom up.

Analyst: When the client calls asking for help, you might go into sales mode and sharpen your order-taking pencil, but sales is not your profession, remember? As a trusted consultant, you analyse the cause of any performance problems and come up with the solution that meets the client�s needs. Often that solution will not be the one the client had in mind when they put in the call.

Manager: Getting a solution to market requires a great deal of care and attention. The learning professional will frequently find themselves in the role of project manager, bringing together a wide range of specialists to design, develop and deliver a solution. And all too frequently they must function as change manager, dealing with concerns that stakeholders will inevitably have when your solutions look increasingly different from those you suggested in the past.

Evaluator: The consultant cannot hope to obtain long-term credibility if the only way they can validate their work is in terms of happy learners. We know we must do better at evaluation. If things are going to change, we have no choice but to develop our business skills.

Interacting with learners

Traditionally, this is an area of strength for the learning professional. But while our legacy skills remain important, there�s a definite shift from trainer-centred techniques to those that put the learner at the centre.

Expert: The idea of experts presenting what they know to novices still has a place but expect this process to be packaged up on videos and other media. Yes, you�ll be a great help in answering technical questions but don�t plan your career on the basis that you�ll be needed primarily as a lecturer.

Instructor: Instruction is definitely not going away, whether the goal is to impart essential knowledge or to help novices acquire critical skills. But much of this work will be taken over by interactive software, particularly as this becomes more intelligent and adaptive.

Facilitator: As you move from sage on the stage to guide on the side, your role in workshops and other group learning experiences becomes more facilitative. This role will already be familiar to those delivering soft skills, but for those who are more accustomed to answering questions than asking them this is a big step.

Coach: The important role of the coach is already widely recognised. The skills of the coach become even more vital as learners take more control of their destinies and learning journeys become longer and more embedded in the workplace.

Interacting with media

This is perhaps the area in which most learning professionals are least comfortable. True, some have always been at home developing slides and handouts, but that was before the YouTube era and the ubiquitous role that digital content plays in modern life.

Journalist: This one may surprise you and this skill may never become widespread but some learning professionals are thriving by taking on the role of journalists within their specialist fields. Perhaps they maintain a blog, interview experts for podcasts or put out video commentaries on hot topics. Whichever medium they choose, if they can communicate well they have the potential to provide a really valuable service.

Designer: Many people are already employed as specialist designers of learning content, whether for e-learning, video, games or a myriad of other media. But we are short of these people and will need many more to meet the demand, not just at the top, �Hollywood� level, but to design the �good enough� solutions that meet everyday needs rapidly.

Producer: You might think we�re entering the realm of the expert here, but not all graphic design, audio and video production, and e-learning development needs to be carried out by full-time specialists. Media production skills have always been useful nice-to-haves but they may just be becoming core competencies.

Curator: We end with another curious role for the learning professional. Just like the curator in a museum selects from thousands of artefacts to compose an exhibition designed to meet the needs of a specific audience, the content curator draws upon the wealth of information and people that could be valuable to their learners and suggests where they should start.

Skills are not everything

Of course, we cannot function to the best of our ability with skills alone. Our actions need to be based on solid research and an awareness of what is happening in the world around us. Yes, knowledge does have its place, at very least the knowledge of where to look or who to ask.

Evidence-based principles: We have done a terrible disservice to our teachers and trainers by introducing them to so much pseudoscientific nonsense masquerading as theory. The learning professional can only act skilfully if they are conversant with the hard evidence about teaching and learning.

The latest tools and technologies: There can be no such thing as a techno-phobic professional. While we should never be led by tools and technologies, we would be negligent if we were to remain ignorant of what�s possible.

Current best practice: The work of academics and other researchers can take us a long way, but so can a keen interest in the successes and failures of our fellow professionals. Looking beyond our own organisations to seek out best practice we can considerably shortcut our own journeys.

It's time to begin your skills journey

Imagine a new development programme designed from the ground up with one aim in mind. To provide you with the skills and the confidence you need to fulfil your potential as a modern learning professional; a programme that focuses entirely on what is relevant and practical but which is founded on the very latest research.

Imagine a programme that gave you the flexibility to learn just what you need, when and where you want. But which provides you with the support you need to take your skills to the next level.

Skills Journey is that programme. Designed to support the changing skill set of the learning professional; providing you with the confidence to interact professionally with key stakeholders, learners and new media.

Perhaps it�s time to begin your skills journey.