Future location of Cyclops eLearning
Future location of Cyclops eLearning (formerly MinuteBio)
The Johns Hopkins Medicine Simulation Center
Last week, I had the pleasure of touring the Johns Hopkins Medicine Simulation Center. This is a training center that uses numerous types of simulations – everything from live actors to mannequin and online sims. As I toured the center, I tweeted a few pictures and some notes, which I am sharing below.
Simulation Center's observation area for proctors.
Looking into one of the Simulation Center's examination rooms from observation area.
Simulation Center's Operating Room
Simulation Center Mannequin. They breathe, move, bleed, have a pulse, specific medical issues, etc. (the center has 20 total mannequins).
Programming the Simulation Center's Infant Mannequin
Infant Mannequin - These can also be delivered from a female mannequin including simulating a multiple births.
The Simulation Center is an extremely impressive training center and I was very pleased to have the opportunity to get a tour. You can learn more about the center at the following link – Johns Hopkins Medicine Simulation Center.
I Saw a Virtual Patient at MedBiquitous
I am currently attending the MedBiquitous conference, which is hosted at Johns Hopkins (my employer) and focuses on how learning technologies can transform heath care education. Today, I attended some great sessions including one on using virtual patients in training. Several organizations shared the tools used develop these virtual worlds. One, CliniSpace, had a nice interface and from the demo appears to have an easy to use authoring mode. I was also impressed on how authors can quickly add or change scenarios on the fly during a simulation. Below is a video that gives a glance at CliniSpace’s virtual world and its patients, doctors, nurses, etc.
I am looking forward to seeing more exciting things at the next two days of the MedBiquitous conference. I am also tweeting (@minutebio) some of what I learn at the conference via its #medbiq2012 hash tag.
New eBook from the eLearning Guild – "58 Tips for Breakthrough Instructional Design"
I have always enjoyed the eLearning Guild’s eBooks and they just released a new one – 58 Tips for Breakthrough Instructional Design. It has some great tips on research, design, development and project management, all coming from 14 experts in the field. Oh yeah, it’s free too. Access it here.
Past eLearning Guild ebooks are also available for download.
As a side note, you may have noticed it has been quite a while since my last post. Work, and life, have been extremely busy for me. However, I am making it a point to get back on track with writing new posts.
Thanks for your patience and for visiting my blog.
Jeff
Deconstructing My #DemoFest Course – Part 3 (Development) #DevLearn
Of the questions asked of me during DemoFest, I think most were regarding development tools. In regards to development tools used, the course is truly a Frankencourse, a term I believed coined by David Anderson (@eLearning).
So here are the development tools I used for this project.
Adobe Flash – The initial interface was built in Flash. This provided greater ease of animating the characters, creating the navigation, which is non-linear and not as simple as adding next and back buttons of which it has none. However, the Flash movie sits within Articulate Presenter and navigates to an assessment made in Articulate Quizmaker which also sits within the same Presenter project (more on this later).
Adobe Captivate – I used this for creating every simulation in the course. I find Captivate to be a great tool for software simulations, plus I could easily edit instructions in the sims, add graphics including the Captain and Ossie 7. It also afforded me the opportunity to have several sims be more exploration than just task driven. For example, the sim where Ossie 7 lets you explore each ribbon at your own pace and direction. Note: All the sims are “try me” sims in which the participant completes tasks and/or explores the application. They are not demonstrations were they simply watch the application being used.
Articulate Quizmaker – Very easy way to create the assessment at the conclusion of the course. Most of the questions in the quiz were scenario based and involved clicking the correct button on a graphic representation of the Office application (e.g., an Outlook ribbon). Quizmaker easily accommodated this, plus worked well within Presenter – it should since it is also part of the Articulate suite.
Articulate Presenter – This is what I plopped the Flash and Quizmaker into. Essentially, the first page of the Presenter project is the Flash course, which has numerous pages and opens all the sims and links to its additional resources. It also has a button that takes you to the quiz. It actually takes you to the next presenter page introducing the quiz. The third page is the Quizmaker assessment. And because it is in Presenter, I could easily publish the presenter course as SCORM compliant that would work well on my learning management system (LMS).
Social Media – Ongoing support includes the use of social media, including Twitter, Screenr videos, and Diigo social bookmarks.
That’s it. I know to some it may seem insane to use so many tools, but with so many different aspects of the course it did require these tools to get this project done. Don’t believe me? Take a look – Introduction to Office 2010.
Note: Microsoft Office 2010 was used to the extent that it was the subject of the sims, job aids, etc., but not actually a development tool itself.
View the course – Introduction to Office 2010
Deconstructing My #DemoFest Course – Part 2 #DevLearn
In my last post I gave an overview of my DemoFest course, Intro to Office 2010. I would like to delve into the analysis and design of the course.
When this project was brought to me it involved training for both a Windows 7 and Office 2010 upgrade, which is why some of the documents included here references Windows 7 in addition to the Office upgrade. My first step for any training project is the needs analysis, albeit it is often very informal when on short time-lines like this project. Because I had been teaching a face-to-face computer basics class, including some Office training, I had already a big jump on both knowing the audience and how they use the systems that were being upgraded. I also was provided a second work PC with Windows 7 and Office 2010 loaded on it. This allowed me to use and learn the Windows 7 operating system and Office 2010 applications while simultaneously identifying the changes staff will encounter. Keep in mind, I still had my current PC so I had the luxury of being able to make comparisons of the old and new. Once I identified the learning needs, which by the way were more numerous in Outlook due to bigger changes to Outlook from 2007 to 2010 than in the other Office apps, I was ready to draft a course design plan.
The course design plan is crucial in creating an effective course and includes everything from the rationale for the course to its evaluation plan. I am providing a link so you may see a copy of the course design plan (CDP). I always circle back to my stakeholders and share the CDP with them. It shows the approach I am taking and exactly what will be taught. Keep in mind it did not reference much regarding social media. It focused mostly on the asynchronous online course itself. The social media and Intranet page were components that evolved during the development stage. FYI: If you would like to know more about my approach to writing course design plans, please visit my post on CDPs.
Once the CDP was completed and reviewed by my stakeholders and subject matter experts, I like them to sign off on it, I began storyboarding the course. It is important to note, I am a “one person e-learning shop,” so when I storyboard they are not handed off to developers or anyone else. These are tools for my own design and development process. So, as you can see in the examples below, they include enough detail for my own review and get quite messy. If I worked with others I would create much cleaner versions. Either way, below are several examples that show a bit of the process. Once storyboards were developed, and rewritten a few times, I then had the content, navigation, development tools needed, etc. I am was now ready move on to developing the course.
Regarding the Windows 7 content that was scrapped just prior to implementation, because the course was non-linear, but had a separate section for Windows 7 sims, it was easy to isolate that section of the course and remove it. Actually, because the interface was built in Flash all I had to do was remove the button to the section and introductory reference to it. I will speak more to that in the next post in which I address course development.
View the course – Introduction to Office 2010
Deconstructing My #DemoFest Course – Part 1
During this year’s DevLearn 2011 conference I won the DemoFest award for the Software Systems Training category. Being selected for this award really put me on Cloud 9. It is so flattering to have my course selected by the DevLearn attendees. Thank you everyone who attended DemoFest. And a big congratulations to all the other winners of this year’s DemoFest. It is a true honor to be in their company.
Over the coming weeks I am going to blog about the processes of designing, developing and implementing my DemoFest course. My intention is to share how I go about putting a course together and to provide the support materials used to design the course. For example, the course design plan, storyboards, communication plans, etc.
A good place start is to first provide an overview of the course and lessons learned as described in my DemoFest submission below.
Why was this project needed? Describe why you built it.
Johns Hopkins HealthCare began transitioning staff to Microsoft Office 2010 applications in February 2010. Staff required training on using the new application interfaces and learning how to complete Office tasks that have changed in the new and updated Office software.What authoring tools, systems, or technologies did you use to create this project?
Adobe Flash, Adobe Captivate, Articulate Presenter, Articulate Quizmaker, Microsoft Office 2010. Social Media included Twitter, Screenr videos, and Diigo social bookmarks.How many “learners” will benefit from this program or project?
760 Johns Hopkins HealthCare staff, but the course is being extended out to additional entities within the Johns Hopkins Health System.How long did it take you to complete this project?
Approximately 120 hours during a two month period. This time does not include ongoing learner support using social media and Intranet pages.What problems or challenges did you have to overcome while creating this project?
Time constraints, which resulted in not including audio in the course. Limited staff participation in the social media elements, specifically Twitter. The need to use multiple development tools in order to accomplish the project’s design.What valuable insights, lessons learned, or results did you discover when working with these challenges?
Due to the less-than-expected use of Twitter among staff, there was less participation in the social media elements. In the future, I would put more effort in marketing the benefits and use of Twitter among staff. Also, I would find a way to incentivize its adoption by staff. I learned that the ongoing support implemented on our Intranet pages, Screenr videos, Diigo social bookmarks, and job aids were highly valued by staff and seen as very practical and accessible resources that are continually being used. Also, the non-linear design and easy to navigate course encourages it to be also used as a refresher course. One of my most valuable insights was that the use of whimsical characters was an effective way to market the course, and increased recognition and participation in the project. Using the characters to market the course included placing full-size cut-outs of the course’s main character, Captain Upgrade, throughout our buildings, and appearing on LCD screen advertisements, flyers, and on our Intranet.
Below is the link to the Office 2010 course. I have also provided direct links to the learning program’s social learning elements.
And direct links to some of the social learning elements in the learning program:
In the next post I will describe the design process and share a copy of the course design plan and example storyboards.
Thank you again to all who attended DemoFest and a really big thank you to the eLearningGuild for holding an incredible DevLearn conference.
Heading to #DevLearn
I am very excited to be heading out to the DevLearn Conference and Expo this week. This is my first visit to the conference, but I have known of its reputation as a fantastic conference and enviously followed last year’s back channel on Twitter. This year I get to attend first-hand and will also be tweeting all the new and exciting things I expect to learn from the conference. If you do not already know, the conference hash tag is #DevLearn. If you plan to use the back channel, here are some great tips courtesy of the back channel curator, David Kelly (@LnDDave).
Plus, there will be a live #LrnChat tweetup and I am extemely excited to meet many of these great tweeps in person. Although I will be manning my DemoFest table during the tweetup, I hope to sneak a few #LrnChat tweets in here or there. If you are there please stop by my DemoFest table and introduce yourself. Looking forward to learning, learning and learning some more and also to meeting new e-learning peeps and many of the people I have gotten to know through this blog and my Twitter network.
Hope to see you there,
Jeff Goldman
@MinuteBio
Wicked, Cool Example of Augmented Reality
It is not every day I use “wicked” as an adjective, but this calls for its use. While attending the Enterprise Learning Conference & Expo today, I saw an example of the use of augmented reality as created by BMW. The video clip shown during the “Next Generation of Learning Systems” session is the same clip as the one found on YouTube and embedded below. I promise it will wow you and even if you are not a New Englander, like me, you will still say is “wicked cool.”
A Few Things of Interest: #Storyboarding & #LearningStyles
Several things of interest I recently wandered upon that I would like to share.
Kevin Thorn, a.k.a. Nugget Head, recently published an article in eLearn Magazine, The Art of Storyboarding, that is a very worthwhile read. Storyboarding is a crucial skill to have in our elearning world and Kevin offers great insight on its uses and value in elearning design along with a bit about the history of storyboarding.
Also, NPR had a story regarding the myth of learning styles that is worth a listen. Although this is probably not news to many in the world of ISD, it did get many instructional designers on twitter (my PLN) discussing, and paying more attention to, the subject. Give it a listen below. It also sheds light on some teaching methods that do work.
Cyclops eLearning 