Characters in eLearning

I read this interesting post on Have you thought of Character Driven Stories for Your eLearning? by Rupa (@ruparajgo). I was tempted to blog about it myself (thanks for the inspiration, Rupa).

What role can a character(s) play in your eLearning porgram?

1. Expert: This is probably the most common use of a character in eLearning.
Type 1: This type takes you through the course and is a constant feature. You can design an expert who will take the learner through the course. This expert simplifies information or provides useful tips drawing from his experience.

The character takes on the role of a mentor. The character symbolizes wisdom and is always present to see the learner through tough situations. He/she could encourage and motivate the learner through the course.

Type 2: This type "pops up" when necessary. The role could be defined such that he/she makes an entry to challenge, guide, provide useful information, and so on. This character supplements the content when necessary.

2. Peer: The learner is introduced to the world of a peer. We define the environment and then ask the learner to observe the peer in action and help when the peer gets stuck.

Peer is the 'damsel-in-distress' (not necessarily a damsel). The peer depends on the learner to help him/her through a tough situation. The learner has to make the right decisions to get the situation under control.

3. Guide: The guide is a another common character in eLearning. I have seen several online courses that have an animated character on the top left corner that lip syncs the audio (Her eyes follow your cursor. It is a little freaky.) I have never understood the value these characters add to a learning program. They are neither experts, nor peers. They are the host, who accompanies you through the course.

4. Trouble maker: This could be a boss, an expert, a peer, a competitor, or an enemy. This character challenges the learner at specific instances. Their feedback is blunt, even rude at times. They reprimand the learner if he/she goes wrong and grudgingly accept if they get it right.

The relationship is that of power. The character throws a challenge: Let us see how to get past this hurdle. The learner has to make the right choices to save face or 'win'.

Like Rupa mentions, characters make the course more lively. Remember the following when creating a character:
Give them a personality: I love building a persona for the character. Give him a name, a background, prominent traits, and so on. When creating such a character, I think to myself, what impression do I want this character to make on my learners. Do I want my learners to admire him? Do I want them to empathize with the character? Do I want them to respect him?
Ensure Consistency: It is important to ensure that the character is consistent in behavior across the course. You do not want a timid character being very bold in another scenario. The learner will get confused.
Weave the storyline well: The storyline must blend in well with your theme. Do not introduce characters in an abrupt fashion. Build a simple storyline. Ensure that the storyline is in sync with the theme. Also, ensure that the storyline will flow smoothly through the complete course. Some become too forced if not thought through.
Do not use characters as decorative elements: Characters must aid to learning and the overall learning experience. These characters are not meant to be eye candies.

Sharing some great resources on this:
Learning Agents Part 1: Why Learning Agents
Learning Agents Part 2: Learning Agents Done Well
Learning Agents Part 3: Done Poorly

Pecha Kucha and Learning

Each Kernite gets an opportunity to present on a topic of their interest on Tuesdays and Fridays. This has not become a ritual at Kern. It was my turn to present and I was looking for a topic to present on. This was when I came across the term Pecha Kucha. I read more about this and was quickly fascinated. I presented on Using Pecha Kucha in Learning. This session was meant to be interactive where we all pooled in our thoughts to understand how and whether Pecha Kucha would be a useful tool in training. Given below is a brief introduction to the concept and then thoughts by Kernites.

Pecha Kucha (pronounced as peh-chak-cha) is a Japanese term for chatter or chit chat. In 2003, Astrid Klein and Mark Dytham designed with presentation format to ensure that young designers got an opportunity to share their work. The idea was the keep each presentation really short and concise to ensure that the audience stayed focused. This also allowed multiple presenters to present at one event. The most fascinating aspect about pecha kucha is that the environment has to be informal. Pecha kucha is not about being locked indoors with a presenter going on and on and the audience sleeping with their eyes open. Check out the pictures in Pecha Kucha's official website to get an idea of what informal means http://www.pecha-kucha.org/

A typical pecha kucha night has 8-14 presenters. Each presenter is allotted 6 minutes and 40 seconds. They can show 20 images for 20 seconds each. Pecha kucha must be highly visual. Presentations do not have text and bullets. Instead, they have eye catching images/photographs that supplement what is being said by the presenter. Let us look at a popular example of pecha kucha.


This presentation format is widely used in the field of design, architecture, photography, art, education, and business. In the corporate world, employees are opting for this format for internal presentations to:

• check the length of the presentation
• ensure that the presenter zeroes in on the message
• avoid interruptions
  
• avoid horrible poorly designed PPT presentations

The essence is to keep the presentation crisp and short. During a pecha kucha presentation, the slide automatically moves to the next one as the presenter talks. The presenter must practice to ensure that he/she says what he/she has to say in the span of 20 seconds.

Can pecha kucha be an effective learning tool? I think so! Why?

1. It is bound to grab the audience's attention (especially Gen Y).
   
2. The presentation is crisp and to the point. All unnecessary information is filtered out leaving behing the real message.
   
3. It may help bring people out of their shell. Since the setting is informal, people may be more comfortable.
   
4. It is energy packed and highly dynamic.
   

Pecha kucha as an instructional tool
A trainer can teach a concept using this presentation format. But, we Kernites were not too kicked about this idea. Why? Pecha kucha is supposed to involve several presenters. The fun may be lost if it is restricted to just one. Also, 6 minutes and 20 seconds may not be suitable for all learners and topics. The learner may feel that the lesson was rushed. Another disadvantage is that the Q&A happens at the end of the session.

However, it may be an effective tool to recap what has already been taught or prior knowledge. It may also be useful to summarize a particular topic using pecha kucha. How? Allot one topic to each group in the audience. Ask them to design a pecha kucha presentation summarizing the topic assigned to them. From each team, have a presenter present their topic. This will ensure high involvement and motivation. This will also encourage healthy discussions and in turn, informal learning among learners. If your learners are spread across the globe, you could conduct pecha kucha online. This may not be as effective as conducting the event in a physical location but it is good enough.

Pecha Kucha as an Assessment Tool
How can pecha kucha be used as an assessment tool?

• Problem Solving: Give a case study to your learners. Ask them to arrive at a solution(s) based on what they have learnt. Ask them to present this to other learners using the pecha kucha format.
• Analysis/Critique/Reflection: Pose a question or a statement and ask the learner to analyze, critique, or reflect on it using the pecha kucha format.

Pecha kucha is a great collaboration tool. It not only brings learners together, it also encourages informal learning. One concern that Vaishnavi, a Kernite, raised was that not all will be comfortable with the presentation format. She personally feels that she would feel under pressure if she was asked to stick to 20 seconds per slide. The environment must be informal and dynamic. It must encourage participation. Presenters must also ensure that time has been kept aside for Q&A.

Have you used Pecha Kucha for training? Please share your thoughts and experiences.

Also read:
http://www.wired.com/techbiz/media/magazine/15-09/st_pechakucha#
http://www.pecha-kucha.org/
http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,501060724-1214999,00.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pecha_Kucha
http://www2.canada.com/montrealgazette/news/business/story.html?id=8c161680-e761-4c33-9d4d-b250c15567ce&k=32343

How important is the SME?

You would have interacted with several SMEs. I have attempted to classify the SME. Five prominent personae emerged. (These are based on my experiences. Please feel free to add your thoughts.)

1. Temperamental SME: This SME loves to throw her weight around. She demands that things be done her way, else she will not cooperate. She dons the role of the boss and tells you when she expects things. She expects you to work only on her project and on nothing else. She throws a tantrum every time she thinks she has been let down.

2. Easy Go Lucky SME: This SME agrees to everything you say. His typical response to a query is 'Sure! Go ahead.' You wonder whether he has actually heard what you asked him. He typically falls in with the process but expects you to keep reminding him to give you time. When he does, he signs off storyboards rapidly which leaves you wondering whether he really went through them.

3. Absentee SME: This SME is never around to share his thoughts. Whenever you call him, he is busy. He needs a call from a 'higher up' to ensure that he spares time for you. Eventually, when he is forced to spend time with you, he passes on his resentment of the situation onto you.

4. Doing Your Job SME: This SME thinks being an ID is no big deal. She thinks she knows the best way to teach and present things. She typically focuses more on how content can be presented rather than on the accuracy of content. This storyboard is her baby, you change anything and she freaks. You are only to make those changes that she suggests. She tries to design your course for you and you end up feeling like an assistant.

5. The Perfect SME: This SME respects timelines, works with you as a team, takes the learner's motivations and needs seriously, and gives valuable feedback. He researches and pulls out the best stuff to help you understand and transfer the thoughts to the SB. He encourages you to call anytime you get stuck.

In every ID's blog, you will find at least one post on interacting with the SME. Most of these posts cover in detail the problems they face with SME. In every discussion forum, you will find SME interaction listed as an important skill that any ID must master. Why is the SME so important?

1. SME is a library of information. He/she is an expert in the domain and has the knowledge that will make your training program effective for the learner.
2. SME can ensure that your course is relevant to your learner. In most situations, the SME is in the best position to share the learner's real life situations and happenings.
   
3. When the content is highly technical or unfamiliar, the SME becomes your walking stick. You have to interact with him/her to get comfortable with the content.
   
4. SME will always ensure content accuracy. This is really important. You might as well not teach covering something incorrectly.
5. From a sea of information, the SME helps decide what is absolutely necessary. SME can help prioritize topics and concepts.

Regardless of the SME's persona, you need to ensure that you have a process in place. Remember to keep these in mind:

• Share the schedule with the SME. Let them know a day in advance that you are going to send them something. They can plan their reviews accordingly.
• If you are send them two or three things, clearly let them know which ones you expect to receive first.
  
• Most first time SME are not sure of what they need to do. Define their role clearly. If you send then a content dump, let them know what you expect from them. Let them know that they need to provide or validate examples.
  
• It is important to explain the concept of a sign off. Ensure that they understand that if the TOC is signed off, revisiting it at a later stage would mean a scope change.
  
• Build a rapport with them. You can going interact them for a long period of time. Ensure that this time is pleasant and fruitful for both.
• Seek their opinion. Treat them like an expert.
  
• If you do not agree with a feedback, discuss. Share your thoughts and concerns and hear them out. Never fix anything just because you have been told to do so.
  
• Ensure that the SME also always keeps the learner in mind. Ask questions like 'Will the learner understand this?', 'Will the learner find this interesting?', 'Will the learner need this information?'
  

How to tackle a demotivated learner?

A demotivated learner is any IDs nightmare. Don't we love it when learners are highly motivated, thirsty for knowledge, and realize the 'what is in it for me' even before the course begins?

Symptoms of a demotivated learner:

• During interviews, they frown over the concept that you are going to teach.
• They do not appreciate the fact that HAVE to take the course. (I can't blame them.)
• They try to convince you that they know everything they need to about the concept (you know otherwise through research).
• They tell you that this course is not going to be useful for them as this concept will not help hone their core skill.
• They are against the mode of delivery (elearning, ILT, or plain training) because of bad experience in the past.

The situation is very, very dangerous if you spot all the five symptoms in your learner profile. How do you tackle a demotivated learner? Find answers for the following:

1. What can I do to ensure that the learner takes the concept seriously? How can I make it interesting for them?
2. How can I show them that they do not know everything they need to know about the concept?
   
3. How can I show them that this concept if mastered is going to help them work better?
   
4. How can I change their bias against the mode of delivery?

To answer all these questions, I would first recommend that you have a nice long chat with your SME. This is important because my suggestions are going to require the SME's approval.

Suggestion 1: Challenge the learner
The learner thinks he/she knows all there is to know about the concept. Well, challenge him/her then. Design a very hands on course. The intention is to make the learner perform tasks designed keeping the theories of the concepts in mind. We want the learner to realize for themselves, 'Oh! I did not know that' or 'This is probably more effective than how I have been going about it'.

Suggestion 2: Do not bore them with theory
Please do not tell the learner blah blah blah. You will lose the learner even before the end of the screen. They do not want to hear the theory. Stick to pure application. It is definitely easier to describe a theory. Try teaching a theory with absolutely no words. Use tasks and examples. This is incredibly challenging for the ID and SME. But, trust me, the experience is absolutely worth it.

Suggestion 3: Ensure that your course is visual
This learner profile is not going to read anything more than two lines. Avoid content. Make it visual by displaying images/animations of examples. I avoid content heavy screens by using a bigger fonts. Try it sometime.

Suggestion 4: Encourage social learning
Introduce videos from YouTube, share blog links, create or encourage learners to join discussion forums. Do all that you have to and bring them in contact with other people. Encourage them to share their ideas with peers and experts. I do not have to stress the important of social learning.

Suggestion 5: Design challenging knowledge checks
Design the tasks keeping in mind the learner's reality. Make them curious about things. Ensure you grab their attention. Ensure that the answers are not obvious. Design assignment that have no correct answers. Encourage them to post reports or assignments on blogs/forums. Allow them to discuss their ideas and answers with others.

These are my list of suggestions. If you think there are other suggestions that help tackle a demotivated learner, please share them.

Humor: Handle with Care

Humor is a very effective tool to teach. Who doesn't like to enjoy a humorous situation? Why is humor not used popularly across training programs? Because it is risky, you may end up:

• Offending the learner
• Not getting through to the learner as it my go over his/her head (no offense meant to the learner)
  
• Not making the learner laugh as he/she doesn't think it is funny

Another reason is that stakeholders typically think humor will make take the seriousness away from learning. They are worried that humor will dilute the issue. My take on this is as long as learning happens any strategy that best suits the learner can be used.

How can humor be used? Humor can be displayed using characters with funny characteristics, funny situations or funny portrayals of situations, comic strips, and so on. You need to keep the following in mind when using humor.

1. Know thy learners: First, understand your learners. Identify whether they would appreciate humor. Think about whether humor is the best strategy to get through to the learners.
2. Culture issue: When using humor, ensure you know your learners well enough to avoid offending the learner by mocking a culturally sensitive issue. Do not use blonde jokes, sexist jokes, sarcasm, and so on.
   
3. Personal values: Ensure that the humor does not offend the learner's personal values and belief systems.
   
4. Generalizations: Avoid making generalizations about a particular group. You are most likely to alienate your learners. It make more sense to introduce a stereotype character than taint an entire group.
   
5. Real life: Learner should be able to relate to it. The humor should be in sync with the work environment. It should reflect situations/characters around the learner.

What kind of humor can we use? Subtle humor, in-face-kind of humor (Mr. Bean), comic strips, situational humor, and so on. I have still not managed to design a course that has humor as the core strategy. Guess we have not come across the right audience. We have used humor as an introduction to a particular concept. More like a gain attention screen that displays humorous situations to capture the learner's interest. This works well too. It helps lighten the mood before taking the learner to some actual learning.

If you have come across courses with humor used well, do share!

Tailor-made Courses

Do you buy clothes that are three times your size? Do you buy shoes that are twice as big as your feet? Why not? I guess the logical explanation is that we prefer to buy things that are made for us. At school, why do we begin at the 1^st standard and proceed to higher classes? Why are all children not put in the same class? This is because each learner is at a different level and their learning needs are different. Right.

Wondering where I am going with this? The objective of this article is to stress the importance of designing courses that are tailor-made for the learner’s needs. Let me share an incident with you. As part of our LCM process, we conduct learner evaluation. In this phase, we ask our learners to take the course and we observe the learner. During one such learner testing, we found some interesting truths. Before I proceed, let me give you some information about the course. A training company had conducted a two-day workshop and this had to be converted into a refresher emodule (that’s where we came in) for managers who had attended the workshop. Seven learners volunteered to help test the course. 3 out of the 7 learners had not attended this workshop. The results showed that these three learners were lost and very confused. The other four learners were extremely comfortable and were motivated to complete the course. This was because they remembered the cues provided during the workshop and therefore, found the course interesting. Why the discrepancy you ask? This course was meant to be a refresher course and catered to a very specific audience. It is therefore effective only for that audience. Most learners claimed that this was the most effective elearning program that they ever taken. Now, that’s something...

Each learner is at a different level and their learning needs are different. It is extremely important to ensure that we chunk similar learners together and design a course that caters to their common need. For example, when designing a course on how to use a software application, we will design this keeping in mind the primary learners/users and not the secondary and tertiary learners/users. This way we are ensuring that we make this course effective for the learners who interact with the software more frequently. If you really have to make the course for everyone coming in contact with that software, there is a way out. Have three learning paths, one for the primary, another for the secondary and third for the tertiary audience. This will ensure that the learner goes through only that information that is relevant to him/her.

Why is it so important to create courses for a specific audience?

• Maintain motivation: Most elearning courses do not meet the ‘What’s in it for me’ criteria. Learners want to know how the content you teach can be applied in their jobs. Learning can not be forced. The learner has to see value in the course. Show them the value and the battle is have won.
• Provide relevant information: Imagine this scenario. Your learner is working in a software company. He/she comes in at 9:15 in the morning and leaves at 8:30 in the evening. He/she dedicates half an hour everyday to a training course. Do you actually think he/she will have the patience to go through a course and search for information relevant to him/her? Don’t give a sea of information and ask them to find what they want. Give them exactly what they want. Do some research to identify this.
  
• Effective learning: The course is definitely more effective when it is specific. For example, you are teaching learners to deal with conflict situations at the workplace. We know that conflict situations can occur at any level in the organization. If the learner is a middle level manager, the conflicts situations he/she is likely to face and the power he/she has to tackle such situation will be different for a senior manager and or an executive staff. Conflicts could be between manager-employee, manager-manager, and employee-employee. The employee need not (and should not) have to learn how manager-manager conflicts are tackled. Another interesting thing is that when designing a course for an employee, the content for manager-employee will be different as opposed to that designed for a manager.
• Cognitive overload: Excess information or detailed information will cause cognitive overload. Designers (or should I say SMEs) end up stuffing everything (to be safe) in a one hour module. Trust me, nothing will register in the learner’s mind. He/she will click the pages away. Stick to the learning objectives and the Bloom’s levels.
• Increase completion rates: By giving the learner what he/she wants, you are going to ensure that dropouts decrease. If the learner sees benefit in taking a course, why wouldn’t they complete it?
• Transfer of learning: The chances of bringing about a behavioral change are higher when the course is designed for a specific audience. Retention of concepts will be higher. Therefore, transfer of learning at the workplace will be higher.

Remember that you wouldn’t finish a book or a movie if it did not interest you. It would interest you only if you can relate to it.