“But that’s no reason to vilify the multiple-choice quiz. When combined with other forms of assessment, it’s a valuable piece of the pedagogical puzzle.

Let’s just design it better.”

14 Reasons Why Your Multiple-Choice Quiz Sucks

Sometimes I forget what I love about the game but I was reminded of it last night.  We had seats out in right field and were right across from the new guy (Hunter Pence) all night.  In a nice little pocket of red, white and blue t-shirts.  The usher even called it the Phillies corner.

Hunter catches a long fly ball in the corner and tosses it to a Phillies fan on his way back to the dugout.  The man turns around to show off his ball with a huge grin and a twinkle in his eye he holds it up and shouts, “After being a fan for 50 years I finally got a major league baseball and an all-star right fielder threw it to me too!”  He was beaming and holding the ball up for all to see.  That’s why I love baseball.  It’s a little boy’s game and just for a few moments, he was transported back to being a little boy.

I guess you had to be there but it was cool.

I don’t remember a whole lot about my undergraduate graduation ceremony.  It was on the football field and it was a pretty nice morning in upstate New York.  There were many challenges to go out and change the world and Jean-Michel Cousteau spoke telling us all about the importance of our oceans.  I sat there.  I listened.  I turned my tassel when the School of Health Sciences and Human Performance was asked to stand and was officially declared as graduates from Ithaca College.

This time, it was a little bit different.  Perhaps it was the 15 years in between graduation ceremonies that allowed me to take things in differently?  I felt like a participant in the ceremony this time rather than another member of the audience of proud friends and family.  I’m sure that it had something to do with actually walking up on stage to receive my “diploma” from a university official but I think there’s a little bit more to it.

The President of the college explained how the graduation ceremony was a time honored tradition of  scholars throughout the ages.  I wonder if these ancient scholars would be offended by the fact that with my iPhone, I was able to document my graduation experience via Facebook posts and photos?  My family is on the East Coast while I’m in Colorado.  My dad watched the streaming video of the ceremony on Ustream and followed my commentary on Facebook.  I was the reporter covering my own life story and providing color commentary the whole time.

As I looked around the sea of graduates, I noticed that I wasn’t the only one.  People had their smartphones out texting, posting on Facebook and taking pictures of the ceremony all from their own perspective.  I’ve read lots of articles declaring that social media makes us more disconnected from our “real” lives and the people in them.  My graduation experience was exactly the opposite.  I actually shared what I was seeing and feeling to friends and family a few feet away in the same building to those who were hundreds of miles away.  I felt really connected and close to those individuals and I was happy to be able to share my accomplishment with all of them.  I’m sure by the number of photos being taken by the graduates that others felt the same way too.

That got me thinking.  In a leadership class that I took at work, the class voted to ban BlackBerries from each session because the class felt as if it were a distraction.  What if the class could have used social media to communicate to the instructor or each other?  Perhaps the shy person in the back of the room wouldn’t have a problem posting a question or an interesting thought to the class’s twitter feed when speaking in class makes the individual uncomfortable?  Why couldn’t individuals in the class use a smartphone to take a photo of someone exhibiting strong leadership skills to later post on the class discussion board with an explanation of the individual’s actions?

The point I’m trying to make is that graduation felt like it was my own experience.  I gathered information that was important to me and reported back to my Facebook audience.  Giving class participants the ability to document their own experiences has the potential to create an environment where class members own the content and can influence the direction of a course.  Social media has the potential to be a powerful tool when leveraged correctly in the corporate training environment.

With two semesters left in the program, I started thinking about my internship. I wanted more exposure to eLearning than what was offered in the Instructional Design and Adult Learning concentration. Thomas was the first person to come to mind to help me with my internship. We talked about what I wanted to learn and came up with a few projects involving eLearning that met my objectives. Thomas had a fantastic idea to convert a course that I attended in person to an eLearning course, and design a module from the course in Flash. I chose to convert a presentation and public speaking class that was offered at work.

My timing for the internship was far from perfect. I saved it until my last semester in the ILT program – Summer 2010. The summer semester is half as long as Fall and Spring so I had 10 weeks to work on my three projects. I reserved the last month to work on the Flash portion of the project. The following list includes the resources and things I learned while working with Flash.

1. A good Flash “how to book.”

Thomas recommended a book from Friends of Ed. I read Foundation Flash CS4 for Designers by Tom Green and David Stiller. It took me about a week to read through the book and complete the exercises. I don’t typically learn by reading the book or the manual on my own but the hands on exercises really helped me to understand the concepts behind Flash and ActionScript 3.0.

2. Lynda.com.

If you aren’t familiar with it, Lynda.com is a subscription service that provides online software training via video. I signed up for a 7-day free trial because I wasn’t sure if I would like the service but I did.

When the book wasn’t making sense to me, I watched the videos on Lynda.com for another perspective. The videos were great because they match my learning style. If I can see how it’s done, I can usually do it myself. I had a few “that’s what they meant” moments when the video made the concepts in the book click for me.

3. Someone who knows Flash and ActionScript

Thomas and I met up on Fridays during my internship. Each week I had the chance to pick his brain to learn how he uses Flash. His blog is a great resource because it contains many Flash tips and tricks. I also sent him a few late night emails asking him “How do I…” I’m going to blame the “How do I make the movie stop?” question on fatigue.

4. Cartoon Solutions.

Part of my internship was to research Accelerated Learning and apply it to my eLearning project. Storytelling is one way to reach a variety of learners and it’s something one can use in the eLearning environment. For the introduction to the course, I wanted to tell the story of someone who gave a terrible presentation at a convention that would set up the objectives of the course.
I included this story in my storyboard that Thomas reviewed. The storyboard was drawn by hand and I mentioned to Thomas that I didn’t think my stick figure drawings were what I wanted to use in the Flash movie. Thomas pointed me to Cartoon Solutions’ website where I found a character and backgrounds to use in my movie. Two backgrounds and one person cost me about $30, which was worth every penny since they made my movie look more professional than my hand drawings did. Don’t get me wrong, I love drawing on a whiteboard during a facilitated training session but my drawings just didn’t translate in Flash.

5. Patience

There were a few moments working on the Flash portion of the project when I thought about giving up on it. I could set up a few PowerPoint slides, drop them into Captivate and have a Flash training module in a matter of a few hours. I was frustrated that I couldn’t make Flash behave as I wanted it to. This is when I knew that I needed to walk away for a few minutes, or quit for the day. The important part is to come back to your project. It was easier to reread a portion of the book to understand a concept when I had a clear head.

Another thing to remember is that you’re not going to have advanced skills right away. My story had a scene where the character walked out on stage. In the final product, my character slides out on the stage instead of walking. Flash has the capability to animate the walking motion and my pre-made cartoon man was set up with joints for this purpose but I didn’t have the knowledge or the time to figure out how to make the character walk. Sure my Flash movie would have looked extra slick if the character walked across the screen but it didn’t add to or take away from the content so it wasn’t necessary.

Your skills will improve with time. Master the easy techniques then add more advanced skills in later. I submitted my final project to Thomas and my professor for review and received my grade for the internship. I plan to go back to my Flash movie to work on making my character walk across the screen. I don’t have a deadline now so I can take my time and figure this out.

The bottom line is that Flash isn’t all that scary. Flash is a powerful tool that you can add to your repertoire of eLearning creation tools. Just like anything new, it takes time to master. However, the basics are relatively simple to pick up in a short amount of time. In just one month I created an eLearning module that I was happy with and that I wouldn’t hesitate to use as a real eLearning course rather than just a project for school.

Wow was I wrong.

I was pleasantly surprised tonight. Our instructor actually used adult learning theory to teach class. We were up and moving. Sharing our experiences. Meeting people in class. Working in small groups. He even drew a stick figure picture of himself on the chalkboard with the caption “Yay, you moved your chairs!” He made a 3 hour class fly by. I think this class is going to get me out of my comfort zone and although I hate it, I think it’s going to be super cool.

I’m excited to be back in school. I think the theories behind adult education are so interesting. It’s going to be good to go a little lo-tech for this class too. I was surprised when we walked into the classroom and it had chalkboards. Do elementary schools have chalkboards anymore???? The instructor just got an email address a few years ago. We have to hand in papers to him before class. He’d prefer not to have them emailed to him. I’m just coming off two online classes from the summer and I was really surprised by that. I think this class is going to challenge me.

Since my class ended that required blogging, I haven’t been here all that much. I haven’t had too much to say though. Here are some random things that I’ve been thinking about.

I’m taking a class called Integrating Media in eLearning Environments. This is the first semester that it’s required for the ILT program Adult Learning focus and I think I’m the only person who isn’t a school teacher in it. It’s a required course for the last semester of the ILT eLearning track too.

We had a discussion about podcasting which was great until someone posted (I guess I should mention that it’s a online class) “I don’t have the time to create podcasts for my classes.” I hate that excuse because that’s all it is. Then it’s coming from someone who is just about ready to graduate from the ILT program. I just wanted to ask this person why she’s going to graduate school for a degree in Information and Learning TECHNOLOGIES, if she’s not willing to find the time to work them into her classroom? So I get all fired up and post something about it. Work in a great quote I read from Marco Torres pubilshed in the uLearning blog that I read “Quit, complain or innovate.”

My post turns the discussion from podcasting to school reform. I didn’t intend for it to go there. It’s just a thought, does school reform start at the individual level? Is that why things aren’t changing as quickly as they could be because people “don’t have the time?” What about June, July and August? I do a lot of things to make myself better at my job, well the job I’d like to have, on my own time. What’s the big deal?

Check this out.

Merrill is associated with MIT. I think these blocks are cool. I’m going to need to think about how I could use them in adult learning. I’m just so taken by the wow this is neat factor right now.

Brain Gym

I’m not sure I always buy into this stuff.  Patti Templin was the presenter, she’s been using Brain Gym for over 20 years.  Just click on the Brain Gym link above because I don’t think I could explain the basic principles better than Wikipedia does.  Ms. Templin asked us to press our “brain buttons” which are located under the sternoclavicular joint.  If this caused you pain, then you were feeling the influence of stress.  I’ll admit that I’m stressed out but I think you might find some tenderness here because there isn’t much skin or tissue over the bone here.  

Anyway, she picked a lady out of the audience and demonstrated a few techniques to clear the pathways to the brain.  It appeared that it worked for the woman but I’m still a bit skeptical.  I’m one of those people who it has to work for to believe it.  I don’t know if it would even work for me because I think you have to be open to things like this for them to work.  I went to a PT clinic that practiced Primal Reflex Release Techniques.  I don’t think I responded to those because my mind wasn’t open to it.  Anyway, the next time I need to read something I might try some of the techniques to see if they work for me.  What could it hurt?

Influencing Skills: Sharing Your Great Ideas

I didn’t find a whole lot of new information in this session.  I suppose this was a good review for people. The presenter completed an exercise with the group one individual would try to sell drinking buttermilk to an individual who didn’t like buttermilk.  I think this was an ok exercise.  I was a little disturbed when the facilitator told us that she used a syringe and green food coloring to turn the buttermilk in the carton green.  Buttermilk is nasty enough enough without it being colored green.  One lady who drank the buttermilk was actually allergic to it.  So I don’t know if that was a testament to the volunteer seller’s skills.  

The one thing I did come away with is the fact that sometimes people forget to point out what will happen if the changes they are proposing aren’t put in place.  This is a good thing to remember.

Training Technologies

I was most excited to attend this portion of the seminars since we’ve been talking a lot about technology in one of my grad school classes.  Topics covered were; web conferences, Podcasting, Blogging and Second Life.  I went to the session about Second Life because I have an upcoming project involving the use of games in Instructional Design.  

I had a negative view of Second Life after reading articles about it breaking up marriages, and people doing not terribly nice things on it.  I never really looked at it as anything more than a social networking site.  I never thought that it can serve as a virtual classroom.  Big companies like IBM use Second Life as a training tool, ASTD has an “island” and hosts weekly meetings plus over 400 universities use Second Life for teaching purposes.  The facilitator spoke about hosting DiSC sessions for a company with employees all over the world via Second Life and sending people of each personality type into breakout rooms to discuss their individual personality profile.  

Princeton University requires that incoming freshmen take a Second Life course.  This is something that Gen Y uses daily in some cases so as corporate trainers, we need to learn this technology to teach job skills to Gen Y participants in our training sessions.  Thomas Toth, the moderator for the session, said that the technologies covered in this session were not developed for training but as trainers we need to leverage these technologies in our training programs to help reach Gen Y.  As ID/Trainers we’re really behind when it comes to newer technology.  

Improv for Trainers

I must admit, this was the session that I was looking forward to the least.  I knew this would be heavy in group participation and I wasn’t really all that into participating.  Actually this was my favorite session.  Sometimes it takes a lot for me to get out of my comfort zone but I let it happen and I had a lot of fun.  We did exercises used by people who do improv to loosen up our bodies and some team building exercises.  I’d like to take some of the exercises back to my team at work because we are pretty dysfunctional.  I’m trying to remember all that we did because we were participating in the exercises and I couldn’t take notes.  This probably won’t make any sense but I’m going to put some items below and elaborate on them later on as I remember.

Everyone in the group walked around.  As soon as you saw one person stop, you stopped, when the whole group stopped, you could start walking again.  I think this was an Improv thing.

Czechoslovakia

The video explains that.

Group Picture – the group all mingles together like the first exercise but when you hear stop, everyone freezes.  Team building, you can be yourself but everyone does too and you can still work together.  I liked this one.

Singing.  - I forget the song and forget why we did it.  

Telling stories- three people told 1 minute stories and we had to pick who told the truth and who didn’t.  I guess this was about your credibility and delivering your message.  People are more willing to believe your training/stories if you believe them.

It was a good day of training.  I really had fun and learned a few new things.

I’m Leaving by John Smith

I’m reading through this and thinking about some of the people who are in “Gen Y” that I work with.  I’m not sure that Mr. Smith is going to find greener pastures out in the corporate world or in a non-profit organization.  Is it that kids and 20-somethings expect the “you participated” trophy, and the rest of us are just used to having winners and losers?  Working the 12 plus hour day?  Going the extra mile?  All of those cliches?  Is there anything wrong with just hitting the highlights or just doing enough to get by?  I’m not sure there is.  It’s just the way things are now.  Maybe the failure is within Mr. Smith for failing to recognize that learners are changing and his ways of teaching need to change with the times?  

Bringing back to corporate training, this is a generation what we will need to make adjustments for in the classroom.  These students have been exposed to technology all of their lives, video games, the internet, cell phones, etc.  How can a traditional classroom lecture compete with all of that?

I found a blog about Gen Y learners, Employee Training Ideas for Gen Y where the author lists a few things that help to train Gen Y employees.  The list includes many things like making training entertaining and allowing learners to attend training when it’s convenient to them.  Most of the ideas aren’t huge stretches by any means.  I’m sure older learners would benefit from the changes that corporate trainers and Instructional Designers need to make to appeal to a Gen Y audience.

I really like this quote from the article:

When training any generational group, your goal is to provide valuable learning experiences that give employees the tools to develop in their careers.  Training is a gift employers give to their workforce that keeps employees engaged, happy and productive. Knowing how younger generations learn best will help you develop the next great leaders in our organizations.

Learning Circuits 

Podcasts about Podcasting in Business

eCornell

Podcasting and mobile learning has a lot of potential for the corporate training environment.  I also imagine all of the information stored in a central location where users can access it when they have time to do so.  Something like the cable companies and their “on demand” services where on can watch TV programming when it’s convenient for them to do so.