Make haste slowly
– Benjamin Franklin

We’re getting used to instant search, instant news, instant messages, instant updates, instant food, instant banking, and instant everything. In this world of instant gratification sometimes we need to take a moment and think is everything really necessary ‘now’?  Aren’t there things that need more time to be created properly, created beautifully?  While elearning itself helps the instant gratification needs of learners by being available whenever and wherever, elearning development needs little more time to be created well and can’t really be instant.

The battle between web technologies (read ‘Apple and Adobe‘) started a couple of years back when Apple decided to not support Flash on its newly launched iPad terming it buggy. Apple backed HTML5 to be the next big thing and single handedly forced the developer community to take sides. The eLearning industry was not too happy about the iPad not featuring Flash as it meant reinventing the wheel for animation and interactivity in eLearning.  Also HTML5 was not ready for eLearning development then. The fact is the iPad has taken a significant lead in the tablets market. I’d say purely because of the brilliant ‘form factor’ and the fact that it’s backed by the most popular app store.

How much does one hour of Level 2 elearning cost? and what about Level 3?

If you have been involved with custom eLearning development you have either asked these questions yourself or have been asked these by a client. The concept of ‘levels’ of custom eLearning development is a commonly used standard matrix for comparing vendors; sadly, this is a much abused concept too.. Every vendor (and client) has a unique definition of levels and they seldom match.

Our customers account for a number of factors before taking the plunge into e-Learning. I was trying to put together some of the key change factors leading organizations to adopt e-learning stand-alone and as a part of the training blend. I arrived at these factors driving the change:

1. Business Strategy
2. Geographical Expansion Of Business
3. New Business Opportunities (which may lead to new skill development)
4. Cost and Benefits
5. Organizational Culture/Demographics
6. Infrastructural Readiness
7. Management Support

Bryan Chapman from the Chapman Alliance informed me this morning about the completion of a study they started last month to collect data about the time and cost of custom elearning development. The report is available  here. I had participated in the study and find the results align well with our own data.

What other ways can you cut elearning to fit?

Bryan Chapman at the Chapman Alliance has set out to collect the latest data on how long it takes to develop custom e-learning at various levels. Read his post here and participate in the survey here.

Previously when I discussed freeform and template-based rapid content authoring tools, I kept software simulation tools aside.

The main reason was that such simulation tools are not always used for developing just any type of learning but focused on training content creation for a specific software application or system.

A nice talk about the need for a ‘learning revolution’. Sir Ken Robinson makes some cutting comments about education today. Poignant at times, funny at some – well worth the 17 minutes.

“…teenagers do not wear wrist watches, I don’t mean they can’t or they’re not allowed to, they just often choose not to. And the reason is you see, we were brought up in a pre-digital culture, those of us above 25 and so for us, if you want to tell the time you have to wear something.

Going through my feeds yesterday, I came across this great post by Cathy Moore titled – “How to design eLearning thats memorable and budget friendly”. In this, she has included a 5-part video series from her presentation at the UK eLearning Network earlier this month.