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Once you have the Training and Content (the path, with all the twigs and rocks and stuff along the path), you need a system that will hold your program together and deliver it to your learners.
How does all of your content, all of your quizzing, all of your data gathering, come together? Through your Learning Management System (LMS) and Content Management System (CMS), or the combo: LCMS. What are these things? Click that link and read the full Wikipedia entry for numbing detail.
None of these acronyms create content.
They do give your learners an infrastructure for viewing the training; organizing and presenting your content, quizzing, data gathering, etc.
Does your eLearning, web-based training program, need one of these systems? Yes, in some form. Will it be ridiculously confusing if I go on and on about them? Yes.
Bottom line is that you need to deliver your training to your learners, in the form and format most helpful to them, and the people who create your training content need an organized way to deliver it.
You can buy this system off the shelf, or you can find one via the open source world, or you can hire a firm to build one customized to your specifications.
I support building one customized to your specifications. Here’s why:
· Off the shelf, open source, or custom build, there will be rules and a learning curve….you rarely just set these things up and go.
o With a custom build, you are making the rules
· Off the shelf, open source, or custom build, you will need technical support. Each has support limitations, but I have found that:
o When a knowledgeable firm does your custom build, you have available, helpful technical support. You are one of a handful of clients, and your needs will be important. You will actually matter to them, and their responses will show that.
o Off the shelf will provide ok support, but you are one of a large group of clients, and support will likely involve call centers, automated menus, and other frustrating things.
o I have never experienced helpful support on an open source product.
Those things said, I want to say a few more things to discourage you, in general, from going with an open source LCMS.
· Linux is open source, and free. If Linux was both Free and Easy, everyone would use it.
· Wordpress is open source. Wordpress requires technical support from technical geniuses and technical coaches, most of whom are not free.
· You generally get what you pay for. Right? Right.
· Your time has value. Right? Right.
On the other hand, Filezilla is open source, and I love it. It always works for me.
All that said, a few words to encourage a Custom Build.
· It’s built to do specifically what you need.
· You have a choice of programming languages that will do various things for you.
o Example: a custom system built on Microsoft .NET can give you web, windows, tablet, phone, xBox (how incredible would it be to deploy your xBox-compatible training program?)
§ These options might be paid add-ons or plug-ins with other systems.
· You make the rules
o You are not compromising your training to fit it into a generic system’s template
o You are working with the firm to design
§ How your training will look
§ How learners will interact with your training
§ How you manage your training content
There are a lot of options out in the world. I have my opinions. You need to pick the presentation and organization method that best fits your needs.
Which brings us to Delivery. Yes, it’s different from organization and presentation. How will you get your training program to the learner’s fingertips? Delivery has two layers: The Pipe, and the Devices.
I kinda feel like drawing pictures again…
Delivery: Pipe
If your learners are staying in your office building, in your town, potentially even in your state (Rhode Island is tiny…), your Pipe can be potentially be Local Distribution. This can happen via your own highly responsive corporate servers, or a local data center.
On the other hand, if your learners are spread far and wide, across states, the country, the hemisphere, the world - - or if your servers simply are not robust enough to handle your training experience, you will need some hearty distribution. There are services for this. A couple are Amazon hosting (EC2 at this writing), and Windows Azure. This is “the Cloud.”
You might even think of iTunes, Newsstand, and iTunes U as cloud services - - because you use them to access data/media from anywhere with a signal. YouTube is video in the cloud….so if your training is all video, and you don’t care about security, and have some other method of reporting, your training could potentially live on YouTube.
Delivery: Devices
These are the computing devices that the learner can use to access training.
· Desktop PC
o Learners probably have one at work, likely to have one at home
o Easy to set up a workstation where learners can log in and access training
o Windows or Mac
o Physical keyboard and mouse
o Wifi or Ethernet internet connection
o Not portable
· Laptop
o Learners possibly have one at work and at home
o Windows or Mac
o Physical keyboard, mouse options (physical, trackpad, multi-touch)
o Wifi or Ethernet connection
o Portable
Desktop PC’s and laptops have been around for the longest, as a device type they have logged a lot of training time. Right now, they are what the majority of people are used to using. Your training content can be robust, sugary rich media, or simple.
· Tablet
o Learners possibly have one, or their employer might provide one
o Mac, Android, possibly Kindle Fire (Microsoft is building a prototype)
o Touch screen
§ Will use gestures and need a design that allows users to click with big ole fingers.
o Wifi internet
o Highly portable
· Smartphone
o Learners possibly own one, employer might provide one
o Mac, Android, Windows
o Touch screen
§ Gestures, design for finger clicks
o Wifi or 3G/4G internet
o Highly highly portable
As I understand it, designing for tablets and smartphones is basically the same (iPhone/iPad, Android Phone/Android Tablet). Same display size ratio, simplicity, larger buttons for clumsy fingers. It’s been a little amazing – and makes complete sense - to see how iPads have become learning devices of choice for educators and government agencies. They’re just so portable, and just so intuitively easy to use.
In my mind, I’m lumping “eReaders” in with Tablets. So much can be done with interactive eBooks and iBooks that I think it’s just a matter of time before they completely take over the market. When you combine engaging, interactive eBooks with simple delivery via Amazon and iTunes, and program in a pipe back to the database for reliable reporting, you have a brand new way to think about textbooks and the way people learn.
WHEW!
That just about wraps things up. I know, for some of you this is far too oversimplified. For others, it’s far too much to take in. No matter where you are in my galactic continuum, I hope this article has helped you generate your own notes and questions.
Tomorrow is the last little bit - - See you then!
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