In Response to The prediction made a year back by several training experts and Gurus for 2008 eLearning industry - how far they met the reality? Part1

Hi Folks, in responses to the post “The prediction made a year back by several training experts and Gurus for 2008 eLearning industry - how far they met the reality?” I have received many replies, many of them supported Clive Shepard and Tony Karrer.

Following are some interesting responses, please have a look:

From Clark Quinn -- "I also saw interest in looking at eLearning more strategically, and I predict this will continue to increase. Organizations are increasingly realizing that they need to move beyond courses, and even beyond content, and start looking at solutions."

I think that SLOW progress is being made, but many organizations are still focused on tactical actions, ie more courseware created to be delivered via their LMS -- instead of really thinking through the right learning medium/media to reach their target audience in their intended environment. I sure wish Clark's prediction had made more progress, as I think most of us (in this industry) would be having more fun once that progress is made!

Mark Oehlert's 2008 prediction I think hit it right - "Organizations will continue to fail to appreciate the strategic and differentiating nature that rich training and learning opportunities provide, that part of that failure will continue to rest with training departments' inability to articulate their alignment with the larger business goals."

Thus I agree, we achieved his "grumpy" prediction, that the most strategic progress will continue to be missed! Maybe in 2009, we can make more progress given the broad array of Web 2.0 tools which have become so easily available recently.

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The prediction made a year back by several training experts and Gurus for 2008 eLearning industry - how far they met the reality?

Elearning experts has made several forecast in January this year; am interested to know the resemblance of behavior of the industry with those experienced statements.

Like, most of the experts talked about eLearning 2.0, Virtual Classrooms and Rapid Development models will rule through out the year.

Also for your reference please find below some predictions I have looked at, by the gurus in 2008.

• Manish Mohan
• Benjamin Hamilton
• Clark Quinn's Learnets: 2008 Predictions for Learning
• John Shaffer - Learning Predictions for 2008
• Wendy Wickam
• Clive Shepard
• Stephanie Sandifer
• Jay Cross
• Tony Karrer - Ten Predictions for eLearning in 2008
• Karyn Romeis
• Gabe Anderson - "Articulate Will Dominate" in 2008
• Peter Isackson - InterCultural Musings
• Suzana Gutierrez - My prediction (in Portugese)
• Sergio Lima - here (also in Portuguese)
• Dan McCarthy
• Kapp Notes: 2008 Predictions, Remembrance and Challenges
• Oehlert's 2008 Predictions
• Christy Tucker: Predictions for E-Learning in 2008
• G-Cube: US Economy and e-Learning in 2008
• http://www.soprando.net/ap/previsoes-de-aprendizagem-para-2008

My own personal study by this time says that Manish Mohan, Clive Shepard and Tony Karrer's were talking close to the today's situation months back.
I welcome your thoughts and observations here and help me to analyze.

How Many People Does It Take to Make a Success: A Look at Qwitter

The following post is from eLearn Magazine Editor-in-Chief Lisa Neal's blog "How Many People Does It Take to Make a Success: A Look at Qwitter" After reading, I find this good to keep on my post as its describes one of the way the people are using web 2.0 technologies.

In Here Comes Everybody: The Power of Organizing Without Organizations, Clay Shirky discusses why some social networks stick while others collapse. Wikipedia is one of his examples of a success. When I looked at Qwitter, my first reaction was it was a failure because there were only 614 people using it. Qwitter, a cleverly-named initiative from TobaccoFreeFlorida that harnesses Twitter, is promoted as “a social tool designed to help you quit smoking” through keeping track of daily cigarettes and feelings about smoking. They also provide tips. That 614 people signed up for Qwitter seems low given that 750 people sign up for Twitter daily and 3 million people use it.
My initial reaction was reinforced by looking at how Qwitter was used, since many of the users had started in April (due to launch publicity, I speculated) and had stopped using it after a few - or just one - use. This is notable given that many Twitter users tweet many times daily. Looking through Qwitter users, I finally found a recent and more sustained user who tweeted pretty regularly for the past month, although there didn’t seem to be any cessation taking place. Click here to read more.

Is it cheaper? Offshore Elearning Development

Given that it's now common for organizations to outsource development work to India and China, is it true to say that it is still cheaper than developing the material in house in or are there other value adds one would need to consider?

Offshore elearning development can be cheaper, but it's important to consider the type of training, availability and stability of written content, clarity of the ISD process, communication channels and goals of the initiative.

In general, the direct costs for off-shoring elearning development are cheaper. However, without clear stable content, a well documented process for providing and reviewing content and solid channels for providing and reviewing work in process, slippages, re-work and delays can eat deeply into cost savings.

Additionally, it has been my experience that some training projects are much easier to offshore than others. When the training covers simple, explicit topics it's relatively easy to offshore. As the learning becomes more complex, it becomes increasingly difficult to offshore.

As with any elearning development or complex project, partnership and teaming experience can be great levers for increasing the efficiency and effectiveness of the effort. If you have an offshore partner you work with often, they will be more familiar with your content, processes, systems, and methods of communication and potential bottlenecks. The more you work with together, the quicker and better will be the process. If you are looking at costing projects, be sure to think through what this means in terms of the value chain. When you do sign a contract with an offshore partner, make sure the terms are written in such a way that you can either capture or share such savings. In the long run, that will pay you huge dividends.

The cost of creating a simple tutorial can vary greatly. It depends on tools used, whether the cost is based on straight development, or whether time for other components in the process are integrated into the per hour factor used to cost the effort. If you are paying for your partner to make storyboards, complete a detailed design, conduct multiple reviews, add graphics, conduct multiple SME reviews to get content, test the deliverable, load it to an LMS, manage the pilot and complete other critical steps in the process, the per hour rate can look staggering. However, having a skilled partner handle such activities can save time and money. Likewise, it’s important to understand the skill level of the developers who will be working on the project. If they know the various elearning tools required for the project and are familiar with Instructional design, and can work to ask questions and gather unknown information, you will pay more per hour, but end up with a much better, cheaper deliverable.