Please freeze the design!

How often have you worked on ID projects where the design is still not frozen (or per one of the final reviewers, the design seems ok; however, review from another reviewer is still awaited) and the management waves a green flag to the content development team? Trust me, I have, more often than not. It typically happens when an organization outsources its training needs to another organization that is good/professional at developing, designing, and delivering training.

Management at the training team side wants to optimize the time that team members are billing on the project and it also intends to impress the client by delivering development pieces ahead of the training timeline. On the other hand, client reviewers, whose key responsibilities are different than training development, park performing reviews for a later, rather relaxed time. Situation: Content team creates design that is ready for review; however, (full) review does not come through per the timeline. Implication: Management gives a go ahead for content development since the design timeline has passed. The development starts in full flow, unsure of the validity of the design on which it is to be based. Complication: Complete design review is received a couple of days, sometimes weeks (yes, that happens), later and it indicates some major changes to topical outline, objectives, and even learning strategy, of the training. Result: Rework. The development team gets defensive and feels demotivated. However, this is the situation (not the best one, agreed) wherein a training team can learn a lot about the client, their preferences, reasons for their preferences, and their thought process for selecting an approach over another, in addition to sharing their own reasons for designing the training approach as they did---many a times clients also learn a thing or two about training by interacting with the training development team. By being defensive, most of the teams lose on the opportunity to interact with client to understand their requirements at this stage. Often, the development team works towards merely fixing the review comments just for the sake of it. My suggestion: Utilize this scenario/time to (a) understand what the client review essentially shares---what is good/not so good about the design, what the client desires, why does the client need what it is asking it does---and, if need be, (b) negotiate---may be timelines, budget, resources, etc. (Given that the design review arrived later than the timeline, depending on how late it came through, it will have timeline/monetary implications.) And to avoid running into situations like these, have a good dialogue with client at the beginning of the project, emphasizing the importance of having one key work product frozen/signed off before working on the next, dependent work product(s); e.g., a frozen design before starting to work on training development; frozen development templates before beginning to script content in them, and so on. In addition, consider developing (if absolutely necessary) only the parts of training for which you are sure that the design will not change.

Rapid Prototyping in Instructional Design

The idea, meaning, and use of rapid prototyping differ across disciplines. This article discusses rapid prototyping in the field of instructional design.

Rapid Prototyping

Usually, instructional designing relies on following the linear ADDIE (analysis, design, development, implementation, and evaluation) model to develop an instruction or content. Rapid prototyping (RP) is an alternate, iterative design methodology to such a traditional, linear instructional design model. As the name suggests, it involves creating a prototype (working model of the final product); and just like any other prototype, it has the key features that get duplicated in the final (instructional) product.

RP is a way of designing content that involves creating a prototype, evaluating the prototype by seeking feedback from the stakeholders (learner, client, and the SME), implementing the feedback into the prototype, repeating this process of user evaluation and feedback implementation till the prototype evolves into an approved content by the stakeholders. This iterative design-evaluation cycle continues through the life of the project. Because of the repetitive, iterative process that RP follows, it is also called a spiral cycle or layered approach of instructional designing.

RP ensures developing effective instruction, especially in large projects, because of the stakeholder (student, client, and SME) involvement early at the design phase. Mistakes in the design are easier to fix at this stage than when the project is completely developed—it saves time, effort, and money to catch and fix the issues early.

Comparison

Traditional Instructional Design Model:

Step 1: Define concept (objectives, expectations, and audience) for the learning; Step 2: Define requirements of the learning; Step 3: Create a preliminary design; Step 4: Create the detailed design; Step 5: Develop the complete learning; Step 6: Implement or program the learning; Step 7: Test the learning for acceptance; Step 8: Correct the loopholes that got left out from Step 2.

In other words, the classic ADDIE model looks like:

Analysis -> Design -> Development -> Implementation -> Evaluation

[ADDIE follows a structured, linear, step-by-step, progressive approach through each of these five stages to come up with a particular content delivery or edition.]

RP Model:

Step 1: Define concept (objectives, expectations, and audience) for the learning; Step 2: Create a prototype; Step 3: Perform user evaluation and concept refinement; Step 4: Implement refined requirements; Step 5: Repeat Steps 3 and 4 in a continuous cycle.

In other words, the RP model looks like:

Information gathering -> Design Phase (iterative process: Design -> Prototype -> Review) -> Development Phase (iterative process: Develop -> Implement -> Evaluate)

[In a way, the design and development phases happen concurrently than sequentially in RP as compared to the traditional instructional design models. This makes the project cycle of RP shorter.]

Usage

You, as an instructional designer, can opt to use RP when you are struggling with time and budget for a learning project. Because of the stakeholder (learner, client, and SME) intervention at an earlier stage, mistakes are identified early; and therefore, the chances of rework at a later stage greatly reduce. The opposite often happens while following the linear, traditional models—the finished product often presents errors that need to be fixed—because these errors were not identified at an early stage, they replicate themselves all through the project subsections; and therefore, fixing them consumes a lot of time. In addition, in RP, the design and the development happen concurrently rather than sequentially. This translates to lesser time spent on the project, which also means you can complete the project on a tighter budget.

You can also use RP when you have two competing approaches of designing an instruction and you would like to get an idea about which approach would appeal and befit more to the learner.

Advantages

Getting feedback from the learners at an early stage: RP involves the learners early at the design phase. It is better to involve the learners to get their feedback than to believe that you can put yourself in learners’ shoes as much (and as well) as the learners themselves can. I believe that the self-critique of your work or instruction can never match to the feedback that you get from the learners. When you get the content evaluated by the learners and then implement their feedback, it improves your chances of delivering a more fit content for the learner. It makes you realize, at an earlier stage (design stage rather than the development stage), the mistakes or inefficiencies that might seep into the project. All this, saves time and increases effectiveness of an instruction.

Fine tuning yourself with changing client needs: Your client might have the most specific requirements and expectations when it first approaches you for developing content for a given audience. However, most often than not, client requirements and expectations change or evolve during the content development process. RP gives you an opportunity to assess whether the approach that you are following to design your content is in tandem with client’s requirements—fixed as well as changing requirements. (Every now and then, some client requirements or expectations are implicit. Because they are implicit, this information is only held by the client. When the client sees how the prototype is evolving, chances are that those requirements or expectations become explicit—for you as well as for the client.) A prototype that satisfies the client requirements is likely to result in a satisfactory finished (instructional) product. Get the client’s buy in and save expectation failures and later disappointments.

Accelerating the development process: Because RP seeks and incorporates the suggestions by the stakeholders (learner, client, and SME) early at the design phase, the development process gets quicker than it would have been if there were uncertainties about the stakeholders’ reactions to the design of the content. If content is developed with such uncertainties, the rework on the design and the developed content can be quite time and effort consuming. Introduce the stakeholders, catch the problems while they are relatively easy to fix, and reduce the time on content development.

Disadvantages

Approaching RP as trial and error: To some, following RP might appear as a trial and error method for getting a prototype approved by the client. While following RP, one needs to understand and constantly remind oneself that nothing can replace sound instructional strategy for a given learning situation and also that RP does not eliminate the need of an extensive analysis phase before heading for the design phase. So, RP is not a short cut to the instructional design and development process if you compromise on the sound instructional principles. Although using RP might give you a feeling that you can be less disciplined and repair the faulty designs by feedback, treating RP with this approach demeans the purpose and advantages of using RP—to create an effective instruction in lesser time.

Leading to frustration in developers: Because there are multiple iterations that happen in the design and developed content concurrently, some developers (content developers, graphic designers, and content technologists) might feel frustrated doing multiple revisions of the same content piece. Some might feel why leave a room for improvement and why not do everything in a perfect shape at the first go. However, that is neither the intent nor the approach that is followed for RP. Trying to achieve perfection the first time defeats the advantages of RP as well—to make design perfect, you will spend more time and effort; and also, you might try to fix the parameters in the prototype that need to be discussed with the stakeholders. So, to work on a RP project, it works well to have experience in RP or work with someone experienced in RP to understand where to draw the line of achieving perfection while developing the prototypes.

LIFTS Principle

It was only when I thought of writing about a simple set of principles called LIFTS, which I learned during the early days of my instructional design career, that I realized its nonexistence on the Internet. Just to confirm one of the aspects related to LIFTS, I thought of cross checking about it on the Web, and I was in for a surprise—there was not a single write-up about LIFTS on the Web. LIFTS is a simple set of rules that can be used for writing effectively for a given audience. It is an acronym that stands for Learner centric, Integrity, Flow, Transition, and Simplicity. This is what my grey cells recall. I would like to share whatever I can remember and I hope someone could correct me if I go wrong somewhere.

Let’s look at each of the elements of this principle or rule (I am not sure which categorization it fits into better) that can guide anyone to develop effective educational instructions for a specific audience or, in other words, learner.

L: Learner Centric

For any instruction to be effective (no matter at which level you are developing it: big, as in design phase of a learning project; or small, as in development phase of a learning project), it has to be learner centric. This principle affects multiple aspects of writing an instruction: what strategy you choose for designing the learning material (you would want to use different learning strategies for a drawing student vis-à-vis a busy, on-the-move technocrat); which examples or scenarios you select to teach the learner (they should be learner centric: the learner should be able to relate to them, they should be able to put themselves in the shoes of a person in the scenarios or examples that you develop for the learning); what kind of language you use to address the learner (I feel that addressing the learner as second person is effective while developing an educative instruction). Always consider the ultimate client for whom you develop the learning, the learner—everything else should revolve around this consideration.

I: Integrity

You cannot look London and talk Tokyo to the learner. All instructions that you include in learning should be integral to the overall goals of the learning. The objectives or goals should guide the assessments for the learning, and the assessments should guide the learning material. At all times, be relevant. You can teach a fashion student the impact of ineffective time management by taking an example based on an automobile company scenario; however, just think how relevant or related such content would it be vis-à-vis using a fashion company scenario to teach the same skill. Ensure that all learning instructions that you develop are directed to the learning goals and assisted by relevant examples.

F: Flow

The content of a learning should build logically as it progresses—from simple to complex, or from generic to specific, and not vice versa. This ensures that the learner is exposed to fundamentals before getting into the nuances of a subject—this is in sync with the natural and logical way of learning and developing schemas. While designing a learning, make sure that its topical outline reflects a seamless, progressive flow of subject knowhow. While developing a topic of a learning, make certain that all its subtopics follow a logical flow. Always arrange or organize your content to guarantee flow—it facilitates a smooth reading.

T: Transition

If Flow is macromanagement, Transition is micromanagement. Transition is how you move the learner from one topic or subtopic to the next one; how you relate the succeeding content to the preceding one; how you choose to tell the learner why a given content piece is important to be learned after a particular topic or subtopic. As a good practice, always include transitions for content chunks of all magnitudes such as paragraphs, subtopics, topics. Include a line or two sharing how a piece of content leads itself to the next piece of content, what is the importance of studying the forthcoming content, and so on. The idea is to interest the learner about what’s next, keep him or her aware of what to expect next, and let him or her know the reasons for the same.

S: Simplicity

Develop your instructions using simple language so that the learners can derive only one meaning out of it. The language should not be open to interpretations. Flowery language works well for fiction, not necessarily for imparting education and training. Use short, straightforward sentences; avoid convoluted structures in language.

Getting to Know Web Syndication

How often you have come across terms like Web syndication, RSS feeds, Web feeds? I think quite a lot in the past few years. These are the words that grabbed my attention too but not enough to look out for them at the first instance (I blame the procrastinator in me for it). Now, I feel that a lot has been said and talked about them and they can no longer be ignored in the context of Web. This article is an attempt to collate my understanding on syndication and related aspects; in the whole process, I feel I will myself better be able to consolidate my thoughts and awareness around this topic.
Think of Web syndication as backbone of the very popular use of ‘feeds,’ in today’s context. Let’s look at it like this – You visit a ‘technical gadgets review’ blog and the entries therein interest you. You think that the upcoming blog posts might also talk of information and analysis that will be worthy of note. So, what you do next is subscribe to this blog (via feeds). As a result, whenever any update occurs on that blog, you get to know of it via your browser. Many of us do it, many of us don’t. Many of us understand the ‘How’ behind it, many of us don’t.

What is it?

Web syndication refers to making content of one Web site available to multiple other Web sites. Sometimes also known as ‘subscribing,’ it is a feature that enables the end users to read updates from different Web sites without visiting each one of them individually.

How does that happen?

Web syndication is about making feeds available from a Web site. People can subscribe to these feeds and keep themselves updated of the latest information on a Web site for which they have subscribed the feeds.

What are feeds?

Feeds, RSS, RSS feeds, XML feeds, syndicated content, syndicated feed, and Web feeds are words that mean the same thing. Yes, they are synonyms in the technical Web jargon and refer to a file, an XML document, containing frequently updated content posted on a Web site. It can contain either summary (with link to the full text) or full text of the updated content, plus related metadata such as publishing dates and authorship details. You can consider feeds as Web pages that are meant to be read by computers and not people. These XML files are formatted in a way to be read by feed readers or aggregators. (Hold that thought right there; we’ll look at feed readers in a while.)

There are mainly two formats in which feeds appear: RSS (really simple syndication) and Atom. Both the formats are based on XML and are constantly being updated with new versions. (I am intentionally skipping the technicalities that make the two different.)

What is the difference between a feed and a Web site?

A feed might have the same content as the Web pages of a Web site however in a different format. In addition, the feed gives you access to the content that is posted or updated since you last visited the feed---this helps you view only the new content, unlike a Web site.

Who publishes feeds?

Anyone who publishes content on a Web site can publish a feed. The publisher can publish a single feed for an entire Web page or multiple feeds relating to different sections of a Web page.

For which Web sites are feeds used?

Feeds are used the most for blogs and news Web sites for the obvious reason that their Web pages are updated with content frequently; however, feeds are also used to deliver other digital content such as audios, videos and pictures. (Podcasting also uses feeds.)

How to use feeds?

To use feeds, one needs to:

1. have a feed reader and
2. subscribe to the feeds.

What is a feed reader?

It is a specialized software application that checks the feeds and provides the end user with all the updates made to a Web site(s). It is designed to read feeds from multiple sources/Web sites. In short, a typical feed reader will, for the subscribed Web pages, check the updates, download them, and provide a user interface for end users to read the updates.

Are there different kinds of feed readers?

Yes, there are primarily five types of feed readers:

1. Web-based feed readers (e.g., Google reader, MyYahoo): If you want to read all your feeds within your Web browser, go for the Web-based feed reader. It allows you to access your feed subscriptions from any computer. You just need to sign in to the Web site that manages your feeds.
   
   
2. Desktop feed readers (e.g., FeedDemon and FeedReader for Windows): If you want to read all your feeds apart from your browser, you need to install a desktop feed reader. It has technically advanced features than a Web-based feed reader. It allows you to download and store the updates on the computer that has this reader installed, even if you are offline. While selecting this feed reader, choose the one that works well with your computer because different feed readers work well on different operating systems.
   
   
3. Browser built-in feed readers (e.g., Firefox’s Live Bookmarks, IE7’s Feeds and Favorites): New browsers, such as Firefox, IE7, Opera, or Safari, have built-in feed readers.
   
   
4. Email-based feed readers (Google Alerts, Mozilla Thunderbird): If you want all your feeds delivered via your email, get the email-based feed readers.
   
   
5. Mobile feed readers (Google mobile, yahoo mobile): If you want to read your feeds on your mobile device, getting this one would be a good idea.

Which software to install?

If you wish to read your feeds on a computer and not very keen on a specific format (say, email), you need not install or download any software provided you use any of the modern browsers such as IE 7, Firefox, or Safari. These browsers provide support for the feeds. For example, in IE7, if you activate the Commands Bar, you will see the RSS feed icon at the second position from left. This icon usually appears grey however turns orange if the Web site you are exploring offers feeds. On the other hand, while using Firefox, you will experience that if a Web page contains feeds, the Web address bar will show the orange icon against it. In Safari, you will see a blue RSS logo at the right side of the address bar if the Web page contains feeds. These modern Web browsers receive feeds from their toolbars using Live Bookmarks, Favorites, and so on.

How to subscribe to feeds?

You can subscribe to feeds related to a Web slice (one section of a Web page that is frequently updated and has a feed associated with it) or whole of the Web page. (Note: When you add a Web slice to the favorites bar, you automatically subscribe to its feed.) You just need to click the feed button to subscribe to the related feeds. This is, usually, an orange button with a white dot surrounded by two quarter circular strands. (Sometimes, the feed button is in the form of a blue colored RSS icon—yes, by that name itself.) Clicking it opens the Web page with the content and an option of subscribing wherein you can add the Web page to your Favorites or Bookmarks as well, depending on the browser you use.

When subscribing to a feed, your browser also gives you an option of selecting the interval for checking the updates. So, you can get updates after a specific time interval that you set for your browser.

After subscribing to the feeds on single or multiple Web sites, your browser (built-in feed reader) will check and download all the updates, and you can read those in your own sweet, convenient time.

How much does it cost?

It usually does not cost to subscribe to feeds. Also, most of the feed readers are free however some downloadable desktop and mobile feed readers can cost somewhere around $20-$50.

This article is just the tip of the iceberg called Web syndication. There is so much more to it in terms of current uses and future possibilities for individuals, business owners, and academic circles. I hope that this article helped you au fait about fundamentals of web syndication.

Writing Effective Assignments

Although assignments appear at the end of each learning module, interestingly they are created before their preceding module content (text and media included).

After freezing the goals of a learning content, assignments are created, which is followed by the development of the reading content. Doing so ensures that (a) the assignments map to the goals or objectives of the learning content and (b) the reading content is streamlined and includes all the necessary information that the students need to be able to do the assignments.

For a content developer or an instructional designer, developing effective assignments ensures that the course goals are met and students develop competencies that the course promises. From my experience as an instructional designer, I feel the following guidelines can help you write effective assignments.

Work backward from the goals. While designing the assignment, remind yourself of the goals of the learning content. Think of the answers or solutions you would expect the students to produce in the assignment. Now think how to write the assignment so that the students are able to reach that answer or solution. Think what prerequisite(s) the students will need to perform the assignment in a manner that they get full grades for it---any information or job aid or sample, reasons of doing the assignment, where the assignment fits in the whole curriculum, what format to produce the assignment in, any word limits or length restrictions to the assignment, due date, grading criteria, and so forth. Include all these prerequisites as a part of the assignment. Working backwards from the goals ensures that (a) the assignment maps to the goals and (b) students are judged on the competencies that the course offers to develop.

Consider the skill level. When the course competencies and goals, say of an engineering-based course, are about enabling the students to apply (Bloom 3) the concepts of engineering in the field of robotics, you cannot put an assignment that asks students to create a robotic arm (Bloom 5) or write equations that govern the movement of a robotic arm (Bloom 1). Design the assignment so that it matches the desired skill level that a student is expected to achieve after going through the learning content.

Be specific: Writing vague, broad-ended (mind you not open-ended) questions would produce similar results. The students will respond likewise---with vague, broad, and varied answers. This not only makes the assessment of the assignment difficult, but also hampers the assignment mapping to the lesson goals or objectives.

Your assignment needs a precise direction---provide it yourself. Specify the students exactly what they need to do. For example,
Ineffective assignment: Comment on any one aspect of your choice in the Roman Empire.
Effective assignment: Identify four reasons for the fall of the Roman Empire. Explain each of the reasons. Document your response in a word document of not more than 1000 words. The assignment is due on Day X.

Give in details. Your students should be able to understand the assignment completely without asking for much help around. Do not leave room for assumptions, interpretations, and intuition-work by the students. They should be told what to do (steps, format, and naming convention of the assignment), why to do (purpose of the assignment), when to do (deliverable date of the assignment), for whom to do (expected audiences for the assignment; e.g., they should know whether they need to create a memo for their manager or an editorial for their local newspaper), and the associated brownies (grades and their split-up). In addition, the context building, if needed, should be elaborate and guide the student towards a specific answer. Remember that a detailed assignment guides students to specific answers, which in turn enable them to earn appropriate grades for the assignment.

Build relevant context or scenario. Place the assignment in the context of a typical job setting that a student will encounter after taking the course. For a student of fashion retail management, an assignment revolving around Sears or Macy’s or Ann Taylor (for devising an ‘effective sales strategy for the next season merchandise’) will help the him or her get the real feel of on-the-job experience and therefore make the student more prepared for the life after school. If, for this student, you build the assignment in the scenario of an automobile company (for devising an ‘effective sales strategy for their next model’), it would be irrelevant. Although the skill that the student would exhibit under the two scenarios would be the same (devising an effective sales strategy for products), using the relevant scenario (a) places the student in the shoes of the person he or she will likely become after taking the course, (b) checks the relevance of competency developed after taking the course, and (c) addresses the goals of the course in a better way.

Spread a long assignment across weeks. If you plan to include a lengthy assignment, it is wiser to split it up across different weeks and ask the students to execute its subparts each week. Such an assignment works well if it is a build-on type of an assignment; for example, if the course is on ‘Business Plans’ and the course objective states that the students will be able to build their own Business Plan after taking the course, a good assignment will be to ask them create a Sample Business Plan for a specific business and need. The business plan has many parts to it and creating all of it in one assignment or week might be stressful for the students; therefore, such an assignment can be spread over the weeks. Each week the student can be asked to create different parts of the business plan and in the last week, the student can be asked to compile the work of all weeks and improve or finalize it to submit a completed Sample Business Plan. This way, a lengthy assignment can be retained and the student load can also be balanced.

Weigh and word the assignment grading carefully. For each task, sub-task, and sub-sub-task that a student is asked to perform in the assignment, there should be a corresponding grading criteria. In addition, the grading points associated with each grading criteria should consider the effort and understanding that the particular task demands. The sum of grading points of all grading criteria is the total grade point of an assignment. In addition, word the grading criteria so that it maps to the task listed in the assignment. The verbs used in the grading criteria should map to the verbs used to perform the tasks. For example, if a task in an assignment is to “Provide at least two reasons for agreeing or disagreeing with the statement ‘XYZ’.”, then the corresponding grading criteria can be worded as “The student should have provided at least two reasons for agreeing or disagreeing with the given statement.” All tasks in the assignments should have a respective grading criterion and vice versa---students should not be assessed on anything not mentioned in the assignment. Doing it ensures that the students know what to do to achieve what.

Write inclusive instructor or facilitator notes. Often, instructors or facilitators of a learning course are not subject matter experts. They might just be responsible for holding or conducting a class or learning session with a set of notes provided by the educational facility. Therefore, your instructor or facilitator notes should contain detailed answers to the assignments and reasons for every trivial question and subparts of the assignment. Do not presume that the facilitator will know most of the stuff for a simple subject---just write as if the facilitator is going to need a lot of your help and so provide it at once in abundance.

Bloom’s Taxonomy

Benjamin Bloom, leading a group of educational psychologists, published taxonomy of learning behaviors in 1956 (when he was 44---just a trivia thrown at you) and ever since, educators and teachers are creating learning materials and assessments that, respectively, teach and test the learners for particular skills. This taxonomy was named ‘Bloom’s taxonomy.’

Bloom’s taxonomy identifies three domains of learning---in other words, it mentions that there are primarily three types of learning:

1. Cognitive Domain: This is the intellectual domain that deals with the thinking part of the learning. It has to do with the knowledge that a person has or gains. The skills that a person acquires in (or owing to) this domain are used more in science and commerce subjects.
   
   
2. Affective Domain: This domain deals with the attitude of the learner---this is the emotional part of the learning so to speak. It has to do with how a person feels about something, say a piece of art. The skills that a person acquires in (or owing to) this domain are used more in humanities or arts subjects.
   
   
3. Psychomotor Domain: This domain deals with the manual or physical skills of a learner. It concerns whether the learner is able to ‘do’ things; such as, creating something by hands, e.g., a sculpture. The skills that a person acquires in (or owing to) this domain are used more in sports and drama.

Bloom’s taxonomy presents a detailed study on cognitive and affective domains, leaving the psychomotor domain for future educational psychologists and researchers to explore, by giving the explanation that our education system does not have enough of the psychomotor skills to teach or assess (which I think is not true).

I have so far used Bloom’s taxonomy for the cognitive domain; and therefore owing to my limited exposure, this is the area I will touch upon in this article.

Cognitive Domain

Bloom’s taxonomy classifies cognitive thinking into six levels of complexity. Each level is signified by a noun and is hierarchically arranged. Each succeeding level builds on the preceding level and is thus more complex. Unless you have mastered the preceding level, moving on to the next succeeding level successfully is fallacious. You can use these levels as an effective framework to build learning objectives and assessments for a learning piece.

Let’s look into these levels first to understand how the learning objectives and assessments can be designed around them.

Bloom Levels

The six definitive levels (a.k.a. stages or skill sets) addressed in the cognitive domain are:

1. Knowledge: At this level, the learner is able to recall the information delivered---the learner remembers ‘who, what, where, when’ from the learning. For this Bloom level, the verbs you can use to design the learning objectives and assessments: list, identify, define, describe, recognize, select, state (remember what is taught). Example: What are the six stages of cognitive learning in Bloom’s taxonomy?
   
   
2. Comprehension: At this level, the learner is able to reword the learning in his or her own words because now he or she has understood the learning. For this Bloom level, the verbs you can use to design the learning objectives and assessments: explain, summarize, reword, understand, paraphrase, generalize, exemplify (not only recall what is taught but also comprehend and understand it). Example: Explain the need of Bloom’s taxonomy in the corporate and education sector.
   
   
3. Application: At this level, the learner is able to use or place the learning in a new environment---the learner applies the learning to outside-the-classroom environment. For this Bloom level, the verbs you can use to design the learning objectives and assessments: use, produce, solve, produce, apply, demonstrate, prepare (apply the learning to a new situation). Example: Demonstrate how you moved up the different Bloom levels for a new skill that you learned lately.
   
   
4. Analysis: At this level, the learner looks at the learning independently---the learner is able to differentiate between facts (the absolute) and inferences (the subjective or the relative; point of views by others). At this time, the learner disintegrates the learning into chunks that make more sense of the organizational structure of the learning. For this Bloom level, the verbs you can use to design the learning objectives and assessments: analyze, compare, contrast, examine, deconstruct, differentiate, infer (able to look at the learning from a critic’s and independent point of view). Example: Compare and contrast the LOTS and HOTS of the cognitive domain of Bloom’s taxonomy.
   
   
5. Synthesis: At this level, the learner creates something new. This is the time when learner reuses information of different types in a new, novel manner. For this Bloom level, the verbs you can use to design the learning objectives and assessments: develop, synthesize, create, design, compile, generate, devise (make an original piece of work, contribute something anew---in verbal or physical form). Example: Create a new classification system for the cognitive domain.
   
   
6. Evaluation: At this level, the learner judges views and works. For this Bloom level, the verbs you can use to design the learning objectives and assessments: review, judge, justify, interpret, defend, evaluate, support (wear a judge’s hat and review the content for assessment). Example: Review Bloom’s taxonomy for writing effective course objectives and assessment.

Note: Knowledge and comprehension are known as LOTS (Lower Ordered Thinking Skills) and Application, Analysis, Synthesis, and Evaluation are known as HOTS (Higher Ordered Thinking Skills).

Wording the Course Competencies and Assignments

The verbs, mentioned against each Bloom level, identify the cognitive level at which the learning material is aimed. In other words, the choice of verbs indicates the level of learning that a learner will attain after taking the learning. You, as a course writer, can use these verbs to write your course competencies, learning objectives or outcomes, and the assessments. The learner, on the other hand, can take a closer look at the verbs used in the learning outcomes (of the course syllabus) to understand what the course has to offer and what (level) he or she is expected to achieve after taking the course. So, the verbs in the learning objectives of your learning piece define what your learner will learn.

For each Bloom level, there are certain activities that are more appropriate than the others as assignments. Next, let’s look at those activities.

Designing the Course Assignments

While designing assignments or assessments, here are the activities that can be used to demonstrate the respective level of learning:

Bloom Levels 1 and 2 (lesson objective or competency is knowledge and comprehension)

1. For non-gradable assignments, you can use ‘Background probe.’ It is better to starts at LOTS at the beginning of the course; so, you can ask them questions with which they would be familiar with---ask about their educational and skill level background, any previous knowledge related to the subject that they might have---this is the background probe and covers Bloom levels 1 and 2: knowledge and comprehension. Students will write what they already know (level 1) and understand (level 2). Generally background probe is not graded and is used to check whether the students have the right knowledge and understanding; if yes, it is perfect; if no, it becomes an area for intervention---the facilitator should correct the misconceptions and the wrong knowledge.
   
   
2. For grading, you can use quizzes, MCQs, and fill in the blanks. Here, you can just ask the learners to identify or list whatever they have been taught in the introductory lesson.

Bloom Level 3 (lesson objective or competency is application)

1. MCQs
2. Essay questions
3. Short class project

You can use some discussion-based assignment in which students get to interact with each other so that they can apply whatever they have learned.

Bloom Level 4 (lesson objective or competency is Analysis)

1. Essay questions
2. Case studies
3. Class or group projects

Bloom Level 5 (lesson objective or competency is Synthesis)

1. Project
2. Portfolio
3. Performance

Bloom Level 6 (lesson objective or competency is Evaluation)

1. Reflecting on creations by self
2. Evaluating others work
3. Doing Cost benefit analysis (CBA)

You can use these broad-level assignments ideas (and more as you think apt) for designing activities that let you test the learner’s skill for a particular Bloom level.

Conclusion

Bloom’s taxonomy has found multiple uses and wide acceptance. At the same time, it has experienced lot of criticism primarily because it is the first classification of education to come up with different domains and levels of thinking, feeling, and doing. In spite of the criticisms and numerous alterations, modifications, and suggestions to the original Bloom’s taxonomy, it remains the most understood, accepted, and applied technique in the field of creating learning objectives and designing assessments. The biggest proof for it being the client requirements for designing the learning courses---most of the clients ask the course to be developed and assessed on Bloom level and I am yet to come across a client that asks to work on a taxonomy other than Bloom’s (no offence meant for the modifications to Bloom; I just want to state that it is working so far in its originally stated form).

Creative Writing

After writing a couple of articles with a technical bend, I thought writing on a topic that would involve lesser technicalities to it. I chose ‘Creative writing’ as it drew my attention a couple of months back and ever since this is the one non-technical article I wished to write on.

Often, instructional designing and content development jobs call for ‘creative writing’ as one of the skills. This, I think, is probably so because (a) creative writing can be a yardstick to identify a good writer (prerequisite for a sound content writer and instructional designer) and (b) a content writer is expected, many a times, to base the learning around a context, a theme, or a narrative---such part of learning can be effectively created if the content writer is a good raconteur. With this moderate understanding, I thought of delving more into the subject of ‘creative writing’ and share my improved understanding with you.

So, what is creative writing? It is any kind of writing (fiction, non-fiction, poetry, travel, music, and so on) that is not academic, professional, or journalistic in nature. It is the kind of writing that an author does to express thoughts, feelings, and imagination and not to merely represent facts and figures. Creative writing is the first step to improve the skill of writing---writing, which is the basic element of content development and instructional designing.

The major chunk of creative writing is about writing a story, a narrative. Creative writing is something that all fiction writers invariably do. In a typical piece of creative writing, there are some seven basic elements of narrative that often appear: plot, characters, dialogue, setting, point of view, theme, and style. Let’s learn a bit about them.

Elements of Creative Writing

Plot: It is the sequence of events that govern the direction that the piece of art (narrative) takes. Chances are that a good plot will be able to save not-so-good writing however vice versa is considerably tough---a poor plot cannot be camouflaged by a well-written narrative. Usually, a plot will unfold the events and turns of the story in a chronological manner; you can however use flashbacks as well to treat your narrative differently. The climax that yields an addressing (one that binds and resolves the different angles of the plot) end to a progressive narrative makes an interesting read.

Characters: These are the human and non-human entities that play different roles in the plot. Introducing the characters early in the narrative is better---the main character earlier than the other characters. Chances are that if your reader can identify with one or more characters in the plot, the reader gets more glued to the narrative. So, check your characters in a manner that your readers can identify with.

Dialogue: It includes the sentences and phrases that are used as a part of the conversation between the characters of the narrative. The more dialogues a character has, the more important the character becomes. So, give your lead characters dialogues in a manner that the reader spends more time hearing to those characters. The main character should be given more dialogues and to the rest, as the plot demands. This was about the quantity, now let’s understand the quality. Each character is identified by the kind of language (dialogue) that he or she uses and also when he or she chooses to use these dialogues. Therefore, the dialogues should convey the feel of the character to the reader. It is better that the author does not pen down the character as sketched in his or her mind---the dialogues and accompanying expressions written by the author should hint toward the character. The narrator should present rather than spoon feed the characters to the readers. The judgment about a character should be the prerogative of the reader.

Another very vital point to remember is that you (the writer) should use dialogues purposefully---either to build the characters or to move the plot ahead or both. Dialogues that do not have a purpose or would not make difference to the plot if taken out are better left out.

Setting: It is the era or time, place, and backdrop in which the narrative happens. The setting sets the context in which the plot runs. Also, the dialogues and sketch of characters are often influenced by it. For a basic narrative, usually there is one setting to the whole plot. In other narratives, however, there might be multiple settings and it is better that the narrator introduces every setting before the respective (sub)plot begins.

Point of view: This is how the narrator sees that characters. Now, with that said, the point of view can be of various types: (a) first person point of view allows the main character to be the narrator or a secondary character to be the narrator for the main character (In this case, the narrator gives intimacy to the story however this can be limiting for the reader because the reader will be able to view the character through the narrator’s eyes.); (b) third person point of view gives the allowance that the narrator be (i) objective (just tell the story as is without telling the emotions and feelings that characters experience---describe only the actions) or (ii) omniscient (tell the story with actions as well as the inner feelings and emotions of the characters ).

It is wise that narrator does not impose his or her take on the characters; however, he or she should state the facts that led him or her to take that view point. The judgments should not be passed from the narrator’s words; the readers should be given space to make their own judgments.

Theme: It is the meaning and flavor that your narrative carries. The events that happen in the narrative will add and build its theme. Theme cannot be conveyed by words alone in the narrative; it builds with different incidents that happen in the plot.

Style: It is how you use the language to express yourself. A consistent style, in a narrative, is always way more impressive than the idea to have different, fancy styles in one piece of literary art. It is good to have a good hold on English; however, it is better to use precise, specific, and short words to express rather than to use long, convoluted, poetic, and flamboyant language. Remember to move the story ahead using the language rather than have emphasis on language and leave the plot on the fate of words. The string that holds a good story is the plot; and the style ensures that the string looks beautiful.

Tips for Creative Writing

• Give your readers at least one character they can identify with. Readers are quick and glad to recognize a character that they can identify with: themselves, a relative, a friend, or a neighbor, and so on. It adds to the zest of reading.
  
  
• Start as close to the beginning as possible. There is nothing more exciting than to read a piece that is fast moving and lets its readers know that the end is about to approach. If your readers experience the adrenaline rush by the fast paced treatment of your narrative, consider your story an interesting read.
  
  
• Use your sentences wisely to communicate more information with fewer words. Your sentences should yield information about characters and move the story forward in a word-efficient manner. Remove redundancy and make your story a crisp read.
  
  
• Try drawing most of your characters from the real life---from your family, friends, relatives, neighbors, your grocery store person, your librarian, your professor, your manager, your colleague, your subordinate. Take ideas from their lives, actions, and behavior to give your characters different dimensions.
  
  
• Do not spare your characters. Put your characters in difficult and unusual circumstances, no matter how ideal or nice they are. Give every character a meaning. Remember that your readers will remember the characters who were in difficult situations and went through making tough choices.
  
  
• Be alert. Be open to the ideas that run through your mind while you hear people talking in train, bus, parties, and other events.
  
  
• Identify your writing time. Get to know the time when you are at your creative best---some people write the best in the morning, while some prefer the night time. Once you know the time you give your best to writing, ensure that you write daily; it does not matter if it is only one small paragraph.
  
  
• Be yourself. Write the way you feel like not the way you think you should. Write without imposing any style on your individual style.
  
  
• Be a devil’s advocate. Do see your narrative from a non-author view point. Wear a critic’s hat after writing the first draft and correct all the loopholes in the story. Looking from a different view point certainly helps---mistakes that you do not see in your baby might become evident from someone else’s eyes. If you fail to do that, show your narrative to a friend or a colleague who you know will read the story from a different/second pair of eyes.
  
  
• Do it now. If you feel you can write a good story and wait for that opportune moment when your creative juices will flow, trust me that day will be as distant as it is today. The right time to start writing is now. Start writing and continue it. After some time of writing, you might feel that you need a break and you might just take it; however, that break might just keep extending. To avoid falling in the dark pit of non-return to writing, think of writing as a job and continue writing even on days you feel you cannot write. A trash-like written paper can be improved however an empty paper cannot be filled for a time gone by.
  
  

Note: Please note that I have used a lot of ‘should’s in the article however one thing to remember is that there are no perfect rules of writing; whatever works, simply works. Following rules (mostly) is a safe bet; however, you (a creative writer) should never be shy of following the gut feeling, even if it asks to violate the rules.

Happy Writing!!!

Web 2.0: Empowering the User

I have been thinking about writing on Web 2.0 for quite sometime and now I am happy to be almost there after much procrastination---though it is not progressive to write on it after scribbling an article on Web 3.0 but trust me, it is not retrogressive either. So much has been said about Web 2.0 that it seems to be ubiquitous however if you ask someone to define Web 2.0 for you, most often than not people might say “Umm… Do you know what social networking is?” or “Well, do you know what Flickr is?” … These are the applications of Web 2.0 that are common today however Web 2.0 is not limited or defined by these applications alone. Web 2.0 is no version of Web that is released by some company. It is rather a concept of Web applications that gives the users the right of reading and writing on the Web. When I say “writing,” it means writing afresh and also being able to edit the old text. Web 2.0 gives you the freedom to make changes to the already existing content---content includes text, images, as well as multimedia. So, the different applications that one uses today, say blogging, podcasting, and getting RSS (Really Simple Syndication) feeds, are features of Web 2.0. To know more about it, let’s look back and notice what led to the emergence of Web 2.0.

As the term itself suggests, Web 2.0 is some phenomenon that followed Web 1.0. So, the next question that arises is that how did Web progress from 1.0 to 2.0 and what is the difference between the two?

Moving From Web 1.0 to Web 2.0

In the early 2000s, the then prevalent Web (Web 1.0) was experiencing a change---a change that let the user take control over the information that was available on the Web. The Web was transforming from being just a medium “of getting information” to a platform “of getting, modifying, publishing, and sharing information.” While Web 1.0 could be considered “Information-only Web,” Web 2.0 could easily be labelled as the “Participatory Web.” The Participatory Web allowed (or gives an opportunity to) the users to add the value of participation to what they (users) read over the Web. The result was a Web that was taking the form of a network where people could publish afresh or modify or add to already existing content. Web 1.0 was about control and Web 2.0, more about collaboration. Blogs and wikis can be considered the quintessential examples of Web 2.0 wherein the users are given the tools to add comments (as in blogs) or even edit the post (as in wikis).

Web 2.0

Emergence of Web 2.0 is not a technological revolution, it is a social revolution. Web 2.0 is not a technology, but a concept that is about opening up the Web to enable and encourage participation (by users to use the content as they like) using different applications and services. Web 2.0 makes the Web more user friendly---people can write and modify as they feel like, unlike Web 1.0 wherein users could only read the stuff on Web (it was the so called “read version of Web”). It gives flexibility to the users to play around with the content (text and media) on the Web irrespective of their technical programming background. Because people can write, edit what they wrote, and add on to it, Web 2.0 leads itself to a forum where people at different locations can interact. Discussion forums are a wonderful example of the same---people can post their thoughts, get feedback, understand new concepts, and freeze on their finding. Many e-learning assignments can and do take advantage of discussion forums.

Web 2.0 empowers the users--- the Internet becomes more interesting as there is something you can do on it, your friends can do on it, and all of them and more of others can get to see it, learn from it, and contribute to it---collaboration gets achievable.

Web 2.0 refers to overall changes in the ways that the software developers and end-users are utilizing the Web post year 2000. This second generation of Web development and design eases communication, information sharing, interoperability, and collaboration on the Internet.

Now that the concept of Web 2.0 is clear, let’s understand how a Web 2.0 Web site works?

A Web 2.0 Web site

A typical Web 2.0 Web site makes use of the SLATES features---Search (users can search the desired content by keying in suitable keywords), Links (users can browse the URLs containing related information---once you click the link, you get exposed to more information on the linked word/phrase), Authoring (users can add fresh content, archive it, edit it, remove it, and also make it available for edit by others), Tags (users can create tags to categorise and identify content as per the terminology of convenience, which can yield effective results when the search option is used), Extensions (capable algorithms that leverage the Web as application platform and a document server), and Signals (RSS Feeds, which signal the user to new activities on a given post, given that the user has subscribed to the RSS. I hope to write about it and Syndication in a separate article soon.).

Next, let’s look at the applications that utilize these features to address different purposes and needs.

Web 2.0 Applications

Web 2.0 concept has led to development of applications such as wikis, blogs, mashups, folksonomies, social networking sites (e.g., Facebook, LinkedIn), and video-sharing sites (e.g., YouTube).

Wiki is a collaborative Web site which can be directly edited by anyone with access to it. It allows multiple users to create, modify, and organize Web page content in a collaborative manner and track the modification to that document. For me, a wiki doesn’t need to be open to everyone for editing. When I say that, the reason is not just the apprehension of defacement, but I would like to avoid anonymous editing. If you are creating and editing document(s) in a group, you might want to know who created what or changed what. Also, suppose if you are a professor who has asked students to work on a wiki as part of their class assignments, you would want to distinguish which students participated and which did not. In conclusion, I think a wiki is useful for collaborative editing, quickly and easily updating content, and easily finding content through searching and browsing.

Blogs bring together different informative elements that deliver related information. These elements include text, images, and links to other blogs, Web pages, and other media related to its topic. Most of the blogs are primarily textual; however, depending on the predominance/focus of elements in a blog, it can be termed as artlog (art), photoblog (photographs), sketchblog (sketches), vlog (videos), MP3 blog (music), and podcasting (audio). Blogs are usually dedicated to some purpose; for example, some provide commentary or news on a particular subject while others are personal online diaries. Microblogs feature very short posts. Users can visit blogs by different authors and leave their comments, which often lead to discussions.

Mashup is a content aggregation technology---from the Web development perspective, it can be understood as a Web page or application that combines data and/or functionality from two or more external sources (such as different Web sites) to create a new service. In layman terms, you can say that a mashup is an application that runs by integrating the data, features, and/or applications of two or more Web sites; and the result is new knowledge/service that is processed from the existing old knowledge/service. For example, a sales strategist can mash-up Google maps with the sales of a particular product (in a particular city, for a given time period). This mashup can give, to the sales strategist, an exact picture of where the sales is at peak and where it is least and the strategist can devise a sales strategy accordingly.

There are two types of mashups, Web-based and server-based. Web-based mashups use the user's Web browser to combine and reformat the data; on the other hand, for the server-based mashups, a remote server analyzes and reformats the data and transmits it to the user's browser in its final form.

The technologies used by mashups to combine content and functionality from a variety of sources include RSS and Ajax (Asynchronous JavaScript And XML)---we will talk about them in the article soon.

Folksonomy is a portmanteau of folk and taxonomy. It is a type of classification system for online content, which an individual or a group user (folk) creates by tagging information with freely chosen keywords (taxonomy). This practice is also called collaborative or social tagging. Classifying information is one aspect of tagging; the other one is finding information. Therefore, the tags are also provided with metadata so that they are found easily.

Social networking sites provide a platform to connect like-minded people with similar interests. The users of any social networking site can connect with other members in the online community through messaging options such as mails and chats, file sharing, discussion forums, and so on. Social networking gives the users an opportunity to update themselves of what others in the group are up to. Although people can be in touch with each other through mails and messenger services, the idea of having an independent capsule of networking with friends wherein you can get and share updates with many people at once gained popularity post 2005. Social networking sites, now, are a popular means of collaborating and networking between friends, associates, and colleagues.

Video-sharing sites are the Web sites on which users can upload and share their videos. Users can upload a wide variety of user-generated videos such as movie clips, mobile videos, TV clips. Depending on the access rights, everyone or selected group of people can view the videos however you need to register in order to upload the videos.

Now that we have talked about the applications that are a result of the Web 2.0 concept, let’s take a look at the technologies that have enabled these applications and helped turned the Web 2.0 concept into reality.

The Technical Perspective

Technologies

Technologies such as Ajax, RSS, and XHTML/CSS (Cascading stylesheets) are the core of Web 2.0.

Ajax

Ajax (Asynchronous JavaScript and XML) is not a technology itself but it refers to the use of a group of technologies used to create rich Internet/Web applications. This broad group of technologies can be used to implement a Web application that can get data from the server at the backend/background without letting the display or the behaviour of the front/existing page get affected---this is the asynchronous aspect to Ajax. Google maps are a good example of Ajax application.

Ajax is a tool for giving Web applications the type of rich functionality that desktop applications are known for---while using this application, you can seamlessly move around; only the link that you want to explore opens the door to further navigation and rest of the links remain as is---the whole parent page does not refresh every time you click a link on it. So, Ajax is being used to develop Web sites that mimic (looks and work like) desktop applications. When I say that, there are two aspects to consider: (1) there is seamless movement that the user might experience using the navigation of an Ajax---only the portion that you want to explore will open and rest will remain static, and (2) you can work offline on an Ajax-based Web site. To execute point (1), the backend takes the request to update only a particular portion (on the Web site) and processes it to update/reload only specific portion of the page and rest of the page does not reload/refresh. This is how Ajax allows the Web sites to process asynchronous requests and overcomes the poor bandwidth usage and long load time problem associated with traditional Web sites (in which for every little request, the whole Web page reloads).

RSS

RSS stands for Really Simple Syndication (a.k.a. Web Syndication). Most often, you can observe RSS feeds icon available on the Web pages of different Web sites---these icons are clickable. If you like a particular Web site and want to know updates as and when they happen on it, clicking the RSS icon will initiate the subscription process. After subscribing to the Web site, you will be notified of updates to that particular Web page.

RSS is used to publish frequently updated content in a standardized format---the content can be in the form of an audio, a video, blog entries, or news headlines. RSS feeds are read by software called the RSS reader, or feed reader, or aggregator. Such a software can be Web-, desktop-, or mobile-based. The RSS reader checks the Web links you subscribed to, downloads the updates, and provides the user interface for those updates.

RSS benefits publishers (by helping them syndicate the content automatically) as well as users/readers (by allowing them to subscribe to updates on their favourite Web site or to aggregate RSS from multiple Web sites into one place).

CSS

CSS stands for cascading stylesheets. It separates the content from its presentation. Web 2.0 is about making the Web more user-friendly; herein, the user need not worry about the HTML coding. CSS separates the coding (the HTML part) with the presentation (the XML part). CSS can be understood as a language that directs the presentation of content written in a markup language.

Nowadays, most of the Web pages are written in HTML or Xhtml. If you are an author, you can link your document (written in any markup language such as HTML or XHTML) to a CSS stylesheet, which will govern the presentation of the Web site---e.g., CSS will clearly establish fonts, colors, boundaries, layouts, and background styles for different heading and sections. The CSS usually gets stored in the user’s browser cache; as a result, the download speed and data transfer over the network becomes faster. However, after publishing, there is a possibility that your readers use a different stylesheet, may be one on their laptop, to override what you wrote. Looking it from a user’s perspective, you can use your own, familiar, and convenient stylesheet if you wish to overwrite the publisher’s CSS.

CSS provides two components to the Web sites: (1) scalability and (2) ease of building further. The ease of scaling up and building further is possible because a single change of element in the CSS changes the presentation across the Web site.

CSS also allows the same markup page to be presented in different styles for different publishing media, such as on-screen, in print, by voice (when read out by a speech-based browser or screen reader), and on Braille-based, tactile devices.

In Conclusion

With all the concepts, applications, and technologies associated with and revolving around Web 2.0, I see Web 2.0 as a medium through which information source has the possibility of remaining “Dynamic.” With Web 2.0, the information source is evolving just as learning is. I also see Web 2.0 as performing the role of learning in true sense, involving collaboration and free sharing of ideas leading to constructive education---a type of education that evolves with time, participation, and effort---not the one that is static and refuses to build on.

Mobile Learning: Go Nomadic

We have been hearing a lot about it---mobile learning (mLearning). Researchers, IT Futurists, and many scholars predicted mobiles to change the way we learn 10 years ago. Ten years down the line, we have just reached the base of that learning pyramid … the one that mLearning promises.
mLearning is the learning that uses electronic media that users can carry with them anytime, anywhere, such as handheld sets, personal digital assistants, blackberry, smart phones that are enabled with portable technology. I understand that mobile has been the greatest revolution in the recent past and has got access to almost each hand. The outreach of mobiles is far greater than PCs, the present media that hosts the majority e-learning programs. Now that the basic device to dispense learning is almost with all, from a rickshaw puller to an MNC CEO, the audience profile that can be addressed through the mobile umbrella is huge. mLearning enjoys the advantages of making the learning mobile—you can access it with ease from a public bus as well as from your garden. It has penetrated the comfort zone of the young generation—this cohort is born and brought up in a world impossible to imagine without mobile devices; their comfort with these tools help mLearning work as a new and effective learning delivery medium. People who are hesitant of speaking up in traditional classroom setup collaborate effectively in a virtual environment that mLearning provides. Although the outreach of mobile sets is greater than the PCs because of the essential lower cost of the mobiles and their portability, there are some very obvious and not so obvious challenges that mobiles pose in the way of mLearning:

• Small screens: Small screen size can present lesser content at a given time and users can quickly lose interest if the learning nuggets are not small. To me, as a learner, to use my stylus of the phone often, or to keep horizontal and vertical scroll rolling almost every 20 seconds is annoying and good enough to suspend my interest in learning. The effort and time for getting one’s hands on the words of long mLearning training can be discouraging.
  
  
• Varying OSs and handhelds' specifications: If I as an organization need to prepare a mLearning program, I need to be aware of the mobiles that my intended audience will use and then develop the learning program that will run well on those OSs and handhelds. On the other hand, if I as an organization, need to buy a mLearning training for my employees, I need to ensure that the training that I buy and further deliver to the employees is compatible with their handhelds and if the disparity is too high for the handhelds, I need to buy the training-compatible handhelds along with the training module—an investment that will cost me over and above the learning module cost.
  
  
• Audience suitability: Although mobile devices are ubiquitous, their degree of use differs, depending on the comfort level that the user feels with his or her handheld. On one hand, a student might use his/her handheld for downloading/uploading learning lessons, collaborating with peers, instant messaging, and so on apart from the usual phone dialing and SMS features; on the other hand, a home maker might rather restrict his/her handheld usage to making and attending calls and SMSs. Therefore, it is imperative to identify the correct audience that can benefit from mLearning for it will not have same popularity and effectiveness among different groups, e.g. professionals vs. home makers and Techies vs. nonTechies. You need to be sensitive to the audience while determining whether to use or not to use a mLearning program.
  
  
• Learning content appropriateness: Imagine going through a 30-minute technical training on your mobile phone. How many minutes will you honestly look at the screen? That answers it all. mLearning is useful for delivering small nuggets of information, some ready-to-use tips, touch-up facts, and small training modules on product knowledge for people who are on the go. mLearning works well when coupled with other modes of instruction such as an ILT. After going through an ILT or a hard copy of information, for example, the user can be asked to submit answer to the assessment questionnaire using the mobile set or get the link for a quiz on mobile or share the experience through the mobile. Any learning that is short, reinforcement-type, meant for quick reference can be best facilitated by mLearning. mLearning can be used effectively to retrieve user information, dispense crisp information, and test the knowledge objectively.
  

Simple mobiles (without WAP/GPRS connection) can be used for mLearning wherein the SMS application can be used as a means of communicating by the users. Advanced mobiles (with WAP/GPRS connection) however will allow the uses to authenticate on relevant learning web sites, upload/download applications/documents of learning, collaborate, and complete the learning by submitting the quizzes and assignments. Such a learning application can be supported by a small portal and a learning management system to make the mLearning effective, traceable, and not surprisingly mobile.
mLearning as a concept started in early 2000s and it has come a long way since then. Like any other new technology and associated advancements, mLearning still has a long way to go—a long way to reach the comfort and impact of traditional training media.

Knowledge Management: Need of the Hour

Knowledge management is an amalgamation of two loosely defined terms: knowledge and management. Different people come up with different definitions for knowledge management. As I have understood it, knowledge management involves processes, techniques, and tools that enable the experts in an organization to identify, explicate, capture, document, and disseminate the knowledge they possess, which the organization can re-use (either in specific context or in a different context).

Important aspect to note here is that it is Knowledge that is to be managed and not data or information, which knowledge often is confused with (with that said, to say that knowledge management is confused with data management or better still information management would not be untrue either). Let’s look closer at these three terms: knowledge, information, and data. Knowledge captures the pattern that a set of information might indicate and a set of data makes information. In other words, there is a progression in the meaning, complexity, and use of these three terms: data, information, and knowledge (in ascending order). Data is without any context, it is just a statistical number e.g., if I say 5 million dollars, it is a data, without any context and therefore without any meaning. If however, I say that a medium business ZYX Consultants (I know you feel the name is reversed) is expected to have a turnover of 5 million dollars in 2008, it becomes information, which makes sense with its context and gives me some information. However, whether you can benefit or not from this information depends on whether you can get access to more of such information set and observe a relation in that information set. Continuing with the same example, if (to keep it simple) I say, that ZYX had a turnover of 1 million dollar in 2004, 2 million dollars in 2005, 3 million dollars in 2006, 4 million dollars in 2007, then one might see a pattern in the information set available and say “ZYX’s turnover is progressing linearly from 1 million to 5 million dollars for the past 5 years.” Now, the statement in quotes becomes knowledge that has context (ZYX’s turnover, over past 5 years) and a pattern (linear increase from 1 million to 5 million dollars). This knowledge (although the example given is simple and does not owe itself to multiple uses) when made available to all people in the organization (ZYX, here) can have multiple advantages. For example, sales and marketing people, among others, can claim the organization’s track record of a healthy and consistent turnover to their prospective clients; business strategy and management people can dwell into what worked for the organization and how and what can be done to see an exponential turnover instead of a linear one. This is a very simple example of what data, information, and knowledge is; how these terms relate to each other; and how basic knowledge can help people perform better at their jobs.

With the terminology made clear and assuming that knowledge as a term is specifically clear, let’s proceed further to understand why is KM at all important (the topic of the article focuses on this however it comes late in picture because I feel it is better to understand the basic stuff before going deeper into whys and why nots of KM) and what it demands.

Why KM?

KM, as a practice, started to gain momentum in 1980s and there is not a single but many reasons why KM has gained popularity and all the leading organizations have KM on their agenda, whether on a big or a small scale. Let’s look at the reasons that make KM indispensable in this challenging corporate environment:

• Knowledge Means Business: More you know, more adept you are at your business. It is true about an organization and equally true about the people that make an organization. These days businesses offer services/solutions more than ever before and an integral part of it is knowledge---knowledge that employees of the organization possess because of their experience and formal education (at times). This knowledge sometimes is captured in tangible form (documents, templates, proposals---explicit knowledge) that people produce as a part of their work products; however, most of this knowledge is captured well in the mind of the employees in intangible form (tacit knowledge). Skillful and experienced employees are a rich reservoir (I apologize for treating people inanimately; however “reservoir” is the first word that came to my mind at this point in time) of knowledge---they know what to do in which situation, which action steps to undertake to strike the deals in a better manner, how to make informed decisions, how to tweak the processes if the need be, how to manage risks superiorly in a given situation, so on and so forth---the list being endless. This knowledge when captured in their heads can do good to the organization/business only when these brains are directly involved in projects requiring these skills. Alas, they cannot be omnipresent to guide and facilitate what other employees are doing; however, their knowledge can be. The whole idea of KM that includes identifying, explicating, capturing, and disseminating this knowledge can help a wider employee base. KM system provides a framework using which lesser experienced employees (I am not talking about number of years of experience here but the richness and exposure of it) can benefit from the knowledge shared by veterans/more skilled/informed experts. Therefore, KM system enables employees to perform better and henceforth enhance the business.
  
  
• Virtual Environment: In today’s global environment, most of the businesses operate out of different locations. Distances between the employees means most of the employees will not get a chance to interact with the experts or the people who hold more knowledge in their minds. KM system however can be made available in virtual environment and thereby all the employees can learn from the knowledge of experts that KM captures.
  
  
• Reducing Workforce: Most of the organizations are making their workforce leaner (now with recession shouting aloud, this statement weighs more) to realize higher turnovers. From business perspective, this laying off however has also a downside to it. With people goes their knowledge. A system such as KM provides as a framework to capture knowledge that employees have in their minds and retrieve it as and when needed. Even if the employee leaves, the knowledge that the person had with him remains with the organization.
  
  
• Impressing Customer: Many organizations are making their KM system(s), or a part of it (which makes better sense), available to their customers. This communicates the seriousness that the organization feels about managing knowledge and offering better solutions. Impressing the customer gives you better chances of grabbing potential deals.

This is what KM gives you; let’s see what it demands of you (as an organization).

What KM Demands?

I view KM as an activity that engages soft skills (interviewing subject matter experts in a manner that aims at transforming their tacit knowledge into explicit knowledge) as well as technical skills (deciding which knowledge can be made reusable to the organization for including in the KM effort, tagging the explicated documents/proposals/templates/checklists with appropriate key words that can will be searchable, identifying suitable databases, data management tools, information management tools, knowledge management tools, and so on). These skills are the essential prerequisites for KM, an activity that is important because of the reasons mentioned above.

So, if you want your business to grow more with the same resources and make the intelligence broth available in your people’s head to all in the organization, go for KM. It is the need of the hour. The longer you wait to implement it in your organization, more knowledge you might be losing and/or withholding from your workforce, which might be unhealthy to your business. The results of a KM activity might not be very encouraging at the beginning because it is a resource-consuming activity that starts yielding results after a while; however, once a KM system is in place and your people get comfortable using it, you would be surprised at the increased efficiency, better productivity, enhanced client engagement, and last but not the least, a more knowledgeable workforce in your organization.