Here’s the Video Office Hours session, which focused on a discussion of Ethics and Compliance in Gamification:

For those of you who attended, as promised, I am posting the Appendix slides for a limited time here as they include a number of helpful links on the topic. If you enjoyed the session and find these slides useful, please leave a comment on this post to let me know!

For those who missed my talk, I give an overview of how quality voiceovers, used appropriately, can significantly enhance the quality of self-paced eLearning modules.  I provide my “Three Golden Rules” for success, along with specific tips and tricks for getting the most out of both amateur and professional voiceover talent.  I also share some basic tech guidance to help first-timers get up and running.

If you know of an organization that would benefit from my talk, please contact me.  You can see a description of that talk and my other offerings on my Courses page.

My MOOC Classroom

If you’re visiting this site, chances are you’ve already heard something about MOOCs (Massive Open Online Courses), and in fact you may be way ahead of me in taking advantage of them.  My undergrad alma mater, Harvard, has partnered with MIT, Berkely, and other notable institutions to offer free courses on their MOOC site, EdX.  And lots of people all over the world are already taking advantage of the free offerings on Coursera, as well.

Granted, MOOCs may not be for everyone.  Completing a MOOC offering may bring you a certificate, but it does not translate to any form of college credits or formal degree.  So, it depends on your needs.  I’m fine with that “learning for learning’s sake” model.   Many offerings tend to run for a few weeks, like a continuing education class.  If you have been curious about the possibilities of  MOOCs, the price is certainly right to find out if they will work for you.  I was seeing some good buzz online for a Coursera session about Gamification, taught by Professor Kevin Werbach of the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania.  Gamification is the process of applying the motivational principles typically used in gaming (video, online, etc.) to other environments (like business or education) to motivate learning and behavioral change.  (It does not mean literally turning everything into a game.)  I have always tried to incorporate subtle elements of gamification as a means of engaging learners in the eLearning courses I develop.  Some organizations are more open to it than others, but I think more are finally starting to catch on to its potential.  I came by my own knowledge of gamification principles by osmosis over many years of being out there creating eLearning courseware, playing the occasional game, and being a professional actor (which is all about playing freely and intuitively).  But I hadn’t formally studied the history and psychology of gamification, so it seemed an ideal topic for exploring the MOOC experience itself.

Now that I’m nearing the end of the six-week session, I’m taking a break from working on my final homework assignment (yes, there’s homework!) to record my thoughts about the experience so far.  Right off the bat, I have to tell you that I’m having a blast.  Given that the number one element of successful gamification is FUN, I’d say the course is doing its job very well.  Professor Werbach’s video lectures are genuinely engaging, and interesting.  His sense of humor and enthusiasm for the topic are infectious, and his expertise is apparent in every aspect of the way the course is run.  Each week he releases two hours of lectures, broken down into manageable chunks of 8-12 minutes each.  The lectures include unscored quiz questions at instructionally sound intervals (roughly every 5 minutes) to make sure you’re getting–and retaining–the key points.  And then there is a scored quiz most weeks.  While I’ve done well on the scored quizzes, there have been a few questions I think could be better worded.  So, I took advantage of the course’s Discussion Forums to post my thoughts.  Despite having probably 10K+ students still enrolled by this point, darned if I didn’t receive a reply post from Professor Werbach himself!  I was extremely impressed by that.  It’s a given in MOOC-land that you shouldn’t expect or seek out direct contact with the professor–after all, the ratio of students to professor is astronomically unbalanced.  But I have seen Professor Werbach and his staff post responses to a number of items on the forum, reinforcing the conviction that while the student body is huge, and there is no brick-and-mortar classroom, there is still someone at the head of the class, keeping an eye out for student questions.  Granted, he didn’t agree with my suggestions about clarifying a couple of the questions, but that’s his prerogative.  He did acknowledge that a high volume of participants agreed with me on another question, and noted that it is under review for possible retroactive regrading. I know the professor understands that for a lot of his students, it’s not about the points, it’s about the clarity of the learning experience, and we all want to contribute to that.  What I love is that our exchange made us both think again.

In addition to the lectures and the quizzes, there have been a total of three homework assignments.  The first, 300 words maximum.  The second, 500.  The last, for which we have been given two weeks, is 1500 words.  Due to the course’s Honor Code, I can’t discuss the details of the assignments, but I have found them to be fascinating, and a lot of fun to complete.  Who grades all of these submissions, you ask?  In MOOC-land, because of the volume of participants from all parts of the world, homework is reviewed using a peer assessment model.  Each participant is required to review and rate five submissions from fellow students.  The grading rubric is somewhat simplistic, but it basically gets the job done.  And constructive comments are welcomed, which is great.  Having both taught and graded extensively while I was in graduate school, I’m no stranger to the task, and I take that grading responsibility very seriously.  I have not had a lot of comments on my own homework, but have been getting top scores, so I guess I shouldn’t complain.  A couple of the comments have been a bit disappointing, however; they made it clear that the reviewers were not reading as attentively as I would hope.  But then, once in a while I had harried Teaching Assistants do the same thing on my papers at Harvard!  Taken all in all, the peer assessment system works well enough.  I confess that I did enjoy one comment on my second assignment: in the section for “What would have made this submission better was…” the reviewer responded simply: “if the author had been paid for his work!”  I like the sound of that.

There are definitely pros and cons to MOOCs, and from conversations I’ve seen online, it sounds like there’s quite a range of quality from one course to another, so be sure to shop around.  If you’re dependent on face-to-face learning, MOOCs don’t offer that with the teaching staff per se, but you do often have the option of participating in local meet-ups with other enrollees.   I haven’t had the free time to do that, but it looks like plenty of others are taking advantage of it.  And for this course, Professor Werbach has also done three “Office Hours” videos where selected students pose questions of general interest and he responds.  Otherwise, as I’ve noted, you have to post your questions to the Discussion Forums.  But at least in this course, as I mentioned, I’m seeing the Forums get a lot of attention from Professor Werbach and his staff.  And yes, it’s true that the peer review and grading rubric of the homework assignments could be more in-depth.  But then I remind myself of the pricetag for this learning experience: IT’S FREE!  So, honestly, who can complain?  If you’re in the Learning profession, or in any business, and are curious about how the principles of gamification might benefit your processes, I encourage you to keep an eye on Coursera’s listings and jump if Professor Werbach repeats his course in the Fall.  It’s well worth the time you invest.

Another reason I’ve found this first MOOC experience working for me is one of the same reasons I enjoy creating eLearning for my own clients: it’s great when learning can be truly self-paced, and self-motivated, taken from anywhere at any time that the learner finds convenient.  So my garden has become my classroom, and that suits me perfectly.  Now, if you’ll excuse me, I need to put out a few sunflower seeds for the chipmunks, refresh the nectar tray for the orioles, and then get back to my homework!

IF YOU’D LIKE TO LISTEN TO THE PODCAST VERSION, PLEASE SCROLL TO THE BOTTOM OF THIS POST.  THE ACTUAL ITEMIZED WISH LISTS ARE NOT INCLUDED IN THE AUDIO, BUT ARE AVAILABLE ON THIS POST.  ENJOY!
(If for any reason the podcast doesn’t appear, try reloading this page.)

Articulate Storyline and Adobe Captivate 6 have both been on the eLearning rapid development tool market for the better part of a year now. And because both products are so strong, they’re forcing each other to up their game. That’s a win for everyone.  Do you need both?  Not necessarily. But both have strengths and weaknesses that have come to light since their release.  And both are missing things that I think should be a given. So, as impressive as both products truly are, now that they’ve been out for a while, I thought this might be a good time to take another look, and also compile a wish list of some desirable features.  Here’s hoping Articulate and Adobe are listening.

The first key area both companies need to address is the utter inequality in they way they treat developers who use Macs instead of Windows-based laptops.  After 25 years on Windows, when my frustrating Vista laptop began failing in 2012, I decided to switch to a Mac despite the fact that I would need to spend some extra money and use a virtual environment software (I chose Parallels) to run any Windows-based software. It’s hugely disappointing to me that Articulate doesn’t yet offer a native Mac version of Storyline. I’m equally dismayed that while Adobe does offer a Mac version of its eLearning Suite (which includes Captivate), the Mac version doesn’t include Adobe Presenter!  So if you’re a Mac user, Adobe is happy to charge you the same price as a Windows user and give you one program less for your money. I have a real problem with that.  In fact, it so annoys me that I haven’t yet upgraded from Adobe’s eLearning Suite 2.5. Like most people, I vote with my wallet.

As to evolving functionality of the two products, here’s some background on my perspective: I participated in the initial Betas of both Storyline and Captivate 6. I did purchase Storyline, despite its steep $1500 price tag compared to Captivate’s list price of $900.  I like Storyline that much. I was disappointed with some aspects of Captivate 6 in its Beta, most notably the uneven HTML5 output, and the continued absence of native drag and drop functionality. But I’ve kept tabs on Captivate’s reception and progress since the release of version 6 and will say more on that, shortly.  Both companies offer a starting set of interactive templates, but don’t count on them all playing equally well in pure HTML5 output. Both supply a gallery of characters, but both need improvement. Storyline ships with a robust set of illustrated avatar characters in a broad range of poses.  But there is only one photo set included; an Asian businesswoman.  Speaking as a male voiceover artist, this is awfully limiting.  For that hefty $1500 price tag, at the very least, a male character photo set should have been included, as well.  And, additional photo sets are pricy.  I’m also a professional actor, and I can pretty much guarantee that the actors were paid a modest flat sum to pose for these photo sets; the rest of the cost is mostly vendor markup.  Captivate 6 ships with a good selection of photo characters, but in fewer poses, and it offers no illustrated avatar characters at all. And so it goes, back and forth between the two products.

Now, regarding updates since initial release: Storyline has addressed some issues and added some enhancements. Yet something as basic as offering more than one style of bullet point still doesn’t exist.  Given the impressive creativity displayed by Articulate’s developers in creating Storyline, this seems very odd.   And there are a few other lingering minor bugs, like occasional misbehavior of the “Undo” button.  One important update Articulate released adds Tin Can protocol passback capability to their already very nice (and free) Mobile Player app.  Adobe recently released an important update to Captivate, as well.  It purports to enhance Captivate 6′s lackluster HTML5 performance and finally, finally adds native drag and drop functionality after years of leaving users to buy widgets from other vendors to fill that glaring gap.  Excellent, flexible drag and drop functionality was present in Storyline when it launched.  Adobe also just released an update for (ahem) Presenter.  Cause for rejoicing, right?  Not exactly.  Adobe is making these updates available right now only to those who bought into their annual support plan (which an Adobe sales rep just told me is being phased out), or who pay for a monthly subscription to use the software. So if you paid full price but didn’t buy into the support plan, you’re out of luck until you upgrade to the next version of Captivate, whenever that comes out.  Granted, Articulate has a similar approach, and they don’t offer a monthly pricing model yet.   But in my opinion these particular Adobe updates are really just plugging existing, painful holes in their product.  In my opinion, these features should have been in Captivate before version 6 was released, and all current license holders of the latest Captivate and eLearning Suite should receive these particular enhancements gratis.

In addition, when Adobe released the new version of the eLearning Suite, they didn’t make it available as part of their new, much-hyped Creative Cloud, even though there are clearly some Adobe Cloud applications that eLearning (and especially mobile learning) developers would want to leverage.  When Adobe launched their Cloud, they offered existing Creative Suite 5 license holders a significantly discounted monthly rate to access the Cloud for the first 12 months.  The eLearning Suite should be part of the Creative Cloud, and existing suite license holders should receive a similar pricing deal. If you agree with me, let your Adobe rep know!  If social media has taught us anything, it has reminded us of the power of voices speaking up in unison to obtain fair treatment.

As to the future: So far, neither product has accomplished the holy grail of “responsive design,” i.e., automating the process of repurposing content for your choice of pc, tablet, or smartphone. That’s where we all need to be heading in the eLearning rapid development market.  Adobe recently created Edge, a nifty tool for generating HTML5 animations, and now they have a set of related tools–including the in-development Edge Reflow, which offers responsive design.  But currently the Edge toolset is on the Creative Cloud, so it’s anyone’s guess how long it will take before responsive design trickles down to the apparently earthbound eLearning Suite, and to Captivate in particular.  That challenging but essential feature remains on my wish list from both companies, along with a standing request for more templates.  And of course, I’m still waiting for some seriously overdue respect for us Mac users.

Impressive as both products are, here are my wish lists for enhancements:

On Wednesday evening, January 23rd, Dale Carnegie Training kindly hosted ASTD-NY’s January eLearning Special Interest Group (SIG) meeting.  Guest speaker Richard Sites, Ed.D, Vice President of Client Services for Allen Interactions, was a gracious, amusing, and interesting presenter.  Richard took time out of his busy schedule to speak with us about the new book he worked on with his boss Michael Allen (creator of Authorware and well-known learning guru), provocatively titled Leaving ADDIE for SAM.  Richard explained that when ASTD Press approached Michael about writing a new book, Allen Interactions had been evolving its own alternative to the traditional instructional design process model of Analyze, Design, Develop, Implement, and Evaluate (ADDIE).  So it seemed the perfect topic to explore at length in a new publication.  Their goal was to set forth and make the case for their own process, the Successive Approximation Model (SAM).  The main goals of SAM are to provide a cycle that works faster, and gets to the “true voice” of the learning content more effectively, than a traditional linear interpretation of the ADDIE process might allow.  Another stated goal for SAM is to provide “the highest probability for performance change”–a goal we all share regardless of our preferred process.  Richard cited the book’s robust sales since its publication in September 2012 as a clear indicator that we in the eLearning industry are always seeking process improvement, even to long-standing models like ADDIE.

• Preparation Phase: Background and Information Collecting; End product: a preliminary form of Design Document
• Iterative Design Phase: Prototype, Review, and Design in an iterative cycle as needed (goal: Max of 3 cycles);  End product: a Design Proof
• Iterative Development Phase: Develop, Implement, Evaluate, in an iterative cycle (again, with a limit to cycles);  End product: the finished eLearning course

I love teaching and coaching, and I had terrific students both days.  The results were fantastic.  Working with people so enthusiastic about learning and trying new things, and seeing major improvement in their work by the end of the session, is always incredibly gratifying.  I was genuinely impressed with the talent on display at this company.

For the full-day voiceovers program, I had almost 20 eager participants, with varying degrees of comfort in front of a microphone.  The audience for this particular program is Subject Matter Experts (SMEs) who need to create their own eLearning for their team or department, including crafting the voiceover script, recording the voiceover, and editing it to make it ready for use in an eLearning module.  I introduce the key concepts, then let my students play hands-on, and provide guidance and feedback along the way.  Throughout the day, participants share their results in a supportive environment.  Nothing beats learning by doing, and my students used every minute of the day to experiment and improve.  I encouraged them to explore scenarios “outside the box” in creating their scripts, and to consider the use of humor when appropriate.  The creativity each person displayed encouraged even more creativity in the others, and everyone had a great time while learning a lot and producing some truly memorable learning moments.  When the students presented their final projects at the end of the 8-hour day, every single one showed major improvement, and everyone in the room heard the indisputable proof.  There’s going to be some great eLearning coming from these folks.  One of the students wrote to me afterwards:

Thank you for the informative and inspiring class you taught last Thursday! I’m very excited to begin implementing all the new things I’ve learned.

Thanks, Lori!  I also had a great experience with each of my Presentation Skills clients.  At the end of each one-hour session, the client was able to deliver their content with far greater assurance and impact.  Each was excellent at taking in and working with my comments and suggestions.  It was great to see each person grow in skills and confidence so markedly in such a short space of time.  Laura sent around a satisfaction survey afterward, and told me the feedback was terrific.  Here is what one of my Presentation Skills clients wrote:

I gained an appreciation for the importance of bringing conviction and passion into presentations, including those that seem mundane (e.g. regular updates). Most times as a presenter, you know more about that particular topic than anyone in the room. Over the course of 60 minutes, Andrew reminded me of this point and helped me experience the impact of speaking from the heart with focus and energy. Despite the same slides and message, my presentation of the material at the end of the session was much more powerful (and literally felt better) than my handling of the same content at the start.  

Thanks, Tom!  I really appreciate the feedback.  And my thanks again to Laura for inviting me to work with the talented folks at her company.  These students strongly reinforced my longstanding belief that coaching and gardening (one of my other loves) have a lot in common.  If you provide good people with the right conditions and an encouraging environment, great and even remarkable things will grow out of it.  Or, to embrace a coffee metaphor, if you put quality ingredients in the cup, and stir it up, you’re going to create something everyone wants.  I look forward to my next visit!

Review from the Catskill Chronicle

Review from the Times Herald Record Online 

The science is secondary to the human drama in this eye-opening play.  If you thought you knew Thomas Edison, or knew nothing about Nikola Tesla, this play by Ben Clawson, directed by Brendan Burke, will set you straight on both!

Andrew Sellon as Nikola Tesla and James Glossman as Thomas Edison in “The Dangers of Electric Lighting” at Shadowland Theatre, NY

Click Shadowland’s nifty animation in this post to visit the site for more information and for tickets.

TO LISTEN TO AN AUDIO VERSION, PLEASE SCROLL DOWN.  NOTE THAT  REFERENCES TO FLASH REFER TO FLASH AS AN OUTPUT FORMAT (.SWF) FOR eLEARNING PURPOSES.

APPLE.  IN THE LIBRARY.  WITH A LEAD PIPE.  If life was like the classic board game ”Clue,” that might well have been the headline in all our eLearning journals at the end of 2011.  In place of the unfortunate Mr. Boddy, the crime scene photograph would have shown a white chalk outline in the shape of Adobe Flash.  There’s a semi-happy ending to this news report, though: to paraphrase a certain Monty Python plague victim, Flash isn’t dead yet.

But by the same token, the late Steve Jobs and his Apple team dealt Adobe a crippling blow when it refused to support Flash Player on their iPhone and iPad devices, citing heavy resource requirements and potential security vulnerabilities.  (And for a moment, let’s ignore the fact that even without playing Flash on it, I need to recharge my iPhone 4 once or twice a day!)  So, is Flash dead, or dying?  Not in the immediate future.  Think of all the legacy content out there.  But last November, when Adobe finally raised the white flag and announced that it was abandoning its development of the Flash Mobile platform, it became clear to everyone in eLearning that the development tool landscape is beginning a tectonic shift due to the growing importance of mobile learning, or mLearning.

If Flash is the Giant, then the young Giantkiller with the slingshot and the great aim is HTML5.  And there’s a certain irony here: it’s not even a clearly codified, formalized markup language yet.  In fact, bearing in mind the reality that “change is the only constant,” HTML5 may well end up being a freeform, organically expanding entity for a number of years to come, as new codes and capabilities are added.  We may need to start calling it something catchy like “HTML Universe” (in a techie nod to the Stargate franchise) or “HTML Utopia,” or some other name that will represent an ever-evolving entity.  Because let’s face it: do we really want to find ourselves talking about HTML16 or 156 anytime soon?  I know I don’t.  It’s true that right now, HTML5 still can’t do all the things that Flash can.  But it can do a lot of them.  Flash’s sun is setting, and HTML5 is the new sun rising on our eLearning horizon.  At least for this rotation.

So how are the eLearning development tools we use today evolving to meet our need for engaging, interactive eLearning content that can play on any website or any mobile device?  If you’re an eLearning Guild member you should download and read Nick Floro’s new tools report for 2012.  It’s an excellent snapshot of where we all were at the end of 2011.  (And if you’re not a member of the eLearning Guild by now, you really should be!)  I’m going to take a closer look at the HTML5-readiness question for 2012, based on some hands-on Beta testing that I’ve been doing with both Adobe and Articulate.

For some year now, many of us have been using Adobe Captivate for our eLearning projects.  The current build, Captivate 5.5, incorporates widgets and other programmer-friendly tools to expand the interactive capabilities of your eLearning course.  But Captivate now also sports a spartan new gray Photoshop-style interface that I find is challenging to many corporate Subject Matter Experts (or SMEs).  And it doesn’t publish to HTML5.  I’ve been participating in testing of Adobe’s standalone HTML5 Converter tool, which is extremely simple to operate.  With each new test version, more interactive features are being included.  But as of this writing, there are still many Captivate features that cannot be converted.  Adobe has also just started Alpha testing for Captivate 6.  What’s the bottom line?  By the time it hits the shelves, Captivate 6 will need to include seamless and comprehensive HTML5 publishing as one of its standard options.  Anything less at this point would would give the competition too much of an advantage.

I’ve also been taking a look at Adobe’s new animation tool, Edge, which is in a pre-Beta Preview.  Edge offers a clean (but again somewhat cryptic and SME-unfriendly) interface for creating animations using a combination of HTML, scripting, and cascading style sheets (CSS) instead of Flash.  I went to Adobe’s Edge Preview launch here in NY in the summer of 2011 and worked with version 1 briefly at that time, but it did not yet offer interactivity or the ability to include audio and video.  Preview version 4 was released on January 19th, and includes the first interactive features, so I look forward to checking that out.  But audio/video is still not part of the package, and Adobe is well aware that the tool will not be ready for the public until those features are included.   While Adobe seems to be positioning Edge as a standalone tool, for my money, it should also be included in the next releases of both their Creative Suite and the eLearning Suite.  To not do that when so many customers have partnered with Adobe to help make it happen would seem both ungrateful and unwise.  How Edge fares in the market will depend on the final list of features, its ease of use, how it’s packaged, and what tools the competition puts out in the meantime.

Adobe has undoubtedly felt heavy breathing on its neck over the past year from Articulate’s upcoming tool, Storyline.  I’m participating in the Beta of this tool as well, so I am not allowed to say much at this time.  It’s not divulging any secret, however, to say that per its name, Storyline includes a library of poseable characters, and is designed for the creation of story or scenario-based learning.  That’s a long-awaited feature right there.  I can also say that the tool is designed with the SME in mind, with an extremely user-friendly interface.  Articulate intends to make Storyline content publishable to your choice of Flash or HTML5 by the time it launches later this year.  Its screen capture feature can’t do everything that Captivate does at this point.  But Adobe should  be extremely concerned about the competition shaping up here, both in terms of product vision and functional design.  Again, all will depend on the final list of features, and the price point.  Articulate is saying that Storyline will be priced comparably to their other suite components, so we’ll see.  If they keep the price low enough, I foresee this tool being a genuine game-changer for the eLearning marketplace.

Of course, competition is great for everyone because it brings out the best and brightest from each company, and makes each tool better.  That’s good news for those of us who can’t afford to buy them all.  And I’m discussing only a handful of tools!  There are of course a lot more out there, including tools at higher and lower price points, and also cloud-based development suites offering HTML5 publishing. So let’s have a vision moment: what should be happening as we move forward?  Ultimately, the applications that come out on top will need to be affordable and offer the ability to enter your content once, then simply apply a desktop or mobile template with the click of a button. Whoever can design applications that publish to your choice of Flash or HTML5 and minimize the need for rework when publishing to different devices will carry the day.  At this point, products that publish only to Flash are basically writing their own obituaries, and will rapidly fade from the market as mobile learning becomes a more popular delivery method.

What will we be saying about 2012 a year from now?  Perhaps not even Professor Plum or Miss Scarlet can figure that out.  By then, HTML5 may have met its match.  But when we eLearning professionals look back on this year, chances are we’re going to remember it as the year we discovered a body in the library.  And the game changed again.

Agree?  Disagree?  I’d love to hear your thoughts.  Leave a comment!