What’s in a job title?

Janet Clarey wrote a piece about “Learning Professionals” in her blog recently, and as coincidental as it may seem I have had this post title saved in a draft for some time as the same question has been lurking around my noggin for some time.

I’ve been called a lot of things in my life and some of which I cannot share here. My jobs began as Busboy, Dishwasher, Shoe Salesman, Gas Station Attendant, Pizza Delivery Driver, and Lifeguard. Fairly straight forward titles and it doesn’t take a whole lot of thought to have an idea what those job actually do. The problem now lies in what we call career titles, especially in the world of Training & Development.

I started in this industry as a Training Analyst. I really dislike spreadsheets and after 10 minutes I go to sleep if I have to crunch numbers. My friend and then boss said it was simply an opening in the department, but the vision was to develop a new strategy to move us to the next level…that was 5 years ago and three job titles later. Each new title was a promotion, but because the “new” title didn’t exist, we had to write its job description and develop new competencies.

My titles:

• Training Analyst
• Training Specialist II
• Training Technology Specialist
• LMS Administrator

Wanna know what my title is in the big HRIS system in the sky? It is still Training Specialist II.

Janet talks about how she was mocked for writing a paper with the title “Learning Professionals.” When I read her blog about how often she has used that term, it donned on me that I am guilty of the exact same thing. I am guilty of picking up the latest ‘zinger’, ‘tag line’, or ‘phrase’ so I can sound all professional and such.

Not sure if it is a problem in this industry or just a challenge we are all working to overcome. For instance, what’s the difference between an Instructional Designer vs. an Instructional Technologist? Does one spend a larger percentage of time on the “look and feel” of instruction where as the other spends more time on code? My bet is they do a balance of both.

Who in this industry is (if at all) responsible for giving “Learning Professionals” proper titles to choose from? I’ve searched the ASTD database, eLearning Guild’s database, and several others, and there or very few titles out there that are actually titled “LMS Administrator.” Each company puts their own spin on their internal titles yet in the end it’s all the same competencies. It is real hard to keep one’s finger on the pulse in the job market.

When I began working in this role, there was a team of Instructional Designers. I have always liked that title the best – a ‘designer’ of ‘instruction’ – not much confusion there. I am an illustrator/artist by youth and every time I see or hear the term ‘designer,’ I assume anyone with that name in their title should have some fundamental ‘design’ principles. I learned very quickly that design is much more than eye candy. But again, I was looking through a silo perspective that design involved color, layout, imagery, etc. Not the case at all.

As time went on we realized our ID’s were in fact managing entire projects. From the ID’s initial consulting with customers all the way through developing a course, workshop, or eLearning. We decided to change their titles, too…Training Project Managers. Now that’s a very simple straight forward title that doesn’t leave much out as to what someone would do with a title like that. Not. They not only manage entire training projects, they design and develop the entire project, too! Their skills must include project managment, writing, layout & design, development, and good understanding how an LMS operates. Maybe we should look at their titles again – Instructional Training Project Design & Development Administrative Managers!

Or maybe just one big blanket title for all of us….”Gurus of Training!”

Are you smarter than a 5th grader?

The convenience of having an actual living, breathing 5th grader in my home during the popular weekly game show may not be all that convenient.

As a family we enjoy watching the show and pretending we are the participants and my step-daughter plays the role of the student.  Sometimes she’s right and sometime my wife and I are.  But it’s just a game and not really what is taught in school, right?  Wrong!

Last week I overheard my wife and step-daughter, Lauren going over math homework.  As I listened I could tell Lauren was getting frustrated.  My wife is an analyst by profession and numbers and math are her friends, but I was getting the sense she was getting impatient, too.  I simply made the comment, “You’re making it harder than what it is.”   Oh, was that the wrong thing to say!  In my wife’s loving voice she said, “Here!” and handed me the worksheet.

How hard can it be?  It’s 5th grade math.  It was a simple worksheet where the student was given a grid with blank numbers, figure out the pattern, and enter the missing digits.  From that, the task was to write an equation using the rule: ax+b=c.  Seems simple enough.

Not only did the worksheet instructions not make sense, there was no reference to a text book to understand how the rule works.  In my mathematic wisdom, I figured if I started back at the basics of how the rule worked, we could answer the questions with ease. When Lauren about the text book she explained to me that everyone just took notes off the board.  Ok, so where are the notes?  I found myself getting frustrated as well for a few reasons: 1) I should know this stuff. 2) I was disappointed in the lesson. 3) It really did not make sense.  It was getting late and past her bedtime and we (all 3 of us) did the best we could and recommended Lauren ask for more help the next day.

I pondered this for the remaining of the night and several questions came to mind:

• How many time are we presented with things we have to ReLearn?
• How often do our learners not understand the material we present to them in the workplace?
• How often do we memorize material to simply pass a test?
• The term “applied math” came to mind again and I thought about how much do we really teach “appied learning” in the workplace?

Even writing this more questions come to mind. The idea of ReLearn is the theory of being presented with a task that we know we were taught at one time in our past, but have essentially “dumped” the knowledge because it did not pertain to everyday life, our workplace, our homes, etc. I don’t think we can categorize ReLearning in any sort of organizational manner, rather they are opportunities that simply appear when a particular task arises. Some things come back to us easy, while others we have to start from the beginning again. I don’t like starting over because I know I had already learned the ‘task’ and it bothers me my brain cannot retain every last morsel of knowledge ever taught to me.

I think I’m going to study ax+b=c some more just in case…

What eLearning development model?

For past two years I’ve been trying to put some kind of eLearning development model into place. Over those same two years my efforts have been thwarted because of the enormously fast-paced environment we live the majority of our days awake. Not that we don’t like processes, we are an extremely flexible and fluid organization and not all development can or will follow a set “project plan” as outlined in the ever so popular ADDIE model…or any other model for that matter.

Well, since we’re fluid and flexible, why not devise a model of the same? Keeping with the theme of our business (ya’know, the whole culture thing) I came up with a simple model. Not only is it easy to identify where you are in the cycle, but it’s a visual (graphic communication plug goes here) representation as well.

Here it is…

 

Dots, Dashes, and Lines

In eLearning we are always challenged with communicating a message to the masses. Where one message may read well for one user, that same message is vague to another.

Images, symbols, and graphics can communicate your message more effectively by simply using a combination of dots, dashes, and lines.

For example, lets say we need to communicate the message of time. When you think of the word “time” what visual objects form in your mind? The first thing that I see is a clock. It is the most fundamental object that can visually communicate the concept of time. Of course, the symbol alone will not do you any good unless you have it presented in some context of which your message supports, but you get the idea.

In this post, I’ll show you how to draw a simple clock symbol in just a few minutes using any graphics editing tool. I used Illustrator.

Here’s the breakdown:
1 – line (circles)
6 – lines (straight)
1 – dot
12 – dashes

 

OK, let’s break it down further.  First, draw a circle.  The fill is white and the line border is black…keep it simple.  Next, copy and paste that circle and reduce it down to the size of a dot and place it in the center of the circle.  Change the fill to black with no border color.  For the hands of the clock you can do this one of two ways – draw each line (arrow has three lines) one at a time, or draw one arrow with three lines, copy and paste, then shorten the tail of the line slightly to represent the hour hand.  Finally, draw a small line (dash) and place it at the 12 o’clock position.  Copy and paste it and rotate 15 degrees for the 5 minute placement.  15 more degrees for the ten minute position, so on and so on until you have all the dashes in place to represent the face of the clock.  Walla!  A clock!

Big deal, right?  Let’s take it a step further.  When you think of the face of a clock how many objects that communicate time can you think of?  The first thing that comes to my mind is a wrist watch.  Visualizing further I see a mantle clock, an anniversary clock, and a grandfather clock.  There are many more, but for now let’s play with these four. 

Now that we have different ideas of how a clock face can be used in the four examples, what emotion or “message” communicates to you when you see a wrist watch?  How about a mantle clock?  You may have different thoughts on this, but here is what I think of when I see these:

Wrist Watch- schedule, planning, deadline, meeting
Mantle Clock – retirement, center piece, end of an era
Anniversary Clock – celebration, timeless, commitment
Grandfather Clock – reliable, steadfast, passing of time

Get my picture? HA! Picture? Get it? I digress…OK, so how do we communicate those thoughts and messages with our simple clock? By adding a few more lines to our clock example we can create all of these symbols fairly simple. Let’s start with the wrist watch…

Neat, huh?  By adding 17 more lines, 3 dots and a dash it’s a wrist watch.  Here’s the breakdown…first, draw a rectangle and place it behind the clock face (for the strap) – that’s 4 lines.  Now draw a long slender rectangle and place it behind both the clock and the rectangle you just drew (wrist strap) – four more lines for a total of 8.  Add a vector anchor to the right edge of the rectangle and pull it out a bit and add three (3) dots. (this splits the line into two or if you are not working in a vector program, simply draw two diagonal lines. (that’s really adding only one more line to our total, which is now 9)  Finally, draw two rectangles (one on top of the other) and place them on the left edge of the long slender rectangle (buckle) – two rectangles with 4 lines each = 8 and added to our 9 makes a total of 17, yes?  Last, add a dash to the buckle.  Ta-Da!  How cool is that?

By simply starting with a single image/symbol you can create different looks and more importantly communicate different messages.  The symbol doesn’t have to look exact like the watch on your wrist, or the clock hanging on your wall.  If you show the above symbol to anyone you know and ask them if they recognize it, my guess is they will answer that it is a wrist watch every time.  It’s all about visually communicating. 

Next, let’s build this mantle clock:

Ok, start with the original clock face.  We’re going to add 12 lines.  First, draw a rectangle and delete the top line leaving only three lines as shown in image #2.  This next line may be a bit challenging for you if you’re not familiar with vector drawing, but do the best you can.  The line has three anchor points: one at each corner where you deleted the top line of the rectangle and one at the top center of the curve.  Start at one anchor and create and “S” curve, then repeat it in the opposite direction to the last anchor.  The base of the mantle is very easy and is only two rectangles.  Draw one long thin rectangle and place it at the bottom of the clock.  Draw another rectangle slightly taller and place it under the previous one.  Next, select the lower right and left anchors and scoot them out just a tad to give it an angled look.  And there you have it!

Fun, eh?  Now I’ll challenge you again by placing this symbol in front of anyone you know and ask them to tell you what it is.  My guess is most folks would simply say a “clock”, but some may actually recognize it as a “mantle clock.”  Let’s keep going and build an anniversary clock using the same original clock face.  This time we’re going to use elements from the mantle clock…no sense doing more work if we don’t have to!

Before we get started, can you see any similarities between the mantle clock and the anniversary clock.  This symbol will have 18 lines total when we’re finished, but many of the lines are carried over from the mantle clock.  Remember the three lines of the mantle clock? – left, right, and the top “S” curve line.  Let’s look at two ways starting from the mantle clock.  1) Delete the left and right side lines and leave the top “S” curve and the bottom line of the main clock body.  Move the clock face and “S” curve higher up from the base of the clock body.  Now, move the two anchor points of the “S” curve and join them to the base line of the body.  Next, adjust the handles of the two anchors to create a fluid curved line up and over the clock face.  You might have to tinker with it a bit to get it even.  2) Another approach is to delete the “S” curve line altogether.  Now move the clock face up away from the rest of the elements.  Next, simply draw a circle a bit larger than the outer ring of the clock face.  Delete the bottom half of the circle.  Now extend the side lines of the clock body up to meet the anchors of the half circle.  That’s the glass cover.  Now let’s turn our attention to the base and the little twirly thing inside.

Your base may be too wide and too thin if you kept it the same as the mantle clock base.  Simply transform the two shapes a bit narrower and taller and adjust to your liking.  If you look closely, the inner workings are three circles – two of the same size and one slightly larger.  The apparatus that rotates (I really have no idea what that thing is called) is a little more complicated to explain how to draw.  I’ll just say it is a bottom curved line, two straight lines on either edge, and two “hook” lines that mirror each other that go up and behind the clock face.  Play around with the vector anchors until you get a shape the represents that thing I have no idea what it is called.  Finally place a circle in the lower center, and two of equal size on each size.  Shazam!  It’s an anniversary clock!  The grand daddy of all clocks is the grandfather clock, would you not agree? 

This one is really easy, but the scroll work at the top of the grandfather clock may challenge you.  I’ll explain how to draw those lines at the end.   OK, can you count how many lines added to our original clock face it will be to create this symbol?  If you counted 33 you’re right.  What?! Yes, there really is that many.  We’ll count them on the way. 

OK, first simply draw a square and place it behind the clock face – that’s 4 lines.  Now draw two vertical lines for the case – two more lines for a total of 6.  The base of the grandfather clock is a rectangle but you can see that each side is angled a bit.  The best way (or at least I think so) is to draw a rectangle to a width of your liking.  Add two anchors on each side directly in the middle of the edge lines.  Now select the top two corner anchors and scoot them in toward each other a few pixels.  If you’re counting, that is actually 6 more lines added to our total we now have 12.

Next, draw a vertical rectangle slightly smaller than the body or the ‘tower’ of the grandfather clock.  This will represent the glass door – 4 lines + 12 = 16.  There is a couple ways of drawing the pendulum.  I drew a long slender vertical rectangle, added an anchor in the center of the bottom line and then pulled it down to a point.  The shape is actually 5 ines, but I’m not counting the top line as it shares the top line of the rectangle for the glass door…so it’s only 4 lines – and we’re up to 20.  Draw a circle and place it somewhere at the bottom of the of the pendulum – 1 line.  21 lines so far.

The crown is 12 lines itself.  If you’re keeping tabs, 12 + 21 = our 33 lines we said would be in this symbol.  I’ve expanded the crown below to show each line and its relationship.  The crown is really two halves of the same thing.  The red dashed box focuses on one half and once its complete, simply copy and paste, and flip it horizontal.  Then join the two halves together.  If you study you’ll see there are only two curve lines – one is an “S” shape and the other is sort of a lazy “C” lying on its side.  The remaining lines are straight and connect them all togehter.  Once you get this completed just place it on top of the very first square you drew using its top line as the crown’s bottom line.  Grand Dad would be proud!

 

 

In summary, I am hoping I have at least opened the creative spirit in you that by starting with a simple recognizable image, you can reproduce it in many different ways to communicate your message.  If you can remember this simple phrase: An object is a shape that occupies a space.  In the above examples, a clock is not a clock at first; it is a shape, a circle.  By adding dots, dashes, and lines we create a visualization that the shape now appears to be a recognizable object.  That object occupying a space is where you place it and how light reflects off of it.  In some future lesson I’ll go in depth further on perspective and how lights and darks can really define an object even more.

Fundamentally, just remember you don’t have to be an artist.  All you need is some creativity and the ability to “see” shapes in your objects and you can draw just about anything.  Promise!

ReLearn

How often do you re-learn something?  Meaning, how often do you venture into something you may have a vast amount of knowledge and/or experience, but you do something totally against what you know?

I just returned from a weekend in Hot Springs, AR.  It is a place known for beautiful landscape, national parks, and most famous for its hot spring waters.  Well, we didn’t visit for any of that rather we attended a weekend gathering of fellow off-road enthusiasts (mostly Jeeps) at the SuperLift Off-Road Vehicle Park.

I’ve been an avid Jeep enthusiast and owner of several Jeeps over the years.  One of the biggest rules of safe off road adventures is never, I repeat NEVER go on a trail by yourself.  Always have another vehicle in your group.  Period.

It was late afternoon after an early morning start.  This was also my wife’s first ever experience riding in a Jeep on trails most people would have difficulty hiking let alone driving a vehicle.  We rode all morning, broke for lunch, and we had just come of a trail that was bit more aggressive than the morning trails.  If her nerves weren’t shot before then, they were now.  So, to calm her down I decided to get away from the group and ride some less rated trails for the remainder of the afternoon.  Now I know what my Jeep can and can’t do but that’s beside the point.  The main reason one does not venture into the wilderness alone is due to if something breaks.  A $7 part can ruin your day!

It’s about 3:00 PM Saturday afternoon and we’ve been driving a trail for some time up the side of one ridge and then down into the valley of the next.  We were going slow and stopping occasionally to look at the view and take pictures.

As we were coming down one particular section I could see ahead of me the trail is a rather steep climb that twisted in a series of “S” curves and the whole section was nothing but loose rock.  With the momentum I had coming down the hill I thought it best to keep it in that gear and begin the ascent with some gusto.  Less than a 1/4 way up the Jeep stalled and started slipping on the loose rock.  I immediately asked my wife and young step-daughter to exit as the last thing I needed was to roll down the hill into a tree with them riding.

I was able to ease the Jeep back down to a level spot and attempted to get it started again.  It’s an older ‘85 CJ7 and it is fed via a carburetor rather than fuel injection.  I had been having problems with it earlier and on a 30% grade they tend to flood themselves out and stall.   That’s what I figured anyway and it was just a matter of time waiting for the fuel to drain so it would start again.

It’s nearing 4:00 PM now and it begins to get dark at 6:00 PM.  The second to last thing I wanted was to get stuck deep in the woods in the dark.  I had called on the radio for help but the other groups were dealing with their own challenges with broken vehicles and no one was available to come get us.

Now how embarrasing is it when a seasoned off road enthusiast has to call for help because he’s went off on his own and has a breakdown?  That’s the third to last thing I wanted.

I tried to start it to the point the battery was beginning to sound weak.  Nothing.

It’s time to come up with an alternate plan.   We needed to walk to the top of the hill and see how close we were to the cross trail.  If no one came to assist by 4:30 PM then we needed to start walking.

Just as we got to the top I realized it would be a longer walk than first realized.  So I told them to stay there and I would go back down and try one more time.  Still wouldn’t start but I searched the back of my noggin for any morsel of information that I wasn’t thinking about.  All the time also thinking about all the new names I would be called if we had to walk out.  Then it donned on me…maybe it’s not fuel.  Maybe it is not getting spark.  This engine is an inline six cylinder so the carburetor is on the driver side and the distributor cap and coil are on the passenger side.  Just for giggles I walked around the other side…

…the coil wire popped off!  Plugged it back onto the coil and it started first try!

The ReLearn?   I learned a long time ago never to go trail riding by yourself.   The question of learning by doing compared to learning by knowledge was intriguing.   How often do we actually ‘test’ what we learn.  In this case it has never occurred to me to go off by myself to learn what consequences there could be if I went trail riding alone.  I was just told not to and at times heard other stories of those who had and their consequences.   Knowing better, I did anyway and mainly because I was more focused on calming my wife’s nerves rather than all of our safety.  It was a close call and it would have been a very long walk out of that forest.  The walk alone would have been the consequence for sure, not to mention the nightly bubble baths and lotion rub downs I would owe my wife for eternity whilst I slept in my Jeep in the garage…

How many things do we “know” that we’ve learned but have never tested that knowledge to learn of potential failures and consequences?   How many things have we ReLearned because we knew, but just had to test for ourselves and then really learned the big “why?”

The BIG Question – Learn to eLearn

This month’s ASTD Learn Circuits The Big Question refers to a recent post graduate of an Instructional Design program.  This student is seeking advice on how to build or author their first elearning and what tools to use.

So, the BIG question is: How do I learn to elearn?

As a developer of eLearning, it is a continous challenge to communicate a single message to a wide variety of learning styles.  Some learners comprehend by reading while others need more visuals, and yet others need hands-on or interactivity.  That’s too complex to get into for one’s very first eLearning course.

The tools available today are overwhelming for a seasoned developer let alone someone new to the industry.  I’m an avid user of all the latest tools with Lectora being the most recent.  With having a fundamental understanding of how to build a course, it still took me several weeks to ‘learn’ Lectora let alone getting Flash or Captivate movies to work properly.

I’ve outlined below a simple guide on how to begin:

1. IDEA – start with a simple idea of something you want to build as an elearning course. The thought of ’simple’ here is to stay linear.
2. PLAN – Write it down, storyboard it, outline it, edit, revise, etc. Put yourself IN that course and think through the flow of instruction. This will (should) be the majority of your time. Know the subject better than the learner!
3. PROTOTYPE – As mentioned the tools available are overwhelming at best. Start with PowerPoint. It has become the most popular rapid development tool and several of the mainstream elearning authoring tools can upload your slides (Articulate, Captivate).
4. TOOL – For the first-timers I would suggest downloading a trial version of either Articulate, Captivate, or other simple rapid development tools. They are very intuitive and in a matter of minutes you can publish a course. (provided you mapped it out and planned accordingly)

The above is only a guide as their are many variables involved. The next question is how do “YOU” learn? Do you learn by going to a class where an instructor teaches you the tool? Many small colleges and/or tech schools offer training in some of these tools. Tom Kuhlmann’s The Rapid eLearning Blog offers wonderful tips & tricks on how to use PowerPoint and Articulate.

Do you learn by reading books and/or web tutorials? There are books published almost monthly on the subject of design, theory, and each authoring tool.

Do you learn just by doing? That’s my style. I like taking things apart and putting them back together to learn how they work. Along the way I use books, online tutorials and read many blogs on the subject that offer new ideas or suggestions.

I realize it can be hard with all the information available, but start small. Perhaps short pages of content on a simple subject you already know: “How to make a Peanut Butter & Jelly Sandwich.” Of course the assumption here is you know how to make a PB&J.

Opinion on ID programs: The industry is at a point now where it almost demands ID programs include an introductory course(s) to elearning development tools and Learning Managment Systems.

Learning to eLearn is an ongoing learning process.

As a man thinketh

James Allen was a 19th Century philosopher who wrote a small book titled, “As a Man Thinketh.”  It is one of those little books that has hundreds of references to logical thinking and basic fundamental principles.  They came in several sizes but I got the one that is about 2″ by 2″ and is a perfect pocket companion.

One of my favorite quotes is “An idea is first formed in the mind as a thought.”  Imagine that?…every thing we see or do was first an idea in someone’s mind.  At a very basic level the ball point pen was first an idea.  To a more modern relation, I recall when blogging first came out when the phrase “Web Logging” was first introduced.  We all have ideas but how often to we stop to “think” where that idea came from?

You might say to yourself, “Self, How does this apply to learning?”  I’m glad you asked.  My work is in corporate retail training where RESULTS are the measurment of the ages!  We are so focused on results (and the lack there of) we lose sight of why results are not where we would expect. 

We know Results are driven by Performance, and we know Performance is driven by Behaviors.  We also know Behaviors are due to the thoughts of those we want the eventual Results from.  So…

Leaders review results with their managers and say, “These results are poor.  Your performance is lacking.”  The manager then goes to their repsective subordinates and say, “Our perfomance is not up to par.  You better change your behavior.”  That manager then goes to their subordinates and say, “Your behaviors stink! You better think about how to improve.”  In the end we focus on the results and push down with vigor and enthusiasm to change those results in dismal failure.  Well, maybe not failure but we sure do put a lot of energy into it.

Ok, back to Mr. Allen.  Hmm…so if an idea is first formed in the mind as a thought then why not flip this around.  Lets look at a suggestion focusing on the thoughts of the base line workers.  Give them the tools, messages, and training focused on thoughts that affect their behavior.  Their behavior will then change their performance and Walla! the results will take care of themself.

I need to ‘think’ about this some more…

LearnNugget #1

As you can read, I’m not a very committed blogger being its been a couple months since I last posted, although I really want to.

What’s a “Learn Nugget?”  I don’t know…just thought of it really.  Actually, the more I think about what a “Nugget of Learning” is the more global the concept becomes in my mind.  Simply put, a LearnNugget is a glimpse of time in your day that you actually learn something new.

My Dad always told me, “Close your mouth, use your eyes and listen – you might learn something.”  Basically, be quiet and observe what’s around you.  As I became a parent I carried that bit of wisdom with me and am attempting to pass it on to my offspring.  However, I have never forgotten that simple lesson and if I truly pay attention, I do in fact learn something every day.

This morning I learned that putting leftover biscuits in the freezer last Saturday, thawing them out and reheating them this Saturday doesn’t necessarily mean they will taste the same.  Freezing fresh bread – yes.  Freezing baked biscuits – no.

I have re-committed to blogging.  Perhaps I may even post again this month!