Whether you design face-to-face or online learning, Instructional Design is critical to creating interactions which will help your target audience learn something new. While we have some amazing tools and methodologies at our disposal to help design engaging and effective learning, we seem to be over-run with so-called learning solutions which are nothing more than user guides or operating procedures that have been converted into busy, wordy PowerPoint slides or boring page-turning elearning. This short video featuring Dr David M Merrill highlights 3 basic principles of Instructional Design which, if applied, can turn any knowledge dump into a learning event.
Information and resources for trainers, coaches and anyone responsible for people development.
02 February 2011
Do we assume too much?
I first got involved with training when the company I was working for introduced PCs with Windows 3.1 into the organisation for every employee. As the majority of people had no experience of using a PC before (let alone one with something as fancy as Windows!) we undertook a huge training initiative which included the following for every single member of staff:
- Know your PC: which included stuff like what is RAM, how do networks work, troubleshoting print problems, etc.
- Windows basics: how to navigate and use File Manager (now called My Computer), when to single click, double click & right click, keyboard shortcuts, working with multiple windows, etc.
- MS Word, MS Excel & MS Powerpoint Intro, Intermediate and Advanced workshops
- MS Mail (later called MS Exchange and now MS Outlook) workshops: basics on how to use email and how to write an effective and concise email message.
I watch many different people from all generations using technology and I think there is a place for this very basic upskilling in every organisation. Just because we all use technology in our day to day jobs and personal lives, doesn't necessarily mean that we are using the tools correctly or efficiently. At what point did we decide that all the above was no longer required - and who made that decision? Understanding how to format tables, access shortcut menus and animate a presentation can have a dramatic effect on how long it takes someone to perform a task. And would it reduce the workload on IT support teams if end users knew which cables did what and how to find out why their print didn't come out or why they can't connect to the network. Is the money saved by organisations through the use of technology offset by the amount of time wasted by the end users because no-one has ever shown them how to use it properly? What do you think?
- Know your PC: which included stuff like what is RAM, how do networks work, troubleshoting print problems, etc.
- Windows basics: how to navigate and use File Manager (now called My Computer), when to single click, double click & right click, keyboard shortcuts, working with multiple windows, etc.
- MS Word, MS Excel & MS Powerpoint Intro, Intermediate and Advanced workshops
- MS Mail (later called MS Exchange and now MS Outlook) workshops: basics on how to use email and how to write an effective and concise email message.
I watch many different people from all generations using technology and I think there is a place for this very basic upskilling in every organisation. Just because we all use technology in our day to day jobs and personal lives, doesn't necessarily mean that we are using the tools correctly or efficiently. At what point did we decide that all the above was no longer required - and who made that decision? Understanding how to format tables, access shortcut menus and animate a presentation can have a dramatic effect on how long it takes someone to perform a task. And would it reduce the workload on IT support teams if end users knew which cables did what and how to find out why their print didn't come out or why they can't connect to the network. Is the money saved by organisations through the use of technology offset by the amount of time wasted by the end users because no-one has ever shown them how to use it properly? What do you think?
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