The recent webinar from Mike Byrne and Logicearth’s Peter Carlin on content authoring in the cloud served as a handy stake in the ground to take stock of how the latest cloud and online innovations are changing the way we create and consume learning online. These are perhaps the six most important things we discovered during that webinar:
1) Multi device learning is already happening. The argument is over. 90 per cent of people use multiple device screens sequentially. Research by Google indicates people aren’t just ‘going mobile’. They’re using several mobile and static devices a day. So it’s no longer enough to try to reach people on a single device. Elearning creators must understand how people juggle screens throughout the day and be there for them when needed.
2) SCORM and FLASH, far from being panaceas to open up the elearning floodgates, are frighteningly restrictive. SCORM practically limits access to elearning content via complex LMSs and reduces results to simple statements such as course status, time and score. FLASH tied us to our PCs and made anything but a simple linear path through the content a nightmare to produce.
3) Perhaps the biggest contribution that HTML5 has made to content development (other than confining FLASH to history books – see above) is to enable the smart content creator to create content one time only to use it effectively across any device due to the language’s responsive qualities.
4) When you are writing your elearning and you think the amount of text you have is adequate, reduce it by half again. This has probably always been sound advice. But more so now when your learner could be digesting your masterpiece on a 60 sq. cm. screen. Don’t forget also, the smaller the screen, the quicker the cognitive overload.
5) Learning professionals need to step up to standards of the world’s other creative institutions, such as advertising agencies and film production companies. There is a reason why they spend so much money on production and development. It’s because it matters.
6) Your content will always look better on some devices than others. Just accept it!
