Last fall, I took a course about research that I truthfully dropped the ball on blogging about. Blogging consistently is really rough for me. However, I did want to share my favorite research artifact from that course: an interview with a learning experience designer at my broader company. I was looking into a career inquiry, and looking outside of my company really didn't seem like it was a reality for me in the short or medium term. Instead, I interviewed someone I felt could give me insight into the learning landscape in our very large company to give me a better idea of what options are out there for me and how I could develop towards them. Without further ado, please see my career inquiry/professional profile linked below.
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I have hosted training webinars before, and will again, but my most recent webinar covering the ABC(D)s of Writing Learning Objectives was a new experience for me. This webinar was slated to last only 15 minutes, with a goal of an interactive learning experience. I took the opportunity as a challenge, and used both new and old techniques to create what I think was a successful, interactive, quick-hit session.
No, "Part 1" wasn't a joke in that title! There IS a Part 2 to this series, finally. You've got to love life getting in the way, or rather 2600 brick pavers, a DIY patio pavilion, and a backyard wedding! I swear, I should start a home DIY blog at this point, the amount of projects we do. This post will focus on considerations in designing eLearnings for a global audience. With that, let's jump right in!
Translation The first thing you might think of when you consider a global audience is translation. Is English your learners' native language? If not, should you give options for the learner to take the training in their first language? In some instances, this might be decided for you. If your company has a policy about translation, that it only needs to be in one language, you don't have to consider this aspect, but maybe you still should. However, if you don't have anyone that speaks the language, then you have to factor in budget. Do you have any budget to cover the costs of translating the language and managing all that comes with that (timing of the training, text variations, etc.) If translation is something you want to pursue to aid your learners in comprehension of the training, here's where Part 1 of this series comes into play. If you are in a global learning organization, can you source anyone from your broader team who may be located in that region to do the translation? It may not be a part of their job description, but if the goal is to get the learners upskilled in this topic, that may be enough incentive for them to collaborate with you and do either audio translation or text-based translation. A couple of my favorite tools when thinking about translation in eLearnings in particular are Articulate Rise and Storyline. In Articulate Rise, you can easily export a file of the entire course, change the text, and then import back into the course to have a fully translated text. Pro tip: make a copy of your course FIRST before exporting, as you won't be able to re-import the translated text into a copy it did not originate from. It's pretty picky, but otherwise a great option! In Articulate Storyline, there is a similar process, but because of triggers and other variables, there may need to be a bit more manual updates as well. If you're just looking to caption your audio in another language, there's a pretty neat option as well. Once you create your English subtitles, you can export the SRT file, which includes timestamps of where those subtitles were, so the person captioning in another language just needs to update the text and when re-imported, it will line up with the audio still! One limitation of Storyline, however, is that there's no built-in option for multiple subtitles, the way you would think of something like Youtube. There are some workarounds, but Storyline 360 is also constantly being updated by Articulate, so hopefully this will come out in an update in the near future that addresses multiple translations. Localization Creating content for global audiences doesn't end at considering language. Are there cultural differences you need to account for in your design? Is the content you are covering relevant? While my company offers products globally, they do work differently in different regions of the world and sometimes "one-size fits all" doesn't apply. Be sure to get input from someone in each location the training will be taken (whether that be by country or region) to make sure that you aren't giving them content that doesn't apply to them (product not available in their region, for example) or is flat out wrong. This can alienate the learner and not only affect their retention of the current training, but the retention and perception of future training you offer, because your department is now the group that sent them a training that wasn't accurate. Why should they take the next training or believe in its content? Global Focus Localization is great, but sometimes, you do want a global focus for a course. As with in localization, you will want to determine a set of project team members that represent all regions being trained. From that team, you can determine what content does pertain to a global audience, properly assess how to deliver that content on a global scale (eLearning, virtual training, or having regional trainers deliver in-person training), and identify any content that may need to be pulled from the current training and localized into different regional add-on trainings. Not everything works globally, but with the right team in place, you can determine how regional and global training can work together to create a cohesive program for all your learners. Do you have any tips for training global learners? Pop them into the comments to start the discussion!
Recently, as part of a course I'm taking on Games and Learning, I read Level Up Learning: A National Survey on Teaching with Digital Games. Initially, before reading further than the title, I figured the research would have been on the students who are taught with digital games. When I saw that it was research on the teachers’ use and interest in games, I will admit I originally thought, “Does that matter?” I mistakenly jumped to thinking that, regardless of teachers’ interest in games, they should use them anyway and make the effort to learn the tools that will help their students. It shouldn’t be significant whether or not they liked or played games on their own time. However, in thinking further, I realized that’s not how it goes. In my own experience in corporate training, there is resistance to game-based learning, among other emerging industry trends, partly due to lack of interest, knowledge, or perceived benefit from instructional designers.
Okay guys, time for a less-than-stellar review here. Brace yourselves: I wasn't a huge fan of this course (I'm a cruel reviewer, I know). It wasn't great, it wasn't bad. It had some interesting positives, and a few really important negatives. Let's break it down below...
I'm so far behind here writing blog posts, but I wanted to get this one out there before the end of the year. The 2018 ATD International Conference was incredibly cool and so valuable to me this year, for so many reasons! To get the obvious out of the way, the keynote speaker was President Obama (wow!). He is an incredible speaker, even in the conversational situation he spoke to us in, and it was an inspiring way to start the conference. The other speakers blew me away too though! Marcus Buckingham left me energized for the day. The final keynote, Connie Podesta, had me laughing out loud (I am most definitely a Triangle, by the way) and really assessing the way people interact with one another.
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AuthorI am an instructional designer pursuing my Masters degree in Instructional Design and Adult Learning. I'm passionate about visual rhetoric and instructional design application. Categories
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Panoramic photo taken at the New River Gorge National River in West Virginia, Fall 2016
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