WOW!This month's BIG question is more like a massive question. In fact it is sooooo big that I am merely posting it for now as I think through my responses. I would love to hear from you regarding these questions, especially if you are customer of eLearning services. Unfortunately much of the discussion around these topics involves the eLearning development community rather than the consumers of our products. It would be great to have the the consumers weigh in on their experiences, expectations, successes and failures. How important is tool selection to the customer? Do they care about the actual tool that will be used for delivery or do they just want it to be effective? I know, I'm adding more questions to an already loaded question. See details below....
Background
As compared to ten years ago when there were roughly four major authoring tools, today there are a large number of different tools and different approaches to creating content. You can use standard authoring tools, rapid development tools, LCMS, simulation development tools, HTML editors, Wikis, and many others including a vast array of media creation solutions. And to make matters more difficult seems to be a constant flood of new tools. We literally have 100s of choices.
So, this month, The Big Question is...
Choosing Tools?
Points to Consider:
- How does the eLearning design process need to change to accommodate such a wide variety of tools?
- How does the tool selection process need to change?
- What should learning professionals do to stay up-to-speed?
- Do they need to learn new tools constantly?
- Can they stick with a few tools?
- Will this trend continue? If so, then what does that imply for us?
2 comments:
I"m going to tackle the question that asks if elearning professions need to learn new tools continuously. Yes!!
As professionals, it's important for us to know what is out there. Not only because different tools might benefit us in distinct ways but also because others look to us for advice. A few years ago, for example, if you didn't know what a WYSIWYG editor was your advice would not be fully informed. If you don't know what a wiki is youi couldn't suggest it to people who were looking for collaborative projects, etc. etc.
Now another question that you might consider is, is it fair to expect web 2.0 professions, or elearning professionals, to be familiar with every single widget? The answer is, no way. There are far too many of them.
But just because professionals will never have a grasp of every available widget does not mean that we should stop trying to develop this wide understanding.
Excellent comments Andrew. I would agree with you that eLearning professionals should have a working knowledge about the tools that predominate the industry.
My question is whether this would be a working (theoretical) knowledge about a group of tools e.g Wiki's or about specific development tools e.g. Lectora. Your comments seems to relate to the trends, rather than specific tools and I think you're spot on. I also think you're spot on that we should aspire to have as wide a grasp of as many tools as possible. That's what we get paid the big bucks for, right?
;-)
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