Terminology Tuesday

I am no stranger to procrastination…by any stretch. So much so, that I tend to factor procrastination into my workflow and feel as though I produce better work under pressure…probably not true, but I’ll let myself believe it. Whatever you choose to believe, you should make an effort (like I do) to be more productive. That’s why I subscribe to the 45/15 rule!

The 45/15 Rule

The 45/15 rule is a great model for productive workflow (in my opinion) because it encourages you to break up each hour into 45 minutes of productive work and 15 minutes of procrastination, distraction, or time spent otherwise not working. For me, this rule works really well because I see it as a challenge – how many pages can I write in 45 minutes? How many emails can I respond to in 45 minutes? How much of a course can I author in 45 minutes? And then, I reward myself by 1 – ticking items off my to do list and 2 – watching cat videos or surfing social media for 15 minutes!

This rule helps me channel my productivity while still allowing me to indulge in the procrastination I’ve grown to love and appreciate (and whom I have nurtured for many years).

If it helps, you can use an alarm – I did this at first. However, I tend to find the actual alarm sound to be jarring, so I’ve opted to calculate my hour by using even hours on my clock.

Resources

• Use the 45/15 Rule for Productive Procrastination by Freelancer Union
• The 45/15 Rule by Create & Thrive
• The ’45/15 Rule,’ Eating the Frog, and 5 Other Ways Freelancers Can Get Things Done at Home by Suzanne Levy

This week I wanted to chat a bit about gesture-based learning. The topic recently came up in discussion, and whenever I explain it in contextual examples (of projects I previously worked on), people always seem really wow’ed, so I figured it would be a great time to chat about it!

Gesture-Based Learning

Gesture-based learning allows users to learn practical movements through human interactions interfacing with digital technologies. This type of learning became increasingly popular with the emergence of readily available and affordable technologies such as the Xbox Kinect and the Nintendo Wii. The novelty is engaging enough for most users, and with the appropriate programming, you can develop incredible scenarios.

In gesture-based learning, courses are developed around key gestures and body movements. Activities are often simulating real-life events, and the practical component of gesture-based learning activities is paramount (in my opinion) when it comes to mastering movements to be used in real-life events.

An example of a gesture-based course I contributed to was an aircraft marshalling program, wherein the users were tasked with properly learning marshalling signals, and throughout the activities they were assessed. Incorrect movements would prompt sample scenarios of what might happen in the real-world field. It was one of the cooler programs I worked on, but I have to suppose that it was incredibly expensive and laborious for all resources involved.

Resources

• Gesture Based Interaction NUI: An Overview by Dr. Manju Kaushik and Rashmi Jain
• “Alien Health”: A Nutrition Instruction Exergame using the Kinect Sensor by M. C. Glenberg, C. Savio-Ramos, and H. Henry
• Gesture-based Learning with Kinect
• Teacher’s Guide to Kinect: How to Program for Kinect and Gesture-Based Learning

I don’t use as many job aids now, but back in my time with the military sector I was very well-acquainted with them. The military LOVES their job aids. I was inspired to write this post as I work through E-Learning Challenge #17 – Using Job Aids in E-Learning.

Job Aids

Job aids are just what they sound like – materials developed in order to aid you in doing your job! These often appear in the form of checklists (think back to the time you may have spent in retail – did you have a dreaded bathroom cleaning checklist? You know, the one you had to sign off on every 30 minutes?), worksheets, or FAQs. These job aids can serve to make doing certain tasks easier, especially if you have a lot to remember. They also serve to generate procedural habits.

In e-learning, job aids might even be more effective than formal training. In a Training Needs Analysis, the Instructional Designer might determine that developing full-blown training really won’t address the need, but a simple Job Aid will do just the trick. Here, you can see how job aids can be efficient and cost-effective.

I spent many moons working in retail, and one of my favourite job aids was the Starbucks drink recipe cards (click here for an example, found on a quick search of The Google). Each store had a couple sets of these, and they were easy index-sized cards that had an illustration of the drink and the steps to make the drink. I say this was one of my favourite job aids because, as a manager of an incredibly busy store, you sometimes had to toss a new trainee into the trenches, and these recipe cards really helped new baristas (and sometimes old ones who encountered an obscure drink order) get up-to-speed with the plethora of drink recipes there were. Each time a new drink came out, the recipe index received another magical card. What a perfect job aid!

Within the military, there were always checklists for every little task; these checklists are critical in that while some might seem silly, others were the difference between life and death. Just think about what might happen if someone didn’t use the proper torquing value when tightening bolts on aircraft parts? The part might fail during a mission and the plane might crash. No one wants to have that hanging over their head, so checklists are necessary!

Enough Examples! Here are some Resources:

Use Job Aids to Improve Your Business Results by Leslie Allan

Designing a Job Aid by ATD

How to Build Effective Job Aids by Kari Loeffler

Designing Effective Job Aids with Microsoft Word by Raul Esparza

I took an unexplained two-week hiatus from Terminology Tuesday (and most other blogging) to enjoy a bit of a holiday vacation. Sorry, folks! Don’t sweat though – this week I’m back!

I recently took a mini-course on Infographics and vowed to get a lot friendlier with Adobe Illustrator in 2015; we’ll see how that goes…check in with me in about 6-12 months. In any event, infographics are taking the world by storm it seems, so I thought it fitting to have a little chat about them.

Infographics

Infographics consist of two pieces: information and graphics. When those two concepts are sandwiched together, you get infographics, which are designed to display information (e.g. data/trends/ideas) in a visually appealing way that also facilitates information synthesis. They are especially beneficial for people who are more visual learners. Just think back to all of the textbooks you read in school…how much of that information did you really retain? Likely quite a bit if you studied it, but you might learn more seeing certain information displayed meaningfully in a graphic. Even if you’re not a visual learner, an infographic might be handy supplementary material to accompany text-based materials. Additionally, infographics allow the user to experience the concept versus interpreting the concept, and passively retaining the information.

I developed an interactive infographic awhile back, and while it’s not the prettiest (hence my goal of learning illustrator in 2015), it effectively shows information when you hover over the visual elements. You can check it out by clicking the image below:

Resources

Maybe you’re well-versed at creating your own graphics or manipulating existing graphics. Great! Get your infographic on! But if you’re like me, you might need some help. Luckily, there are tons of free resources to help build your own infographics – all you need is the data!

• easel.ly
• infogr.am
• Smore
• Canva

You can also download many fantastic infographic icons and images for reasonable prices (and supporting local designers) from Creative Market, which is where I obtained the infographic elements used in the above sample.

Last week I posted my best advice for e-learning freelancers in the form of a poster:

After posting this, I had a question: What is scope creep? Great question! There I go again with my industry jargon, making the assumption that everyone knows what I’m talking about…and you know what assumptions do. After having this question posed, it seemed like a great opportunity to explain the phrase on this week’s edition of Terminology Tuesday. It’s a two part-er!

Scope Creep

It could be scope’s creepy friend (and sometimes it is), but it’s really broken down into two components. First, we have Scope. Scope refers to the scope of the project and is typically outlined in a contract or statement of work (p.s. if you don’t have it in writing…get it in writing!). Scope dictates the project requirements, and what will be included. In e-learning, it’s smart to be very specific when outlining scope (e.g. Module 1 contains 1 scenario, 2 interactive screens, and 3 static screens) because the more specific you are, the less you will be affected by creep. Secondly, we have creep. Creep occurs when clients attempt to get more than they signed on for and this is where you need to stand firm. When a client asks for ‘just one more scenario’ in Module 5, you should come back to their request with a compromise. For example, ‘well. we can add one more scenario in Module 5 if we remove one scenario from Module 2.”

Giving your client an inch of leeway by agreeing to add elements outside of the agreed upon project scope can quickly become a mile. I’ve worked on projects that were originally scoped at a 6 month development time, but due to some not so super project management, the client ended up receiving their courseware after 1 year of development, the project made absolutely no profit (it actually cost the company to finish it), all because the project manager kept agreeing to ‘just one more’ revision, scenario, etc.

So, in a very simple explanation: scope creep is when your client creeps their project requirements past the originally agreed upon scope.

Resources

• 5 Steps to Preventing Scope Creep (and Still Keeping Your Clients Happy) on Bidsketch
• How to Manage Scope Creep – and Even Prevent it from Happening on LiquidPlanner
• Taming the Scope Creep by Brett Harned
• Why Scope Creep is Your Fault (and What You Can Do to Prevent it) by Christopher Butler

This week I’m going to talk about a term that a lot of folks find useful. I don’t really classify myself in that category of folk, but occasionally I can see the use in a mind map. I think this is because I often work alone and end up brainstorming with myself, so there’s really not a lot of point for me to visualize that for myself.

What is a mind map?

A mind map is essential a brainstorming session. Mind maps allow you to visually organize your ideas and are typically centred around one theme or concept. Remember when you used to brain storm in grade school? You would write down one central concept in the middle of your page and then draw lines coming from that central concept with related terms or concepts? It’s kind of like a visual word association. To illustrate the concept of a mind map, I drafted one for you:

Here, I have the central concept of cats (because 1 – I’m a crazy cat lady, and 2 – as I type this, I am being sandwiched between two) and from there I have sub-categories such as: sounds, physical attributes, hobbies, likes, and dislikes. From each of these sub-categories, I have listed related items that come to mind when I think of cats in relation to that category.

You can probably see how a mind map could be helpful, especially if you’re attempting to come up with a coherent e-learning module; in one of the workshops I participated in over the past year, we did a mind map to come up with some elements for a course. This type of mind map included a central topic, and from there we identified colour schemes, fonts, sounds, feelings the course might evoke, etc.

Outside of e-learning, mind maps can be useful for any project, especially if you’re working in a group. They allow for collaboration and can be effective when it comes to decision making and identifying what does and does not work with the central concept.

Intrigued? Here are some resources:

• ExamTime – Create your own mind maps!
• Top 5 Ways to Use Mind Maps For E-Learning by Andrea Leyden
• Designing with Mind Maps by Connie Malamed
• Case Study: Transition to the Next Generation of E-Learning: Using Mind Mapping and Accessible Web Pages as Part of a University’s Academic Staff Training by Anne Dickinson