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405 Strategies for picking technologies With so many categories of tools and so many choices in each category, you need a strategy to guide your choices. A strategy cannot pick a particular brand of tool. It can, however, help you filter the list of available tools and ensure your choices are informed and consistent. This section will help you develop a coherent strategy for selecting technologies and tools. OVERVIEW OF A STRATEGY To pick tools and technologies wisely, your organization needs a systematic process to identify, acquire, and implement specific products—a strategy that can be used to select tools and technologies consistently across the enterprise. This chapter presents a strategy for picking tools. Use it as the basis for your own strategy. This strategy articulates the actions and decisions needed for acquiring tools. In this chapter we discuss Don’t have an overall management strategy for e-learning? May I recommend another book by one of the authors of this book other than me? It is Leading E-learning and is available from its publisher, ASTD (astd.org), or from horton.com. 19 Wiley Publishing, Inc. 406 W Strategies for picking technologies W E-learning Tools and Technologies each of these actions and decisions in detail. The actions and decisions expanding from the Pick tools box in the diagram are covered in chapter 20. The sequence shown here indicates, in general, when a step is completed—not when it starts. For instance, you need to begin thinking about implementation long before you buy anything. That’s our subtle way of telling you to read this entire chapter before you begin putting the strategy into action. The first step in our suggested strategy is to Set technology goals. What must the technology do for your organization’s e-learning efforts? With broad goals defined, you will probably need to Form a team, task force, working group, or (yipes) committee to advise, discuss, and help make decisions. The next two steps usually proceed in parallel. In one step, you define the specific Categories of products you need, for example a learning management system, a course authoring tool, and specific media editors. In a parallel step, you set Policies for the kinds of companies and products most compatible with your organization and its goals. The next step, Pick tools, is repeated for each category of tool you need. Once you pick tools, you must compile a budget and Get the money to Buy them. Buying tools involves finding the best vendor and negotiating the best deal. The final step, Implement, is one that is often forgotten—at least the first time around. This strategy is quite flexible. Take the time to adapt it to your organization and its unique way of doing business. The rest of this chapter goes into detail about each of the steps of this strategy. Do you really need a strategy? The word strategy resonates with undertones of bureaucracy, paperwork, and endless committee meetings. It is natural to question whether you need a technology strategy as such. Before you skip this chapter entirely, take a few minutes to consider whether you need a strategy. You probably do not need a strategy if you are only purchasing a few copies of a few inexpensive tools. Instead, follow the advice in chapter 20 on how to select individual tools. If you have an overall strategy for managing the move to e-learning, you may already have a strategy for acquiring needed technology. Just skim this chapter to see if the ideas suggested here can be incorporated into your overall strategy. Wiley Publishing, Inc. E-learning Tools and Technologies X Strategies for picking technologies X 407 19 Strategies for picking technologies SET YOUR TECHNOLOGY GOALS To set your strategy for acquiring and using technology, you need to conduct some self-analysis. You need to examine your organization’s goals and culture and what they imply about the tools and technologies that best suit your organization’s capabilities and style of doing business. Consider organizational goals In setting your strategy, you must consider your organization’s reasons for investing in technology. We recommend you consider three levels: enterprise goals, performance goals, and learning goals. Think of each level as a cascade of ever more specific objectives. Enterprise goals The enterprise goals of an organization concern its ability to carry out its chartered mission. These goals are often expressed in monetary terms but not necessarily as profit. Even public institutions and nonprofit organizations have business goals though they may call them “economic goals” or “institutional objectives.” Here are some examples of business goals. f Increase profit from sales by 20% over the next quarter f Increase student enrollment by 30% without any new construction f Integrate employees of a newly acquired subsidiary into the overall enterprise Business goals are the ultimate reason for acquiring technology. They tell you whether the tools are an investment, an asset, or an expense. Performance goals Performance goals state who must do what to achieve the enterprise goals. Performance goals generally specify actions. These actions may require learning and technology. Examples of performance goals include: f Double sales of high-margin products by the end of the next quarter f Increase enrollment in online degree programs to 4000 students f Achieve transfer of loyalty by employees of acquired subsidiaries to the new parent organization Wiley Publishing, Inc. 408 W Strategies for picking technologies W E-learning Tools and Technologies Performance goals may be accomplished by learning—hence the need for e-learning technology—or by other means. You can better justify technology by showing how it contributes in multiple ways to accomplishing performance goals. Learning goals Learning goals specify who must learn what to accomplish the performance goals. Examples of learning goals include: f Sales representatives will be able to convince customers to switch to high-margin products f Students in online degree programs will learn as effectively as those in conventional programs f Employees from subsidiaries will subscribe to values of the parent organization and feel full membership in it Learning goals are the most direct impetus for e-learning technology; however, they alone are not always sufficient to justify such large purchases. Goals are often vague and open-ended. To guide technology purchases, goals must be translated into more specific strategies, policies, and requirements. The translation may be difficult and inexact, but never let your decision-making process stray from the goals behind it. Consider organizational culture If you think organizational goals are vague and hard to pin down, try scouting out your organization’s culture. Culture is seldom written down. Culture is not found in the grand pronouncements about treasuring diversity found in annual reports or on yellowing posters peeling off cafeteria walls. It is in the assumptions, biases, and predilections that subtly guide day-to-day decisions throughout the organization. Culture is not something stated by the CEO on CNBC or in the Wall Street Journal. Culture concerns the unconscious values as actually practiced by everybody in the organization. These values affect how the organization does business and how it best uses technology. What are some of these values that make up an organizational culture? f Mission. How does the organization see its role? Although universities, law firms, and telecoms have a common economic basis, they define their missions very differently. Does you organization aim for social good, for profit, for development of people, or for advancement of technology? An organization whose mission is Wiley Publishing, Inc. E-learning Tools and Technologies X Strategies for picking technologies X 409 19 Strategies for picking technologies social good may want to consider the social effects of its purchasing decisions, whereas a for-profit organization may want the best product at the best price. f Obligations to stakeholders. What does the organization believe it owes its owners, employees, customers, partners, and community? An organization that values internal talent may want to bring technology in-house to upgrade skills of employees. A public university sensitive to the concerns of taxpayers may seek the most economical solution it can find. f Skills valued. What kinds of expertise does the organization treasure? What skills lead to rapid promotion and inclusion in decision-making? What are the skills that got top executives where they are today? Your choices of technology and how it is deployed must be compatible with the skills possessed and valued by the organization. For example, an organization that views IT as core skills will be more receptive to bringing technology in-house. An organization that values general business management skills may prefer to supervise external contractors and consultants. f Self-reliance. Is the organization a do-it-yourself or farm-it-out organization? Bill once worked for a computer company that had its own trucking, rental car, and executive housing departments. We have worked for other companies with a skeleton staff of managers who subcontract everything. f Secrecy. Does the culture encourage sharing knowledge, or does it enforce a need- to-know policy? Does the organization feel obligated to protect secret, confidential, or proprietary information? Medical facilities, military installations, legal firms, and research laboratories may demand technologies with proven security features. More open organizations may require easy-to-use collaboration tools. f Innovation. Does the organization want to be seen as an innovator? Does it reward risk-takers and tolerate eccentric behavior? Is creativity more important than efficiency? Or would the organization rather be perceived as stable and dependable? Innovative organizations are more likely to welcome risky new technology. f Growth. Does the organization want to grow rapidly in size? Or would it rather grow slowly? Does its reputation matter more than short-term financial results? Will the organization’s ability to acquire and digest new technology limit its growth? Or can technology be used to remove limits to its growth? Harvard University, IBM, the government of Malaysia, Microsoft, the Houston Independent School District, Hewlett Packard, and the Vatican all have distinct organizational cultures and values that govern their purchasing decisions. Your Wiley Publishing, Inc. 410 W Strategies for picking technologies W E-learning Tools and Technologies organization has its own culture, and that culture should be reflected in your strategy for acquiring e-learning technology. Know what you want to do Before you proceed, you must know exactly what you are trying to accomplish. A clearly worded statement of objectives will tell you what technical features to look for in tools and technologies. This statement of objectives should take into account your enterprise, performance, and learning goals as well as your process for acquiring e-learning tools. (See chapters 20 and 21.) To help you arrive at your objectives, ask yourself: f Do you want to produce a standard type of e-learning, such as instructor-led e-learning, learner-led e-learning? Or, will your solution span several categories or perhaps establish a new category altogether? f How broad are your goals? Are you acquiring tools for a single, carefully circumscribed project? Or does your charter extend to all the e-learning within the organization or beyond to encompass online documentation, Web-based job aids, knowledge management, and e-commerce? f What media do you need? Is displayed text enough? Can you get by with crude line drawings? Do you need sound, music, and voice? How about moving pictures provided by animation or video segments? What level of quality do you require for these media? For example, is computer-synthesized voice sufficient? If you require recorded voice, must it be high-fidelity or is AM-broadcast quality good enough? f Must the learning product be embedded in, packaged with, or displayed alongside some other software or information system? f How experienced are your learners? Do they already know how to operate the computer and its operating system? Have they taken e-learning before? Have they used online collaboration systems? How much training will they need? f Is the purpose of your e-learning to increase long-term knowledge or just to answer immediate questions? f How much time do you have for the whole project? f What is your overall budget? How much have you allocated for technology? Even if you do not have a formal budget yet, can you estimate the range of money you could spend? Wiley Publishing, Inc. E-learning Tools and Technologies X Strategies for picking technologies X 411 19 Strategies for picking technologies f Are you creating a prototype or the finished product? f How much content will courses contain? How broad and deep are your educational goals? f Is what you are teaching primarily factual knowledge, technical skills, soft skills, psychomotor skills, attitudes, or some mixture of these different forms? Answers to questions like these will help you express your goals in a form that can guide your decisions. FORM A TEAM If your title is chief learning czar, if you own the majority of stock in your organization, or if you have unbreakable tenure, you may not feel you need a team to help you select and implement technologies. It may be more efficient for one person to make the decisions, but other people do have good ideas and getting a bit of consensus never hurts. And teamwork can be fun. So who do you need on your team, working group, strike force, or SWAT (Special Wizards Acquiring Technology) team? Here is a recommendation for the makeup of such a team. At the top is the team leader who is responsible for making decisions. We nominate you. If you choose not to accept this position, please see that it is filled by someone with both technical knowledge and people skills. Also on the team are a close group of people who may recommend and ratify decisions. They may even think they make the decisions. They suggest, recommend, discuss, debate, deliberate, and consider each decision from many different perspectives. Within this group we recommend representative learners, instructors, instructional designers, and information technologists. These representatives should have the authority and experience to speak for their respective groups. You may want to add representatives of a few more groups to meet the special needs of your organization. Wiley Publishing, Inc. 412 W Strategies for picking technologies W E-learning Tools and Technologies A third group of team members includes those who advise on decisions. Their involvement may be short-term or limited to specific decisions. In this area are specialists in purchasing, accounting, and finance. You may want to call on peers within your organization or in other organizations. You will certainly want to keep executives informed and seek their advice on issues of organizational policy. For some special issues, you may need to seek the advice of outside consultants or trusted vendors. And don’t forget the informal advice of friends, parents, and lovers. The team should be dynamic and flexible. You know your organization and your mission. Pick a team that works. IDENTIFY NEEDED CATEGORIES OF TOOLS You may need tools from several different categories. One of your strategic decisions will be to narrow your list of needed tool categories to just a few. Identify capabilities needed to carry out your designs To pick tools wisely, design your e-learning before you pick the tools to build it. First, design some example courses or modules of the type you want to create. Just specify them on paper. Second, list the capabilities you require for constructing and deploying them. Third, map your required capabilities to tools that can provide these capabilities. Wiley Publishing, Inc. E-learning Tools and Technologies X Strategies for picking technologies X 413 19 Strategies for picking technologies In a perfect world, all your capabilities could be met by one tool. In putting together your real-world toolkit, realize that some tools can meet multiple requirements, and some capabilities will require multiple tools. Some capabilities will require building your own tools or at least creatively combining multiple tools. And, some capabilities may not be possible yet. Your challenge is to put together the best set of tools your can, realizing that the perfect tools may not exist. By designing first, you ensure that you pick tools that provide as many of the needed capabilities as possible. If you pick tools before you know what capabilities you need, you may later have to scale down your project to fit the capabilities of tools you have already purchased. Select categories of tools There are many categories of tools—far more than you are likely to need on a single project. Early in your project, you should identify the specific categories of tools you will need. To identify categories of needed tools, first determine the role for which you need tools. Using the tools framework, you can spot areas where you need tools and areas that you can leave to others. Here is an example of some of the kinds of organizations that require e-learning technology and the categories they need. What roles do you play and what are your areas of responsibility in this framework? Knowing your role will help you pick the categories of tools you need. Wiley Publishing, Inc. 414 W Strategies for picking technologies W E-learning Tools and Technologies Example: Corporate training department Suppose you manage a corporate training department charged with designing, developing, and offering 50 asynchronous, learner-led online courses. To carry out this role, you will obviously need tools to create and offer courses, lessons, and pages. What about the other areas on the framework? Because you are offering individual courses, not programs or curricula, you can forego tools at the curriculum level. You may choose to subcontract the creation and offering of media, especially audio and video. You may also opt to leave the choice of tools for accessing your courses to learners. If that is the case, you will have to design your courses so they work with popular browsers and media players and make your requirements clear. So, how do you pick tools to meet your role? You can start by considering the tools that overlap the tasks and levels that make up your role. One obvious candidate is an LCMS, mainly because it covers much of your area of responsibility. Of course the LCMS may in turn require a Web server. And, you may want to enrich the content it can provide by including Web site authoring tools to create pages with better formatting and more interactivity than provided by templates in the LCMS. If you wish to include existing documents in your courses, you may need some conversion tools. By identifying the main categories needed for your specific tasks and levels, you narrow your search and focus your efforts. Wiley Publishing, Inc. [...]... expo where exhibitors demonstrate their products and answer questions Here are some conferences to sprinkle over your calendar Conference Web address ASTD International Conference and Exhibition astd.org Distance Teaching & Learning uwex.edu/disted/conference E- learning Guild Conference elearningguild.com Online Learning Conference and Expo onlinelearningconference.com TechKnowledge astd.org TechLearn... gone through many version numbers; therefore, most of the bugs and problems have been sorted out—with any luck The underlying technology they use is stable and well documented Ease of use Established and highly refined tools make creating content easier These tools have had more time to perfect the user interface and implement feedback from users And users are more knowledgeable about the technologies. .. tools E- learning Tools and Technologies How will learning be measured? What kinds of tests, practices, and projects can help learners demonstrate and measure their mastery of the subject matter? Will humans or machines evaluate learners’ performance? Where are the learners? Are they all in one office, one time zone, one country, or are they all over the globe? Do they speak the same language? Answers... left, under pre-Internet technology are disk-based tools from the days before computers were connected On the left side of established Internet technologies zone are early technologies like HTML, JavaScript, Internet newsgroups, and chat In the middle of this zone are technologies such as Java, Dynamic HTML, and streaming media On the right side are the more advanced Internet technologies like Extensible... consider first and who gets the benefit of the doubt Policies can be real tiebreakers Mainly they keep you grounded in the goals behind your effort 19 416 Strategies for picking technologies E- learning Tools and Technologies The advantages at the Buy end of the scale are: Convenience Buying tools is more convenient, and the resulting toolset is likely to be consistent Speed If you are in a hurry to get... get data sheets and brochures from the vendors’ Web sites Consolidate the various bullet lists of features Edit the list to remove duplicate items, delete unnecessary features, and express capabilities in consistent, vendor-neutral terminology Then scan the list for missing capabilities critical for your project Who will author and lead these learning experiences? What technologies are these people... the terms and conditions of the license? Next time read it and you will most likely discover that you merely have a license to use the software But let’s not be pedantic When we say “own” we mean you control its use inside your organization These are the extremes, but there are some compromises in between Left of center, you may edit content locally and then upload it to the service Here you own the... 2 Identify candidate products that may meet these requirements 3 Evaluate the candidates against your requirements 4 Select the best candidate The process of picking specific products is the subject of chapter 20 Wiley Publishing, Inc 424 Strategies for picking technologies E- learning Tools and Technologies GET MONEY Obtaining the funds to purchase tools and technologies requires putting together a... picking technologies Should you go with big-name tools? Big-name tools are certainly the best known They are the ones everyone compares themselves to But are they the best choice for you? Let’s look at the advantages and disadvantages of big-name products Again, this is not an either-or choice There are positions all along the scale 4 18 Strategies for picking technologies E- learning Tools and Technologies. .. they are based on There are other advantages if you choose new technology Performance Tools supporting new technologies provide higher performance That is, they are faster and more efficient If you need high performance to maintain your competitive position in the marketplace—whether it is internal or external—then you should consider tools based on new technologies Chance to start over Tools at the . of use. Established and highly refined tools make creating content easier. These tools have had more time to perfect the user interface and implement feedback from users. And users are more knowledgeable. disk-based tools from the days before computers were connected. On the left side of established Internet technologies zone are early technologies like HTML, JavaScript, Internet newsgroups, and. unbreakable tenure, you may not feel you need a team to help you select and implement technologies. It may be more efficient for one person to make the decisions, but other people do have good ideas