Easy Loans

Many e-Learning and documentation developers have already noticed that our audiences dont have as much patience for extended content as in the past. There are probably a couple reasons:

Increased use of portable information devices with tiny screens.
Impatience with large quantities of un-engaging text.

Info Devices and Tiny Screens

Did you know that 33% of the Earths population uses cell phones, but only 17% uses computers of any kind? What does this mean for the e-Learning industry? Think about the following:

1. Today, more people use mobile information devices like cell phones than traditional PCs.
2. These mobile devices have squinty little screens.
3. Screen text can shrink only so much before it becomes unreadable (especially for an aging population).
4. Having to scroll displays around to read things irritates users.
5. Therefore, tiny screens on portable devices will probably force ALL of us to write more concise materials, with less text and reduced on-screen scrolling.

Too Much Text!

Also, todays students seek much of their information through Google, YouTube, Twitter, Facebook, Web blogs, and Wikis. These are engaging, lively, and (often) very concise delivery channels. For example, Twitter messages can be no longer than 140 characters. If youve never tweeted, heres what 140 characters looks like (including spaces, but excluding quotes): A big shout-out to my many fans of ME!! Im at the mall & wanted to ask everyone what you think I should buy my girlfriend for her birthday?

A whole new generation of information consumers is learning to communicate and exchange information using these miniscule chunks. Similarly, millions of YouTube visitors every month view video clips that are normally no longer than 150 seconds.

As I saidextremely concise delivery channels!

And if they arent already our customers, todays students will become tomorrows users of our products and services. After graduation, theyll continue to expect concise content to be delivered over engaging media. These future audiences wont permit themselves to be bored by e-Learning materials that drone on or dont grab and keep their interest.

Im already seeing the results of this. As SyberWorks STC software grows increasingly full-featured, my manuals become fatter and fatter. When I arrived here a few years ago, the STC User Manual was only 300 pages long. Today, its 1,200 pages and rising. I could hold or reduce these counts by providing less detail, but thats not a popular approach. So page counts grow, and customers willingness to open their manuals drops. Today, theyre more likely to just call Customer Support with questions because the manuals contain too much paper.

As a result, the documentation field has been moving toward smaller modular content chunks, which can be left standalone or combined with each other and delivered to different users and information devices. The concept is actually quite similar to SCORM.

The Rise of Learning Nuggets

Similarly, Learning Nuggets are tiny e-Learning chunks that can be standalone or strung like beads in e-Learning necklaces. These tiny lessons tend to focus on single concepts or tasks. They can be developed using existing technologies (HTML, XHTMS, CSS, JavaScript, SyberWorks Web Author), and usually include Flash animations, audio, video, demonstrations, educational puzzles, and quizzes.

For example, Ive seen a nugget that shows people how to determine their effective annual salary, based on their annual wage and the number of hours that they REALLY work. This nugget also shows how to compute what their salary WOULD BE, if they were paid for every one of these hours. I could see this nugget being just one standalone unit in a string of personal finance activities.

Nuggets arent defined by any specific authoring technologies, either. The key things that differentiate them from traditional course lessons are that nuggets are short, can stand alone, can also be sequenced with other nuggets to meet individual training needs, and can be delivered over a variety of media.

Googling learning nuggets will give you much more information about the work thats being done with them. When I did, I discovered that:

Londons The Learning Nuggets Company is creating low-cost nuggets for students in urban and rural sub-Sahara Africa. Subjects include vocations, principles of management, computing technologies, and even the rules for driving in Europe.
Developers have also discovered that nuggets lend themselves to open source sharing, where nuggets developed by one company are exchanged with other developers around the globe. Some tradeshows have even begun to collect pertinent nuggets from their exhibitors to sell or give away to attendees!

If you also research nuggets, youll discover many approaches to creating and delivering them. But they all target flexible, low-cost content libraries that can be delivered to as many kinds of devices as possibleincluding wireless gizmos carried in the worlds pockets.

But Things Could Get TOO Condensed

Recently, the British Qualifications and Curriculum Authority found that too many U.K. students (especially those in their mid teens) were being taught using extracts and short stories, as opposed to what they called a sufficiently demanding reading diet (e.g., novels and textbooks). This condensed instruction, they added, is already producing students without reading stamina.

Thats an interesting concept. And one must askCould breaking user documentation into ever smaller chunks and learning materials into tiny standalone nuggets similarly erode the learning stamina of my documentation readers and your online learners? We must stay on the alert to see!