Category: mLearning

by Jennie Ruby

So I am in the middle of keystroking (reviewing) my way through training materials I'm going to teach on Microsoft Excel. The directions tell me to select January through April values to create a quarterly total. Later, the same materials tell me to select January through March to create a "tritotal." Now, I'm from out of town, but I think that the tradition for a quarterly total is that it covers three months, or one quarter of the year, not four months. And in 14 years working as a publications manager and setting production budgets for technical journals, I was never asked to create a "tritotal."

As soon as I saw this example, I knew that an IT person wrote the training example, not an accountant. The question of the day is this: to what extent do training examples need to be real-life examples? The lesson still taught how to select multiple values and create a total. Did it matter whether it resembled what one would do on a real-world spreadsheet?

For part of the answer, we have to go back to the objectives of the lesson. If the objective is that the learner will be able to create totals by selecting multiple values, then the objective probably was reached. But is that good enough?

Consider this anecdote: When teaching children to solve word problems in the United States, we are typically working with kids who understand that they are supposed to do math on the problem to solve it. But without the learner's knowledge of that objective, the learning can move off of the objective. Here is a math word problem:

"There are 12 crows sitting in a tree. If you throw a rock and knock one crow out of the tree, how many crows are left?"

When given this word problem, U.S. children get the intended answer, 11. Kids in a rural area in another area of the world, however, could get this answer: 0. Why? Rural kids who are not familiar with this type of math question may think about real experience rather than the math problem, and when you throw a rock into a tree full of crows, whether you hit one or not, they all fly away. Zero crows are left in the tree.

This does not happen only with kids. When teaching the difference between which and that just this past week, I wrote this sentence on the board:

"The brown leather chair which/that is in the middle of the room is broken."

A student asked "Why don't you just delete which/that is?" In truth, the example would be a better sentence without those words. All I could answer was "Because I am using it to illustrate the difference between which and that!"

In sum, I do consider it a best practice to use examples that very closely mimic or exemplify the real-world problems that learners need to be able to solve after the training. Otherwise, extraneous problems and distractions can arise. On the other hand, constant use of serious and realistic examples can make our materials dry or even intimidating.

We would love to hear from you if you have experiences of examples gone wrong, or right! Or if you have opinions about how realistic training examples need to be.

Are you an eLearning developer who has been tasked with creating an effective voiceover script? I'm teaching a new online class in May called Writing Effective eLearning Voiceover Scripts. During the class I'll be teaching you how to define the appropriate voice and tone for a narrative text. You will learn how to take specific steps to create the engaging and personable writing style that voice-over narratives require. I hope you can join me. Click here to learn more. I also teach the Writing Training Documents and eLearning Scripts class. You can learn about that here.

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by Jennie Ruby

I was happy to receive multiple responses to my humor article last week. During my article, I asked whether humor has a place in training materials.

One reader wrote that the reason you don't see much humor in training materials is that humor is hard to create, or create well, so that many writers don't even try. Another reader agreed, saying that it was about time "a few brave souls take the risk and thereby encourage others to catch the humor wave."

My comment that use of humor might make learners take your material less seriously was pooh-poohed by one reader, who said that use of jokes in a key-note speech, for example, "never has us leaving the auditorium feeling that we can't take the speaker seriously."

Another reader said it is probably fear of not being taken seriously that makes us steer away from attempting humor in the first place.

A reader recalled a specific cartoon from a For Dummies book that sticks in her memory and reminds her of an important point about the topic. That story proves the point of another reader, who stated that the use of humor is not a distraction as long as it helps cement a point that directly relates to the learning objective.

Several readers said that humor is best left for use in the live classroom, where the trainer can gauge the learners' reaction. I received stories about one trainer who had a roomful of people singing out loud, and another who cracked up a group with a fun "test" question that let learner's admit that the software they were learning could be a pain.

One reader commented that her team leaves the humor to the presenter or instructor, adding, "when the written materials are so dull, it's easier to be funny."

Whether learning materials should be dry like a dictionary or witty, friendly, and informal may depend a little on the topic and audience. But at least a few of my readers say it is time we worked a little harder to add some humor-or at least some wittiness-to our work.

My thanks to Dan, Joseph, Sara, a Sr. Instructional Designer in SoCal, Glenda, and Dollie for their thoughtful and fun comments on the topic.

Are you an eLearning developer who has been tasked with creating an effective voiceover script? I'm teaching a new online class in May called Writing Effective eLearning Voiceover Scripts. During the class I'll be teaching you how to define the appropriate voice and tone for a narrative text. You will learn how to take specific steps to create the engaging and personable writing style that voice-over narratives require. I hope you can join me. Click here to learn more. I also teach the Writing Training Documents and eLearning Scripts class. You can learn about that here.

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by Jennie Ruby

What role, if any, should humor play in technical and
training materials?

When writing training materials, I am always looking for new
ways to introduce a lesson and keep the tone engaging. The introduction to a lesson
needs to draw in the learners and get them motivated to continue the training,
and the writing throughout the lesson has to keep their attention. Can the use
of humor help?

To find an answer, I skimmed some of the writing in my
shelf-full of training books. I found many examples of engaging and personable
writing styles, but very few examples of out and out humor.

Even in the For Dummies series and its competitor The
Complete Idiot's Guide to… group, both known for their clear and readable text,
humor was rarely on display. I did find some exceptions. Several of the Dummies books have a cartoon at
the beginning of each chapter. Laurie E. Rozakis' The Complete Idiot's Guide to Grammar and Style begins with a quote
from comedian Jerry Seinfeld. And I developed a smile, if not a chuckle, from this
bit from Susannah Gardner and Shane Birley's Blogging for Dummies:
"No matter what your teenager tells you, there is absolutely
no requirement that you must write your blog while wearing your pajamas. Also,
you are allowed to use a spellchecker."

And I was pleased by their alliterative subheading "Tiptoeing
Through Templates."

But in books like DHTML
and CSS for the World Wide Web, Excel
Data Analysis, Illustrator,
and even The Rough Guide to MySpace &
Online Communities, humor and joking did not find a place.

I conclude from this that joking around pretty much does not
have a place in training materials. The reason would be twofold:

• You need to maintain a credible and
  authoritative tone.
• Humorous stories and jokes may be a distraction
  rather than an enhancement in learning materials.

Does this mean your training materials must be utterly dry,
factual, and boring? Absolutely not. But telling jokes? Not so much.

Do you agree? Or strongly disagree? We would love
to hear from you about experiences you have had with using humor in training
materials. Please send us your comments.

by Jennie Ruby

Recasting sounds like something a fly fisherman would do, but in writing and editing it means to restructure a sentence. Restructuring is sometimes needed to avoid awkwardness, to give information in the order the reader needs it, or to introduce new concepts in a way that will promote understanding.

Take this problem sentence: It is [I, me] who [demand/demands] a change in the rules.

The correct grammar is this: It is I who demand a change in the rules.

However, the correct grammar here sounds unfamiliar or wrong to readers used to seeing who with demands, not demand. Recast the sentence so that it is correct but not awkward:

Recast sentence: I am the one who demands a change in the rules.

You can restructure or recast a sentence to put information in the order the reader needs it:

Original: Click the Chart tool from the Illustrations group on the Insert tab.

Your reader cannot see the Chart tool until the Insert tab is selected. The following recast sentence gives the information in a more usable order.

Recast: From the Insert tab, Illustrations group, click the Chart tool.

To introduce a new concept, you may recast a sentence to place the new concept at the end, so the reader is led from the familiar to the new and thus understands the importance of the new information by the time it is encountered.

Original: A JavaScript operator is a block of code that is required for the operation of your Spry widgets.

The original sentence starts with an unfamiliar technical term, leaving the reader at first wondering why she or he cares. The fact that the code is required is buried in the middle of the sentence, and the familiar thing this all relates to does not pop up until the end. Assuming your reader is familiar with and has created some Spry widgets, the recast sentence begins with the known and introduces the new concept at the end.

Recast: To operate properly, your Spry widgets require a block of code called the JavaScript operator.

Don't be afraid to recast a sentence several times before deciding which structure catches the reader's needs the best, and don't let your reader be the one who gets away.

Are you an eLearning developer who has been tasked with creating an effective voiceover script? I'm teaching a 3-hour, online class later this week called Writing Effective eLearning Voiceover Scripts. During the class I'll be teaching you how to define the appropriate voice and tone for a narrative text. You will learn how to take specific steps to create the engaging and personable writing style that voice-over narratives require. I hope you can join me. Click here to learn more.

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