Book+Review

Back to Index ** eLearning Solutions on a Shoestring, ** ** Help for the Chronically Underfunded ** by Jane Bozarth

__Overall Theme:__ This book is written, as the title states, for the chronically underfunded who need to design effective e-learning lessons/courses but have little or no money to do so. Each chapter focuses on a a different aspect of the process and provides good food for thought that should be considered both BEFORE beginning the process, and WHILE in the process.

This chapter begins by saying that not all situations merit e-Learning. We must do it for the right reasons, or it will be ineffective. A chart was provided on page 11 with a checklist of items to consider. If more than half of items apply to your course, e-Learning could be the way to go. These were items such as consistency of message needed, scattered audience, wide-ranging learning styles of learners, workers cannot take time off to come to class, content is mainly informational, target audience has varying levels of proficiency, content is stable or can easily be maintained. One should think about the content of the course and what can be translated to online. Use what you have, and only purchase what you MUST have. Don't spend more than you need to. Scale the process to what you can afford and find the most cost efficient method at that cost. Evaluate whether or not you can buy "off the shelf" software or whether you can use PowerPoint or similar to create effective e-Learning lessons. In other words, start slowly. Don't spend more than you need to. Be realistic and don't make rash decisions that will be regretted later.
 * Chapter 1: eLearning: Some Basics**

**Chapter 2: Doing It Yourself** Very brief chapter, but it says a lot. The big message: take your time, consider your resources - both human and capital. Does your target audience have what THEY need? Forget about what you WANT, think about what you NEED and what will meet your objectives.

Quote: "Try to think less in terms of "moving PowerPoint shows to the web" and more in terms of using PowerPoint to replicate features from higher-end (such as Flash) online training programs." (40) I like this quote. It says a lot about what the tendency is for people to do versus what should be done. This says, as does the chapter, that there is more to online learning than just the online posting of documents used in a "brick and mortar" classroom. For the learner, it is more than just retrieving documents and slides shows from the internet. We need interactivity to relay the lesson to the learners. There are programs that most of us have, like Microsoft Paint, PowerPoint, Word, Frontpage, Notepad (for html creation), Dreamweaver, that have web page capabilities. There are online communities such as Quia and Wikispaces.
 * Chapter 3: Building Simple Pages and Programs**

Try to stay away from having e-Learning sites and activities/lessons that are "text heavy". There are many free ways to add "visual interest, interactivity, and media to programs". However, be careful about legal terms of use and catching viruses, also. Design templates from elated.com whose mission statement is "...dedicated to delivering top-quality, original web-building resources in a down-to-earth, friendly and helpful way. ...to serve our community of beginner, intermediate and advanced Webmasters, and to work to strengthen the community." (58) Other sites mentioned include Microsoft Agent, Windows MovieMaker, Microsoft Producer, Macromedia Coursebuilder. Bozarth suggests using themes and metaphors, hot spots, and site samplers to add depth to the web page, as well as to the learning.
 * Chapter 4: Enhancing Basic Programs**

Games, quizzes, puzzles, searches, simulations. These are essential in the design of an online course. Learners will be more engaged and they will be able to check themselves for understanding. Instructors will also see how the learner is progressing and what needs to be reinforced. There are many many free and minimally priced tools on the web that can be used to make a course more effective.
 * Chapter 5: Creating Inexpensive Quizzes, Games, Searches, Puzzles, and Simulations**

Synchronous or asynchronous, depending upon what you are trying to relay to the group of learners and what types of responses/interactions would be advantageous to the subject. In either case, someone must always serve as the facilitator or moderator and each type has its benefits. Synchronous tools such as chat, web cams, and web conferencing and virtual classrooms can be used to get more of a "classroom" with the learners. The biggest problem with conferencing is security. Asynchronous methods take longer. Tools such as blogs, e-Mail, wikis, polls, and discussion boards are possibilities. Many great suggestions were made in this chapter as to how these collaborative tools can be used in the class for icebreakers, team assignments, case studies, role playing, e-Coaching, and Story telling/sharing.
 * Chapter 6: Creating Low-Cost Collaboration**

**Chapter 7: Creating Performance Support Tools on a Shoestring** "Bite sized pieces of information are great candidates for e-Learning. These small, short training tools support infrequent but important tasks, tasks requiring step by step procedures, and criterion-based decision making. Depending upon the task, certain types of tools are recommended (e.g., spreadsheet, word document with links, flow chart, check sheet). Many examples were given to illustrate the points.

**Chapter 8: Leveraging Resources** The first paragraph of this final chapter in Part One says it all, so I'll quote: "You can beg, borrow, barter, swa, share, collaborate, network, and support local academic endeavors to bring your e-learning projects to fruition, and reuse, repurpose, and recycle your solutions time and time again. Creativity and resourcefulness can bring big payoffs." The new idea that I got from this is to think of e-learning lessons as filled with learning objects that can be re-used in various lessons. Create with that in mind...much like in programming code; modules.

**Chapter 9: Paying Someone Else to Build for You** If you are planning on hiring a firm to do you eLearning design for you, you need to keep a few key things in mind so that you don't make expensive mistakes.
 * 1) Have an understanding about design so that you are not "taken", and you can basically understand what is being done that is necessary vs. done just to make money.
 * 2) Be specific in your needs. If not, you will be overcharged and get more or less than you want.
 * 3) Include a nonperformance clause, so that if you don't get what you want and agreed to, then you won't get paid.
 * 4) Get all of your information together so that you won't lose money or time by gathering together items, you could be charged by the hour.
 * 5) Be careful, think ahead, don't get "soaked", know what you are doing and asking for.

**Chapter 10: Buying Off-the-Shelf Courses** Remember, before building, there may be a software out there already created! This chapter offers many of the same tips from the previous chapter. Weigh all options, make a good well-analyzed and thought out decision. Another option is a "portal". In other words, a company that offers licenses to already created lessons that they offer to many. They might create a custom login page for your company, but the lessons you access are the same. We use many of these at work, such as a gradebook software (Edline), an online software tutorial company, and an online student statistics software (EdInsight)

**Chapter 11: Hosting Your Programs and Tracking Learner Data** If you take on an eLearning project, then you need to have a site for hosting, whether a server of your own and an intranet, or an ISP provider. Consider whether or not a CD or DVD instead might be a good idea, if appropriate. It's all about collecting data, once you've got the training program in place. You need to determine what data you want to track first.If you are tracking data from multiple sources and for many learners, you may want to consider an LMS (Learning management system). These can be costly and complex. Be sure you truly need one. A table is on page 175 for help in deciding what tracking tools should be considered for various situations. In addition, tools such as online surveys (Zoomerang) and Quia were discussed.

**Chapter 12: Application** Great last chapter. Maybe my favorite. It consists of case studies and the solutions, plus the total cost. This chapter provided me with some great ideas and helped me to put it all together. On page 178 there is an excellent model of brain dominance (Herrmann 1989) which I will definitely copy and place with my references, and refer to it often. It contains e-learning approaches with learner styles.