Enterprises hire staff to keep servers running. However, what about ensuring that trainees don't have wasteful downtime?

That's my job: I keep web surfers online with productivity-enhancing instruction.

Current training should evolve like the entertainment industry, which is changing to a high definition (HD) format to enhance viewers' experience. Similarly, HD teaching tools that are social, mobile, interconnected, and feature practical exercises, games, and simulations help make learning a relevant part of the participants’ world.

Traditional instructor-led lecture and textbooks, while not necessarily outmoded, should include HD teaching tools. Learners should not only be able to read tactics, techniques, and procedures (TTPs), but put TTPs into action. Whether or not a virtual, live, or constructive simulation is used, it is essential to have learners practice whole tasks early and often till they become adaptive decision makers who can perform under varying conditions.

In addition to simulations, a community of practice with training and moderated discussion forums is vital for enduring learner progress. I have administered such a community online to facilitate dialogue between trainees at similar skill levels, as well as invite guidance from subject matter experts (SMEs). However, those lacking instructional design background, particularly SMEs able to perform tasks almost from muscle memory, may leave out steps crucial for non-experts to achieve mastery.

That's where I come in as an instructional designer and determine solutions to performance gaps based on needs, learner, and task analysis. I have background in the entire systems approach to training or instructional systems design process. Specifically, during the analysis phase, I determine if training is the correct solution for an issue and what level of instruction and means of delivery are best; then I design and develop performance steps and measures aligned with lesson plans and supporting materials, such as e-learning and graphic training aids. I implement and revise existing lessons and tests from ongoing evaluation, to include test item analysis, training observations, and feedback from students, instructors, and from the field.

As an instructional designer, I strive to produce not so much individual courses or certifications, as to foster lifelong self development. My approach makes modern training institutions more deserving of the title of university, since it empowers more universal, readily available learning.

SCORM—It's Not As Hard As the Acronym Sounds

Regarding the Shareable Content Object Reference Model, i.e. SCORM, who would come up with an intimidating acronym like that outside the Department of Defense (DoD)?

Despite the acronym and complexity to employ all of SCORM 2004, much of the training in both the DoD and private educational sectors relies on SCORM. Essentially, SCORM makes it possible, in an online world, to define and track objectives that follow the SMART acronym of being "systematic, measurable, achievable, relevant, and time-bound."

In the case of DoD digital training, being SCORM conformant is required. Before my Army career, I worked for a private sector health insurance company, Regence, in Seattle. There, we produced SCORM 1.2 conformant courseware to send scores to an in-house Learning Management System (LMS), track time that learners spent in course sections, and thereby determine whether students had met graduation requirements.

In addition, I have produced SCORM conformant courses for the Army, mainly using the Maneuver Support Center’s Rapid Development System, though I have familiarity with other common tools like Captivate and the open source eXe. I also took one of the industry’s most expert trainers, Brian Caudill’s week-long course, "A Hands-on Guide to SCORM" and have spent significant time on my own and in online forums raising my score in SCORM production proficiency.

However, in my current department, despite my best efforts to convince them to the contrary, they hire contractors for all courseware development. Besides being prohibitively expensive (I'm not at liberty to disclose the sum per course, but let's just say that it is large), contracting everything out is problematic since potential issues and needs for updates or revisions are likely to arise.

While courseware is not produced in-house where I work now, my knowledge of SCORM has helped. After taking the "Hands-on Guide to SCORM" course that I mentioned, I have been able to troubleshoot a few problems. For example, one 10-level dL course was packaged with all lessons bundled as one massive module, and I was able to extract an individual lesson and republish it as a separate package or SCO.

As in this instance, I am a case study of eagerly continuing to build on current knowledge. I hope that future work opportunities help me continue to contribute and augment my skillset in SCORM.

Learning As a Voyage and Other Quintessential Metaphors

I’m effective at instructional design because I’m a focused communicator. Experience in technical writing helps me craft a message that connects with participants. This communication is often deepened by using metaphors.

Encountering a metaphor can help learners, along their voyage to deeper understanding, become emotionally involved and tap into what Dr. M. David Merrill refers to as "prior knowledge." Much instruction must convey abstract concepts, which can be difficult to package understandably for learners lacking in concrete experience. To help explain, I will borrow liberally from Val Vadeboncoeur's article, "Metaphor: A Bridge Over Deep Waters." He quotes psychologist and linguist Stephen Pinker, who writes in his The Stuff of Thought that, "Metaphor is so widespread in language that it's hard to find expressions for abstract ideas that are not metaphorical."

In fact, the word "metaphor" comes to English from a Greek root which means to "transfer" or "carry over."

You might ask, "What exactly are we transferring or carrying over?"

"An image and/or story," is the answer.

"A metaphor is both an image that is carried over to help in understanding a thought AND the bridge" over which images and stories are "carried over." A story provides a memorable context for the metaphor's images. "And what does this bridge of metaphor connect? It connects the right brain, which deals in images, to the left brain, which deals in rational thought."

Isn't that interesting?

Vadeboncoeur mentions Gerald and Lindsay Zaltman's book, Marketing Metaphoria: What Deep Metaphors Reveal about the Minds of Consumers, which explores seven basic deep metaphors, "metaphors that structure what we think, hear, say, and do," essential elements for instructional design to tap into learners' prior knowledge and help them make meaningful connections.

These seven deep (deep since they are "largely unconscious") and universal metaphors are:

1. Journey
2. Transformation
3. Balance
4. Container
5. Connection
6. Resource
7. Control

If instruction isn't offering learners at least one of these qualities or stories, "the audience probably isn't connecting emotionally to the instruction, which means that they're probably not buying it."

Does instruction help trainees to regain better balance? Can it transform their current state into something better? Does it provide them with the experience of a journey or provide a container? "Does it help them connect with others, provide a necessary resource, or give them greater control over something?"

In essence: Wisely used metaphors build the bridge to make training communicate more effectively and arrive at the desired destination of deeper learning.