November 10 Morning Session

Google in a Cloud:

This turned out to be one of the best presentations on eLearning that I attended. Google assigns 20% of each employee’s work schedule to projects that the employee wants to take on. This seems to be giving Google that “cutting-edge” infrastructure that is making it successful. Imagine what organizations can do…what services they could provide if they give each employee/staff time within a day to work on projects that benefit the organization.

At Google, Google apps are a big part of their corporate eLearning program. This also gives Google workers a chance to expand on those apps, make suggestions and provide continuous improvement on these products. Google has certain expectations on their eLearning programs: Make it casual, Make it fun. Google believes that traditional eLearning foundations are none of that. A corporate culture that involves continuous learning is achieved by social interactions. At Google, no one eats alone… everyone meets in their lunch areas to discuss a whole range of ideas, thoughts and topics. Also, Google employees believe that they are just too busy for everything except for the most engaging stuff at the moment. In light of this, eLearning takes advantage of this aspect of corporate structure.

Since Google has developed applications (apps) for just about any situation, Google employees use these same apps for their eLearning experiences…. They refer to it as “eating their own dog food”. The eLearning structure of Google eLearning is as follows:

Content in Chunks => Community Interactivity => Content in Context => Virtual Debrief

In comparison with traditional eLearning formats, the differences are:

Traditional methods : Google eLearning Methods

Authoring Tools : Free Open Source Content (www)
Custom Interaction : Moderator sites, Forums, Mobile user sites, G-apps
Learn Mgt Systems : Assignment Share Documents (wikis, Blogs)
Web-Based Training Micro Assignments by eMail, Netbooks, Mobile Phone
A.D.D.I.E. Format : Launch and Iterate

An example of a Google eLearning experience may be the following:
LEADER BOARDS: where everyone meets for the course
COMMITMENT: where course pace is set – usually 3 to 4 weeks max.
PROGRAM LENGTH: course content is chunked to fit 5 min. max formats
PROGRAM CONTENT: the courses that Google has created

Google eLearning programs start with the Google Calendar and links to materials; this Calendar serves as the welcoming page of the course. If a learning management system (LMS) is used, it will usually be MOODLE and it is used very lightly.

When content is delivered to the learners, they used a combination of WebEX and Desktop Sharing Tools to engage learners. Experience has taught Google to design each course around the following:

Context => Content => Organization => Interactivity => Assessment

The above Assessment would also involve a “360 Assessment” model as well.