Thought Chief Q&A: Hassan Mourad
Diving Into Modern Studying Options And Ever-Altering Tech Ecosystems
Hassan Mourad is Associate and Director of Tech Innovation at Kashida and has been driving developments inside the firm since 2011. As we speak, he speaks with us about growing customized eLearning in a world of self-authoring, GenAI, and a whole bunch of authoring instruments and studying platforms. He additionally sheds mild on the significance of every of the elements that make up a fantastic studying expertise, and the way multi-disciplinary groups play an important function within the course of.
Based mostly in your expertise, what have been a few of the most vital modifications on this planet of customized studying improvement since GenAI got here onto the scene?
The eLearning trade is, because it’s at all times been, closely influenced by developments within the tech panorama. The introduction of GenAI is not any exception, as evident by its fast adoption by many gamers within the EdTech area in addition to its integration into current tech options as superior options or plugins. Whereas it is at all times refreshing and thrilling to see such dynamism within the eLearning trade, studying content material creators ought to notice that this early and fast adoption is usually pushed by a fiercely aggressive rush, by product homeowners, to market an AI-based answer. Proper now, this area may be very busy and cluttered with a whole lot of advertising and marketing jargon, buzzwords, and all kinds of GenAI-labeled choices starting from the ineffective to the nice-to-haves and to some very thrilling and efficient options. The market will try to check, and we are going to quickly see very high-value options take middle stage.
For my part, the first goal of nice studying content material creators is, and can at all times be, to ship worth to their learners. They’ll at all times search for tech options to facilitate their work to attain this goal sooner, simpler, and with larger high quality. AI-based instruments have the potential to be recreation changers for content material creators if considered such.
Are you able to spotlight a number of of the important thing elements that make up a fantastic studying expertise? What is the significance of getting a multi-disciplinary crew concerned within the improvement course of?
It ought to go with out saying that there isn’t any worth to the educational expertise with out good and dependable content material acquired from credible sources and/or consultants in the subject material. This, coincidentally, is among the main dangers in the usage of Gen AI instruments as sources of data when the instruments should not skilled to supply info from pre-defined credible sources.
Remodeling uncooked content material into nice studying experiences is a course of the place a Studying Expertise Designer (LXD) performs a pivotal function in orchestrating a collection of actions involving Topic Matter Specialists (SME), key stakeholders, and visible design, improvement, and manufacturing groups to design the educational expertise. This design course of might embrace fact-finding/discovery actions comparable to focus teams, surveys, and polls, and design considering workshops. An LXD is often an knowledgeable in studying theories and efficient studying methodologies, permitting them to contemplate all info they’ve gathered in regards to the studying content material and the goal learners to design the educational expertise. A studying expertise will make the most of the correct studying strategies mapped towards the educational and enabling aims of the content material. LXDs are additionally designing towards a set of limitations and constraints comparable to funds, time, useful resource availability, studying supply applied sciences getting used, and so forth.
As we by no means assume an SME has the correct set of abilities to play the function of an LXD on this design course of, we additionally by no means assume that an LXD has the skillset to supply the educational expertise they’ve designed. A well-designed studying expertise deserves to be equally well-produced. As such, a mixture of skilled manufacturing sources comparable to visible designers, builders, linguists, audio/video manufacturing amenities and expertise, multimedia editors and designers, illustrators, and animators could also be concerned within the manufacturing and improvement course of.
Lastly, to make the educational expertise accessible for learners on internet accessible studying supply platforms, a variety of experience could also be required ranging from easy content material authoring on a Studying Administration System (LMS), to internet and integration builders in circumstances the place third-party instruments are utilized within the studying journey for instance, to cloud infrastructure consultants when the server, storage, or safety infrastructure is impacted by the course supply.
What’s one in every of your standout customized eLearning shopper success tales?
“Ajyal,” a CSR initiative for monetary literacy, demonstrates our transformative strategy to studying. Ajyal was initially designed for face-to-face supply and was seamlessly reworked into an internet program in response to COVID-19 lockdowns.
By making use of our adaptive studying expertise design course of, we have been in a position to protect the present inquiry-based strategy whereas additionally permitting learners to decide on between self-paced or instructor-led modes, making certain flexibility in supply.
Along with overcoming the accessibility challenges offered by the pandemic, the transformation of the course led to elevated attain and engagement with the learners. This solely occurs after we stand by our dedication to empowering learners and specializing in delivering the best impression whatever the supply technique.
Are you able to inform us a bit extra about Kashida’s end-to-end companies for creating customized studying content material and what that features?
Linking again to my earlier response on the varied abilities required for the event of customized studying content material, our end-to-end companies are categorized into Studying Technique, Studying Expertise Design, Studying Content material Manufacturing, and Studying Supply and Tech. Our crew of consultants is enabled with this mature set of modular companies, product choices, and processes that information their work by way of the end-to-end content material technique, design, and improvement journey.
We develop our service and product choices to satisfy three standards:
- Stand-alone worth. Every providing ought to independently ship worth, contributing to an enhanced studying expertise. For instance, we could also be employed to design a studying expertise as a stand-alone service for a shopper who plans to supply the digital studying belongings with their in-house crew.
- Built-in worth. All our choices combine into our end-to-end processes for the design, improvement, and supply of studying experiences, creating worth that’s better than the sum of its components. Naturally, we strongly consider that our engagement throughout the entire course of ensures the utmost worth to our shoppers. As such, we pay particular consideration to growing the connections between the completely different companies we provide to make sure clean and efficient handshaking between them. For instance, outputs of our Studying Expertise Design service embrace content material writing sheets to information SMEs by way of the content material writing course of and a number of developer recordsdata to information manufacturing groups by way of the educational asset manufacturing course of.
- Adaptability. Since our focus is on creating customized content material, all our companies are designed with a stage of adaptability to cater to many alternative contexts and limitations. This additionally ensures that we’re in a position to apply steady enhancements to our companies and choices as markets and learner pursuits change over time.
Self-authoring is gaining traction on this planet of content material creation, however what do you suppose units critical creators other than the remaining?
Self-authoring is nice! By no means has humanity been in a position to disseminate a lot info and share a lot data so simply and so rapidly… Content material authoring tech is a large contributor to the explosion of self-authored content material; a plethora of instruments are on the market permitting content material authors with very restricted abilities and sources to roll out their content material on digital platforms of all types. The latest disruption to this area is, after all, introduced on by GenAI, which makes self-authoring infinitely simpler and faster! The worth of self-authoring inside this context needs to be acknowledged and preserved.
There may be, nevertheless, a case towards self-authoring within the sense that it is merely not sufficient, particularly inside the context of studying content material. We have demonstrated this in a latest weblog put up the place we take into account a few of the widespread forms of content material/creators on social media with their typical authoring processes and we offer a commentary on the sufficiency of self-authoring for every of the circumstances.
We discover that most often, even on social media, self-authoring has a spot and worth, however it’s not often ample because the creator’s aims develop previous private limits to extra business outcomes/impact-driven aims.
For studying content material, the assumed goal is at all times to ship impression and successfully disseminate data to learners, making it a transparent case the place delivering critical studying impression will at all times require critical authoring and the funding in critical studying supply tech.
Self-authoring, after all, stays an inspired apply for consultants who wish to share their data freely with the restricted sources they might have at their disposal.
Coincidentally, I got here throughout an attention-grabbing perspective in a put up on how some social media platforms reply to an increase in self-authored content material made potential by GenAI: “AI-generated content material flooded feeds, engagement turned tougher to earn, and algorithms began favoring interactions over attain.”
Wrapping Up
Because of Hassan Mourad for answering our questions and delving into customized eLearning improvement, end-to-end companies, and GenAI in L&D. You can even try how Kashida empowered the crew at Nethope to make the most of self-authoring capabilities with their new LMS and established visually participating templates to supply a extremely interactive and fascinating course with out the necessity for exterior authoring instruments.
Final however not least, we would wish to congratulate Kashida for incomes a spot on our Prime Content material Suppliers For Customized eLearning listing.
