Building Learning Systems Not Just Courses:

Jeff Walter (00:02)

Hi, I’m Jeff Walter and welcome to another episode of the Training Impact Podcast. We have some great guests tonight. We have the leadership team from eLearningDoc, which is a woman-owned business that focuses on developing custom learning experiences for associations, corporations, higher education.

 

Angela Robbins of eLearningDoc(00:02)

Thank

 

Jeff Walter (00:18)

government agencies, you name it, they’ll do custom learning experiences for you. What separates them, what makes them different is they are doctoral level expertise. All of my guests today are doctors, so that’s really awesome. I am not, so boo for me. A knee learning doc provides instructional design, staff augmentation, workforce development, and learning strategy and management services. And so without further ado, welcome to the leadership team.

 

We’ll start with Dr. Angela Robbins. She is the founder and CEO. She provides strategic partnering and partnership development and account management. She’s actively collaborates with stakeholders to help formulate learning solutions essential for client success. She holds a PhD in instructional design on online learning and a master’s in curriculum development and instructional design. We also have Dr. Diana Brandon of eLearningDoc. She’s the chief information and technology officer for

 

eLearning doc. She holds a PhD in educational psychology and educational technology and a master’s in curriculum and instruction. She’s done, she’s been on a faculty at Florida State University, Go Seminoles. I had a couple of nieces that graduated from there, so it’s beautiful place. My younger daughter was thinking of going there, but she ended up going to Indiana. we’re up here in Michigan.

 

Diana Brandon of eLearningDoc (01:26)

Mm-hmm, going off.

 

It’s a big weather difference.

 

Jeff Walter (01:40)

Yeah,

 

well, you know, we’re here in Michigan. It’s hard to leave the Big Ten. So, you know, for the SEC, it’s beautiful down there. But anyway, Dr. Brandon was on the teaching faculty at FSU and an instructional designer. She has experience in K-12 classrooms, higher education and museum education. That’s interesting. I’d love to learn more about that. And then we have Dr. Tony Demela. Dr. Demela holds an educational doctorate from

 

Toni DiMella of eLearningDoc (she/her) (01:44)

Mm-hmm.

 

Diana Brandon of eLearningDoc (02:00)

It’s a lot of fun.

 

Jeff Walter (02:09)

educational leadership and brings over 20 years of experience in teaching and leadership. She’s the executive director for quality assurance at eLearningDoc. Previously, she was serving as the director of transformative and transformative, if I can speak English properly, and inclusive pedagogy at the University of Southern California upstate. She holds dozens of professional credentials, including quality matters, international association and accessibility professionals, and trusted tester for the US Department of Homeland Security.

 

Doctors, welcome. Yes.

 

Toni DiMella of eLearningDoc (she/her) (02:39)

It’s South

 

Carolina. USC is, it’s sneaky. It’s University of South Carolina upstate. know everybody sees USC.

 

Jeff Walter (02:46)

Didn’t I

 

say University of South Carolina?

 

Toni DiMella of eLearningDoc (she/her) (02:51)

No, it’s Southern California, but that’s okay.

 

Diana Brandon of eLearningDoc (02:52)

California.

 

Jeff Walter (02:54)

my gosh. my gosh. I apologize. I apologize.

 

Diana Brandon of eLearningDoc (02:55)

You

 

Jeff Walter (02:58)

Yeah, it’s that Big Ten. Yeah, well, they’re not in the Big Ten, no, no UCLA.

 

Diana Brandon of eLearningDoc (03:01)

Mm-hmm.

 

Toni DiMella of eLearningDoc (she/her) (03:01)

Now, when people think

 

USA, they usually think California. know. It’s very confusing.

 

Jeff Walter (03:07)

You know,

 

I saw South Carolina, but I said Southern California. That’s a no-no. So, Upstate, is that the Gamecocks? Or is that… Okay.

 

Toni DiMella of eLearningDoc (she/her) (03:13)

So, just doing what everybody else.

 

That’s the Columbia one. Yeah,

 

because they have a couple of different campuses. Upstate is the Spartans.

 

Jeff Walter (03:23)

Yeah.

 

The Spartan. Oh my gosh. We got a Spartans up here in Michigan, Michigan State University Spartan. So anyway, doctors welcome. Great to have you. Um, thank you for taking time out of your day. And, uh, I always like to get a little bit of information, a little autobiographical. How’d you end up where you’re at? I find that very interesting. uh, know, uh, Angela, let’s, let’s start with you, uh, founder and CEO. Um, I own a business. It’s not for the faint hearted.

 

Toni DiMella of eLearningDoc (she/her) (03:27)

Mm-hmm

 

Diana Brandon of eLearningDoc (03:29)

will.

 

Jeff Walter (03:52)

⁓ Why on God’s green earth did you decide to start eLearning Doc?

 

Toni DiMella of eLearningDoc (she/her) (03:52)

Thank

 

Angela Robbins of eLearningDoc(03:57)

That is a true statement right there in itself. But yeah, so I have always been an instructional design or curriculum development of some kind. You know, I started out as most instructional designers do as a classroom teacher. I taught elementary school of all things, but I always knew at the end of the day that I loved the curriculum design and development part of it. You know, I was the teacher that geeked out of.

 

you know, the planning before school would start. I would get my classroom ready, the design books ready, and then, you know, the kids would come and I was like, ⁓ man, like it’s not going as planned, but it was like, I just loved everything about the planning and design aspect of it. And that’s when I was introduced to the world of instructional design. I was like, wait, you get to do this full time? Like just make curriculum plans and curriculum development?

 

And so that’s when I made the switch to higher ed where I could really just focus on that curriculum development, creating courses, working on schematic units, the strategy, the development aspects of that. And I started working with pre-service teachers and helping them understand the aspects of design and development and instructional design. And that was probably one of my favorite jobs, mentoring new teachers, helping them understand the

 

why behind what we do, the pedagogy of great teaching and learning. And from there, I moved to the University of Cincinnati where I designed and developed online programs. I started to see the trend where things were going online. And that was such a passion and a nuance for me that I was just like, my gosh, this is where everything is headed. So I started my ⁓ second master’s in instructional design for online learning and really just fell in love with that.

 

And ⁓ then I started my PhD in that area. And then I had a little midlife crisis and decided, you know, I want to see what this corporate education is all about. And that’s where, you know, the gamification of learning really came alive. In higher ed, you don’t see a lot of gamification because it’s very hard to maintain. You know, there’s a lot that changes and there’s a lot of new

 

curriculum that you’re always adding to the curriculum and that sort of thing. So it’s really hard to do a lot of gamification, but in corporate education, you can do a lot of those things. And so I got to see that aspect of it. And I’ve worked for other organizations and, you know, I just really wanted to do things my way in a sense. You know, I really wanted to embed the principles of adult learning and best practices.

 

And sometimes in corporate education, you skip through a lot of things because you’re trying to do it faster or cheaper or on a dime. And it would sadden me because I was like, we’re missing why we do things the way that we do them for the learner, because that’s just the way it should be done according to best practices in the theory behind teaching and learning. And I was like, we’re never going to.

 

Toni DiMella of eLearningDoc (she/her) (06:43)

Thank

 

Angela Robbins of eLearningDoc(07:00)

do it right unless we have a place that really believes in that and dedicates the best practices. And so I thought, you know what? I’m just going to create a company that does that right from the start. And so I started eLearning Doc because I really believe in instructional design, and I love the creativity and the strategy and the impact it makes really on each person that we serve through our designs.

 

And I also wanted to create a place where others who were passionate about that could also thrive and feel supported and generally, you know, just do what they love and do it together. And so what’s really great about eLearning Doc is it’s a collection of, know, they say don’t work with your friends, but I get to work with my best friends. There are people I’ve gone to school with through, you know, my instructional design courses or colleagues that I’ve worked with over the years.

 

Jeff Walter (07:42)

Ha ha ha.

 

Angela Robbins of eLearningDoc(07:53)

or clients, former clients of mine that were amazing at instructional design. So not only are we woman owned, woman led, but I have collected the very best over the years of colleagues, friends, designers in the field that work for us and they are phenomenal at what they do.

 

Jeff Walter (08:12)

Thank you. so, Diana, so when did you join eLearning Doc and why did you come out? How’d you end up over there? Or are you one of those colleagues and friends? ⁓

 

Diana Brandon of eLearningDoc (08:19)

So I am. So

 

I actually reached out to Angie while I was a professor at Florida State and said, hey, we have instructional design students who really want to do internships. Do you have space to take on interns? And she said, yeah, that’s great. And then I started talking to her about kind of transitioning out of higher ed. And she offered me a position here. And ⁓

 

That was right about the time that the company was acquired. And so I came in right with that transition and have absolutely loved it. Absolutely loved it. But I met Angie originally because I was one of her former clients. So I knew that she was, I actually didn’t know that she was doing her own thing until I called her about internships. And I was calling to see if Blackboard wanted interns.

 

And she was like, no, but I do and I have my own company now. So it worked out fabulously for everybody involved.

 

Jeff Walter (09:12)

Haha!

 

Toni DiMella of eLearningDoc (she/her) (09:12)

Yeah.

 

Angela Robbins of eLearningDoc(09:15)

Yeah,

 

so just for the record, I didn’t poach anyone, but I was not about to turn away anyone.

 

Jeff Walter (09:19)

Ha

 

Toni DiMella of eLearningDoc (she/her) (09:20)

We’re going to be.

 

Jeff Walter (09:21)

It’s all about whether you’re going out or whether they’re coming to you. right. And ⁓ Tony, a little bit about yourself and how did you end up at eLearningDoc? And are you one of those friends and colleagues?

 

Toni DiMella of eLearningDoc (she/her) (09:25)

Yeah.

 

I’m a colleague of a colleague. like to think that I’m now accepted into the friend group. Somebody else that is not on the call was a friend of Angela’s and had done some work with her in past, joined and was like, hey, I think you may want to consider this opportunity. So I did and joined in February of 2023, just after the transition with the companies, parent companies and sister companies.

 

Jeff Walter (09:39)

Hahaha!

 

Angela Robbins of eLearningDoc(09:41)

Absolutely.

 

Toni DiMella of eLearningDoc (she/her) (10:04)

And before that, I was at University of South Carolina upstate and I was doing faculty development. And in that, even that position, I think my whole professional career, even a little bit beforehand, it was always about new and innovative things. I was always the pilot person, Tony, we gotta try this, Tony, we gotta try that. You roll this out. Let’s see what happens. Cause I was always looking for something that would.

 

prove what we’re already doing. Actually, I have a quote hiding over there that says, I have a frame, the optimist believes we live in the best of all possible worlds and the pessimist fears this is true. And I was like, ah, that is, that wraps up the conundrum of my life. Like I always look at things like there’s gotta be a better way. And that landed me here in quality assurance, a little bit different in the end world, right? We’re not measuring widgets and stuff.

 

but how can we make this more accessible, more inclusive? How can we improve the flow, the design so that we can really help all learners learn more effectively and efficiently? And so I did that from where I started in K-12, because I wanted to be a math teacher and still do, and just kind of work my way up. I’ve done middle school up to college where I’m still teaching part-time now.

 

Jeff Walter (11:21)

You know, as you were talking, a thought occurred to me. there’s so much here about instructional design best practices, putting a program together, best practices that you’ve talked about. You know, a lot of our clients and they’re kind of accidental trainers.

 

You know, a lot of times, actually, I was just on a call earlier this morning and it’s a perfect example. You you usually, you know, so we focus on extended enterprise. And I was talking to one woman who just stepped into the role of running a training program, building a training program for his client. I mean, for this company and, know, the instructors were people that had been on the floor doing the work for 20 years. Right. And, know, so they got this rich knowledge.

 

And they’re out there doing all the training. And so it’s not unusual in our sec in our space and the extended space for people to be, you know, practitioners that then come into the training, with very little or no formal training. So, yeah, usually I’d say, Hey, you know, tell me about your customers and when do they hire you? But I think it would be really interesting to get a crash course having listened to your intros there on, what are those?

 

best practices like that or you know like when you say you know like like what does that mean like I understand what you said but where’s the rubber meet the road on on that when you talk about corporate learning.

 

Angela Robbins of eLearningDoc(12:42)

My colleagues here speak to some of those best practices, but I think you hit the nail on the head there. Most of our clients are subject matter experts that come to us, and they’re really looking for that strategy and those best practices to help create quality programs. Even when we were in higher education,

 

People are assigned a classroom for the first time sometimes, and that’s what they are. They’re subject matter experts. They’ve never been trained or formally taught how to teach, but then all of a sudden they’re presented with this conundrum to like go walk into a classroom for the first time and create a syllabus, map out their curriculum, put it into play, and make miracles happen, right? And then in some cases, put that into an online LMS system.

 

that they’ve probably never been trained in. And that’s very overwhelming and scary. And then two, for the learner, you just pray that it’s successful, right? And so we’re dealt with that situation every day when we work with clients that are a little overwhelmed by all of that. Sometimes, like you said, by default, they’re the L &D coordinator, the learning and development coordinator, or the HR specialist who’s now been tasked with

 

educating a whole organization for the first time on, you know, upskilling or reskilling or things like that. So I’ll let Diana and Tony take it from there as far as like what happens when we are presented with that situation. What’s next?

 

Diana Brandon of eLearningDoc (14:09)

So the way that I start pretty much every conversation with a client is what is it that you want them to be able to do? Because as Angela said, we have a lot of people who are subject matter experts and the problem with being an expert in your field is that you know so much that you can absolutely

 

core everything in because it’s interesting and you care about it and there are all these things that connect tangentially to what your kind of topic is. And for a newbie or somebody who’s a novice in the field, that is so overwhelming that they have to really see the connections for themselves to hold value. So really identifying what is it that you want to do and then we as non-subject matter experts.

 

can kind of weed out the, ⁓ well, we don’t need to know about all of this to move forward on this thing that you said was really important. And it kind of helps us ⁓ filter through. So that is really one thing. Tony, do you have another one? I had like a whole list that I could go through, but.

 

Toni DiMella of eLearningDoc (she/her) (15:12)

yeah, there’s so many, right? I

 

often think of having started in a K-12, who winds up being a classroom teacher or people who are successful in the traditional teaching and learning environment. So teachers come in, those were the good students that…

 

passed the test, didn’t have test anxiety, didn’t have any issues. And so those are most likely your trainers, right? They take the best of the best and say, all right, now go teach that to everybody else. So you, on one hand, run the risk of somebody who wants to bury you in theory, like the math teacher that does like the proofs on the board to their middle school students and they don’t care and don’t need to know. But there’s also the other side of you know so much of it, you are going to skip over

 

potentially very key elements that will improve the fluency of how they operate. so knowing where you want to end, what you want them to do is paramount. And it sounds very simple, but people don’t always think about like, what is it that I want them to do? Then you need to think about what do they need to know in order to do that? Not just that one set of skills, but conceptually, are there gonna be things that

 

If they don’t know this thing that’s not in the course, that’s not in this training catalog, but they can’t then apply that other skill, like those prerequisite, co-requisite skills. And those get missed in the learning development. And so people kind of know what they’re doing and essentially like freeze on the test or when they get out onto the floor and they’re trying to do whatever it is you ask them to do, they were able to pass the test, but they’re not able to actually complete that event.

 

real world.

 

Diana Brandon of eLearningDoc (16:59)

So

 

Angela Robbins of eLearningDoc(16:59)

When

 

you bring up another good point, you’re bringing the very best of the best in to teach that maybe have never struggled a day in their life, or never had a learning disability or a memory issue or things like that. so the way that they teach is probably the way that they learned it. And the way they learn may not be any way, or form the way somebody else learns.

 

Diana Brandon of eLearningDoc (16:59)

I.

 

Jeff Walter (17:09)

Right, yeah.

 

Toni DiMella of eLearningDoc (she/her) (17:20)

Thank you.

 

Angela Robbins of eLearningDoc(17:26)

And so as an instructional designer, that’s where we come in and we work with those individuals to say, you you really need to take into consideration everybody in that audience, right? It’s not a one size fits all approach and you really have to take into consideration your audience, their types of learning styles, you know, differentiate your instruction to make sure that there’s something for everybody.

 

You know, what you’re gonna do if they don’t get something, you know, how are you gonna reinforce the learning? How are you gonna remediate? How are you going to upskill for those people that, you know, are more accelerated? You know, there’s all types of things that need to be taken into consideration rather than just standing up there and being that talking head because that doesn’t work for everybody. And so those are the types of things that we as instructional designers think about. Not even, you know,

 

we could go into all day long about the accessibility factors too. There’s color blindness, there’s auditory learners, there’s visual issues, there’s all kinds of things that we also have to take into consideration. So there’s a lot to be discussed before just walking into a classroom and teaching for the first time. And then when you translate that to an online environment, it gets even more difficult.

 

Jeff Walter (18:46)

Yeah. Well, I really like, then what you said about starting with what you want. It’s like starting with what you want them to do and then working your way backwards. think often people start with the, what I want them to know, assuming that they’ll then be able to do something. Right. And

 

Diana Brandon of eLearningDoc (18:50)

Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

 

Right. That’s that

 

is so common. I know when when when Tony was talking about about prerequisite skills, the way that I used to explain this to my students was if you’re trying to teach long division, you can have the best long division lesson ever. It can talk about how division is breaking things into equal groups. It can have visuals.

 

it can have this great audio track, like it can be fabulous. If you have a student who can’t subtract, they can’t do long division. So in order to be successful, it doesn’t matter how amazing your long division lesson is, if they don’t have that prerequisite skill of being able to subtract, they’re never going to be successful. So you’ve really got to think about what is that? What do they need to be able to do this?

 

Because you don’t ever want to set someone up for failure. If you can identify before they start, well, hey, they can’t subtract. There’s no way they can do long division. Figure that out now before you spend the hours and the resources and the money trying to train them on something they inherently are not able to do yet. Go back, re-skill in subtraction, then come up and do long division, and then your really great, awesome long division lesson is fabulous. And it can really get to what you want.

 

Toni DiMella of eLearningDoc (she/her) (20:18)

And you also have those co skills too. So I teach primarily statistics. I have them use Excel a lot. They are kids. They have never used Excel for anything. And so if I want them to apply the topic, the goal of learning the stats, but I’m doing that using Excel, I have to explain this is a cell. This is a function. This is what this means in that. So, because you also need that tool to apply that learning and the tool is often

 

Diana Brandon of eLearningDoc (20:21)

Mm-hmm.

 

Toni DiMella of eLearningDoc (she/her) (20:48)

equally as important as what it is that skill that you’re trying to build.

 

Jeff Walter (20:55)

Yeah, you know, when you earlier Tony, when you were talking, it reminded me of the zone of proximal development. And I think especially when we take, when subject matter experts get up there to train anybody on anything or teach anybody anything, I think a lot of times you can have that huge gap and they’re so far outside the zone of proximal development that they forget what that next step is for that person. Right.

 

Toni DiMella of eLearningDoc (she/her) (21:00)

Mm-hmm.

 

yes, I experienced that

 

when I first started teaching. Not only do you know it, this is your world. You love this stuff. So it just is embedded in you.

 

Jeff Walter (21:26)

Right.

 

You know, and same with the prerequisite skills, you know, like using the subtraction. It’s like, well, you’re, you’re way outside the zone of proximal development if they don’t even know how to subtract, right. And, know, as a, as an example and it, you know, it’s shifting over to the corporate world. Um, it’s interesting because I never thought about it from that perspective. Like I said earlier, like a lot of times you’ll have these instructors, they’re folks that have.

 

Diana Brandon of eLearningDoc (21:29)

Mm-hmm.

 

Jeff Walter (21:55)

Yeah, they’re the best of the best. They’re the best technician, the best salesperson, the best, you know, people that really understand this. And now you’re trying to teach other folks that are just coming in or new partners. And, you know, they, they, they, they, they are so far beyond that they don’t, they forget what that next step is. that, which, ⁓ you know, if I, if I can, I’m sorry, just kind of doing this, but, ⁓

 

Diana Brandon of eLearningDoc (22:14)

Mm-hmm.

 

Go for it. Go for it.

 

Jeff Walter (22:23)

When you’re looking at like large populations and you have all this different thing, one of things I’ve started noticing is folks are emerging on the corporate side is doing pre-assessments, kind of trying to get an understanding of, I’m trying to train a bunch of dealers on how to, dealer technicians on how to service something. you got the kid right out of high school and you got the 55 year old that’s been doing this for 30 years, right?

 

And, ⁓ is that a, if we look at what you’ve been talking about, would you recommend that as a good technique to do like, kind of like a bunch of micro assessments to kind of get that? Where are you at? Where’s that individual student at on that spectrum? You know, are you that, Hey, I don’t know how to subtract. I got, I, you know, forget about, forget about teaching them long division. We got to, we got to get down to this because that’s where they are on the, on a developmental scale or.

 

You know, kind of applying it to more of the corporate or the extended enterprise. What are your thoughts on that? I’m just curious. I never thought about it like that.

 

Diana Brandon of eLearningDoc (23:21)

My

 

answer for that would be a lot of it depends. So at that point, you’re really talking about more of a strategy than a specific skill set. ⁓ The broader your audience, the harder it is to build learning because Tony said, when you have this audience and you have lots of people and they have different interests and different abilities and different skill sets.

 

Jeff Walter (23:34)

huh.

 

Right.

 

Diana Brandon of eLearningDoc (23:46)

You want whatever you’re building for your learning to be accessible and to be interesting to all of them. So the more that you say, well, lots of people could do this, you’re making it harder and harder to build. So the real thing is looking at strategy and figuring out where is it that you want them to go because you absolutely in an ideal world.

 

could build out personal micro learning journeys. So mine is different than Angie’s is different than Tony’s is different than yours. And we’re all going to get additional training where we need it. We might get some remediation. Like speaking of statistics, Tony doesn’t need that remediation. I need a lot of it because it’s been a long, long time since I did statistics. And so we’re going to have different needs as learners if our final goal requires the same skillset.

 

⁓ What we find a lot too is that soft skills are hugely lacking in a lot of areas and they contribute to a lot in the corporate world. I laugh because I sometimes tease Anja a little bit because she can talk to anyone. She is one of the best conversationalists I’ve ever seen.

 

And I am not, is a much more challenging thing for me to walk up to a stranger and have a conversation at the airport. I’m the person reading the book. Angie is the person who’s talking to everyone she meets. And I admire that skill set so much in her because I don’t have it at all. reaching those different audiences and building in those soft skills that are so important in corporate sales or customer service or management.

 

⁓ is another really challenging aspect where you’re leaning into skills that subject matter experts who are great at sales or they might be great at building this particular product or they might be great at quality checking this product and then they’re put into positions where they need to train people and they don’t have that self-skill set because they’re really good at what they do technically and now they’re

 

pushed into this promotion for leading a group of these people, but that soft skill gap is absent.

 

Toni DiMella of eLearningDoc (she/her) (26:00)

I would also wonder, when you talk about the different programs, why is somebody that has 20 years on the job in the same training course or program as the person who just got hired on, the 18-year-old kid coming in, they probably don’t need the same amount of…

 

Jeff Walter (26:14)

Right.

 

Toni DiMella of eLearningDoc (she/her) (26:17)

skilling or re-skilling or particular types of training. So you might want to talk about more micro lessons. So you could do a pre-assessment and be like, here’s the things that we think that you need to work on. If you want to blend them together, it may have to be a kind of a wide birth of different types of areas that they can explore because maybe your person who’s been on the job, they’re like procedural.

 

Jeff Walter (26:23)

Yeah.

 

Toni DiMella of eLearningDoc (she/her) (26:46)

Fluency is perfect, but they have no idea why so they may need more of that conceptual side of things like this is why we do it Where with your new hire, they’re not ready for the why let’s just focus on the half

 

Jeff Walter (26:47)

Right.

 

Yeah. Well, the reason I bring that up and just use the conversation I had earlier this morning. It’s like, okay, this company has 500 distributors, couple of thousand people that they’re trying to train on how to sell and service their equipment. And you don’t know who those people are. Right. But you want to make sure that each one of your distributors has a certain level of skill within them to be able to do that. And so you don’t know if it’s the

 

get right out of high school or if it’s the 30 year old veteran, right? And so it sounds like, and so what I’ve seen historically, cause we’ve been doing this a while, is you’d send everybody through the same pipe, right? And it’s like a lot of wasted time. Cause that 45 year old person that’s got 20 years experience is just like bored. And you know, you’re not their employer. So their employer is paying them.

 

Angela Robbins of eLearningDoc(27:29)

Thank

 

Yeah.

 

Jeff Walter (27:54)

to learn nothing and, it takes a lot of, so, so it’s been seeing this shift towards more like, like you said, the micro learning, but you do the micro assessments. So I can kind of gauge where you are. Hey, if you’re 20 year veteran and you know this whole already, being bang, boom, you don’t have to sit in any training. You could teach the course, right. Or, or that, so go ahead.

 

Angela Robbins of eLearningDoc(27:56)

Yeah.

 

Well, and that’s where the

 

design is really important too, because you can create like branching scenarios or through different products that we have, like score modules and things like that, we can create a scenario where they’re going along on this continuum, but then once they’ve answered a certain question,

 

Those who get it wrong can scale down and we can upskill them, but those who get it right can move on and start to upskill. So it’s really great to work with an instructional designer who has the skills to create these modules where people aren’t wasting their time and we are getting to the root.

 

Jeff Walter (28:39)

Right.

 

Angela Robbins of eLearningDoc(28:55)

you know, of the problem where we need to add some additional skills to help, you know, get people to that continuum where everybody’s on the same page, but also challenge those who need a little bit more, right? And so, you know, that’s where an instructional designer or curriculum developer really comes in handy because we can help you design those experiences for everyone.

 

Toni DiMella of eLearningDoc (she/her) (29:07)

Mm-hmm.

 

And not just in a single branching scenario where somebody who is more well informed will move more quickly. If you kind of stack those micro learning and experiences, there’s a couple of different ways you can do it. You can go with the kind of the old school idea of a competency based mastery basis. Like you already done the pre-assessment, here’s the weak skills. Those are gonna open up and I need you to go through these little sections and the other ones.

 

You don’t have to. There’s a couple different ways that that can be formed.

 

Jeff Walter (29:48)

Cool. So shifting back to what we were originally going to talk about, so a typical client, when they engage you guys, what are they usually looking to accomplish? Like Diana, said, what are they trying to accomplish?

 

Diana Brandon of eLearningDoc (30:03)

⁓

 

In very broad terms, there’s, well, there’s no such thing as a typical client with what we do. They don’t exist. ⁓ I think I say frequently like, well, this project is different to Tony. This one’s little different and they’re all a little different. So there’s no such thing as a typical client. If I had to put a broad umbrella on it, there are kind of some buckets. ⁓ So some are,

 

Jeff Walter (30:12)

Ha!

 

This is.

 

Diana Brandon of eLearningDoc (30:31)

we see a problem and we want to change it. We know what the problem is. We get some that are regulatory. So like we have to do OSHA training. is legally required. We know this has to happen. How can we do that? Those I would say are our two main buckets. And then we have other clients who are really more of our strategy clients. And they say, I know I need this because people are asking for it.

 

Jeff Walter (30:53)

Right.

 

Diana Brandon of eLearningDoc (30:53)

but

 

I don’t know where to go or what to do or how to get started. And they’re kind of drinking from the fire hose of online learning on training and development. There’s so much out there and they don’t know where to start. And so we do a lot with clients there of saying, okay, let’s take this one piece. Here’s some places we can go. We can go to this particular continuing ed. We can go to this certification. We can go to this

 

⁓ value add for your members, we can go to this, which one is the most appealing to you, and then we can travel down that path. And then as we get to know our client, we have a chance to say, hey, this would be really great. Why don’t you look at it this way? So those would be the three buckets. I don’t know, Tony and Angie, if you have anything else that you see.

 

Angela Robbins of eLearningDoc(31:41)

Yeah.

 

And we also work a lot in like higher education too, where you have, your traditional course. I mean, we still do a lot in the hybrid in face-to-face market as well. So like doing trainer and facilitator guides, PowerPoint presentations, you know, helping the train the trainers, you know, with, you know, face-to-face instruction, you know, what are some unique

 

Diana Brandon of eLearningDoc (31:47)

Mm-hmm.

 

Angela Robbins of eLearningDoc(32:05)

strategies they can use to help engage learners, make it more interactive, more engaging, what are some ways that they can synthesize the content, make it more digestible for learners. So we do a lot of that type of work as well still with higher education, know.

 

people are investing a lot of money in the tools that they have, so how can they get their return on their investment? So building in their native LMS system still, helping them design a framework for learners to make the content more digestible and easy to access. So for a face-to-face course, how can they utilize the system to access their…

 

know, quick access links like their syllabi, you know, that sort of thing, creating a structure and a framework to house that content. So we still do work a lot with higher ed in helping them create a path for their students forward. So yeah, I would say we still, you know, have quite a few of those clients, associations and nonprofits. We work a lot in that area. I would say we are also seeing a lot of a new trend with what we call edupreneurs.

 

Those would be subject matter experts in a certain field that are specialties, like let’s say maybe a doctor or a therapist that has a technique or something out on the market that they want to educate or certify people in a certain area. And so we pair with them, we extract their content, we help them develop courses or micro learnings to help certify people in their specific area or just educate them about a new technique.

 

Jeff Walter (33:10)

Mm-hmm.

 

Angela Robbins of eLearningDoc(33:38)

and then they want to monetize that curriculum and so we’ll help them create courses that they can resell and we’ll help them put them in learning management systems and things like that as well.

 

Toni DiMella of eLearningDoc (she/her) (33:48)

It’s really, ⁓ I would say if there is one thing that all of the clients have, it’s always about like, need this particular group to know something, do something, apply something. regardless of the level or where that is going to be delivered, those people are kind of new novices, right? So whether it is your training brand new people how to fix an HVAC system.

 

Angela Robbins of eLearningDoc(34:07)

Mm-hmm.

 

Jeff Walter (34:07)

Unless,

 

unless…

 

Toni DiMella of eLearningDoc (she/her) (34:15)

Or now you have people out that are working on highly sophisticated like water treatment plans, dams, stuff like that, and they need to know about more new advanced techniques. Or we’ve had folks like training new board of directors, highly accomplished people, but never been on a board before. So now this is a new experience and they’re a new novice. And so those types of back to the best practices and those design strategies,

 

really could be applied to all of the levels and all of the different types of consumers of that e-learning or face-to-face, because we do quite a bit of instructor-led, like we need folks in the seats, but we need to prepare our trainers that are gonna be in the room that haven’t done this before and kind of have like a script, if you will, to deliver it.

 

Angela Robbins of eLearningDoc(34:53)

Yeah.

 

Sure. I

 

would say the one common factor out of all of them is they need it yesterday. And so the thing is we can scale up and scale down quickly. So we have many design pods and so we are very good at, you know, helping get things done quickly if we need to.

 

Toni DiMella of eLearningDoc (she/her) (35:08)

Always.

 

Jeff Walter (35:20)

Other than I needed done yesterday, what are some of the biggest challenges you usually face or your clients face in trying to achieve what they’re trying to achieve with the training?

 

Diana Brandon of eLearningDoc (35:30)

⁓ I think that, I don’t know, that’s a, hmm, that’s a hard question. I see a lot of people who, don’t necessarily understand the back end of what goes in to really good learning.

 

And there’s a lot of stuff that’s really flashy. VR and AR are two areas where we see a lot of interest until people really understand what goes into building some of that. And then they realize like, okay, that’s way more of an investment than we’re really looking for. It is super cool. there’s so much that you can do. there are lots of times where it makes so much sense.

 

Jeff Walter (35:59)

lot.

 

Yes.

 

Angela Robbins of eLearningDoc(36:09)

as hard to manage too.

 

Toni DiMella of eLearningDoc (she/her) (36:11)

Yes.

 

Diana Brandon of eLearningDoc (36:15)

there’s an organization that actually trains with cataract surgeons with VR simulators. Well, I understand why they’re doing that because that’s not someone’s eyeball. I don’t want them learning on someone’s eyeball. I want them learning. it absolutely makes sense there because it is very targeted. It is this ⁓ particular instance. It fits really well with what you do in the real world where you’re doing robotic ⁓ operations on things like that. that’s

 

Jeff Walter (36:32)

Yes.

 

Yep.

 

Diana Brandon of eLearningDoc (36:44)

makes so much sense. But for other things, there’s a lot of flash around around VR, AR, and that’s not necessarily something that people actually want when they start digging into what do we need to make this successful. We do a lot of client education on this is what it means to have content for learning. ⁓ So just because you have a manual doesn’t mean that you have content that learners are ready to consume.

 

because if it was ready to consume, you wouldn’t need anything else because it would be there and ready and people would be consuming it. There’s a really great book called The Checklist Manifesto and it talks about how manuals, checklists have changed ⁓ hospitals, surgical industries and aviation industries and how those checklists are built off of

 

material that already exists. Like they have these training manuals, they know what to do, but it’s not in a format that’s useful when you need it. And I think that’s a ⁓ great explanation of why when you need something that is a training, when you need to have that action, it really goes back to what do want people to do? And then the format is really driven partially by that. ⁓ I also think that we do a lot of teaching

 

Jeff Walter (37:39)

Yes.

 

Diana Brandon of eLearningDoc (37:59)

people how to be better instructors in the face-to-face environment. I think that’s something, especially at eLearning Doc, that we all take for granted that not everybody can do. Speaking of experts who tend to forget about what it is that novices don’t necessarily have in their back pocket. I was just with a client this week and we were talking about training individuals who have not worked in the construction or the flood mitigation industry previously.

 

and how to teach them what different things are, different tools are, and steps in the process. And I said, we’ll just give everybody a card and have them line up at the front of the room and put themselves into the correct order. And that was something that I like, obviously you would do it this way. And it was not obvious. Typically, if you say the word obvious, it’s not, that’s kind of a red flag that, nope, nope, you’re stepping into that expert.

 

Jeff Walter (38:29)

Uh-huh.

 

Toni DiMella of eLearningDoc (she/her) (38:45)

not.

 

Diana Brandon of eLearningDoc (38:50)

field where you’re seeing things in a very different lens than other people. So that’s kind of a red flag. If you say obviously, it’s not obvious and you need to step back. But I think that that is something that we do a lot of.

 

Toni DiMella of eLearningDoc (she/her) (39:06)

And just what’s possible, right? They don’t always know the content that’s needed to support that learning, but then sometimes they’re like, we wanna do this and then we wanna take this. And I’m like, that sounds super cool, but that does not exist. That is not how that tool works. Or if they do find something that’s cool and it does exist and can be used.

 

Diana Brandon of eLearningDoc (39:08)

Mm-hmm.

 

Toni DiMella of eLearningDoc (she/her) (39:30)

It may be very limited in its usability. So you may not be reaching all of the people that you need to train. If somebody, it may have accessibility issues. It may have literally just can it function on everybody’s machine, their laptop, their internet tool. So not always understanding the accessibility and usability piece of the ideas and the tools that are actually possible to do with the software.

 

is often challenging.

 

Jeff Walter (40:00)

And yeah, I’m sorry.

 

Diana Brandon of eLearningDoc (40:03)

I was going to say, I think that’s something that people overlook a lot, especially in more hands on industries. I remember working with a group from law enforcement and was talking about accessibility and screen readers. And they said, you cannot be a law enforcement officer if you don’t pass the vision test. this, we don’t have to worry about that. And I said, guys, do any of you wear glasses?

 

Any of you get tired of looking at a screen? Did you know that your screen can read it to you? So if you’re like working out on the treadmill, you can listen to this if it’s screen reader compatible. And it like blew everyone’s mind because they hadn’t, they just, there’s a complete lack of understanding and things are very focused and they’re, they’re absolutely right. There are vision requirements for those fields, but how

 

things that are designed for accessibility and for specific populations can be used by everyone. There’s a great metaphor for universal design that talks about an elevator and stairs and elevator stairs and escalator. And you have probably used all three of those things. If we had any one of them, we would exclude parts of the population. But even though you as someone

 

who may be able to use stairs or who may be able to use an elevator, may be able to use an escalator, you’ve still used all three. So it’s about the context and the choice and the ability to get to what you need when you need it. And so as designers, we build for that broad population so that no matter who you are, whether you are looking for that set of stairs or that elevator or that escalator in your course, you can get wherever you need to go.

 

Jeff Walter (41:46)

That’s really interesting because I never thought about it from that perspective, right? Because when you gave that example, it was like, well, yes, we can all read and we have vision and we get tested. But it’s like, well, that’s a way of doing it, but is it the best way of doing it for you at that moment in time, even if you’re capable of doing it that way? And I’ve never thought about the accessibility things in that

 

from that perspective, like, is right.

 

Toni DiMella of eLearningDoc (she/her) (42:14)

And that changes over time, right? Boomers are still

 

largely in the workforce, exes are getting off of there, millennials are also now are in the middle management and what your needs are at any given point changes over time. there are fields where it’s like, listen, it’s gonna be challenging to be a heart surgeon if you can’t see, most fields are not like that.

 

So you just need to make sure that at all points, everybody who can do the job has the tools to grow their skill set at that job.

 

Jeff Walter (42:48)

Yeah, well, I’ve always understood the accessibility, but I’ve never thought about the options the accessibility gives you as something that an individual who does not need the accessibility can leverage in a situational thing, like Diana was talking about on the screen readers. And when you mentioned that, was like, I’ve been reading the Wall Street Journal for way too many years.

 

And now I read it off my phone, right? But they started putting a reader. And I can read the article. That’s fine. I’ve been doing this for decades, right? But then all of sudden, I was like, I’m in my car. Let me listen to that article. Let me listen. So there’s something that would be for the accessible, right? A reader. But I’m using it as a person who, with the help of these handy dandy things, ⁓

 

Diana Brandon of eLearningDoc (43:38)

Mm-hmm.

 

Jeff Walter (43:39)

can read, but now I’m able to consume that information in a different thing. And the other thing, I love your example of the stairs, the escalator and the elevator, where my brain went to is all the sidewalk ramps, right? It’s like, they’re there so people in wheelchairs can cross the street.

 

Diana Brandon of eLearningDoc (43:52)

Mm-hmm.

 

Toni DiMella of eLearningDoc (she/her) (43:52)

⁓ we’re quite

 

back to you.

 

Jeff Walter (43:58)

Well, you know, I’m a bike, I’m a cyclist. I use them for that. You know, parents with small children in strollers use them like there’s all these, you know, now do I have

 

Diana Brandon of eLearningDoc (44:07)

heavy loads,

 

dollies, delivery trucks. ⁓ I have to say the metaphor is not mine. I cannot remember where I heard it and I would love to give credit to the person who originally said it, but I cannot for the life of me remember who it was, but it was not my metaphor. ⁓ But yeah and

 

Jeff Walter (44:09)

Yeah, exactly. It’s

 

Toni DiMella of eLearningDoc (she/her) (44:10)

We be careful.

 

Thank

 

Jeff Walter (44:23)

Yeah. But I

 

love this idea of it’s a different way of thinking of accessibility because we usually think of it as, there’s this population that can’t access this unless you have this other mechanism, right? Which is true. that’s the underlying root cause. But I’ve never thought about it, nor have I ever heard anybody talk about it from the perspective of, well, the person that doesn’t need that, it gives them another

 

venue, another tool to consume that learning. I think that’s really, there’s another client we’re talking to right now about being 508 compliant.

 

Angela Robbins of eLearningDoc(44:58)

Yeah. mean, I’ve even

 

found myself using like the alt tags on pictures. Like I couldn’t see a picture one time and like, it’s like, they have alt tags. So I was able to read it and figure it out. You know, like it’s just an added benefit for everybody to, know, just have those features that can really, you know, bring the experience to life for you.

 

Toni DiMella of eLearningDoc (she/her) (45:20)

And everybody is using captions, right? Like every demographic of every age group uses captions. And that’s one of the things, know, the UDL was universal design for learning really was born out of the ADA, like the curb cut effect that you described really was the pathway of how UDL became a thing.

 

Jeff Walter (45:23)

yeah.

 

Yeah.

 

The captions is another perfect example, right? Like my, my hearing’s fine and I can, I can listen to this and, but yet I find myself same thing. You know, I keep it silent and I’ll just read the captions. You know, so it’s fast.

 

Diana Brandon of eLearningDoc (45:54)

Our CRO does

 

that all the time. And I think that plays a lot into preference. ⁓ And we know that when learners are able to choose their anything, whether they choose their topic, whether they choose how they consume, they’re more engaged, they’re more willing to participate when you’re more engaged and willing to participate, you get more out of it. So that’s all wrapped up in kind of the learning sciences. But I always find it amusing because our CRO talks about

 

Jeff Walter (45:59)

Mm-hmm.

 

I’ll you soon.

 

Diana Brandon of eLearningDoc (46:23)

turning the sound off immediately on any video she has to watch. Sound off, captions on. And I am an exact opposite. I turn the sound on and will turn the video off and then I go walk and I’ll listen to it while I’m walking. And that just happens to be a personal preference. It’s not a capability, it’s entirely personal preference, but I’m more engaged when I’m listening and I’m out walking and moving. I really wish that my college biology textbook had been in audio format, because that would have changed

 

how I read and it would have saved me a lot of time and I probably would not have fallen asleep reading the textbook as much as I did. ⁓ But we, I mean, we.

 

Toni DiMella of eLearningDoc (she/her) (46:55)

you

 

Angela Robbins of eLearningDoc(46:58)

See, and I’m completely

 

opposite. I’m more of a visual learner. Like I have to read it. I have to highlight the notes. Like I would have loved like text versions for all my lectures. I wish closed captioning and stuff had been around and transcription when I went through college, I would have excelled much more than I did.

 

Jeff Walter (47:17)

Yeah, again, it’s just, I’ve never thought about the accessibility from a creating options for the folks that don’t need accessibility and therefore easing the on-ramp to consuming the content of the training. And it’s, I thought that’s really interesting. shifting gears a little bit, one of the biggest challenges a lot of our clients and just folks in general in the L and D space face is

 

How do you know when a training has been successful? And, you know, is there any, you know, best practices or things? mean, Diane, think, you know, starting with what you want them to do, it’s, but, um, if you guys can, you know, have you seen, like, how do you know when a program you put in place is successful? How do your clients know? How do they, how do they, how do they, um, communicate that throughout the organization that this was a, we did something above the norm here and it was.

 

highly successful. What does success mean from what you guys have seen with your clients?

 

Toni DiMella of eLearningDoc (she/her) (48:17)

But have to measure it. You have to measure it. if you know what you want them to be able to do when it’s done, then you should be able to then go out and say, are they doing these things? Can we actually look at it? And you’d be able to, whether it’s like an efficiency or a completion or success rate in different environments, it starts with the very next step of backwards design. after what you want them to do is how are you going to assess that you know that they did it?

 

and what that assessment piece looks like varies. If you’re in a classroom, of course you give them a test, project or something like that. But it’d be like, now that these people are out on the field, how many things are they breaking? How many things are not working? And you have to then collect that data to make sure from before and after that it was effective.

 

Angela Robbins of eLearningDoc(49:05)

Yeah, that’s what I was gonna.

 

That’s what I was going to say. The data has to speak for itself. And I think Tony’s right in that backward design process. That’s the second thing we do after the objectives. How are you going to measure it? And I think it’s got to go beyond that course. What are those measurements that you set up within the practice? If it’s a sales enablement training, are you going to look at your sales figures? How many appointments are they going to be setting? What are those triggers that you’re going to be looking for post-training?

 

to see is this making a direct impact on my business. And so it’s got to be beyond that course as well because you’re obviously trying to change a behavior or something within your practice. So you have to align it to what you’re doing on an everyday basis.

 

Diana Brandon of eLearningDoc (49:52)

I’m echoing more. I think this is where we get into some of that strategy conversation. A lot of what I see from clients is ⁓ kind of a mismatch in what it is that they want versus what it is that they’re training on. So there was a school system. And again, this is not my example. This is not a client. This is another example that I’ve seen in the past. But they

 

Jeff Walter (49:58)

Mm-hmm.

 

Diana Brandon of eLearningDoc (50:19)

the student math scores were not where they needed to be. And they said, okay, well, our teachers need better instruction. Their teachers need more support and more professional development. We’re gonna push all of these resources to teacher professional development. And they put all of this money into it and the scores did not change. And they went back and said, okay, well, what…

 

Why didn’t like we’re making better teachers were giving them support for professional development. Why isn’t this changing And then they started looking at the bigger picture. All right. Well, what’s causing the student math scores Is it that they they don’t have the skills was it turns out the math curriculum time was shortened because of I don’t remember if it was like a dismissal change or lunch change or something, but they they pushed something and gave

 

15 more minutes of math, so the teachers actually had time to teach the math and then let the students practice. And that change implemented the math scores. wasn’t the teacher professional development, it wasn’t any of that. So there was a seeking training where it didn’t really need to be training. It needed to be a time management issue. And I think that a lot of times we have organizations who say, I want to make more money or I want people to sell more.

 

Jeff Walter (51:13)

Mm-hmm.

 

Diana Brandon of eLearningDoc (51:32)

Or I want people to do their job better. Well, what does that mean? Does it mean fewer safety incidents? One of the things that we preach is that understanding is not measurable because it doesn’t like, what does it mean to understand something? Does that mean you can explain it? Does it mean that you can identify it? Does it mean that you can analyze it? Does it mean you can select the right answer on a multiple choice test? That’s not what we’re really looking for. We’re looking for

 

Can you engage with the content in this meaningful, measurable, objective way? And so really identifying what it is that you want them to do and then tracking that whole process back to how do you know that they can do it or how do you know that they are doing it? And then going back into, all right, well, why is it not happening now? If you want better sales, is it because they don’t have sales training? Is it because the software is not efficient? Is it because…

 

There’s this endless litany of things and digging into that is really where we do a lot as well.

 

Toni DiMella of eLearningDoc (she/her) (52:32)

Mm-hmm.

 

Jeff Walter (52:36)

⁓

 

That kind of wraps up where my thoughts were just how do we get this. Is there anything else about eLearning Doc, your clients that you want to share with everybody in the audience at this point?

 

Angela Robbins of eLearningDoc(52:46)

think through this conversation, I think it’s.

 

pretty evidently clear that, you we’re more than just instructional designers and curriculum specialists. We’re, we’re absolutely strategists. You know, we, when we work with a client, we engage with them. We really want to help you solve for your training and development needs. we work one-on-one with the clients, you know, we become an extension of their team and partners in this journey with them. ⁓ and you know, we can help from the implementation or the strategy to the implementation, to the design, the development and the maintenance.

 

part of the engagement. So we just really thank you for this time to share, know, what we do, who we are. You know, we love what we do. I think that’s very passion, evidently clear. We have years of experience. A lot of our designers have worked in the industry for over 20, 25 years. ⁓

 

We’re niche to the market because we are eLearning Doc in the sense that all of our designers have masters and PhDs in instructional design for online learning. So we take pride in what we do and we’d like to think that we’re experts in the industry. So thank you so much for the opportunity to share that with you.

 

Toni DiMella of eLearningDoc (she/her) (53:49)

Thank

 

Jeff Walter (53:53)

Oh, thank you. I will. You know, it’s really cool because I always I love having these conversations because I always learn something. The whole accessibility thing that that’s like a new light for me. That was really a cool thing. And there are a couple other things. So thank you for your time. I really do appreciate it spending time with me this afternoon or this morning, depending where you’re at. And we’re not in Italy. We know that. husband’s over there. So.

 

Angela Robbins of eLearningDoc(54:10)

Thank you.

 

Diana Brandon of eLearningDoc (54:14)

So,

 

Angela Robbins of eLearningDoc(54:19)

Yeah, Tony

 

Toni DiMella of eLearningDoc (she/her) (54:17)

Yeah.

 

Angela Robbins of eLearningDoc(54:20)

has the best life.

 

Toni DiMella of eLearningDoc (she/her) (54:20)

Yeah.

 

Jeff Walter (54:21)

Although I just got back from Greece last week and that was first time I’ve to Greece. So that was a lot of fun, but learned some stuff there, but, thank you.

 

Angela Robbins of eLearningDoc(54:25)

Yeah, that’s pretty cool. Diana and I

 

Toni DiMella of eLearningDoc (she/her) (54:25)

grateful.

 

Angela Robbins of eLearningDoc(54:29)

are envious of you both.

 

Toni DiMella of eLearningDoc (she/her) (54:30)

You

 

Jeff Walter (54:31)

I was just visiting.

 

it’s first time I’ve there. But thank you. I always love these conversations. Like I said, I love these conversations. I love learning about what other folks are doing. Because I do believe, and it’s why we all kind of gravitated towards this sector, is knowledge is power. our job is to help spread knowledge, right?

 

and skills and that makes all the difference. It’s life changing. And so, you know, thank you again for sharing everything. I appreciate it.

 

Toni DiMella of eLearningDoc (she/her) (55:02)

Thank you.

 

Angela Robbins of eLearningDoc(55:02)

Thank you, Jeff. We appreciate you.

 

Diana Brandon of eLearningDoc (55:03)

Thank you.

 

Jeff Walter (55:04)

All right and to everybody out there listening I appreciate your time and attention and until next time have a great day