Dive into an innovative learning solution and a ever-changing technology ecosystem
Hassan Mourad is a partner and director of Kashida’s Tech Innovation, and has been driving progress within the company since 2011. Today he talks with us about self-writing, Genai, and developing custom e-learning in the world of hundreds of authoring tools and learning platforms. He also sheds light on the importance of each component that makes up a great learning experience and the way that interdisciplinary teams play an important role in the process.
Based on your experience, what has been the most important change in the world of custom learning development since Genai came onto the scene?
The e-learning industry is heavily influenced by advances in the technology landscape, as has always been the case. The introduction of genai is no exception. This is evident through rapid adoption by many players in the Edtech space and integration into existing technology solutions as advanced features or plugins. While it is always refreshing and exciting to see such a dynamism in the e-learning industry, learner content creators should note that this early and rapid adoption is primarily driven by a fierce competitive rush of product owners to sell AI-based solutions. Today, the space is extremely busy and cluttered with many marketing jargons, buzzwords and various Genai sign offerings ranging from useless to nice to some very exciting and effective solutions. The market tries to test it, but soon the very valuable solutions will become central.
In my opinion, the main purpose of a creator of great learning content is to provide value to the learner, and it will always be. They always look for technical solutions to drive their work to achieve this goal faster, easier and higher quality. AI-based tools can be a game changer for content creators if viewed like that.
Can you highlight some of the key components that make up a great learning experience? What is the importance of having an interdisciplinary team in the development process?
Needless to say, you need to say that the learning experience is not worth it if there are no good and reliable content obtained from trustworthy sources and subject matter experts. Coincidentally, this is one of the major risks in using GEN AI tools as a source of knowledge if the tool is not trained to source information from a predefined and reliable source.
Transforming raw content into a great learning experience is a process in which a Learning Experience Designer (LXD) plays a pivotal role in organizing a set of activities involving subject matter experts (SMEs), key stakeholders, and visual design, development and production teams to design a learning experience. This design process may include fact-finding/discovery activities such as focus groups, surveys, and polls, and design thinking workshops. LXD is usually an expert in learning theory and effective learning methodology, allowing you to consider all the information that will allow your learning content and target learners to design your learning experience. The learning experience utilizes appropriate learning methods mapped to content learning and activation goals. LXD is designed against a set of restrictions and constraints, including budget, time, resource availability, and the learning delivery technology used.
We never assume that small businesses have the right skillset to play the role of LXD in this design process, and therefore we never assume that they have the skillset to create the learning experiences that LXD designed. A well-designed learning experience deserves to be produced as well. Therefore, professional production resources such as visual designers, developers, linguists, audio/video production facilities and talents, as well as multimedia editors, designers, illustrators and animators may be involved in the production and development process.
Finally, to make learning experiences available to learners on web-accessible learning delivery platforms, a range of expertise may be required when third-party tools are utilized on their learning journeys, such as when servers, storage, or security infrastructure are used by cloud infrastructure experts when they impact course delivery.
What is one of your standout custom e-learning client success stories?
Financial literacy CSR initiative, “Ajyal,” illustrates our transformational approach to learning. Ajyal was originally designed for face-to-face delivery and was seamlessly converted into an online program in response to the Covid-19 lockdown.
By applying the adaptive learning experience design process, learners were also able to select self-paced or instructor-led modes to ensure delivery flexibility while maintaining the existing inquiry-based approach.
In addition to overcoming the accessibility challenges presented by the pandemic, course transformations have increased reach and engagement with learners. This only happens when we support our commitment to empowering learners and focusing on having the greatest impact regardless of delivery method.
Could you tell me a little more about Kashida’s end-to-end services for creating custom learning content?
Returning to previous responses regarding the diverse skills needed to develop custom learning content, end-to-end services are categorized into learning strategies, learning experience design, learning content production, learning delivery and technology. Our team of experts is enabled in this mature modular service, product delivery and process that guides your work through an end-to-end content strategy, design and development journey.
We develop services and product offerings to meet three criteria.
Standalone value. Each offering must independently provide value and contribute to improving the learning experience. For example, you may be hired to design your learning experience as a standalone service for clients who plan to produce digital learning assets with their in-house teams. Integrated value. All products are integrated into an end-to-end process for designing, developing and delivering learning experiences, creating value greater than the sum of those parts. Naturally, we strongly believe that engagement throughout the process guarantees maximum value for our clients. Therefore, we should be particularly careful about developing connections between the various services we provide to ensure a smooth and effective handshake between them. For example, the output of the Learning Experience Design Service includes content writing sheets that guide small and medium-sized businesses through the content writing process, and multiple developer files that guide production teams through the learning asset production process. Adaptability. Because we focus on creating custom content, all services are designed with a level of adaptability to meet a variety of contexts and limitations. This also ensures that we can apply continuous enhancements to our services and services as markets and learners’ interests change over time. Self-writing has gained traction in the world of content creation, but do you think that serious creators are different from others?
Self-writing is amazing! Humanity has never been able to spread so much information and share much knowledge very easily and quickly… Content Authoring Technology is a major contributor to the explosion of self-written content. With so many tools and very limited skills and resources, content authors can deploy content on all kinds of digital platforms. Of course, the recent confusion over this space is brought about by Genai, making self-enforcement infinitely easier and quicker! The value of self-writing within this context must be recognized and preserved.
However, there are lawsuits against self-writing in the sense that it is simply not sufficient, especially within the context of learning content. I demonstrated this in a recent blog post. Here we consider some of the common type of content/creators with authoring processes common on social media, and provide an explanation on the self-writing sufficiency of each case.
Most often, social media also reveals that self-writing has a place and value, but that is rarely sufficient as the creator’s purpose grows past the personal limits of more commercial outcomes/impact-driven purposes.
In the case of learning content, the expected objective is always to provide impact and effectively spread knowledge to learners, and the clear case is that serious authoring and investment in serious learning delivery techniques will always be required to provide the impact of serious learning.
Of course, self-writing remains an encouraged practice for professionals who want to freely share the limited resources and knowledge they can use at their own discretion.
By chance, I came across an interesting perspective in a post about how some social media platforms respond to the increase in self-written content enabled by Genai.
I’ll summarize
We would like to thank Hassan Mourad for answering our questions and delving into L&D’s custom e-learning development, end-to-end services and Genai. You can also see how Kashida can leverage self-enforcement capabilities with the Nethope team in their new LMS to establish visually appealing templates and create highly interactive and engaging courses without the need for external authoring tools.
Finally, I would like to congratulate Kashida on winning the spot for the top content providers on my custom learning list.
