Session #703The xAPI: What Does an Instructional

Designer Need to Know?

Megan Torrance, TorranceLearning

Orlando, FL • March 16 – 18, 2016

Life in a Post-SCORM WorldWhat Does an Instructional Designer Need to Know?

mtorrance@torrancelearning.com@MMTorrance@xAPIGnome@Tlearning@MyEleventurelinkedin.com/in/megantorrance

Megan TorranceCEO, TorranceLearning

Tour the campus & buildingsExplore benefit packageTake a skills assessmentAttend webinarAttend a classRate your experienceComplete online courseObserve the job being done

Receive coachingWatch a video

Follow a blogRead a book by an expert

Elearning: Welcome & virtual tourElearning: Log into LMSElearning: Plant tourClass: Your benefits & youClass: Email and YouElearning: Who’s whoElearning: Our customersClass: Finance 101

Recorded webinarWebinarMultiple choice test

Practice doing the job

Job shadow

Class: Using the intranet

Onboarding Plan BOnboarding Plan A

What is xAPI?

“x” = experience“API” = application programming interface

Simple, lightweight way to store and retrieve records

What is xAPI?

Answer #1 Next-generation SCORM

Answer #2 A protocol for recording any learning experience to give a more rich picture of the development path.

Answer #3A protocol and language for sending and retrieving data about learning experiences: activity statements

Answer #4“the holy grail” where we can correlate job performance data with training data to assess people and training effectiveness

When we live in a SCORM world …

… we live in a box.

What is SCORM?

TimeScoreLocationStatusAnswers

When we live in a SCORM world …

• We focus on the instruction & the media in elearning.• Developer tools do the

heavy lifting for SCORM.• We don’t think much about

data or reporting. • We may struggle to tie

learning “completions” to organization results.

We probably don’t track out-of-LMS learning at depth or scale.

In an xAPI world …

• We focus on the instruction & the media & the data in everything.

• There are few rich developer tools do the heavy lifting for xAPI yet.

• We now get to think about data and reporting.

• We can tie learning & behavior to results if we do it right.

We can track out-of-LMS learning at depth and scale.We can tie behaviors & results to learning.

So get comfortable with some of this …

What’s in an xAPI activity statement?

Claire read Business Writing for ProfessionalsJohn practiced frosting birthday cakes

Lindsey watched the Company History videoRashad completed Oil Change Upselling

Actor verb objectActor verb object context

Mohammed wrote a blog post about local theatre that got 45 views and 3 comments

Oron rated ATD event Essentials of Creating Learning Experiences with xAPI @MMTorrance 4 stars “coffee rocked, nice use of WebEx”

Claire read Business Writing for ProfessionalsJohn practiced frosting birthday cakes

Lindsey watched the Company History videoRashad completed Oil Change Upselling Cynthia completed Oil Change Upselling score 60%

Ladan simulated landing at DTWArthi simulated landing at DTW in SimSuite #4 and

was rated 98% by Instructor

Experiment with statements here

http://adlnet.github.io/xapi-lab/

So what should we track & Measure?

Stop thinking about your courses

Start thinking about your questions.

Start thinking about what data would help you answer those questions.

You’re already using some ID concepts and techniques that will lend themselves well to an xAPI world …

!Design a solution to meet stated needs

!Respond to questions

correctly

! Decide a course of action

! Collect & enter data accurately

!Nail roof shingles safely

Practice in Training Know . . .

Business Goal that solves a

Business Problem

Adapted from: Cathy Moore

Cathy Moore’s Action Mapping

Kirkpatrick’s Levels of Training Evaluation

Level 2 Level 2 Level 3 / 4 Level 4 / 5

Behaviors

!Practice &

TestingKnowledge &

RetentionResults & ROI

Level 1

Satisfaction & Experience

SCORM

xAPI

The 70/20/10

People ExperienceFormal

SCORM

xAPI

Conrad gottfredson & bob mosher’s 5 (9) Moments of Learning Need

5 Moments of Learning Need: Gottfredson & Mosher http://www.learningsolutionsmag.com/articles/949/9 Moments of Need: Torrance https://www.td.org/Publications/Magazines/TD/TD-Archive/2014/09/Nine-Moments-of-Learning

Apply

New

More

Solve

Change

SCO

RM

xAPI

SCO

RMBefore

Prepare

Remember

Teach

An Experience Learning Model

Experience

Debrief

Reflection

Action Planning

What

What happened?

So what?

Now what?

What can you do now that you have xAPI?

• Learn more about the learning experience• Learn more about the

performance• Correlate learning with

performance• Correlate learning with

results• Correlate performance with

results• Offer more targeted training • Support performance in

better ways• Learn from others• Share learning with others• Compare performance and

learning across learners• Deliver and track training

outside of the LMS

What’s being done with xAPI now?

A lot of tools-based projects to learn more about the learning experience

PDFVideoDeveloper tools

Very granular learning experience data & testing results …

Reading back from the LRS to make smarter courses

From within the course: Where are you?What are you learning from other courses?What did you do before?

Reading actual performance data from other systems to make smarter courses

What are people doing that’s better than before?

Which learning experiences work best to improve performance?

Based on performance, what learning do I need? Not need?

Handles some things better than SCORM

Social learning GamificationBadging & credentialsAggregating across platformsFormal & Informal learning

Plus a bunch of somewhat boring things that learning tech ought to do but couldn’t with SCORM

Work offlineWork outside the LMSWork on a different server than the LMSComplex interaction & question-level data tracking

What’s an instructional designer to do?

Skills you need:• Instructional Design• Written Communication• Visual Communication• Developer Tools• Project Management

• JavaScript• Data Science• Data smarts• Good questions• Business acumen

What is a day hike?

Those first-step projects that: • Show real impact• Help you figure out your data issues• Prove your point• Free or very low cost• (Maybe even under the radar)

Things you can pick up and do without breaking other things.

Dollarphotoclub_60078630

Why do you need a day hike?

You can’t sell xAPI. (no one cares)

You can sell the connection between improved learning data and better organizational outcomes.

You probably need a proof-of-concept.

You have to show it.

SCORM on steroids

Where can I get it?

Sean Putman’s work in xapiquarterly.com

The hypomnema

Where can I get it?

https://github.com/TorranceLearning/bookmarklet

tincanapi.com/bookmarklet/

The experience learning to do list

Where can I get it?

https://github.com/TorranceLearning/xAPI-Gnome

Go forth.