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Dawn Peterson is a seasoned professional with a fervor for process improvement and change management. With more than 25 years of experience, Peterson has consistently enabled organizations to exceed their development and talent retention objectives. Her meticulous attention to detail and comprehensive analysis have led to the creation of effective learning and performance programs that deliver measurable results.Throughout her career, Peterson has embraced various roles, enhancing her ability to foresee needs, resolve issues, and convert requirements into effective development initiatives. As an instructional designer, graphic designer, manager, consultant, and mentor, she has developed a unique capability to address diverse and challenging demands with agility and enthusiasm.

Dawn Peterson

Prove It: Just What the Doctor Ordered

Here’s a brief infographic that highlights the five common game-play perspectives: side-scrolling, top-down, first-person, third-person, or mix of first and third person.

Building a Learning Game? Remember to Keep Your Perspective

What are Section 508 and WCAG? How do they differ? Why should you care? What tools can you use to make your e-learning courses follow accessibility best practices and adhere to the law? Have you ever thought about how someone with a disability experiences the online courses you create? What if your target audience includes people who are deaf or hard of hearing, color blind, visually impaired (partially or totally), or have limited mobility? Shouldn’t they be afforded the same learning opportunities and access to your courses?Section 508 and the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) help with just that—by establishing a set of rules that, when followed, will ensure your e-learning content is accessible to those with disabilities.What Are Section 508 and WCAG?Section 508 refers to an amendment of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973 that requires U.S. Federal agencies to make their electronic and information technology accessible to people with disabilities. The law includes a set of technical standards that establish requirements for software applications, operating systems, web-based information and applications, telecommunications hardware and software, and video and multimedia products.Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) are a technical standard outlining a set of guidelines and success criteria for making web content more accessible to people with disabilities. It was developed by the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C), an international community where members, staff, and the public work together to develop web standards. It is the same organization whose members are responsible for the original HTML, CSS, XML, and other specifications.There are three WCAG levels: A, AA, and AAA. Level A represents the minimum suggested accessibility standards for web-based content and most closely resembles the rules outlined in Section 508, while levels AA and AAA include more rigorous guidelines that further improve accessibility. Meeting level AA guidelines means meeting everything that’s A or AA, while meeting level AAA guidelines means meeting all guidelines—whether A, AA, or AAA.How Do Section 508 and WCAG Differ?Section 508 is part of a U.S. law (the Rehabilitation Act of 1973) and therefore only applies to the United States. Further, the law itself only requires that U.S. Federal agencies comply. Alternatively, WCAG is not a law and is instead only a set of guidelines. These guidelines, however, have been agreed upon internationally as the appropriate standard for ensuring web-based content is accessible to people with disabilities.To put it simply, WCAG is a set of best practices that applies to web-based content in general, and Section 508 is a law requiring mainly U.S. government entities to comply with a set of rules covering a broader span of electronic and information technology. See the breakdown below:Section 508 United States only Law Required for federal agencies One set of standards for different types of electronic communication (software, operating systems, web-based content, etc.)W3C – WCAG 2.0 International Suggested guidelines Optional best practices for any organization Three levels of guidelines of increasing rigor specifically for web-based contentWhy Should You Care?E-learning is a type of web-based content, and therefore, the technical standards outlined in the WCAG and Section 508 §1194.22 apply, if you want or need to make your e-learning courses accessible to those with disabilities. If you’re creating e-learning content for a U.S. government entity, your e-learning content likely needs to be 508-compliant. Several state government entities also require 508-compliance. Also, if you’re not creating e-learning courses directly for a government agency, but you provide services to or are funded by the government, it’s likely that some form of 508-compliance also applies to you.Similar laws exist in other countries for their government entities, but most other countries have chosen to adopt WCAG as a legal requirement, rather than drafting their own rules. So if you’re creating e-learning content for government entities in other countries, there’s a chance that some level of the WCAG applies to you.Even if you aren’t required by law to meet the guidelines, isn’t making your e-learning courses more accessible to people with disabilities the right thing to do? You may immediately think “Yes,” however, that the extra cost, effort, and sometimes compromised experience keep many non-government organizations from making accessibility a priority. Instead, they will often choose to use “reasonable accommodation” and provide training in another way, such as having someone sit down with the person and go through the training together.Before you make a decision for your own organization or try to convince a client one way or another, consider the following statistics based on U.S. Census data:Approximately 56.7 million (about 19 percent) people living in the U.S. had some kind of disability in 2010. This number increased by 2.2 million between 2005 and 2010. \[Source\] Of the 241.7 million adults aged 15 and older, about 14.9 million or 6.2 percent of adults aged 15 and older experienced some level of difficulty with seeing, hearing, or having their speech understood. \[Source\] Individuals with disabilities account for approximately 9.4 million (about 6%) of the 155.9 million civilian labor force (for the time period 2008-2010). \[Source\]**Which E-Learning Authoring Tools Are Best?**Three of the most popular Windows-based, non-PowerPoint-plugin rapid e-learning authoring tools are Adobe Captivate, Articulate Storyline, and Trivantis Lectora. Each has its strengths and weaknesses in general, which Diane Elkins covers at length in her regular tools comparison blogs, but when it comes to complying with accessibility standards, there’s still plenty that divides them.Each tool states that courses published with it can adhere to Section 508. However, both Storyline and Lectora include documentation stating their respective tool satisfies the WCAG level AA. We were unable to find specific documentation relative to Captivate's capabilities for creating courses that can adhere to the different levels of the WCAG.Ultimately, all three tools let you create accessible content. While one tool may rate better than the others in its ease-of-use or ability to meet the requirements, all three end up with fairly consistent total scores. Here’s a closer look at how Captivate 8, Storyline 2 (Update 5), and Lectora 12 fulfill several accessibility requirements, as well as their rankings for creating accessible courses. (Please note that 1 equals the highest rating.)Accessibility Requirement: Text AlternativesProviding a text alternative that describes media such as images or audio narration is important for people with compromised vision. The primary way to make our media accessible is by creating ALT tags for images and text transcripts for audio.Ranking:  Storyline  Captivate  LectoraStoryline gets the highest ranking because it allows you to manage all of your ALT tags for a given slide in one place. Lectora and Captivate require that ALT text be managed on an object-by object basis, but Captivate gets a higher score than Lectora because, like Storyline, it allows for more characters within ALT text. Further, while adding text transcripts is possible in all three tools, the Storyline player’s built-in transcript panel makes it the easiest tool for creating a static text transcript of audio.Accessibility Requirement: Focus/Tab OrderFocus and Tab Order apply to those with compromised vision and/or mobility. This is the order in which the page will be read or processed by a screen reader. It is also the order in which objects will receive focus when pressing Tab on your keyboard. Purely decorative items, such as shapes and lines, should never receive focus, nor be announced by screen readers, since they are not important to understanding the content.Ranking:  Storyline  Captivate  LectoraStoryline is strongest here because, like with ALT text, you can manage Tab and Focus Order for all objects on a slide in a single dialog box. This includes removing items from the Tab Order so they never receive focus.You can manage Tab Order in both Captivate and Lectora, but the ordering also affects layering (or z-order), which can sometimes cause conflict when you want the layering order to be different than the Tab order. Both tools provide a means of flagging items that should not receive Focus, but this has to be done on each individual object. Captivate gets the higher mark between the two since it provides a dialog box that allows you change the Focus and Tab Order of interactive objects.Accessibility Requirement: Synchronized CaptioningSection 508 and the WCAG require synchronized captioning for multimedia such as animated objects synchronized with audio and video, and video that includes audio. It is important for those with compromised vision and/or hearing.Ranking:  Lectora  Captivate  StorylineLectora and Captivate are close in this category, as both provide a means of adding closed captioning to your courses. Both allow you to set the timing of when captions appear and disappear, and provide player controls for turning the captions on and off. We give the higher rating to Lectora because it allows you to import industry-standard caption files (such as those provided by 3PlayMedia.) With Captivate, you have to type each caption and synchronize it manually, but there is an easy-to-use utility to help you do it.Storyline is the weakest in this area. It requires manually adding text blocks as captions, timing them appropriately with the content, and setting up a way to turn those captions on and off. In other words, you can create a similar end product, but there isn’t a feature dedicated for this.Accessibility Requirement: Skip Navigation CapabilitiesImagine if you have a menu button, glossary button, exit button, and more that appear on each page of your course. For learners relying on screen readers, this means those items will be announced on every slide or page they visit. This can get annoying fast! Section 508 and the WCAG require that those relying on screen readers have the ability to skip all redundant navigation items so they can get right to the main content of each page.Ranking: Lectora Storyline, CaptivateLectora is the strongest here, because there are no limitations to how you set this up. You can set the course to skip as many elements on the page as necessary. Storyline and Captivate are tied because they provide close to the same solution. They both provide the ability to skip navigation components that are part of the player, but there are no out-of-the-box capabilities for skipping redundant controls that are part of your slide content.Accessibility Requirement: Data TablesTables that contain data, where understanding the arrangement of the data is necessary to understand the data itself, are not (by default) able to be interpreted by those with compromised vision. Section 508 and WCAG require that when data tables are present, they are labeled in a way that screen readers can interpret the data.Ranking: Lectora Storyline, CaptivateLectora gets the highest rating in this category because first, it supports adding tables to your content, and second, it provides a means of appropriately labeling the table in order for it to be read by screen readers. Captivate has an interaction widget that lets you create tables, but it does not have the behind-the-scenes programming needed to be compliant. Storyline does have the ability to insert a table. With both those tools, any information presented in a table has to be treated as a graphic with an appropriate text alternative for interpreting the table.Moving ForwardIf you’ve come this far, you should now have a good understanding of Section 508 and the WCAG, how they differ, and why they matter to those of us developing e-learning courses. Your next step will be to understand and learn how to implement the requirements in your own courses. Keep in mind, it’s far easier to begin your development process with accessibility in mind than to have to retrofit current courses to meet the requirements. Luckily, there are several resources available online to help. Use these online resources to stay informed and learn more about Section 508 and the WCAG.Section 508 Standards for Electronic and Information Technology Section 508 Technical Standards for Web-based Intranet and Internet Information and Applications Access Board whitepaper on e-learning and accessibility Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.0 How to Meet WCAG 2.0 Storyline and Section 508 Accessibility Developing Accessible Content in Lectora Creating Accessible Projects (in Adobe Captivate) One-hour webinar overview of Section 508 and WCAG (E-Learning Uncovered)

Accessibility for E-Learning: Section 508 and WCAG

Talent development professionals help others. Ben Nemtin, star of The Buried Life, called attention to that in his keynote address closing out the Association for Talent Development’s Virtual Conference: Unleash Potential. And he noted that attendees could likely relate to his bucket list pursuits that entailed not only going after the big things he wanted to do before he died but also involved helping others.The Roots of The Buried LifeAs he began his session “Impossible to Possible,” Nemtin spoke about falling into depression after seemingly being on top of the world as he graduated high school in Victoria, British Columbia, Canada. He had a spot on the national under-19s rugby team and a college scholarship.But that joy soon turned to anxiety, trouble sleeping, and then depression. He became a shut-in in his family’s home, not understanding why he was feeling the way he was. A summer in a new town, securing a job that brought him confidence, and talking with others about his feelings led Nemtin to start turning the corner. From there, he decided to only surround himself with people who inspired him. He found three individuals who fit that definition: Jonnie, Duncan, and Dave.Sketchnotes provided by See In ColorsWhat followed was their decision to make a film. The quartet were inspired by the Matthew Arnold poem The Buried Life, in which the poet described how we all too often leave our dreams and aspirations buried with day-to-day life getting in the way.To avoid dying without living their dreams, the young men created a bucket list—the stipulations being that they would act as if they had $10 million in the bank and that the goals had to be crazy big. They also knew they wouldn’t be able to accomplish their goals by themselves. They decided that every time they crossed off an item on their list, they would help a stranger do the same.The list that Ben and his friends crafted included such things as helping deliver a baby, having a beer with Prince Harry, and playing basketball with President Barack Obama. That last one required all the grit and persistence they could muster, including dealing with a number of rejections before it finally happened.“Doing what you love actually inspires others to do what they love,” said Nemtin. There’s a ripple effect. The same ripple effect occurs when you help others: They, in turn, have a propensity to help those around them.Your Resiliency Tool KitTo be able to help others, you need to take care of yourself, emphasized Nemtin. Here are some tips to do so, and these comprise what he calls his resiliency tool kit.Gratitude. Think of one thing each night before you go to bed and one thing in the morning when you get up that you are grateful for. They can be as minor as a meal with a loved one, a walk, or the sun being out.Exercise. You don’t have to go for 60 minutes, Nemtin pointed out. Five minutes of push-ups or a 15-minute walk will help you release negative emotions.Mindfulness. This can take the form of the Headspace or other app, a walk, meditation, or being cognizant to breathe deeply from your abdomen.Detox. This may mean staying off social media for 24 hours or avoiding the news for the same period. When you return, only use the tools that bring you joy—come back in control of how you spend your time.Connect. To ease anxiety and stress, talk with friends or a therapist, continued Nemtin.Purpose. This is what the bucket list is all about: doing the things that are most important to you and that bring you joy.Help others. You can’t feel bad when you’re helping others.Nature. If you’re unable to actually go outside for 15 minutes right now because of the pandemic, bring nature inside by getting a plant or two.Fulfilling Personal GoalsThough this belief is hopefully shifting, it’s long been the pervasive mindset that pursuing our personal dreams is selfish. Nemtin refuted that, noting that pursing our dreams is actually a service. Prioritizing your goals, he says, is beneficial to you, your friends and family, your career, and your organization. And if organizations and leaders create an environment that encourages people to go after what they want, those individuals are far more likely to stick around.Psychologist Tom Gilovich reported in his research “The Ideal Road Not Taken” that 76 percent of people identified on their death beds that their greatest regret was not fulfilling their ideal self. What leads people to stop short of that goal? Nemtin identified two reasons. One is that—unlike work goals and duties—our personal goals have no deadlines. The second is that we often lack the inspiration to move forward. To that, Nemtin suggested that we create our own inspiration through small steps and think of “dreams as projects.”Here are five steps he outlined to accomplish your personal goals:Write them down. Putting them down on paper makes them real.Share them. As Nemtim showed with his bucket list, you need others’ help. All too often, we don’t share our goals due to fear—either because we’re afraid of what others may think or because we fear falling short of accomplishing them.Persist. Sometimes we fail because we give up too quickly. Nemtin showcased his persistence in his and his friends’ efforts to play basketball with President Obama.Go for moonshots. Nemtin, smiling, noted that the level of competition for reachable goals is much higher than the competition for ambitious moonshot goals, which few people strive for.Give. Nemtin briefly recalled speaking at ATD TechKnowledge 2019, where he shared the stage with Tiago, a brain stem tumor sufferer who, through the Make a Wish Foundation, expressed his desire to go bobsledding. As a result of Nemtin and the conference attendees, Tiago realized his dream.Ripple effects happen not only from big things—for example, a smile causes a ripple, as does a compliment—Nemtin pointed out. And we don’t necessarily see those reactions happening, and that includes training and development results. But know that as talent development professionals, said Nemtin, you create a positive difference in others.Share your ATD Virtual Conference experience on social media. #ATDVirtualConference

Ripple Effect of Helping Others

What is microlearning? Well, it depends on who you ask.Most people agree microlearning involves learning in short bursts. Some say four minutes or less. Others say up to an hour. Sharon Boller suggests bite-sized content only works for short-term training and reinforcement, but Will Thalheimer believes you can successfully teach course-like material in five-minute chunks.Still others think microlearning isn’t even about short content—that it’s about cramming lots of learning into a short amount of time. And plenty have condemned it as a shiny buzzword, an unserious approach, some kind of flimflam.More than a fuzzy label or iron-clad model, microlearning is a philosophy—one that says thinking small is the best chance we have for overcoming the huge challenges facing both L&D leaders and the greater 21st century workforce. A Better Way to Think About MicrolearningThe broadest and most useful definition of microlearning is "learning, and applying what one has learned, in small, focused steps.” Ideally, each of these microlearning steps is:self-contained, with its own learning objectivea small win on the way to a larger goal (for example, learning to make eye contact is a step toward becoming a competent presenter)as short as possible, but as extensive as necessary.These self-contained steps can take many forms, from short videos explaining a concept, to a quiz helping to recall it, to a short practice task in which you apply it, to an email that reinforces it. Again, this is not a hard and fast prescription. But it’s a way of thinking that focuses on what people really need to do their jobs, and helps build learning around those application points in a way that’s easily personalized.Right now, learners are bogged down with bloated content and one-size-fits-all lectures that provide too much inert information—all at once, and out of context. We must eliminate the cruft that has accumulated around learning, and a micro approach might be the best way to do it.Microlearning Is More Than MomentsIt’s easy to get hung up on the time factor of microlearning, as in: “anything over a few minutes isn’t microlearning.” It’s true, units of microlearning tend to be short—a step along a particular learning path might take the form of a single image. But, more importantly, the micro perspective isn’t just about small content; it’s about taking a small-scale approach to many factors that influence learning.Cognitive load. Learners are routinely overburdened by unfocused, information-heavy content. Microlearning aims to reduce cognitive load, making it easier for learners to process and put to use.Space. Since smaller content takes up less digital space, you can avoid bandwidth problems that come with storing and managing large media files—especially on mobile devices.Scope. Micro content is more focused in scope, making it easier for a learner to tie what they learn directly to specific on-the-job actions.Cost. Short content is cheaper and faster to produce and update, so you can continually test and experiment, even on the tightest budgets.Perspective. Microlearning forces us to consider the small learning moments and opportunities that happen continuously throughout an employee’s day.Like microeconomics, which is concerned less with small transactions than it is with small segments of the entire economy, microlearning is less concerned with small content than it is with small segments of the much broader organizational learning picture.The Big Picture of MicrolearningThe tiny pins in the above image are arranged to form a picture of a face. But they could very easily be rearranged to take the shape of an apple or a hand. Likewise, the tiny pieces of a microlearning program afford flexibility that traditional learning systems do not.Here’s an example of what I mean: We know from research that spacing and repetition are powerful best practices for successful learning. We also know that increasing variation, interleaving assessments, and staggering practice are also tremendously effective ways to help people learn.But these things—repetition, spacing, variation, interleaving—are very hard to do at scale unless the units you’re dealing with are small. (Just imagine trying to repeatedly space a one-hour lecture.) Plus, today’s organizations need to be able to quickly update content, swap media in and out, and cater to increasingly personalized needs. To do this for hundreds or thousands of employees in dozens of constantly changing areas of concern, while being asked to show ROI, is nearly impossible without the kind of nimbleness a microlearning approach provides.Small Step for Learning, Giant Leap For L&DThere’s no easy solution to the many problems we’re facing around 21st century learning and development. Widening skills gaps…sprawling logistical challenges brought on by increasing decentralization…perennially unstable budgets…the list goes on. Microlearning can’t solve these challenges overnight. But by addressing inefficiencies at the small level, we can set ourselves up to tackle problems at the macro level that would be insurmountable otherwise. Whether you’re a fierce advocate of microlearning, a staunch dissenter, or you haven’t yet made up your mind, one thing remains clear: companies need to start thinking small when it comes to organizational learning. And that philosophy of thinking small, more than any other debate around labels, models, or semantics is really what microlearning is all about.Please keep the conversation going and share your thoughts on microlearning in the Comments.

Will the Real Microlearning Please Stand Up?

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The Value of a Culture Fit Assessment: Equally Assess for Personality

Dr. Dan Harrison is the founder and developer of Harrison Assessments' and originator of ParadoxTechnology as used in Harrison Assessments. His diverse background in Mathematics, Personality Theory, Counseling Psychology, and Organizational Psychology has enabled him to make a unique and exceptional contribution to assessment methodology.His 30 years of experience in Psychology and Assessment has enabled the Harrison Assessment tools to fulfill practical needs for recruitment, development and assessment. Dr Harrison's' ongoing world-wide travel gives him direct involvement with the needs of Harrison Assessments' clients and exposes him to the appropriate practical application in a wide variety of cultures.

Dan Harrison

Dan McGrath outlines how to secure and maximize the right meeting with the right person—so you can drive sales.

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