EP035: Interview with Karl G.Richter

Welcome to the Instructional Redesign Podcast. Today our guest is Carl Richter. He is the owner of eLearningBluense. He works with teams to create custom eLearning that blends online training with classroom experiences and performance support tools. He also works as an eLearning coach and facilitator for both individuals and groups of all sizes. Carl, welcome to the Instructional Redesign Podcast. Thank you Joe. My pleasure. Happy to be here. Happy to have you on. So I understand this is your first podcast interview and we're honored to have you. First one ever, I'm very excited. I can already tell you're gonna be great. So let's start with an introduction and have you describe your learning and development journey to get up to this point where you are now. Yeah, good question. How do you end up as an eLearning guy? My story actually starts in Taiwan. I was after college. I decided I wanted to travel and see the world. This was in the late '90s. So I did the teaching, "Glish Overseas" thing. And after four years of doing that, I got bored and I started taking online classes. That we had dial up internet at the time. And I started taking these classes. They were all text-based, but I thought, you know, as the internet bandwidth gets better and better, we're really gonna be able to do some amazing things with technology and educating people. So when I came back to the US, I started googling for, you know, distance learning. It was the only thing that I knew that it was called. And I found a program in educational technology at San Diego State and started learning graphic design skills at a separate school and an edtech at San Diego State and then just sort of fell into freelancing. And then now here I am nearly 20 years later, still at it. - That's amazing. Even though your story is, you kind of fell into it as far as L&D journeys go, that's one of the more intentional stories that I've ever heard because you were like, "Okay, what is this thing called?" And at the time, distance learning was probably the closest term. And then you kind of went headfirst into it. That's really cool. - Yeah, thank you. I was lucky to have some good opportunities. San Diego had a program basically for unemployed people like me 'cause of my only work experience at that point was teaching English. And even in San Diego, there wasn't a big need for that. So I was trying to figure out what career to do. And I found that they had a nine month program, five hours of software training a day for nine months and it was completely free. So my mom was nice enough to let me stay in her guest room while I went through that class. And then I got a job in the computer lab and was taking classes at night. So I just went like all in. And I actually started as a person who didn't light computers and didn't think computers were good for people. And then being overseas and trying to connect and keep in touch with people back home, I realized that boy, they really are a great way for us to connect and share and stay in touch with one another as well. So. - You saw the light. - I did. - So we have a mutual connection through Mike Taylor. He was the person who I think first pointed you out to me, which I'm grateful for because you have this kind of fun and creative approach to the work of instructional design and e-learning development, which I find refreshing. And it's one of the reasons I wanted to have you on today to basically just give others a chance to discover you and all the interesting things that you do and share. - Yeah, thank you. Big shout to Mike and to you for having me on here. I really, I mentioned that I didn't think computers were great for people. My undergrad was in anthropology. So I've always been fascinated in what we do our instincts as humans. And one of the things that, as we get into this information age, we see that people really have this like need for information. And one of my needs is the connect and share and to focus on what's so interesting and fun about things. 'Cause the bar is so low. They're compliance trading in that. Just a little bit of fun. I think it could enjoy for the craft of what we do. I think it could go a long way. - I totally agree as someone who has created many a compliance course in his day. I totally agree. And so a prime example of you kind of infusing creativity in what you do is right there in your company name, e-learning blends. I really like that. Can you kind of talk us through what that name means and how it ties into food and recipes? - I would be happy to. So I started off freelancing, working first with Captivate and then five years before storyline was when I first started using their articulate products. And I got a reputation for making these things. But I found that they worked best when it's like pre-work before a class experience or something that they're not just part of a standalone thing. So I wanted to avoid being type cast or pigeonholed and of being Carl, the e-learning guy. And have this be part of a solution. Like that's what I think is fun for this is, we're trying to fix problems that places are having. So why don't we look at the mix of tools that we have and do play into the strengths of all the different ones. So it didn't hurt Joe that the URL was available. I will say that that was a big part of it. One of my instructors, Allison Rossett at San Diego State did a talk on blended learning and it, it really stuck with me that we're looking at a mix of technologies each to meet people in different ways. And I thought the idea of a blend captures that one of my frustrating things is that people say, oh, well, people are having trouble with communication. We'll bring them in for a half a day workshop and then that should fix all their problems. It's like boy, that would be great. It would be so nice if you can just wave a magical wand or just dip people in training and then they're all fixed. It really is something that's a process with a number of resources that takes place over time. - Yeah, it's always interesting when a domain name is available. It's like there's a mix of excitement and at least for me, hesitation 'cause I'm like, wait, why is this still open? Is it something that I'm so obscure and weird in my thinking that it's not something that's really gonna resonate with people. So that's cool that you got the name and that it is actually something that is a cool analogy. I like it. Along those lines, I know you have a thing that you call, well, it's basically an analogy to the food pyramid. Walk us through that 'cause I like that. It's really creative as well. - Oh, I would love to. I've kind of reached the point in my career where I've been doing this long enough where at the start of my career, I was just trying to get more work for myself. And now, as a full-time freelancer for 20 years, it's like I'm at the point now where it's fun for me to give back to other designers and to share what I've learned and tried. And you have to package it in a way that's interesting and memorable. I have four kids at home. At the time, they were one, three, three, and five. They're a couple years older now, but I was looking at all the vegetables that we prepared for dinner, the wonderful leafy green vegetables that kids need to grow. And they didn't touch it. And we're just scraping it off and it's in the trash at the end of the night. And I thought about how that's like, some of the more poor modules that I've had to make where we spend all the cost to prepare it and get it ready. And we put it in front of our learners and then they just click next as many times as they can and then they take their chances with the quiz. And it's not nourishing their brains at all in a very primal way that I thought, you know, gosh, there's something to this that there's a connection between how nutrition helps our bodies grow and the way good information presented in a way that's interesting and give people the chance to practice can really help the brain grow. So kind of just thought on that for a little bit. And I've come up with a blended learning food pyramid where I talk about the main course and vegetables and carbs and fruits, even butter and dessert. And I have a whole parallels for all of those. I'm launching a little mini course on, I'm actually doing it as a male chimp drip that people can sign up and get a new lesson every week for six weeks just as a chance to go through and to learn more about this kind of, I guess weird metaphor, but it's a palatable introduction to blended learning for people who are curious about it. Would you like me to go into it more and share what each of those things mean? - Absolutely, I would love that. - All right. So the main course, if you're thinking about Thanksgiving, what would Thanksgiving be without turkey? You need that like main dish that one thing, the sides on their own are wonderful, but if you just have mashed potatoes and green bean casserole and pumpkin pie, it feels like they're. or something lacking. So in the blended learning pyramid, I think the real star of the show is some kind of life, some kind of synchronous instruction. And I'm intentionally not saying in person because I think as the world has changed, even when I first came up with this, it's not important that you're in the same room with someone because we've all sat in the room with somebody who's just reading every word of their PowerPoint slides. And even though it's live, it really could have just been an e-learning module because there's no interaction. I think like the main star of the show is some kind of synchronous action that there is some activity that takes place between the learners and the content and that you've got a facilitator, whether it's on Zoom or in person that can kind of adapt and work with that and react to that. But that's really where the real magic happens. - Mm-hmm. So then what do you put next to your turkey? You have some kind of a carb, some kind of a starchy, yummy thing. I like mashed potatoes and gravy for turkey. I think those are a lot like your online lessons in that they're cheap, they're easy to find. You can late at night, you can always find something with lots of carbs in it. Maybe a little tougher to find a midnight salad, but those online modules are there for you around the clock. And I think carbs and online modules both have sort of have that in common that they're a nice ingredient as part of it. But if you fill up on nothing but starchy food, if you take nothing but online modules, you're just gonna feel kind of full and bloated. You need to have a mix of other technologies as well. - Right, I'm thinking right now both of the physical sensation of maybe only eating some potatoes and my stomach being upset and then sitting through maybe like two hours of e-learning and my brain being upset. So I think that analogy works very well. - Oh, thank you. Yeah, it's hard because they're so wonderful and efficient, but there's other tools and other things that you really need to combine with them too. So the next thing I put on my plate are vegetables. Of course, you wanna have a nice balance diet. I think everybody knows that vegetables are good for you. If I'm being honest, I'm pretty good about having a salad at lunch most days. I've sort of forced myself to do this as a middle-aged guy who started putting on weight, even before the pandemic. I had to make a real effort to kind of manage my way slide. But I think that what happens in your e-learning program, you don't wanna have a lot of real good performance support tools. Those like reference guides or cheat sheets or things to look up outside of the class. There's a lot of ways to meet learners in their time of need. And a lot of times as instructional designers, we just get too focused on the materials they're gonna use during the actual session or the module that we need to assign to them. And not so much in terms of the things that that just in time when they're out on the floor and they need to look something up. Are we giving them good access to resources like that? So I think vegetables and the performance support tools are both cheap and easy to prepare. And sadly, Joe, most people don't get enough of them. - Yeah, I totally agree with that. What a great analogy to just lay out the different modalities and things that we have at our disposal as different learning solutions. I really like your food pyramid analogy. - Oh, thank you. I'm hoping it sticks to people's ribs and it's something that, I'm not inventing any of these things. I'm just trying to spice it up the way we think about them and to piggyback on, that's what's so fun as an instructional designer. It's like, how do it's the game of how do we get it to stick in their heads? How do we make them care? How do we make them change their behavior? And in a world where we have so much information, it's a real challenge to make things memorable. And that's really bottom line. That's what I love about our craft. Memorable was the word I was just thinking of. And we have like, it's a double edged sword for us, especially today because we first have to get people's attention. And one of the things I like to say is, if attention was ever mandatory, it's no longer mandatory. We need to grab people's attention and just saying, this is a mandatory assignment, doesn't do it. We really need to capture people's attention or else like you said, they're just gonna hit the next button to get through it or do something in the background while something plays or just tune out actually in a live IELT session even. So we have to grab their attention. And then once we have it, we need to present them with something that is memorable, that they can walk away with and apply. So I don't agree with you then. - I haven't been able to work this into my food pyramid, but I think that the most important blend, of all the different blends, formal and informal and synchronous and asynchronous and all those things, most important blend is a mix of active learning and passive learning. That it's very easy to just fall into the habit of give people information, give people information, but the brain needs to actively pull that information. They need to recall it and practice it and to work with it. And I think that's the real challenge, I think, is to find ways using the tools that we have to make active learning experiences for our learners. And if you can figure out a way to squeeze that into the food pyramid, please call me anytime, day or night, 'cause that's a real key concept that I think when it comes to explaining blended learning to other people. And one of these days, that the food metaphor will hit me for it. - You know, maybe it's the difference between consuming calories and burning calories. - I like that. - There you go. - Yeah. - Free ideas from Joe Swarris. - I like that a lot. I have the social learning in there. I've tried to put as like, are you gonna eat up by yourself in the cafeteria? Are you gonna like go out to dinner with friends? Like we can eat and share information that the social learning is eating new ideas in a group. And typically we're doing these self-study modules in just like, it reminds me of Tom Hanks and Castaway. He's just like there with your volleyball named Wilson, take a score of modules. And I think that shouldn't be our default. We can rescue our learners from that. So the other things in the food pyramid, I've got fruit, butter and desserts. I'll go through those kind of quickly here. But I think that fruits, in the old school food pyramid that fruits and vegetables were kind of lumped together. And I think that vegetables or performance support tools I think fruit thanks to Apple making the smartphone that I think fruit is like your mobile learning that I think it's just they're so tantalizing. We just love our phones and we can't put them down. We're constantly with them there. And we have all these performance support tools. So I think that a strategy where you include that is just a real juicy way to deliver learning. Butter. So I think that butter is a lot like printed materials in that if you have, I don't know a whole lot about cooking. But I know that adding just a little more butter than you typically should makes the experience better. What's in these green beans? And I'm just thinking to myself, I've just put in more butter than I should. But tends to make people like it. And I think a well designed print resource can do the same thing. If you're taking an online module, unless you're really adept, you're probably not going to be taking notes online. But you can take notes if you want to. And when I say printed module, what I really mean is printable that some people like me are old school and they like a pen and paper. And they find that actually writing in the sheet helps me remember the takeaways. I literally go through and I write out my learning objectives. And then I just do a fill in the blank by removing one or two words from each of those objectives. So there's sort of this given inertia that people want to complete this as they're going through. It's like, OK, these are the four things I need to know. Let me make sure I know each of those four words that's missing. So I really mean printable, not actually printed out, because other people, Mike Taylor, for instance, hates it when he gets a printed handout, because he wants it all digital to share and to complete online. And I fill out all these things with pen and then I lose them. So I really do wish that they were electrotic. And then the last little step in my food pyramid is the idea of desserts and how we're spending our mental calories. I think that games are really terrific. And they're very important and they can make people excited. It can be someone's favorite part of the meal. But sometimes you get too wrapped up in the game part of the game that you lose a little bit of attention to the actual content part of it. So that I really use dessert as like, hey, I'm not saying ice cream's bad. I love ice cream. I eat it way more than I should. I love games. I think that games are really important, but you do need to with with all of them You need to find the right balance so that you're not having people so focused on the catch the fish part of the game that they're not Catching any of the real takeaways that you want them to get that's my food pyramid. That's so cool all of it together But that that last part with the dessert and in the gaming, you know, Cara and I on previous episodes have talked about There's kind of these two pillars to effective games where on the one hand it's it's needs to be entertaining But on the other hand, it needs to be educational and too much of one of the other and it something's off like if it's too much education Especially if it's something geared towards a younger audience They can smell that substance up like hey, you're but trying to make me learn something, aren't you? And with adults I think there's a tendency to want to kind of tune out if if they realize that it's really not that fun after all But if it's too much of an entertainment thing which Probably is my critique for some of these platforms that are really game-focused I think that the entertainment side of it maybe goes a little bit too far and it's like I don't know about the educational aspect of this So there's kind of this double edge sword in that regard Right just because there's a couple facts in there doesn't mean that we're really getting them into deep or learning You know you have to know stuff to complete this game But is it helping them that it needs to overlap with their job and the things that they need to do to perform well to really impress me and that's a really tough act to pull off so Yeah, I think the the things that I've seen that do it effectively are something that make you again going back to that grabbing the attention and making things memorable They get you interested in a topic that you wouldn't think you would be otherwise and Suddenly you're invested in it. So There was one a while back about What it would really be like to be an Uber driver or a ride chair They didn't actually specify Uber but yeah, and then you have to make decisions like are you going to Take the day off to take care of your sick kid or are you gonna actually go out and are you going to you know Just all these tough decisions to really put yourself in the shoes of a ride chair driver and See just how difficult it is and how thin the margins can be and how are you supposed to live on that kind of money? So yeah, that again made that all possible so And there's there's sort of a fundamental difference between getting a multiple choice question wrong and you just want to move on with your life And being a failed Uber driver where you want to see if you can pull it off and that's the real sweet side of games That I think it's just terrific to say like hey Give me a place where I made something recently for a hospital client where they're having nurses Identify the signs of cardiac arrest and that they're they're trying to see okay What could be causing this person to have this heart condition and you know we're literally making hits so our little stock characters Die if they're making the wrong choice because We can just hit a button in the clip art people come back to life We want them to have those tough experiences and to learn from them. That's what's so great about games And you know, it's it's it's really neat. I Worry that the takeaway from that is is saying don't do games and I say do games just just use them with caution I'm I've been have you heard of the Clark Aldridge course on short Sims It sounds familiar. I mean I definitely heard his name. He does some really things. It's short sims.com You can see some examples of them But it it sounds very similar to what you're describing with the Uber driver where you go through and you give people Choices to make and then all of the learning takes place in the consequences to those choices so that you're getting feedback from that So I went through his short Sims class this year and I recently joined Anna Subramowitz's interactive storytelling Academy Which both of those have been really just eye-opening ways in terms of making things that are really engaging to learners and letting us Practice in the safe confines of it learning management system module So that we're out taking care of people with cardiac conditions that that we know our stuff and we can make the right choices There. Yeah, just the the power of Storytelling and putting that into a scenario format or even a game format It's just so powerful and I was reading a book actually kind of rereading it recently it's called You are not so smart. I think is the title and it opens with this example that just kind of wrecks my brain because it's like Here's a here's a problem and then it had like nothing attached to it except like numbers and then it wanted me to solve it And it was like really hard to think through what the answer was and then it said here's the same problem except now It's assigned to like people and there's names and things like that and it was super easy to figure out what was going on And it was like demonstrating in real time. It's like now you see the the result of Evolving to be a social creature that we can identify things quickly when it's tied to to people and social things that that we're we've evolved to Recognize and I think by extension putting things in a scenario format In a simulation that it's tied to storytelling in a strong way has that that same result Just like we were talking about with like the the ride-share game versus Something else Yeah, our brain. It's all about you know getting getting the most miles per gallon out of our mental energy that you know How far can we get before we we Lose our concentration and we can't pay attention any longer and we're built to understand people and stories and consequences for them So I'm a big fan of you know even I just did an e-learning module for Driver awareness safety training for you know the the the bread and butter of every freelancer As all these LMS modules and they gave me a list of things not to do and I went ahead and I Blue out like characters for them so that we had Betty back up who doesn't look over shoulder when she's driving a big truck And we have Tammy texts a lot who can't put down her phone and Willie the wild man who drives too fast and it's like immediately Those bullets come to life and you can kind of understand the personas behind these people and that they're catchy and memorable and I've really got a Good good mileage out of that one. Yeah, that sounds like it So you do all this this cool and creative stuff and One of the ways that you share that with the world is through your YouTube channel that you have and I know you've been Experimenting with some live streams there that you've been calling Monday, Funday So talk to me about that and and how that's going Yeah, I Choked that my YouTube channel is like kind of my midlife crisis I assure you I'm doing fine. I'm not in a crisis But I kind of hit that point of my life where it's like I want to give back and share More of what I know that it seems selfish to hold all this wisdom to myself So I started making these videos and gosh I started five or six years ago making videos and trying to do that and it's Honestly, it's it's just a labor of love. I don't have a lot of Subscribers though I would love for you to go to YouTube and type in eLearning blends or my name Carl with the K Carl G Richter I'm I'm starting to do more with I've started doing the live shows. I've started doing more like green screen work and some sort of software training But really in the next year I'm gonna try and sort of build on that blended learning food pyramid and start sharing What I call are just like eLearning recipes. So looking at different learning technologies that we can combine in different ways for doing that It's sort of like a recipe book, you know, I don't cook my wife does all the cooking at our house, but I Think that a lot of times you can look in a recipe book and just kind of get inspiration for what it is that you want to make so I'm going to be doing more videos on these eLearning recipes and the the Monday, Friday project was something that I started right after January 6th we had the The insurrection or whatever you want to call it at the Capitol My mom had had a stroke the week before we'd all been dealing with COVID and we hadn't had any There were no vaccines. There was just like a really dark time in the world and for me personally and I said you know what I want to Make a video week for the next year and I'm coming up. I've got three videos left to hit my goal Joe I was like for the next year every week. I'm just gonna make a video about something that I like about our craft So some of them I'm talking about why I like Maslow's hammer or why I'm talking about, you know Why I like blended solutions some of them are a little more abstract, but a lot of times I just wanted to counteract some of the negativity that's in the world with a positive look Something to sort of start your week with a little smile. So I'm not sure if I'm going to keep doing Monday, Monday next year But I've really enjoyed doing that and sharing my fun and optimistic take on our craft Yeah, and I just appreciate that kind of attitude and your decision to, you know what, I'm going to do something positive and then following through with it. That's really awesome. I actually set out a goal for myself last year that I'm going to do one video a week and it's going to be a 52 video challenge or something and yeah, I didn't stick with that. I think I it's hard and videos so far. Yeah, and also I was thinking of like more vlogging style videos, which are really hard to do like different locations and scenes and mixing them all together. It looks easy in the end, but that stuff can be really hard. Yeah, the people who make it look effortless really have a skill because there's quite a lot that goes into it. I was making those like two to three minute videos and I would spend probably three or four hours a week doing each one of those and I'm using a new tool now that makes it a little bit easier for me to get a green screen in place. So I'm hoping that I can, you know, continue doing that and you know, really I think it's nice the work that we do if there's a way to sort of show the different tools that on the one hand there's an idea for just like different technologies to combine, but there's also a lot of like here's how to how to work smarter, not harder and that you know, you can use your time wisely. We're all trying to get so much done all the time that I'm I'm trying to make those sort of work smart, not hard videos for just little tools that are tips that I've picked up as a developer. Yeah, and just thanks for sharing that with the world because right now there's so many of those tools. I think it's hard to keep up with them all. You know, we mentioned Mike Taylor earlier. He's a good one to to follow if you're not because he does such great work with curation and sharing some awesome resources. I have a folder because I keep track of everything in one note and I might as well call that folder stuff Mike has shared because probably 80% or more of it is just links to like a place to get free custom illustrations or icons or you know, all those kinds of things that I'm just keeping track of in my one note and the huge majority of it has just been stuff Mike has shared. Right, all these great no code tools that I see him sharing. Yeah, like you don't need to be a programmer so much. You just, you know, connect these things to your air table and then you boom, they got you made an app in two hours. It's like, wow, it's just really impressive. It makes me wish I were a little bit younger so that I could pick it up as fast as the people in their 20s can do. But it's a very exciting time here. And that's that's kind of what I think is is such a shame about the overall attitude about the problems in the world is that we have unprecedented amount of access to information that is free and easy to use and we can share and if I have a silly little blended learning food pyramid idea, I can share that with the whole globe basically for free. All it takes is the time it puts me to share it. No, of course, I've got to compete with everybody else that's out there, but it really is a fascinating time that we're living in. Hey, totally is. Yeah, yeah. And it's it's really cool right now to be a creator, like kind of along with you and in a similar space and being on YouTube and and sharing my own stuff. And I just love to subscribe to other creators like yourself and just other people in our field like Kara North has her own YouTube channel and people that livestream like Catholic and Tom McDowell and all those Tim Slade, like there's I could just fill up my day with just people I've subscribed to on YouTube and just watching the stuff they're putting out there. I just I kind of love that stuff. So it's basically my a big chunk of my personal development at this point is keeping track of what other people are sharing. Who is your favorite YouTuber that that not a lot of people know about e-learning YouTuber? Oh, e-learning? Well, you're putting me on the spot because if the qualification is not many people know about him, it'd be you. That is true. I'm very under the radar. I was a sneaky way to get me to compliment you. That wasn't my plan, but that's a very good answer. Well, we kind of got off track there, but I'm really glad you had a chance to talk with us today, Carl. It's been great chatting with you and hearing about the different things that you do and share online. Where can people go to follow and connect with you to catch all this stuff? Yeah, thank you. At the moment, I'm working on CarlGRickter.com. That is not live yet. So that's not the best place to go to find me, but you can search for CarlGRickter on LinkedIn or in YouTube. My website is e-learningblends.com. I have a couple files that I give away up there and share some of my videos. I have some case studies on there as well. I am doing an email newsletter. I don't know if it'll be weekly next year, but I will be still in contact sharing some of the different things that I put out there. Twitter and e-learning blends. Awesome. Yeah, I really appreciate you coming on the show today. My pleasure. Thanks, Joe.