Recently, our team developed an eLearning module and during testing, we realized it was overwhelming to take in all of the information. It started to feel a bit like cognitive overload, and we needed to find a creative way to present content in smaller, more pithy ways. The content was right, the subject matter had been reviewed, it just lacked a bit of clarity. Continue reading
Elearning
E-learning can be intimidating. This collection of articles looks at elearning as part of a learning and development strategy.
What’s most important when you need to take a “Mobile-first” instructional design approach?
Last week I was talking with a team in Uganda to scope out an elearning project.
“Tell me about the audience. Do they have computers and reliable Internet at home? Would they take the courses in an office with an Internet connection?”
“Actually,” the response came, “some would gather around a computer in an office, but many others would probably need to use their smartphones.”
I paused. For whatever reason, I hadn’t anticipated this response.
Our client asked: “So what implications does that have for the design of this project?” Continue reading
After certificates have been handed out, how does training continue to live?
I’m currently working with a client who needs to deliver the same online training program to two different audiences. The first audience is located in their US-based headquarters, the second audience is located in regional offices around the world.
The headquarters has a thriving community of practice for training alumni that meets regularly, in-person. Furthermore, the headquarters has a critical mass of people in this role who can see each other in the break room, daily meetings, the hallway or walking by one another’s desks for informal conversations about challenges and key learnings.
People in regional offices are a little more isolated when it comes to ongoing opportunities for informal learning that can reinforce the initial training. So what are regional and remote staff to do?
Online Communities of Practice
Technology offers a lot of opportunities to shrink the distance between people and allow for greater communication, yet the ability to seed an active online community of practice remains elusive to many organizations. Continue reading
Making Your LMS More Valuable For Your Employees
If you’re anything like I am, you’ve tried to bring people to your LMS on several occasions, adding courses that your data suggests are needs for your organization. For all the promise that online learning holds – with its 24/7 access, no-need-to-travel-for-training – many organizations continue to struggle to bring their employees to their online learning platform.
Having worked with several organizations that have invested significantly in online learning, there seem to be three letters often missing from resources uploaded to an LMS.
Those three letters are: Continue reading
Integrity of Interactions
It’s my favorite time of year! Let’s kick it off with another scary story.
You wake up confused. The sliver of twilight through the window indicates it could be early morning or late evening. How long have you been asleep? Continue reading
LinkedIn Groups for Learning and Development
LinkedIn is a great resource for professionals because it is a site that is largely about professionals communicating with intention. I check LinkedIn regularly for inspiration or to get a pulse on the industry. Recently I discovered Continue reading
A Khan Academy example that corporate L&D professionals who work with elearning should take to heart.
Recently I’ve spoken with several colleagues and a few colleagues who are looking for some help in how to organize their online content.
Khan Academy’s Pixar in a Box (online) course is a perfect example of a well-organized bundle of content. Here are four elements from this course that corporate L&D professionals may want to borrow: Continue reading
Tool Review: Screencast-O-Matic
When I have down time, I like to play around with some different tools to see if there’s anything I should be adding to my own catalog of technologies I can incorporate into my work flow.
Jane Hart’s list of Top 200 Tools for Learning is my go-to place for inspiration.
This past week I spent a lot of time talking with colleagues and potential clients about software training, specifically the importance of short, on-demand tutorials to help casual system users remember how to perform certain functions. With this in mind, I started to browse the Top 200 Tools list and came across Screencast-O-Matic. I took it for a spin and this is what I learned: Continue reading
eLearning Game Copyrights
A few weeks ago, I talked about video games in training. Since that post, I have been asked if there are copyright infringement concerns when creating a game inspired by another game. I was taken aback by this question at first. After playing Jeopardy in just about every high school Social Studies class, it wasn’t a question I had thought through, and honestly, I didn’t have an immediate answer. Continue reading
Video Games in eLearning
In a previous post, Brian talked about board games in training and why Chutes and Ladders is better than Jeopardy. Lately, my focus has been on eLearning, and occasionally I struggle to make the asynchronous training interactive and interesting. Continue reading