Insights

The occasional insight into learning and development and whatever sparks our fancy.

Comparing ILT, vILT and elearning

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Last week I wrote about the strengths of elearning vs. instructor-led training (ILT). In the comment section, someone suggested that it would be interesting to see a third column in the comparison: virtual instructor-led training (vILT). I’m nothing if not a man of the people, so I’m giving them what they want.

Something I found interesting when I added the vILT column is that I couldn’t really come up with anything unique to vILT. Every item checked off for vILT is shared by either ILT or elearning. As I studied this more, I had to pause. While vILT by its nature is instructor-led and thus will obviously share some traits with ILT, it also has some things in common only with elearning.

There’s nothing in this chart to suggest that any one of these formal training methods is superior to either of the other two. It really comes down to the problem you’re looking to solve.

Need to deploy something rapidly across multiple countries and continents in multiple languages? Elearning may be your best bet.

Have an audience of learners that doesn’t have access to reliable Internet? More traditional classroom-based learning (ILT) may need to be your solution.

What’s missing from this chart when it comes to advantages of these three delivery methods? Is there anything unique to vILT that neither ILT nor elearning have? Let’s hear your thoughts in the comment section.

How can trainers show thanks to their learners?

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With Thanksgiving (in the United States) coming up this week, I’ve been thinking a lot about how we show gratitude to others. I definitely think there are very powerful ways that we, as trainers, can show our gratitude to our learners.

Put some effort into room set up

What the learners find when they walk into your room goes a long way to setting the tone for the session and says a lot for how you’ve prepared for them.

Make your session mean something (even if they don’t want to be there)

Sometimes people come to our sessions when they don’t want to, and sometimes they come with expectations that don’t align with what you’re planning to cover. One thing I like to do is begin sessions by simply asking people to introduce themselves and share one expectation they have for the day. If their expectation aligns with the scope of the session, great. If not, I take their out-of-scope expectation and put it into the Parking Lot so that I can talk with them in more depth during a break. Sometimes fate intervenes and allows me to cover parking lot items in the flow of conversations that emerge organically in a session as well.

Keep them engaged

One of the foundational philosophies underlying the training that my colleagues and I design is Dialogue Education. Based on Jane Vella’s work, we adhere to her 12 principles which are basically a “thank you note” for training attendees. Concepts such as ensuring a safe environment for learners to participate, working in partnership with learners, ensuring relevance of content and ensuring practice with reflection (praxis) are all key components.

Delight them with something new

Sometimes “new” is the content you’re delivering. Sometimes “new” is a model you’re sharing, a process or procedure or a new way to solve a problem. Sometimes “new” is a way for them to engage – tools like PollEverywhere and Kahoot often excite my participants so much that they want to bring it in to their own future presentations.

Celebrate their accomplishments

Celebrating a recent train-the-trainer session by awarding each graduate their very own pack of Mr. Sketch markers

Assuming you’ve engaged your learners and allowed them to get involved in your session, offering opportunities to celebrate what they’ve learned and demonstrated they can do in your session is appreciation/celebration-worthy.

What’s missing? How do you appreciate and offer thanks to your learners?

20 Ways for L&D Professionals to Spend Use-or-Lose Budget Before December 31

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The holidays are fast approaching, which means the Train Like A Champion 1-word resolution post will soon be here. Before we get to resolutions, however, we have some ideas for you in the event you find yourself with some extra funds that need to be spent before your finance team can close out the books for 2019.

Books for Your Professional Library

While you can always browse our list of must-read books for any L&D professional, a few more have come to my attention in the past year, including:

Handy Gadgets

There are a few little gadgets that can make any trainer’s life a little more fun, including:

Cool Online Tools

  • Snagit for screen capturing and more
  • Camtasia for video editing
  • Soapbox for creating your in-person training sessions in about 5 minutes
  • Storyline for rapid authoring of elearning

Professional Development Opportunities

What did I miss? If you have extra use-or-lose money budgeted for this year, how would you spend it?

The Pushy Duolingo Bird

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I enjoy learning new languages. When I travel, I try to learn the native language to truly enjoy the local experience. As technology has changed my approach to this has evolved from books, audiobooks, web sites, to apps. I finally landed on Duolingo because I like the learning model.

Spaced, repetitive practice.

Every day, a green bird reminds me that I need to practice my latest language, or I am going to fall behind. I’ll be honest, this bird is a little pushy, which is exactly what I need to remember to finish my Spanish lesson when I don’t feel like it. Continue reading →

Great Presentations Start Here

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A great presentation involves planning, evidence-based instructional design, engaging delivery, compelling visuals and some way for people to do something new or differently or better as a result. Easy, right?

Maybe not so much. I’ve never met a single person who could do every one of those things well. So how can someone cobble together a great presentation with all of those elements? Continue reading →

292 Training Activity Ideas For Your Next Workshop

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“I just wish I could have access to your training activity library.”

We spent the summer beta testing a tool that can help anyone design a training session in under five minutes. Soapbox is the name of the tool and it will hit the market in about two weeks (if you’d like to sign up to be notified when it’s available, click here).

One of the most common pieces of feedback we received from our beta group was that they’d simply like access to our library of training activities. We listened to that feedback and in this post, I’ve included links to almost 300 different training activities.

Happy training! Continue reading →

A place for research and insights into digital-based L&D initiatives

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At the end of last year, I made a one-word resolution: “new”.

For my organization, I was thinking about “new” as in customers. For the L&D community, I was thinking about “new” as in launching a new product (stay tuned, it’s coming in November!). And for this blog, I was thinking about “new” in terms of research.

Recently, I began taking a look through some of the reports and research that’s been compiled by the UK-based organization, Towards Maturity. If you’re looking for insights, research and data around digital-based L&D initiatives, you ought to check out their site. Continue reading →