One Website, 51 Different Learning Elements

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As you may have heard, I wrote a book recently (and I’m super humbled and flattered by the reviews people have been posting on Amazon!!). If you’re interested in checking it out, here is a quick link. Today’s post is about a giant, free resource that my colleagues developed as a sort of companion piece to the book.

The book, entitled What’s Your Formula: Combine Learning Elements for Impactful Training, revolves around a periodic table of 51 different learning elements, which are organized into five different categories.

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Nontraditional Methods for Learning Reinforcement

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It’s one thing to put together a creative, well-designed and engaging learning experience. It’s another thing to have your learners return to their jobs and apply what they’ve learned in the real world.

One of the biggest barriers to having your learners apply what they’ve learned is the fact that the brain simply forgets a lot of the stuff they’ve learned over the course of the day. If they can’t retain what they’ve learned, they can’t apply it.

Enter the strategy of learning reinforcement – opportunities to remind your learners about what they’ve learned, after they’ve completed a learning experience. Shannon Tipton, owner of Learning Rebels LLC, has some thoughts about using existing technologies in a nontraditional way to help reinforce the learning.

Shannon will be sharing these thoughts more in depth later this month at the Association for Talent Development’s International Conference and Expo as part of her session entitled: Drips, Bots and Blogs – Oh My! Nontraditional Methods for Learning Reinforcement.

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How “weird” or “novel” should leadership development training be?

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At the end of this month, the Association for Talent Development will be hosting their annual International Conference and Expo in Salt Lake City. During the conference, Amy Posey, CEO and Chief Weirdo at Super*Mega*Boss will be facilitating a workshop entitled Why Weirdness Works: Using Novelty to Create Better Learning Experiences in Leadership Development.

Recently I had a chance to talk with Amy about this concept of “using weirdness”, and she not only shared a little about her approach, but also a little about the research behind why a novel approach can be extremely effective.

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Top 10 tools for an L&D Manager

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Over the past few weeks, you’ve heard perspectives from Tim (COO), Heather (Director of Project Success), and Lindsay (L&D Manager) as part of the effort by Jane Hart and the Centre for Learning and Performance Technologies (C4LPT) to compile a list of the top 200 technology-based tools in Learning & Development.

This week, I’m sharing the top 10 tools that I utilize as a Learning and Development Manager to interact with and support customers and to create engaging in-person and virtual learning experiences.

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More Effective Compliance Training Through Storytelling

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Training that you’re required to take for your job – think about things like safety training, anti-sexual harassment training, fraud prevention – can be some of the most difficult training to complete. Will any of this stuff really happen to me? Yeah, I get it that the company needs to make sure all its bases are covered, but does it have to bore me to tears while covering its bases?

In late August, the Association for Talent Development will be bringing thousands of training professionals together, in-person, for its annual International Conference and Expo (ICE), and Rance Greene will be leading a presentation on how to transform your organization’s compliance training through the power of storytelling. Rance is the author of Instructional Story Design: Develop Stories that Train, and we recently had an opportunity to come together and discuss his upcoming presentation.

If you happen to be headed to Salt Lake City for ATD ICE, you can find Rance’s presentation on August 29 from 10:30am – 11:30am.

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Top 10 Tools for an L&D Manager – Elearning Edition

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Recently, Heather (Director of Project Success) and Tim (COO) talked about the tools they use to meet our customers’ needs. As a Learning and Development Manager at Endurance Learning, there are a wide range of digital tools I utilize in my day-to-day tasks and collaboration to complete eLearning projects.

Lindsay‘s Top 10 Tools for Online Learning

Here’s my top 10 tools for the Centre for Learning and Performance Technologies (C4LPT) list of the top 200 technology-based tools in Learning & Development.

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When training is a matter of life and death. Literally.

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While many of us are extremely passionate about being able to bring amazing learning experiences to our audiences, very few of us can say that the work we do can literally make the difference between life and death.

Colonel Andy Saslav has been leading troops in the U.S. Army for more than two decades, and while it’s true that the training he puts people through can indeed literally help save lives, the lessons we can all take away from how training is done in the U.S. Army are seemingly countless.

I’m not suggesting that each of us becomes more drill sergeant-like in our approach (though it’s a fun thought: Hey! You! Get your thoughts down on that flipchart! NOW! I SAID NOW! MOVE IT! MOVE IT!). The nuggets that Colonel Saslav was able to share about the way in which the Army uses reflection, coaching, feedback and critical thinking is something we can all certainly learn from.

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Top 10 Tools for L&D Project Success

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Last week Tim (our COO) introduced our approach to picking our top ten lists as part of the effort by Jane Hart and the Centre for Learning and Performance Technologies (C4LPT) to compile a list of the top 200 technology-based tools in Learning & Development.

I love reflecting on my top 10 tools every year. It gives me an opportunity to compare my list to previous years and see what has changed and how I am growing. This year’s list looks a little bit different than other years, but not a ton. I recently took on the responsibility of Director of Project Success at Endurance Learning. In my new role, I work a lot on keeping projects moving toward deadlines and keeping resources balanced. Within this new role, I continue to touch all aspects of the eLearning project, and many tools I have used in years past continue to be essential to do my job.

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What is xAPI and should you be using it to collect data?

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Last week I had the pleasure of talking with Megan Torrance of TorranceLearning. I’ve seen her talk about xAPI at conferences and post about it on LinkedIn, but I wanted an opportunity to connect and learn more about what xAPI is and who should be using it (plus we learned that she grew up in the very small town in western New York where my father now lives!).

If you don’t feel like you’re getting the data you need from your learning programs, then this short conversation with Megan could change the way you decide to collect data.

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