What thoughts run through your mind when you see the photo above? Some of us may shake our heads and say, "That guy’s too old to play." Meanwhile, others may smile as a similar memory flashes through their mind’s eye.Built to Play, Built Through PlayA belief among a number of adults appear to be about play being frivolous, something extra, an add-on or something that’s nice to do when we have the time.  Furthermore, play is viewed as just a childish inclination which shouldn’t be around anymore. They believe play is different from and shouldn’t mix with more serious matters like work and learning. However such perspective, which defines play as an activity, is really a misconception.Play is natural especially to human beings who are the biggest players of all, according to psychiatrist Stuart Brown, M.D. It’s a biological process that evolved to help animals - including humans - survive. Brown, who has studied more than 6,000 "play histories" (case studies), concludes that "play is part of our evolutionary history." He defines play as a state of mind rather than an activity and believes we have a "drive to play and we are built to play."Play is encouraged among children because of its role in helping them understand the world and develop motor and social skills, among others. As we entered adulthood, we may have been told to leave play behind but we don’t really lose the "need for novelty and pleasure as we grow up," says Scott G. Eberle, Ph.D, vice president for play studies at The Strong and editor of the American Journal of Play."Nothing lights up the brain like play," Brown once said in a TED Talk. Play shapes the brain and is important to our adaptability, intelligence, creativity, innovation, and social and problem-solving skills. This means learning and play are not separate; they can co-exist.Applying Play to Learning DesignA little play goes a long way. Brown says play is really more of a catalyst which "lights up" our brain and results in increased productivity and happiness in everything we do. In applying play to learning design, there’s no need to overhaul our existing courses. Adding elements of play into our learning design should be enough to boost its fun factor. Here are a few suggestions. 1. Interactive stories Interactive stories focus less on telling and more on letting the learners become part of the story. This is similar to solitary or solo play where learners can explore the story and engage with it on their own. 2. Story questionsIn relation to solo play and role-playing or simulation, asking questions allows learners’ minds to "shift gears" from facts (semantic memory) to episodes (episodic memory) to "My Story" (autobiographical memory). This process makes learning both desirable and relevant because now they’re personally involved - inserting their own experiences into the story.3. Episodic Learning In the vein of telenovelas and reality series, Episodic Learning or Thematic Learning allows trainers to go in-depth and spur learners to reflect, and openly discuss and think about the possibilities resulting from one scenario.4. Hands on projectIn our Story-Based eLearning Design Online Workshop, participants get their "hands dirty" with their own mini projects. This is a great way to engage learners, make the workshop more fun and challenging, and is an avenue for discussion and feedback. For mini projects and other hands on projects to work, it’s important for participants to finish them. This will provide learners a sense of accomplishment, excitement, and satisfaction. 5. Exploration bonusAllow learners to explore. Provide activities and assignments that encourage them to learn on their own. Motivate them by giving an exploration bonus, which is a reward handed out to those who explore or try something new. The concept is common in the gaming industry but can also be found in the evolution theory. This can be useful in coaxing learners to step out of their comfort zones.6. ‘Get Together’ for DiscussionAfter letting learners explore on their own, it’s important to bring them together as a group or into multiple groups to share ideas, be inspired by other participants, and build relationships. These social "get togethers" should be fun and of a community-building nature.7. Team buildingAt its core, team building should be able to combine the strengths of each participant in such a way that it optimizes everyone’s learning. For instance, letting participants answer questions posted during a workshop allows them to share their responses which are molded by their own unique experiences and background. Their answers, in turn, add to the entire group’s shared knowledge.ConclusionsThere are various ways to incorporate play into learning design. At the root of all these is the belief that play and learning go hand in hand.What other ways can trainers and designers apply play in learning? Let me know your comments.ReferencesBrown, Stuart. Play: How it Shapes the Brain, Opens the Imagination, and Invigorates the Soul. Avery, 2009Kuschner, David. Book Review of Play: How It Shapes the Brain, Opens the Imagination, and Invigorates the Soul. American Journal of Play, Volume 2, Number 3. Winter 2010 Margarita Tartakovsky, M.S. The Importance of Play for Adults. PsychCentral. 2012/11/15Brown, Stuart. Play is More than Fun. YouTube.com, 2009Barbakoff, Audrey. Learning Through Play in Adult Programs. RA News, August 2014Tip #39 - Employing Story Structure and Dynamics to Engage Different LearnersTip #28 - Create Memorable Story-based Test QuestionsTip #57 - Episodic LearningStory-Based eLearning Design Online Workshop Tom Stafford (June 19, 2012). "Why are We Curious?". BBCIngrid Chalufour, Walter F. Drew, and Sandi Waite-Stupiansky. Learning to Play Again: A Constructivist Workshop for Adults. Beyond the Journal, Young Children on the Web, May 2003Terhi Kouvo. Building Harmony Live & Learn - Stories of adult learning. 22.06.2016Ray Jimenez, PhDVignettes Learning"Helping Learners Learn Their Way"Ray Jimenez, PhD Vignettes Learning Learn more about story and experience-based eLearning

What thoughts run through your mind when you see the photo above? Some of us may shake our heads and say, "That guy’s too old to play." Meanwhile, others may smile as a similar memory flashes through their mind’s eye.Built to Play, Built Through PlayA belief among a number of adults appear to be about play being frivolous, something extra, an add-on or something that’s nice to do when we have the time.  Furthermore, play is viewed as just a childish inclination which shouldn’t be around anymore. They believe play is different from and shouldn’t mix with more serious matters like work and learning. However such perspective, which defines play as an activity, is really a misconception.Play is natural especially to human beings who are the biggest players of all, according to psychiatrist Stuart Brown, M.D. It’s a biological process that evolved to help animals - including humans - survive. Brown, who has studied more than 6,000 "play histories" (case studies), concludes that "play is part of our evolutionary history." He defines play as a state of mind rather than an activity and believes we have a "drive to play and we are built to play."Play is encouraged among children because of its role in helping them understand the world and develop motor and social skills, among others. As we entered adulthood, we may have been told to leave play behind but we don’t really lose the "need for novelty and pleasure as we grow up," says Scott G. Eberle, Ph.D, vice president for play studies at The Strong and editor of the American Journal of Play."Nothing lights up the brain like play," Brown once said in a TED Talk. Play shapes the brain and is important to our adaptability, intelligence, creativity, innovation, and social and problem-solving skills. This means learning and play are not separate; they can co-exist.Applying Play to Learning DesignA little play goes a long way. Brown says play is really more of a catalyst which "lights up" our brain and results in increased productivity and happiness in everything we do. In applying play to learning design, there’s no need to overhaul our existing courses. Adding elements of play into our learning design should be enough to boost its fun factor. Here are a few suggestions. 1. Interactive stories Interactive stories focus less on telling and more on letting the learners become part of the story. This is similar to solitary or solo play where learners can explore the story and engage with it on their own. 2. Story questionsIn relation to solo play and role-playing or simulation, asking questions allows learners’ minds to "shift gears" from facts (semantic memory) to episodes (episodic memory) to "My Story" (autobiographical memory). This process makes learning both desirable and relevant because now they’re personally involved - inserting their own experiences into the story.3. Episodic Learning In the vein of telenovelas and reality series, Episodic Learning or Thematic Learning allows trainers to go in-depth and spur learners to reflect, and openly discuss and think about the possibilities resulting from one scenario.4. Hands on projectIn our Story-Based eLearning Design Online Workshop, participants get their "hands dirty" with their own mini projects. This is a great way to engage learners, make the workshop more fun and challenging, and is an avenue for discussion and feedback. For mini projects and other hands on projects to work, it’s important for participants to finish them. This will provide learners a sense of accomplishment, excitement, and satisfaction. 5. Exploration bonusAllow learners to explore. Provide activities and assignments that encourage them to learn on their own. Motivate them by giving an exploration bonus, which is a reward handed out to those who explore or try something new. The concept is common in the gaming industry but can also be found in the evolution theory. This can be useful in coaxing learners to step out of their comfort zones.6. ‘Get Together’ for DiscussionAfter letting learners explore on their own, it’s important to bring them together as a group or into multiple groups to share ideas, be inspired by other participants, and build relationships. These social "get togethers" should be fun and of a community-building nature.7. Team buildingAt its core, team building should be able to combine the strengths of each participant in such a way that it optimizes everyone’s learning. For instance, letting participants answer questions posted during a workshop allows them to share their responses which are molded by their own unique experiences and background. Their answers, in turn, add to the entire group’s shared knowledge.ConclusionsThere are various ways to incorporate play into learning design. At the root of all these is the belief that play and learning go hand in hand.What other ways can trainers and designers apply play in learning? Let me know your comments.ReferencesBrown, Stuart. Play: How it Shapes the Brain, Opens the Imagination, and Invigorates the Soul. Avery, 2009Kuschner, David. Book Review of Play: How It Shapes the Brain, Opens the Imagination, and Invigorates the Soul. American Journal of Play, Volume 2, Number 3. Winter 2010 Margarita Tartakovsky, M.S. The Importance of Play for Adults. PsychCentral. 2012/11/15Brown, Stuart. Play is More than Fun. YouTube.com, 2009Barbakoff, Audrey. Learning Through Play in Adult Programs. RA News, August 2014Tip #39 - Employing Story Structure and Dynamics to Engage Different LearnersTip #28 - Create Memorable Story-based Test QuestionsTip #57 - Episodic LearningStory-Based eLearning Design Online Workshop Tom Stafford (June 19, 2012). "Why are We Curious?". BBCIngrid Chalufour, Walter F. Drew, and Sandi Waite-Stupiansky. Learning to Play Again: A Constructivist Workshop for Adults. Beyond the Journal, Young Children on the Web, May 2003Terhi Kouvo. Building Harmony Live & Learn - Stories of adult learning. 22.06.2016Ray Jimenez, PhDVignettes Learning"Helping Learners Learn Their Way"Ray Jimenez, PhD Vignettes Learning Learn more about story and experience-based eLearning

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Ray Jimenez, PhD Vignettes Learning Learn more about story and experience-based eLearning

Ray Jimenez, PhD Vignettes Learning Learn more about story and experience-based eLearning

Which skills and personality traits are holding HR leaders back from greater success with analytics, and what functions will be their most promising partners along the way?

A wise man once wrote that "what we call online learning, or eLearning, is not a single thing, but many". Sure, it’s not exactly a Paolo Coelho-caliber quotation — after all the wise man was me, and I wrote it in the introduction of the first part of this series of posts, but it’s still an apt description of the situation. There are tons of different ways to do eLearning, and tons of different business needs that online learning can be applied to. In this series of posts, we’ll take a look at how TalentLMS fares for each and every variety of online learning. In our first post, we covered Compliance Training; this one is all about Instructor-led Training. Instructor-led Training 101 Instructor-led Training, also known as blended learning or hybrid learning, is not one of the different business cases for eLearning (like e.g. Compliance Training and Employee Onboarding are), but a different way to perform training and manage learning sessions. To put it simply, Instructor-led Training, which, from now on we’ll be calling ILT, is just the practice of combining online training with traditional, classroom-based (or online, but real time) seminars. As such, it can be combined with all the other categories of training, e.g. hybrid employee onboarding courses, hybrid compliance training, etc. In practice, though, you’ll only really need ILT in special situations, as pure online learning courses are more than capable of covering most of your employee training needs. When does ILT make sense? But, Mr. TalentLMS-blog-guy, you might ask, why would we want to go back to the ancient days of classroom-based training, when we have all this new online training technology at our disposal? Well, first, you don’t need to choose one or the other. TalentLMS allows you to combine both with the same ease, and manage online and in-person training from the same intuitive interface. As for the need for hybrid learning setups, it’s simple really. Classroom-based training is still the best and most immediate way to approach certain kinds of material, especially anything that requires hands-on practice. You can learn a lot about cooking or how to fly an airplane online, for example, and especially all the theoretical stuff associated with those activities, but in the end, you just need to have a go at the real thing. The same thing is true for lots of kinds of corporate training (operating some kinds of industrial machinery, working on the assembly line, practicing "business English", etc). That said, there’s also a third option, somewhere in between online and classroom-based training, that might be just what you need: we’re talking about real-time instructor-led webinars and teleconference sessions. For cases where immediate aural and visual feedback is required, but tactile access is not important, these might be enough to cover all your ILT needs. ILT support in TalentLMS So, how well does TalentLMS handle Instructor-led training? Very well, if I may say so, but, as always, keeping the whole process simple and intuitive. At the most basic level, TalentLMS models ILT through a special kind of lesson (called, expectedly, "Units"), where each "Unit" may contain one or more "Sessions". Sessions are the "live" (real time) lectures that can take place either in the physical world (e.g. a classroom) or the Cloud (e.g. webinar). TalentLMS instructors can create new ILT units from the Courses page, by selecting "Instructor-Led Training" from the dropdown control, and giving the new unit a name. The next step would be assigning one or more sessions (of the "classroom" or "webinar" type) to the newly created unit. Those require the instructor to specify their start date, duration and (in the case of classroom-based sessions) their location and maximum capacity of the classroom. Upcoming ILT sessions are shown on each learner’s TalentLMS dashboard ahead of time (so that they can find courses that look interesting and register to them). This happens for both classroom-based courses and webinars, with the latter also allowing the learners to attend them online by clicking the "Join Webinar" link when their time arrives. Since, unlike online lessons, it is not automatically known when a learner has "passed" or "completed" an ILT unit, this decision is left for the instructor to make, by simply changing the learner’s status from "pending" to "passed" or "not passed" (fail), and optionally grading the learner’s performance. A few minor details aside, there’s not much more to TalentLMS’ support for blended learning. And yet, those few constructs are powerful enough to cover all the common hybrid learning scenarios, and simple enough that you can get going with ILT in mere minutes. Conclusion In today’s post, the second in our "many faces of eLearning" series, we had a look at Instructor-led training and TalentLMS’ support for it. ILT, while not necessary in most cases, is nevertheless a very useful tool to have at your disposal when your training material calls for it. Stay tuned for the next episode, where we’ll examine another one of the many faces of eLearning in the context of TalentLMS. The post The many faces of eLearning #2: Instructor-led Training with TalentLMS appeared first on TalentLMS Blog.

Creating online training is simple and, as with all simple things, it is more difficult than one may initially think. The reason does not only lie in the development of the eLearning courses, but also in how they are received by learners. Here are five factors to take into consideration when planning to improve employee engagement by creating online training courses. Align training to career development From a corporation’s perspective, each training course has to align with its business objectives. From a learner’s perspective, it has to tie well with their own career goals. According to The Deloitte Millennial Survey 2016, 71% of respondents said they were likely to leave their company within the next two years because their leadership skills were not being fully developed. At the same time, professional development was their fifth top priority when evaluating job opportunities. Conducting regular and rigorous training needs analyses, as well as implementing an effective talent management strategy is a win-win situation: it leads to developing and retaining high-potential employees, which then has a positive knock-on effect on the company’s branding. Learning paths Learning is a process, not an event. To reflect this in training, we have come up with the idea of learning paths, which are sets of multiple content items combined. Both Facebook and Google are using learning paths in their online training academies, not to mention LinkedIn’s Lynda, which specializes in them. There are three main reasons why these top companies have turned to them:  a) Each learner can find or create paths that match their personal goals b) When in context, an extra value is added to each course c) They offer meaningful insight into each learner’s behavior, which can then be further capitalized on. Ask your middle management to create learning paths relevant to their teams. At the same time, give learners the option to create personalized paths according to their needs. To make things work seamlessly, there is only one prerequisite, which takes us to our next point. Learning repositories Imagine being an employee who constantly seeks to develop new skills. You access your LMS from time to time, only to find out that you have already completed all the courses and learning paths relevant to your role. Would you not feel a bit discouraged? Or even undervalued? Learning repositories are the central libraries with digital resources, which, through an LMS, reach the learner’s screen. In theory, the bigger the enterprise, the bigger the learning repositories must be. However, according to CIPD‘s Learning & Development Annual Survey Report 2015, the larger organizations, with more than 250 employees, tend to have a smaller budget per employee. As there is no magic recipe to solve this problem, the training team have to keep juggling the balls until they find what suits them best. A key fact to take into consideration is that when a company’s L&D budget is expanded, the workload increases as well. Gamification Gamification is the circuit that runs through an enterprise and engages departments and individuals into a healthy form of competition. A few years ago, the only person who would know if someone was not a keen learner would be their manager. Gamification has changed this completely, and this is why it has been a popular buzzword in eLearning. Deloitte was the first big company to gamify its training in 2012. Within six months, it reported a 37% increase in returning users to its Leadership Academy. Like everything else, there is a catch: "Traditional leaderboards are, in fact, counter-productive. The same consistent top users, with astronomic scores, turn off everyone who knows they have no chance of beating them", says James Sanders, Manager of Innovation at Deloitte Consulting. So, do allow competition among your staff, but prevent it from evolving into a rivalry that could discourage some of them. Training should be fun, not a box ticking exercise. LMS Needless to say, none of the above can be possible without an LMS that allows staff to undertake the training they need in the way they want, at the pace they can. Opt for an LMS that is, above all, user-friendly and engaging; an LMS that enables staff to follow set learning paths or create their personalized ones. Make sure they can see the training habits of their colleagues and get an overall idea of how the whole organization performs. If they know they are below the average learner, they will try harder, as long as they have available options. Create Online Training: The Gist Investing in resources to create online training courses is very important. Ensuring that staff will undertake them is also essential. Always make sure there are enough, relevant and, up-to-date resources in your learning repository; show your staff how they can combine them; let them interact with each other and sustain their engagement. Remember: learning is a process, both for the learner and the organization. If something doesn’t work, fix it or change it. The post Why creating an online corporate training course is just the beginning appeared first on TalentLMS Blog.

Instead of trying to meet the perceived special needs of Millennials, organizations should focus on how to get all people to join, stay and perform well.

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