Ever wondered why young trainees complain about today’s training materials, especially when these training materials have been developed by seasoned and mature training developers? Why, despite being a state-of-art eLearning course, its learners do not meet the learning achievement expectations? In this article, we share a recent research on learning habits of millennials and a proposed teaching strategy for them. The digital generation of today is affectionately called the millennials. This generation is also referred to as generation Y - they were born between the early 1980’s to around 2000. Christy Price, EdD, a psychology professor at Dalton State College, became interested in millennial learners when she discovered a performance and expectation gap between the learners and their educators. (Price, 2009). She noticed that this group of learners utilized technology differently than generation X - their predecessors. Technology is intimately embedded in their lives, in fact, it is almost an extension of their bodies! Creating educational experiences that become a part of their lifestyle was her main goal. She created her famous 5 Rs of engaging these millennial learners. Training mangers and eLearning developers can benefit from these 5 Rs to create a millennial-centered learning environment. Research-based methods: Millennials prefer a broad spectrum of learning strategies. The concept of learner-style is more pronounced in this generation. They prefer learning materials that are delivered to cater to their visual, auditory and even kinesthetic needs. They need to experience change in delivery formats to maintain interest. Their attention spans are shorter - they quickly move on to other forms of learning. Their ideal learning environment involves less lecture and more collaboration with peers. Group-based projects that emulate the work environment (authentic assessments) are ideal for these learners. Relevance: Millennials are aces at "googling" and discovering information. They do not value a piece of information for its own sake, rather for its relevance to their lives. Trainers will find millennials engaged in hands-on or application-based case studies, where new knowledge is discovered and synthesized actively between group members. The goal for trainers here is to connect the eLearning environment to the performance context of these learners to convince them of its relevance. Rationale: Baby boomers or generation X-ers respond well to an authoritarian teaching style. They follow orders for the sake of complying with commands. On the other hand, millennials were raised in a less authoritative environment - where decisions and actions were constantly justified. Flexibility and recognizing the socio-emotional rationale behind new ideas and processes are expectations of millennials. When trainers and instructors provide the rationale behind policies and regulations in a learning environment, these young learners are more likely to respond positively. Relaxed: Think "laid back" when you conduct your training sessions. Millennials prefer a relaxed learning environment, with minimum pressure, more freedom to complete assignments and also more freedom for personal expression and creativity. eLearning course mentors need to create a warm, empathetic, "no wrong answers" collaborative environment. Rapport: Millennials strive on personal relationships. When being raised, they had complete attention from their parents. They are used to older adults showing more interest in their lives. They prefer and appreciate instructors showing a personal interest in their learning plans and achievement goals. These learners also perform better at work and in the classroom when instructors connect with them on a personal level. The workforce is quickly being replaced by millennials. Training managers need to modify their teaching and course delivery strategies to rein in the potential of these learners. Incorporate these 5 Rs in your course mentoring strategies to weed out those that did not work well in the past. Ideally, train your trainers on these 5 Rs so that they experience a rewarding teaching environment. The post 5 Important Moves to Engage Millennials appeared first on eFront Blog.

Trainers have several roles and responsibilities in the eLearning environment. When a course is launched, its success and popularity depends on the input and involvement of a trainer. An indifferent trainer will have fewer registrations and active members in the online community. On the flip side, an enthusiastic trainer has a vibrant learning community that evolves according to the learner and training needs. Apart from this valuable trait, there are the famous 3 Ps that need to be implemented for an effective eLearning course. The online trainer functions have been the pinnacle of debate for the past two decades. Every eLearning researcher has come up with timely functionalities and roles to be executed by the trainer. For our current times, with the proliferation of educational technology and devices, Pallof and Pratt’s (2007) model of People, Purpose and Process (3 Ps) can be used as a guide to ensure that the trainer is executing all that is required. In this article, we share and discuss these 3 Ps. People: People are the first layer of an eLearning environment. These include the learners and the instructional team. There could be more than one trainer working with learners on a course. When groups of learners are assigned a trainer in an eLearning course, a stronger social presence is to be expected. This is because of the deeper level of engagement encouraged by trainers. Manageable groups of learners experience a greater sense of community and binding with distant peers and their trainer. They are able to correspond without hesitation on ideas and expression of problems. The trainer needs to utilize the desirable methods of connecting like-minded and similarly aspired learners together for a powerful sense of community. Being in frequent touch with all learners is the key here. Purpose: Establishing learning community rules and Learning Management System usage guidelines early on in the training program provides a sense of purpose and confidence in every action the participants take. The trainer can also add to these rules by asking learners about their personal opinions on what should or should not be enforced. Trainers are responsible to show the designated areas for finding new content, for discussing various topics, an area for resources (where everyone involved in the training can post) and for uploading assignments. There should also be an area for "technology tutoring". This is a common area for all eLearning programs, where learners are instructed "at a glance" in regards to the common productivity tools that enable learners to publish their assignments online or present them in an innovative manner. Submitting assignments and projects using these tools adds another learning dimension that strengthens the purpose of the training program and consequently, learning satisfaction. Process: The processes deployed to run the eLearning program include the various formats of expressing the act of learning. Trainers should be aware of the different assignment and interaction formats (productivity tools, types of online submissions and multimedia) to build a robust learning community. Group collaboration should be asynchronous or synchronous, depending on the topic of discussion. Learners should log their learning process through reflection. This ties their current experience with their existing knowledge to create new knowledge for future job roles. Group knowledge is social knowledge; it’s precious in any eLearning course. Trainers should be able to generate this precious knowledge and sum it up in the form of touch points and bullet lists for all learners to agree upon. In short, the process should aim towards creating group-based knowledge. Outcomes of the 3 Ps Model: The 3 Ps model guarantees the development of co-created knowledge. This type of knowledge holds a greater value for all learners and is hard to forget. It leads to transformative learning - a step all line managers are looking forward to. It encourages participants to announce their presence and reinforce it through various strategies (uploading resources for others, posting questions or answering someone, posting a technology tutorial, sharing a "lessons learned" experience, etc.). This model also enables the online trainer to foster self-direction in learners to realize their potential and plan their future learning. Trainers who enforce the 3 Ps model can expect a higher enrollment rates and requests for more training programs! An eLearning environment is distinct from the face-to-face training environment. Many steps that are taken for granted in the live environment are deliberate and planed in the eLearning environment. Trainers can be confident when running their online courses if they keep the above mentioned 3 Ps in mind. These are the fundamental responsibilities required by the trainer that enable a successful eLearning experience for all stakeholders. The post The 3 Ps For Effective Courses! appeared first on eFront Blog.

Time has rendered the question of whether a modern enterprise needs eLearning, irrelevant. Of course it does. Once a niche product, online learning rose to a $100+ billion dollar global market, with corporate and vocational training claiming the lion’s share of this growth. And why not? As an effective, convenient, lower maintenance, and cheaper alternative to traditional classroom learning, eLearning is the perfect fit for the modern, knowledge-based economy, and the often thin margins in which competitive businesses must operate. It’s only natural that we see an ever increasing number of businesses adopting it for the first time or expanding their existing online training programs. But while the eLearning solutions market offers several excellent LMS platforms, including our very own eFrontPro, not all business have the necessary resources, skills and time required to develop their own employee training material. This is especially true for small and medium enterprises, which may lack the necessary personnel altogether, but it can also hold true for large companies with dedicated design and copywriting departments — in this case usually because they prefer to focus these employees at their core products, instead of having them organize an official or ad-hoc training department. Fortunately, thanks to the growth of the eLearning market, it’s quite easy to outsource eLearning content development to an eLearning consultant or firm — and there are plenty of eLearning development companies to choose from. In this post we’ll discuss custom eLearning development services, and give some advice on how to pick the right one, and how to successfully work with them from the requirements definition stage all the way to the final results. 1) Do you really need it? Before you proceed to outsource your custom eLearning content creation you should ask yourself whether you really need to. Modern LMS platforms such as eFrontPro make content creation so easy and effortless that it’s no more challenging that writing on your blog or on Facebook. And with extensive content import capabilities, you can easily incorporate any PowerPoint or Word documents that you’ve used in the past to train your employees in your courses. This means that if your training needs are restricted, and your budget is not that big, you could forego outsourcing and assign the content creation to one or more of your more tech-friendly employees. The end result might not be as eloquent and well written as a professionally produced course, but it will, more often than not, do the job just fine. For larger companies where money is not an issue (especially since, with eLearning being so cost effective, the costs of running an eLearning program are usually dwarfed by payroll and other operating expenses), establishing an online training department and keeping content creation inside the company sometimes can still make sense. For a company such as Apple or a government contractor handling sensitive data, for example, where secrecy is the norm, keeping your training content creation in-house means you can have it under close guard. Similarly, for companies belonging to the traditional education sector, like a university or other established educational institution, doing their eLearning content development on their own means that they cut out the middleman and have total control of their product. If your case does not fall into one of the above categories, then it makes perfect sense to outsource some or the entirety of your eLearning content development to an outside consultancy. You’ll get professional results, faster than you could ever do it, and without diverting resources from your core business. 2) Choosing the right eLearning development firm With so many eLearning development companies to choose from, you can really be spoiled for choice — and scratching your head trying to pick the right one. The key insight (if it’s an insight) is that not all eLearning development companies are made the same. Some are just more professional and trustworthy than others, and flashy webpages or ads can’t help you determine which is which. Fortunately, there are other ways. First, there is the traditional way: ask around. Perhaps your business partners already use and swear by some eLearning development company. Ask them for a recommendation, and discuss their experience outsourcing their training courses with them. Ask if you can see the courses they had made, and see if they meet your quality criteria. Then there’s always the wild wild web — check eLearning news outlets, and industry blogs for mentions and/or reviews of eLearning development firms. Ignore paid "informercial" style content, and pay special attention to user provided experiences, in comment sections and discussion forums (keeping in mind that positive comments could still be "covert" advertisements for a firm, and negative comments could have been made on purpose by its competitors). If you already have invested or plan to invest in a corporate eLearning management platform (LMS) then make sure that the firm knows how to produce content for it. Look for eLearning development consultancies that have partnerships with your LMS provider. This not only ensures that they will know how to produce content that leverages your preferred platform, but also serves as a kind of endorsement for the firm. When you’ve narrowed down your list to a few firms, it’s time to ask to see their portfolio, ask for quotes based on your particular course creation needs, and (for larger businesses wanting to order multiple courses) maybe take their services for a test drive, by ordering a smaller course first. 3) Prepare for it Between the time you’ve made your pick of an eLearning development company to outsource your content creation needs, and the time they will start working on your courses, there’s a small, but essential, step that you need to take care of. You need to search for, find, organize, annotate and prepare your raw material. It could be some PDFs, PowerPoints and Word Documents spread throughout your intranet, or safely organized in your Document Management system, complete with titles, tags and descriptions. Or it could be several printed manuals and ancient hand-written notes that have to be scanned and converted into digital form. Whatever the case, you’re the one who knows what needs to be in your training courses, and you’re the one that has access to your company’s documents, so you should prepare all these files to give to the eLearning development company. Other stuff might not even be anywhere. If you didn’t have an informal, or semi-informal training before, either online or classroom-based, then a lot of the necessary employee training information will just be stored in your senior employee’s heads. Of course, the eLearning development company, if they’re worth their salt, will also ask you and work with your staff, to get the information necessary for them to write your training courses. But there are some things that they won’t know about, and wouldn’t think of asking about either, unless you tell them explicitly. At the very least, you should gather all the files and documents you have that are related to your training course, and catalogue them for the eLearning development people. 4) Be clear regarding your needs You might not know how to write a proper training course, but you should know what it needs to cover, and you should tell your eLearning development consultants. It’s important to be as clear as possible with regard to your needs, and especially with regard to the desired results. Corporate training after all, unlike academic learning which can be abstract and wide-ranging, works better when it’s result oriented and focused. Some things, the eLearning content creators will be able to deduce from your existing training material (as discussed in the previous section). Others, you’ll need to tell them explicitly, and have senior employees work with them to ensure that they have a clear understanding of what they need to convey. If you ask them to create a custom training course for your assembly line workers, for example, you’ll talk them through all the the necessary steps and procedures that an assembly line worker will need to know. This includes emergency procedures for when things go wrong, something that you might easily oversee when you describe the basic workflow. Speaking of giving clear instructions, you’ll also need to tell the eLearning content development consultants about any other restrictions, preferences and guidelines you have for company content. This includes proper naming (e.g. if they should refer to your product as iGizmo and not IGizmo or i-Gizmo), branding rules, including logos and colors they should use in their final deliverables, etc. Last, but far for least, you’ll need to come up with a clear timeline (including milestones and sign-offs), and a final price for the whole endeavor. 5) Be involved Outsourcing eLearning content creation doesn’t mean that your job ends as soon as you hand over your raw materials and course requirements. If you want to ensure that you have your best possible result, you’ll need to stay involved in the whole process. You should be working alongside the eLearning development company to make sure everything goes well, that the provided content matches your specifications, etc. This doesn’t mean that you need to micromanage them, or breathe down their neck (and please don’t). It just means that it’s not a fire-and-forget affair, but an active collaboration. In fact, professionally run eLearning development companies will be glad to keep you in the loop, in order to ensure agreement and minimize surprises at the final delivery. Ideally, the eLearning development company should have use some collaboration platform (e.g. Basecamp, Slack, etc.), where you can share documents, read early drafts, make comments and even discuss the course creation process in real time when needed. In some cases, it might even be possible to login and check your course as it’s being developed directly in the LMS platform. Besides the raw materials and things that you assembled for the requirements gathering stage, there will also be some stuff whose need becomes evident later, and which you’ll be asked to provide while the course is developing. An employee orientation course, for example, will often need a "message from the CEO" type introduction, which your company will have to provide. The key here is to stay involved throughout all parts of the content creation, so that there are no nasty surprises when you finally get to review and approve the completed content. But don’t set your content development company loose too soon: you’ll want to be able to have them make changes and improvements after you’ve seen how your course content fares when used in your training program too (e.g to better explain some hard parts). The best relationship with an eLearning consulting firm is a long term one, where they get to understand your needs better and cater to them faster, and you get a custom content development partner whose work you can trust. Conclusion In this post we’ve examined how companies that either lack the internal skills to create their own custom training content, or prefer to stay focused on their core business, can make the most of outsourcing their eLearning content development. Among other things, we discussed preparing for outsourcing your training material, picking the right eLearning consulting firm, and working alongside them to ensure the best results. The post 5 Tips For Finding (and working with) An eLearning Development Company appeared first on eFront Blog.

Videos are perhaps the most sought after multimedia format in the eLearning world. Without videos, we feel we are missing real action! They’re a great way to demonstrate the need for the course and the practical emphasis of the course in the learners’ lives. Again, the best video recording and editing equipment does not guarantee quality videos. Let’s find out how you can create better videos. Videos are one of the best ways to convey knowledge and information in the online world. They are a great tool for advertisement and knowledge dissemination. Videos continue to be the centerpiece of an eLearning program. Learners still enjoy watching videos to learn, more so than any other form of multimedia. The biggest challenge eLearning program designers face is acquiring new, copyright free videos for their courses. We often borrow videos from others and include them in our courses. With a little imagination, you can create your own videos for your courses. The question in the modern eLearning world is: Why are videos still this popular? Viewers have even become producers. Reality TV and YouTube videos are the proof of this immense affinity towards the media. In the eLearning environment, where distance and time create more space between the learners and the mentors, videos provide a strong pathway to reach out and communicate on a more personal level. They enable learners to trust the learning environment. A human voice and face with emotions and empathy goes a long way in creating an environment akin to the traditional one. The familiar way of talking and explaining is a motivating act in itself. Videos are excellent teaching tools. They recreate the traditional set up and enable learners to stay engaged for longer periods. They allow users to rewind and replay the lecture in case a point is missed. In the training environment, it’s essential to revisit areas of training that are to be implemented in a work setting. Another wonderful feature of videos is that they have become relatively easier to produce and publish than back in the day. With the availability of many video production software suites and devices, videos do not require much fuss and preparation any more. You Have all the Tools Why hire a professional production house when you have a camera and a microphone right on your computer, even your smartphone? Indeed, current systems are equipped with superior quality multimedia recording hardware and software programs. Several freeware programs are available for video recording, such as HyperCam. Record your own video and talk about why the training is important. You will convince the eLearner more with your video than with just an audio clip or an interactive eLearning program. Talk to the CEO or other senior members of your company and ask them to share their story. This could be a personal experience that encourages learners to register and complete the course. Also, encourage staff to share their experiences related to the training. How did it help them perform better? A short video from successful trainees is a powerful way to motivate your learners. Keep your videos short, not more than five minutes. Have a series of short videos rather than a long one. Movie Clips The next time you watch a movie and really like a scene for its lesson-related value, record it. Use the movie clip in your eLearning programs to capture your learners’ attention. Movie clips will also convey your message in a short and sweet manner, replacing lines of text and scripts of narration. Also, movie clips have made their way in the traditional classroom environment. They can definitely be added in the eLearning class. Make sure that your selected clip is relevant and precise. Always cite your external multimedia sources in the reference section of your course and directly under the clip. Create Your Own Cartoons Ever thought of creating your own cartoons? Nowadays anyone can create their own cartoons. Programs like Powtoon and GoAnimate enable you to create your own cartoon videos. These programs are SaaS (software as a service) that are available in an online mode only. They have a bundle of templates and characters to choose from. Simply create a shorty story and create a cartoon out of it. It is a great way to kick-start your eLearning program. Free and trial accounts are available for basic cartoon creation. You don’t have to hire a production house to create your videos. With a plethora of educational and entertainment technology options available to consumers, you can quickly create quality videos yourself. With some practice, you should be able to produce quality videos, easily. And don’t forget to tell us about your own video creating experiences. The post 3 Ways to Create Videos for your Courses appeared first on eFront Blog.

Case studies in education are an age old teaching strategy. They provide meaningful, content-related experiences through which learners can discover and imagine abstract principles in real world settings. In this article, we talk about effective approaches to using case studies in eLearning environments. Case studies make excellent reading and comprehension activities, while simultaneously serving as information providing tools. These are discovery activities for learners that focus your learners’ analytical and problem-solving skills on the scenario presented in the case study. They are also a great way to demonstrate a real incident or an event that conveys a crucial lesson for best practices. Through this, learners connect intimately and directly with the industry they are training for. In a nutshell, case studies are their first line of contact with the future work environment. Moreover, case studies make great content for an eLearning interface: think about an eLearning screen with tabs like "About", "Synopsis", "Events", "References", "Assignment". Each page includes text and multimedia for learners to tinker and play with. The idea is to display the case in a fun and explorative fashion. This is as opposed to a simple pdf file with lines and lines of text that becomes harder to read with each page! The goal of a case study is to relay relevant learning materials and then ask questions based on the reading. In eLearning, case studies are richer. The material has more variety, as it is linked from the current resources available on the Internet. The eLearning medium also provides an interactive environment for case studies with plenty of room for collaboration and online discussion. A complex case study can be simplified using eLearning tools and also become more engaging than the traditional case study delivery method. The content of your case study could even be retrieved, with the appropriate citations, from a local newspaper. Has there been an article or a news story on some interesting business or an incident? Is it related to your learning objective? Use it as a case study. Case studies are great for teaching complex knowledge that cannot be taught by using simple formulas. They are especially good for teaching judgement skills and decision making skills required when dealing with real-world dilemmas. They can also be presented in multiple formats. For example, in an instructor-led case study, the case is explained by the instructor and so are the assignments related to it. Virtual field trips are also great examples of eLearning case studies. Mini-case studies, or vignettes, presented in the beginning of the chapters also serve as great classroom-to-outside-world connection tools. Some case studies can be utilized to develop "Reaction Papers", in which learners create a summary and reaction to the events they read in the case study. Simple Strategies to Provide Case Studies So what are the best practices for case studies? In an eLearning environment, case studies are a rich mixture of multimedia. In the following cases, using a scenario-based approach will work well: 1. When you can create a simulation of an actual system or have extensive video content on it. Find documentaries related to the content, in the form of YouTube videos. Additionally, create an interactive screen with buttons and dialogues between actors to simulate a scene in the case study. 2. Explain charts, diagrams and other technical and business graphics using case studies. 3. Give some life to your numerical data on spreadsheets by narrating a story in the form of a case study. 4. When explaining blueprints, drawings and specifications of products and systems. 5. When demonstrating conventional business documents such as reports, contracts, instruction manuals, email messages, memos and letters. When using case studies in your eLearning, provide prompts to learners to prepare them that they are about to read a real case. Provide specific guidance and facts to understand the case better. Explain how the case relates to the learning objective or the topic in the eLearning course. What are the important features of the case? What should the learners focus on? Provide sufficient clues on where to start the examination of the case. Also, provide questions in the end of the case to help with brainstorming and critical thinking. Using case studies is an excellent teaching strategy. Case studies are good for teaching complex knowledge. They promote observing and reflecting on new knowledge and experiences. Try to use case studies that are based on the local work context of your learners. Learners should be able to relate to the experiences narrated in the case. For your global learners, try to include case studies based on international businesses. Case studies are also recommended for teaching judgement skills necessary to deal with complex and contradictory situations common in the real world setting. If you are looking for a way to connect your eLearning course to the outside world, simply integrate a case study. The post Case Studies for eLearning: How and when they work best appeared first on eFront Blog.

How can you change an average performer to an over-achiever? Can talent be created or are we born with talent? The truth is, talent is developed and honed. Training fields are ideal places for honing talent! In this article, we determine how training programs can promote talent in employees. An individual is born with aptitudes and affinities for certain skills. When given the optimum environment, these capabilities can be developed to perfection and sometimes even excellence. Organizations are now not looking for perfection. Rather, they are looking for excellence. Innovation and creativity, leading to performance excellence. Organizations are now spending top dollar in learning and training programs for continuing professional development. The question is, how can organizations discover and hone talent? Take a look at the following strategies to create training programs for employees. Remember, the goal is to help employees realize their talent and develop skills for better performance. This is especially true for employees who may be good with numbers, but not too good with people management. Or someone who has great leadership skills, but needs to brush up their technical skills. Create Learning Goals Before any talent can be recognized and developed, a learning gap assessment is extremely desirable. Organizations need to create a refined list of learning goals: this list should include the skills and behaviors of employees, based on the organization’s needs and the demands of the industry. Assess Achievement Once the learning goals have been established, employees need to be assessed using the relevant testing format. Developing strong learning goals enables an organization to appreciate its current knowledge and design the future knowledge pathway to accomplish current job requirements. It is also the key element in defining future job roles as well as succession planning in the organizational chart. Connect Mastery with Job-tasks Define specific job skills. How do employees need to handle irate customers? What do paramedics need to do in an emergency within the hospital? What is the new product launch protocol? Once the required skills are established, they need to be linked with the learning goals list. Plan the training around learning goals and skills to transform mastery in performance. Align Learning and Development with KPIs Key-performance-indicators (KPIs) are based on the strategic goals of the company. Owing to the uncertainty and unpredictable nature of the marketplace and e-businesses, organizations need to revise their KPIs constantly. Each version should yield a set of learning goals and skills required to meet the strategic goals of the organization. Learning and development training programs need to match their pace with the quickly changing business scene. Develop Responsive eLearning Content Hiring external training organizations is definitely a big "no" in current times. Training companies don’t know your organization as much as you do. Create responsive eLearning programs to get the maximum talent out of your employees. Teaching employees what they already know is a big time energy and resource waste! Build on their existing talents, and hone them with company expectations. Who are the senior members and who are the subject matter experts of your organization? Who are the line managers? Get them involved in refining training programs. Provide options in your training programs for employees to opt out of sections they feel they know after they are able to pass the relevant assessment. This will save learning time and have them focus on the required skills and talents. A great tip here is to have retiring employees offer the training themselves. Such sessions will base more content on the history of the company than other business models. Make Training Relevant to the Role To truly build talent and have employees outperform themselves, link training to their job roles. Sections in the content should be devoted specifically to the job description and task implementation procedures. Offer job aids as often as possible. Job aids help build good performance behaviors. Create the real problems again in the content and have employees solve them with a cool head and calm attitude. Lessons learned in those real mistakes need to be demonstrated in details. Sometimes we learn better when we are told what NOT to do as opposed to what we should be doing. Evaluate Employee Performance When employees transfer their learning directly to their work context, they are also more responsible for their learning and performance. Regularly evaluate performance, discuss any gaps and offer related training. Such fine-tuning actions are extremely critical to maintain the learning mindset and excellence in performance. Delays in evaluation have been shown to slow down the motivation to train and perform better. Recognize the scaffolding talent and promote it actively. Reinforce Learning Go for regular employee evaluation and performance briefing, as opposed to bi-annual evaluations reinforce learning. Create a SWOT Analysis for each employee, in a way they can observe how their performance changes over time. Figuratively demonstrating employee performance will also reinforce learning and motivate them to continue learning. Communicate the learning activities and their impact regularly, and have employees share their opinions casually. This will further aid in discovering skill-gaps and polishing talent. Organizations cannot afford to lose talent by being careless about the their learning activities. In the current business landscape, change through learning is mandatory. We hope these tips will help you create a stronger learning organization with indispensable and nurtured talent. The post Strategies to promote learning for nurturing talent appeared first on eFront Blog.

The Knirk and Gustafson model is ideally suited for eLearning projects with a smaller scope, such as individual online training activities and modules. In this article, we’ll highlight each of the steps involved in this Instructional Design process and share 5 tips on how to apply the Knirk and Gustafson model in your online training course design. How To Apply The Knirk And Gustafson Model In Corporate eLearning Knirk and Gustafson first introduced their Instructional Design model back in 1986, which consists of a three-step process that focuses on a specific problem or task. It gives eLearning professionals the opportunity to zero in on training challenges using a wide range of research techniques, such as task assessments and learner needs analysis. This approach is relatively simple and straightforward, when compared to many other Instructional Design models and theories. This makes it a perfect fit for eLearning projects that have a more narrow scope. Let’s take a closer look at how determination, design, and development can help you to create more meaningful and targeted online training experiences. This design approach is divided into three distinct phases that you should keep in mind when developing your online training materials and activities: 1. Problem Determination The first step in the process is to identify the problem, performance gaps, and primary goals. What do your corporate learners currently know and what do they need to know in order to do their job effectively? One of the most important steps in this stage is conducting a tasks analysis and needs assessment. This will shed light on the skills and information that need to be addressed in your online training program. 2. Design Once you’ve identified the problem you must move onto the second stage, which is determining which strategies, activities, and materials will solve the problem and fill the performance gaps. This also involves defining learning objectives that align with your online training goals and choosing the ideal multimedia components for the task. Gathering the necessary resources or consulting with a Subject Matter Expert are other key sub-tasks in this stage of the process. 3. Development The third stage in the Knirk and Gustafson model involves creating online training materials, conducting user testing, and making the necessary revisions. In many cases, this will involve prototyping and focus groups in order to produce a polished finished product. After any and all issues have been remedied, the online training activity or module can then be deployed. How To Use The Knirk And Gustafson Model In Corporate eLearning 1. Conduct task and skills assessments beforehand Before you can identify the problems that you must address, and the knowledge that must be conveyed, you have to create a "baseline". This involves tasks and skills assessments that provide an accurate picture of what your corporate learners know now, what they need to know upon completion of their online training, and how you can bridge the gap. You can also observe them in the workplace to identify which skills they use on a regular basis and how they actually apply their professional knowledge. 2. Focus on one key task or skill As this model is best for shorter, more targeted online training activities and modules, you should focus on one primary skill or task for each eLearning project. For example, if you discover that there are a number of different skills that learners need to develop in order to complete a process, develop a series of online training activities that each pertain to a specific skill. This also reduces cognitive overload and gives them a chance to absorb the information before moving on to the next module. 3. Identify the ideal tools and resources In order to create an effective corporate eLearning program you must identify which tools you have on-hand and how they can be used throughout the instructional design process. You should also be aware of which media elements are best for the needs of your corporate learners. For example, some corporate learners may require an eLearning video while others prefer an interactive online scenario or simulation. Multimedia is an integral part of the Knirk and Gustafson model. Thus, careful consideration must be given to which resources align with your goals and objectives. 4. Repurpose existing online training materials In lieu of creating online training materials from scratch, you can also repurpose the online training activities and modules you’ve already developed. Gather all of the materials you have at your disposal and determine whether they will fit into your current online training strategy. You may even be able to use certain components of these resources or make minor modifications to make them suitable. In some cases, you may have to completely transform the online training content in order to make it modern, particularly if you are designing a mobile-friendly course. 5. Clearly identify your goals to avoid lengthy revisions The Knirk and Gustafson model features an evaluation phase, but it comes rather late in the game. In fact, this is one of the most significant drawbacks of this approach. However, if you take the time to clearly identify your goals and determine the problem, you can avoid a lengthy revision round in the end. Meet with managers, supervisors, and any other team leaders to ensure that there is no confusion of ambiguity beforehand. Carefully analyze the current online training course to identify its strengths and weaknesses so that you can improve upon the existing corporate eLearning program. This will help you keep revisions to a minimum and make certain that everyone is on the same page before you begin the instructional design process. There may only be three stages involved in this process, but each step brings you closer to solving organization-wide problems, narrowing skill gaps, and fulfilling the needs of your corporate learners. Use this guide to apply the Knirk and Gustafson model in your corporate eLearning program and equip your employees with the resources they require to achieve their goals. The Knirk and Gustafson model is ideal for eLearning simulation and scenario design. Read the article 6 Tips To Create eLearning Scenarios That Offer Real World Benefits to discover useful tips that can help you develop effective eLearning scenarios that offer real world benefits. The post The Knirk And Gustafson Model: A Guide For eLearning Professionals appeared first on eFront Blog.

If you’re an avid content creator, be it for training courses development or not, you must have heard about "content curation" several times by now. But how easy is it to create content from scratch? If anything, you always need some form of inspiration from other sources. And if you do look for it, one thing is for sure: simply copying, pasting and then re-writing content will exhaust both you and your learner. So what is the answer then? But of course, providing your content in curated chunks! Undoubtedly, the Internet has become your No. 1 source to retrieve any information you need. From learning how to change a flat tire to looking for a recipe for the Chocolate Lava Cake your son had at his friend’s place, it usually is the Internet to the rescue. And guess what! Same goes for education and eLearning! Even as a learner who’s enrolled in a top training course - despite being under the tutelage of an expert trainer - you are probably still tempted to look up some fundamental answers over the Internet. You may have even found yourself exploring different search engine tools to filter out the best one, namely the one which will give you the answer you were looking for. By all means, there are certain criteria that lead to your final selection. You usually need your search engine tool to: · Be able to provide you with search results that read individual words in the search expression: eg. New + York. · Be able to provide you with search results that read the entire phrase of the search expression: eg. New York. · Be able to customize searches according to your searching behavior · Cut down commercial and advertisement laden searches to a minimum · Trustworthy and viable information And say you’ve gathered the information you need. What do you do with it? First, you browse through the first page of the search results, one by one. Next, you make sure some information is common in all search results, before you start considering it as reliable. And then you gather differentiating facts on each piece of information. That’s how some online course developers go about structuring their content. But, if that’s the case, who would ever blame learners that fall asleep in the middle of an eLearning course? (Yes, this happens!) Let us break it to you: No amount of bells and whistles will keep the learner awake if the content does not mean much to them! Even you as a learner enroll in a course to gain the required information. The information needed for work. Period. So now, having experienced a horrible eLearning course is created, will you create one as an eLearning developer? Unfortunately, it’s hard to kill the habit of compiling research results. But it’s not impossible! So how do you gather content for your eLearning course using a natural information hunting technique called "curation"? When gathering content for your course, here’s how you can reuse separate chunks of information as meaningful, curated content for eLearning: Collecting Hunt for topics under your keyword. Collect website content you like using tools, such as EverNote, OneNote etc. After you are done collecting, take a break! Go back to your collected items and filter the information you can relate with easily, or information related to the work context of your learners. It is a good idea to create criteria by which you’re filtering before you start the process. You will be amazed at how customized the content will look just after this. Curating the content Your next step is to prepare learning materials for your learners. Instead of sharing these links with your learners directly, analyze the content and link it with their context. Once you have made a connection, use images for support. This process of combining source with the context (learning goals and performance context) is called curation. The combination of the link/source and the fact/insight is a single information unit (SIU) and the entire phase is called "adding the value". You have now connected a learning goal with real-world examples available in your links - this is what proper content curation for eLearning means. Chunking the information Instead of bombarding your learners with all these SIUs, decide how to divide them over the course. You need to prevent information overloading. This phase is final and is called "chunking information". As a result, the learner gets a set of several short-learning episodes, instead of a weather worn and, more often than not, too long online course format. In other words, you just present information in a lighter way, which happens to be the manner in which adult learners naturally seek to learn! You actually put together multiple SIUs to create a whole course that is easily absorbed and internalized by your learners. Finish off your eLearning course by offering an optional page called a "learning path". Here, you demonstrate how to make the best use of the learning materials you’ve provided - content and resources combined. Give them keywords to search for in the desired hierarchy. Your learners will enjoy looking up and verifying information in your course. Be prepared for better course reviews and learner achievement! Creating content can be challenging, especially if you are not a subject matter expert. Going through the Internet without a search path can be overwhelming. By curating, chunking and organizing your content in a manner explained above, you can keep yourself and your learners grounded to the content! The post The how and why of Content Curation for eLearning appeared first on eFront Blog.

In the modern information economy, where talent is one of the most precious resources and the landscape for recruiting and retaining talented employees gets ever more competitive, a combined Learning and Talent Development strategy, along with an appropriate HR focus, is the not-so-secret weapon of many a successful enterprise. With eFrontPro you can have the best of both worlds — a capable eLearning system combined with strong Talent Development features, a combination that allows you to shape and develop your workforce in the ways needed to move your company forward and help it achieve its goals. Revamped and advanced in many major ways compared to its end-of-lined precursor (eFront), and in addition to its fair number of powerful and easy-to-use content creation, course, and lesson management features, eFrontPro also has the functionality and workflows needed for training, engaging and developing your talent. In this post, we’d like to tell you more about the ways eFrontPro goes beyond eLearning, to being a perfectly capable Talent Development and Learning platform for the enterprise, that can cover anything from employee on-boarding and skills training to talent development and knowledge retention. A Learning and Talent Development platform will help you: • welcome new employees into your company (onboarding) • accelerate employee learning & development • ensure compliance training • deliver critical safety training • evaluate employee skills and performance • implement continuous employee learning strategies • discover star employees (e.g. for promotions and career advancement) • train your talent to changing business needs • prepare employees to take over a senior post (succession planning) and many other things besides these (e.g. collect and assess employee feedback). In fact, we could write several posts for each of these, regarding their importance to modern HR practices, best practices for their implementation, etc., and in fact that’s exactly what we’ll be doing over the followings weeks and months in this blog. So, how does eFrontPro fare for talent development? Pretty well, actually. eFrontPro was designed from the start to offer enough flexibility in talent development areas, from its excellent integration features to automated employee surveys and advanced organizational options. Here are some eFrontPro’s features that make it a perfect fit for your talent development and learning needs: Continuous Talent Development and Performance Support Experience and research have shown that real talent development happens through micro-learning programs and continual testing — the fastest and most non-intrusive way to increase employee knowledge and performance. eFrontPro’s talent development features make continuous learning easy and practical, allowing your employees to learn as they commute or just whenever they have a few minutes of downtime — all they need is their smartphone. Automated competency and skills management (with skills gap analysis) eFrontPro’s sophisticated skills management features make managing employee accreditation, certification, skill sets and competencies simple and automatic. And, if you don’t know who has which skills to begin with, you can use the Skills Gap Analysis to ensure you identify and associate the right skills to the right role, and then continue to benchmark and develop them until you have the right models for your organization. Individualized Analysis and Reporting Talent development is all about understanding the individuals in your organization and empowering them to become better. eFrontPro’s analysis and reporting features help you to monitor employee progress, identify and highlight potential issues and distribute your insights through easily understandable presentations. Gamification for better talent engagement eFrontPro’s Gamification Engine introduces the competitive spirit and some playfulness into the talent development process to increase employee engagement and training performance. Use badges, rewards, and the leaderboard to signal accomplishment and success. Use levels to test your employees’ endurance and measure their progress. Make their development fun and let gamification drive their retention and performance up without them even feeling like it’s work. Blended Learning eFrontPro supports eLearning courses, classroom training, and online videoconferences and webinars as part of a single unified curriculum. Combine online and offline (or real-time) talent development and get the best of both worlds. Easily manage your online and offline training programs (and the physical locations and scheduling for the latter) through the same simple interface, and set optional course prerequisites and paths to ensure that your employees complete their modules in the right order. Better user experiences with Extended Enterprise eFrontPro allows you to easily integrate with your HR system & customize all the extra functionality you need to ensure the best user experience for your corporate learners. And loads more to come… With the 4.4 update coming soon, and bringing with it several major new Learning and Talent Development features and workflow enhancements, you can rest assured that eFrontPro will only get stronger in both areas, while retaining its familiar ease of use and flexibility, which you know and love. Conclusion Whereas most enterprise Talent Development products offer weak Learning feature sets, eFrontPro, as a combined Learning and Talent Development platform, offers you the best of both the (closely related) employee training and talent development worlds. In eFrontPro, Learning features live side by side with Talent Development, creating a unique synergy that enables your business to not only train, position, certify, engage, and in general develop and retain its talent, but make it thrive. The post Make your talent thrive with eFrontPro appeared first on eFront Blog.

"Roses are red, violets are blue, and boy do we have a great new eFrontPro update for you…" Excuse my bad attempt at verse, but I’m quite excited by our new eFrontPro 4.4 update, and I think that after reading this post, you will be too. More than a mere point release, it’s chock-full with major new features, and, more importantly, it represents a big turning point for the platform; but more on that later. The Best of eFrontPro 4.4 H5P content creation toolset H5P is a collection of libraries and tools that empower content creators to create rich HTML5 interactions. H5P support in eFrontPro 4.4 allows instructors to add rich interactive content, mini-apps, videos, presentations, games and more to their courses, that they can either create themselves from scratch or download and adapt from the community shared projects at H5P.org. Learning history eFrontPro 4.4 allows administrators to view the complete training history of a user, including all courses attended and completed, test results, certifications, and more. What’s more, instructors can even revert a user to a previous learning history state. Batch Importer The new Batch Importer plugin provides a quick way of building your course and lesson structure from already existing SCORM content. Using the batch importer, an eFrontPro administrator just has to import a single zip file containing all of their SCORM content, and the system will automatically create the necessary courses and fill-in the appropriate lesson content for each course. Two factor authentication eFrontPro 4.4 introduces 2-factor authentication as an optional security setting. 2-factor authentication improves security by requiring an additional identification key ("factor") on top of the regular user password. The technology is used to secure highly critical systems such as banking websites and corporate accounts, but has been seeing widespread adoption from popular SaaS providers such as Google, Facebook and Apple too. 2-factor authentication options in eFrontPro 4.4 include SMS tokens, the Google Authenticator mobile app and email. And the rest of eFrontPro 4.4 While those were our new flagship features, eFrontPro 4.4 goes much deeper than that, with several new capabilities and important workflow improvements. These include: • Content versioning As far as minor features go, this one is a biggie: past versions of a unit are saved and can be retrieved for future reference, allowing you to keep a history of your unit edits and changes. • xAPI 1.0 support While we already supported previous versions of xAPI (a.k.a. TinCan), we now have support for the standard first stable version too. • Course prerequisites You can now indicate that a course is only accessible if the user has completed one or more other courses. • Clone content You can now select a unit, test, survey etc, and clone to another lesson (provided that you have access to it). • Self-assessment tests A test now may be characterized as "self-assessment", meaning that it doesn’t count in the overall lesson (and course) score. • Express interest End-users may now request a training session to be organized near their preferred area. • Branch settings You can now specify at the branch level the site name and motto, as well as the preferred SAML gateway to use for SSO. Finally, we’ve made new Bookmarks and Glossary plugins available alongside the 4.4 release. The new release is already available to download / update to, and of course it also comes with the usual assortment of fixes, improvements and fine-tuning to our User Interface from our UX ninjas. eFrontPro got talent Starting from right about now, eFrontPro will be rebranded as a Learning and Talent Development Platform. Worry not, this doesn’t mean we’re dropping your favorite eLearning management features, or that we’ll stop adding new LMS functionality — just that we will fine tune and enhance eFrontPro for Talent Development workflows as well. So think of eFrontPro 4.4 as a super-set of Talent Development and eLearning Management features, in other words even better for modern enterprise needs. The post eFrontPro got talent: version 4.4 released with major new features appeared first on eFront Blog.