Short and focused learning is a concept most people in L&D agree with. We know learning time is tight and that people slot it into their days when they can—and more often, when needed. Resource-based or bite-size learning is a fad that’s here to stay for this reason. But bite-size learning isn’t like bread—you don’t just slice it up and dish it out. At least, that’s our take on a recent post from Nick Shackleton-Jones. If you follow Nick Shackleton-Jones, you may have seen the post where he compares courses with resource-based learning. He identifies a common mistake that can be made when going from one to the other: we break material into smaller chunks and push it out. The problem? There’s no consideration of the context in which learners will use the content. Content dumping (credit: Nick Shackleton-Jones) Learning design should start from the business’ or performance problem’s point of view. Before you touch any content, conduct out some analysis. And, as Nick says, you should be: "…getting to know your audience, their ‘performance context’ and spotting the gaps—i.e. the points in their working day where there is an opportunity for you to help." Bite-size or resource-based learning helps busy people learn, but only if it fits into their busy days. It must be timely, relevant, and useful. If it’s not, well, it just piles up, un-eaten. The focus should be on what they need help doing. This is why we love Cathy Moore’s Action Mapping; it focuses on the desired actions and performance gaps we must meet. Pull or push? Nick is a big fan of pull learning, where the audience will pull or use the content you provide when needed. They’ll probably only do so if it’s designed to be useful and supports daily performance—hence the diagram above. Bite-size content can also be pushed, and sometimes learning has to be. But pushed learning should be performance- and action-orientated, too. Why? Because a content-driven approach will just be what it says on the tin: "content." Learning design and the encouragement of behavior change must start by getting under the audience’s skin and working out how best to move them from A to B. If you want to serve up bite-size learning, think of it more like tapas, where customers order mini-dishes when they’re hungry—OR a smorgasbord of delights they work through with pleasure. Just don’t dump a heap of bread on them. Related: Stay on top of the latest elearning ideas, trends and technologies by subscribing to the Elucidat weekly newsletter. The post Bite-size learning: don’t just slice up content and dish it out appeared first on Elucidat Blog.

Business leaders and learners are demanding more from the learning initiatives they commission and consume. Let’s look at four important online training trends you need to consider in 2016. Organizations want to see greater returns from their Learning and Development (L&D) investment, and learners expect high levels of engagement and quality of the online products in which they participate. Here are four current online training trends that demonstrate this. 1. Bite-sized learning Bite-sized elearning events are small, self-contained elearning events, which typically run for between 1 and 15 minutes, and are usually focused on one or two tightly defined learning objectives. There are two very good reasons why this trend is gaining popularity. Firstly, learners like it. One study from the Rapid Learning Institute showed that 94% of learners prefer modules of less than 10 minutes in duration (particularly for soft skill topics), and 65% said that most elearning modules were bloated with too much information. Secondly, bite-sized modules are flexible. A great example of this flexibility is the JJCV Eye Care Practitioners course, built using  Elucidat’s elearning authoring tool. This course contains a number of accredited 10-minute nuggets, each one allowing time-poor eye care professionals to accumulate Continuing Education and Training (CET) points necessary for their ongoing professional registration. The success of this program would have been difficult to achieve with a more conventional ‘long-program’ approach. 2. Mobile learning Mobile learning is something that can’t be ignored. Some predictions put smartphones into the hands of 90% of UK adults by 2016, and already show 91% of the US population using smartphones via fast 3G/4G connectivity. This penetration, and the always-on / always-available nature of mobile devices, makes them a great vehicle for bite-sized elearning and performance-support materials. Sometimes, a workforce doesn’t have desktop or laptop devices to access training. This case study from Utility Warehouse describes how their learning, which was optimized for mobile delivery, reached 46,000 learners, 15 percent of whom accessed it on smartphones and 16 percent on tablet computers. The sophistication of tools like Elucidat’s authoring platform, that put the power to create mobile learning directly in the hands of Subject Matter Experts, can only accelerate the move towards mobile learning. 3. Gamification Gamification of a process or system is the application of game-design principles to it, for example the allocation of points, badges, or status gained through perseverance or mastery of a skill. When applied well, gamification motivates participants to exhibit certain desired behaviors. L&D (and other business units) are increasingly leveraging this psychology to make their initiatives more engaging and effective. Gartner predicted that, by 2015, more than 50% of organizations that have managed innovation processes will gamify them. An example of gamification you’ll be familiar with is loyalty systems. These work by motivating you to build points and possibly status within the ‘tribe’ (other members) by exhibiting certain behaviors — typically making purchases through particular vendors! In learning, the behaviors that gamification usually promotes include enthusiastic learner participation and a perseverance to do well, perhaps trying and retrying to better an earlier score. Like our loyalty example, the motivation comes by building points, status, or esteem — but through the participation of learning initiatives rather than by spending money. Elements of decision making, challenge, and replay-ability are usually parts of gamified learning. Connect with Haji Kamal, by Kinection, is an example of an interactive scenario that challenges the learner to make critical decisions that directly affect the scenario’s outcome. This replay-ability encourages learners to experiment with different choices and to improve with each pass through the learning process. 4. Data analytics Understanding how your learners interact with your learning initiatives is the first step in ensuring that your learning content is efficient and meets their needs. For example, imagine that 85 percent of the learners taking a course are passing with a minimum pass mark of 75 percent. As an L&D manager, you might think that is pretty good, and that the course is doing its job. But that’s only the tip of the iceberg. Imagine that you had more detail than just an overall score. What if you could see that 100 percent of the learners got the same four questions wrong? This should start ringing alarm bells! Are the quiz questions to blame, or is there something ambiguous in the course content? Maybe the course design is making assumptions about prior knowledge that learners don’t actually possess? Whatever the reason, the learners are spending (wasting) time with flawed materials. Emerging technologies like the xAPI standard (aka Tin Can) and Google Analytics, coupled with ever-more sophisticated analysis and visualization software, enable you to see in detail how learners are using your courses. Imagine the ability to identify that most learners are spending too much time on a simple learning concept. Why is that? Maybe the content is more complicated than it needs to be or there’s a problem with the course navigation? Perhaps a simple change to the content will save hours of learner time and frustration. It’s only through the capture and close examination of data that these sorts of problems are exposed, so that real efficiencies can be made. Related: Stay on top of the latest elearning ideas, trends and technologies by subscribing to the Elucidat weekly newsletter. In conclusion The great news about these innovations is that the tools that enable them are becoming more powerful, more readily available, and easier to use all the time. There’s no reason why you can’t take these ideas and experiment with them in your organization today. The post 4 online training trends to consider in 2016 appeared first on Elucidat Blog.

What impact does digital technology have on business performance? A lot. A recent report from the Harvard Business Review (HBR) found that "the most digital companies see outsized growth in productivity and profit." In this article we’ll explore how this might impact learning. The report looked at three key areas—digital assets, digital usage, and digital workers. While all have an impact on business performance, the latter makes a stand-out difference. Putting digital tools in the hands of employees hugely increases productivity. What does that mean for learning? It’s a no brainer. Learning needs to be performance focused and digital. Get it right, and such learning will increase productivity further. What does the report say? HBR created its report off the back of in-depth research by McKinsey. They evaluated the digitization of industry sectors and companies across the US and found that those that have embraced digital technologies for back-end services, for engaging with customers, and for enabling employee tasks and workflow stand head and shoulders above those that have not. Also, there is a surprising number of sectors that are yet to either go digital or to fully embrace it. But it is the use of digital technologies by employees that stands out as the crucial factor. Providing employees with digital tools to help them with their day-to-day tasks makes a huge difference to the performance of the organization. "The gaps are huge: companies in leading sectors have workforces that are 13 times more digitally engaged than the rest of the economy." What does this mean for learning? While the report itself doesn’t drill down into the role of digital learning, we know that corporate learning is there to enhance performance, and so it has a crucial role to play in business performance. Related: Corporate learning is "wildly out of sync" with how people prefer to learn 5 ways learning can join the digital productivity ride To enhance productivity and employee performance, learning should do the following: Tap into the digital revolution and be put into the hands of employees—take learning to them, not take them away for learning Fit into the workflows of individuals and support them at their points of need. Be multi-device and available 24/7 Keep up with production or performance needs, i.e., have the ability to be updated in an instant, to all devices Link to on-the-job digital tools that further support productivity so that learning content is not separated from on-the-job tools; the two need to sit side by side to streamline operations In a recent survey carried out by Towards Maturity, which we discuss here, 70% of learners said that online learning had a positive impact on their performance. This makes sense when you see it in the context of the above list, as online learning—in particular, multi-device learning—has the potential to streamline and support performance by slotting into the workflow. Related: Stay on top of the latest elearning ideas, trends and technologies by subscribing to the Elucidat weekly newsletter. Final thoughts The digital revolution is here to stay, and those who embrace it and move with it will have the cutting edge in business. The same goes for learning. Workforces that are given digital tools drive productivity and business performance. Learning that is both digital and performance-focused will do the same. Learning and training providers can’t afford to leave digital solutions off their list. The art is to design online learning around the needs of the audience to ensure that it slots into their workflow and performance needs. Ready to embrace digital learning? Consider using our simple and fast authoring tool, Elucidat. The post HBR report: "Digital technologies increase productivity." But are you ready to embrace digital learning? appeared first on Elucidat Blog.

The discussion started on this blog with my "Dear Plagiarist" post, continued, rather heatedly, on Facebook, then was picked up by  Sue Lyon Jones’ article on plagiarism on Barbara Hoskins Sakamoto’s Teaching Village blog where she explained some of the basics of the law related to this issue. Today, Sue picks up the topic again and in a special guest post for TEFL Matters  continues with advice on how to avoid having your content plagiarised. It’s great to have Sue right here in my TEFL Matters ‘front parlour’!!!  Stop, Thief!  How To Deter People From Copying Your Blog Content by Sue Lyons Jones In Marisa Constantinides’s passionate and heartfelt post, "Dear Plagiarist", she gives vent to the frustration, hurt and disappointment that many of us feel when others copy our work without asking first, or seek to pass it off as something that they have created themselves. In this post, I’m going to share a tip that you can use to make it more difficult for people to copy work you publish on your blog, by customising your feed so that it only publishes the first paragraph or two of your posts, rather than complete articles. What are the benefits of publishing snippets rather than full feeds? Here are three good reasons why publishing full RSS feeds is worth a rethink, if it is something that you currently do: 1) Publishing full feeds makes it really easy for people to copy your content Back in the days when I was a new kid on the blog, I used to […]

ELTons Awards Nomination News May 23, 2012   Innovation in Teacher Resources We are very proud, pleased and honoured to be shortlisted in the nominations for an ELTons award, "the only international awards that recognise and celebrate innovation in the field of English language teaching (ELT)." For a whole week my blogs will be celebrating the ELTons  award nomination and shortlisting of the #ELTchat  website  and #ELTchat, a weekly online discussion on Twitter  followed by hundreds of educators around the globe.in the Innovation in Teacher Resources category. This weekly conversation has very quickly evolved and developed into a great sharing community with a wiki and a blog which we maintain to share knowledge, ideas and links in a series of blog posts summarising the main chats podcasts and videos containing interviews with colleagues, teachers and well-known authors on the topics of the weekly discussions. The nomination is not for a product, but for content co-created through our conversations and the volunteer work of us, the moderators, and #ELTchat participants, who share their knowledge generously and freely, and by those of them who undertake to write up the summaries of these conversations, making them coherent, easier to read and accessible to all. It is those summaries, collected and presented together, that make all the difference and which have evolved into a formidable resource for teachers. Some absolutely marvellous posts have been written up for the benefit of all who follow #ELTchat - and even for those who don’t follow but have discovered this treasure trove of ELT resources. On May 23, 2012, during the awards ceremony in London, UK, which will be held at BMA House - the building of the British Medical Association, the winners will be announced […]

Some Classic Mistakes In my first two posts in this series on Discipline, I mentioned some of the causes of undisciplined behaviour and a few proactive steps which I believe will help in creating a classroom atmosphere which promotes disciplined behaviour. In this post, the third post in this series on discipline, I would like to mention a few points about teacher traits which may cause students not to be the angels we would like them to be! I am an expert on how not to be an angel - being unruly was my modus vivendi throughout my school years and what follows is a list of what caused me to be rowdy and unruly; a series of traits displayed by a long line of teachers from a different century. What my teachers did They lectured They screamed and shouted They punished unfairly and harshly They humiliated students publicly They insisted on having the last word Their body language was negative They used violence They never praised anyone but the top students They had irritating quirks, like keys jangling in pockets, scratching in strange places, odd gestures etc They never moved from behind their desks They droned! They had really boring voices! They recited the book and made no other effort to animate the content They made sarcastic remarks if you made a mistake They ridiculed weaker students They had favourites They were unfair They sulked and were unforgiving They made irrelevant comments They accused anyone or everyone They were vindictive They often lost control of their class They were […]

For the last - well, almost two years now, since September 15 2010, #ELTchat has kept us on our toes and forged hundreds of professional and personal relationships amongst its followers who turn up on Twitter every Wednesday to talk about topics they have suggested and voted on - a community of peers which was created by a small group of colleagues - which grew and grew some more and became something that counts as an important part of our continuous professional development. Like many great ideas, it didn’t hit just one person but several. And that is how #ELTchat was created.     The website to keep up the communication of its members, a base and repository of our ideas was one of the first things we all thought of creating - the wiki came later. Andy Chaplin was keen to join the moderation team and help with podcasts and technical stuff; he was quick to buy eltchat.com and announced the good news to us after the fact. A few months later, right after TESOL France 2011,  he suddenly disappeared - some say for reasons of health. We never found out for sure. We never received a single word of response to our emails. eltchat.com was and still is registered in his name. And yesterday we lost it On August 8 the domain expired and we have no way of taking over unless it goes up for sale again; it was very sad that Andy Chaplin did not find it appropriate to renew. The […]

There have been so many studies done and results published insisting that one-off training isn’t very effective. We use that phrase—one-off training—quite a bit on this blog. For new readers (hello, thanks for joining!) we use that phrase to describe training that’s done with zero follow-up or accountability. The audience participates in the class whether in-person or online, and then they’re done. These courses are created and delivered with the expectation that the participants will not only retain the entire heap of information that’s been dumped on them, but be able to execute that new knowledge on-the-job. Let’s look at one very telling statistic discovered by three different sources: Up to 80% of new skills are lost within 1 week of training if not used (ASTD) 87% of new skills are lost within a month of the training (Xerox) Without reinforcement, learners will likely forget 80% of training material within 90-120 days. (Sales Readiness Group) Edgar Dale’s Cone of Experience tells us that people remember 90% of what they do, which means on-the-job learning is much more effective than, say, classroom-only training. Furthermore, what these numbers tell us is that we absolutely must do more to help people apply new knowledge. The whole point of training is to help people be better at something, and only teaching them once is doing them a huge disservice. We can make training much more effective by extending the learning beyond just one session. It’s even more impactful when it’s broken into bite-sized chunks and embedded into the workflow, so that’s readily available and consumed at the highest point of need, i.e. while on-the-job. Is Embedded Learning Different From Performance Support? With so much terminology flying around in the industry, it can be hard to know whether terms represent different concepts, or if they’re actually addressing the same thing. Embedded learning and performance support, while related, are not quite the same thing. Performance Support can include job aids, procedural checklists, diagrams, instructional photos or videos, and is a subcategory of embedded learning focused specifically on the successful completion of a task or process. Embedded Learning is a broader term that includes performance support materials, but also social/collaborative learning between peers or with supervisors, coaching tools, microlearning, or even training reminders and memory jogs delivered by email or SMS. The key is that embedded learning breaks down the silo between work and training. Why Learning Should Be Embedded in the Workflow As the training and work silos are broken down, you’ll be able to take advantage of the vast amount of knowledge that already exists within your organization. Getting buy-in and support from subject matter experts for a training course can be tough, but empowering them to share knowledge as part of their typical day is easier. Once audience members experience the added value of on-the-job learning that helps their performance, they should embrace it and help spread additional knowledge themselves. Impact can be immediate. If someone finds a resource that helps them complete a task better or faster, their performance has been improved and will continue to improve each time they perform that task. Embedded learning improves the effectiveness of formal training by providing reinforcement and coaching. It reduces the retention problem we addressed at the beginning of this post. It may reduce the need for formal training, or at least give an organization flexibility in determining the best modality for delivering training based on subject matter. Resources can be allocated in a smarter way. The contextual nature of embedded learning makes it effective and impactful right away. It’s better absorbed and retained when put in context of day-to-day work. It lends itself to a broad spectrum of multimedia, allowing users to access learning on mobile devices on the go or at their workstation. Everything from printed materials to wearable device applications can work. With the right measures in place, we should be able to determine the impact on desired outcomes. You’ve decided you want to give this a shot. Now the question is, where can you embed learning items? The best solution will vary depending on role. For example, something accessible from a mobile device might be necessary for some teams, while others are fine to have desktop access or even printed materials they see every day. Give consideration to the following: An employee intranet An organizational social collaboration tool A corporate training or employee management portal Work systems A custom mobile app Email or text message Procedural Checklists - we’re big fans of electronic, interactive ones And more...what ideas do you have? Before You Begin, Know the Potential Challenges Implementing any new learning program will come with a set of challenges. Plan to address hurdles before they appear. Some you might encounter are: Embedded learning could, at least initially, increase "time-on-task". That’s not necessarily a bad thing, because you’re trading speed for effectiveness. Track this over time and watch for improvement. Be sure you’ve thought through how to organize the learning tools in a way that makes it easy to find, easy to use, and readily available. Embedded learning is very different from formal learning, and can’t be managed the same way. L&D teams should expect an adjustment period. You will need to get managerial support so that employees are encouraged to use it. Adoption can be slow at first, as with any new system. The less the employee has to adapt (the better you can truly embed the learning into their day) the better results you’ll see. Do you have experience with embedded learning you can share with us in the comments section below? What has worked for you? How difficult was it to adopt? We’d love to hear from you. photo credit: Brian Taylor, Auto Wrapping Process at AMPORTS

Organizations have the power to determine whether training programs have the impact they’re supposed to, but the majority of them still rely on outdated measures of lesser value. In this post, we’ll discuss why it’s so important to measure a learning program’s impact on performance, why it can be hard, and some tips for getting started. Connecting Learning and Performance...What Does That Mean, Exactly? Training followed a typical path for a long time. When someone is new to an organization, they learn about the mission, the importance of their role, and how to perform it correctly. As they mature in their role, additional training may be provided as circumstances warrant; new software, systems, techniques or protocols are all common drivers of training. This approach to training is based more on what we think people should be trained on, rather than what individual and organizational performance data is telling us. L&D is experiencing a shift to include more of the latter: looking at results to tell us where and what kind of training is needed. Slow Adoption of Data-Driven Learning Strategy Brandon Hall Group’s (BHG) recent webinars and articles have focused on the need for organizations to connect the learning function to business performance, and the rather surprising number of organizations that still aren’t doing it. We’re excited to see this topic brought to the forefront by an industry leader and think tank, because it’s one we’ve focused on for several years in the development of our learning management software, ExpandShare. It’s a passion of mine. We want to share some of BHG’s findings from the recent The State of Learning & Development research report, as discussed during a November, 2015 webinar: Researchers separated "high performing organizations" from the overall group of respondents and found an interesting trend. High Performing Organizations,  as defined by BHG researchers, had a year-over-year increase in key performance indicators. Experiencing growth in areas like revenue, customer satisfaction, and market share, these organizations are also more likely to employ today’s learning and development best practices. They are more likely to build a learning strategy to guide activities. They are more likely to base learning strategy on organizational performance goals. They are more likely to use advanced measurement types beyond Kirkpatrick’s Level 1 to determine the impact of learning activities and strategy. When asked about connecting the learning function to business performance, the results were, again, quite telling: Just over 80% of high performing organizations indicated they’ve tied L&D to business outcomes to a "moderate or high degree". That number dropped to about 65% for all respondents. When asked why learning and performance should be connected, survey respondents offered the reasons listed below. Note the primary focus is ensuring the training department delivers what is most needed by the business to drive success. "To align learning strategy with business needs" (65.3% of all respondents) "To develop strategies for addressing L&D needs" (33.3% of all respondents) "Analyze L&D needs" (33.1%) "Promote strong financial management" (24.5%) "Strengthen ethics and government" (22.1%) "Evaluate L&D" (17.4%) Respondents were also asked about how they measure learning programs. About 50% of survey respondents claimed they measure the majority (75-100%) of their learning programs at Kirkpatrick Level 1 - Satisfaction. 40% are measuring none of their learning programs at Level 4 - Results. Let that one simmer for a minute. Assuming respondents are a representative sample, 40% of organizations have no way of knowing whether their training programs have any impact on business results, and they’re not even attempting to find out. Look For Meaningful Data to Inform and Guide Your Learning Strategy Marketers have been through what L&D departments are going through now. For a long time, many marketing tactics weren’t very measurable, and if they were it wasn’t terribly meaningful information. The number of people who could potentially have your television ad broadcast in their home isn’t super helpful. It was hard to determine an ROI. Digital marketing, big data, and platforms that power entire marketing strategies, like Marketo and HubSpot, have allowed marketers to track all kinds of metrics and make swift tactical adjustments to maximize results. Similarly, training departments have relied on "smile sheets" and quizzes to gauge the success of a course. While interesting, these measures aren’t terribly meaningful. Just because someone says they enjoyed a course doesn’t mean they will perform better at their job. Just because they score 100% on a quiz doesn’t mean they will have retained that information a month down the line. Training departments need data to tell them whether training activities are impacting on-the-job performance and moving the needle. The figure below lists some of the KPIs Brandon Hall’s survey respondents indicated were good measures of success. Some others may be: Increase in Sales Point-of-Sale Behavior Equipment downtime Problem Resolution Customer Complaints Inspection Results And more, depending on your organization’s unique KPIs Brandon Hall Group: The State of L&D: Trends in Learning Technology, Strategy, and More (2015) Why Isn’t Everyone Measuring the Impact of Learning Programs? Talking to folks at organizations of all shapes and sizes, we hear a lot of the same challenges when it comes to implementing these practices. In short, it’s hard. If it weren’t, everyone would be doing it by now. It often requires pulling data from multiple systems within the organization, and that’s not always a piece of cake. It requires buy-in from the necessary departments and, of course, the IT work to import or export relevant data. You may find you need another platform or external resource that’s a difficult sell internally. If your internal analytics team is already swamped, getting help crunching data can be tough. While Not Always Easy, It’s Worth It Armed with the right results-oriented information, L&D teams have the ability to createneeded learning programs and deliver them to the right people at the right time. They will know how much their work contributes to the meeting of organizational goals. But What If Our Training Programs Aren’t Making An Impact? This isn’t something you should worry about. First, that’s highly unlikely. Second, even if you start taking a deeper look at the impact of training and don’t like what you see, the data will also help you design an improvement plan. It will make your job easier, not harder. We want to hear from you in the comments section below. Is your organization one of the High Performing Organizations who’s successfully connected learning to business performance? If you’ve made strides in this area, what positives (and negatives, we won’t pretend major overhaul is a bowl of sunshine!) are you experiencing? If you’ve not yet begun, what’s holding you back? Please share your experiences with us. photo credit: id0050.JPG via photopin (license)

One of the challenges that eLearning professionals face is knowing just where to find useful and effective eLearning resources for course design. However, there are a variety of sites that offer wonderful instructional design tools that materials for you to choose from. Better yet, a vast majority of them are absolutely free. Here are the[...] The post Best Elearning development resouces appeared first on Soni Amit K.