Reading Horizons Discovery™ is a software program that’s designed to help young readers in kindergarten through Grade 3.  From emergent readers to struggling readers and everything in between, this application is an excellent tool for helping students as they learn to read. Reading Horizons Discovery can be used on any internet-enabled device, and is a great addition to the elementary curriculum. More on our reviews page.

This is another difficult question when starting out on a PhD. If you knew the answer to that, then perhaps you would not need to undertake the PhD in the first place. It gets more complicated still (and yet, at the same time, more straightforward!) Obviously, the initial broad area of investigation will get parsed down into a more specific, more manageable topic, with a particular "research question" or perhaps "research problem" which the student then attempts to explore in detail. The PhD, however, is more than simply a research project looking for a clever answer (although, it can be that as well). The most important component of the PhD is to demonstrate that the doctoral candidate fully understands the process of advanced research at this level. In the context of the research project, this means knowing (or learning) when to explore a new area (or branch of academic literature) and when to narrow the options and explore in greater depth. It means learning when to stop reading and start gathering new data; when to start writing and when (and what) to re-visit, edit, and revise. As the student becomes more deeply embedded in the research topic, this becomes more important, because a fondness for the topic might obscure critical judgment, leading to an attempt to have a comprehensive investigation of everything, rather than developing a speciality which advances knowledge about the subject. Part of this learning process is also about timing. Students frequently complain that they "don’t have enough time" to complete the project successfully, but this is often the case of trying to squash a six-month project into three months. Bad planning means that something has to be sacrificed. It is always difficult to be deterministic about how long it will take to do each stage of a PhD, because each person and each research problem is different. As a rough guide, however, it is not uncommon that over three-years of full-time PhD research, the student will spend the first nine months or so just getting to grips with the literature. During this time they will perhaps complete the draft of a literature review, giving a narrative on the main events and key articles on the research topic to date. Towards the end of this period, the student will be developing a more intimate feel for the methodological approach and the methods of gathering new data that they wish to adopt. The methodology chapter can probably be drafted quite quickly at this point, although it will usually be necessary to revisit it later to ‘tweak’ the proposal to reflect what was actually done! Having established the preferred research methods, ethical permission to conduct the research can now be applied for and hopefully speedily approved. The PhD now enters the really interesting point - the ‘meat’ in the sandwich - where the student now begins to conduct the research and gather new data. This period (subject to the above caution that every project is different) may last from the end of the first year (of full-time study) until the beginning of the third year. The student will be writing drafts of the results chapter towards the end of this period, and the final six months or so will usually be spent on writing the discussion/conclusions/recommendations chapter and tidying up the dissertation. Do not underestimate how long it will take to check all the spelling, grammar, citations, references, figure numbers, diagrams, and general formatting! A part-time PhD will obviously take longer than the three-year full-time project (normally 5-6 years) but this rough time-line can be adapted to suit. With a clear initial research question, and a careful approach to each subsequent stage in the process, "what you need to know" usually emerges from the academic mist!

IDENTIFY USEFUL CONTENT AND KEEP IT Reusing instructionally sound training content where possible saves time and money, and is preferable to developing new content from scratch. As a result of a training portfolio audit, you will identify content that should be reduced or removed as well as content that should be reused for future programs. In particular, instructionally sound, informative training content developed with the help of a company’s subject matter experts is valuable enough to be considered for reuse in the future rather than neglecting it or throwing it away. Reuse to Modernize from InfoPro Learning, Inc. Once reusable learning assets have been identified, they should be sequestered away from content that will be reduced or thrown out. As a general best practice, the best way to manage learning assets is through the use of a robust learning content management system (LCMS).1 Proper usage of an LCMS will ensure that useful learning content is stored in a safe place and can be reused and recycled in the future as necessary. Reusable learning assets come in many forms. Here are some of the most common types of reusable learning assets: Training Slide Decks Slide decks from older instructor-led training programs can be a treasure trove of powerful content, including statistics, infographics, and illustrations. Instructional Videos Instructional videos can serve different purposes in training programs: onboarding videos for new hires, product information videos, videos interspersed throughout e-learning courses, etc. Try to think of ways in which instructional videos can be reused, since video production in and of itself is a significant investment. Job Aids Job aids are meant to serve as a reference to workers on the job - and to that end, they are oftentimes highly succinct and information rich learning objects that can be reused for a variety of different purposes. Instructor-Led Training ManualsBreakout sessions, role-plays, homework assignments, and hands-on workshops help learners to struggle through the material and learn dynamically. You have Reduced, You have Reused, what is next?Reducing and Reusing are only the first steps to maximizing training ROI. Read more, download the Modernize EBook from InfoPro Learning for free! Download the Modernize EBook 1. Jurubescu, T. (2008). "Learning Content Management Systems." Informatica Economica, 48(4), 91-94. About the author: Kyle Miller is an enterprise learning consultant with InfoPro Learning based out of Princeton, NJ. Prior to joining InfoPro, Kyle served as a research associate on subjects including e-learning, online education, game-based learning, and social media usage in higher education at St. John’s University in New York. The post Reuse for a Greater ROI: How to Identify and Keep Good Content appeared first on .

APPLY MODERN INSTRUCTIONAL DESIGN BEST PRACTICES Recycling content with an eye towards improving its effectiveness and design requires the application of modern instructional design techniques to select reusable pieces of content. By recycling existing content, time, effort, and budget are all conserved during the development process when compared to new program development. The three key success criteria for recycling training content are future reusability, content modularization, and content searchability. Future Reusability Training content that can be reused and continually offered to learners for years into the future is an excellent investment. To future-proof training content, it should contain broad statistical trends rather than specific annual statistics, be published in interoperable formats, and contain timeless case studies and examples rather than current events and topical stories. Broad Statistics > Specific Data Using current annual statistics, figures, and reports in training content leads inevitably to future data inaccuracies and learner perceptions that training programs are outdated and irrelevant. Using mean statistical trends over a period of years paints a broader factual picture for learners, and will be much more useful as a reference for the future. Interoperability > Compartmentalization Properly recycled training content can be used in multiple contexts and platforms. Can instructor-led training manuals be used by trainers both in-person and virtually? Can e-learning courses be accessed from desktop computers and mobile devices alike? Ensure that recycled content can live where learners have a need to access it. Timeless Examples > Current Events Five years from now, which leadership development example will have more cultural relevancy: Odysseus’ epic struggle to overcome a Cyclops, sirens, and Gods along with his own shortcomings as a man in the Odyssey, or the crude and Machiavellian rise of Snapchat CEO Evan Spiegel?  Illustrate training concepts with timeless examples rather than current events which may or may not be recognizable to learners years from now. Content Modularization Logically modularized training content ensures ease of access for learners that want to take a deeper dive into a particular subject area. In recycling legacy training programs, modularization should mostly be applied to formerly lengthy and unwieldy courses that were identified earlier during the Reduce stage of content conservation. Two instructional design frameworks that can be used in content modularization are microlearning and just- in-time training delivery: Microlearning Rather than e-learning courses that can drag on for 30 minutes to an hour at a time on a multitude of subjects, breaking e-learning content up into modules of no more than two minutes long each for specific subjects is a powerful exercise in content modularization. Just-in-Time Training Learners might want to reference training material on the job so they can learn key concepts just in the nick of time. If learning modules are laser-focused on specific subjects, just-in-time training delivery becomes a reality. Content Searchability One of the most exciting ways to recycle training content is to ensure that learning assets are properly metatagged and stored in searchable databases like LMSs for learners and LCMSs for learning and development team members. The work of going back and adding metatags to old learning assets is not exciting, but it holds immense potential for ensuring that learners and L&D staff can access training content on-demand. To add relevant metatags to training content, sometimes the assistance of a subject-matter-expert is also required. However, in the age of Google when learners are accustomed to having information directly at their fingertips, ensuring training content searchability and ease of access is extremely important. Recycle in Action Recycle is how InfoPro Learning helped a Fortune 50 telecomunications company modernized their learning portfolio to be compatible with 40,000 new tablets to be used by remote employees. For more information on the Telecom company’s solution to compatiblity issues and how a large university updated their elearning for mobile devices, Download the Modernize ebook for Free! Download the Modernize EBook About the author: Kyle Miller is an enterprise learning consultant with InfoPro Learning based out of Princeton, NJ. Prior to joining InfoPro, Kyle served as a research associate on subjects including e-learning, online education, game-based learning, and social media usage in higher education at St. John’s University in New York. The post Recycle for a Greater ROI: How to Future-Proof Your Corporate Training Content appeared first on .

Recognizing Unconscious Bias Bypassing rational and logical thinking, we rapidly sort people into groups, thinking we are using these processes effectively and often calling them "intuition." However, the categories we use to sort people are not actually logical and perhaps not even legal. Our brains - without our permission -take us to the brink of very poor decision making and bias. With so much information to process each day, it’s quite natural that we rely on stereotypes - or groupings - as shortcuts to help us make faster decisions. For example, while search firms are not given "tall" as a criteria for hiring a company’s CEO, (and less than 15 percent of American men are over six feet), almost 60 percent of male corporate CEOs are over six feet. (Similar patterns are true for generals and admirals, and even for U.S. presidents.) The challenges to change a culture that promotes bias can be daunting. First, it takes a commitment to be aware that there are widespread assumptions, patterns and norms that exert enormous influence over our decisions, choices and behaviors. These can perpetuate the status quo, keep old stereotypes alive, and be an obstacle for individuals to change their own behavior - even people who would like to do so. 10 Ways to Reduce Bias in the Workplace Recognize that we’re all human beings and that our brains make mistakes. Simply being aware of unconscious bias can immediately start to reduce our reliance on generalizations or stereotypes. Establish clear criteria in advance of making decisions (hiring, promotion, etc.) so that bias gets taken out of the decision-making process. Hold decision-makers accountable, including yourself. Scrutinize the criteria and think through whether it unintentionally screens out certain good candidates for hiring or promotion. Survey employees confidentially to find out what is really going on in every aspect of the employment process - from pre-screening resumes to hiring to promotion to career opportunities, through compensation and engagement and development as well as the performance management process. Train leadership and employees with an open dialogue and awareness, and encourage the initiative to go beyond the classroom to affinity groups, mentoring programs and ongoing benchmarking against best practices. Pair training with best practices such as joint interviews of applicants and requirements that candidate slates include diverse prospects. Include practices to change the culture such as micro-affirmations, including acts of opening doors to opportunity, gestures of inclusion and caring, acts of listening, giving credit to others, and fair and balanced feedback. Reward employees who engage with affinity groups and bring out the best in the culture by strengthening diversity. Be transparent in the progress against your goals. Remind yourself frequently of the importance of recognizing bias and strive to be fair at all times. About the author: Kathy Sherwood is the Director of Leadership and Organizational Development for InfoPro Learning. Prior to InfoPro Learning, she was the founder and senior partner of a global leadership development company for more than 20 years. Kathy’s specialty is creating a customized blend of workshops, coaching, simulations, and e-learning tools to provide leaders and managers with a competitive advantage, while also maximizing the return on training investment for their organizations. The post 10 Ways You Can Reduce Bias in the Workplace appeared first on .

Team formation activities are vital to eLearning training for organizations. Almost all organizations require team formation within their eLearning programs. As an eLearning program developer, you will need to integrate steps defined through best practices to successfully establish teams. Teams are a linchpin of any organization. Instead of offering a course in team building, a great way to offer eLearning courses is to feature team formation as an added bonus. However, this feature is not free from challenges. The transformation from a group to a team takes a significant amount of time. Activities need to be planned cleverly to minimize this time. Remember, the time spent to form teams in your eLearning group is not counted as time spent on learning! Another challenge faced by course mentors is the distance factor in eLearning training environment. Because of the lack of in-person contact, team members do not have enough time to get to know each other. Tactful eLearning program designers and facilitators employ multiple communication technologies and personality activities to minimize the distance setback. A personality game can be played within teams and scores as well as responses can be discussed in the discussion forum. eLearning groups’ members are extremely diverse in today’s online learning environment. They possess a variety of knowledge, skills, experiences and perspectives. If not handled by expert facilitators, diverse teams can quickly face conflicts. Recognizing personality types and attributing positively is the key to keep teams under control. Let’s looks at the 6 steps in successful team formation: To become a team, a group of eLearners must: 1) Get to know each other well enough to understand their strengths and weaknesses. This is why it’s important to assign roles in team projects. It is also important to trust and have faith in each other. Explicitly reveal the expertise of each individual: their credentials like degrees, certificates and licenses. These can also include portfolios, resumes, and self-classification criteria results. Have each learner share one weakness and what they feel are their under-utilized capabilities. 2) Teams must agree on a common goal or a team mission. The team goal is formed by aligning individual goals with the team goal, which has to be meaningful and worthwhile for each team member. Have team members arrive to this goal through consensus. 3) Assign roles to the teams. Some good examples of initial team roles include: coordinator, group process monitor, morale booster, discussion moderator, summarizer etc. As the course progresses, these roles can become specialized - technologist, editor, presentation creator, theory former, quantitative analyst, legal expert etc. 4) Explicitly discuss professional standards of work in your team environments. This will create a sense of responsibility in your team members. 5) Discuss knowledge gaps in team members and determine how the team will overcome these gaps. Do they need a new member with the needed knowledge? 6) To get everyone started, agree on a starter team process and procedure. This can evolve as members work together and share a unified vision. A great way to get started is to have teams create their logo or team name. Forming teams is the ultimate goal of a successful organization. Describe these points as an added benefit in your eLearning programs to improve course registrations. The best thing about having a team formation strategy is that it can be applied to almost any cohort-based eLearning program. With more and more emphasis being placed on social learning, team formation will be in greater demand. Online instructors will soon encourage members to engage with each other more than ever. With the aid of these 6 steps, you should be able to integrate activities that lead to quicker team formation and greater team-based learning. The post 6 Steps To Forming Teams For eLearning appeared first on TalentLMS Blog.

Branding is undoubtedly one of the most important marketing tools a company can possess and keeping things consistent is one of the keys to its successful use. Consistency, in fact, should run throughout everything associated with the brand, both internally and externally. Whether you are building training courses to train your employees, your clients or teach your learners, it is equally important that your brand is conveyed in a consistent manner. TalentLMS understands how important it is for your learning portal to match your visual identity and general branding (down to the tone of your communications), and it gives you several customization options to help you achieve just that. (note: most of the tips below assume that you are logged in as an administrator). 1)  Upload your own custom Logo & Favicon Aside from its name, few things are more associated with your company’s brand than your corporate logo. Having your TalentLMS-based eLearning portal sport your logo is as easy as it gets. You just need to go to "Account & Settings" page, and upload your image. You also get to upload your own favicon (which is that tiny icon thingy that appears on browser location bars and bookmark listings when one visits your site).   2) Customize the colors of your portal For larger businesses, and for well organized smaller ones, branding comes with a palette of official corporate colors meant to be featured on the company’s website, advertising, packaging, business cards and stationary, and generally all kinds of design output. Smaller businesses might not have such detailed branding guidelines, but they could also benefit from a consistent image when it comes to color, e.g. by picking a number of colors that are featured in their logo, or that go well with it. As for applying your brand colors to your TalentLMS portal, just go to the "Account & Settings" page, and either select a theme from the list of themes that already matches your color scheme, or create your own custom theme by changing the colors of each visual element on your portal.   3) Set the tone (and the language) As expected from a product catering to the international market, TalentLMS lets you easily change the language of your portal, with built-in language packs covering 15 different languages, and the ability to add your own language packs. It doesn’t stop there, though, as it also allows you to dig in and change the wording of any default heading and UI text, to match your brand’s tone of voice — whether you prefer enterprise-y, casual or anything between.   4) Customize your homepage Your TalentLMS homepage is where your learners first come into contact with your learning portal — and also where they login each day to get an overall view of their courses, planned activities and scheduled events. TalentLMS allows you to customize your homepage in all kinds of ways. You can upload your own banner image, set your custom message or company motto, featured  courses, and create your own customized menu and links. You can take advantage of this feature to advertise specific courses, provide quick access to the most common functionality, link to FAQ pages or other parts of your website, etc. Watch this video for more details:   5) Keep everybody in the loop Whether you want to inform learners about upcoming webinars, advertise a new course or simply wish them "Happy Holidays", TalentLMS has you covered. From Account & Settings -> Basic Settings -> Announcement, you can set an announcement that can be visible on your homepage to anybody visiting your eLearning portal ("external") and/or shown when a student has signed in ("internal").   6) Customize your course content If you’re selling courses, then your course catalogue is the virtual equivalent of a physical storefront — you want it to look pretty. And even if you’re running an internal corporate training program, it won’t hurt to make your courses more appealing to your internal users. TalentLMS lets you set a custom image for each course, which will displayed next to the course’s name and details in the course catalogue. To do that, you can simply select the desired image from the image upload box on the Course settings page. TalentLMS accepts the most common image formats, but your image has to be at most 3MB, so we suggest a compressed format such as JPEG. If you want to get even fancier, you can customize the look of the text content within your lesson units — e.g. to use a "funnier" (sic) font for courses intended for smaller children, or to use specific fonts or colors to highlight important passages, etc. You can do that from the content editor, using the top bar to change the font, color and other text attributes.   7) Branch out Do you work in a larger enterprise and have a need to train different departments and/or different clients? Perhaps your company has multiple facilities, in different cities, or even countries? No problem. With it’s "Branches" feature, TalentLMS allows you to create as many separate training portals as you like, each with its own logo, theme, homepage, language, timezone, and other settings. You still get total central control over all of them, as well as the ability to share course content and perform mass actions across all of them. You can get started with Branches in no time following our handy video guide:   8) Custom certificates Certificates are a sort of proof of completion, a type of "degree", that you give to learners who have successfully completed one or more training courses. While TalentLMS already comes in with several certificate styles, from formal elegance, to utilitarian minimalism, it also lets you customize the design of your certificates by uploading your own logo, background and text. As for documentation on this, we have not just one, but two easy-to-follow guides to guide you all the way to the perfect looking certificate.   9) Get your game on Gamification is a great way to motivate and engage learners and get their competitive spirits up. TalentLMS not only offers that, but goes beyond standard gamification features by offering a fully customizable engine — so that you can configure your gamification experience to be as light or as heavy as you want it. Learn how to configure TalentLMS’ gamification options, from fine-tuning its point system to uploading your own custom badges here and here.   10) Customize almost any element of your portal using CSS. Have a specific design in mind for your eLearning portal? Don’t particularly like a default style? CSS to the rescue. CSS (short for Cascading Style Sheets) is a powerful HTML technology that allows you to change all (visual) aspects of your TalentLMS portal, from font colors and sizes, to background images. TalentLMS already comes with a default CSS style, and you can override all or parts of it to your heart’s content. If you’re already familiar with CSS, the possibilities are nearly endless. And if you’re not, it’s easy enough to get started, with our handy guides: 1) How to discover and change the CSS of any element 2) How to customize your fonts 3) How to add a custom background image to your portal   11) Be the king of your own domain TalentLMS offers automatic subdomain mapping for all our hosted eLearning portals, giving you your own company_name.talentlms.com. While this might be enough for internal use, you’ll probably want to be able to use your own domain name for anything public facing. Which you can, armed with our handy domain mapping guide.   12) Customize notifications TalentLMS has a powerful notifications system, allowing you to notify your users when some specific event happens (e.g. when they have successfully registered to a course, have to retake a test, etc.). The notifications are highly customizable too, letting you choose which events will trigger notifications, as well as the exact wording of any message sent to the users. Here’s an in-depth guide to using the notifications system.   13) Add Live chat TalentLMS offers a number of built-in integrations, and quite a few more through  the Zapier meta-integration service. But you can also extend TalentLMS’ functionality using Javascript code that loads external services. One of such external services that can really improve your users’ learning experience is Zopim, which adds a handy "live chat" widget that lets you engage with and assist your learners in real time. Learn more about adding Zopim’s Live Chat widget to TalentLMS here. Conclusion In this post we’ve examined 12+1 (that’s 13, for those of you that don’t believe in superstitions) TalentLMS customizations that will reinforce your branding and improve your users’ learning experience. Of course, with TalentLMS’ flexibility and breadth of customization options they could just as well have been 23 or 103. Do you have any particular TalentLMS customization tips that you’re particularly fond of? Share them with your fellow TalentLMS users in the comments section below — and let us know if there’s some particular option you’d like to see. The post 12+1 TalentLMS customizations that will improve your users’ eLearning experience appeared first on TalentLMS Blog.

Mazzy Star is currently studying a Graduate Certificate in eLearning and is a multimedia all-rounder on her way to become an eLearning designer and developer. Her passions include technology, education and digital storytelling. For the past seven months Mazzy has been undertaking an internship at eWorks. Here she talks about her experience.The value of being […]