Are you ready to follow Jolly Old St. Nick on Google Maps as he makes his Christmas Eve journey around the world? Then tune into the 10th annual Santa Tracker, Google’s super cool interactive project, on December 24 to watch this year’s Christmas trek. In the meantime, check out Santa’s Village—a workshop full of festive activities including an advent calendar which unlocks new animations and games every day from now until the "Big Day". For example, access geography games for exploring holiday traditions around the world, lessons on how to say ‘Santa’ in different languages and there’s even a coding project that teaches JavaScript to help Santa with his once-a-year adventure. Check out the Google Santa Tracker and Christmas Village within The Twelve Digital Days of Christmas Thinglink image located here.

Just because you build a training course, and list it in your LMS, doesn't mean your target audience will automatically come flocking to enjoy your masterpiece. Creating a course is no different than creating any other product. You need to market that product. Training courses are developed for many reasons. Some courses only require idle threats like compliance deadlines. And training professionals can easily get too comfortable creating training courses that are mandatory. With mandatory courses you simply need to communicate the information and consequences of non-compliance. A much better approach would be to create training courses so entertaining and engaging that people would WANT to take it. And not only that they would promote it for you by talking with their peers about it. Not every good course will generate buzz by word of mouth. You need to have a marketing plan. And maybe times have changed for instructional design programs, but nobody ever told me that in graduate school. I remember just wanting to use the best technology to solve training problems, so that's what I did.  But when I discovered very little interest by employees, and managers, in my work I quickly learned that there is more to instructional design than...well...instructional design. Not only do you need a marketing plan for your courses but for your department as well. Employees, especially management, need to know you exist. Focusing all of your time on creating the best most instructionally sound course is only a small part of your success. When you're passionate about your work, it's easy to believe others will be equally interested.  The reality is that most employees don't really care about what the training department does.  At least not from an instructional design perspective. You need to build relationships with the departments you support as well as those whose resources you need. And learning from marketing professionals is a good place to start. Meet your CMO and get to know the marketing team.  Find out what makes them tick. You certainly don't have their budget or resources but you can learn a few tricks of the trade that can make the difference between your team's success or failure. Do you market your training team's efforts? Do they spend time marketing their available courses? I'd love to hear your stories. Connect with me on twitter @bschlenker. The post Why You Need to Market Your Training Courses appeared first on Litmos.

As Quincy Jones once remarked, "I’ve always thought that a big laugh is a really loud noise from the soul saying, "Ain’t that the truth." That said, Edu-fun Friday is a series devoted to adding some humor to the lives of teachers who visit this blog. After all, there’s nothing better than ending the week on a positive note! Plus, do we have the best topics to provide us with some comic relief or what? Isn’t it reassuring to know that our students aren’t the only individuals that need that "Think Before You Click" reminder!

Using existing content to create training is a great way to fire up a training program. Many companies don't have the time and resources to pay consultants, or hire an entire training team. And much of the training development advice on the internet is overwhelming for those non-training professionals who need to create training products or events. In this webinar I was hoping to comfort those new to the world of creating training content with the message that it's okay to create a course using existing content. But there is a catch. And the catch is knowing that your work isn't done. Publishing content created by SMEs to your internal audience is a great way to provide business value fast.  But then you need gather feedback and use that feedback to continually update and improve your course.  And in some cases, you may even discover that the course didn't even need to be created...and you saved yourself and the company time and money. Watch the recording and let me know what you think. I had some great Q&A after the webinar and via email, so please send me your comments. This concept works great in some cases and not so well in others.  If you aren't sure about your current environment, I'm happy to help you figure it out. @bschlenker The post Webinar Recording: How to Turn Existing Content Into Training that Works appeared first on Litmos.

Need a fun Christmas challenge? Then check out the Geeky Girl’s Tech Treasure #4—Winter Savior—to play a cool puzzle game. All you have to do is match the Christmas decorations by rotating tiles until you have four-of-a-kind in a square. Sound easy? Not so much. This activity will have you shuffling pieces again and again! If you dare to make it to Level 3, you’ll enter into open game mode in which you can compete for high score honors! Just hover over the interactive image shown below to get the party started! The full screen version of this interactive image can be accessed here. A special shout out to my mom, who reached the 70 milestone today! Happy, happy birthday, Babs! Love you! ♥

Do you produce any video content? You should. Producing video is easier than ever, but can seem complicated. I have a passion for all forms of digital media production but video is by far my favorite. I've heard from many training professionals that it just doesn't interest them and they'd rather just hire a production shop when they need video. But I've also heard from those who just don't know where to start and fear failure. There are good reasons for hiring professionals and there are good reasons for doing a little DIY video. This is why I'm starting the #vidfri hashtag so we can gather with a shared purpose. Why #vidfri #VidFri is a simple hashtag for communicating your interest in sharing and learning more about video production. It stands for Video Friday. I've discovered over the years that the most valuable part of social media is the connections and relationships built around a specific topic. I started to take notice of my person social media habits and realized that I was consistently experimenting and sharing with video most often on Fridays. And so, the hashtag #vidfri was born. What do we do on Video Friday? I'm far too casual about these things to put rules into place. So, of course you should learn about producing video on other days of the week as well. Friday seemed like a good day share and have a conversation about what we've learned, the videos we've published, or videos we've found and want to share. This isn't another twitter chat. Unless someone wants to take on that responsibility. For now, if you have an interest in video just put aside an hour or so on Fridays and try something new.  Then share it with the #vidfri hashtag on your social media platform of choice, or all of them. The primary focus will be on applying video in the realm of corporate training, but I don't think we should limit conversation. I'm a fan of letting the community drive the conversation. If the community takes it off the rails, then so be it. Think about using video on twitter to ask a question of the community.  Even if the question is not related to video production, by using video to ask the question we can all learn together. And it doesn't matter what day you use the hashtag. You can use the #vidfri hashtag on any day of the week. As I mentioned earlier, Friday just feels like a good day for personal development in general so let's roll with it. Things to try out for #vidfri If you're still with me on this, then here's a list of ideas that you may or may not be aware of. Twitter - The mobile twitter app allows you to record and trim video to less than 30secs. It gives you the ability to say a lot than what can be said in 140 characters. Sample Experiment: Say hi to the Litmos team by posting a short video on twitter with @Litmos #vidfri Instagram - Instagram allows 3-15 secs of video. Video on Instagram help page. Vine - Vine videos are VERY short. You are limited to only 6 secs. Facebook - You don't have a time limit with Facebook. However, you are limited to uploading files sizes under 25mb. Google Hangouts On Air - Participate in a LIVE streaming conversation using G+HoA (Google+ Hangouts on Air). Meerkat - It's a live mobile video streaming app. Watch a few live meerkat streams and then launch your own stream. Periscope - It's twitter's version of live mobile video streaming. And if those don't interest you then try one of following. Make a short software how-to video using a screen recording tool like Camtasia, Screenr, Jing, or Screenflow. Or make a short video with iMovie(Mac) or MovieMaker(PC). I'm not sure about WindowsPhone, but I know the iPhone has version of iMovie and it's pretty slick. So if you've already done some video work on a desktop, then push yourself a little bit by shooting, editing, and publishing all from your iPhone. If you are interested in learning more about Google hangouts then join me, Enzo Silva, Craig Wiggins, and Melissa Milloway this Friday for our Learning Circles hangout. The purpose of #vidfri is to have a unique hashtag for discussing our successes and failures with video production. As a community of interested instructional video producers we can begin to share ideas and expand our skills. I hope you'll join me in this conversation. I'm looking forward to learning and sharing. The post Learn More About Instructional Video Production - Recording, Editing, Publishing, Streaming appeared first on Litmos.

It’s the beginning of another wacky holiday week (especially if you live and breathe in a school) so there’s no better time to introduce Tech Treasure #5—Crazy Christmas, a fast-paced game in which users move an elf around the screen to catch the presents as they fall. I’m hoping to land myself a new iPhone 6! Just sayin’… Check out Crazy Christmas on The Twelve Digital Days of Christmas Thinglink image located here.

More word fun with Jay Cross. This post is a continuation from last month's post part 1. Learn. Gain the capacity to do something. Learning styles. Faulty notion that it matters whether we're visual learners, verbal learners, or kinesthetic learners. Research found it’s total bunk. Lecture. Ineffective, one-way delivery of content. Listeners zone out in ten minutes or less. Logic. Context-free blather used to justify emotional decisions. Metadata. Information about information. Often, "metatags" that describe what’s inside a chunk of learning. Generally machine-readable. Analogous to a barcode on an incoming shipment. Meta-Learning. The process of learning. Learning to learn is a major component. Mindful. Opposite of mindless. Take a deep breath. Pay attention. Modern Workplace Learning. Jane Hart's term for focus on performance (support and improvement) and meeting business objectives - rather than on learning per se. A new, more inclusive and collaborative approach to solving performance problems in more appropriate ways, rather than imposing solutions top-down. Next Practices. Guidelines for building a sustainable future. Best Practices look backward, providing advice on what worked in the past; Next Practices focus on what to do in the time ahead. Nürnburg funnel. Metaphor that training is akin to pouring knowledge into a person’s head. Opportunity Cost. The cost of not doing something, e.g. the sales the rep didn’t make because she was away at a seminar. Often the largest cost associated with training programs. Over-clocking. Running something faster than it was designed to go. Paradigm drag. When old thinking holds back new. From David Gelernter’s Machine Beauty: Elegance and the Heart of Technology. Performance. The goal of learning. AKA productivity, results. It’s relative to context. Decide what constitutes performance, then design the learning to support it. Pronoia. The belief that the world is conspiring to make you happy and successful. Pull. Choose what you want. Self-directed. Pull learning = informal. Push. Take what you’re given. Directed by others. Push learning = formal. 702010. Successful managers learn three to four times as much from experience as from interaction with bosses, coaches, and mentors. And they learn about twice as much from those conversations as in classrooms and formal learning programs. Shelf-life. Knowledge is perishable. Some suggest it be labeled with pull-dates, like cartons of milk. Selective attention. Also, inattention blindness. You see what you are looking for. Singularity. When the artificial intelligence surpasses human intelligence, all hell will break loose. We won't get it. Social Learning. What eLearning was supposed to be. Subjective well-being. Ed Diener’s term for judging life positively and feeling good. A person has high SWB if she or he experiences life satisfaction and frequent joy. Diener chose it because studying happiness sounded frivolous. Synchronous. [pretentious] Live event. Talent management. Ideally, the entire process of developing people from initial recruiting to learning and development to keeping the alumni informed. In practice, synonym for recruiting. Tacit/explicit knowledge. Tacit knowledge is knowing how; it’s impossible to transfer to it you in words. Explicit knowledge is the opposite - you’re reading it right now. Technophilia. The belief that technology will solve all ills. Especially prevalent during the dot-com delusion, fostered by Wired magazine. Timing. The first 90% of a development project takes 90% of the time. The remaining 10% takes the other 90% of the time. Trojan mice. Small, well-focused changes, which are introduced on an ongoing basis in an inconspicuous way. Trust. The foundation of human connections. Unlearning. Make way for the new by throwing out the old. WikiLeaks. Warning shot to all secretive organizations. There are no secrets. Might as well go transparent. Work. Learning. Working Smarter. Using your brain to be more productive at work and fulfilled in daily life. What finer definition do you need? Be mindful, not mindless. Common-sense practices include using social networks to foster conversations -- the main vehicle for deep learning. It is informal learning, collaboration, and experiential learning, whatever makes us more productive and fulfilled. Workscape. Performance ecosystem. Metaphorical environment where work and learning converge. Covers the entire ecology: could include the water cooler, the break room, the Friday beer bust, the conversation nook at the office, wi-fi in the cafeteria, the enterprise  The Workscape is where people do their jobs and develop professionally. YMMV. "Your mileage may vary." Recognition that your results may not be the same as mine. (Other things are never equal.) The post What the Words (of L&D) Mean - Part 2 - Guest Post by Jay Cross appeared first on Litmos.

Here it is that time of year again: The week in which the worldwide Hour of Code initiative (sponsored by Code.org and Computer Education Science Week),  is being held to introduce computer programming to 10 million students and most importantly, to hopefully encourage them to pursue further knowledge in this area—a field that is projected to have 1,000,000 more jobs than there are students to fill them by the year 2020! Seriously! My rationale for participating in this event? Besides the fact that students can hone computational thinking (problem decomposition, pattern recognition, abstraction, algorithmic thinking and automation) and programming concepts (repetition, conditional logic, computer drawing, handling keyboard input and creating apps), those who have the knack and/or desire to choose a career in this market are going to be able to pretty much name their job and even their salary. In addition, not only does coding help students learn problem solving and creative thinking skills, it teaches them to be risk-takers, persistent and to persevere in the face of frustration—skills that are relevant in all sorts of other activities in both school and the "real world". Furthermore, even if students do not wish to become die hard computer scientists for a living, they can become adept at developing games and apps by starting with some of the basics. Wouldn’t it be super cool to find one of their creations in the iTunes Store someday? I mean, do you even need any more of a reason to provide this opportunity for your students? So, why just use technology, when you can build it, right? That was my line when I began discussing the importance of acquiring basic html or java skills with students as we kicked off the Hour of Code in our district this morning. Unfortunately, most of the 86 students I met with already today had no clue that they could easily learn and utilize basic programming concepts in every day life—for a job or for fun. But the good news is this: The flame in some of them has been ignited—including a few of them whose mugshot I included to the left. ♥ Need some resources? Besides Code.org, the following sites are also curriculum providers for the Hour of Code: Tynker, Khan Academy, Codecademy and Code Avengers—all of which I will be utilizing throughout my coding adventure this week.  Can’t find what you want or need? Just Google the Hour of Code. You’ll find more info than you’ll even know what to do with! Classroom Connection: The founders of Google, Microsoft and Facebook all started their journeys with just one line of code. Like these successful entrepreneurs, our students should have the opportunity to create the technology of the future, not just use it! That said, join over 54.7 million students in classrooms spanning the globe as they venture into the language of computer programming by participating in the Hour of Code. And by the way—I realize that coding sounds intimidating to some, but the activities on the sites mentioned above literally require no computer programming skills at all. If your students can type, they can code! And you know what? You can even learn, too!

Introduction Today I'd like to highlight some posts from last year. It's my version of Throwback Thursday, or #tbt, in blog form. Back in April 2014 I shared these 5 tips after just leaving my job as Director of Training. So the realities of corporate training were fresh. As I reread this post I notice there are some good tips embedded inside each of the 5 tips. So, you're getting a lot more than 5. I hope you find them useful and will share your thoughts with me via twitter @Litmos or @bschlenker. The world of Corporate Training is really not that complicated. But with all of our instructional models and frameworks, we like making it a little more complicated than others believe it to be. There are situations where all the detailed processes of instructional design are required.  But, in my experience, those projects are rare.  The perceptions others have of your work is critical to your success. Here are my top 5 development tips that will increase your perceived value within your company and amongst your team. Done is Better than Perfect! There is a good reason why this quote is so popular.  IT'S TRUE! And it's one of the most important lessons I've learned in my career. As a young recent graduate of the Educational Media and Computers Masters program at ASU, I was perfectly prepared to employ everything I had learned at my first full time job. I was ready to implement the ADDIE model in all its glory. Imagine my surprise when my manager asked that my first eLearning course be created in 5 days. It was a project that framed the rest of my eLearning career, and was also my first experience with "the business" and what they expected from the training department. The business does not care about instructional design, analysis, evaluation, and all the other stuff we like to spend so much time on.  In most cases they just want content that is easily accessed and proof that all employees have "taken the course". So, get the minimum done and release it.  You can always go back and improve once you start receiving user feedback. And of course, these days, your tools and systems should be doing most of the heavy lifting around evaluation and analysis anyways. If not, maybe it's time for a new LMS. UPDATE: This still stands. If you aren't happy with your tools then figure out how to get new ones. And get the job done. You will discover that your skills are pretty solid and the final product is pretty good, even if it's not the polished solution you had in mind. Produce business value! Use the Tools You Have Now! The computer, and other technologies, that you have are good enough.  Instead of thinking about all the gear you don't have, figure out how to use everything you have now. If you have a late model smartphone, then you have a powerful multimedia production studio in the palm of your hand. And that corporate issued laptop may not be the multimedia development power house you've been dreaming of, but it does have enough power to create most of the digital content elements you need.  I was developing fully interactive 3D training simulations in 1996 on computers with only a fraction of what today's computers have.  Don't make technology your excuse for not producing. Your company has an LMS with authoring capabilities...or an authoring tool in general.  However, you still need to create media or modify stock media. All eLearning starts with digital media content. Photoshop is pricey, but there are options...some of which are free. Figure out how to get the job done with the tools you have.  And don't forget to devote time to improving your skills with those tools. UPDATE: This tip is still valid. You have more tools today than any training professional before you. Those who master the tools get the jobs. Don't be afraid to practice, practice, practice. If you are interested in learning about video and practicing with video in social media then join me on Fridays for Video Friday. Just follow the hashtag #vidfri and join others learning and sharing their video tips. Templates are your Friend. Use them! Yes, for the perfectionist in all of us templates are the ultimate sin.  Using templates somehow minimizes the instructional design process for us. But having a few ready to go will save you time, and make you look like a hero. Just think of it as working smarter, not harder. You often don't have the luxury of time, and templates will help you get courses done faster (see #1). That course may not end up being the one you submit for an award, but "the business" will care and respect your ability to produce...fast.  UPDATE: You'll notice that I talk about providing business value frequently. Most of my obsession with providing business value just comes from experience. The experiences of training departments that do good work and yet, not get recognized, viewed as a pricey expense, or even disbanded. Some of my colleagues argue there is more business value in pushing back and saying no, than just getting the job done and showing an iterative, progression of improvements. You are the only one that can decide what your organization can tolerate. And this is why relationships are important. Leverage Your Subject Matter Experts Subject Matter Experts are passionate about what they do...that’s why they are SMEs.  And most, not all but most, are happy to share what they know.  Let them.  And get out of their way.  Do not try to make them follow your instructional model. Do not force them to use your template or framework. Leave them alone.  UNLESS, they ask for your help or are struggling getting started.  Then, and only then, offer up some possible templates or other design options. Hopefully you've built a relationship with your SMEs and already have a feeling for how to approach them with new ideas. Respect what they do, and let them discover their instructional shortcomings through experience.  Then help them improve.  UPDATE: I've focused a lot on SMEs in my posts over the last year. And I think that's because it took many years of treating them like content ATMs before I realized how wrong I was. I was always taught that you needed a subject matter expert in order to get the content you need to create your eLearning master piece. But nobody ever taught us how to treat them like people. And that there would be egos, and corporate politics involved.  I know my thoughts on releasing training that is not fully designed is controversial. But it comes from years of real world frustrations working with SMEs, and through trial and error discovering how best to get the job done while building a strong relationship. And THEN updating the course with instructionaly sound updates to the content.  Relationships are the key to 21st century training departments because there is no such thing as "one-and-done" any more.  Master Your LMS No, you're not reading this wrong.  And yes, these tips are for anyone developing and delivering training content.  Even if you have an LMS administrator on your team, you should be fully aware of how it works including it's quirks and shortcomings. How you develop your content will always be influenced by the capabilities of your LMS.  So, don't just use it. MASTER it! It will save you precious development time, and reduce your LMS related headaches when it’s time to deliver.  What have you learned, the hard way, in your career? The post My Top 5 Training Development Tips Redux #tbt appeared first on Litmos.