Dealing with subject-matter experts for eLearning courses is a regular sight for an instructional designer. The subject-matter expert or SME is an integral part of your course, and this person works behind the scenes gathering relevant content for your eLearning course. An SME can be anyone from a software engineer to a research analyst. Many times, it’s hard to decode what an SME thinks; this leads to anxiety and confusion which is reflected in your eLearning course. As hard as understanding an SME maybe, it’s not impossible! Let’s have a look at a few tips to decode your SME’S brain. Be Ready - Before you even schedule a meeting with your SME, you have to be ready to ask the right questions in order to get the right answers. For this, all you need to do is be ready! Read the content provided by the SME before the meeting and comprehend as much as you can. Do some research, go on the Internet and read about the basic concepts of and ideas on the concerned subject. Remember- don’t try to outdo the SME as he is the king of the content. All you need to do is be a little knowledgeable in the subject matter in hand, and once the SME knows that you are as passionate as him about the subject, he will share all the information with you keenly. Be Steady - Now that you’re in the meeting with your SME, you need to be ready with an in-depth questionnaire. The reason for having a questionnaire is that the SME may have a tendency to go off track and talk about information that isn’t relevant to your course. Ask specific questions to emphasize the "need to know" information rather than "nice to know" information. You can also ask open-ended questions, if you need interesting stories or case studies for the course. Always ask about the performance mistakes made by the learner; this helps you get a clear understanding of the learning outcome. Be Set - You’ve done your homework and asked everything you needed to know. But, before you end the discussion with the SME, it’s your turn to talk. Once you have all the information you need, there is only one thing left to do - repeat, repeat and repeat! Summarize the information provided by the SME, and take a final confirmation. This is also the best time to clarify any gaps in or doubts you have about the content. And GO! - With these points, you are all set with your final course content. So, what are you waiting for? Go! Get started! Related PostsHow to Create a Customized E-Learning Course? Step 2 - Instructional Design ProcessApplication of Learning Cycle in Designing E-Learning Courses3 Brilliant Ways to Present Timelines - An Infographic

There’s a lot going on at gomo as we head towards the release of gomo 2.2 at Devlearn next week, so I thought I’d take to the blog to let you know how you can be a part of the launch and learn more about the latest version of our multi-device authoring tool. If you haven’t already, take a look at last weeks blog to see some of the magnificent new features we’re adding to gomo. DevLearn 2014 DevLearn takes place from October 29th-31st in Las Vegas. If you’re attending, visit us at booth 409 to be in with a chance of winning a years subscription to gomo authoring tool. We’ll also be on hand throughout the exhibition to talk all things multi-device and to take you through gomo 2.2 - we’re really excited to meet and speak with you all. Mike Alcock, gomo Managing Director’s Devlearn seminar "Responsive and adaptive HTML5 multi-device elearning with gomo", takes place on the elearning tools stage at 12pm (PDT) on Wednesday 29th October. Come along to a live demo of gomo 2.2 and explore how easily you can create your own single source, cloud-based, multi-device content. gomo 2.2 webinar If you won’t make it to Vegas, Mike Alcock is following up with a webinar on November 6th at 3pm GMT. During the exclusive online event, Mike will reveal gomo 2.2’s features and showcase how they come together to provide you with an effortless and intuitive content creation experience. Places are limited, so be sure to reserve yours today. The future 2.2 is further proof that we never stand still at gomo. Since launching in April, we’ve provided a constant stream of minor upgrades and usability improvements on top of 2 major updates. Based on our planned roadmap and user feedback, we are always improving our product to ensure gomo users can meet the ever-increasing demands of learners today. Because gomo is cloud based, subscribers get every tweak and improvement we make by simply logging into to their account - no downloads, no time wasted. All projects built prior to a new version of gomo will have all new features as soon as we launch a new version, allowing all subscribers to take advantage of every improvement we make, not just new ones. The post The launch of gomo 2.2 - what we’re up to appeared first on gomo Learning.

The aviation industry was the first industry to adopt eLearning and define the standards for online course development. The Aviation Industry Computer-based Training Committee (AICC) develops guidelines for CBT and WBT. They adopted eLearning to ensure flexibility and minimize costs. The use of eLearning has reduced the dependency on aircraft and other high-end training devices considerably. E-learning courses used to train the people in the aviation sector need to be developed meticulously as even minute details play an important role. E-learning courses for the aviation industry should not infuse doubts in the mind of the learner, and they need to enable him to take quick decisions. This is essential to ensure the safety of passengers and air crews. Let’s now see 3 important things that instructional designers need to keep in mind while designing online courses for the aviation industry. Hope you find this post interesting. Do share your views. Related Posts3 Reasons Why Problem-based Learning Is Effective LearningSCORM or AICC - Which is The Best Compliance Option for your E-learning CoursesThe 3Cs to Safely Land your Aviation Industry Computer Based Trainings

From Flash To HTML5 At KMI Learning we have used this platform to deliver high end, award winning content wrapped in our own custom framework. The platform has vast adoption given  its thriving developer community, user friendly audio visual tools, powerful scripting language, and cross browser support for desktop.  But that’s all changed. When Flash Started Loosing It became clear during the release of the first iPhone and subsequent Android devices that Flash just wasn’t going to cut it. Android tried to maintain Flash player support, but performance issues coupled with battery usage really killed its chances. For a while making mobile courses required expert level web development skills, primarily to navigate the array of unique platform requirements. Creating a mobile course that was also available on Internet Explorer, without sacrificing production value, was challenging. Eventually in September 2012, with the announcement of new recommendations for HTML5, the W3C sealed the Flash player’s fate. It was obvious that HTML5 was the way forward and we would need to build a new course framework from the ground up. We began development with a few things in mind. First we needed the ability to run content across the widest distribution of browsers possible, everything from Internet Explorer, Chrome, Firefox, and across any device with modern standards. Second, it would have to allow us to produce courses with the same rich content as Flash; custom user interface, scripted interactions, animations, video, and audio. Finally, provide a way to convert older Flash content for mobile devices. I’m proud to say we managed to reach all of these goals and we have been using (and refining) this framework for the past 2 years. How To Convert Flash To HTML5 After an extensive amount of research and testing we decided to use CreateJS as a base for our framework. CreateJS is officially supported by Adobe and includes a very powerful set of API’s similar to the AS3 language. We were able to leverage this to produce the three modular libraries; a course controller, flash layer and canvas layer. They allow us to use component based detection to determine if we are able to operate using HTML5 canvas (with 2d context) or Flash. In concert with our course software we have also refined our process by building a set of custom publishing tools. Built as standalone applications our tools use JSFL to interact with and manipulate normal flash files. They have allowed us to fully automate mobile optimization, and mitigate common HTML5 conversion issues. Our tools allow us to build content in Adobe Flash, and output directly to both Flash player (as a backup for older devices) and HTML5. Meaning we are able to produce courses that work on legacy browsers, and mobile devices. It also means we are able to recycle existing content (given source files) and convert it into something your users can view anywhere. No more roadblocks. This post was first published on eLearning Industry.

This weeks blog comes from Elly Davis, Lead Learning Designer at fellow LTG organisation, LEO. According to the BBC’s Jon Howard (@swingpants) we are in ‘the scribe stage of the digital age’. So, whilst digital products are now an intrinsic part of our lives, only a few people have the skills to make them - it’s time for digital creativity to go mainstream! I was lucky to catch Jon’s presentation at this year’s Reasons to be Creative conference - he’s an interesting speaker whose positivity is catching. He asked us to imagine how the next generation will be creative in the digital world… which set the cogs in my analogue brain a-whirring. What will my tablet-reared children be making in 20 years time? (Not Skynet I hope!) As a Lead Instructional Designer, I rely on the talented developers and digital designers at LEO to help me turn my creative visions into reality. I’m a fortunate minority - I get to hang with the scribes, without having to master complex software or programming languages. Most people don’t have that luxury, but that doesn’t mean they don’t have creative potential. The way forward, according to Howard, is the availability of simplified tools. You shouldn’t have to code to be able to create. The clever coders make and maintain the tools so the rest of us can use them to create games, learning, apps, platforms and other things we have not yet imagined. Howard outlined a set of criteria that needs to be met in order to be considered a simplified tool; Have low barriers of entry Enable sharing of creativity Be multi-platform friendly Be simple yet effective While we’ve always always been proud of gomo’s ease, simplicity and developer-free content creation, we’re pleased to see that it meets all four categories, making it a fully fledged simplified tool… It costs as little as £49 a month (low barriers of entry) It is accessed through a web browser and allows users to collaborate on projects (sharing of creativity) It is responsive and adaptive, making for truly multi-device output (multi-platform friendly) Its drag and drop functionality, simple asset creation and ease of publishing means anyone can create powerful, effective learning. (simple yet effective) It’s still early days, but it’s fascinating to see what people are creating with our multi-device learning tool already - it’s exciting to see what tomorrow brings! To see the latest version of our multi-device learning tool, register your place on gomo Managing Director Mike Alcock’s webinar on November 6th, where he will reveal and demo the new features of our multi-device learning tool and show how you can create content simply, quickly and easily. The post The future of digital creativity appeared first on gomo Learning.

Many training managers prefer Articulate Storyline to develop online courses as it can satisfy their unique requirements. Everyone in the eLearning industry assumes that this tool is very efficient for eLearning development. But, do you know that there are three ‘hidden’ features which are very useful? In this post, I would like to share what they are and how to use them. They are: Icon creator Video converter Audio converter Let’s us now look at each of these in detail. 1. Icon creator Shapes in Storyline are not mere shapes, but building blocks to create icons for eLearning courses. Storyline comes with several in-built Shapes and Tools (like Freeform, Curve and Scribble) which help create new objects from the existing ones. Have a look at the screenshots below to view some of the objects/ icons created in Storyline. 2. Video converter Storyline 2 has come up with a new option for videos. Once you publish the course, all the videos used in eLearning course are converted into the .mp4 format. This feature can be used as a tool to convert our eLearning videos into .mp4 format. After publishing, we can get the converted videos from story_content folder of published files with an auto generated name (Alphanumeric). E.g.: video_5VqenzRyzuj_26_48_644x364 Note: We can convert videos only into the .mp4 format. 3. Audio converter  Do you know that we can convert our audio files into the .mp3 format? Yes. All you need to do is insert audio files into a Storyline slide and publish. As described above, open the story_content folder to take your converted audio files. Refer the screenshot below. Note: We can convert audios only into .mp3 format. Hope you find this blog useful. Do share your views. Related PostsRapid E-learning through Storyline Tool: 5 Infographics Sharing Key FeaturesHow to Combine Your Adobe Captivate Projects Into Single Course?4 Tips for Developing E-learning Course Using Rapid Authoring Tools

gomo learning is delighted to announce its debut on e-learning industry guru Craig Weiss’ list of the top 5 authoring tools of 2014. Based on a review of 190 authoring tools, gomo was revealed as one of the Top 5 authoring tools during Weiss’ seminar at Devlearn in Las Vegas, Nevada. gomo 2.2, which was launched at Devlearn, comes with a cluster of new features and improvements to make cloud-based, multi-device e-learning content more effortless, intuitive and beautiful than ever before. It allows teams and individuals to build, collaborate and publish their own e-learning content for as little as £49/ $89 a month. Commenting on the result, Managing Director Mike Alcock said "We’ve had a fabulous six months since we launched our multi-device software. For a brand-new product like gomo to be acknowledged by an industry thought leader as one of the top five authoring tools of 2014 is a great way to top it off." Secure your place on Mike’s next webinar to see how the latest version of our top 5 responsive, adaptive authoring tool makes multi-device e-learning development more simple and intuitive than ever before. The post gomo learning announced as a top 5 authoring tool appeared first on gomo Learning.

What eLearning Professionals Should Know About Behaviorism In Instructional Design For eLearning Although we may declare supporters of cognitivism or constructivism, we are all behaviorists by nature. Even if we may not realize it, as eLearning professionals, we all use behavioristic principles extensively in our instructional design for eLearning. This happens because behaviorism, no matter how much out-of-date it sounds, without any doubt, is deeply rooted in human subconscious. Instinctively, it’s part of our actions and reactions. From an educational point of view, who doesn’t want to examine learners’ observable and measurable behavior and guide them accordingly to optimize their learning? What are tests and assessment in general, other than an effort to estimate learners’ performance and adapt the instruction accordingly to the learning needs of the audience? These principles also apply in eLearning. No. In this article, I won’t talk about Pavlov’s dogs, Skinner’s rats and pigeons, nor about the Thorndike’s Law of Effect. There is extensive bibliography about all these. Instead, I will give you examples of elements we all use today in instructional design for eLearning, without even realizing that they are based on behavioristic principles, as well as to explain for what type of learning objectives a behavioristic approach may yield better results. Applying Behaviorism In Instructional Design For eLearning Right-wrong, on-off, 0-1, etc. In fact, the connection of behaviorism and eLearning was clear from the very beginning. If we take a look back in the 1950s and 60s, when Computer-Assisted Instruction (CAI) first appeared, computer seemed to be the ideal tool to measure learning outcomes, on the condition of course, that there was a single correct answer learners were expected to give. Soon this evolved to an attempt for Programmed Instruction with the computer programmed to give pre-determined paths to follow, that is allowing learners to proceed only when the correct answer was given. Today programmed instruction can be perceived as a forerunner of interactive branching scenarios and adaptive hypermedia systems applied in online education, with behavioristic elements, the resemblance of which with programmed-instruction is very difficult to be ignored, despite the fact that we tend to "cover" them in modern "constructivistic" packages claiming that we give learners "freedom of choice". The truth is that the only freedom learners are allowed is with respect to the order they choose to follow the predefined learning paths, so carefully tracked and programmed in the instructional design of really good eLearning courses. Back to behaviorism, as the name implies, a behavioristic approach focuses on guiding learners reach pre-established learning outcomes. Learning is considered to take place when learners manage to reach these expected outcomes designed to meet the learning objectives of the eLearning course. Therefore, the aim of a behavioristic-oriented instructional design for eLearning must be to provide learners with the appropriate stimuli, that is with opportunities that help them demonstrate that they are able to express desired behaviors that prove that learning has actually taken place. An instructional design for eLearning based on behavioristic approach starts from the basic assumption of behaviorism that knowledge is objective, meaning that there is only one correct answer to give or a specific approach to follow, respectively. Although this may sound rigid, and perhaps it is, this is where to start in order for eLearning professionals to get awareness of the type of activities that a behavioristic approach could be appropriate for. It also shows, that behaviorism may not be the appropriate approach for eLearning activities that require the user to develop higher-order skills, such decision-making or problem-solving through analysis, synthesis or evaluation of the information presented. Objectivism is the key to remember in order to decide whether a behavioristic approach is appropriate for your eLearning activities or not. Is there a single correct answer or multiple approaches may be acceptable. Is knowledge objective? Don’t rush to answer no. Facts and standardized procedures actually are examples of "objective" knowledge. They do not change. Take advantage of this and check the learning objectives of the eLearning course. This is where you need to start. Techniques To Be Used For The Instructional Design Of Behavioristic eLearning Activities Once determined that a behaviorist approach is suitable to meet particular learning objectives of your eLearning course, you need to design the respective eLearning activities accordingly. The techniques you may use are the following: Discrimination. Use discrimination whenever the learning objective requires learners to identify whether a concept belongs to a specific category or not. In order to do so, learners should be able to identify key characteristics and qualities of the category, and judge whether the new information shares the same qualities to belong to the group or not. Drag-and-drop exercises to classify concepts into different categories may serve as examples of developing discrimination activities in terms of eLearning course design. Generalization. Generalization is suitable whenever the learning objectives are such, that learners after identifying the attributes of an item belonging to one category are expected to assign the same attributes to all items within the category. Teaching through examples is based on an inductive approach of presenting eLearning content, during which learners after observing a series of independent online examples should be able to identify their common characteristic(s) and generalize by formulating the rule. Under this perspective, generalization is very close to what today we perceive as active learning, with an obvious direct connection to constructivism. Association. Although in strictly behavioristic terms, association is the typical example of conditioning, that is linking a specific stimulus to a specific response, there is a tendency in today’s eLearning to create eLearning interactions based on association whenever the learning objectives require the new information presented to be linked to specific practical applications of it. Presenting information within context can help learners create associations. This means that whenever learners encounter the same or similar information, they already know what it’s related to, as they have already built a basic frame of reference to associate this piece of information with. Although a behaviorist approach perceives this association as an automated drill task and not as a cognitive process, applied in instructional design for eLearning, matching exercises are examples of eLearning activities that could be designed to facilitate learners’ process of making associations. Chaining. Chaining is referring to learners automatic performance on specific procedures with pre-determined steps to be followed. Like a chain, one step leads learners to the next. Performing drill tasks is an example of elearning objectives that can be mastered through chaining. Creating drill tasks in eLearning involves presenting the theoretical model first and then asking learners to repeat the procedure by actually repeating the steps involved in the same order these were presented. Through repetition and online practice, learners at the end are able to reach the desired outcome by following the steps exactly as presented in the model. Sequence ordering exercises through drag-and-drop are very frequently used in quiz making templates most eLearning authoring tools provide. Such exercises may serve as typical examples of drill tasks applied in eLearning course design. In such activities, there is always a pre-defined and unique correct sequence that learners must form in order to show that they have mastered the learning objective under consideration. It’s very common for learners to reach the desired outcome through trial-and-error, another behavioristic technique quite applicable in eLearning, depending on the number of attempts allowed by the instructional designer. It sounds like Thorndike’s Law of Effect, doesn’t it? Learners do not stop pressing different levers, that is exploring alternative answers, until they find the rewarding one! Keep in mind that for all of the above techniques, there is just a single correct answer. All quiz creation eLearning authoring tools take advantage of these behavioristic-based alternative exercise formats, as in order for the program to give an automated response and test learners performance through their test scores, that is measurable outcomes, there should be a unique correct response for each question. Reinforcing Desired And Weakening Undesired Behavior What is the instructor’s role in this process then? An instructional design for eLearning based on a behavioristic approach sets the type of reactions to be received by learners, after interacting with the online training material. These reactions come from an online instructor or corporate trainer in synchronous eLearning settings, or from the eLearning course itself in the case of asynchronous eLearning. Depending on the type of reaction received, learners expressed behavior may be reinforced or weakened. This highlights the importance of feedback throughout the entire learning process, not only at the end of the eLearning course but each time a learner interacts with the system. In behavioristic terms, although nobody wants to call it like this today, feedback is the simplest form of conditioning. Correct attempts are most frequently being reinforced by positive comments written on automated programmed responses. Although negative reinforcement, that is punishment and negative criticism is not quite acceptable today, and certainly not appropriate for adult learning, such behavioristic traces can still be found in some cases that negative scores are used. An instructional design for eLearning based on the behavioristic approach would therefore imply that learning takes place when unwanted behavior is extinguished and learners reach the point of giving only the desired uniquely correct responses that express the expected learning outcomes that guarantee that the learning objectives of the eLearning course have been mastered. Application Of Behavioristic Principles In Gamification And Game-Based eLearning Last, but not least, nowadays, behavioristic principles are also still applicable in gamification, that is presenting the learning material employing game design elements in an entertaining way in order to motivate and engage the audience throughout the learning process. In gamification, as well as in other types of eLearning activities, reinforcement of a certain desired behavior can occur in two ways: either by eliciting from learners particular learning outcomes and rewarding these outcomes by assigning points, grades, budges, higher position in leaderboards, etc, or by removing from learners specific benefits, for example points, lives, etc, in order to make them try to avoid undesired consequences of their behaviors. Behaviorism in Instructional Design for eLearning: Concluding Remarks It is true that behaviorism has received too much critique during the last decades, mainly to the fact that it does not take into account other aspects of learning such as the mental processes involved or the environment in which learning takes place. The aim of this article was not to show any favoritism towards behaviorism, but rather to show that, in certain cases, it’s still a valuable approach in today’s eLearning. Of course, we cannot ignore cognitivism and constructivism as alternative approaches.  Today, we know that a behavioristic perspective of certain activities in instructional design, does not mean that other approaches may not be used simultaneously for the same online course for other types of eLearning activities. Rather than following a single approach for the entire eLearning course, we should, therefore, select the most appropriate for each one of the learning objectives to be covered. Although the focus of behaviorism may not be to examine what is going on in learners’ minds during the learning process, this does not necessarily mean that it denies cognition. It simply does not examines its. Humans are social beings; we learn from the environment, we learn from each other. We evolve all the time. We are rational beings. We are clever. If we are given the right incentives, we are able to construct knowledge in learning that meets our personal interests and needs. As instructional designers, all the emphasis should be placed on the learning objectives as each one of them may require for eLearning activities that follow a different approach. Overall, the result in most cases is a mixed approach that combines the best of behaviorism, cognitivism and constructivism, that meets the needs of each learning objective to be mastered and offers the audience the best possible eLearning experience. Want to learn more about adult learning? The article 9 Tips To Apply Adult Learning Theory To eLearning features 5 adult learning theory assumptions to integrate into your eLearning course design, in order to achieve maximum engagement and motivation for your audience. This post was first published on eLearning Industry.

Welcome to today’s blog post. Every instructional designer will be trained on standard instructional design principles such as ADDIE or Gagne’s nine events. It is not easy to remember all these concepts and apply them at the right instant of time, especially for people that have just started their career in instructional design. Therefore, as an instructional designer, you should be skillful at four different slices of an eLearning pie that always remind you of the ideas behind these principles. Let’s see what they are. 1. Pedagogy and Andragogy The first slice is about the learning pedagogy. This is all about assessing how much knowledge the learners have been able to acquire after the completion of the course. Many parameters such as adult learning principles, learning objectives, instructional strategies and quiz decide the learner’s performance. In the context of eLearning, instructional designers are bound to make people learn better. For this, they have to know how the learners would behave, think and react. Thus, they should step into the learner’s shoe and then design the course thinking from their perspective. 2. Inventiveness  Next comes the inventiveness slice. Visual and graphical designers are the people who use their creative talent to make the course look visually appealing and interesting. They design very beautiful and attractive eLearning courses which pull learners in. This makes the learners stay focused throughout the course with the same zeal and anxiety. Without this inventiveness in our eLearning courses, we will definitely end up creating really boring courses. 3. Technology Technology has totally changed the art of learning. We know that eLearning stands for electronic learning. The word ‘e’ becomes incomplete without developers, programmers, data analysts, etc., as they are the key to launch the online courses. These experts will help us decide the right authoring tool to develop the course. 4. Management Every industry, including eLearning, has the business pie to consider. This deals with understanding some of the important concepts such as productivity, Return on Investment, goals, vision, stakeholder management; project management, etc. Understanding this piece of pie i.e. the business slice ensures that you are able to meet customer demands with extraordinary services within the estimated time and budget. Finally, as eLearning professionals, we need to concentrate on these four areas which lay the road to successful training. What do you think? Related Posts4 Effective Ways of Presenting Scenarios in E-learning Courses4 Elements of an ID Strategy - An Infographic4 E-learning Design Strategies You Need to Focus

What is Intrinsic Motivation? Intrinsic motivation centers on internal rewards. Rather than participating in an online training course to earn tangible rewards or to avoid a negative consequence, employees who are intrinsically motivated become active participants because they are excited about the online training experience or view it as an opportunity to learn something new and expand their knowledge base. Coon and Mitterer (2010) summed up intrinsic motivation quite nicely by stating that "Intrinsic motivation occurs when we act without any obvious external rewards. We simply enjoy an activity or see it as an opportunity to explore, learn, and actualize our potentials." Employees may even be motivated by the need for self-fulfillment or to enhance their self-esteem. To help you understand how intrinsic motivation works, I’ll share something that Lionel Messi said. Now, you may wonder what football has to do with online training. The thing is that, as eLearning professionals, we can learn a lot from athletics about the mechanisms of motivation, as all athletic efforts and accomplishments are founded on motivation. No matter how confident or focused athletes are, if they lack the desire and the determination to maximize their abilities, they can never be motivated enough to achieve their goals. And the Argentinian football superstar is, above all, an athlete; he must always be motivated to reach his goals, as motivation is a continuous process. To clearly establish what it takes for him to become a master on his field, he said: "Money is not a motivating factor. Money doesn't thrill me or make me play better because there are benefits to being wealthy. I'm just happy with a ball at my feet. My motivation comes from playing the game I love. If I wasn't paid to be a professional footballer, I would willingly play for nothing." And this is where the power of intrinsic motivation comes from: within. Intrinsically motivated people perform tasks simply because they enjoy doing them and engage in behaviors because they find them rewarding. It is the exact opposite of extrinsic motivation, which is driven by external rewards. Needless to say, intrinsic motivation is key to online training success, as literally every eLearning professional on the planet dreams of having an audience that is motivated to learn simply by finding the online training experience to be rewarding enough. However, as it happens with most dreams, you need to work to make it come true! In this article, I'll show you how and when to focus on intrinsic motivation in online training course design, in order to offer your employees an online training experience that will inspire them to learn, explore and actualize their potentials. Intrinsic Motivation In Online Training Enjoyment; this is employees’ drive when they are intrinsically motivated to take your online training course. In other words, when an online training experience inspires intrinsic motivation in your audience, they will engage in it as they normally would on their own, whether you provide them with external motivators or not. Intrinsically motivated employees are eager to learn, and enthusiastically tackle online training assignments. On the contrary, extrinsically motivated employees participate in the online training process almost superficially, as they only look forward to being rewarded at the end, and thus, they may not have real interest in order to commit themselves 100% in the online training experience. It is pretty clear that as eLearning professionals we should provide our audience with opportunities that will intrinsically motivate them, as intrinsically motivated and engaged employees master the learning objectives of the online training course faster. By finding ways to intrinsically motivate employees, therefore, we also increase the effectiveness of the online training course. From an instructional design point of view, incorporating online training activities that enhance the intrinsic motivation of employees, by addressing their curiosity is fundamental. However, are there any downsides with respect to instructional design? To create online training activities that intrinsically motivate your audience may be a time-consuming process. Usually, it is difficult to accomplish that as it requires extensive preparation and a deep knowledge of your audience. Different people have different learning needs, so it requires a variety of approaches to address and successfully meet the learning needs and preferences of all your learners in order to be able to intrinsically motivate each one of them. On the other hand, you create a learner-centered online training experience, satisfying and exciting for your employees, that is very likely to yield lasting results. An online training experience that derives from employees' personal interests and natural curiosity in the subject matter, encourages knowledge implementation and develops employees' sense of achievement, inspiring them to emphasize on their personal growth. 6 Tips To Increase Your Employees’ Intrinsic Motivation In Online Training Developing online content that intrinsically motivates our audience is great. But, how easy is it to inspire them a genuine desire for the online training? Here are 6 useful tips: Challenge your audience. The more interesting your online training deliverable is, the more intrinsically motivated your employees will be. Simply put, when the goals we pursue take us out of our comfort zone, they become meaningful to us, and thus motivate us to pursue them more intensely. There is a fine line between activities that make employees feel defeated and those that challenge them just enough to trigger their intrinsic motivation. Integrating activities that are a step above the employees' current skill level enables them to feel as though they have accomplished something that they can take pride of. On the other hand, if they do fail to complete the task successfully, they can learn from their mistakes. This also provides another source of motivation, which is to prove to themselves that they can overcome the challenge. It is, however, important to do audience research beforehand to determine their current knowledge base and skill sets, so that you can create activities that are difficult, but not so difficult that they disengage. Integrate multimedia elements that pique their curiosity. Humans are naturally curious. Curiosity is a primary source of internal motivation. There are two forms of curiosity at play here: sensory and cognitive. When employees are exposed to visual elements or interactive presentations that direct their attention, this serves as a source of sensory curiosity. They want to explore the visual or audio stimuli and this prompts them to actively participate in the online training process. Cognitive curiosity stems from an online training activity that makes them want to learn more, such as an idea that may be in conflict with what they’ve already learned. To incorporate this form of motivation you can provide them with interesting, little known facts about the subject matter or reveal surprising information that may go against common belief. Challenge your audience to reflect on what they are learning by thinking critically and using their creativity in branching eLearning scenarios that pose questions that contradict their long-held beliefs. This way, you will stimulate their curiosity and make them want to learn more. Encourage employees to collaborate with each other. The satisfaction of helping others to overcome the challenges of an assignment can be a great factor for increasing intrinsic motivation. Furthermore, when employees are able to compare their performances with the performances of their colleagues, they feel more interested in achieving their goals. Encourage your audience to collaborate with each other in the virtual classroom by participating in online discussions, asking questions and sharing experiences and concerns. This will make employees enjoy difficult assignments more and persist longer on finding ways to complete them. Give employees control over their training. Having control over one’s own online training experience is one of the most powerful intrinsic motivation factors. Employees want to feel like they have a direct say in the outcome and that they have choices when it comes to which sessions they will complete and when. A sense of responsibility automatically increases employees’ intrinsic motivation, as it adds meaning to their online training experience. Encourage your audience to take control over their own learning by offering them opportunities to go in depth and collect extra information from additional bibliography or further reading for self-study you provide at the end of each topic of your online training course. Furthermore, consider integrating interactive elements into your online training strategy, as interactivity undoubtedly makes employees feel that they have power over their online training experience. Give employees self-guided assignments or group projects that turn the tables, such as asking them to design a presentation for their colleagues or create a webinar based upon the core concepts of the session. This will empower them to want to do more and achieve more, because they are the ones in charge of the training process. Develop scenarios and simulations that tie into real world applications. Fantasy on its own is not necessarily an intrinsic motivator. However, if you are able to tie fantasy or make-believe into real world applications and benefits, then you have a powerful source of motivation. Use simulations or branching scenarios to show employees how the information they are learning can be applied outside of the virtual classroom. Allow them to explore the consequences of their choices, so that they can see the direct link between the subject matter and how they will use the information on-the-job. Just make sure that all of the knowledge and skills you include in the simulations is relevant and relatable, so that employees’ minds won’t be weighed down by extraneous clutter. Offer employees constructive feedback. Finally, recognition can significantly increase your audience’s intrinsic motivation, as it adds the elements of satisfaction and personal achievement. Offer employees positive feedback throughout the online training experience, but be careful not to overreact: Intrinsic motivation can actually be decreased when lavish praise is offered for completing a simple task. Thus, make sure that your feedback is not only positive, but also genuine and constructive. Encourage employees to learn from their mistakes and show them how to improve by isolating your feedback from negative connotations and presenting it as "points for improvement". This way, you will encourage them to try again to maximize their performance, without feeling that they have failed. The key to creating online training experiences that leave a lasting impression and achieve learning objectives is to uncover the motivating factors behind employee engagement. If you know what drives them, what fuels their pursuit of success and what will make them become active participants in the online training process, then you have the ability to design online training courses that are always on target. Now that you know how to increase employees’ intrinsic motivation, you may be interested in challenging yourself and dealing with a tough audience: passive learners. Read the article 6 Tips To Engage Passive Learners In eLearning and find out how you can turn even the most passive learners into engaged, excited, and motivated ones who achieve profound change, thanks to your online training course. Reference: Coon, D. & Mitterer, J. O. (2010). Introduction to psychology: Gateways to mind and behavior with concept maps. Belmont, CA: Wadsworth. This post was first published on eLearning Industry.