IMETC 2015 theme is "21st Century Teaching and Learning Design" IMETC 2015 aims to address the main issues of concern in the pedagogies and will focus on aspects of delivery strategies, technological issues, curriculum development and instructional design. The event is still trying to present innovative, motivating, captivating, interesting, interactive and a personalised teaching environment. Through the sharing of research findings and best examples of practice we hope this IMETC2015 will contribute to all levels of education settings globally. IMETC 2015 Topics of Interest Strategies Primary education Secondary education Tertiary education Distance education Blended learning M-learning U-learning Technological Small media, big media Emerging technologies Collaborative support Learning management system (LMS) Learning Activity Management System (LAMS) Managed learning environments (MLS) Virtual learning environments (VLE) Web 2.0 Tools & applications Artificial intelligence Curriculum Development E-learning models Technogogy Pedagogical strategies Game based design Ubiquitous design Web tools Repositories Instructional Design Designing learning settings Creating learning courses Designing learning tasks Learning and cognitive styles Student Centred Learning (SCL) Personalised Learning Environment (PLE) Moderating, tutoring & facilitating Web 2.0 tools The 9th International Malaysian Educational Technology Convention 2015 (IMETC 2015) will be held in Kota Bharu, Kelantan, Malaysia, on September 13-15 2015. This post was first published on eLearning Industry.

It’s Time For The Learning And Development Industry To Think Differently About How We Use Evidence To Improve Performance  In this new era of learning analytics and big data, eLearning teams will be required to show value. Organizations that are already collecting and analyzing data to make decisions -be it in sales, marketing, business planning, or strategy- will be looking across the organization to see which other departments and disciplines can provide data that shows their effectiveness and also that links in with business performance analytics. When you think about analytics in these terms, you can see that the need for Learning and Development to have evidence of what's working and how our activity becomes business critical and urgent. If you are basing your Learning and Development strategy on intuition and gut feel, then you might find the rest of the business starting to ask some searching questions. And you will need answers backed up with evidence! Research from IBM shows that analytics trump intuition with top performing companies five times more likely to be using analytics than low performers. If good data helps business perform better, isn’t it time Learning and Development started to collect its own data to show its impact on the business and help improve performance? Most definitely yes. The trouble is, most of the data we currently monitor are traditional "benchmarks" such as cost, completion rates, headcount, and hours spent training. These track cost and spend, but don’t help us make decisions about the future. We need to focus on evidence that helps us improve performance and move forward. The Towards Maturity Benchmark™ If you do not know how or where to start, you are in luck. Benchmarking organization Towards Maturity has just launched its 2015 benchmark program. Each year the program provides Learning and Development leaders with a chance to review their strategy against their peers and receive personalized feedback on their effectiveness. It originated in Europe and now Learning and Development leaders from 44 countries around the globe get involved. The data from Towards Maturity shows that only 1 in 5 Learning and Development leaders use analytics or benchmarking to improve the services that they deliver. Clearly, there is room for improvement here. As an industry, we need to step back and reflect on the effectiveness of our Learning and Development strategy in order to deliver a new vision for the future; we need to ensure we measure the right things to help our organizations understand the impact we have. The Towards Maturity Benchmark has been tracking this progress since 2003 and in that time has developed benchmarks that reflect current effective practices that are focused on business outcomes; not analyzing happy sheet data. I’d urge all eLearning professionals to get involved with this benchmark; the more that take part, the better the data and the better the outcome for your organization and the industry as a whole. The benchmark provides a confidential framework to reflect on your current learning strategy that has been refined by 3600 Learning and Development leaders and a wide range of industry experts. All those completing the process will receive a detailed Personalized Benchmark Report comparing activities against the top performing learning companies around the globe. What’s more, it is free during June and July. We have it in our powers to generate the evidence we need to demonstrate our value. Why wouldn’t we take that opportunity? Review your Learning and Development strategy and see how you compare with peers around the world with the Towards Maturity Benchmark: Start Your 2015 Benchmark This post was first published on eLearning Industry.

PowToon Video Tutorial: Learn How To Make An Animated Video In Under 10 Minutes This PowToon Video Tutorial presents you how to make an awesome animated video in ten minutes or less. PowToon is a free animated presentation software and a free animated video maker. The post PowToon Video Tutorial: Learn How To Make An Animated Video In Under 10 Minutes appeared first on VivaeLearning: The Best Free Video Tutorials Online.

Prezi Video Tutorial: Copying And Pasting In Prezi This Prezi Video Tutorial shows you how you can copy anything on the canvas - a frame, some text, or even the entire canvas! Watch this video to learn how to copy, paste, and more! The post Prezi Video Tutorial: Copying And Pasting In Prezi appeared first on VivaeLearning: The Best Free Video Tutorials Online.

Corporate Training Insights From An Industry Insider: How To Hire The Best Temporary Learning Consultants Dear Jo, I’ve been considering hiring contract workers to help us with the sudden increase in our workload. While I’ve interviewed and hired numerous Learning and Development professionals for full-time positions, I wonder if there are different considerations when hiring temporary learning consultants. Thanks in advance for your response. —Darlene Dear Darlene, The short answer is "yes." I know from my own experience that there is a difference between hiring for temporary versus full-time positions. Frankly, I sometimes found it a bigger challenge to find the right temporary Learning and Development (L&D) consultants than it was to find permanent team members. I've seen the use of temporary staff skyrocket over the past several years and become a standard part of talent management. L&D budgets and demands being what they are, adding permanent staff is often a challenge, and yet as the demand for output grows, temporary staff can be the perfect solution. To best respond to your question, I decided to go to the source, my colleague Rodrigo Salazar. Rodrigo heads up Talent Solutions at SweetRush. I posed your question to him, and here is his response. "Great question, Jo, and in my response lie some key elements of what makes for a successful engagement for our clients and for learning consultants as well. Allow me share a few ideas: With temporary learning consultants you do not have the luxury of time to train, so I recommend that you hire talent with the right prior experience — someone who can hit the ground running. Keep in mind that with temporary staff you have the luxury of hiring those special skill sets that might not fit into a long-term staffing plan. A good example of this is hiring an Instructional Designer with experience in Articulate Storyline® or perhaps a graphic or user interface designer. You might not need that expertise all the time, but if it is critical to the success of a specific project, a temporary learning consultant can be the right fit. Sometimes you need someone with a variety of skills who can fill in several gaps — what I like to call a "learning generalist." This is often the case for our clients. If this is your situation, working with a staffing firm like ours that also specializes in learning can provide great benefits, because the learning consultant can draw on the skills and expertise of the larger firm. Hire someone with the right attitude for success — a learning consultant with a "can do" attitude who is a self-starter and takes ownership. You’ll spend less time handholding and getting the consultant grounded by ensuring your talent is a professional who will be proactive and engaged from day one. Don’t short-change the interview process, even though it’s a temporary hire. You don’t need to make it a 10-round interview marathon, but you do need to take time to make sure this individual is the right fit for the assignment. We relieve a great deal of the interview burden by interviewing, vetting, and culling candidates in advance, so our clients have to meet only talent we’ve already deemed worthy for the assignment. This allows clients to focus on qualified candidates and drill down on detailed questions specific to the project and company culture. Be as clear as possible about your expectations and deliverables during the interview process. If the picture is unclear —and sometimes it is— then hire a professional who can thrive even in ambiguous environments." These are excellent suggestions from Rodrigo, and I would add only one additional suggestion to the mix. Once you have found your ideal talent, find ways to integrate him or her into your existing team. This may be an e-mail welcome outlining your temporary learning consultant’s role and experience, assigning a buddy, setting aside time for a team meet-and-greet, or all three. Embracing all of your talent within a strong team culture will help set you up for success. Thanks, Darlene, for your question, and best of luck with your recruiting process! Do you have a question? I'd love to help. Send your question to me at dearjo@sweetrush.com! This post was first published on eLearning Industry.

Prezi Video Tutorial: Customizing Colors In Prezi This Prezi Video Tutorial shows you how you can customize the colors of your fonts, frames, and arrows. Check out this video to learn how, and start customizing your colors. The post Prezi Video Tutorial: Customizing Colors In Prezi appeared first on VivaeLearning: The Best Free Video Tutorials Online.

Webinar: Leverage Your SumTotal News Pages For Better Results In Enterprise Learning Ever wondered how to provide personalized learner experience using one of the most powerful built in features in SumTotal LMS, the customizable news content area to meet the learning needs of your enterprise? Join us for a free 30 minute webinar exclusively for SumTotal Customers to explore few real time examples of different domain specific custom news pages. This webinar will cover different use cases of custom news pages like : Various types of learning activities and resources that can be displayed. Integration of game dynamics to engage learners and make learning fun. Learning analytics that has the answers and insights for managers to take actionable solution. Transform your hierarchical course catalog information into a visually rich, interactive tech tree. Review of employee check list application for new hires to update training details and provide feedback on overall training program. And More...... Register for Free! This post was first published on eLearning Industry.

Prezi Video Tutorial: Changing Fonts Ιn Prezi This Prezi Video Tutorial shows you how you can change the fonts at anytime from the Prezi library. Prezi has an array of fonts for you to use in your presentation. The post Prezi Video Tutorial: Changing Fonts Ιn Prezi appeared first on VivaeLearning: The Best Free Video Tutorials Online.

The Reason Why Rich Media Makes A Difference To Learning And Development Visuals improve your learning and drive engagement because our brains like getting information in multiple mediums. This article discusses the Why Rich Media Matters slideshare from Allen Communication and explains why rich media is critical to Learning and Development. Why Rich Media Matters from Allen Communication How We Process Our brains are built to quickly take in and process visual information. While the best learning will come from multiple sources, visuals are the first to trigger and process. This is because 40 percent of the nerve fibers in the brain connect to the eye and roughly half of our neural tissue is related to vision. This is why rich content is an integral part of any learning solution. The human brain makes quick connections through rich media and visual content that would take longer to make through another medium. How We Learn This is why Instructional Design must plan for and incorporate visual from the start. Rich media tells your learners a story before anything else does. Including a video, an infographic, or even a photo helps your learners. People who have visuals to go with instructions follow directions better and classroom learners retain information better when the instructor includes visual aids. All of this might have you wondering why we bother using anything other than rich media in training. If you’ve talked to Allen Communication’s CLO Michael Noble about learning types, you know he doesn’t subscribe to the theory of types of learners. He says we are all visual and auditory and kinetic learners. The best programs combine mediums for a more powerful effect. If your learners have text with a video, they will remember more than with text alone and vice versa. Because our world is becoming immersed in interesting visuals and on-demand information, your learners are changing and seeking this type of information out. More than half of executives in 2010 told Forbes they use YouTube to watch business-related videos, and the numbers are growing. You need to create training that involves rich media to meet learner needs and ensure success in your training programs. How We Engage Rich content doesn’t just change the way we learn, it has a big impact on whether and how we engage. Think about the last time you looked up a store or a business. Is part of your judgment based on what the website looks like? Or what about the last time you needed to buy a new computer? For most of us, the brand plays a big part in where we start, and a big part of how you remember and relate to brands is through visuals. Having beautiful, well designed visuals adds credibility to your message. It’s a visual cue to your learners that this information is important and trustworthy. This is true whether you’re in a classroom or taking a web-based course. Even one of the largest companies in the world has seen the impact of rich media. Just one month after the introduction of Facebook timeline for brands, visual content —photos and videos— saw a 65% increase in engagement. And websites or blog posts with visuals have almost double the views of those without. What to Do If you’ve wanted to include more or better visuals in your corporate training programs, but you’re not sure where to start, don’t lose hope. You can start small. With your next project, begin by thinking about what you can use visually that will tell the same story or complement the information you’re communicating. By building art design into the start of the program, you’ll keep down costs and time for design. You also will avoid having a last-minute scramble for what to include if you build it into the process. Always including rich media in your design process will help you build better, more effective training. What are your favorite examples of rich media in training? This post was first published on eLearning Industry.

Prezi Video Tutorial: Replacing Αn Ιmage Ιn Prezi This Prezi Video Tutorial shows you how easy it is to replace any of your images in Prezi. Check out this tutorial to learn how you can swap your images from your computer or via our Google Image search feature. The post Prezi Video Tutorial: Replacing Αn Ιmage Ιn Prezi appeared first on VivaeLearning: The Best Free Video Tutorials Online.