So, let's pretend you've been given the 'opportunity' to install a Learning Management System (LMS), a Customer Relationship Manager system (CRM), SAP, or a new Electronic Medical Record (EMR) system. According to Design Thinking practitioners, each of these are mysteries and impossibly chaotic. It is statistically unlikely the project will go smoothly or even finish. But re-framing the goal can provide an emotional dream that will align humans to success. For example, an LMS can provide employees with ways to learn and grow to the jobs they want, a CRM system can help you build strong relationships to bring success to your customers, SAP can help companies grow and hire with accurate financials and EMRs help sick people get better. Dorothy spent very little time looking at her shoes or drawing maps to Oz which would ultimately be wrong. Instead, she skipped away toward her dream and never let her eyes drift from it. With the end in mind, there's still a problem with workload. How do we know when we're 'full' or when our staff has too much to do? This video with Faith Martin proves that multitasking is not only slower but stupid. Stop pretending you can multitask and figure out how to hold larger chunks of time to work on things. Isolate your meetings to certain times of day. Only you can change the organizational chaos. Give yourself permission to challenge the organization's bad habits that are keeping you from your potential. My friend Michael Mah says "We ARE the Emperor with no clothes on." Parker Palmer says:"Take everything that’s bright and beautiful in you and introduce it to the shadow side of yourself… When you are able to say, ‘I am … my shadow as well as my light,’ the shadow’s power is put in service of the good."

Last week was a bit of a whirlwind of activity for me. As well as being one of the organisers for the latest iteration of #BYOD4L, and running a number of drop in sessions throughout the week here at GCU, I was also in Sligo on Thursday and Friday giving a keynote at Sligo Institute of Technology’s Learning and Teaching Symposium. I was very impressed to hear about the way fully online delivery has been developing at the  Institute of Technology Sligo. They now have 55 fully online courses, nearly half their staff teaching on fully online courses, and  are one of Ireland’s largest providers of online learning. This has all been done from a very small beginnings with a very bottom up, pragmatic approach. Now their online courses are beginning to generate some considerable income, they are investing back into staff development and infrastructure which is always good to hear.  I think we could all learn a lot from their approach, and I’ll certainly be keeping in touch. I shared some of the approaches we take to blended learning here at GCU which seemed to go down well. My slides are available below. New blends in digital bottles from Sheila MacNeill     Tagged: #ITSTEL16

Last week’s #BYOD4L, and in particular, the nightly #byod4lchat tweet chats were fun, at times frenetic and fascinating insight into how our community is connecting, communicating collaborating, curating and creating using a range of mobile apps and devices. Thanks to Martin Hawksey’s fantastic, open TAGSexplorer tool,  we can delve into the twitter stream a bit more. In the main #BYOD4L there were 1028 unique tweets sent over the week, and 813 links which is quite a bit of sharing. Unsurprisingly, the #BYOD4lchat was a bit more active with 2467 unique tweets sent over the week. The screenshot below shows the list of top tweeters. When we go into the TAGSExplorer interactive view we can get a far richer picture of the the community and its connections.  As well as the "swirly twirly" diagram,  we can explore not only the top tweeters, but also the top conversationalists (there are some users in both but differences too). We can also explore and search a time line archive of the tweets which is fascinating and gives a really nice visual overview of the periods of twitter activity each night last week. We really did hit twitter every night last week between 8 and 9 pm.  We may or may not have been responsible for twitter going down on Friday night. . . . I know I enjoyed all the tweet chats I managed to be part of. I found out about lots of new (to me) things and practice, made some new connections as well as catching up with old friends. That’s really the point of events like #BYOD4l, we all learn best by sharing with each other. I hope that the new connections made over the course of last week grow from strength to strength and I look forward to the next round of #BYOD4l.   #BYOD4L TAGS archive #BYOD4Lchat TAGS archive   Tagged: byod4l

Continuing on with theories related to thinking, I’ve seen several articles in recent weeks discussing Design Thinking, so I figured it would be a timely term to discuss. Design Thinking The concept of design thinking came to be as a method for solution-based thinking. This idea ties in with last week’s discussion of convergent and divergent thinking (considering one, solitary, correct solution, and considering many solutions), as design thinking begins with divergent thinking to identify many potential solutions and ends with convergent thinking to identify one of the many potential solutions that will be employed as THE solution. The process of design thinking includes several phases (define, research, ideate, prototype, choose, implement, and learn), which in education can be easily compared to Instructional Design models, such as ADDIE. Define/Research = Analysis, Ideate = Design, Prototype = Develop, Choose/Implement = Implement, and Learn = Evaluate. Very familiar, no? If you’ve participated in workshops or interactive conference sessions, you’ve likely witnessed design thinking first hand. Last year, I was involved in a workshop-style presentation of research findings. In this presentation, participants were prompted to provide some guided feedback at several junctures. At the end of the presentation, it was then revealed that the researchers were conducting data collection throughout the workshop, and our feedback would be used within their research. Genius! Design thinking in action! Design thinking isn’t a new concept, and it isn’t always employable within our organizations and/or institutions, but it is a great method for eliciting creativity to solve broader problems. Interested in reading more?  ‘Design thinking’ is changing the way we approach problems big and small by T. Johnson Design Thinking and How it Will Change Management Education: An Interview and Discussion by D. Dunne and R. Martin

In today’s competitive online training landscape, it’s essential that you listen to learners and consistently find ways to test online training and improve learning experiences. Let’s look at three areas in which you can focus your efforts: Quality assurance testing, acceptance testing, and engagement analytics. Learn how to use quality assurance testing, acceptance testing, and engagement analytics to test online training and improve it. 1. Quality Assurance (QA) testing QA testing typically covers two broad areas: Content and functionality. Testing content at this stage is about checking whether your content matches your style guide. Testing functionality is technical; does the project behave correctly in all required technical environments? QA testing can fall under the following categories: Multi-device testing This involves testing your eLearning on each device type. Services like Browser Stack enable you to test in different environments, but if the project needs to run on a touch-screen device, you should test it on the actual device so you can see how the touch screen behaves.Some authoring tools -like Elucidat- can make it easy to quickly test what your training looks like on different screen sizes. Check out Elucidat’s responsive slider in action below: Multi-browser testing Browser Stack can also help you quickly test your course on different operating systems and browsers. Remember to test both portrait and landscape views. Stress testing Stress testing is the try to break it approach, seeing how your course performs beyond the specified number of concurrent users. For example, services can help you bombard your course with requests from servers so you can analyze how it handles the increase in traffic. Stress testing is important because you don’t want your eLearning to crash when learners are actively completing it. Localization If your course needs to be in different languages, make sure you test to see if the languages are translated correctly. If you’re stuck for time, Elucidat’s Master Course feature can make it easy to create and test different versions of your course for each language you support. Related: See how easy it is to handle translations with Elucidat’s authoring tool 2. Acceptance testing Acceptance testing determines if a course meets the requirements originally set out in the specification phase. Here, you need to test how actual users might interact with the course. For example, test against the workflow that a group of people might embark on. Acceptance testing ensures the course works in the real world and has the integrity to support a valid learning experience. Here are some examples of things you might build into your acceptance testing plan: First impressions: Is it clear what the user is being asked to do? Navigation: Is the layout intuitive? Could users find what they needed? Functionality: Did users experience technical issues? 3. Engagement analytics Too much eLearning is released and then forgotten. Engagement analytics can provide insights to help you understand how your course is performing. For example, Elucidat’s integration with Google Analytics lets you track valuable information about how people use your course and how you can improve it. Take a look at this screenshot to see what I mean: Here are some metrics you should assess from Google Analytics: How long is someone spending on a page? Spending a long time on pages could indicate the page is hard to understand.  Are some pages more popular than others? Do learners want to focus more on a specific topic?  How long does your course take to complete? Does the 10-minute course really take 30 minutes?  Where are people accessing the course? Mobile or desktop? Office or home? This data help you tweak and improve the learning experience. You may also use data to visualize correlations and identify interesting trends. For example, you might find that the time of day affects the pass rate. You can use this information to suggest the ideal time for people to work on the course. Related: Stay on top of the latest elearning ideas, trends and technologies by subscribing to the Elucidat weekly newsletter. Conclusion If you’re not testing and improving your online training on a monthly basis, you risk losing students to competitors. Use QA testing, acceptance testing, and engagement analytics to find new ways to enhance the learner experience. By improving your eLearning, you can increase learner satisfaction, which will help you create a great product that attracts and retains more learners in the future. Related: The new way to measure the performance of your eLearning The post Are you testing? Here are 3 ways to test and improve online training appeared first on Elucidat Blog.

Stuck for new ideas? Draw inspiration from these elearning examples from Nuggethead, Microassist, Smart Sparrow and Tim Slade. Nuggethead: PwP is a campaign to educate people who are living with HIV Why we like it: A great example of the use of a comic/graphic novel approach. Good example of storytelling in elearning. High end illustration makes it very compelling. Good use of voiceover and sound effects. Extra information is permanently available via the slide out tabs. Clear, easy to use navigation. There’s a ‘scenario map’ that can be used to jump quickly between scenes. Visit elearning Microassist: This training teaches new HIV case managers how HIV replicates and spreads in the body Why we like it: Simple design based on animated presentation of information about a specific aspect of the pathology of the virus. Clean clear imagery helps ensure the presentation isn’t over-complicated. Uncluttered interface helps focus attention on the presentation content. Presents the facts very simply, with voice-over. Visit elearning Smart Sparrow: Learn genetics by collecting genetic information from a patient in a Virtual Lab Why we like it: Provides video ‘help’ function which shows the step-by-step process and leads the learner towards the correct response. Great use of imagery - full-screen background image to situate the learning in a lab, and high quality content illustrations for the activities. Good example of a simulation - lets you conduct the experiments and practise the processes. Scaffolded instructional design - provides guided learning to help you if you get stuck, but doesn’t force the learner to go through training if they are progressing well. Gives learners a chance to take the test again after the training intervention. Gives learner opportunity to do some research first or press ahead in the process. Visit elearning Tim Slade: Alter ego interactive magazine Why we like it: Great example of borrowing elements of other digital design to enrich elearning. Uses rich multimedia, high-end graphics and layouts. Has all the elements of interactions familiar in elearning such as hotspots and pop-ups. Uses high contrasting colours and fonts for visual enhancement. Good demonstration of the basic principles of graphic design such as proximity and affordance in a learning context. Visit elearning Related: Stay on top of the latest elearning ideas, trends and technologies by subscribing to the Elucidat weekly newsletter.   The post Elearning inspiration: Nuggethead, Microassist, Smart Sparrow, Tim Slade appeared first on Elucidat Blog.

As an online training provider, you will need to produce quality courseware quickly if you are to meet the ever-changing needs of your customers. To do this effectively, you’ll require a range of software tools. Here are five categories which you need to consider. 1. Authoring tools Your authoring tool is probably the most important item in your elearning delivery toolkit. Ideally an authoring tool should be flexible, easy to use and enable quick content development. Many modern authoring products, like Elucidat, tick all of these boxes. Ease of use is especially important so that you can rely on Subject Matter Experts (SMEs), rather than tech-savvy developers to create content. Spreading the development load in this way enables you to get the product to the market more quickly. I wrote an article last year comparing five elearning authoring tools. If you’re investigating new rapid authoring software, that article’s a good place to start. 2. Learning Management Systems (LMSs) Depending on your business model, and in addition to standard LMS functionality, there are three important aspects of an LMS that warrant your attention: Learner/client ease of use e-Commerce functionality Sub-branding capability Ease of use is pretty self-explanatory. If the interface is cluttered, unintuitive, clumsy or aesthetically unappealing, learners won’t be inspired to take your courses no matter how good they are. If you plan to sell your training, you need to make sure that the learner experience is as clean, simple and pleasurable as possible. The e-commerce functionality should obviously enable people to pay for any courses that they want, but you may also want to consider how learners will browse your course catalogue to find what they want to purchase. How easy is it for a learner to perform a catalogue search, and how much control do you have over who sees different parts of the catalogue? E.g., perhaps you’ve customized some courses and only learners from selected organizations should be able to access these. Creating a sub-branded site within your main LMS may also be important to you. No matter how well known or attractive your brand is, clients—especially larger clients—are likely to want the LMS landing page and the catalogue relevant to their own learners to look as though they’re part of their own brand. Even if sub-branding is a listed feature in an LMS you’re considering, find out how much control you will have and how easy it is to implement. For example, some LMS products may claim to give you branding control, but you may need to be a CSS expert or PHP programmer to implement it! Your own unique needs will determine which LMS is best suited to your organization. Five well-regarded LMSs that you may want to investigate are: Cornerstone Docebo LearnUpon DigitalChalk TalentLMS 3. Screen and audio recording tools Capturing static screenshots and screen interaction sequences is useful when developing content for learners. Here are some helpful tools: Snagit: This is a really powerful tool for screen capture of videos and static screen images. Snagit is a staple tool for most elearning pros. Screencast-O-Matic: This allows you to capture screen interaction videos (e.g., software how-to videos) either with or without your webcam ‘narrator’ image included. If you have a Java-enabled web browser (which is becoming increasingly rare) you can launch the recorder directly from your web browser. If not, there’s a small download that enables your web browser to launch the recording app. It’s very powerful considering its free price tag, but there is an inexpensive annual subscription that provides many extra bells and whistles. PrtScn: If you just want a static image of a computer screen, use your PrtScn keyboard key. Use the Alt + PrtScn key combination to capture the active window rather than your entire desktop. PrtScn copies the image to the Windows clipboard. From there you can paste it into a PowerPoint slide or Paint and export the slide as a PNG or JPG graphics file. Audio can be very powerful in elearning, for example when providing the audience with different stakeholder perspectives, providing information via a simulated phone call, or just providing workplace sound effects to help immerse the learner and contextualize the learning. Audacity: This is the go-to tool for most non-professional sound recordists. It’ll give you all the functionality that you’re ever likely to need. Twisted Wave: This is a very simple sound recorder and editor. Its advantage is that it’s web-based, so no downloads or installs, but there are downloadable versions for Mac and iOS, too. 4. Design tools We all need graphical inspiration from time to time. One of the best places to go for design inspiration and tools for creating infographics, layouts and stunning presentations is Canva. Here you can see how the pros match fonts, graphics, color and layout to best effect—and it lets you apply it to your projects. 5. Mind Mapping tools An important task during the early design stage of most large elearning projects is prioritizing and chunking the main headings and sub-topics. Mind Mapping tools, and especially collaborative Mind Mapping tools, are great for this. Here are two to look at: Coggle: This is a web-based tool that allows teams or individuals to brainstorm, group and prioritize ideas very easily. Mindjet (MindManager): This product has evolved over many years, so has greater functionality than many other Mind Mapping products. This functionality comes with a slight learning curve and is also reflected in the price. Related: Stay on top of the latest elearning ideas, trends and technologies by subscribing to the Elucidat weekly newsletter. In conclusion Like any crafts-person, the quality of the tools you use and how effectively you wield them will directly impact what you create. In these competitive times, you need to maximize quality and output by using up-to-date technology and techniques like those highlighted here. The post Five Essential Tools for Online Training Providers appeared first on Elucidat Blog.

How Could Students Make Online Learning More Productive… https://t.co/VTYuAZv0vX

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