Those with disabilities are an essential ingredient to any overall diversity effort.

Over the years, I’ve written a lot about servant leadership. I was recently reviewing Ken Jennings and John Stahl-Wert’s book The Serving Leader (Berrett-Koehler, 2003 and 2016) when I realized how much I like the term serving leader—it makes the point that leadership is about doing something, it’s not just a philosophy. When you are serving, you are taking action. In my recent work on servant leadership, I’ve been focusing in on three actions every leader can take to serve their people more efficiently. The first action is about Presence. Be present when you’re with your people. Focus directly on them—not on the next meeting, or the call you need to make, or the text message that just came in on your phone. Don’t let distractions take you away from a living person who is right in front of you. As a serving leader, you need to listen with the intent to learn, ask questions for clarity, and offer the support and direction your staff needs to be able to perform at their highest level. Each person has very different needs, and as a serving leader it takes your concentration and attention to be truly present with each individual. In this 24/7 world, this skill takes practice and commitment. The second action is Acceptance. Serving leaders look for and build on the strengths each direct report brings to the job. And, realizing no one is perfect, they also identify weaknesses—areas where they might be able to help the person learn and grow. Helping someone develop new skills is perhaps the ultimate act of serving. Accepting people as they are and paying attention to both strengths and weaknesses allows serving leaders to set team members up for success, which serves not only the individual but the entire organization. The third action is Creativity. Leaders work with teams made up of many different personalities and temperaments—and when you add the complexity of multiple generations in the workplace, the job of managing people can seem overwhelming. Some may see this as a challenge to be managed carefully, but the serving leader sees it as a chance to be creative and invite different perspectives to each project. Magical things can happen when different voices and opinions are shared in a trusting, collaborative environment. It brings about something I call one plus one thinking—where one plus one is actually greater than two. The job of the serving leader is to build a community where everyone feels they are part of the big picture. I hope you think of yourself as a servant leader—but take it a step further and make sure you are taking the right actions to actively serve your people. Be present and focus on each person individually, accept people’s strengths and help them overcome weaknesses, and encourage creativity by inviting everyone to share their perspective. I guarantee that you’ll unleash talent and potential that will transform your direct reports, your team, and your organization.

Years ago, we'd gather our little kids together and have them create a Christmas card. Since our kids are grown, here's a little poem I borrowed from the web: Christmas is eternal loveChristmas is sent from aboveChristmas is kindness love and joyBut I should add the Christmas TOYS! Sarah, age 9

We’re preparing for a busy Winter semester, and this semester we have a large amount of multi-access classes being taught. While not exactly a ‘new’ thing for us, perfecting it is relevantly new, especially with rapid advances to technology. Multi-Access? What is a multi-access class? Well, it is a class designed to cater to the needs of two groups of students: those attending face-to-face, and those attending online or at a distance. This type of class allows both groups of students to participate in the learning exchange of the course itself, while creating a greater sense of community by interacting with students in both environments. Multi-access students are central in this context. They are able to choose when and where they participate; sure, some students may only be able to attend online, but the option is there. They are not restricted by having to register as either an on campus or online student, they can mix and match as their schedules allow. How is the Multi-Access format beneficial? Outside of its obvious benefits to student flexibility, the multi-access format allows institutions to increase enrolment opportunities, while providing faculty members with increased delivery options. It also provides increased access to the course content to a broader range of students. Resources Realigning Higher Education for the 21-st Century Learner Through Multi-Access Learning by V. Irvine, J. Code, and L. Richards Patterns of Engagement in Connectivist MOOCs by C. Milligan, A. Littlejohn, and A. Margaryan

2015 was a great year for Litmos.com and the eLearning Blog. As we reflect on the past year, the Litmos team would like to highlight the most popular post from each month and recognize the efforts of our blog contributors. It's been interesting to review the entire year of blog posts to see what has resonated with the eLearning community. It was a diverse year with topics ranging from design and blended learning, to technology and management. We hope you have enjoyed the blog this year and as always we look forward to your feedback and contributions. January - Tips for Creating a Rockstar Customer Training Department by Brent Schlenker February - Managers and Makers - A New Adventure in Instructional Design by Ant Pugh March - The Learning Zone: Stepping Away from Comfort Zone by Brent Schlenker April - Subject Matter Experts: The Heroes of the Training World by Brent Schlenker May - 10 Tips to Evaluate Your Ongoing Training Strategy by Christopher Pappas June - 7 Top Blended Learning Benefits for Corporate Training by Christopher Pappas July - Instructional Video Production: Recording, Editing, Publishing, Streaming by Brent Schlenker August - The Rise of the Training-preneur by Brent Schlenker September - Top 5 Tips for Producing Microlearning Videos by Tom Spiglanin October - An Instructional Design Process Review by Clark Quinn November - 10 New Learning Technologies by Clark Quinn December - Artificial Intelligent Instructional Design by Brent Schlenker The post 2015 Top eLearning Blog Posts appeared first on Litmos.

This post started out with a management/leadership topic. And you can see the video below that resulted from serendipitous social outreach. Management/Leadership is an important topic and one that I think should be discussed in greater detail. But in this post, I'd like to highlight the process. The process highlights the amazing power of social connections for starting conversations. The technologies enable spontaneous collaborative events in ways we have never seen. In a way, understanding this process is also a glimpse into the future of management/leadership as well. Let's start by laying out the events from a high level. The entire process took shape very quickly without thinking too deeply about it. I went from Trigger to Inspired action very quickly. And having already experienced this set of tools, I new immediately what actions to take. This is where I find the value in experimenting with new technologies. You may not think you'll ever need them.  But when inspiration strikes its good to have some prior knowledge to help craft a quick solution. The Trigger - Twitter Everything starts with a trigger event. In this case it was a tweet highlighting a LinkedIn article published by Josh Bersin about eLearning Not Being Successful at Leadership and Softskills Training. The tweet was from Mark Britz (@britz) a trusted colleague in my professional network. This is important because just seeing the same tweet from an unknown source may not have triggered a response from me. Knowing your network, and building relationships is critical for social success. The Content - LinkedIn After accepting the validity of the link from a trusted source I clicked the link and read the article. In this part of the process the inspiration to take action was reinforced because I already had a great deal of respect for the work of Josh Bersin. And this content was typical of his exceptional work presenting data on whatever topic he writes about. There were some very interesting points made with data to back them up. The curiosity triggered by the tweet got the process started. But the strong content triggered the desire to take action. The Action/Event - Blab.im I was a very early adopter of blab.im from it's very early days. I discovered it from the king of social streaming Brian Fanzo (@isocialfanz). In those first few weeks I met many other inquisitive experimenters trying to understand this new video streaming service. My point is that in order to take action, it was extremely helpful to make the connection between my need and the blab service. Blab made taking action very quick and easy. In a matter of minutes I had gone from trigger to content, to action, creating an event without any technology friction at all. I setup the blab for 30mins out so I had a little time to prep, and begin my outreach. The Outreach - Twitter/LinkedIn/Facebook Blab makes outreach very easy with buttons for posting to both twitter and Facebook. I also posted an update on LinkedIn just to cover the bases. It didn't take long for 2 subscribers to appear. This may not sound like a lot, but considering the spontaneous nature of the event I was not expecting many more. The outreach is important if others might be available to engage in a conversation around a recent piece of content as well. However, having others on the blab was not a primary concern for me. What I really wanted to do was capture my thoughts and feelings around Josh's article immediately. Blab is a live streaming service, but it also records the event if you want too. So capturing my thoughts about the topic of eLearning failing Leadership Training was the most important element for me. Watch the video to see what ended up happening. It was much more than I could have hoped for. Because of today's technology I was able to integrate multiple services to create a spontaneous social learning event. I was from trigger, to content, to action, to outreach within an hour. The event itself went for about an hour. And when it was over I had a video artifact of the experience. This is why I love technology and why I see much more value in technology for learning than what the L&D industry currently offers. Your intrinsically motivated learners will take action if you let them. But only if the content is accessible, and the technology is available to support it. As an L&D professional you can do more. Get started. The post Spontaneous Social Learning: Trigger, Content, Action, Outreach appeared first on Litmos.

Elearning Superstars is a curated list of inspirational elearning examples, published every Tuesday. Subscribe to get weekly updates via email. Tania Vercoelen: How to create amazing elearning courses Why we like it: Nice tongue-in-cheek overview of the elearning process. Earn coffees at each stage and see your stash of coffee grow as you progress through the module. Dynamic style menu shows your progress along the process line. Simple but effective use of animations to convey concepts. Good use of informal style font and icon style images. Marshall E-Learning: Apprenticeships for employers Why we like it: Provides support to managers throughout the decision-making process, and looks at these key topics. Cloud based which allows the program to ship with ongoing maintenance, so updates are automatically pushed to all instances of the courses. Good mix of media, including rich graphics, and audio. Fully customisable, so can be adapted for different organizations’ needs. Scenario driven to provide guidance through relevant case based materials. Fully responsive, looks great and works well on a range of devices. The post Elearning inspiration: Tania Vercoelen, Marshall E-Learning, Responsive elearning built with Elucidat appeared first on Elucidat Blog.

If you are stuck delivering desktop-only elearning, you are ignoring the needs and wants of modern learners. Here are three examples of companies using Elucidat to build interactive responsive elearning that learners actually want to consume. 1. Open University: To Lie Or Not To Lie? A project for the Open University, To Lie Or Not To Lie allows learners to analyze their own moral compasses by placing them in non linear scenarios that vary from the Lewinsky affair to the Bloodgate scandal. Visit elearning: Open University’s To Lie Or Not To Lie? 2. Marshall ACM: Be Smart, Be Safe A brilliant personal safety project for Barnados, the Children’s Charity from Marshall ACM - the leading elearning consultancy for online diversity and safeguarding training. Visit elearning: Marshall ACM’s Be Smart, Be Safe 3. Delphi: Counterperson training on "Fuel" An engaging, mobile friendly course for Delphi - a global supplier of vehicle technology - created by our US partner, Learning Evolution. Visit elearning: Delphi’s counterperson training on "Fuel" The post 3 responsive elearning examples built with Elucidat appeared first on Elucidat Blog.

Are you looking for new ways to improve and streamline the design phase of your elearning development process? In this article we’ll look at how benchmarking, prototyping and testing can help the design phase. During the design phase you want to be testing your ideas before you build them. The goal is to prove that your ideas and concepts will work so you won’t waste time and money. Related: How to approach phase one, analysis & scope, of the elearning process  1. Benchmarking Benchmarking defines where the project is headed and helps you to set the success criteria against which you will later evaluate. It’s key to making sure that the project targets the learner, and is in line with your business values. Benchmarking also provides you with guidelines to determine how you deliver future elearning courses. To begin benchmarking simply create a basic checklist, e.g.: For your organization, how does a great piece of elearning look and feel? What are the criteria that define it as good? What will the resource do? 2. Prototyping Prototyping involves testing concepts quickly so you can discard what is not viable in your context and so move on to other ideas. To this end, prototyping should be quick and dirty. The point is to get a visualization of potential solutions without actually making something that you’ll find difficult to throw out later. At this stage, it is about testing your ideas rather than building content. For example, check out this prototype that has been drawn out on paper: Here’s what the finished product looks like after building it with Elucidat: You can build a functioning prototype on the fly while you are doing your initial research. Don’t spend time on the detail of these early iterations. For example, don’t spend hours creating the perfect image or animation. Prototypes should be trashable; don’t create anything at this point that you won’t be ok to throw away. Here are some guidelines to get you started: Focus on user experience, not content (that comes later). Iterate over a short period of time e.g. a couple of days, not weeks. This will help to keep you focussed. Create wireframes and sketches. You don’t need to be an artist; simple lines and written explanations are quite adequate. Develop some mock-ups of the screens. They can be useful for visualizing the lay-out and the overall experience of using the course. Review these initial ideas with stakeholders and end users. Authoring tools, such as Elucidat, make building a functioning prototype really easy. Check out Patrick Dunn’s article that discusses some of the benefits of rapid prototyping with tools like Elucidat. 3. User testing User testing during the design phase is specifically about testing your design against the end user. Think who your course is aimed at and how they will use it to solve a problem or fill a gap in their skills or knowledge. You will need to schedule some usability testing with end-users. Oftentimes, the problems end-users experience will be quite different from what you expect. For example, you could conduct some one-on-one or focus group sessions and ask very focused questions that provide feedback on your design. Maybe you’re unsure of a particular interactive mechanism that you’ve set up. Is it too complex? Does it need simplification? Is it clear what learners would need to do? If you have some basic questions like these, use mock-ups and mini prototypes in a structured way to get feedback on your questions. Feedback from the horse’s mouth is invaluable at this stage of the elearning process. Use the feedback from users to guide your design process. 4. Look and feel Wireframes can help you demonstrate the look and feel of your elearning, screen layouts and basic user interface elements such as navigation controls, menus, resources, basic page types, and so on. This step involves creating concepts that show different types of approach that you can use to communicate your ideas to the end users and stakeholders. Consider it a ‘litmus test’ to help you - and your stakeholders - to understand better what it is you are trying to achieve. Summary The design phase is where you make mistakes and get a clearer understanding of what you are going to create before doing any costly development. I’ve demonstrated some ways in which you can approach this stage, but remember, the most important part of the design phase is to test your ideas with actual users and stakeholders to ensure your solution will be the best for them. Related: Analysis & scope: The 1st phase in the elearning process The post Design: How to approach the 2nd phase of the elearning development process appeared first on Elucidat Blog.

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