2015 was a pivotal year for The eLearning Network (eLN), the UK-based non-profit organisation run by the elearning community for the elearning community.The group transformed its membership arrangements, events and website to widen its appeal and to further share knowledge and experience throughout the industry. In this exclusive interview, eLN Chairman, John Curran looks back on a successful year and sets out his ambitions for 2016. How has your year as eLN Chairman gone? It’s gone pretty well. We had some hairy moments during the year because we decided to change everything at the same time. In hindsight it wasn’t the greatest thing to do, but it would have been hard to change one little thing at a time.  So we changed the website, the business model, our events and the way we organised them. But actually, it pretty much worked out. There’s a lot of goodwill behind the eLN, our sponsors this year have been amazing, and there is such a great feeling of support for the eLN in the UK and that really helped us. Overall, it’s been a really successful year. I’ve been re-elected as Chair so we’re hoping to do more of the same again for 2016, only bigger and better. Have you been able to achieve your vision for the organisation? "It’s a really complex landscape so I think our role moving forward is helping those people who are new to really get up to speed on what elearning is all about." We wanted to make the eLN more accessible. There are a lot of people out there getting into elearning for the first time and we wanted to make the ELN the first port of call for those who are new into the industry. When I first started in elearning it was focused on the technical stuff, and there weren’t that many approaches you could take. Nowadays, it’s a really complex landscape so I think our role moving forward is helping those people who are new to really get up to speed on what elearning is all about, as well as helping those already in the business to explore different aspects of elearning. Video: John explains how he’s hoping to keep up the momentum for 2016. This year saw the eLN stage a new-style conference called Beyond Click Next. How was it received? We’ve always organised one day events, but they tended to have a single stream with four or five speakers and a maximum of 50 delegates. These were our old-style paid events. What we’ve done now is to make those events free and call them our workshops. But we had a vision for something much more conference-like. Principally, this meant more speakers, more people and multiple streams. Of course, putting together a multi-stream event is a lot more challenging. You’ve got to manage which stream people want to go into but we tried to keep it flexible and used a ‘two feet’ rule, so you could choose whatever session you wanted and when it was full, it was full - that seemed to work really well. We kept speakers to 30 minutes which is shorter than you’d normally expect in a conference and I think that also went down really well as we were able to pack in more variety to each stream.  Overall, we had about 30 speakers in the day and there was lots of choice for people. I think probably the best feedback we had was a lot of people saying it was the friendliest conference they’d been to. Video: John expands on the friendliness of the eLN. What’s your ambition for the eLN for the next 12 months? More of the same, definitely. We had our first board meeting just last week so we’re working on our events for 2016 and we’ll be launching those in early January. There will be more free workshops and I’d like to repeat our conference in November. We’d also like to do more regional events which we call Meet-ups. Another thing we’re planning for 2016 is a series of webinars so we can reach members online as well as face-to-face. We’ve got a new blog editor, Martyn Stevenson-Read from BT, so that will mean a lot more blogging and general content on the website. Hopefully, all that together will provide more benefit to our members throughout 2016.To find out more about joining the eLearning Network visit: elearningnetwork.org/membership-options Discuss a project Subscribe to our newsletter The post Bigger and better: Elearning Network ambitions for 2016 appeared first on Sponge UK.

Did you know that Instructional Design (ID) began in the Second World War to improve military training? This goes to show that ID isn't some new, smoke and mirrors concept; it's an evidence-based, rigorous discipline. And if your company isn't using instructional design effectively, they're losing out. This article should help set them straight.

This month at Trivantis®, we released Lectora® 16 with Responsive Course Design™. We hope you’ve been busy creating amazing mobile courses! Sign up for a free trial to try RCD yourself. We also launched the new Trivantis Community Contests—and of course, we picked our favorite December articles for you to read. Here’s the Best of eLearning in December: 1. Transformative Learning: Another Perspective on Adult Learning Connie Malamed discuses the principles of andragogy, a model for adult learning, and how to create transformative learning—learning experiences that cause a shift in perspective. 2. New Lectora 16 Responsive Templates The eLearning Brothers made over 30 new responsive templates for the release of Lectora 16 with Responsive Course Design (RCD). 3. Nuts and Bolts: Getting Organized Jane Bozarth explains how to organize training material to help the learner make sense of it by rethinking bullet points and trying to show relationships instead. 4. Trivantis Wins Silver in 2015 Brandon Hall Group Excellence in Technology Awards Trivantis won a Brandon Hall Group Excellence in Technology Silver Award for Best Advance in Content Authoring Technology for Lectora Online and xAPI. 5. Now Accepting LUC 2016 Speaker Proposals Want to present your bright idea at the 2016 Lectora User Conference? Send in your speaker proposal today. And that’s it—the last of the best of 2015. Stay tuned for next year’s top picks. Have a wonderful holiday season, eLearning friends. The post The Best of eLearning in December 2015 appeared first on .

In the realm of rapid eLearning, slow and steady doesn’t win the race. Rapid eLearning describes courses that can be designed and implemented quickly using a much faster, condensed development cycle than traditional design processes. Although rapid eLearning boasts benefits that can make it appear initially attractive, there is still speculation about the real value […] The post 3 Advantages And Disadvantages Of Rapid eLearning appeared first on PulseLearning.

All the team at PulseLearning join in wishing you a Happy Holiday Season and a prosperous New Year! We would like to thank all our clients and partners for your continued support throughout 2015. We look forward to reaching new heights together in 2016. From The PulseLearning Team. Holiday & New Year Office Hours The PulseLearning […] The post Happy Holidays 2015 appeared first on PulseLearning.

We can learn something from anyone at any time. A two year old learns by watching her five year old sister jump and skip. A ten year old boy learns how to shoot a basketball from a neighbor. A grandmother learns how to operate an iPad from her grandson, and so on. Wisdom isn’t always imparted from the older to the younger. The holidays provide a wonderful opportunity for young and old to get together, share stores, and learn from one another. Take advantage of this time together! Share memories. Use picture albums, family videos and even music from days gone by to help stir up memories in both young and old. For advanced-age family members, the chance to tell their stories helps to improve cognition, lessen depression, and improve behavioral functioning. If you can, try to record the conversations, or journal the stories for future generations to enjoy. Create new memories. Add a new family tradition this year. Have a silly Christmas sweater contest. Start a family game night. Teach gramps how to take a selfie and store up some silly pictures to share next year. If time allows, bundle young and old together in the car to drive around looking at lights while listening to calming holiday music. Offer everyone an opportunity to be involved. Assign tasks for the holiday meal preparation. Older adults with physical limitations can be asked to do simple tasks such as folding napkins, or entertaining the cooks with stories from years past. Perhaps Grandma or Grandpa have a special skill or talent that they can teach to the younger generation during the holiday break. Sewing, knitting, playing an instrument, or even mastering the game of checkers are all important skills to pass along! Plan ahead. Be on the lookout for over-stimulation and allow all relatives, regardless of age, time to rest and enjoy peace and quiet! Reach out to older friends and relatives who are alone this holiday season. The holidays can be a difficult time for some seniors, especially if loved ones or pets have passed on. Involve the seniors in your life, neighborhood and place of worship in as much as you can. A phone call, card or even better, a personal visit can do wonders for everyone involved! Look for signs of depression. "Holiday blues" are feelings of profound sadness that can be provoked by all the activities of the holiday season. Seasonal blues can have an impact in the lives of older people. While a full range of emotions can be expected during the holiday season, be on the lookout for signs of depression, which should always be addressed. Stick to schedules as much as possible. During the holidays, it’s easy for everyone to get off of a regular sleeping and eating schedule. Be aware of your senior and make sure that they are getting enough rest, regular meals as well as taking all medications on time. Most of all this holiday and always, take the time to sit down and enjoy one another. Be present, slow down, do things mindfully and don’t miss one single moment of it. "Resolve to be tender with the young, compassionate with the aged, sympathetic with the striving, and tolerant with the weak and the wrong. Sometime in your life you will have been all of these." -- Dr. Robert H. Goddard (American rocket engineer 1882-1945)          

From guest Writer Judy Bloxham. As I write this article, the county is reeling from yet another round of severe flooding. Roads have been washed out, bridges destroyed and the city of Carlisle cut in half. Just over two weeks on, the main bridge in Carlisle has now been re-opened, during this time it necessitated another […]

Hello Adapted Physical Education lovers! I am proud to be bringing you a brand new episode of What's New in Adapted Physical Education. We have been off the air for a while but we are back and better then ever.This new episode had two panelist on the show to discuss the new APE app Exercise Buddy. Our two panelist were David Geslak, the creator and founder of Exercise Connection and the app Exercise Buddy, and Melissa Bittner, a fellow Texas Woman's University PhD candidate who is conducting research on the effectiveness of the Exercise Buddy with kids with Autism. Prior to creating the app, David had created a program specifically developed to empower students with Autism with physical activities. The program was called Exercise Connection. Here is a quick Youtube video on the program. As well as the app we also discuss the research that is being conducted with the Exercise Buddy and the use of different best practices that are embedded into the app. If you are interested in purchasing the app to encourage your own students to be more engaged in physical activity and get more out of exercise here is the website to purchase the Exercise Buddy. We are going to try and launch another podcast that will focus on games and activities for the winter time. Please email me or leave a comment on some of your favorite winter activities and we might mention it in the upcoming podcast!Happy Holidays,APE Man!

It’s Christmas break!!!!!!! Woohoo!!!! I’m sure many of you reading this post share in my enthusiasm for this wonderful time of the year. The two week period (give or take a snow day) during which we wear sweatpants all day, rock the just rolled out of bed hairdo, play with[Read more] The post Gamified Government: 1st Semester Reflections from My Gamification Experiment appeared first on Teaching with Technology.

I am so excited to share some awesome additions to a great educational game: Quizizz! I shared Quizizz, a game-based student response system, late last school year. As is the case when I review products, I tried it out with my students before sharing it with you…and the response was[Read more] The post Great Updates to Quizizz appeared first on Teaching with Technology.