Our Top 10 eLearning Visual Design Tricks If you’re an eLearning designer who believe that visuals play a secondary role in learning materials, you’re making a huge mistake. Visual design affects the course’s usability and increases learning benefits for users. The right visual design can guide learner attention, provide a hierarchy for information, and help learners in […] The post 10 eLearning Visual Design Tricks appeared first on PulseLearning.

SMART Majority and LearnUpon are two young eLearning companies that have grown rapidly since they were founded three years ago. That growth isn’t a coincidence. As one of LearnUpon’s first customers, a strong partnership has helped the companies to thrive in their respective markets. SMART Majority was established with the ambition to improve the way that online learning and development is delivered. Its co-founders aimed to leverage the potential of technology to deliver a learning experience superior to any then on the market. Driven by the goal of acquiring hundreds of thousands of learners, SMART Majority needed an online learning platform that would help them reach their ambitious targets. Here’s how they did it.   About Smart Majority SMART Majority is an eLearning provider that delivers courses that cover a broad range of topics, spanning Event Management, Leadership and Management, Design, and many more. The company’s founder and CEO, Camelia Symes, believed that leveraging recent developments in eLearning technology could deliver an unbeatable competitive advantage. Symes saw that most eLearning providers had yet to adopt tools designed to deliver the best possible learning experience. The company’s as yet tiny team began a search for an online learning platform that would support students to complete courses and acquire qualifications in the most efficient way possible.   What business challenge did you need a learning platform to address? We always knew that the selection of the right LMS was crucial. We founded SMART Majority with the ambition of radically improving on the offerings of eLearning competitors. At the time, most learning and training providers lagged behind recent developments in eLearning technology. Many providers did nothing more than deliver courses in a basic PDF format. We knew we could deliver a far more engaging eLearning experience to students. And because we chose eLearning technology as our key differentiator, the selection of a learning platform that could deliver on that vision was crucial. We’d set extremely ambitious targets. We needed an LMS that would fit us at the start and also scale to accommodate the hundreds of thousands of learners we wanted to reach in the first five years.   Why did you choose LearnUpon? We considered quite a few online learning platforms first. But something about LearnUpon stood out from the beginning. We liked what we read about support and functionality on the website, so we took a demo to see how the learning management system worked. The demo was detailed enough to work like a consultation. We could see that the learning platform looked like a good fit at that point. The features looked impressive but appeared easy to navigate. We still needed to test the online learning platform, so we followed up the demo with a 30-day free trial. The free trial confirmed our decision. As soon as we started using LearnUpon, we knew it was just as simple to navigate as it appeared. We found it really easy to understand as admins. We could manage all of the features without any training. Even the least technical member of the team could set up courses immediately. Because we found it so easy to use, we believed our students would too. At that point, we knew we could deliver the improved learner experience we had imagined. The support we received during our free trial also influenced our decision-making. We were a very small team and needed to minimize costs to guarantee a return. We didn’t have an in-house IT department to manage a long integration period or deal with technical issues and glitches. The free trial proved we wouldn’t need one. We could count on LearnUpon’s free 24/7 support. If we had questions, we called them. That was a big selling point. We knew LearnUpon’s support team would be there to help us with a system we didn’t yet know.   How has LearnUpon helped with your business challenge? We always felt like we were working as a team with LearnUpon. Our main question was: can we grow with you? LearnUpon’s pricing model helped make scaling painless and profitable. Pricing has been clear and upfront throughout our years as a customer. There are no hidden costs. There are no nasty surprises. It’s one of the most competitive prices on the market. That helped us to grow as a business. Like LearnUpon, we’ve grown quickly in the three years since we signed up. We’re a team of ten in the office now. Worldwide, we work with another 45 freelancers. Our learner base has grown dramatically. We started with 100 users. We now have over 100,000 registered users, with 60,000 learners active currently. LearnUpon played an instrumental role in helping us to reach that figure. They supported us throughout the journey.   Would you recommend LearnUpon over other Learning Management Systems? Absolutely, it’s been fantastic. Businesses need a system that’s reliable. We recently integrated with the API of a big marketing software company and we’ve had so many challenges. We’ve missed the confidence excellent support allows you to develop. LearnUpon’s support team is so responsive. That’s where Brendan and Des really nailed it. If there’s an issue, it gets handled. That gave us the confidence we needed to grow to those impressive numbers. We tested other online learning platforms at the beginning. LearnUpon won in the three categories that mattered most to us: support, ease-of-use for admins and learners, and cost. Overall it’s been a joy and a pleasure. LearnUpon was the best choice we could have made.   See what LearnUpon can do for you. Sign up for a free 30 day trial. The post How a learning platform helped Smart Majority gain 100,000 users appeared first on LearnUpon.

Every fortnight I curate some of the observations and insights that were shared on social media. I call these Friday’s Finds. "Mastery is not referred to the use of any tool. It is a state of the person. And then it permeates the use of *any* tool." - Stelio Verzera How You Record Ideas May Impact Creativity, via @madelynblair "As one of our architect users put it in an interview we conducted recently on the value of drawing in the digital age, "When you build a lot of buildings, and you go and visit them, you always think back on that first sketch. Those first few sketches are where the big idea came through." We found over and over that the act of using sketching as "conversational as opposed to representational," in the words of another architect, was the key to discovery—when the act of drawing is a means to an end, not the end in and of itself. Through sketching, you locate the idea. Uninhibited sketching is Beethoven’s long walk." Bad Managers Talk, Good Managers Write, via @africadean "Written communication to engineering is superior [to verbal communication] because it is more consistent across an entire product team, it is more lasting, it raises accountability." - Ben Horowitz "There is no way to write a six-page, narratively structured memo and not have clear thinking." - Jeff Bezos "Reports are more a medium of self-discipline than a way to communicate information." - Andy Grove "I find that you can tell a lot more about a person’s personality from a few paragraphs of their writing than from a lengthy verbal interview" - Phil Libin At last, Cluetrain’s time has come, by @dsearls "We can help companies (and ourselves) a lot more if we have standard ways to connect with sales, service and product and service development functions — and they with us. Then "Markets are conversations" will finally mean what it’s failed to mean for the last sixteen years." Peter Senge: 5 Disciplines of a Learning Organization, by @tnvora Image: Tanmay Vora

It seems like an obvious point to make, but why bother putting your employees through training if they don’t learn anything or develop new skills? This is something a staggering amount of businesses forget, as their priorities lie elsewhere. Seeing as a great deal of time, effort, and resources go into most training programs, the vast majority of businesses will want to make sure that the learning materials cover essential topics relating to the job in question. This is fair enough, but you can’t assume employees will automatically learn and remember what is placed in front of them. For this to happen, you need to continually examine and assess each member of staff to discover whether training has had a positive impact on their learning and development. Thankfully, an increasing number of businesses are starting to recognise this fact and are allocating their training budgets accordingly.   Investing in training Following on from the financial crisis, global economies have been progressively improving, which is good news for corporate training. Not only are businesses investing in learning strategies, technologies, and content, they also expect this trend to continue. Furthermore, assessment tools, learning management systems, and mobile technologies are also being given greater precedence than before. This is based on responses from members of the Chief Learning Officer Business Intelligence Board and their annual investment choices, which provides insight into the industry’s most popular technologies and service areas as well as what spending will change between 2015 and 2016. After a period of decline, Chief Learning Officers (CLOs) reported that budgets have increased for the third year in a row, with 60 per cent revealing their investments in training are higher than 2014. The rate of these rises is quite staggering too, as CLOs say their budgets have increased by almost 20 per cent. The forecast for next year looks rosy as well, with more than 60 per cent of CLOs expecting their budgets to increase. So, does this investment positivity mean that more money will be given to training assessments rather than the learning materials themselves?   Training spend priorities Despite bigger budgets, CLOs remain careful and considerate when it comes to spending and are driven by areas that can provide visible results. For example, more than half of all CLOs expect spending to increase for technology, strategy, and content libraries. This is not a surprise though, as the previous two years have witnessed a similar pattern, promoting strong links between learning and business targets in order to increase the influence of spending and delivery. However, in terms of the technologies receiving investment, CLOs are focusing on assessment tools and learning management systems. While these technologies cover a broad range of capabilities, organisations are seeking out ways to better evaluate training and promote high performance. As opposed to a simple test or examination after training has finished, which doesn’t help with employee engagement and retention levels, CLOs are beginning to realise that performance support technologies provide a better insight into the effectiveness of learning as it takes place. For instance, on-the-job assistance is now being recognised as an inexpensive way to increase capability in a workforce with expanding responsibilities. Along with assessment tools and learning management systems, content libraries are also a growing concern, with a focus on leadership development. This is because retiring leaders will soon be replaced by the next generation of executives. Providing these mid- and senior-level staff with access to content libraries as well as mentoring and job rotations has been proven to boost retention rates and can help businesses ensure talent is available when needed.   The growing significance of content and technology From their responses, it is clear that CLOs believe blended content, e-learning, executive development and perhaps above all else, assessment technologies are the future of corporate training. Furthermore, instructor-led training continues to decline as well. CLOs now acknowledge that from a learner’s perspective, informal training techniques are much more appealing and effective. Combined with the fact that e-learning is generally much cheaper to implement than traditional training and investment in this area will surely rise even more. Content libraries are shifting away from specific skills for specific roles and more towards areas that help run the organisation too. All of this is a possibility thanks to technology, which continues to be the major source of efficiency gains throughout the enterprise. But how do CLOs know that their investments are delivering such rich rewards? Because of assessment and evaluations tools, which is now top priority. By combining learning management with assessment and evaluation technologies, CLOs have a powerful tool that helps to deliver hugely beneficial training programs. While technology spending will continue to support organisational requirements, the macro trend toward increased assessment and learning analysis suggest a greater focus on making sure learning content is targeted and relevant to the individual. Or in other words, guaranteeing that training achieves its intended objectives, which businesses often lose touch of.   The future of training In years gone by, CLOs could only dream of implementing highly advanced training technology. But now, it is a distinct possibility and something that deserves to be given the lead, as technology can deliver immeasurable benefits in terms of learning and assessment. As a result, CLOs are hungry for more technologies that can improve the learning and assessment experience, such as spaced repetition. With strong scientific validity and tools to increase the effect of training on knowledge and performance, it seems like only a matter of time before this tops the priority list too. But for the time being at least, CLOs remain focused on measuring and managing high-quality learning experiences in order to successfully deliver enterprise objectives and values. With higher budgets and more investment opportunities, CLOs are able to give assessment tools and learning management systems the attention they deserve. Share this post with your own audience

As we begin to look towards the end of what has been a fantastic 2015, we’re thinking past the turkey, sherry and presents and into early 2016, when we will be unveiling gomo’s latest innovation. Last year at the Learning Technologies exhibition and conference we announced the gomo learning suite, and we’re excited to say there’s something secret up our sleeves for this year’s show, too. Along with getting busy ahead of Learning Technologies, we have a few online events happening in tandem through January and February keeping you up to speed with the latest thinking from gomo. Whether content delivery and course uptake is a current bugbear or there’s a drive for more mobile content in your organisation, we’ve got you covered with fresh ideas for the year ahead, all of which can be accessed from the comfort of your desk. Designing learning for a mobile workforce - January 14th A look at the why, what and how of mobile for learning, plus mobile learning design that will help you create the best mobile learning going. The gomo team will also look at integrating mobile learning alongside existing training and how device experiences can be fully tracked with xAPI analytics. Getting content into the hands of learners - January 28th Possibly a rather ideal follow-up to our webinar on designing mobile learning, this webinar will be focused around the all important aspect of learning distribution. After all, if it’s difficult for learners to find what they need, or they simply aren’t aware of what’s available to them, you may as well not bother creating learning. In this webinar, we take a look at how learning content can be distributed in new and innovative ways to ensure you can keep learners in the loop in 2016. Key trends for 2016 - February 11th Keeping our ear to the ground during Learning Technologies 2016, we’re running an online event to look at the key themes from the show and take a look at what this could mean for us in the year ahead. Ideal for those who couldn’t make it to the show or those who could and want to unravel it a little further, this is a great opportunity to think about the direction the industry is headed. The post New year, new you - upskill with gomo webinars appeared first on gomo Learning.

The lovely folks at Packt Publishing are placing all ebooks on sale for 5 dollars! What a steal! If you’d like to purchase my ebook, Articulate Storyline Essentials, at this special price, please click through the banner below. Happy Holidays!

Whiteboard Wednesday is another video experiment. The first few will be a little rough, but I'd love to get your feedback. Over the last 20 years I've noticed a trending complexity in the conversations around L&D and the work training professionals do. I've seen the industry as a whole move from Training and Development, to Learning and Development, to Talent Development. I've seen our focus move from training to elearning, then  just learning, and now performance. All are valuable and necessary functions. But sometimes I get the feeling that we've lost our focus on the businesses we serve. I hope this Whiteboard Wednesday video will get you thinking about your role in the business you support. And question the work you are doing. Are you doing what YOU want to be doing? Or are you doing what the business expects you to be doing? Are you providing business value, or mired in instructional design process? The post Whiteboard Wednesday 001 - Back to Basics appeared first on Litmos.

Do you make teaching part of your learning strategy? Probably not. It might be on HR's list of things employees at higher levels should do.  But I'm not sure we take teaching into consideration as part of a learning strategy. The typical instructional design process separates these roles into subject matter experts and learners. It's an efficient use of resources supporting a very process driven environment, but it doesn't look at the entire picture of learning. Learning is a Process Learning is a long term process. We create training events often with the expectation that significant learning will occur immediately. Learning doesn't work that way. The statistic most often reported is that on average your learners will retain only 10% of the content covered in your training event. That's a not a very good ROI in any business. So why do we settle for it? There are many answers to this question. All having more to do with business issues than learning issues. But let's hold that thought for a moment and just focus on teaching as a learning tool. Teaching as a Tool for Learning Instructional designers talk a lot about "engaging the learner". I can't think of anyone more engaged in the content than the instructor, can you? Could you design a course curriculum that includes teaching as part of the assessment? Sure you could. Maybe some of you do. There is a sense of accountability placed on instructors that is not placed on students. It's that accountability to teach that creates the demand to learn. Everyone should be expected to know their area of work well enough to teach it. And no, I don't believe you need to reach expert status before taking on the role of teacher or mentor. You can either wait until someone perfects something before "allowing" them to teach. Or you could make them teach in order to speed their journey towards mastery. At a very high level within academia you may see this occurring. But what might this look like in a corporate setting? Teaching Looks Different Today In a 21st century business this does not look like a teacher in front of a classroom. Instead its asking the learner/teacher to create digital learning content. It doesn't need to be the same for everyone. Let them choose. One may create a powerpoint. Another may record herself actually doing some aspect of the job. Another might write a story about someone who failed at doing the job. It doesn't really matter what type of digital content they create. Just that they created something that can be shared and discussed. Imagine how fast your library of learning content would grow. Okay so you may not think it's worth the effort, time, resources. You may think that your employees need to just get to work as soon as possible. The firehose of information is good enough to get by on. And workers can't be bothered by silly projects. You may be right. And perhaps todays' workforce is not ready for that challenge. But I know the incoming generation of employees will enter your business with an arsenal of digital content creation tools and the skills to use them. They are not afraid to snap a quick picture and share it. They are not afraid of video-chatting from their mobile device. They are more than capable of recording video as easily as you and I whip up emails. It's a different breed of employee coming your way. Why not take advantage of what they have to offer? Embracing Employee Content Creators This is a strategy that takes advantage of the natural changes occurring in your business. Whether you leverage your employees' skills or not is a decision you need to make. If you insist on being the gatekeeper to all training and corporate knowledge, you will fail. There is too much for your limited resources to manage. While you struggle to manage the incoming requests, your frustrated stake holders and employees will begin to take matters into their own hands. This trend has already begun in the form of small teams "going rogue" and purchasing lightweight, easy to use, flexible, learning management systems. It's just easier than wrestling with the bureaucracy of a big corporate enterprise training division of HR and their cumbersome systems. It's time to rethink how content gets created. Training departments need to loosen their grip on the training content creation processes. Since employees are getting more and more comfortable creating their own content we should find the opportunities instead of fearing the results. Making teaching part of your learning strategy is only one suggestion. It might work better in some areas of your business than others. It's up to you to figure out what works and what doesn't. You need to be okay with some early failures too. But know that you will find the right mix and once again be able to handle the multitude of training requests, and add value to the business. The post Why Teaching Might Be a Successful Part of Corporate Training Strategy appeared first on Litmos.

Elearning Superstars is a curated list of inspiring elearning examples, published every Tuesday. Subscribe to get weekly updates via email. Bottom-Line Performance: Knowledge Guru is an award-winning game-based learning platform that uses learning science Why we like it: Good example of game engine that can be branded and adapted easily. Utilizes workplace scenarios into all the topics in the game to make it relevant and engaging. The game reinforces concepts covered in the employee handbook and by a manager. Achievement badges and leaderboards help promote a sense of connection and camaraderie (as well as motivation). Uses iterative questions and spaced repetition to reinforce key learning objectives. Updates are easy to manage when job titles, tools and policies change. Visit elearning: BLP’s Knowledge Guru OPITO: An introduction to the oil and gas industry Why we like it: Launched during the UK’s National Skill Week, this program focusses on developing skills in new entrants to the industry. Structured into six modules, the course takes uses through the whole oil and gas story from the creation of hydrocarbons to techniques for their extraction, including consideration of legal and contract issues as well as international trading in oil and gas. Uses a clear appealing visual style with graphic illustrations. Visit elearning: OPITO’s introduction to oil and gas Utility Warehouse: An interactive and media-rich new starter training program (built with Elucidat) Why we like it: A great example of strong visual design with bold contemporary contrasting colours. Good proximity of content and use of contrast to help chunk the material. Clean and clear templated approach with clean layouts and consistent use of styles, alignment and interactions. Great use of video on response layers in interactive question screens helps situate the learner into the heart of the business and introduce real colleagues. Visit elearning: Utility Warehouse’s new starter training program The post Elearning inspiration: BLP’s Knowledge Guru; OPITO; Utility Warehouse appeared first on Elucidat Blog.

Mid 2014 we decided to help improve our diet, and the variety of food we eat, that we would have a new rule for home cooked meals — each dinner meal had to be different. It wasn’t necessarily the easiest of rules but was achievable using weekly meal plans combined with a good selection of cookbooks. Most content I prefer to read online but when it comes to cooking I prefer to grab a cookbook from my bookshelf. Considering cookbooks are always in the Weekly top 10 best sellers at my local bookstores — I’m obviously not the only cookbook lover!  So I thought I would share my current favorite cookbooks in 2015 that have helped make me a better cook! What’s for Dinner and ‘Good Food. Good Life‘ by Curtis Stone Curtis Stone’s ‘What’s for Dinner‘ and ‘Good Food. Good Life‘ are my favorite cookbooks. When we implemented the new rule of every dinner meal had to be different Curtis’s ‘What’s for Dinner‘ was the first cookbook I started with.  I’ve cooked more recipes from his cookbooks than any other cookbook as his recipes always work out well. ‘Good Food. Good Life‘ is Curtis’s latest book published in March, 2015. ‘What’s for Dinner‘ and ‘Good Food. Good Life‘ take a slightly different approach to the recipes.  ‘Good Food. Good Life‘ is packed with hidden gems that I didn’t initially appreciate because I’m a visual learner and not all recipes include photos.  ‘What’s for Dinner‘ was an excellent starting place for improving meals and ‘Good Food. Good Life‘ has been great for expanding cooking techniques. I track recipes cooked using a Google Sheet.  You can check out the Curtis recipes I’ve cooked in the embedded Google Sheets below (color coding means Red = loved, Orange = liked, Blue - Did not like). You can check out Curtis’s recipes on his website, Coles Recipes and cooking or watch his recipe videos on YouTube. Everyday Super Food by Jamie Oliver I brought Jamie Oliver’s Everyday Super Food to work on eating healthier breakfasts.  Breakfast should make up 1/4 to 1/3 of our daily calorie intake — but most adults eat less than 265 calories and don’t eat a balanced breakfast.  My breakfasts were unbalanced and too low in calories. Jamie Oliver’s Everyday Super Food is packed full of great healthy, balanced and delicious recipes for breakfast, lunch, dinner and snacks while providing good tips on health and nutrition. I’ve learnt from our rule that every dinner meal had to be different that palate is very individual and you don’t know what you do or don’t like until you’ve tried it.  My husband and oldest son’s dislike of pumpkin and sweet potato is a classic example of this (how can any one really hate pumpkin and sweet potato?).  So my approach with Jamie Oliver’s Everyday Super Food breakfasts has been to work through the recipes to work out what I do like and then adapt the recipes if I don’t like the taste but like the recipe concept. Jamie Oliver’s Everyday Super Food is the cookbook I’ve written the most notes in!  I’ve enjoyed working out how to adapt the recipes I like the concept of as much as cooking the recipes I liked.  My favorites are Awesome Granola Dust, Pretty Fruit Posts and I love Earl Grey Banana Bread (I freeze the Banana Bread in slices and eat it as a snack).  I haven’t found any recipe of Bircher muesli I like but have found some great baked oatmeal recipes. I enjoy watching Jamie’s Everyday Super Food TV series because the show provides extra information or tips that you don’t necessarily appreciate in the book.   You can check out recipes from the book here. Of the other Jamie Oliver books I own my next favorite one is Cook with Jamie. Notes on Eggy Bread recipe for a healthier version of French Toast The Food Lab:  Better Home Cooking through Science by J. Kenji Lopez-Alt J. Kenji Lopez-Alt’s The Food Lab is my cookbook for reading!  It’s the cookbook I read to learn more about the science that underpins cooking (which appeals to me with my science background).  I love how he explains that apprentice chefs in restaurants learn from the chef but don’t question what they learn while at home we learn from our family and cookbooks but never challenge the fundamentals. As you read through The Food Lab you realize how many of these fundamentals aren’t logical and don’t improve your cooking. In terms of the recipes - they are more American style cooking which I enjoy being an Australian.  American style cooking is less common here in Australia. My only wish is I would have liked a metric version of the book. The Food Lab also helped me organize my kitchen better.  Simple things like placing commonly used utensils in utensil holders close to the areas where I use them, using a Amco 2-in-1 Lemon & Lime Squeezer (for quickly squeezing lemon juice) and buying a good mandoline (I went with a Borner Mandoline because I’m accident prone) have made a difference. And I’m now able to cook the perfect poach egg thanks to being introduced to Heston Blumenthal’s method of poaching eggs. Matt Preston’s 100 Best Recipes Matt Preston’s books are my cookbooks I use for reading and for cooking.  Matt is a well known Australian food writer and MasterChef Australia Judge.  I love how he shares information on the history of different well known recipes and the inspirations behind his recipes. Of the Matt Preston books I own 100 Best Recipes is my favorite.   Favorite recipes include ‘Lasagne that’s well worth the work’ and ‘That ex-girlfriend’s potato salad’.  My lasagne is based on Matt’s recipe using techniques I’ve learnt from Jamie Oliver’s Foodtube ‘How to cook classic lasagne’ video.  I cook half the quantity suggested in Matt’s recipe which is enough to feed us for two nights (family of four). What Else? My choices aren’t necessarily classic cookbooks.  But as a home cook, with discerning critics, my choices need to be based on cookbooks that provide recipes that are practical, work well and taste nice. I’m always searching for new recipes or techniques to try.  Let me know in the comments below if you have any recipes or cookbooks I should check out.