eLearning is a disruptive technology, changing the way people acquire education. From online schools to on-the-job training, learning via electronic means is becoming the norm. With this in mind, realize that even though you may have highly valuable information to share with learners, your competition is growing each day. Use this guide to help you ensure that your eLearning courses stand out from the crowd of ever-evolving electronic learning opportunities.

Bernadette Parry is the Client Support Coordinator at eWorks. Her role involves juggling all sorts of client-focused tasks including start-up TrainingVC training, advanced Moodle training and support desk services. Have you ever thought about using Moodle’s Progress Bar block to keep an eye on how your learners are progressing through their courses? Bernadette tells us how to do […]

We’re not being dramatic when we say there is a leadership crisis today. The crisis is real. So real, in fact, that the World Economic Forum lists it as the third most important issue on its agenda. And employees are less likely to trust their management when leadership skills are lacking.  Leadership isn’t born. It’s a group of skill sets that can be taught and learned. But if leadership training and development takes place in a traditional classroom setting, it is likely to be ineffective. Leadership skills include (but are far from limited to) vision, communication, empowerment, effective risk assessment and management, conflict resolution and organization. And each leader combines those skill sets in ways that are unique to each and every demand on each and every individual faced with the challenges of leadership. And those challenges are unique to every circumstance faced by every organization. Each of those aspects of leadership can be presented as a nugget, or set of nuggets of training and development. Which means that we can create eLearning modules to train and develop leaders in your organization. In this blog, we invite you to consider: Is your leadership training and development program real and relevant to the life of your organization, and the lives of your employees and customers? Insights and concepts are nice. Theories of leadership abound. Seriously. Google "leadership" and you can read all about it. But actually rolling up your sleeves and leading is a completely different world altogether. Practical leadership training and development cannot happen when it’s confined to textbooks, lectures and classrooms. And you can’t just unleash a bunch of people on the world with just the hope that their leadership training was adequate. It’s likely that some will step up and succeed. It’s also likely that many will fail as leaders, with devastating consequences: for the individual, for the people they lead, and possibly even for the organization. Want an effective solution (and please pardon us for the shameless plug)? Here it is: eLearning. How? Read on. Knowledge, by itself, does not make a good leader. Ask yourself the question, would you board an airplane if you were aware that the person in the cockpit knows the principle of flight backwards and forwards, but has never touched the throttle of an aircraft? A physicist can tell you about the theories of aerodynamics, but there’s a reason why there are physicists and people who pilot planes. The same is true of leadership. Simply knowing about leadership and actually leading are about as different from each other as "lightning" and "lightning bug." Thinking that vast amounts of leadership knowledge will turn someone into a successful leader is akin to saying that living in a garage will turn someone into a Buick. Theories and insights about Leadership are just theories and insights. Real leadership happens in practice. Leadership involves practical application of the knowledge in real-life. Enter eLearning. eLearning takes the learner out of the classroom and puts them into the pilot’s seat, so to speak. With the power of eLearning, leaders-to-be encounter real-life situations that occur in the day-to-day activities of your organization. This makes the training both relevant and real. Relevance vs. theory eLearning allows learners to learn skill sets. For instance, leaders-in-training learn about creating and managing relationships and interactions. They then actually and actively engage in the practice of the theory. eLearning’s use of video simulations and scenarios — based in the reality of your organization’s day-to-day life — empowers the leadership training and development, which is both immersive and safe. And it prepares your learners for actual encounters with customers, clients, colleagues, and co-workers. Real-life application allows for creativity and innovation One of the wonderful things about eLearning is that it creates a space for leaders and learners to play the game of "what if…" With traditional, exclusively instructor-led training models of the past, the flow of information typically followed the "we’ve always/never done it this way" pathway. Creativity and innovation had to fight for survival, often getting stifled in the process. The low-risk environment presented by eLearning lends itself to discovery, especially in the face of real-life challenges. Leaders-in-training are free to apply the principles and values of the organization to those challenges while creating or devising innovative solutions to existing problems. To reiterate: there’s all sorts of stuff out there about Leadership. Lots of quotes, how-to’s and how-not-to’s. But your organization doesn’t live in Theory-land. It exists in the real world. And eLearning can, and will, bridge the gap between knowing about leadership, and being a leader. Teaser: look for our next blog on social learning. You won’t want to miss finding out about how eLearning enhances learning by tapping into one of the things that human beings naturally do best: we share. This article was first published on elearningindustry.com The post eLearning in Leadership Training and Development: Reality and Relevance appeared first on KMI Learning.

As we continue down this path, one should not underestimate the very positive impact that these collaborative networks will have on the business culture.Big data that is shared within the Global Learning Portal opens doors of opportunity in the digital economy that can have a multiplier effect on the ROI of businesses aligned under a common vision. It is no secret that knowledge is the new currency of the 21st century but the trick is harnessing it at just the right time with an eye on the future and not looking back! Referring back to the Global Learning Portal shown above, one should notice that there is a collaborative connection between the Cross Disciplinary Research and Mentor Network and the Global Higher Education and Teacher Mentoring Network. The obvious question that needs to be asked is:"Why is a collaborative connection between these two networks necessary and what is its function?"Educating the EducatorCross disciplinary research is vital to the training or mentoring of new educators because for business organizations this will have a "domino effect". If you accept the idea that cross disciplinary learning is an essential mindset to solving real world problems then it is necessary that research in this area  give direction to "educating the educator". The "domino effect" occurs when you consider that how you train educators ultimately defines how they educate students. How they educate students defines what skillsets students enter the business organization with as well as how leadership within business organizations will be defined in the future.Credit: www.e-stranged.comUnder the present compartmentalization mindset that exists in higher education in many educational institutions, the approach to real world problem solving brings us back to the famous fable of six blind men trying to describe an elephant. This mindset does not bode well for businesses hoping to make innovation a systemic mindset and a natural way of doing business within their organizations. Real world problems in  the 21st century are more complex than in the past precisely because our world has become so connected. Effective collaboration across disciplines is an essential in this age.The tools of the industrial economy no longer fit the realities of a digital global economy.Solutions?? Coming back to the collaborative connection, in return the data collected from the experience of mentoring educators and in turn the educators' practical experience in modelling this mindset to learners in the online E-Learning portal, we are helped in two ways:From the data, new directions in research can be explored and pursued in regards to cross disciplinary learning keeping in mind that the new paradigm for research means that it needs to be ongoing, agile and adaptive, andFrom the data, we can discern areas of conflict and thus refine our pedagogical approaches.The mentoring of new educators and those who are transitioning from the industrial model mindset to the cross disciplinary mindset needs to be an ongoing collaborative relationship.Benefits to Business OrganizationsOne very important benefit is that such a process will make handling disruptive change and transitioning easier. Businesses can be exposed to the benefits of "reverse mentoring" in which new employees who are entering with valuable skillsets in tune with 21st century realities can mentor staff who are already established within the business organization and engage employees in an effective learning relationship that will further business interests.Next... Final benefits of the Global Higher Learning and Teacher Mentoring Network

Ready to trade in your cubicle for the freedom of freelancing? Not so fast! First you need to figure out your budget. Let’s talk about what you’re going to bill—also known as your rate. Factors to consider when setting your rate: Your budget Your skill level Your available time Carol Tice of Make a Living Writing advocates that "freelancers aim to make $100 an hour in order to build a sustainable business." Sound like a crazy number? Perhaps at first glance, but think about all the things your company used to pay for that you’ll be paying for now. It’s suddenly your responsibility to pay for all 100% of your health care, your laptop, your license of Lectora® eLearning authoring software, your daily morning cup—or cups—of coffee, and so many other things. Tice’s estimate of $100 an hour is just that—an estimate. Maybe you live in New York, Zurich, or Tokyo—all cities that Swiss bank UBS ranked in the top ten most expensive cities in a 2015 report. If you live in one of those cities, your Minimum Acceptable Rate (MAR) is going to have to be higher than someone who lives in Mumbai or Damascus, both of which are among the most affordable cities as ranked by the Economist’s World Cost of Living Index. So, how do you calculate your Minimum Acceptable Rate (MAR)? Tom Ewer of Leaving Work Behind suggests this rough calculation: ( (personal overheads + business overheads) / hours worked ) + tax Personal overheads include things like your rent, groceries, utilities, etc. Business overheads include equipment, software, and other things your employer would normally supply. Keep in mind that this is a very rough calculation and is designed to give you an idea of how much you need to earn to survive, not necessarily to turn a great profit. Journalist and freelancer Katherine Reynolds Lewis put together a calculation that projects what you would need to bill to earn a salary comparable to corporate life, but warns that this "salary" you’re making as a freelancer will need to stretch farther, for all the reasons we’ve already outlined. Should you bill by the hour? Forbes finance writer Laura Shin says, "If you can, it’s always best to charge a flat fee. If you charge hourly, you have to spend that precious time to earn more money, and you’ll actually make less money, the more efficiently you work. It’s better to project roughly how long a given project will take you and set your rate from there." Ewer agrees and says, "Charging by the hour is one of the worst mistakes a freelancer can make… Given that you only have a certain number of hours available in the day, you are essentially capping your maximum earning potential." Clients don’t need to know how long a project will take you to complete. It’s important to sell the value of your work and the quality of the product they will be receiving, not just how long it took you to create it. Having a portfolio to show the quality of work you do will go a long way to helping convince clients your rate is worth it. If you don’t have a portfolio yet, the new Trivantis® Community semi-monthly contests are a great way to get started. The post How to Set Your eLearning Freelancing Rate appeared first on .

  Previously, we saw what a smart school is and it’s impact on Education, not only do these schools employ smart school softwares and technology but also provide the right learning environment for the modern student. Smart Schools are tasked with being up to date with the latest teaching practices and education administration processes so as to understand their students’ needs. There are many schools that are adapting and could be classified as a smart school; but a very few of them are actually in sync with what the next step for a smart school could be.   To integrate different sections of their diversified operations into a single, cohesive and easy-to-use system, many schools are now looking towards ERP software (www.fedena.com), Enterprise Resource Planning software. The main objective of these measures are to streamline the management processes and reduce operational costs. It is very well known that ERP systems are a part and parcel of any automation and smart industry; in this case, it only makes sense for smart schools to enter into purchasing the right ERP.   The Smart School Trend   Technology has invaded schools with a storm since the advent of the internet and the mobile phone. Smart schools have high quality audiovisuals in classrooms, location tracking of school buses, student tracking from the time of their admissions, automated timetable allotments and loads of other such optimizations. With ERP, the functions across the enterprise get integrated into a single system that supports the smart school’s finances, human resources, student service transactions and processes. These ERP solutions offer the advantage of being integrated with each other and being capable of tracking many things at the same time. For instance, when data is changed in one area, information automatically changes in all the related areas and functions. When ERP is being implemented, it can also lead to the redesigning of the standard systems according to the global best practices.   Challenges faced by Smart Schools   The challenges that smart schools face in implementing any software/technology are often related to technical and budget related issues. At times, the staff in the institution is not fully trained in the use of the smart school software being implemented. Also, the decision makers at the institutions want to have a clear view of how the software can help in reducing the cost of managing/running the institution. But the process of installing any smart school technology is never quick and easy, and the experience of implementation and installation is always different for every smart school. Although technologies like Youtube, Skype, & tablets are all easy technologies to implement in smart schools but are a little heavy on the infrastructure side of things. Smart school softwares like Skype, Youtube etc require the school to have a high speed broadband internet connection to actually allow the students to have the experience these technologies claim to provide; while tablets are an expensive affair in general. The Government has helped with the implementations of smart school softwares by initiating Digital India and other similar campaigns.   ERP the King of smart school softwares   Among all these various smart school softwares, the ERP still remains the most important as it is the only software which provides the platform for a school to integrate almost everything from operations to financial management to student tracking. Slowly but steadily, every school is realizing the potential of school ERPs and are making the change to a system that best suits them. Making ERP the king of smart school softwares. The post ERP the King of Smart School Software. appeared first on Fedena Blog.

Each December, I am asked the same question over and over: why should I buy my nerdy tech-savvy friend, spouse, co-worker, boss, etc.? It is an excellent question, however, there may not be a good, single answer since technology is so personal!  Just last week I was asked by a parent of a college-aged son what cell phone they might consider picking up for their child for Christmas and unfortunately the best I could do was offer a less-than-helpful "it depends!" However, there is one stocking stuffer that I would very much recommend for any tech-savvy person: the excellent Belkin SurgePlus Mini Travel Surge Protector! Power is one of the most critical needs of a technophile.  As our bags and pockets fill up with gadgets and devices that run on power, we have a greater need than ever to pick up extra juice on the go.  If you have ever been to a conference, professional development workshop or meeting, this need is complicated by fact that not only are you carrying around 2+ devices that require power, so does everyone else in your meeting!  Outlets are at a premium and are quickly filled by others. The Belkin is an excellent device device because it combines a surge protector with three outlets and two USB ports.  With this single device, you can easily turn one outlet into three (allowing you to share with others!) while creating two mobile device power ports without the need of carrying  separate USB charger ports.  I now have a few of these devices: one in my daily carry bag, one in my travel suitcase and one on the office. At just $16.99 from Amazon, this is a great stocking stuffer, small gift or even office white elephant gift! And don’t take my word for it!  A recent reader poll at Lifehacker named the SurgePlus the best portable power strip, beating all other competitors combined! Pro tip: Amazon does offer an older version of this item for less, just $10.99, however, the USB ports offer less juice meaning a slower charge on your phone or tablet.  Spend the extra six bucks… it is well worth it! What is your favorite tech-savvy stocking suffer for your tech-minded friends and family?  Comment below or give us a shout-out on Twitter! Belkin SurgePlus 3-Outlet Mini Travel Swivel Charger Surge Protector with Dual USB Ports from Amazon The post A tech-savvy stocking stuffer: Belkin’s SurgePlus Travel Surge Protector appeared first on NCCE's Tech-Savvy Teacher Blog.

My mum organises a group for local artists in her village. It’s a friendly, well-established and tightly knit group, mostly made up of older people in their sixties and seventies. Members meet weekly and pay a small contribution to cover the costs of room rental and the life model’s fees, but expenses are kept low so that even those on the most modest incomes can afford to attend. It’s a brilliant example of the sort of vibrant self-organised informal learning that John Denham envisaged when he was Secretary of State for Innovation, Universities and Skills, and that David Cameron spoke of with notable warmth shortly before assuming office. Over the past few months, however, my mum’s group has been obliged to change location repeatedly, as a succession of community venues have closed down. The Conservative club where they met for many years has been sold to pub chain Wetherspoons. The British Legion club they moved to next was, within a few months, pulled down to build a large private house. For a while they met in a room above a pub, before incurring the wrath of a prudish and ill-tempered landlord who threw them out without notice. They are currently meeting in a portacabin in a train station car park; the only affordable venue they have been able to find. It’s a story that will, I suspect, be familiar to informal learners around the country, as important community resources, such as public libraries, adult education centres and voluntary sector providers close down, squeezed out by the ongoing withdrawal of local government funding. Safe, affordable (public and private) spaces in which people can come together, to learn or share an interest, or just to get out of the house - where, in short, they can be more than just individuals - are in increasingly short supply. The disappearance of the ring-fenced community learning budget - so passionately defended for so many years but now quietly subsumed within a larger adult education budget - is likely to mean a further squeeze on less formal kinds of provision. This is a largely unnoticed but extremely costly loss. These critical resources, while scarcely visible to some (for the most part, we pass them by without noticing they are there or having the vaguest idea what goes on inside), are, nevertheless, of life-saving and life-changing importance to others. The government, in shrugging off yet another ‘unintended consequence’ of its programme of public sector cuts, looks likely to bequeath to coming generations a legacy far more poisonous than the fondly invoked ‘mess’ it says it ‘inherited’. It will leave behind a severely diminished and dysfunctional civil society. At the same time, more formal opportunities for adults to come together and learn have been disappearing at an unprecedented rate, to the point of near extinction. More than two million adult learning places in further education have disappeared since 2003; 1.3 million of them since 2010, according to Skills Funding Agency figures. This year alone, the adult skills budget has been cut by 28 per cent (in this context, the chancellor’s announcement of cash-terms protection for non-apprenticeship adult skills funding looks like a bit of a fig leaf). Part-time mature student numbers in higher education have fallen by more than 40 per cent since loans were introduced for part-time students and fees escalated, while the Open University has seen student numbers drop by 30 per cent. In an ageing society, where people are living and working longer, where changing technology demands more and more of us as learners, where people’s separateness and isolation threatens the cohesion of communities, it is surely not unreasonable to expect government to do more - something - to arrest this decline. Yet, as the recent higher education Green Paper demonstrated, ministers remain fixated on the idea of initial - rather than lifelong - education and particularly the gilded path through A-levels to university. Part-time higher education, so plainly in need of intervention, was scarcely mentioned. The attitude of ministers to further education has also been disgracefully complacent. The Public Accounts Committee chair Meg Hillier noted today that the government has been ‘desperately slow off the mark’ in responding the ‘looming crisis’ in FE and urged it to ‘act now to ensure FE is put on a stable financial footing’. Britain has a proud tradition of second-chance learning, community self-help, workers’ education and university lifelong learning (though the latter was decimated by Labour’s daft ELQ rule, which withdrew funding for students studying at a level equivalent to or below their highest existing qualification). Most UK governments, for most of the twentieth century, broadly supported and recognised the value of adult education, though with varying degrees of enthusiasm and understanding. The growing focus on courses with a direct pay-off in terms of employment or employability from the early years of this century saw a sharp narrowing of opportunity, both in terms of learner numbers and the richness of the adult education offer. We have now reached a point where publicly supported adult education could soon be a thing of the past, at a time when, you might think, it is more necessary, relevant and important than ever, given the social and economic challenges we face. Its decline has coincided with an explosion of interest in MOOCs, yet this development, while holding out many exciting possibilities, should not be thought of as a replacement for face-to-face or group-based learning. In an ideal world, it should complement it. Place matters to learning, and so does community. I was struck by how impoverished the language we use to talk about adult education in the UK has become when I read the European Association for the Education of Adults’ Manifesto for Adult Learning in the 21st Century. Adult education, it says, can change lives and transform society, making a significant contribution to a range of important policy agendas, including the promotion of active citizenship, the development of key life skills crucial to mental health and wellbeing, and the creation of a more socially cohesive, fairer and more equal society capable of dealing with demographic change and migration. It also notes the role adult education has to play in delivering economic growth, employment and innovation, and in promoting environmental sustainability. The breadth of ambition reflected in these aims echoes Jacques Delors’ ‘four pillars of lifelong learning’: ‘learning to know’, ‘learning to do’, ‘learning to be’ and ‘learning to live together’. As Alan Tuckett suggested in his recent inaugural lecture as Professor of Education at the University of Wolverhampton, we are guilty of stressing the first two of these pillars - which concern the development of knowledge and skills - to the almost complete exclusion of the last two, learning for personal development, which is now largely the preserve of the better off, and learning for social cohesion and active democratic participation, which is now almost completely neglected in policy and funding terms. It is through these latter kinds of learning that we become more civil and decent, healthier and happier, and develop the attitudes and values that support the growth of a more democratic, socially cohesive society. Adult education should be seen not just as a means of producing a job-ready, compliant workforce, but as a crucial policy tool in promoting democracy and social inclusion. It is critical, of course, that people have a good initial education and develop skills that enable them to make a living and contribute to the economy. But we also need education that is both genuinely lifelong and supportive of people’s desire to lead fulfilling lives as part of strong, thriving communities. This has long been part of the adult education tradition in the UK. One of the strongest of the movement’s threads has been that of its social relevance, the idea that adult education can make society fairer and more equal, cohesive and democratic. In pursuit of that aim, adult educators have created spaces for people to come together not only to make sense of their own lives and problems but also society’s; spaces in which people can engage in democracy, politics and citizenship in a way that is surely more meaningful than the prevailing model in which people attempt to direct their concerns to distant politicians who largely ignore them and, for the most part, don’t understand them. As Hannah Arendt argued, education is the point at which ‘we decide whether we love the world enough to assume responsibility for it’. The safe space it provides to question and dissent, to challenge and, just as importantly, be challenged, is absolutely critical, both to democracy and to community, which is why such spaces should be open, to everyone, whatever their age or stage of education. The more isolated we become, the more fissures and fault lines arise in society, the more challenged we are to change and do things differently, the more important, I think, such spaces become. As generations of educators have realised, change is only possible if people are engaged, informed, cooperative and willing and able to contribute, when they have, in Arendt’s terms, ‘assumed responsibility’. No-one, of course, expects government to pay for everybody’s post-compulsory education, at every level; the creation of a lifelong learning society has to be a cooperative endeavour in which everyone is involved and contributes fairly. But it is clear that we need more from government, including recognition of the wider value of adult education, a strategy for its long-term survival and a more generous basic settlement to help secure the future of both formal and informal types of adult learning, for everyone, and not just those who can afford the fees. A joined-up national policy for adult education, drawing on the wide body of existing research into its multi-layered and far-reaching benefits and acknowledging the importance of place, community and informality in learning, would be a useful start. That research demonstrates, among other things, that our politicians’ ambitions for education are just not bold enough, and that their thinking is simply not brave or coherent enough; not if we are to address the very real challenges we are faced with.

As another year draws to a close, The Educational Technology team would like to reflect on their work this year and if they’ve been good enough, they would like a stocking full of shiny technology…. This year we managed to get out blog on to the The Top 50 Must Read IT Blogs in Higher Ed; we launched our Lens On… Higher Ed. Technology series of posts, presented on Learning Analytics, started to develop a community space for sharing creative skills, played our own Hunger Games with #EDU130 and whilst all that happened, we upgraded our VLE. And so the tech… Topping Adel’s list this year and very much the topic of the moment is the Star Wars inspired BB-8 Sphero; an orange sized sphere that rolls around under the command of your Android phone. On that note, to make up the package she would also the Google Pixel C, which looks like a relatively affordable alternative to the Apple and Microsoft offerings in the ‘Pro’ tablet arena. Amy’s christmas quest is to update the home theatre experience for super fast broadband by replace the creaking iMac with a new MacMini or something like a chromecast (a popular gift from last year’s santa list). If you have the hardware already, Kodi.TV is a worthy environment for the Home Theatre PC. Mark would like the gesture based input offered by the Myo to control the new Micro-Brewery offering from Pico. Waving at a device to set in motion the creation of craft beer, is in his opinion the pinnacle of the Internet Of Things. Oliver would like a Standuino 3π2, to add to his smorgasbord of noise making machines. We hope you’ll see that we really have been awfully good technologists again this year, so if you could see your way to leaving this stuff under our LED christmas tree, we’d be most appreciative. All the very best for the season to one and all! Team ET

…keep them safe. By guest writer Anita Holt. On Christmas morning, in many houses in the UK, excited young people will open their shiny new internet-enabled devices. By late afternoon, many social media sites, such as Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp, SnapChat, Pinterest (hopefully not Tinder), will have a whole new set of users. Parents everywhere feeling […]