5 advantages of face-to-face #training: https://t.co/zG2DqJV4Xh

Top 7 Internet Tools to Brainstorm Ideas for Your MOOC https://t.co/J5rcxWIz6C #edtech #elearning #MOOCs #edchat #edtools

Jeanette has worked in education and training for over 20 years as an environmental educator, e-learning leader and in quality and compliance. She is also a member of the talented team of Accredited Consultants at eWorks. In Jeanette’s first blog post she offered advice about how to take an e-learning check-up. Now Jeanette focuses on your learners, […]

At first glance at the title of this post, you might think that as a business organization this topic isn't really of particular interest or relevance to your organization's situation. However, you would be wrong. Looking at the big picture has always been a goal and strength of enduring business organizations.   Taking stock of all the forces that will impact the performance of your organization in the global connected economy is not only important but essential in a digital world where knowledge and information is the new currency. Some of the forces are within your domain to exercise control and influence over such as the quality of  your deliverables, products and services. However, the world has changed and forces that were not a high priority or even of relevance in the past to business health are now having an impact. One of these forces is higher education and the training of educators for a new world. To put this "big picture" into the context of what I have been describing in regards to changing organizational learning cultures, consider the "big picture" concept and framework that I am suggesting. The following is a summary:Global online education covering the planet is established through the development and institution of 6 Global E-Learning Portals. This concept is similar to the way that international business aligns themselves into trading blocks on the planet, the most recent one being described as: The Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) is a trade agreement among twelve Pacific Rim countries concerning a variety of matters of economic policy, which was reached on 5 October 2015 after 7 years of negotiations. The difference is that these learning portals would be online networks.Each Global E-Learning Portal consists of 4 collaborative networks that advise and take direction from a central hub called the Global E-Learning Hub.The Global E-Learning Hub has three primary functions: (a) It is an established "learning community"  that all learners whether corporate or education belong to as a function of being members of the family of nations attached to the regional E-Learning portal. Learners are able to login to, collaborate with other learners and receive personalized, adaptive learning according to their personal needs and the individual learning profile compiled by the Learning Principle Experts of the business organizations or the comparable officials in the education sector, (b) it also has the responsibility to take direction and advice from the four networks that are part of the portal. This is especially important in its collaboration with the Cross Disciplinary Research and Mentor Network which serves the needs of learners, corporate or education sector, by establishing a mentor relationship with professionals in the Sciences, Arts, Technology and Mathematics discipline areas, and (c) it is a professional collaboration and innovation community. The other networks and councils are: (a) The Business and Education Innovation Council which maintains close ties with corporations who are part of the family of nations involved in establishing a learning and innovation culture for their respective organizations and is a forum for employees to present proposals. The UAE under the wise guidance of HH Sheikh Mohammed Bin Rashid Al Maktoum is moving his country in this direction, (b) GlobalCorporate Trainers, Instructional Designers and Learning Principles Educator Network which collaborates with the Business and Education Innovation Council and also promotes and designs E-Learning ideas in collaboration with the Global E-Learning Hub, and (d) The Global Higher Education and Teacher Mentoring Network.Next.. Details on the Global Higher Education and Teacher Mentoring Network and why business needs to be concerned about an effective mandate for this network and recognize how crucial it is to their own future well being.

Responsive Course Design™ (RCD) is here for Lectora® desktop! We’re excited to announce the new Lectora 16 with RCD for mobile course development. If you haven’t heard the buzz about Responsive Course Design yet, here’s the scoop. RCD in Lectora is unique because you only have to design once, in the desktop layout. Content in the desktop view is automatically responsively positioned and sized for landscape and portrait views on tablets and phones. RCD means that it’s now easier and faster to design mobile courses. John Blackmon, Trivantis CTO, says, "It’s a multi-device world we live in, and Trivantis is bringing you the tools you need to produce eLearning content for all of them. With Lectora, you can truly publish once, and distribute everywhere." Want to learn more about RCD? Read the Responsive Course Design whitepaper Check out the Best Practices for Responsive Course Design Here are some of our favorite new features in Lectora 16: Responsive Course Design—Try the game changing new way to design content for all devices! Additional Status Action Condition Relationships—Why limit yourself to Not Started, In Progress, or Is Completed when you can also check for Is Started, Is Not In Progress, or Is Not Completed? Inline Variable Replacement—Create dynamic and customized content by inserting variable syntax in text blocks. Compatibility with Lectora Online 3—Export titles from Lectora 16 on the desktop and import into Lectora Online and vice versa. Snagit® and Camtasia®—Get the latest versions of these great tools. If you’re a Lectora user current on Maintenance, you get this release for free. Request your Lectora 16 license key. If you’re not current on Maintenance, visit the store to purchase Maintenance now or email us at upgrade@trivantis.com to upgrade and get Lectora 16. If you’d like to try Responsive Course Design in Lectora 16 to see what it’s all about, sign up for a free 30-day trial. When you’re ready to buy, contact an account rep or go to our online store. The post Announcing Lectora 16 with Responsive Course Design appeared first on .

Question: What do pre-packed gourmet pasta sauces and mobile learning have in common? Answer: Both are fast and easy to access and provide a consistent experience from anywhere. 5 Reasons Mobile Learning Will Transform Your Workplace Mobile learning is shaping up to be one of those innovations set to make life easier in today’s fast-paced […] The post Why Mobile Learning Will Transform Your Workplace appeared first on PulseLearning.

It's 2 challenges in one! Conversations & branching scenarios mingle with some special characters. Read more...

Going back to school can be a big change in your life. Suddenly you have to make time and adjust to either going to class or attending an online course. This change in routine can lead to a change in habits. Primarily it’s the healthy habits that get the boot out the door. It doesn’t have to be this way. There are three areas that you can make small efforts to maintain a healthy lifestyle that will not only make you feel better but will actually benefit you in your education as well: sleep; nutrition; and exercise. SLEEP It may sound obvious but SLEEP IS GOOD!!!! It’s tempting to have a late night cram session before a test or stay up because you waited last minute to write your paper. Sleep actually improves your memory. During sleep your brain strengthens memories you experienced while awake. Learning Spanish? You’ll be able to speak it better with a good night’s sleep than without. It’s called consolidation. Seriously. Look it up! Sleep also seems to strengthen the emotional components of memory during sleep which may help ignite the creative process. Next time you forget an assignment that wonderful sleep you got will help you come up with a better excuse than the dog ate it. NUTRITION You don’t have to be in a dorm to gain the 'freshman fifteen'. It’s very easy to sit in front of the computer and eat one chip, two chips, three bags later… When you eat healthy you actually increase blood flow to your brain. This keeps your brain sharp. It can even help prevent Alzheimer’s disease! But it’s not your address you are worried about forgetting, it’s the formulas in organic chemistry you are concerned about right now. Reaching for baked, steamed and grilled foods rather than fried and favor baked can contribute a lot to having a healthier lifestyle while studying for school. If fast food is your easiest option, get the grilled chicken sandwich hold the mayo rather than the fried greasy one (extra lettuce doesn’t count as a healthy substitute). EXERCISE Exercise has ridiculous benefits that can help with school! Let me break it down. Cardiovascular exercise can create new brain cells. BOOM! Getting sweaty increases production of cells in hippocampus (didn’t make that up) responsible for memory and learning. BOOM! It increases concentrations of norepinephrine (real), a chemical that moderate the brain’s response to stress. BOOM! Exercise releases endorphins which creates feelings of happiness. Yeah happy buzz! BOOM! School can be stressful but don’t take it out on your lifestyle. The benefits of having a healthy lifestyle won’t just reflect in your waist size but in the effort and results of your education. Just like the terms hippocampus and norepinephrine, you heard it here first. If you already knew those terms then maybe a profession in healthcare should be on your horizon. - See more at: http://www.milcareered.com/blog/healthy-lifestyles-can-benefit-your-educ...          

Today's Guest Blogger is Christian Wright, an instructional professional in the School of Life Sciences as ASU. He has a Master’s in Education and a Ph.D. in Biology where he studied the interaction between physiological condition, environment, and foraging behavior of Gila monsters in Dr. Dale DeNardo’s lab in the School of Life Sciences at ASU. Additionally, he was a postdoctoral research scholar in Dr. Sara Brownell’s lab in the School of Life Sciences at ASU. His current research is a continuation and extension of research he worked on with Dr. Brownell in her lab and focuses specifically on 1) generating a validated general biology programmatic assessment, 2) exploring potential biases in undergraduate biology classrooms as well as examining mechanisms and interventions that may explain and alleviate said biases, 3) evaluating assessments used by undergraduate biology instructors and by biology education researchers to determine if these measurement tools are indeed measuring what they intend to measure, and 4) exploring how and why instructional strategies differentially impact cohorts of students in undergraduate biology classrooms. Additionally, Christian co-teaches the two introductory courses for biology majors as well as a freshman success seminar.For this Teach Tech Blog, I chose to highlight a recent study that illustrates how students with different gender identities are impacted by instructional practices that may become increasingly common in undergraduate biology classrooms. A recent meta-analysis by Freeman et al., (2014) showed that active learning improves academic performance compared to traditional lecture. As we incorporate active learning into our classrooms, it’s important to remember that the students in our classrooms are not homogeneous. Rather, students enter our classrooms with a diverse array of backgrounds and social identities, which may impact their experiences in our classes. As such, it is crucial to understand how students from different backgrounds and with different identities may be impacted by our teaching practices. I chose to focus on gender for this blog because recent work has shown that, despite controlling for metrics of prior academic ability, female students in large-enrollment introductory biology classrooms that used an array of teaching practices ranging from traditional to much more student-centered teaching consistently underperform on exams compared with males and that females participated much less frequently in class discussions relative to male students (Eddy, Brownell, and Wenderoth, 2014).Women experience active learning differently than menNot all students may be reaping the benefits of active learning. Multiple barriers may prevent students from fully engaging in active learning, including anxiety, feeling dominated by other students, and not believing that active learning is useful. In a new study out in the December issue of CBE Life Sciences Education, Eddy, Brownell et al. (2015) explored this potential problem in biology classrooms and found a gender effect.  When asked about their comfort participating in active learning, women were much less comfortable than men in participating in whole class discussions (Eddy, Brownell et al., 2015), which may help explain why female voices are not heard as often as males in these classes (Eddy, Brownell, and Wenderoth 2014).  In contrast, women and men are equally comfortable during small group discussions.  Despite equal comfort, their experiences in these groups were different. Women were more likely to prefer to collaborate with other group members, while men were more likely to take on the role of the leader.  Further, women valued peer discussions much more when they had a friend in the group - which didn’t seem to matter to men.  Taken together, these experiences indicate that active learning is not the same for all students.  It also means that perhaps to allow women and men to have the same opportunities in active learning classrooms, we need to incorporate more small groupwork, structure that small groupwork so students can participate more equally, and perhaps give students the chance to work with friends.ConclusionsThese inequities are indeed troubling, but not unavoidable. By continuing to conduct research into second-generation active learning and by closely scrutinizing how our active learning approaches can differentially impact our students, we as instructors can hopefully help to create environments that are inclusive and equitable to all students. What experiences have you had with gender roles in active learning classrooms? Please take a minute to share! ReferencesEddy SL, Brownell SE, Thummaphan P, Lan MC, Wenderoth MP (2015).  Caution, student experience may vary: socialidentities impact a student’s experience in peer discussions.  CBE Life Sci Educ .  December 2015.Eddy SL, Brownell SE, Wenderoth MP (2014). Gender gaps in achievement and participation in multiple introductorybiology classrooms. CBE Life Sci Educ 13, 478-492.Freeman S, Eddy SL, McDonough M, Smith MK, Okoroafor N, Jordt H, Wenderoth MP (2014). Active learning increasesstudent performance in science, engineering, and mathematics. Proc Natl Acad Sci USA 111, 8410-8415.

Learning executives and professionals worldwide have voted our company’s solution one of The Best of Elearning! 2015 products. After being nominated earlier this year, it was announced on December 7 that TrainingPartner/GeoTalent received an Award of Excellence for Enterprise Learning Management. Catherine Upton, Group Publisher of Elearning! and Government Elearning! Magazines, wrote, "Congratulations to you and your entire team. Thank you for continuing to innovate and drive enterprise learning to new heights." In its 11th year, Elearning! Media Group hosts the only user’s choice awards in the enterprise learning and workplace technology market. For the 2015 awards, readers and professionals from both the private and public sector cast more than 4,000 nominations across 30 product categories. Category Winners and Award of Excellence recipients for each category were revealed in the Winter issue of Elearning! magazine. This year, 100 individual products and solutions were named as finalists. "Our industry continues to innovate and evolve… We are committed to recognizing innovation and user satisfaction across a diverse group of solution providers," reports Jerry Roche, editorial director of the Elearning! Media Group.