How To Measure The Effectiveness Of An eLearning Course For Your Employees  In order to find out whether or not your employees have really picked up what you intended to teach them through eLearning, you need to set them up for some real-life challenges and see how they fare in them. Here I will share a couple of tips to measure the effectiveness of an eLearning course for your employees. Observe newly-imparted skills on the job. Large scale enterprises often make their employees undergo full-fledged training modules to understand their job responsibilities. One way to determine whether or not the employees have understood what they have been taught is to test them with some real-life tasks and ask them to apply their newly-acquired knowledge. At the same time, the task monitors should carefully observe them and make note of the changes in behaviors they display after knowing their job roles in greater detail. The few critical questions and observations to consider at this point include change in the employee’s behavior and attitude, improving on his existing skillset, confidence in explaining issues and resolving them, and more. It would be great if the task monitors could perform this exercise for each employee before and after they have attended the training. The comparative analysis would definitely fetch you better results. If they fail in any of the given tasks, you may want to revisit the training content and exercises. Ask for feedback from the employees. If you wish to measure the range of effectiveness that eLearning courses had on your employees, prepare a fluid questionnaire. You will find that the employees now won’t give you mechanical and rehearsed answers, but innovative ones. They would have gained practical experience from simulated atmosphere created in eLearning courses. The employees would be more clinical in tackling crisis situations; they would not necessarily wait for the directions from above. The employees would also be more adept at interacting with clients as also with other streams of their enterprise. The interflow would be more seamless than it ever was. The employees would, of course, be more motivated and updated and would hold the clue in most cases. They would be more adept at invoking sound strategies for the welfare of the company; for the uplifting of relations with clients; for optimizing productivity levels of the company on the whole. Note these three salient features. In a nutshell, you can emphasize and assess the effectiveness on three salient features; confidence level, aptitude, and energy. With these three pointers, the employees feel more full-on to take any event, opportunity, or crisis straight on. They also know that in the event of falling short, they can either take recourse to eLearning modules or undergo a fresh and relevant course. The advantage with the courses is that the instructor is fully aware of the learner’s strength and weakness. For instance, people from India are generally good at math and have to be fed in with theoretical concepts; people from Somalia would have to be taught in basic language, so on and so forth. Another advantage of eLearning courses is that they are dynamic and can easily be tweaked or changed after taking a peek at the learner’s credentials. For instance, if the learner is already at the Intermediate level, the instructor can exalt himself to expert teaching. This is not possible with physical education, where it is necessary to stick to the syllabus. You also have to interpret the significance of audio-visuals. We, as humans, are more likely to absorb the trends through seeing or hearing than through reading texts. Wonderfully crafted videos or podcasts can take learners so much close to grafting the inputs. This leads to confident and well-tuned employees, if you will. Calculate the Return On Investment (ROI). Did you ever try and calculate the ROI after an eLearning course has been successfully deployed? If not, you will never be able to know how much it has impacted your employees. The simplest way to do it is to estimate all the associated costs of the eLearning, starting from development until deployment and then measuring it against the benefits that you have received, for instance, improved productivity levels, increased sales, fewer complaints from your customers, etc. When you perform this exercise, you will easily get a cost-to-performance ratio that will help you in determining if the training was effective for your employees. This post was first published on eLearning Industry.

Big Ideas Fest 2015 theme is "Leading the Education Revolution" Big Ideas Fest 2015 convenes all education stakeholders in redesigning the future of education. ISKME's annual event is an extraordinary immersion into collaboration and design that focuses on transformational change in K-20 education. Creative doers and thinkers from diverse levels of education gather to learn from and share with each other. Breaking down silos and empowering champions, Big Ideas Fest places learning at the front and center of all that we do. The participants are inspirational. The work is dynamic. And the results are revolutionary. Big Ideas Fest 2015 believes answers and innovation are all around us. The event gathers top minds to share their work and ideas in an environment that encourages risk-taking and overall imagining of the impossible. Big Ideas Fest's unique format includes RapidFire talks from leading innovators; interactive networking with education's movers and shakers; and Action Collab design-thinking labs that engage groups to brainstorm, prototype, and ultimately create scalable solutions to cumbersome issues in education. Working across traditional silos in education, Big Ideas Fest 2015 engages participants from the ballroom stage to outdoor fire pits, from the hallways to the parking lot roof, and from face-to-face networking to inspiring rapid fire speakers, all infused with activities that inspire and activate new ideas.  That's a promise! Big Ideas Fest 2015 will be December 2nd-5th at the historic Hayes Mansion, San Jose, California. This post was first published on eLearning Industry.

Brain Matters 2015 One hundred years ago, an obscure patent clerk changed the way we view the world and became forever linked with the concept of genius. In honor of the 100th anniversary of Einstein’s General Theory of Relativity, the Brain Matters 2015 online conference will explore the amazing power inside our brains, unleashing our inner genius through neuroscience. This conference, taking place November 10-11, features Dr. Marshall Goldsmith, author of the New York Times best-selling book Triggers: Creating Behavior that Lasts - Becoming the Person You Want to Be. Also appearing will be neuroscientists, adult learning experts, teachers of the year, a mindfulness coach, a spiritual coach and other experts who know about the brain. See the full list of speakers at: http://learningtogo.info/conference/brain-matters-2015-conference-speakers/ On November 10-11, 2015, learning professionals around the world will gather online to explore the neuroscience of genius and how we can train our brains to be the best version of ourselves. You’ll come away with a deeper understanding of your own brain and some practical tips for enhancing its performance. This not an ordinary webinar, but a highly interactive virtual experience. As a conference participant, you will post questions and comments to interact in real time with our speakers, watch video, collaborate on a white board or join in the discussion using our Twitter back channel. The lounge offers a casual place for networking and browsing our online bookstore. No travel, no time away from your family - just two full days of rewiring your brain! Register now! Can’t attend the full program? No worries! All participants will have access to the recorded sessions after the event. You are invited to join us! Get your ticket today! Price: $147 US This post was first published on eLearning Industry.

Why Virtual Reality May End Up Being A Flop   I suppose some Abraham Maslow fans might frown disparagingly if I posited, as a variant to his definition on self-actualisation, that "what technology can be, it must be"; but then again, such a statement might meet with an (un)approving glint in the eyes of those who suspect that the nefarious or uninformed intentions of our technology decision-makers will unavoidably lead to an all-powerful AI metrics "thing" monitoring its helpless population of chipped and tracked (useful) human slaves. "That introduction was overly conspiracy-theory." I say to myself. So from a different coign of vantage, basically, I would like to say that I am more interested in why things fail than in why things succeed. Whether it’s a lesson, business, relationship, debt-based monetary system or cutting edge technology, failure is far more intriguing than success. Moreover, and more interestingly, as it seems most people (by nature) don't relish listening to something that contradicts their firmly held beliefs, in the "human" world, many things fail. It is also regrettable that experiencing failure in many cases doesn’t lead to reflection immediately, and so an impetus is not given to the construction of a more sophisticated solution for a particular problem. One might therefore ask, and quite reasonably, why most humans are so surprisingly good at putting up, and for longer than one might expect, with bad things that are destined to fail; the answer is, I don’t know, but thankfully, there’s usually a harrowing awakening tipping point that drives change. For example, will better global awareness of nutrition lead to the possible bankruptcy of McDonald’s? "But what do I believe about virtual reality specifically?" I ask myself. I believe virtual reality will eventually be seen to be a bad error of judgement, and so for me it’s also interesting to think about what might ultimately replace it. Why Do I Believe This?  Technologies that succeed, succeed because they cater, by accident or by design, effectively for the needs of their human users. Even though technology advancement is unrelenting, our understanding of whom we are as human technology consumers is not evolving in tandem. On a cline, we’re actually thoroughly disappointing to utterly amazing; we’re unique at a granular level yet strangely similar at a macro needs’ level. When we learn from one another authentically, many valuable, intimate, and intricate subliminal learning events take place which may activate, for example, greater levels of motivation, self-esteem, critical thinking, emotional development, or compassion for others in society. We don’t just need our senses and kinetic bodies to learn, we need a mind and a heart. We’re a culturally-bound enigma that lacks self-understanding; we’re living in an insane, hierarchical, and resource-squabbling world too. We have the potential to destroy ourselves, yet we also have the potential to unleash/unharness a tidal wave of supreme human creativity which could propel us to the stars (boldly). And, technology is supposed to be bringing us closer, but sadly it appears to be pulling us apart. "But explain why virtual reality will fail." I ask myself. First, I need to describe how I keep abreast of developments in virtual reality. There is actually a glut of up-to-date virtual reality reading content out there: just look at emancipating, transparent and personalisable / just-for-me-access platforms such as Flipboard or Pinterest if you need convincing. Increasingly, as consumers of written content, we are source-overloaded and perpetually distracted. One might even assert that an unintended consequence of the act of being overwhelmed by the insurmountable task of trying to evaluate illimitable content may actually be the stifling of more important creative thinking. In this article I therefore have attempted to place the need to present my thoughts (creative or not) before digital virtual reality content curation. So What Are The Key Virtual Reality Trends? Talk to gamers first: most seem excited by its future capabilities. "But that’s too anecdotal, be more scientific!" I tell myself. Well, there's been an explosion of interest in virtual reality; the main areas of growth are gaming, improved social networking capabilities, entertainment, research, education, work-related and marketing. I've therefore been reading a lot about virtual reality recently. I’ve read, for instance, that the pricing and release dates of those outlandish-looking head mounted displays (HMDs) are not too clear, and as a result, the sedentary gaming community faces an onerous choice in 2016, i.e. discombobulated gamers have to decide which HMD is the best to buy; Oculus Rift (Facebook-owned), Sony PlayStation 5 VR, Samsung Gear VR, or HTC Vive are four hopeful contenders. I’ve also read that the streaming of "everyone-has-the-best-seat-in-the-house" live events, such as concerts, computer games, or sports, is "at least on paper" apparently a good idea to scale; virtual reality porn, on the other hand, seems to be booming. I’ve read Carl Zeiss AG thinks streaming from drones live is commercially viable, and I’ve read the New York Times is so enamoured with virtual reality that they are even planning to ship out Google Cardboard to over a million (to-be-possibly-bewildered) print subscribers. I’ve read that the Netflix developed app "allows wearers of the Samsung Gear VR headset to step into the Netflix Living Room and watch movies and TV shows in VR". But, if I tried to do that, I’m sure my head would be spinning after a few minutes. I’ve read about the snazzy Danish-company virtual reality suit and I’ve read that virtual reality is being used in medical research and mental health therapeutic application (by the way, isn't that an oxymoron?). I’ve read about the potentially lucrative German neuroscientists’ Alzheimer’s disease research, and I’ve also read that virtual reality is being tried as a way to help people with disabilities explore the world that might be difficult or impossible in real life. I’ve read about virtual reality employee training programmes and I’ve read that Deutsche Bahn "is experimenting with three-dimensional virtual reality films that give potential employees the chance to experience different jobs on offer before they apply". I’ve read that publishers like Square Enix and Wargaming strangely "aren’t creating VR games, but they’re using the medium to market games". But most interestingly, I’ve read that Oculus is making a point of flagging games with "locomotion" (Nota Bene virtual reality motion sickness) in their Oculus Home store, and I’ve read Sean Sullivan who notes, citing a virtual reality study on rats, that two senses (i.e. sight and sound) are not enough to trick the brain, "brain mapping may rely on tricking all five". Here’s Why I Think Virtual Reality Will Fail The foremost issue and worry for me about virtual reality is not whether the industry will get traction or collapse in light of the huge developmental costs. It’s not the potential motion sickness, (dis)comfort of the headset, or all that electronic stuff so close to the brain. For me, it’s the brazen attempt to hijack the brain itself with, quite frankly, a freaky looking contraption placed over our irreplaceable eyes. Also, virtual reality doesn’t, or rather can never, work the way our senses, body, and brain have been designed to work, i.e. the world we see naturally (on this spinning planet) doesn’t move when our body moves; in virtual reality, to move what we see (i.e. the virtual world), we have to move our body/head. There is a perilous difference here that must surely be puzzling and detrimental for our brains. The war is therefore on to deceive the brain, through our eyes and ears for the time being. Virtual reality is one of the weapons of attack, though, who knows, maybe in the future, transcranial or smart eyeball replacement :) weapons will be developed too. Sadly, the history of mankind is replete with examples of bad ideas. For me, virtual reality is saying "Look at me! (Twerkily) What more do you need?" It beguiles you into a world of shallowness and, like a drug, it’s giving you a harmful high. Our sensuous perception of our actual reality is undoubtedly not flawless, and we may even be part of a perfect matrix reality. However, we’ve been designed body and soul to participate in this galaxies-to-quarks reality, whether we like it or not. The thing that brings value to something for humans is collective trust in a thing, and as we collectively appear to believe what we see in the physical world is real, maybe we should not try to replace that with something that is not. So when I think about virtual reality, I tend to say "take a hike", i.e. meaning humorously, it should (eventually) go away and I should also (eventually) go for a walk in the mountains to enjoy the reality I’ve actually been designed to see. So maybe, referring loosely to Maslowian self-actualisation again, "technology can only be what we as humans must be", or put another way, technology should not try to unwire the hard-wiring we have as humans. This post was first published on eLearning Industry.

Reporting And The TalentLMS Case  If a tree falls in a forest and no one is around to hear it, does it make a sound? Wikipedia describes this well known question as a "philosophical thought experiment that raises questions regarding observation and knowledge of reality". I'm not getting all philosophical on you; I just want to prepare you for a far more relevant question, closely related to the topic of this post: If you train people but have no feedback on their progress, have they been trained? The answer obviously is, you have no way knowing. Of course you could always wait until they try to apply that training to see whether they've really learned anything. But that might be too late (not to mention the potentially disastrous results). That's where your LMS platform's reporting facilities come in handy, and TalentLMS has plenty of those, which you can find in the aptly named "Reports" page. Drilling Into Reporting  A reporting tool, of course, needs something to be reporting on, and TalentLMS lets that something be Users, Courses, Branches, Groups, Tests, and Surveys. In short, all the major objects that the platform supports can be examined in your reports. There's also a general view that shows a few system-wide statistics, such as user logins. After you've selected a report subject you're shown the various statistics collected on them. For example if you click to see "User Statistics" and select the user you're interested in, TalentLMS can report on their Logins, Courses, Certifications, and Timeline information. You can define the desired reporting period (default being the present day), either by setting a start and end date, or by selecting any of the predefined ranges ("Yesterday", "Week", "Month", "Year"). You can also drill-in to get more information for any specific item, e.g. in the report of the users certifications you can click on a certificate to see its contents, date of issuance and so on. Courses, Branch, Group, Test, and Survey reports work in the same manner, and are similarly interconnected (clicking on a specific test you can see the list of users that took it, etc.). For Tests and Surveys you can further view individual responses or analyze the Answers distribution. When a report becomes unwieldy (e.g. a user listing with hundreds of users), TalentLMS allows you to narrow down the items shown through searching and filtering for specific matches. To share a report with others or process its results in a third party system, such as your ERP or CRM, TalentLMS allows you to export it in the Excel and CSV file formats. When the built-in reporting capabilities don't cut it, TalentLMS allows users (subscribed to the "Plus" plan and upwards) to create custom ones based on the activity they wish to track, and even perform mass actions on them (e.g. to Activate or Deactivate all the users included in a report, to add them from a Branch, etc.). This way of working with mass actions can result in substantial time savings, especially for larger TalentLMS deployments with lots of users. Last, but not least, TalentLMS lets you schedule reports to be generated and sent to any set of recipients you want at specific intervals. Perfect for keeping your learners, instructors, or boss in the loop. Reporting For Duty As most things in TalentLMS, the reporting system was created to be both easy to use and flexible enough to cover all common reporting needs. Unlike the reporting options found in lots of enterprise packages, TalentLMS reports don't take a rocket scientist to setup. And you don't need to be one to get started with TalentLMS in general, either. Just visit http://www.talentlms.com/create and take it for a test drive today! This post was first published on eLearning Industry.

Can You Turn Learners Into Gamers? Here Are 3 Simple Ways To Gamify Your Digital Learning Three core instructional principles underlay gaming design in digital learning: Engagement and motivation, challenge, and accomplishment. In this article, I’ll dive into these principles and show you some simple ways to gamify your digital learning. 1. Focus on engagement and motivation. Games are about the player’s journey from novice to master. This is what makes them engaging or even addictive. Think of your learners like gamers; build your digital learning in a way that encourages learners to reach the next stage. Chunk up your content. Present learners with a series of small achievable challenges or steps along the way to reaching an overall goal. Use quests. High levels of interactivity like quests can engage and motivate people. You can get started with a simple question or quiz interaction. Remember to create an experience for learners even when they fail. Good learning happens when your learners can learn from mistakes, so make sure you provide great feedback. Good learning also shows learners where they went wrong and gives them a chance to try again. I find this helps to keep learners motivated to continue. Video is a great medium to use for feedback in a challenge. Utility Warehouse uses video feedback well in its New Starter Training program. Short talking-head videos are placed on response layers in interactive question screens to coach learners and provide relevant information regardless of the answers they selected. Here’s another example of an engaging eLearning program that has multiple small, achievable challenges (built with Elucidat): 2. Make it a challenge.  Design your course with lots of small incremental challenges so you can keep learners motivated to improve their skills or knowledge. Make these challenges achievable or level-based, and provide feedback and branching to keep the course relevant and engaging. A simple but effective example of this is demonstrated in a mini course called Preventing Fraud (built with Elucidat): In this example, learners can jump to the next stage of the course only if they respond correctly to a challenge. Learners are taken on different twists and turns until they reach the desired outcome. Tip 1: Set a score. In the Preventing Fraud example, a "score" is set to lock the level by setting the value to "greater than" and setting the score slider to 50%. With this rule set up in this way, learners will only be able to get to this part of the course if they have scored 50% up to this point in the learning. This is useful if you want to create a page that learners can view only if they have attained a score over 50% and have seen 50% of the course. Tip 2: Add rules. Adding rule groups allows you to organize your rules and use both "AND" and "OR" statements simultaneously. Like so: Related: Learn how to use branching and the rules function in Elucidat City Witness utilized Elucidat to set up complex branching using "rules". Complex branching ensures your learners’ journeys are based on the decisions they make at each stage. Draw inspiration from this eLearning program by City Witness called Medieval Swansea: Medieval Swansea is an interactive historical game that enables learners to take on the role of a detective to solve a mystery. Learners must complete challenges to unlock stages. Here are some of the gamification features I liked in Medieval Swansea: Scenario learning. Learners choose their journeys by completing interactive challenges and quests. Storytelling. Narrates the different stages and character witnesses. Progression. Dynamic map shows player-learners what stage they are at and what’s left to do. Dynamic polling. Vote on solving the mystery and see how other players are voting. Challenging. Lots of opportunities to gather points and bonuses that can unlock future stages. 3. Create a sense of accomplishment.   Learners need to have their progress affirmed. I bet you love taking tests and getting 100%. Once learners pass a test or a level, give them something to show they’ve done well. Badges in digital learning can be awarded to learners each time they demonstrate knowledge or competence.  These "trophies" attest to the fact that learners have successfully completed specific stages in a program. Badges can be used for both internal and external accreditations. Elucidat is an eLearning authoring tool that lets you create simple achievement badges to help you add a simple gamification element to your eLearning. Here’s a quick screenshot to show how badges are created inside Elucidat: What’s more, badges and achievement rewards can be used to "unlock" levels in your course. This shows learners they have to reach a certain competency before they can move on. I like using badges in compliance training to demonstrate the competence of a workforce. Learners also like badges because they can transform dry content into a fun and competitive experience. Related: Stay on top of the latest eLearning ideas, trends, and technologies by subscribing to the Elucidat weekly newsletter. Next Steps  Browse these excellent examples of gamified eLearning programs on Elearning Superstars: BBC and LEO: Finance Game McDonald’s and Kineo: Till Training Game Heineken and Brightwave: Capability Academy City Witness and Make Sense Design: Medieval Swansea UK Resuscitation Council and Unit9: Lifesaver This post was first published on eLearning Industry.

Custom eLearning Development: 6 Takeaways From Our Experience   In this article, I look back at our journey and share 6 important takeaways from our extensive experience in custom eLearning development. 1. Focus on customers and ensuring that we retain and grow with them.  High customer retention is what we are most proud of. Our growth has largely been driven by relationships that began with one-off projects and slowly grew to a strategic partnership. We continue to build from here and every six months we meet our key customers and show "what more is possible". 2. Learners remain our focal point.  Through our learner-centric, innovative, and immersive learning designs and solutions, we help learners to: Enjoy the courses. Go through challenges that keep them intrigued all through the learning path. Internalize the learning and practically apply it on the job. Enhance their performance and deliver better results. We focus on efficacy and application of learning to ensure that a clear business gain for organizations is established. We bring our TNA and solution architecting expertise into play to chalk out the path for a positive ROI for our customers. Our mantra is to bring in a culture of "Learning as a continuum" and for this we use a Learning and Performance based Ecosystem approach. 3. Innovation and exploration. We have invested extensively on two enablers, Innovation and Exploration, that help us differentiate our learning and performance solutions. Our Innovation team focuses on: Evaluation of emerging tools and technologies. Evaluation of learner needs and expectations. Determining how these pointers can be practically used to enhance learning experiences. This year, the team has created two innovative products: Online Review Tool (integrated with the course). Digital Workbook (To enhance the ILT delivery). 4. Agile development methodology. We have been using an agile methodology for several years to meet the ever-evolving and changing customer expectations. We are currently in the process of applying the Kanban approach to our Project Management. Additionally, we are in the last mile of our Corporate Quality Certification (CMMi). 5. Our Offshore Development model. As an offshore development partner based out of India and servicing customers over 16 countries across the world, our Offshore Development Framework is one of the most mature and agile one. While it has a strong core of process definition, it is flexible enough to be aligned quickly to meet our diverse customer needs. 6. The power of our team. Last but not the least, what has really worked is the cumulative power of our team that continuously works towards customer delight. Behind every single course that goes on to incite the "wow" response from our customers is a well-oiled team mechanism at work. Right from getting the requirements right to delivering the final product, each and every member of our team brings in that significant value at various stages of the development cycle. What’s next: We are in the midst of a cutting edge research to come up with a predictive Learnability Index for custom eLearning and mLearning development which will be a unique concept in the industry. The distinct effort that our Innovation and Exploration team puts in provides the required pointers for our Solution Architecting team in creating newer and unique Learning solutions. I would like to summarize these takeaways with a quote from Tom Peter’s 7 Steps to Sustaining Success: "You take care of the people. The people take care of the service. The service takes care of the customer. The customer takes care of the profit. The profit takes care of the re-investment. The re-investment takes care of the re-invention. The re-invention takes care of the future. (And at every step the only measure is EXCELLENCE.)" This post was first published on eLearning Industry.

Training For Results: Is Your Training Effective? Learn more or register now! According to McKinsey, only 25% of CEOs said that their training is effective at measurably improving performance. According to Deloitte, only 24% of business leaders feel their training is tightly linked to their organization’s strategy. And according to the ROI Institute, while 96% of Fortune 500 CEOs want to know the business impact of their learning and development programs, only 8% do now. All of this is happening in what could arguably be called the most exciting period of innovation for learning and development. There have never been more tools and better technologies at our disposal. So why does the gap persist between our ever-growing capabilities and the reception our work often gets with business leaders? One root cause is that we tend to set our sights too low. We sweat and slave to make each minute of that training great, but we worry much less about how ready participants are to take the training we provide or just what they will do on the job after they have finished it. In short, we focus on the training activity instead of the results we generate. What if we raise our sights to focus first on the results we want to generate? In this webinar, we will share a model for taking a results-focused view that includes: Focusing on what matters Designing for results Delivering efficiently Learn more or register now! About the Presenter: Chip Cleary is Kineo's VP of Solutions & Consulting. He helps clients increase the impact of their investments through aligning learning investments to what matters most to their businesses, identifying effective learning approaches, and implementing comprehensive and efficient solutions. This post was first published on eLearning Industry.

What’s A Real Learner?  Real Learners are people who have taken the Real Learning Project philosophy to heart. To qualify as a Real Learner, an individual must have worked their way through the Real Learning book, done the JDIs (just-do-its), assessed their situation, documented their work and personal goals, set up their learning environment (solid content, productive social networks), reflected on what they need to know and how they’re progressing, developed their own approach to learning, worked out loud, and shared knowledge with colleagues. They will have practiced these activities to the point that they become second nature. Real Learners are equipped to learn from experience, to work smarter, and to convert their aspirations into realities. Real Learners are street-smart with social and experiential learning because they’ve experienced them doing the exercises in the book. They are accustomed to working on their own initiative. Real Learners reflect on their strengths, wants, aspirations, and dreams. From this they derive written goals, which they document in a Progress Log. The goals provide the motivation to strive to work smarter, learn what you need to know, and do what it takes to become who you are. Intrinsic motivation is a powerful motivator. You can spot Real Learners from their behavior. You know you have found one when you see someone: Documenting work, career, and personal goals in writing. Taking on stretch experiences, welcoming the buzz of taking appropriate risks. Socializing, sharing, conversing, and actively participating in communities. Filtering out bad information and time wasters, tapping best resources. Spending 15 minutes at the end of each day reflecting on what was learned. Assessing the best way to learn a new skill. Working out loud. Mentoring others. Confident in their ability to become smarter and more effective. My hope, and it seems only natural, is that Real Learners will lead happier, fulfilling lives. It’s inevitable they will be more successful at work than their naïve peers. Not everyone is cut out to be a Real Learner. It takes drive to change basic behavior. Probably fewer than 10% of people who start the book will earn the designation. Does this mean that the Real Learning Project is a failure? Not at all. Those who do become Real Learners are high performers; they make the program worthwhile. Many participants who do not become Real Learners will benefit from bits and pieces of the project; they simply won’t master all of its aspects. Not For Everybody  People who are wedded to the concept that schooling is the "one best way" of learning will not buy the informal concept of Real Learning. Schooling that might have been appropriate for a child in an unchanging world is not the way adults learn best in a turbulent environment. Lots of people can’t get this into their heads. They call for courses, instructors, curriculum, and grades. Some argue (absurdly) that this school paraphernalia is a prerequisite for learning. Making big behavior changes like becoming a Real Learner takes endurance. Some people’s attention span is too short to stay the course. Early on, participants check their Grit scores and mindset. Low scores predict a lack of stick-to-it-iveness. We may produce a skimmable comic-book version for people with no time or attention span. Many people simply don’t read books. 40% of Americans did not read a single non-fiction book last year. Maybe our web version will appeal to them. Half the people who do read business books only get to page 12 before tossing them aside. Changing one’s behavior takes perseverance and dedication. You have to believe you are in control. You have to have faith. You assess your situation, write down your goals, and begin having thought experiments. In time, this rewires your brain, making you more purposeful and intelligent. That’s a great reward, to become a confident meta-learner. This is a long-term process. It’s easy to fall out of the program. Death in the family. Dirty laundry. Overdue bills. Crisis at work. Sick dog. Soccer games. Fender bender. Heavy travel schedule. 60-hour weeks. Doing two people’s jobs. Budget is due. Warning light flashing in car. Brother coming to visit. Let’s see, you were noting your progress daily? While lots of readers will take some useful ideas from Real Learning, I expect only 7% of them will become practicing Real Learners. Seven Out Of A hundred  I’m going to draw on my experience with the Boy Scouts to provide an analogy. Scouting helped me deal with moving from Texas to Rhode Island to France in 16 months. The Scouting community was my anchor. I led an international troop with boys from 18 countries. I learned many skills and a lot about life. I am an Eagle Scout, the result of earning 21 merit badges. You get to wear a medal! For me, becoming an Eagle meant that I’d bought into being trustworthy, loyal, friendly, courteous, kind, obedient, cheerful, thrifty, brave, clean, and reverent. I would do my best to do my duty to God and my country. At age 13, these were my personal values. Seven percent of all Boy Scouts become Eagle Scouts. I’ll be optimistic and hope that 7% of the people who tackle the Real Learning book and exercises become Real Learners, and that they will be as dedicated to Real Learning as I was to Boy Scouts. Real Learners Real Learners embrace the values of openness, honesty, transparency, sharing, reciprocity, daring, authenticity, tracking, and reflecting. If attaining Real Learner status were a matter of merit badges, here is what they might be:   Self assessment and goal setting.     Setting up a learning environment.     Adventure. Taking on stretch assignments.     Community building and participation.     Daily Reflection. 15 minutes contemplation.     Working out loud. Shares insights.     Mentoring. Helps others learn.   Meta-learning. Has learned to learn.     You judge a Real Learner by outcomes, not by passing a merit badge test. A Real Learner: Plans how to achieve growth goals. Works smarter and makes an impact. Learns faster and remembers more. Embraces openness and learns out loud. Makes sound learning a lifelong habit. Co-creates knowledge with colleagues. Becomes the person they aspire to be. This post was first published on eLearning Industry.

Top Cloud Based Learning Management Systems For Corporate Training Moving your corporate training online has many advantages. Employees’ access to training resources in their moment of need, cost reduction of training materials and on-site instructors and increased employee engagement are just a few of the benefits you can expect to receive. However, before you can reap all these rewards, you must first choose a cloud based Learning Management System that meets the training requirements of your organization. Let’s take a look at the top choices of cloud based LMSs for corporate training. Adobe Captivate Prime A modern LMS that empowers you to setup, deliver, and track learning all by yourself. Maximize learning impact by developing skill-based learning programs. Play all kinds of content seamlessly with our Fluidic Player that also allows note-taking to facilitate revision. Foster a learning culture using gamification and mobile learning. Value Drivers: Offer stimulating learner experiences Set up quickly and manage easily Maximize learning impact Establish a learning culture Litmos This cloud based LMS offers employees, customer and channel partners the opportunity to improve their skills and stay up-dated on company policies, compliance and other training needs on virtually any smartphone or tablet. Litmos is one the most popular learning management systems for corporations with over 1 million users which enables corporate learners to get the compliance, customer service, and performance training they need by using any mobile device. Docebo When it comes to features, Docebo is one of the front runners in the training LMS industry. It is also user-friendly and offers you the ability to only pay for what you use. With Docebo, you can even rebrand your eLearning platform to offer your corporate learners a professional training experience that truly reflects your company’s image. Employees can access Docebo online training courses via a mobile application, which means that they can receive the information they need, when they need it the most, that is basically, on the sales floor. TalentLMS TalentLMS is a super-easy, SCORM & TinCan certified, cloud LMS to train your employees, partners, customers or students. Create your eLearning portal in 30'' & build stunning courses with minimal effort, reusing your presentations and videos or a wide range of online material with our social integrations. Fully customizable to your own branding needs and built from scratch to work with mobile devices (iPad, iPhone & Android), this enterprise friendly LMS lets you create crucial elements like Branches and Single Sign-On (SSO). Enjoy blended learning with advanced ITL support, scheduled reports and powerful analytics. And best of all, you get a free plan for life! Need even more? Upgrade or downgrade between plans as needed! CourseMill CourseMill has Advanced Reports, offering advanced tracking and reporting for training administrators. Drag and drop functionality allows you to easily create detailed, visual reports such as charts and graphs. CourseMill is an excellent choice for organizations looking for a robust, yet affordable LMS to deploy eLearning. It also supports mobile learning for companies who need to provide anywhere, anytime eLearning materials to on-the-go employees. WiZDOM Training If you’re looking for a cloud based LMS that caters to external stakeholders, rather than internal staff members, then WiZDOM Training might be the ideal solution. It gives you the opportunity to sell training via an eCommerce platform, including blended training courses and traditional eLearning. The design interface features a wide range of color themes and branding options to choose from and the reporting feature gives your stakeholders access to usage and training statistics. WizIQ WizIQ's LMS training software enables one to provide live real-time or self-paced training by helping to build, deliver and manage courses from their own self-branded domain. Its affordable, easy to use and mobile ready features make it a perfect LMS for extended enterprise training and it features in top 5 LMS ranking by GetApp. Mindflash With the Mindflash cloud based LMS, you can fully customize your training courses. This means that every training experience will not only incorporate your branding, but help you to achieve specific performance goals and training objectives. You can easily update your eLearning content and share it with your corporate learners, enabling them to get real time product and compliance updates via the cloud. SchoolKeep SchoolKeep is a cloud based LMS that offers a vast array of features. From advanced reporting to convenient eLearning course creation, you can develop effective eLearning experiences that reflect your brand, manage your eLearning team and integrate other systems to streamline your work process. You can also sell and promote your eLearning courses via their eCommerce platform. Latitude Learning LMS Latitude Learning LMS caters to a broad range of sectors, including retail, franchises and resellers. In addition, this cloud based LMS is also free for less than 100 users. Unlike many other training LMS solutions, Latitude Learning also offers stakeholder training, which means that you can train customers or franchise employees, in order to give them more information about your product or service. Take the time to research each of these cloud based Learning Management System solutions for corporate training to find the one that is ideally suited for your training objectives and budget, so that you can achieve your performance goals and equip your employees with the knowledge and skills they need to get the job done. If you are interested to find, choose and compare the Top LMS Software you are more than welcome to check the eLearning Industry's TOP Learning Management Systems. Are you still unsure about points to consider when searching for a learning management system? Take a moment to read the article 11 Tips For Choosing The Best Learning Management, that will help you to choose the best LMS based on your company’s needs. Last but not least, if you are a Cloud Based LMS Vendor you are more than welcome to create a free listing on eLearning Industry! This post was first published on eLearning Industry.