Bett 2016! Welcome to the world of education technology! On a scale of 1-10, how confident are you that your school is kitted out with the most innovative learning technology and that everyone knows how to use it to its full potential? If you’re not a 10, well… you have nothing to worry about; the rate at which these resources are being developed means nobody should be a 10! To truly transform education through technology, we need to learn from experts, solution providers and each other. Bett 2016 is where this discovery takes place. Bett 2016 Keynote Speakers Professor Sugata Mitra, Professor, University of Newcastle Salman Khan, Founder, Khan Academy Belinda Parmar, CEO & Founder, Lady Geek Will Richardson, Expert and Innovator, Online Learning Networks Dan Haesler, Educator, Writer and Speaker Bett 2016 in detail Exhibitors Find products and solutions that are transforming the teaching and learning process. Bett Arena Whose ideas, vision and success stories will inspire your next steps in education? Learn Live Practical seminars, workshops and demonstrations for you to get involved in. School Leaders' Summit Our curated audience programme for those in leadership positions. We're supporting Gosh How can your school help Bett provide for seriously ill children and their families? Technology in HE Summit Our curated audience programme for higher education leaders. Bett 2016 will be held at ExCel London (London, United Kingdom) on January 20 - 23, 2016. This post was first published on eLearning Industry.

7 Ways To Engage Through Building Learning Culture   The Gallup data analytics revealed that 70% of employees are disengaged on their job. They seem to be working, but if you think of productivity, commitment, and enthusiasm -their engagement- it is hardly satisfying. That is not a question of loss in creativity - but a real threat to the whole company’s well-being. What do companies like Google, Cisco, and Apple do differently? Explore The "Working Dead" You probably see such employees regularly and can easily recognize them: They check mobile phones and social networks as often as possible. They complain about the company. They spoil working environment. They cooperate badly with colleagues. The most dangerous thing about disengaged workers is, firstly, that they work poorly. Moreover, they infect the corporate culture and ruin relationships between colleagues. Make Employees Alive You are not alone in solving the problem of engaging your office team. According to Deloitte’s Global Human Capital Trends 2015 research, more than 3300 of explored companies emphasize employees’ engagement as №1 challenge. So, how to revive these disengaged and bored ones? Think of establishing learning culture - it’s an effective way to wake them up. Learning culture here means systematic approach to educating and engaging employees. It should be built in company’s business processes. As the Human Capital Institute (HCI) states, building a learning culture creates synergy between business goals and learning and development. It’s really a value add for an organization. Learning culture helps: Your employees to develop professionally. Your HR specialists to build a sense of team among the staff. The business through increased employees’ loyalty to the company. The global technological giant Cisco set up leadership development courses. Managers had to build own businesses as a part of their development plan. This is how one employee’s initiative -The Cisco Telepresence - was created and became a successful part of Cisco business. Bersin by Deloitte mentions that learning culture is integrated into internal policies of such giants as BP, Toyota, Microsoft, IBM, Cisco, Google, Apple, and UPS. Engage Through Building Learning Culture Make learning culture interactive and engaging: Make learning an easy process. Consider eLearning that has user-friendly interface and is comfortable to use even with no IT skills required. What is more, it’s cost-effective and interactive. Employees combine lectures with interactive tasks and simulations, so they are not bored. Implementing eLearning was one of MasterCard "priceless" steps in keeping up with employees’ mood and considerations. The company combines gamification and animation to train information security compliance. Here the office team acts as "superheroes" that have to secure MasterCard data-bases. Use online learning systems. They provide possibility to share professional knowledge, get the learning statistics and manage the whole learning process 24/7. Consider employees’ gaps. Advise every member of your team on skills they need for their job but don’t possess now. It can be a good motivation for skills’ improvement. That also works as a "fear-factor" that shows this improvement is necessary to stay professional and keep the job. Choose courses employees would be interested in. Provide learning that both company and your staff members can benefit from. Sales, marketing, management - consider courses that bring sense and knowledge for not only professional, but also career ascent. Provide time on learning. Set some extra-hours devoted to employees’ studies. That’s a sign the company cares about employees’ personal development. So, this way you can create employees’ loyalty. Add some incentives for most productive employees. Everyone wants to perform better than his colleague. Make good use of it! Let company’s management become a part of learning culture. If the CEO and key managers show engagement with training, employees feel cooperation with company’s leaders. When implementing a learning culture, you have a great opportunity to solve the problem with disengaged employees. Make this effort to the sustainable success of your company and get raise in productivity, team-building, and employees’ commitment as a result. This post was first published on eLearning Industry.

TalentLMS' Assessments, Questions, Tests, And Grading  It's strange, but the most cited factors that people adopt eLearning for, are not really related to its educational qualities, but rather to cost and convenience. Sure, an LMS (Learning Management System) is cheaper to deploy and scale than traditional classroom based training, and much more convenient for both instructors and learners, as it doesn't demand their physical presence and rigid class hours. But eLearning is much more than a cheap solution for when you can't afford classroom-based training. In fact, according to an extensive meta-study by the Imperial College of London, eLearning has been shown to be equally or even more effective than traditional training. But you don't have to take their research-backed, scientifically-proven words for it: In this article we'll have a look at how a modern eLearning platform like TalentLMS can help you not only train your employees but also access their progress and its training effectiveness, enabling you to make valid assessments. Put Your Learners To The Test (Literally)  Tests and quizzes are the most basic form of interaction with your students (apart from putting up content for them to study). Unlike in traditional learning, where tests go hand in hand with the tedious and time-consuming task of correcting them (which is why lots of teachers prefer to give as few of them as they can get away with), in eLearning tests can be graded "automagically" by the LMS. Not only that, but instructors can also prepare a large pool of questions of different types (multiple-choice, complete the phrase, match question and answer, etc), and let TalentLMS create tests of the desired subject matter and number of questions itself. These two features allow instructors to have many small assessments in every lesson, and slightly larger ones at the end of every major course section, without having to spend all their time devising tests or grading them. It's also better for the students, as they don't have to deal with the fearful "end of semester" mega-test, but rather a larger number of smaller and more manageable tests. As for cheating, instead of getting easier with eLearning (since the teacher is not standing next to you), it's actually harder than with traditional learning. TalentLMS for example can use the aforementioned pools of questions to create random, personalized tests that prevent students from sharing their answers. Do Your Homework  eLearning tools being able to automate testing and other parts of examining users doesn't mean that old-style homework is obsolete. TalentLMS offers just that, through its "Assignments" feature, which allows instructors to define homework assignments for the students to work on. Students, in turn, have to upload a file with their reply in order to complete the assignment. In TalentLMS an assignment can be considered completed either at the moment when the student uploads his answer or when the instructor has evaluated and accepted it. Assignments can be graded just like tests and quizzes, although obviously manually by the instructor, which can also set their status to be either "passed" or "failed". This feature allows for more nuanced and personalized assessment of your students' skills and understanding, e.g. by having them write essays, computer programs and similar lengthier and more intricate assignments that cannot be adequately expressed by simple tests and quizzes. Reports  The most comprehensive tools that TalentLMS offers to help you access the success (or lack thereof) of your eLearning program are Reports. Sure, tests, quizzes and assignments are all great, but they only provide brief and isolated views of a student's progress. To get the full assessment of how your students are doing you have to get to the reports page and see their progress (or lack thereof) throughout their courses. For instructors assigned to a course, the "Course report" page shows an overview of the students’ interaction with that course through time, and includes information on the tests, surveys and assignments they were given. LMS administrators get an even fuller overview in TalentLMS, as they can see reports for the entire system (including different branches), and even generate their own custom reports. On top of what instructors see in their "Course report" page, administrators can see reports for all Users, Courses, Branches, Groups, Assignments, SCORM items, Tests, and Surveys. Reports can be filtered down to particular Groups, Courses or even individual users, allowing you to have both a general 10,000 feet view and detailed statistics on anything you want to measure. And if you want to share a report with others or process its results in a third party system (e.g. Excel, your ERP, etc.) TalentLMS’ CSV export feature lets you do just that. Conclusion  In this article we had a look at the tools and methods a modern LMS platform like TalentLMS offers in order help you assess your training program’s progress. Note that you’re not just accessing your students’ efforts and progress, but also the efficiency of your training material; whether it's too advanced for the students to understand, or so easy that bores them, whether it's confusing and needlessly complicated, and so on. Teaching, after all, is a feedback loop between instructor and student; even when the learning takes place online. TalentLMS, for its part, gives you everything you need to take advantage of that feedback loop to fine-tune your training to perfection. Want to see more? Take TalentLMS for a free test drive and assess its legendary ease of use, flexibility and speed for yourself. This post was first published on eLearning Industry.

How Do Non-Profit Organizations Benefit From eLearning? With the availability of the internet and many organizations relying on technology, it is not a surprise that eLearning is gaining popularity and momentum at an encouraging pace. Though some industries like Banking and Education sectors are clearly early adopters, it is evident that all organizations stand to benefit from technology-aided learning. This includes non-profit organizations of the Development sector, which have to grapple with continual training needs, varied audiences, time crunches, as well as budgetary constraints. eLearning helps employees connect and collaborate. Most non-profit organizations have employees in different offices, with field offices being mostly far-flung and remote. With a technology-aided platform, all employees can be engaged with one another on a continuous basis which helps them work, better together. The eLearning platform can automatically send updates on events, trainings, news, with no added efforts, this relieves employees of administrative duties that come along with arranging events and making sure all employees fit them into their schedules. Most modern eLearning platforms are equipped with features like content sharing, reporting, calendaring, and administrative tools that help employees stay up-to-date and in sync with one another. eLearning helps manage organizational knowledge. Most organizations have a wealth of knowledge but no clear way of de-cluttering or arranging the relevant learning material. While most of these training material is in the form of hard copies or even PPTs, a Learning Management System (LMS) can help organizing the material and disseminating it to the relevant stakeholders. Using quick and efficient ways of eLearning creation with rapid-authoring tools, all existing material can be converted into e-format. These can then be catalogues within the Learning Management System, with appropriate tags, which helps employees search for them on the portal. The Learning Management System can be programmed into recommending suitable learning content as per the learner’s role within the organization. So if the manager fills in the role description, the system would automatically churn out all courses that would benefit the specific employee. This helps the employees within the sector gain knowledge on a continuous basis and as per their evolving roles within the organization. eLearning successfully breaks down barriers. Most non-profit organizations have members and employees that are geographically as well as linguistically separated but share the same organizational goal. A Learning Management System that can be deployed in multiple languages that can break the barriers of location or language, and unites all employees regardless of where they live or what languages they understand. This feeling of "oneness" is crucial when working in the development sector where the nature of work is such that understanding each other is at the core of organizational success. eLearning does not always bring IT hassles. Most modern learning management systems do not require in-house IT teams for maintenance. The Learning Management System vendor can provide the support needed for the first few months or as long as it is needed by the organization. This is especially useful for non-profit organizations that do not have IT personnel on staff or do not have the budget to hire IT personnel. Thus, the technology-aided platform can be implemented and run without internal IT support. The support extended from the Learning Management System provider can be worked within available budgets, to make a cost-effective eLearning solution. eLearning encourages sharing. As many organizations in the development sector are scattered all over the globe but work towards one cause, they stand to benefit a lot from learning about and from each other. But it is not always possible to write and share detailed reports or findings. So a lot of learning which is actually present within the organization does not circulate throughout but stays within small circles. With eLearning, employees can be encouraged to share instantly through audio or video clips, online blogs, and discussion boards within the Learning Management System or even video blogs. Field videos, findings, views on world events or even small personal achievements can be shared -to create a channel of sharing and learning. With appropriate tags and descriptions, the shared items can be archived on the Learning Management System and can be searched as per need by employees- across offices and locations. The success of eLearning in the Development sector comes the easy assurance that most employees within the sector have an open mind about learning. With technology, learning becomes more available and accessible. The learning content becomes more relevant and updated as well. That’s a true win-win for all. This post was first published on eLearning Industry.

Articulate Storyline And Mobile Learning  I recently read an article published by Articulate (makers of authoring tool Articulate Storyline) in which they define their outlook on the delivery of learning and detail how they plan to release new software designed specifically to better deliver eLearning content for mobile. The article outlined the fact that learning content is usually delivered via a slide style interface and that Articulate intend to retain this format across all devices using a responsive mobile player. Whilst I am glad that Storyline may be getting a partner app to better target mobile compatibility, I hesitate to jump on the "one slide fits all" approach they favor. Whilst it’s true that this is the current paradigm, it does not consider whether slide-based learning is the best solution for every platform and device. Below I will explain the various approaches available when it comes to developing mobile learning and discuss how we should be making the most of the opportunities available, rather than choosing a one size fits all strategy. Why Has This Become An Issue? Within the world of digital learning we are experiencing growing pressure for courses and training ephemera to be made available on a range of devices, from PCs to tablets and smartphones. eLearning is changing from an alternative to classroom equivalents to a fully mobile service, where end users have more control over how they consume their learning content. With different use cases, devices, operating systems and browsers, how do you best deliver your content without sacrificing its efficacy? What Are The Options For Mobile Delivery? There are a number of terms that get mentioned when talking about this subject, therefore it makes sense to define what we mean when we use them: Responsive. A responsive system is a fluid system where content stretches to fill the screen area most efficiently. This system covers the largest number of user devices because device resolutions (and screen sizes) vary so greatly between desktops, tablets, and phones. Adaptive. This system uses breakpoints to switch the design to a predetermined layout depending on the space available. Essentially delivering a custom experience at each screen level, an adaptive solution usually requires more design time to accurately define each style, but works best when a fluid layout just won’t do the content justice. Native. Building a custom app for a given platform which allows you to exploit the features of the operating system and device at hand, e.g. GPS, camera, accelerometer, multi-touch, and the processing power of the device itself. Where Does Articulate Storyline Fit In? As one of the leading authoring tools on the market, Storyline creates packages for iOS, Android, and PC by publishing either Flash or HTML5 output. This output resizes the slide-based learning to fit the available screen space. However the content scales with the course, not independently responding to the device. This makes text almost unreadable on smart phones. On a tablet you can opt to use their mobile app to boost performance, but this has one drawback in that it doesn’t work with a learning management system. Output from Articulate Storyline does not cater to smart phone resolutions as the content only scales down to fit the dimensions, leaving you with an illegible course. It also doesn’t currently support any version of Windows mobile (a platform designed for professional and casual work flows). What Do The Experts Say? We can learn a lot from the branding, design, and print industry, which has gone through a similar digital revolution where demand for ever increasing portability has driven many magazines and websites to adapt to the mobile age. Erik Spiekermann, the noted typographer and designer, has experienced this change first-hand and has this to say about communication on digital platforms: "The way to design is the same, you give content form and the medium really is always different. (…) I’ve got to cram a lot of complex content into a given format no matter how small that may be. I don’t see any difficult issues there it’s the same always; you solve the problem, you think about the users and think about the issue at hand: How much information, how do people read, when do they read, why do they read, do they have to read, can they read, must they read?" Clearly, adapting content around the user can result in much more effective delivery if we consider how they will digest the content available given the medium at hand. "Tell me and I forget. Teach me and I remember. Involve me and I learn." This classic quote from Benjamin Franklin about education in general also references the need to involve the learner in the learning experience. Engaging content is important, but you also need to provide the information in the right medium to maximize take up. Finally, I find it pertinent to point out that this is still a very new development in the learning industry which has only really become important in the past couple of years. However, sometimes we need to take a step back and look at the bigger picture: "...we are still only a little way into the digital publishing revolution. It took 200 years (…) for the full ramification of the printing press to be felt in society and economics, and we are, at the most, 50 years into the computerized publishing revolution." (Belam, 2011) In Summary: Always Consider The Learner What the article by Articulate fails to address is the fact that people consume content in different ways depending on the device. It is the great success of many apps and e-books that they give the user a more portable, instant access and retrieve system. Applications like the New York Times app, for example, deliver vast quantities of information across devices, seamlessly integrating multimedia, imagery and even typography into a familiar structure. The idea of a one size fits all system is a developer-centric concept, rather than thinking about how best to deliver the content in a form that benefits the user, based on what they have to hand. What’s more important is the content that we’re striving to deliver in an engaging way.  If you take away the idea of the slide as the vehicle, you have far more options for delivery. With this alternative approach, slide based content might not reflow on other devices, but instead delivers a different experience tailored to the mobile nature of the device. What was previously an in-depth course on wiring up a boiler and product catalogues becomes a short video and diagram prompt-based resource. Making the most of responsive, adaptive and native content where appropriate is a more diverse and user friendly approach. My hope is that this new tool from Articulate Storyline does include some aspects of a more modern approach to responsive content and does not tie itself to reproducing the same slide across each device. Without implementing some sort of responsive element, text size and graphics will suffer as a result. However, I am sure that Articulate have big plans for this software and, as I’ve already said, I am looking forward to testing what they have to offer in this space. In the end, the market for this will be driven by the demand for mobile adapted learning. This quote sums up our new reality perfectly: "The overall point is that new technology will not necessarily replace old technology, but it will date it. By definition, eventually, it will replace it. But it’s like people who had black-and-white TVs when color came out. They eventually decided whether or not the new technology was worth the investment." - Steve Jobs This post was first published on eLearning Industry.

Compliance Simplified: How To Use Creative Instructional Design Approaches To Instill The Spirit Of Compliance  In this article, we will look at this challenge in detail. As a response to mitigate this, I will outline how we can instill the spirit of "why comply" by using examples that feature compelling creative Instructional Design approaches. Background High profile areas of business -especially anything connected to revenue and markets- are governed by regulations. These are sets of rules set out by government bodies on how businesses should operate - covering trades, financial dealings, competition rules, safeguarding, and more. For example: Rules on insider trading, antitrust, or competition are in place to ensure that financial markets operate fairly, so no party has an advantage over another. Rules on workplace behavior and health and safety are in place primarily to safeguard the people at work. How And Why Rules Can Be Misunderstood Let’s take a look at a couple of examples that explore how and why rules can be misunderstood - either because they try to set standards for personal behavior which is complex and can be challenging, or because they set out strict methods of operation, based on market behavior. Compliance Simplified Example 1: Respect in the workplace. Respect in the workplace, or in any place, can be a difficult subject to discuss. People do not like to think they are behaving disrespectfully - most people believe they behave well with colleagues and others they encounter in the workplace. That’s because respect is not regulated - it is set by an internal bearing, based on our morals and ethical perspectives, which are in turn derived from our upbringing, past experiences, home lives, and even faith. Telling someone their behavior is disrespectful to you or to others can be difficult. Respect is often only noted by its absence and by the person who is not being treated with respect. Huge developments in anti-discrimination movements have made discussions about respect (or a lack of it) in the workplace easier to lead. What can be done: Let me share how we have handled two important aspects to meet the mandate of respect in the workplace. Recognizing disrespectful behavior. In the first instance, we have shown how we can build sensitivity to recognize disrespectful behavior. Alongside, we have added a simple test to guide the learners and help them not cross the line. Responding correctly to disrespectful comments. In this instance, using a situation analysis approach, we highlight the consequences of each choice made by the learners. Making the learners see the impact of their choices, we can increase the probability of right action. Compliance Simplified Example 2: Combating bribery in business. Bribery and corruption is another contentious area. While it is simple to explain the concept and what constitutes a bribe or corrupt behavior, the difficulty lies in ensuring that learners apply the concept and demonstrate expected standards of behavior. Bribery can easily become the norm - a standard way of doing business with people. While to an outsider, bribery or corruption may be obvious, it may be invisible to someone who thinks it is normal business practice. Gift-giving, hospitality, and entertainment are also tricky areas to negotiate - when does a gift become a bribe? While many countries have national legislation on bribery and corruption, and the laws of some countries cover behavior beyond their jurisdictions, there are no monetary limits on what constitutes a bribe. Understanding when a gift could be considered a bribe is crucial to understanding the entire concept - and this can be a minefield for employees and managements. What can be done: In case of combating bribery in business, a very significant aspect is to have employees recognize the red flags and trigger the required action. This is how we have handled this aspect: How Can We Handle These Dynamics? Through our creative Instructional Design approaches for compliance courses, we have defined an approach we term as Compliance Simplified. The examples shown in this article have been picked up from this approach. To help learners understand tricky legal premises using this approach, we: Take complex concepts and demystify them for learners. Use simple explanations, placing learners into challenging scenarios and asking them to choose a way out - an opportunity to choose the right path. Explain the consequences of each choice made before posing another similar dilemma - testing the learners’ understanding along the way. I hope this article was useful in seeing value in our mandate Compliance Simplified and how it can influence and trigger the right behavior. We believe only when this objective is achieved, would the compliance mandate hit the bull’s-eye. Using innovative and creative Instructional Design techniques for compliance is a very significant practice at EI Design. Do contact me if you have any questions. Acknowledgement: This article was conceptualized by our business associate Helen O’Gorman who shares my passion to make compliance courses immersive and engaging. This post was first published on eLearning Industry.

Riverside Tech for Schools Summit 2016 Riverside Tech for Schools Summit 2016 is one of many of the EdSurge Summits. Held in two days consisted of a workshop and an all educator day. Riverside Tech for Schools Summit 2016 Education Leaders Workshop Workshops give education leaders the inside track on emerging tech & trends. Engage in small group sessions with leading edtech companies selected based on your district priorities. Take part in thoughtful conversations around critical issues such as data management, evaluating tech & building partnerships. Meet & share your experiences with peers from other schools & districts. Thought Leadership, talk through critical issues facing schools, districts and companies committed to improving student outcomes. Build Partnerships, sharpen how you articulate your organization’s needs and concerns so as to build more collaborative partnerships. Explore Tech, groups of administrators are matched with edtech companies with the goal of spurring candid exchanges around needs and solutions. Network, build new contacts and strengthen your existing network by sharing challenges and solutions with peers from the region. Riverside Tech for Schools Summit 2016 All Educator Day Get hands-on with products in a place where your voice is heard. Try out the latest innovations for supporting teaching. Give your feedback so companies know how to tune their products to fit your needs. Meet other teachers and expand your network of friends & colleagues. Explore the leading showcase of innovative technology for classrooms and schools and meet the entrepreneurs and companies creating these products. Listen, leading education thinkers start off the day; at lunch, a panel of students share their views on edtech, learning and life as a student. Share, exchange feedback with edtech product builders to help tune the products to fit students’ needs; get tips and insight from educators and entrepreneurs alike. Delight, enjoy complimentary breakfast and lunch. And to cap off the event, 15 lucky participants will take home mobile devices at the end of the day! Riverside Tech for Schools Summit 2016 will be held at the Bourns Technology Center (Riverside, CA, US) on January 22-23, 2016.   This post was first published on eLearning Industry.

What You Need To Know About Tin Can Api   I was a bit alarmed to read a recent article stating that Tin Can API "is a Learning Record Store". That’s not what it is, though it does need to connect to one. I thought it might be helpful if I wrote an article about what Tin Can is, and how important it’s going to be in eLearning. I’ll start by explaining the problem with current Learning Management Systems, then look at the solution; Tin Can API. Towards the end I go into a bit more detail and invite you to imagine how Tin Can could work in your organization. My overall conclusion is that if widely adopted it could revolutionize Learning and Development and data management. The Problem  The problem with Learning Management Systems is that very little learning happens on them. In the real world, students move around, use various devices in different locations, and will find much of their learning content away from the Learning Management System (LMS). This involves activities. They may, among many other possibilities: Google something. Use Wikipedia. Watch a video or slideshare. Upload a video or slideshare. Listen to a podcast. Buy an eBook. Read a blog post. Make a blog post. Borrow a library book. Play an educational game. Attend a conference. Email someone with a question. Subscribe to a class on iTunes U. Actually take the class on iTunes U. And, yes, take a Learning Management System course or module. So the Learning Management System is now just one part of a greatly expanded learning universe. Well-designed Learning Management Systems courses are very useful. A good Instructional Designer will create courses that deliver everything the student needs to know in a measured, entertaining, and memorable way. But students will still wander away from the Learning Management System to deepen their knowledge and satisfy their own curiosities. A Learning Management System will not capture those "extra" activities, despite them being the activities where most of the self-directed learning takes place. Tin Can API aims to correct this problem. What Is It?  Also known as Experience API or xAPI, Tin Can is a specification for learning technology that captures data in a consistent format about a person’s activities from many different systems and technologies. Browsers, games, mobile devices, library systems, YouTube, blogs, HR systems, and yes, good old Learning Management Systems - the list goes on and on. Any device or system capable of running the Tin Can API can provide data about activities in this standard format, which needs to be fed into a Learning Record Store - a repository for all the data. Who Made It?  It was conceived by the same people who made SCORM: Advanced Distributed Learning, sponsored by the United States Department of Defense. They tendered it out and the contract was won by Rustici Software, an American company with lots of experience with SCORM. Rustici named their internal project Tin Can. After much listening to the needs of the eLearning community and a lot of development, they delivered the "Tin Can API" to ADL, who promptly renamed it "Experience API" just to confuse everyone. But by then there had been so much early adoption and excitement about Tin Can, that the name Tin Can stuck. Tin Can and xAPI aren’t two forks of the project, one owned by Rustici and the other by ADL, as some people think. They are two names for the exact same thing. You might find people and companies referring to it as xAPI, which is fine - that’s its official name, after all. Why Did They Make It?  SCORM has been around since 1999 and is still the most used learning interoperability specification in the industry. But it’s clunky and limited. It assumes a sequential learning experience in which you work from one module or assessment to the next in a linear fashion. And as outlined above, it fails to capture anything that happens outside the Learning Management System. So learners are siloed. Only their interactions with formal activities are tracked in the Learning Management System gradebook, like online workbook study, Learning Management System assessment activities, quizzes etc. All the real "lightbulb" stuff where they are pursuing knowledge autonomously goes unrecorded. That’s not good enough these days, said ADL in 2011. We need a successor to SCORM that captures the whole range of learning activities, wherever and however they take place. So they issued a Broad Agency Announcement, a way the US government uses to invite contractors to bid for R&D projects. Rustici won it, and Tin Can was born. How Does It Work?  The Tin Can API is a web service that allows for statements of experience (typically learning experiences, but they could be anything) to be delivered to and stored securely in a Learning Record Store. Data from any Tin Can-enabled device or system -known as an "Activity Provider"- emerges in the form of statements. These have the basic format Actor, Verb, Object. So a statement might say [Jimmy] [watched] [YouTube video x] or [Sally] [read] [blog post y] or [Billy] [visited] [the Museum of Natural History]. Here’s some real output from a prototype of Tin Can: 11/18/2015 4:20:18 PM Test User experienced Tin Can Prototypes Launcher 11/18/2015 1:31:12 PM Test User initialized Js Tetris - Tin Can Prototype 11/18/2015 1:30:55 PM Test User attempted Js Tetris - Tin Can Prototype 11/18/2015 1:30:53 PM Test User initialized Js Tetris - Tin Can Prototype 11/18/2015 1:30:52 PM Test User launched http://id.tincanapi.com/activity/tincan-prototypes/tetris 11/18/2015 1:30:37 PM Test User experienced Etiquette - Playing 11/18/2015 1:30:36 PM Test User resumed Golf Example - Tin Can Course 11/18/2015 1:30:36 PM Test User initialized Golf Example - Tin Can Course 11/18/2015 1:30:34 PM Test User launched http://id.tincanapi.com/activity/tincan-prototypes/golf-example 11/18/2015 1:30:30 PM Test User terminated Golf Example - Tin Can Course 11/18/2015 1:30:30 PM Test User suspended Golf Example - Tin Can Course This shows the basic Actor - Verb - Object syntax of Tin Can statements. A lot more can be added to a statement, for example: Result: [John] [attempted] [Tetris] [with score 2569] Context: [Pippa] [completed] [sushi preparation for beginners] [in the context of Japanese Cuisine 101] [under the instruction of Hiro Yakasuma] Lots of verbs are possible. Some examples are: Resumed. Attended. Commented. Registered. Scored. Shared. Responded. Imported. Voided. Progressed. Failed. Preferred. Interacted. Asked. Launched. It’s also possible to create your own custom statement fields. Things can quickly get confusing with so many verbs available, which is why there is a cookbook for Tin Can, a sort of Book of Spells for instructional wizards. It contains things called recipes. Recipes  The extreme flexibility of the Tin Can vocabulary could lead to chaos if people chose different statement types to describe the same activity. The whole point of interoperability is that there are uniform ways to describe particular activities. A simple example of what could go wrong is: Vimeo could produce the statement [John] [launched] [How to teach your dog tricks] YouTube could produce the statement [John] [opened] [How to teach your dog tricks] Hulu could produce the statement [John] [viewed] [How to teach your dog tricks] So there’s a problem. Different verbs can describe the same activity. This is why Tin Can needs standard, agreed-upon vocabulary and format to describe certain types of activity. These are called recipes. They are kept in a registry at tincanapi.com and are designed to promote consistency. For video, the recipe that has been decided on defines the actor, verb and object (the watcher is the actor, the video is the object) and the verbs that should describe the activity, which are: Play. Pause. Watch. Skip. Complete. A "play" statement is sent when a video is started, and a "watch" statement is sent when the video is paused when the previous state of the video was playing, in order to capture the segment that was played. As this simple example shows, it can get complicated, and that’s exactly why there are recipes: To keep everyone singing from the same hymn sheet and stop them turning Tin Can into Tin Can’t. What Is Its Potential?  If the global learning community chooses to adopt Tin Can / Experience API, it will enable us to liberate learning content and activities from the confines of the Learning Management System and track learning activities across a hugely diverse range of platforms. The data gathered will give a far richer picture of the real-life impact of learning. A new power that Tin Can gives us is the ability to analyze activities and link them to results. In the example below, data in the Learning Record Store are analyzed to show a relationship between attending a sales webinar and selling a product. The webinar software is xAPI-enabled and so is the sales CRM. They both produce statements that are stored in the Learning Record Store. Wyver Solutions Ltd. Data like this will require careful analysis to avoid confusing correlation with causation. Just because 80% of people who sold product #42 attended the sales webinar, it doesn’t necessarily follow that the webinar is a direct driver of sales success. A new era of education data mining could be upon us as organizations seek to extract meaning from their Learning Record Store statements. New analytics software is already springing up promising to provide actionable insights from training and performance data. But there is low-hanging fruit there too. If the most common search term on the company intranet by new people is "claiming expenses", it seems actionable with little analysis: Make the expenses process clearer during induction. This is intended as a primer, and a discussion of analytics could go on for many more pages. To close, I invite you to spend a minute or two browsing the diagram below, following the arrows around, and imagining Tin Can’s potential in your organization. I hope you now have a better idea of what Tin Can is and are better prepared for when it comes up in future learning conversations, as it surely will. Wyver Solutions Ltd. This post was first published on eLearning Industry.

How To Use Visual Thinking In eLearning Visual thinking refers to a learning approach that links complex ideas or concepts to visual elements, such as images, word maps, or infographics. Visual thinking can be used by eLearning professionals to create meaningful eLearning content, as well as by online learners to visually represent their ideas and thoughts during the eLearning process. Top 3 Visual Thinking Benefits In eLearning Simplifies complex concepts. One of the most significant benefits of visual thinking in eLearning is that it can simplify more complicated or involved processes and ideas. Rather than trying to explain the relationship between two concepts, for example, you can create a chart that compares and contrasts them for the learner. Thus, your audience can immediately receive the key pieces of information in a visual format, which allows their brains to process the knowledge more quickly and effectively. Encourages online learners to organize key ideas. Visual thinking in eLearning gives online learners the ability to organize their thoughts and ideas, without having to store every bit of knowledge within their minds. They can create a visual representation of the information they are acquiring, which can then use as a reference and study tool later on. It also allows them to collect their thoughts and opinions about a specific topic, so that they can delve into every aspect of the subject matter. Boosts knowledge retention. When information is presented in visual form, learners are much more likely to absorb and retain it for real world use. This is primarily due to the fact that their brains are able to see the connection between new concepts and previously learned knowledge. They can also more effectively comprehend the link between related concepts, as well as every sub-topic that is associated with the idea. For example, they can map out all of the traits of a species or every step of a work-related task. Top 5 Tips To Use Visual Thinking In eLearning Include infographics that convey core ideas. Infographics have been a popular tool in the marketing industry for quite some time, but in recent years they have become valuable learning aids. Infographics offer a visual representation of statistics, trends, steps in a process, or interrelated concepts. Instead of simply explaining an idea in a lengthy paragraph, infographics break the subject down into easily digestible visual components that are both educational and entertaining. You can combine text, images, graphics, and even colors to evoke certain moods to create an interactive and memorable infographic for your eLearning course. Encourage learners to create idea maps for each lesson. At the end of each lesson, ask your learners to create an idea or word map that summarizes the key concepts. Let them get creative and use whatever media, images, or representations they prefer. For example, they can use photos to symbolize every step of a process or comic characters to portray different traits or characteristics. The goal is to give them the chance to recap and review the information so that they can not only expand their understanding, but commit the key takeaways to their long-term memory. If they are able to put it into their own words , or visuals in this case, they are more likely to recall the information in real world situations. Ask learners to create idea-based sketches. Sketching is another perfect example of visual learning, as it allows learners to create engaging and entertaining visual depictions of the core ideas. For example, ask them to watch an eLearning video featuring the subject matter then design a sketch that summarizes the overall message. You can make this even more interactive by encouraging your learners to make their own videos that explore the subject matter, then having them peer review all of the completed presentations. The learner who made the eLearning video can get the valuable feedback they need, while the other learners can deepen the comprehension by designing a summative sketch. Explore the subject matter through digital storytelling. Digital stories are comprised solely of electronic media, such as online music, graphic art, and animation. For more advanced learners, you can develop digital storytelling activities that enable them to delve into the subject matter in a creative and visually compelling manner. Just make sure that you give them a clear idea of what’s expected and what topics they should cover, so that you are certain everyone is on the same page. Also, provide them with a list of the all the sites they can use to create their virtual masterpieces. Highlight important dates by using an interactive timeline. A timeline is yet another example of a visual learning tool that can greatly benefit your audience. Rather than just listing the important dates, make a clickable timeline that features all of the significant moments throughout history. The learners can then click on the individual events to get more information, or just study the timeline to take a quick glance at the topic. Well written eLearning content is essential, but you have the power to transform your eLearning course into an interactive and memorable experience by taking a visual thinking approach. Use these 5 tips to integrate visual thinking activities into your next eLearning course. Is it possible to create great visual design when you are not a designer? Read the article 10 Tips To Improve Your Visual Design Skills For Non-Designers to discover 10 simple tips to improve your visual design skills and ensure that, despite your lack of knowledge or experience, you can create your own high quality visual design eLearning environment. This post was first published on eLearning Industry.

I had a meltdown today.  I didn’t mean to do it, I’m just frustrated right now.  About this time, every single year, our administrator panics about state testing and has us "analyze" the data to determine which kids can help get our number ups. (she actually said that one year, I almost got up and […]