by Voice of America University of the People is a university that has no tuition costs. The university’s classes and teaching materials are all free online. Also, all of the teachers are volunteers. Federal laws in the U.S. do not prevent undocumented immigrants from going to college. But laws do ban undocumented immigrants from receiving government financial aid. The Pew Research Center is an organization that studies social issues around the world. The organization recently reported there were 11.3 million illegal immigrants living in the U.S. in 2014. Of those, 49 percent were from Mexico. Many undocumented immigrants come to the U.S. with little money to pay for things like higher education. Currently, the University of the People only offers degrees in computer science and business administration. Though tuition is free, the university does require students to pay a $50 application fee. Also, the university requires students to pay a $100 test fee when they complete a class. http://learningenglish.voanews.com/content/online-university-offers-poor-a-chance/3088042.html Share on Facebook

by Star Daily Standard Times A pair of researchers looking into whether Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) are helping to bridge the disparity gap in education access in the U.S. has found that those who take the courses tend to be from wealthier neighborhoods. In their paper published in the journal Science, John Hansen, with Harvard University and Justin Reich, with MIT describe their research efforts and why they came to believe that MOOCs are not the remedy to educational disparity that many had hoped. Access to a high quality is not guaranteed in the U.S. People who live in tend to live in less well funded schools with lower success rates. Over the years some have espoused technological advances as the key to leveling the playing field—some believed radio could change things by offering educational programming, others believed television would help, offering even more programming such as that provided by PBS. http://www.stardailystandard.com/science/research-exhibits-large-open-on-line-programs-used-principally-by-wealthier-individuals/33377/ Share on Facebook

by Ariel Diaz, EdSurge Making the jump to more affordable, online courseware is the logical next step to cut costs, and many learning platforms and digital content providers are stepping up to help. Even the government is in support of digital, open textbooks, with members of Congress recently proposing the Affordable College Textbook Act and the U.S. Department of Education’s #GoOpen campaign. But despite available resources and growing support, digital textbooks are still met with doubt and resistance sparked by some key—and not so unfounded—objections. No stranger to having to set the digital versus print textbook debate straight, I’ve pulled together a list of common objections to sort out what is, in fact, true and what is completely false. https://www.edsurge.com/news/2015-12-05-facing-the-facts-four-common-objections-to-digital-textbooks Share on Facebook

As mentioned in ‘the facts about yourself’, "your best childhood memory is all the fun of roaming around and playing outdoors for hours." Are there any game elements of your childhood you have incorporated in your eLearning products? I would say that what resonates from childhood memories of play is simply the pure fun of games and the fact that we could stay immersed in them for long periods of time. For sure, I am a goal-oriented person who likes having that metric to hit so my tendency with eLearning solutions I’ve personally developed has always focused on that. I preferred thinking about activities people could do within the eLearning course and hated the text/next formats so common to early renditions of eLearning. I liked to incorporate aesthetic and game elements even before I created actual eLearning games. My roots are in instructor-led training and I developed lots of games and simulations to incorporate into workshop-style events because I felt people benefited more from doing than from merely listening. Those tendencies definitely stem from my childhood preferences for game play and my clear non-enjoyment of sitting and listening to a classroom teacher. Would you describe yourself as a "Knowledge Guru", considering your long experience in the area of education and your innovating project ideas?  I prefer to think of myself as simply constantly curious. Flat out, I love to learn - at least when I’m driving the learning and not stuck in the lectures that pained me so badly when I was a kid. My weak spot in instructional design tends to be forgetting that not everyone loves to learn. The majority of us aren’t very good learners at all, which makes solid instructional design more essential, not less. What exactly is Bottom-Line Performance; Results. Too often, training programs are designed and implemented with no one asking the hard question, "What business results is this initiative supposed to produce?" If you can’t answer that question, you’re going to put together a learning "solution" that doesn’t solve anything meaningful. Sadly, I’ve gotten blank stares from stakeholders more than once when I pose that question. I have to offer examples of what I mean by a "business result," (e.g. increased revenue, decreased employee turnover, faster ramp-up of a new-hire, which results in quicker productivity gains, etc.). They then tell me that they don’t have any way of measuring these results - they don’t know current state so they can’t compare their end result to it. Tell us about your «creativity child», the social game called «A Paycheck Away». What was its intention? Is there another similar project coming up? A Paycheck Away is a game about homelessness. The intention of the game was to raise awareness of the issue in a different way - to help people recognize that homelessness is OUR problem, not just the problem of the homeless individual. It costs a community a ton of money, and it costs society at large hugely as well. The game is a vehicle for talking about tough issues and formulating ideas at a community level. We created the game at no charge and featured it at a huge local festival called Spirit and Place. Dayspring now has a license to use the game in its own awareness efforts. They are preparing to do a major event in Indianapolis featuring the game. It’s a Game for Change that I want to make a big difference. I do want to do more with it - I’d love to see it being used on a national scale in various organizations - schools, churches, police departments, state legislatures, social agencies, etc. to help people grasp that telling people to "work harder" doesn’t solve the problem. We’ve sold numerous copies of the game; all the proceeds go to…. Dayspring Center. What advice would you give to those who are just getting started with designing a learning game? Keep it simple and laser the focus. The biggest mistake I see is that people want to introduce too many game elements or mechanics into their games to try to make it more fun. The problem with this is that learning the rules of a game takes brain power. The more brain power spent trying to understand the game play, the less brain power available to learn whatever it is you are trying to teach people. The more content you try to include in the game, the less effective it becomes as well. Figure out the ONE THING you really want people to be able to do and make a game about that ONE THING… not about everything. As I presume, a learning based game keeps the user motivated and engaged for a significant amount of time.  However, do you believe that it keeps the learner’ s attention long enough to allow for knowledge to be internalized and remembered? Obviously it is going to depend on how well the game is designed and how well feedback loops are factored into the game. The power of a game to change behavior comes in the feedback loop and the game loop. (Think of a game loop as everything you can do on a single turn. You then repeat the sequence of steps on a subsequent turn.) A poorly designed game will not keep people engaged. Keep in mind, though, that engagement is only part of people learning. I can be highly engaged in an activity - and learn absolutely nothing valuable from it. Learning design and game design must be done in parallel. I see people get way too focused on designing an engaging game and lose most of the focus on what the game is supposed to help people learn. How would you describe your experience with the MOOC (Massive Open Online Course)? What kind of advantages and what weaknesses did you observe? I love them, but I don’t think they are suited to a lot of learners. Learners all perceive that they want control of their learning, but most of us are poor learners and we require more oversight and guidance through the learning than a MOOC gives. The advantage of the MOOC, in my opinion, is its flexibility and the "chunking" of the content. I can plug earphones into my iPhone and listen to a 15-minute lecture while I walk the dog. I love that. I can also cherry pick the modules I want to take - and ignore what I don’t need. The disadvantage is that the accountability for completing them is pretty low, and if you can’t learn from a lecture, you are toast. Having said all this, I think if we could somehow tweak the model so we created smaller learning communities around them (5-10 people), they could have far more power. Describe Sharon Boller in ten years from now. I see myself pursuing things that feed my soul but don’t require so much time and energy. I hope it involves something like championing a game for change, such as A Paycheck Away, and showing people how to integrate games into larger discussions and efforts to effect positive change in our communities. In a future world, do you believe that traditional learning will be totally replaced by eLearning? How do you see such a prospect? I do not. I actually think our pendulum is swinging more appropriately to the blend. Look at gaming. There is a huge, huge resurgence in the board game and card game. GenCon, which is held in Indianapolis, attracted over 50,000 people to this year’s 4-day convention that is all about board games and card games - not online games. In our office, the games millenials love the most are board games where they interact directly with their friends. People remain hungry for relationships and connections - and they learn the most from those interactions, not from an eLearning course. Elearning will be a firm part of our future, but it will not be a 100% replacement, nor should it be. My husband joked long ago when AOL came out with Instant Message that he was going to wait several years and then write a best seller on an innovative new way of communicating. He was going to call it, "Talking Face-to-Face." Even in a global, telecomputing world, we still need the ability to interact face-to-face. The post Interview with Sharon Boller appeared first on eLearning Interviews Magazine.

What would be an elevator pitch for someone who does not know about your product? How does it differentiate from other Learning Management Systems? We are a technology focused company with an established line of learning management tools that can cover a variety of customer needs. We build products to solve training problems of growing companies. Our portfolio includes eFront, an award winning LMS for enterprises and TalentLMS, a lean, cloud LMS for everyone that needs a really fast and simple way to train online. We are also working on an exciting new mobile product that combines aspects of microlearning, infographics and gamification. I think that our biggest differentiation factor is the fact that we are a technology driven company. It is engineers that take the important product decisions and this is a source of constant innovation. Why are you passionate about this product? Learning is expensive, takes a long time and the results can vary. E-learning has been trying for years now to complement the way we learn to make it more effective and measurable. We are a part of this grand scale revolution on the way we learn that can have earth shaking effects in the way we live. The LMS is a piece of the puzzle at the moment but it is OUR piece, and we want to take care of it as good as possible. In your Linkedin account you mention that you are competent in dealing with difficult problems. What sort of problems do usually come up in your everyday business-life? Could you please tell us about an important issue you encountered recently? Each and every day has challenges, things I have not encounter (or imagined) before. It looks normal to me but I guess it is not for most people. Unfortunately, not all challenges are made equally - having to deal with a bad-tempered customer or a malfunctioned server is not the same with designing the gamification layer of eFront. Right now my biggest concern is to manage my time and that of the team to remain productive while the company grows. Unfortunately, it is not a core engineering problem but it is important and difficult nonetheless. Do you believe such problems that you deal within your e-learning framework apply also to a variety of learning environments? Learning and e-learning are different sides of the same coin. Still, it would be simplistic to consider e-learning the same as learning. There are a number of fundamental differences on the approach, tools and dynamics. Still, a good teacher is usually a good instructor for online courses as well. Transferring a learning process to the internet is tricky. The most common scenario we encounter is when someone tries to transfer a traditional learning process as-is to the internet. This mapping, although possible, is not the one with the best outcome. On the contrary, one needs to thing out of the box taken into account the benefits and the shortcomings of the electronic medium. At the end of the day though, core objectives of learning like how to motivate participation, engagement and thirst for learning are the same. What are the most common project challenges when implementing eFront for enterprises and how are they usually overcome? Bigger customers have unique needs and require special attention. It is common to provide a considerable amount of customization effort to meet the needs of such clients. Understanding the real needs of the customer and pricing them accordingly is usually one of my biggest problems as an estimation error can have serious repercussions; and usually we need to provide a pricing and a time table early in the process where not all the details are yet revealed. The only way I found to overcome it is by a divide-and-conquer approach, where bigger problems become a series of smaller and easier to tackle tasks. Where do you see eFront in 3 years from now? Are there any developments you are considering? As a company we have a very active development schedule. We are releasing eFrontPro this autumn. eFrontPro combines the depth of eFront with a new fluid interface, revamped reporting and support for blended learning. At the same time, it maintains a familiar tone. Regarding our cloud solution, TalentLMS, we are integrating Gamification characteristics by the end of this year. We are also heavily working on Snappico, our new mobile learning application. Altogether, I believe that the company and our product portfolio will be much different 3 years from now. We are transforming from a strictly LMS provider to a broader e-learning company. What does it take to create a successful e-learning system? Dedication, persistence, skills, a good team, luck and some sense of humor. This is not only for e-learning but can be applied on almost everything. What is most rewarding about what you do? I consider what we build as my children and is certainly satisfactory to watch them grow and be useful for others. Also, we have the pleasure to communicate with people all over the world and it is not uncommon to receive emails from places you have not even heard off. Internet is a wonderful thing and I am happy to be involved in this type of revolution. Communicating with different people can give you a sense of meaning and a better life perspective. What’s a common misconception people have about what you do and about what eFront brings to the world? Many people commonly consider eFront a strictly open-source solution for small scale implementations. Still, we have used eFront to support large and demanding customers with over 1M of users. It is hard to convince people that a software that costs a few thousands can be equal or better than something that costs millions. It is crazy but it happens often in software. If you were interviewing someone for E-Learning Developer position, what traits would you look for? No matter the position we are looking for generalists - people that can adapt to new conditions. We are also looking for efficient people - that rare breed that can get things done. Finally, personality is a very important metric as well. If you are positive, happy people it shows on your work. One can see really important names among your costumers (Fujitsu, Kalsec, Karachaganak, Engel, Autodesk, Panasonic etc). What kind of requirements / liabilities imply such collaborations? As I already mentioned, bigger customers have unique needs and require more attention. For example, bigger customers require phone or priority support. Also the sale process takes usually longer and is very competitive. Size also brings bureaucracy. As a small company we value efficiency, but in bigger companies what often rules is the "mighty" Process. At the end of the day though you have to deal with a few people in a daily basis, no matter the size of the organization. How familiar are Greek people to e-learning? Not very much. The Greek e-learning market is small. The European learning market is small. We have been used to travel small distances and we value face-to-face communication too much. That practical difference with countries like Australia, Canada and United States prohibits the growth rates of eLearning in our continent. Still, I see this as an intermediate stage that eventually, will lead to higher growth rates for e-learning in Europe. Describe Athanasios Papagelis in ten years from now. That is a tough one. I guess that 10 years from now I would prefer to be in a situation to share my experiences and knowledge to help other people succeed. This means though that in the mid time I will be universally considered successful - not really there yet. In a future world, do you believe that traditional learning will be totally replaced by e-learning? How do you see such a prospect? In 20 years from now a lot more learning will happen with electronic means. Teachers will still be around to teach us; but I am not so sure if they will still exist 200 years from now. No matter what, the need for training and education will keep increasing as our societies become more information driven; and I do not see an end to that. The post Interview with Athanasios Papagelis appeared first on eLearning Interviews Magazine.

In the «Entrepreneurs’» interview by Mondadori you are described as "A Revolutionary Entrepreneur beyond today’s boundaries". What is it that makes a "revolutionary" nowadays? In my humble POV, these days trying to do a good job is revolutionary. The key-factor is not to do business in order to acquire money and power, but give back to the community and create value for the future. This is how you can bring real revolution to your business. How has the picture of enterprises changed since the founding of Mailforyou.com in 1999? Would you say that things were "easier" back then? Well, things are always easier when you are 25! It’s a fact that more people are joining the technological movement now than back in 2000. And now, there is less money but more people involved in the industry of enterprises. I presume that there is a chance of more companies dealing with failure but eventually  there will be more knowledge and experience gained and this will not disappear. Were there any «mentors» along your way? What or who inspired you to do what you are doing? Actually, I prefer to use the term «teacher» instead of «mentor». My very first teacher was my father, to whom I owe a lot. Then, there was another person along my way who taught me to see the world as an interconnected place, as a network. «Big» men take big risks. What was the biggest risk you ever took? I risk failing every single morning I wake up. What does «Docebo» mean? «Docebo» is a Latin word which means "I will teach". Our intention was to connect to our 2000 year old Italian history but we did not want to use an Italian word because our company is international. How does Docebo differentiate itself in the eLearning market? Is there an exclusive benefit your software gives to your customers? The first one would be our pricing approach. Once you buy the software, you can go live in 5 minutes. This is a totally different procedure than the ones used by other market vendors, which require a standard negotiation on behalf of the user. Moreover, it’s the Amazon revolution on the Cloud solution that we are trying to replicate on the eLearning market. Another thing that makes Docebo stand out is the slick Italian design put into the eLearning platform’s UI. And design does matter. How has social media affected eLearning? The real contribution of social media is that it has transformed informal training to formal learning. It’s one of the elements that make the whole eLearning market revolutionary. Are there any certain types of learners who are "unsuitable" for eLearning? In the B2B sector there’s a minimum size for a company to adopt eLearning. Delivering eLearning to a company requires a certain commitment in terms of the number of employees involved, because the software, the content and the procedure of delivering the content demand dedicated resources. Companies below 500 employees usually deal with many issues because they don’t have the necessary resources to handle eLearning project management. What do you see as a future challenge in the area of eLearning? Are you eager to confront it? ELearning is going beyond formal training and there are many competitors right now. My intuition tells me that we will see a lot of acquisitions and failures in the next few years. Perhaps we will see a new technology that redefines MOOCs and LMSs. Hopefully I will be the inventor of that technology! One can see really important names among your customers (Mediaset, the Sky television group, Accenture, Volksbank, AON etc.). What kinds of requirements / responsibilities do such collaborations imply? When a customer decides to switch from a legacy LMS to a smart Cloud LMS he’s usually a smart customer who understands the benefits and limits of SaaS. In our company there is a huge technical and sales team as well as a consulting department, because the human touch is an integral part of the process, even in SaaS. As an active start-up supporter, from which entrepreneurship field do you observe that most profitable ideas derive? I would say from B2B. There is nothing more profitable than making products and selling them to companies. You are a huge fan of the Roman Empire. What inspires you the most in that period of history and why? The most inspiring and at the same time interesting thing for me is the way that the Roman Empire failed. There could be several causes of failure in this case: a human mistake, the Empire itself, a different tactical approach, or human greed. The key is to know and recognize all the elements that could cause a failure. You refer to military strategy as one of your greatest interests. What related skills do you use when «you are doing business»? I’m actually a fan of geopolitical strategy, not military strategy per se. Everything is interconnected. All incidents and events are connected and there is a reason lying behind everything. For example, you can decode a complex reality by looking at the connection. We are living in the age of "complexity". Understanding the bonds - or connections - themselves can lead to the best solution. In a future world, do you believe that traditional learning will be totally replaced by eLearning? How do you see such a prospect? In a complex world, technology does not change the "previous technology". Nowadays, eLearning is on top of traditional learning. Maybe in the future there will be another layer on top of eLearning. But at the end of the day, nothing will substitute anything else; we will just add elements of complexity. The post Interview with Claudio Erba appeared first on eLearning Interviews Magazine.

How would you describe your role in «Quinnovation»? How has it been evolved from the beginning until today? Quinnovation is the vehicle I use for consulting. I became a consultant in 2001, and it went from a euphemism for unemployed to a way of life in 2002. I (re)branded as Quinnovation with the launch of my first book, Engaging Learning: Designing eLearning Simulation Games. The role has changed largely as the ways in which I consult have changed, from designing solutions to assisting organizations to put together strategies that help them transition to ways of working that are more aligned with how we think, work, and learn. Would you describe yourself as a «guru» of innovating Learning Technology and Development? That’s not something you should say about yourself; it’s for others to determine. I am passionate about and committed to trying to deliver on the promise of technology to support our goals to learn and perform. I continue to explore advances in learning and technology to see what new opportunities emerge. I might use the term gadfly, or instigator, or provocateur (or something less politic ;). You are engaged in finding solutions for businesses. How difficult is to determine which solution is suitable for a business? It depends, of course, on the problem. You don’t want to force a solution on a business; you need to match the solution to the issue. Some problems are obvious, others are complex or subtle, and some are wicked-hard. The trick is to have a rich suite of models in your pocket to draw upon at appropriate times. I’ve the benefit (and curse) of a lateral mind, so I tend to come up with unforeseen solutions (hence Quinnovation), but at core it’s about deep analysis, grounded frameworks, systematic creativity (note: this is not an oxymoron), and iteration. How does a company become "smarter" through the change of its strategy? The way an organization does get smarter is to look at where it is at, where it could be, and creating a strategy that takes them in a positive direction. In particular, a useful approach is avoiding ‘best practices’, and going to best principles: finding why things work and figuring out how to map those onto your context.  The way to do it is in consonance with what’s known about how people think, work, and learn. What is the first data you ask from a business wanting to introduce mobile learning to their organization, in order to outline the right action plan for them? The first thing is to find out what issues are driving them. You need to ask where they are, and where they need to go. Mobile isn’t a graft-on, it’s a fundamental part of organizational and L&D strategy, and consequently has to align with what the organization has to achieve. The first question is "what problems are you trying to solve by going mobile?" What challenges can a business expect to encounter when trying to implement eLearning? What can it do to address those challenges? The first problem an organization can expect is outdated ideas of what constitutes learning. Too many people equate learning with ‘school’, and consequently are quite comfortable believing learning consists of information dump and knowledge test. They can add quizzes to documents, or replicate the classroom online, both likely to their detriment. To truly leverage eLearning, organizations are going to have to recognize that the goal is performance, not learning, and broaden the suite of solutions they can apply. Do you identify eLearning as the modern solution to the problem of the degradation of traditional education? Absolutely not. Our problem is that we are not recognizing what really constitutes learning, and consequently we too often use technology in ways that replicate our existing approaches, and therefore are doomed to fail. eLearning has now been shown to trump traditional face to face instruction, but as the lead author on the report suggested, the reason was the chance to rethink the pedagogy, not the medium itself. eLearning is a tool, but if it’s not driven by an awareness of what makes a valuable curriculum, and an enlightened pedagogy, it is merely a tool for the perpetuation of the status quo (or worse). What exactly do you mean by the term «learnlets», which features as the name of your blog? Here’s what I say on the blog itself: "Many years ago now, in the early days of the internet, I responded to a request for predictions about the future of computing, and I wrote (and I paraphrase, I can’t find it now) ‘in the future there will be lots of little interactive and engaging applications that will teach you anything you need to know, including how to make little interactive and engaging applications’. The requester liked my suggestion, and it was included in the published collection (now if I could only remember who, where, and when). Those little interactive and engaging applications are learnlets." The Learnlets blog itself consists of my learnings about learning. You are an author of several books and manuals about training and eLearning. What is the first advice you would give to someone who is now exploring the world of eLearning? To be clear, I’ve four books on using technology to facilitate performance & development. My first advice is to make sure you understand learning. Have I mentioned that eLearning is meaningless without the learning part? The technology will change, but our ‘wetware’ will not.  We need to truly understand how our brains work, and align technology with it. In your comments to your latest book, "Revolutionize Learning and Development" you quote "Don’t let learning and development myths derail you". Could you name some common myths of today? Let’s start with learning styles. The problem is that there are essentially no valid instruments to assess how people learn, and the research shows that attempts to adapt learning to styles has had no impact. Design for how people learn best! Generational differences and ‘digital natives’ are two related others. Again, the research shows no validity. It’s really bigotry by age; treat people by what they know and care about, not their years on the planet. Will Thalheimer has resoundingly decimated the myth of Dale’s Cone (e.g. you learn so much by listening, so much by seeing, etc.). And much of the so-called ‘brain science’ is making inappropriate inferences. You have to be wary of appealingly simple panaceas, and be professional about learning design. In your notes you often mention the word «design». What is the role and significance of it in Clark Quinn’s mind? Herb Simon said "The proper study of mankind is the science of design", and that resonates with me. The point is that the human advantage is the ability to change the environment to suit us, rather than the other way around. My focus is on how we use technology to augment our ability to learn and perform, but to do so we have to understand design processes. And the same biases our cognitive architecture introduces in our ability to accomplish our goals also holds true in our ability to design. So we have to look at what’s known about how to design just as we have to look at what’s known about how to learn and how to do. You are an avid researcher, believer and innovator of projects related to mobile learning. How does it connect to eLearning? Where do you see the difference between those two? Digital technology has been the perfect complement to our brains: it does well what we don’t, and vice versa. It’s a form of cognitive augmentation. What mobile brings is the ability to have that augmentation wherever and whenever we are, which is huge, but there’s even more. It also brings the ability to do things because of where and when we are, and this contextualization is a valuable new opportunity. eLearning truly should be about more than courses, with performance support and social & informal learning as well, and mobile brings that capability.  Moreover, since mobile (specifically the phone form factor, not the tablet) is not well suited to courses, mLearning focuses on the other things, which L&D doesn’t typically take advantage of. In this way, mobile can be a catalyst for change in L&D, as well as personal and organizational effectiveness. Technology is highly featured among your interests. How has it affected the world of eLearning during the last decade? The sad fact is that the advances seen in technology in other areas are slow to be picked up in learning applications. While there are amazing capabilities on tap - content engineering, semantics, sensors, analytics, wearables, and more - we’re not seeing it being applied to organizational learning in meaningful ways. Much of what we’re seeing are the same tired models with new window dressing. The frustration over this led to the Serious eLearning Manifesto with my colleagues Michael Allen, Julie Dirksen, and Will Thalheimer. In the Manifesto we are trying to point back to the learning part of eLearning. Which will be the technological picture of eLearning in the following years? Do you see a huge change coming? The opportunities are huge. Personalization, contextualization, augmented reality, the list of game-changing opportunities is phenomenal. But the more mundane advances still need to be seen. We need a broader use of technology overall to support organizational needs. I argue we need a revolution in our focus to include performance support and social & informal learning. We need a richer foundation of more modular content tagged so that we can pull up relevant elements by description, not hard wired. We need design in ways that are device independent. Ultimately, we want a performance ecosystem where the tools are ‘to hand’ around our needs and tasks. Name one thing you could not do without for a whole day. Air. How do you imagine Clark Quinn in a decade from now? I hope that I will have continued to track new technology developments, infer their learning affordances, and assisted organizations in systematically using them in more effective ways. I will be thrilled if it’s included meeting new people, seeing new places, and led to valuable outcomes. The post Interview with Clark Quinn appeared first on eLearning Interviews Magazine.

In a constantly changing world, how important is to cooperate with the right team of public relations advisors? Probably not at all - unless, that is, you want your brand to be recognized, your business goals to be achieved and your organization to be successful. What kind of exclusivity does your PR Agency offer its costumers? What kind would you want?  It’s precisely because we’ve specialized in helping companies in the online learning technologies sector that we’ve developed a relevant, up-to-date worldwide media contact list that’s second to none. We couldn’t have done that if we hadn’t been working for a number of clients from the same sector over many years. So, in this sense, companies come to us because we’re not exclusive. Nonetheless, over the years, some potential clients have been fearful that, because we work with other companies in their industry, we’ll pass their confidential information to competitors. It’s an outrageously ridiculous idea. For one thing, that’d be the easiest way to lose all our clients and never get any more. Moreover, we have other - far better - things to do with our time and energies. We can only influence the relevant media around the world because we’re known to represent only leading companies in the sector. So the only - and best - exclusivity we can offer is that we’ll ensure that there are never any client conflicts of interest in a PR sense and we’ll always do our very best to promote any and every client. Which is the most common mistake that most PR agencies make and how is it likely to endanger the consumer’ s profile? I couldn’t possibly comment on other PR agencies’ activities - after all, I have no first-hand knowledge of how they operate. However, in terms of providing PR activities for the online learning technologies world, it’s important to remember that it’s a niche area within the business-to-business (B2B) sector. The chances of the national media picking up your company’s story are extremely remote - although we’ve managed to arrange this occasionally for some clients over the years. The way to be successful, that is, to build a presence in the B2B media, is to engage in proactive PR activities - led by issuing news stories via press releases, blog posts and so on and then supporting these via social media activities (principally via Twitter and LinkedIn). Only once you’ve established your brand within the industry, can you expect to indulge in reactive PR (such as responding to media requests for interviews, comments and so on). Adopting this PR strategy presupposes you have something worthwhile to say - and it’s vital that you say it well. That’s where top class PR professional help can bring substantial benefits and add value. Furthermore, this help should also be able to guarantee that what you have to say gets seen and heard. Of course, like anything of value, top class professional PR help that’s attuned to the online learning technologies sector - both nationally and internationally - doesn’t come cheap. Nonetheless, the experience of a great many companies you’ve never heard of indicates that not doing PR or adopting a DIY approach ‘because it’s cheaper’ is, ultimately, detrimental to business success. The latest research on the European online learning technologies industry, published a few months ago by market analysts Learning Light, shows - among many other things - that there are some 671 producers of e-learning materials and systems in France; 532 in the UK; 328 in Germany, 300 in Poland and so on. My guess is that you’d find it hard to name even ten per cent of the producers in your country - and that suggests that, generally, professional PR isn’t high on e-learning vendors’ priorities. They could well be making a mistake - but at least that makes it easier for us to promote our clients. For some further thoughts and suggestions on ‘doing PR’, you could visit the ‘Free PR advice’ section of the Bob Little Press & PR website. In your website you mention that «the truth is the main acknowledgement in the cooperations you have done so far». Have you ever rejected a consumer or has a consumer ever rejected you because you were being honest when judging his project? I imagine you’re referring to our strapline: ‘we tell the truth as you would want it told’. People who tell lies about their product or service (and we’ve all met them - and not just in the online learning technologies world) may appear to succeed. But they only succeed in the short term and, besides that, they have to continue to live with themselves and their consciences. Telling the truth is a far better policy - and professional PR should help you tell that truth in the most advantageous way. Over the last 25 years, we’ve refused to work with some potential clients; we’ve been delighted not to have been selected by others and, although it’s temporarily reduced cash flow, we’ve been secretly happy to lose a few clients. However, overall, we’ve been delighted to work with the vast majority of our clients - including all our current ones. How has the Social Media affected the reality of public relations? As we say on our website, ‘social media and social networking has transformed the potential for PR to help your business - especially since your competition won’t be using it to best advantage.’ Until the advent of social media, you were at the mercy of editorial whims, policies and strategies, along with physical space constraints in publications. Moreover, it could take up to four months to see whether a particular story had made it into print and, thus, the public domain. Nowadays - thanks to social media - you can guarantee to get your client’s story to relevant readers around the world within some 48 hours, while the story still has ‘immediacy’ and relevance. You appear as an avid user of the Social Media while you are mostly keen on Τwitter. Speaking of your own activity, as a user, what kind of tweets draw the most attention and which ones do they prove to be the less interesting? Tweets about lists. Everyone loves lists - and the more subjective the list, the better. Huge debate - on Twitter, LinkedIn groups and so on - takes place in January each year with the publication of the lists of the ‘Movers and Shakers’ in corporate learning technologies. What’s the most important tip that should be followed by a corporate page on Facebook? Save your energies for other forms of social media - unless you’re in the business-to-consumer (B2C) market (when Facebook users are your potential customers). It’s largely a waste of time using corporate Facebook to boost sales in an online learning technologies (B2B) environment. Of course, this might change. You can never tell with social media. It’s such a young area of marketing science. Among your many activities, you’ve written an e-book for eLearning (Perspectives on Learning Technologies). Would you like to tell us more about it? Yes, thank you. Please buy it! I need the money - and Amazon takes over half of the purchase price. So please try to buy at least two copies! Perspectives on Learning Technologies (ASIN: B00A9K1VVS; available from Amazon) contains over 200 pages of observations on issues in learning technologies, principally for learning & development professionals. It distills the wisdom - along with a touch of wit - gathered from some 20 years of discussion and discovery within the learning technologies industry, particularly as it relates to the corporate learning world. The book sets out a wealth of views, often corroborated by rigorous research. These can be used as shortcuts to help you in the planning, practice and politics of ‘learning and development’ (L&D) in your organization. Or they can be used as seeds and short cuts for your own thoughts and theories - so you can achieve more with less in a shorter time and all the other things that L&D professionals are supposed to do. The key to the book is that while times change; technologies change, and learning technologies change, people remain human. So those whose job involves identifying the need for; designing; developing; introducing, and popularizing ‘learning’ within their organizations face the same issues that they’ve always faced - even if the advent of ‘learning technologies’ now mean that there are more learning delivery mechanisms to choose from than there used to be. L&D professionals face the same challenges that L&D professionals have always faced. But, these days, they have so many options and (technology-based) tools in their armory that these challenges can seem harder and the dangers of making a mistake appear to be greater than they used to be. This book contains some insights into these challenges. Terms such as eBook and eLearning are gaining ground in our everyday life. Do you believe that the prefix ‘e-‘ has mastered over conventional forms of reading and learning? I make a living using words - which is a great privilege. I’m someone who follows linguistic fashion, not someone who forges it. For at least the last 15 years, people have been saying that the ‘e’ prefix is irrelevant and should be dropped. Yet there’s a difference between an ‘e-book’ and a ‘book’. Until there isn’t a distinction to be made between these things, there’s a need for these two terms to co-exist. On the other hand, there’s a case to be made for dropping the ‘e’ in e-learning, since we don’t make any other distinction with how learning is achieved. In normal conversation, we don’t talk about ‘book learning’ or ‘classroom-delivered learning’. Only learning professionals make these distinctions. When they have no more use for these distinctions, including ‘e-learning’, these terms will die and we’ll be left with ‘learning’. So, if learning professionals don’t like the term ‘e-learning’, the answer lies in their own hands - or mouths. Is there another idea for a book related to education through eLearning that you have in progress? What topics would it contain? I’m open to suggestions. However my book on the history of Pendley Manor was published in July last year and the soft-back version had to be reprinted in September. It’s proved more popular than Perspectives on Learning Technologies. So another learning technologies book isn’t at the top of my current priorities. How do you see the future of eLearning in the next decade? People will always need to learn things and they’ll always need other people to teach them. The advent of the web has made learning materials more widely available than ever before but the basics about learning and imparting learning haven’t changed - nor will they. It’s just that, through the application of technology, you can now use more ways to impart that learning. We know the rules about learning; about how best to teach people, and about how - and why - people learn best. We’ve got the wisdom, and the examples, of the giants of the education profession over the last 2,500 years to delve into - from Socrates to contemporary educationalists. To use a simile first employed by Bernard of Chartres in the 12th century and most famously used by the scientist, Sir Isaac Newton, in a letter he wrote in 1676, we’re like dwarfs perched on the shoulders of giants. The idea is that we can see more and further than our predecessors could - not because we have keener vision or greater height, but because we’re borne aloft on their gigantic stature and can build on their pioneering work. Yet there’s no guarantee that each new generation of learning developers understands the lessons of the past. We’re still not sure how to make the most effective use of the resources we have - the delivery technologies, the content management and learning management systems, as well as the learning content itself. And, while it’s marvelous that technology is advancing, this continued advancement seems to raise still more questions for us. So, if we’re standing on the shoulders of giants, we appear to be doing so while looking at an extremely foggy landscape. Of course, we can dimly discern some current trends and extrapolate them. A report, called ‘A Review of the e-learning markets of the UK, EU and China 2014’ and published a few months ago by the UK-based market analyst, Learning Light, sets out the size and state of the online learning technologies markets in 20 European countries, including the UK. It also examines the Chinese market for online learning technologies, since this is thought to be a major growth area for all forms of online learning. The trends that the report identifies include that, becoming ‘mainstream’ within learning and development are: Gamification - including serious games, Multi-device learning - that’s mobile learning, responsive web design and learning apps, as well as HTML5, ‘Bring your own device’ (BYOD), Virtual classrooms, Cloud-based learning, Learning content management systems (LCMS), such as those offered by Xyleme and eXact learning solutions, Social learning and curation. The Learning Light Report suggests watching out for the growth of: Adaptive learning platforms, Learning-as-a-Service (LaaS), Increasingly smart assessment, Reconfigurable learning via reusable and interchangeable ‘gadgets’, ‘Build your own content’ (BYOC), Massive open online courses (MOOCs) and vocational open online courses (VOOCs), Analytics and learning record stores (LRS), The increasing influence of ‘big data’ and Tin Can Experience API (xAPI) As more ‘millennials’ - that is, people born into the current technological age - enter the workplace, a greater proportion of learning materials are likely to be delivered online, especially via mobile devices. In today’s increasingly fast-paced commercial world, this helps to meet the need for ‘just-in-time’, ‘just-enough’ and ‘just-right-first-time’ learning wherever the learners are, whenever they need this learning and however they want to access the learning materials. In the private sector, as worldwide and local competition increases, greater demands will be placed on learning delivery technologies to help workers and their employers maintain their competitive advantages. In the public sector, these learning delivery technologies will be called upon to help workers provide ever greater value for money to all stakeholders, including taxpayers as well as customers. The academic world has the greatest potential problem with the introduction of new learning delivery technologies - especially MOOCs at the moment - because it can’t yet see how to reconcile the greater availability of, and access to, learning materials with the need to protect both its intellectual property and its income from this. Speaking as a «Word Master», what title would you use to describe the developments in the field of eLearning since the beginning of the new millennium? Leading edge developments in all areas of the corporate online learning technologies field over the last 15 years have been amazing, impressive and exciting. Unfortunately, from a learning purist’s point of view, there’s still a large amount of e-learning in general circulation which is ‘e-learning 1.0’: boring, page-turning, content-heavy with little engaging interaction for learners. Moreover, some 80 per cent of all commercial e-learning is focused on compliance-related and regulatory topics. People have to complete this learning because their job and career depend on it. This means that, in many ways, e-learning is now a vital part of business life. Yet, because of this, issues such as learner motivation and engagement through the e-learning materials, along with interactivity and exploration empowering learning, fly out of the window. So, while the leading edge of the e-learning world is making some impressive and exciting strides, relatively few learners are experiencing it. Your resume is impressive. Writer, speaker, singer, editor, blogger, tweeter and adviser on corporate communications, along with corporate reputation and crisis management. Which one, between those do you distinguish as your top achievement to date? I’m glad you think it’s impressive. Anyone would think I did PR for a living! Deciding on my ‘top achievement’ is really difficult - not least because it depends on what criteria you use. Overall, I suppose I get the greatest ‘buzz’ from seeing my name in publications - which means that they’re publishing what I write. Among your many occupations, one can see a remarkable career as an opera singer in the UK. Is there another special occupation that we don’t know about Bob Little? Yes. For many years I’ve been an ordained lay minister within Baptist Union of Great Britain - part of the Free Church branch of the Christian Church. How do you imagine yourself in 5 years from now? Semi-retired, enthusiastically taking on the projects and clients that appeal to me - and still being excited by developments in the online learning technologies sector. The post Interview with Bob Little appeared first on eLearning Interviews Magazine.

Only a few days ago, you launched the "More Than Blended Learning", a whole new way of designing learning interventions. How would you describe this new invention of yours in a few words? It is hard for me to think of More Than Blended Learning as a new invention, because I have been working on these ideas for ten years, since the publication of The Blended Learning Cookbook. The new book describes an approach to the design of workplace learning interventions that draws on the experience of talking with hundreds of learning professionals over the past ten years. What is the most revolutionary fact you introduce in your new book, "More Than Blended Learning", a culmination of ten years of work? The book broadens the way we look at blended learning, particularly when it comes to designing end-to-end solutions that deliver in terms of performance. It may not be a ‘fact’ but perhaps the most notable take-away from the book is PIAF, an acronym that stands for Preparation, Input, Application and Follow-up. PIAF provides a structure for blends that deliver end-to-end solutions. What does "Blended Learning" really mean in 2015? What is it that is actually blended? For most people, blending is probably just a mix of delivery channels, i.e. face-to-face and online. However, I never found this to be enough to describe what makes for great blends. In the book we talk about four ways to blend: (1) in terms of the social contexts in which people learn (on the own, on-to-one, in small groups and in wider communities); (2) in terms of the learning strategy (exposition, instruction, guided discovery, exploration); in terms of the communication mode (synchronous and asynchronous); as well as delivery channel (face-to-face, offline media, online media). Is Blended Learning a more effective solution of (just) eLearning and why? Blended learning is a completely separate concept from e-learning. The word e-learning describes the use of a single delivery channel (computers and networks) to facilitate learning. A blended solution does not have to make any use of technology (although this is unlikely in 2015). It could use nothing but technology. The key to a blend is that it incorporates highly contrasting methods and/or media. What is the most "refreshing" fact about the "More Than Blended Learning" approach? What "more" does it bring to the up-to-date Blended Learning strategies? The most important element in the approach is that methods are chosen before media. The choice of methods is what makes a solution effective or not, not the decision about media. All the research tells us that there is very little difference in effectiveness between learning media. What makes the difference is the choice of methods, in particular the social contexts and strategies that I talked about earlier. What technology does is introduce efficiencies (scalability, accessibility, time and cost), but never at the expense of quality. The More Than Blended Learning structure is based on Preparation, Input, Application and Follow-up. To your experience, which is the most difficult part and why? Difficult question. All are important yet Preparation, Application and Follow-up are often ignored. What is difficult is a shift of mind-set from believing that the task is accomplished when the Input has been provided, to believing that what really matters is what happens on the job. What challenges do you anticipate in the implementation of your new approach? How would you address those? There are many challenges. The first and most important of these is the up-skilling that is needed among learning professionals so that they stop being order takers and become trusted professionals who really know how to design. The next challenge is to engage with all the key stakeholders - managers, learners and others - so they understand what learning solutions are going to look like and why, and how this impacts upon them. Having worked with numerous organizations across the world, what are the most common weaknesses you have met in their offerings? The first really common problem I have encountered is over-emphasis on providing knowledge. These days, people mainly need access to good quality information - they don’t need to know all this stuff. Another really common problem is providing nowhere near enough support to learners as they practise new skills. Often they get one practice and are then sent on their way. What forms of evaluation do (or will) you use in order to determine the effectiveness of More than Blended Learning on a business model? The only evaluation that really matters is whether a blended solution satisfies the underlying need. We hope the More Than approach will make that more likely. We’re not expecting organisations to follow the approach religiously but we hope it will influence key decisions. How difficult is the integration of new learning technologies into the services of an organization? What determines the difficulties in the process? It is proving to be a slow and difficult process to integrate learning technologies but much has been achieved by now (after all, we’ve been doing this for 35 years now). The biggest hold-up is the lack of skill and confidence among learning professionals themselves - learners are not really an obstacle. What are the most common points in the use of new Learning technologies that might cause some resistance or push back while using them? People will be frustrated if learning technology is applied where it is really not appropriate. There are situations in which face-to-face communication is still vital. Learners will justifiably also be annoyed of they are confronted with endless slides full of bullet pointed abstractions. People want stories, challenges, practical tips, not theory. In your opinion, what are the biggest gaps between what people should be doing and what they are actually doing, in terms of learning strategies? There are lots of gaps. We are over-emphasising courses and not putting enough effort into providing great resources. We also need to make sure that employees are properly supported by their managers, their peers and coaches when they are learning on the job. You are widely acknowledged as one of the UK’s foremost experts in workplace learning and development, with hundreds of published articles to your name. What do you see on the frontier for learning and development? Is there a "trend" you recognise as the next big thing in the following years? The technology is there with cheap, powerful mobile devices and adequate bandwidth to do whatever we want. What matters now is how we use these. The trend, I believe, is towards providing the same type of learning experience at work as people have in their personal lives. In terms of media, video will dominate. How much do you believe Blended Learning will vary, given the rapidly growing social media environment? It will vary to the extent that organisation’s feel ready to incorporate social learning into their blends. There’s nothing in the More Than approach that dictates what methods or media you use. Social learning will, and already is, undoubtedly enrich many blended solutions. In a future world, do you believe that traditional learning will be totally replaced by eLearning/Blended Learning? How do you see such a prospect? I cannot answer that question because e-learning and blended learning are totally different things, but let me take them in turn. E-learning will never totally replace other options because there are many situations in which computers cannot deliver what is required. And not every solution will be blended either. Some are so small in scale that blending would be over the top. And much learning takes place outside the context of solutions that anyone sits down and designs. How do you imagine yourself in 20 years from now? Still very interested in refining and improving my ideas based on evolving technologies and social changes. However, my work-life balance will be very much focused on the latter. The post Interview with Clive Shepherd appeared first on eLearning Interviews Magazine.

How would you define the role of an eLearning Instructional designer in the modern era of education? Everywhere you turn these days, eLearning is there. Whether it is an online program offered through a University, a Kahn Academy video, an online cooking classes, a K-12 curriculum, or corporate training, technology is there to support the learning process. Whether you call yourself an eLearning Instructional Designer or just an Instructional Designer, you’ve got to consider technology-based solutions as part of the mix. So I’d say the role of an eLearning Instructional Designer is pretty essential to any organization’s educational strategy. We’ve got a lot of job security! What are the most common mistakes made in the process of drawing up a training plan?  Too many corporate training plans go for event-based learning with a focus on completion rates. Will sitting in a class for two days really teach you what you need to know to succeed at your job? What if, instead, we went au natural? That is, following the natural ways in which people actually learn in the real world? What kinds of assets can we create - content, tools, apps, connections - that will help people learn and perform at their best and as quickly as possible? How can we combine eLearning assets with real world coaching and peer connections? Humans learn by doing. How can we design resources that will fit into that flow and not disrupt it, but actually enhance the experience? You have been a succesful instructional designer, writer, project manager, and a multimedia producer. How did you manage to combine all these roles and specialties? In that list, I see quite a few different skills - some I am better at than others. When I first got started, all of those tasks were part of the job I was hired to do as a "Junior Instructional Designer". The instructional designers in my company were the project managers. And the writers. And the multi-media producers. I got to direct video shoots, create project plans, write scripts, QA, the works. And this is not all that different from many organizations who have one person who does it all: the one-stop-shop of eLearning fame. As I have, well, grown and matured, I have learned that some skills I do better than others. I am super fortunate at Kineo to have dedicated project managers who run our projects like professionals. It has made me realize how little I actually knew about project management before. In the current demanding environment, do you believe that the successful combination of many different specialties outperforms the specialization in one field? I do think the eLearning field is unique. Those who perform best as eLearning designers and specialists have broad understanding of some really divergent areas: they understand learning and pedagogy, they have creative inclinations and can write or do amazing visual design, they understand technology, and they have the skills to act like consultants to their organizations and to run their projects like, well, projects. It is really a T-shaped skills model. You need to have broad skills and understanding (the top of the T), with potentially one area of deep expertise (the vertical bar of the T). Depending on your organization and who else you have on your team, you may have a broader focus or have more specialization. At Kineo, we hire specialists in instructional design, writing, graphics, development, consulting. That is why clients hire us. And across the team, we have it all. Smaller organizations have to put more eggs in one basket, so you may have individuals who don’t have quite the depth in each area. Could you describe your business profile in the company? As the VP of Learning Design for Kineo US, I oversee our team of instructional designers and content writers. I review design documents, check out scripts, provide coaching and line manager support. I do lead design for a lot of client work, which includes a little bit of everything. I learn about new technologies and think about ways to make what we do even better. I write articles and books and speak at conferences and get to schmooze a lot in the name of work. I love my job. You are referred as «An e-learning veteran». Which would you recognise as your greatest achievements in your brilliant, long career? My greatest achievements? There are a few. I’m really proud that I’ve been a part of the birth and growth of the Kineo US team for these past almost six years. It’s truly humbling and amazing to see what we’ve grown into. Our main US office just burst its seams in Chicago and we’ve had to move into new space. In those six years, I’ve been so fortunate to work with some amazing clients and to collaborate on some great programs. It actually takes my breath away when I consider the number of projects and programs we’ve produced. And then of course, there’s the book thing. I wrote The Accidental Instructional Designer: Learning Design for the Digital Age during the late night hours after work and after my kids were in bed. It is really an homage to the leadership and tutelage I have received from my Kineo colleagues, and from all of the mentors I have learned from through the years via social media. I am proud of the book and really happy to hear from people who have gotten a lot out of it. You can order a copy of the Accidental Instructional Designer at the ATD Press page - along with a free book group discussion guide! - or on Amazon. How has the field of eLearning changed in the last 15 years?  I will broaden the view a little bit and go back 19 years. I started in the field in 1996—before it was called eLearning. We created CBTs on CD-ROMS with lots of video. Everything was custom built from scratch. Along the way, the technology started to change. Tools like DreamWeaver and Director appeared, making development a little more efficient and raising production values. We dreamed of having tools and templates that would automate some of the process. Prices were high. In 1996 dollars, clients were paying $40,000 for one hour of eLearning. Not even factoring in inflation, that would be high by today’s standards. Today’s rapid tools have changed the game for better or for worse, allowing pretty much anyone and their brother to create so-called eLearning. Price points have come way down and today’s organizations want to pay as little as they possibly can for eLearning. Along with that, we’ve got the mobile revolution and technology in almost everyone’s hands to serve up content. My kids all know how to search for how-to videos on YouTube from their laptops, their iPads, their iPods. Today, eLearning is everywhere. It is in the air. When I explain what I do for work to people these days, I don’t get the same blank stares I used to. Most people have some point of reference when it comes to eLearning -either because their kids use it in school, because they used BlackBoard in college, or because their companies require them to take it. Why would someone choose to attend a program (Bachelor, or Master) through eLearning? My answer is probably something along the lines of "why wouldn’t you?" As a working mom, if I were going for a master’s degree I would definitely be looking at online programs. I do not have time to commute to a campus; I would not want to miss dinner time with the kids; I would want to fit my studies into my own schedule. On the other hand, as I consider the educational options my kids will have, I am not sure what I would recommend. So much of the college experience -at least for me- was the social life: getting out on my own, living in my own place, running my own life. But with college costs skyrocketing, online undergraduate degrees look more and more appealing. Maybe it is going to be a hybrid approach that wins. I was recently reading about The Minerva Project, higher education with a Silicon Valley mindset that combines the best of both online and social college experiences. New models are already emerging. What has been the impact of the social media on your career?  I was really fortunate to get involved in blogging and Twitter in the earlier days, when the online eLearning community was forming. Without realizing what I was doing, I started building my own brand. I made some life-changing and lasting connections with people who continue to influence my work and who I now consider friends. Work is not just work for me. It is fun. I still blog on a fairly regular basis at Learning Visions. I also write for the Kineo blog. What is the most important fact you have learned through eLearning? My experience of eLearning is mostly through the lens of the producer and not the student. I have created WAY MORE eLearning programs than I have taken. And throughout the process of creating all those programs, I have learned so very much. What I love about my work is the sheer variety of it all. I can work one day on a program about digital marketing and the next day on global climate science. Through every project, I get a different insight and view into a different slice of life. It’s like reading a great book every day. Which kind of challenges are coming next for eLearning? What will it take for it to dominate in the global market?  The challenges for eLearning…as if it’s an actual being with thought and will. I like that. That said, the challenges for people who think about and deal with eLearning are that the expectations are high. People will expect to have technology-based learning options and they will expect those offerings to be of high quality. And it is not just about creating courses. We need to drop the term eLearning and instead talk about the ways people learn and how technology can best be used to support that. People roll their eyes at lousy eLearning. One of the most popular posts I’ve written was called "Why No One Cares About Your Lousy eLearning." People recognize that it’s out there and want to stop the madness. Lousy eLearning needs to become a thing of the past. Creating quality solutions that help people and solve the problems people have—that is the real challenge for everyone. Technology is ubiquitous. And technology as a part of how people learn and work -well, that is ubiquitous too. So let’s get on with it. How do you see yourself in ten years from now? Is there an optimum level you want to reach in your career?  My career evolves as I go. I might write another book. I would like to branch out into some new areas within the industry, because I have got to keep learning new things or I will get all boring and dull. The road opens up in unexpected ways. I want to stay challenged, do good work, and enjoy the people along on this journey with me. The post Interview with Cammy Bean appeared first on eLearning Interviews Magazine.