Did you get a chance to meet us in the DevLearn expo? We had many wonderful conversations with attendees. Thanks for stopping by and learning more about the Litmos platform. Many that stopped by are in the process of switching from an existing LMS. And there were others interested in finding the perfect solution for managing their training business. I learn something new with every conversation. It's always a pleasure to talk with my colleagues in the training field. I think my favorite part of event conversations is telling attendees that Litmos is more than an LMS. It's fun to see their reaction when they hear about our client services team, and that we offer content bundles as well. And of course our integrations with other popular systems like Box.com, Salesforce, Shopify, TribeHR, and others, is always a big hit. Don't forget to start your trial or schedule a demo when you've recovered from your travels. Hot Tech Conversations xAPI and HTML5 were the big technology conversations...as they have been for a while now. Most training professionals will never need to know how these technologies work. They are the bits of technology under the hood that drive the solutions you might be implementing in the future. There were many sessions for learning more about xAPI and HTML5. There was even an xAPI camp that gave attendees a complete day of learning. If you are one of the tech savvy who enjoy geeking out on new technologies for learning, then you should meet Anthony Altieri. I had a chance to record a conversation with Anthony explaining his wearable LRS...and "the button". Keynotes and Streaming Tech I've already seen David Pogue several times and so the Adam Savage keynote was the only keynote I was looking forward too this year. But while I enjoyed Adam's message I also wanted to test out my mobile video streaming setup.  Shockingly, I was able to get a fairly decent connection and so I dared to attempt streaming via Periscope. As you can see the video turned out to be quite horrible. However, my Rode boom video mic performed quite well. So, what did I learn? The first important take away is that mobile streaming video is a good solution when timing is more important than quality. Streaming video via a mobile device has the potential to expand your reach as a training professional. A few people enjoyed the stream while not at the event location. This can be translated in many ways into the training that we do. But I'll save those details for another post. All in all I think it was a successful test of Periscope as a tool for sharing/learning. How Do You Define eLearning? Lately I've been hearing/seeing a split in how eLearning is defined. More on my thoughts about that later. At DevLearn I had a chance to interview a few people to get their thoughts on eLearning. I was curious about how professionals define eLearning these days. Here are 3 answers that probably won't surprise you. Or maybe they will. Serendipitous Learning at DevLearn Everyone will agree the best part of attending events is not the structured content, but rather the unstructured chance meetings and random conversations that often yield fantastic results. True to form the hallway conversations at DevLearn proved to be informative and valuable. I even learned something new while having lunch. That moment may not seem all that important. And yes it is a little tongue-in-cheek. However, consider how easy it was for me to create and share that moment. No big budgets. No professional film crew. No expensive equipment. I certainly could have simply written it down and published the knowledge as a tweet, or maybe post to Facebook. But video has a certain powerful element that is engaging and offers something words can't. I hope you all enjoyed DevLearn this year. We'll see you there next year! Always remember that you can contact me anytime on twitter via @Litmos. The post DevLearn 2015 Recap - Love Your LMS! appeared first on Litmos.

What is Back to Basics? Getting back to basics could mean many things. I first heard the phrase while working at Intel in the '90s. It's something executives like to announce when they feel the business has moved too far outside of it's core value proposition for customers. And it's also an internal initiative to get employees to remember the simple rules of running effective meetings, communicating, getting into the office on time, etc. It's about just getting back to the simple habits that originally make a company, or individual, great. Business, as in life, can get complicated and out of control easily and quickly. But you first need to understand what the basics are. Then re-focus your energy on those things. We Need a Back to Basics Movement in eLearning Personally, I've felt a need for a "Back to Basics" movement in our industry for many years now. But, as you can imagine, it's not an easy story to sell. Having a CEO announce an initiative to his company is powerful, but just one random colleague in an industry of thousands announcing it is much less impactful. However, after a few years of seeing this wave build, I'm confident in saying that we absolutely need to get back to basics.  And honestly, the technology is moving back to basics with, our without, us. But it's not what you might think. I'm definitely not advocating for going back to basic instructional design...whatever that might be. My idea of "Back to Basics" simply comes from seeing the failures of formalized instructional design, complicated LMSs, and our industry's lack of flexibility to deviate from the traditional design processes of eLearning development. And then with that in mind, to witness how current technologies are being used in everyday life. What the eLearning industry creates, and what the world consumes seem so far apart. The world consumes video on YouTube while the eLearning industry traps video inside SCORM packages. My version of back to basics is simple. Set your content free! My Journey Back to Basics Much of the evidence supporting my Back to Basics theory has come in the last 5 years. 5 years ago I was still the Program Director for DevLearn with an amazing view of the industry. I saw the need from that vantage point. I then built a training department from the ground up for a rapidly growing business before joining the Litmos team. 3 very different perspectives/experiences across a relatively short timeframe. While at Litmos it's been a common theme amongst the growing customer base. They are tired of complex, error-prone, frustrating Learning Management Systems, and seek out something simple and effective that everyone can use and enjoy. My favorite part of demoing Litmos is seeing smiles grow as those new to Litmos click through the system for the first time. The latest case study from Gigya is a perfect example. Here is what Kyle Ketelsen, Enterprise Business Development Manager at Gigya, had to say about their recent switch to the Litmos LMS: "Litmos was easy to deploy and has benefited our employees greatly for ongoing sales training." "The cost, usability and step-by-step navigation made Litmos a no-brainer for us. It is easy for admins to use, whether they are adding or removing people from the system, or creating courses and tasks for their teams to complete." Gigya ultimately needed a training solution that would motivate managers to create courses and encourage employees to complete them. And doesn't everyone? It really can and should be that simple. The idea that large creative teams are required to create training content is outdated. I'm not saying that a high level of course development is no longer necessary at all. But I am saying that fewer and fewer projects truly require it. The basic idea of sharing knowledge should not be so complicated. And it isn't. New technologies like mobile video streaming are proving that every day. In recent presentations I've emphasized adding business value far more strongly than anything else. The corporate training industry needs to refocus on the basic idea of providing value to the business. And part of adding business value is letting go of old ideas about what the training department produces. Short, simple, modular course designs will win the day over large eLearning SCORM packages. Everyone in your organization can be part of the creative process. And you don't need to master an authoring tool to create business value. However, you do need a simple, cost effective, user-friendly system like Litmos to help manage your content, organize teams, and report on progress. How do you and your team add business value? This blog post is only an introduction to these ideas. Please reach out to me @Litmos and let's continue the conversation. I'd like to know your thoughts on Back to Basics and Adding Business Value   The post Take Your eLearning Back to Basics - Simple, Fast, Inexpensive WINS! appeared first on Litmos.

If you want to understand the world of social media there are hundreds of "experts" and "gurus" ready to jump at the chance to help you. But if you want to learn about how social media/networks impact your enterprise and it's learning culture, there is only one...okay 2.  Marcia Conner and Tony Bingham have updated The New Social Learning and it's better than ever. This second edition makes it more relevant to today's fast paced digital enterprise and arms you with the information you need to make an informed decision about social learning. I had a chance to talk with Marcia via skype.  We kept the conversation relatively short (13mins) but focused on the impact of social learning on the corporate training department and the instructional design work we do. I think you'll be surprised by Marcia's answers to questions like these: "If social learning takes off, what happens to the training department?" "How does effective social learning effect the practice of instructional design?" "What's the ROI of Social Learning? How do we measure it?". And you'll definitely want to watch until the very end as Marcia offers up an excellent book recommendation. (Hint: It's not any of her own books) You can find Marcia Conner on twitter @marciamarcia The post The Truth About Social Learning and Training - An Interview with Marcia Conner appeared first on Litmos.

There is much buzz around design processes these days, and it’s worthwhile to look at what the excitement is. While there is a bit of ‘hype’ about this, there’s also some real value to be found, so it’s worthwhile to dig into the details. Why should we even consider reviewing our design processes? In addition to problems with the outcomes, there are some structural problems. What we want is a repeatable and predictable process that yields optimal outcomes under pragmatic constraints. And we’re far from it. The original learning design model for process is ADDIE: Analysis, Design, Development, Implementation, and Evaluation. And these are all good steps, but there’s a problem. Too often, they’re followed in a linear methodology. And that’s not a recipe for success. In software engineering, it has long been recognized that a linear, so-called ‘waterfall’ model of design doesn't work. With substances like concrete and metal, the properties are well known. However, when designing for humans, as the audience becomes aware of the opportunities created during the process their ideas of what they want are likely to change. Thus, there will be a change in requirements that basically destroys a linear process. To be fair, most process proponents have advocated an iterative model of ADDIE for a long time now, but the anecdotal evidence is that’s not representative of what takes place. Another revolution in software engineering has been the Agile approach, sparked by a Manifesto. As a consequence, new approaches have been proposed including Allen’s SAM and Torrance’s LLAMA model. The core concept is the notion of teams working in short ‘sprints’ to develop the next iteration, and then planning forward. This has a number of benefits, including rapid outcomes, regular testing, and working together. However, there are more nuances beyond just iterative. So let’s run through some of the possible characteristics and some options, evaluating the case for each. Principles To be sure, iterative is good. However, it does have to be formative as well. That means that each iteration is evaluated and the feedback refines the design. The goal is that at every iteration there needs to be a test or a review to determine how the output is meeting the desired criteria. The above implies a measurement focus. In software development, good processes stipulate what the inputs and outputs of the software will be, including a test suite, before development begins. Ideally, there should similarly be learning outcomes (as well as usability and engagement metrics) that the output should meet when done. In practice, of course, it is often the case that we’re testing to find major problems. In usability, a heuristic approach iterates between expert review and user testing, with a goal of catching some 80-90% of problems. A related principle is that development should output small working products that can be elaborated, rather than producing one monolithic output. This makes sense in the notion of modular software, but an open question is how it gets mapped to learning content. One approach would be to first develop the final practice or assessment, then to add additional practices to get the learner to this point, and finally determine the minimum necessary concepts and examples to be developed. Another precedent is to stay with the lowest technology possible for as long as possible. A core premise is that the more you invest in development, the harder it is to throw away. A coarser version of this is to not start development until a design is fully rendered as a storyboard. As tools get easier to use, this may not be as much of an issue, but the ability to throw away and start again is a valuable freedom to ensure the willingness to take feedback in full. Another mantra that arose out of usability was so-called ‘situated’ design. This was where the designers didn’t work in a vacuum, but particularly in the analysis phase there were visits to the actual performance environment. Here there were clues to where the real problems lay (for instance, users might not comment on problems they’d solved by posting a sticky note to remind them of some step or important information). This is now an aspect of performance consulting, but the realities of the need should indeed be validated before determining the solution. Also arising out of the user interface field was the move to ‘participatory’ design. Here, representative users were active in the actual design process. These users (and other stakeholders) provide a reality check, serving as the voice of the customer, and their developing awareness was useful in anticipating design opportunities that weren’t available at the time of requirement setting. The flexibility to support emergent capabilities provides a rich way to truly create a learner experience. Similarly, an important component of the agile method, as mentioned earlier, is the collaborative nature. Research now makes clear that the best outputs come when people work together in productive ways. Having one individual responsible for all the design (let alone all the design and development) is suboptimal. At worst, have several checkpoints where people collaborate, including at the beginning and at every review point. One of the issues that arises is maintaining predictability. Many people are concerned that iterations provide an uncertain amount of revisions. SAM solved this by pragmatically choosing 3 iterations for each of the two loops in their approach (which can be adjusted based upon smart expectations about the scope and complexity of the project, as I understand it). An interesting approach comes from software engineering. Watts Humphries, after a career in quality control for coding, looked at a personal and team process that decreased code errors and improved estimates. His key element on the latter was to document the estimates and then subsequently compare estimates to actual outcomes. The realization was that too often, estimates were never reviewed and consequently the discrepancies never decreased. When the errors were reviewed, however, the estimate accuracy increased. Goals & Implications It is clear that we may not want to incorporate all of these elements into our approaches, but we do want to work towards creating processes that will balance optimal outcomes with pragmatic scope. Certain goals should be on the top of our list. First, we should be looking to create learning that is effective as well as efficient. If we develop a course when it’s not necessary, we’ve missed an opportunity and wasted money. Similarly, if we develop a course focused on the wrong things, we’re not being efficient with resources. This suggests effective performance consulting up front, and a process for working with SMEs that results in the right objectives. Once we’ve determined a real learning need, we need to ensure that our learning design is going to be effective. This means that we want to ensure sufficient meaningful practice, specific feedback, and the minimal amount of concepts and examples to achieve the necessary outcomes. Prototyping and refinement, e.g. iteration, is the way to ensure practice that meets the necessary criteria. Incorporating regular cycles of expert review and user testing in lightweight ways is also appropriate We also want the experience to be emotionally engaging. Working collaboratively is one of the best ways to tap into the creativity that’s likely to create engagement. This includes compelling narratives and appropriate and varied use of media. Pragmatics All of the above needs to be managed so that it’s still repeatable and affordable. Instituting regular checkpoints for interaction between team members when creativity is desirable, and with stakeholders when reviews are required, is one approach. Templates for learning design quality can reduce the requirement for too much review. While initially the effort required may be higher, with practice the amount of effort goes down and the ability to predict goes up. An essential component is beginning to measure the impact of the learning. This focus on metrics has two roles. The first is to ensure that the focus on the learning design is on a meaningful change. The second is to both inform and document the success. Overall, there may be an overall increase in effort required. This should be offset by not developing courses when courses aren’t required. It should also be justifiable once you start focusing on measurement and documenting that you’re having an impact on the organization. It’s time we stop assuming that we can take a given objective, prepare content and an associated quiz in a linear fashion by a single designer/developer or a handoff from design to developer, and have any meaningful impact. If we are going to acknowledge the complexity of the human brain, we need processes that draw upon what’s known about maximizing outcomes under realistic constraints. Our design processes need to reflect the 21st century just as much as our learning design does. The post An Instructional Design Process Review by Dr. Clark Quinn appeared first on Litmos.

The 30-10-1 ILT Framework 30-10-1 is a formula for creating instruction in 10 minute blocks. The theory is borrowed from John Medina’s book Brain Rules. To keep the attention of a room full of adult learners you’ve only got about 10 minutes before you’ve lost them. Within each 10 minute segment is another pattern more similar to standard instructional design models. You should start each 10 min segment with something interesting, shocking, or otherwise thought provoking. This is where knowing your audience is valuable. You could also use Monroe’s Motivated Sequence as a guide. Start with a shocking statement or question followed by an emotional story. Then tie that story to the new information, and make connections to assumed prior knowledge. And close with a solution or satisfying outcome. Or you can use the time to answer questions. And let the Q&A signal the transition to the next topic. You get the idea. This is where your creativity is valued, and some of your legacy ISD skills may be useful. With interactivity being so important, you most likely have some activities that take longer than 10 minutes. That’s fine. If you need to take 3 10 minute segments to have your audience complete a task, then do it. Remember this is only a framework. Working within constraints drives progress. The purpose of the framework is to speed up your process. This is especially helpful when working with inexperienced instructors, or subject matter experts. Just looking at the framework is sometimes enough to encourage a re-write, and break down existing presentations into smaller chunks. Why 30 blocks? Remember that this is just a guideline to help you think through the amount of time you have available in a 1-day ILT event running from 8am-5pm. You may choose to start your event at 9pm or end at 4pm or even 3pm. Using this template is a quick way to visualize how much time is remains as you make adjustments. The template takes into account the time required for lunch, morning break, and afternoon break. It also accounts for the important introduction section. In today’s environment of social media/networks it’s especially important to build relationships within classroom events. Much of the power of ILT events comes from simply being around other people. Your course should encourage connections and networking so they can all continue their learning together once the event if over. Some courses skip Why 10 minutes? Dr. John Medina explains it best... "We don’t know why the 10 minute rule exists… but it does. You have to find a way to get someone’s attention and keep it for 10 minutes, and then do something to buy yourself another 10 minutes." I’ve had a hard time finding anyone that will argue this point. But arguing the point isn’t important. Like this entire document, the 10 minute rule is less of a rule and more of a guideline. Can you do 5 minute chunks? Sure. You might even be good enough to run with one topic for 12-15 minutes. But this basic rule of thumb stands firmly as a warning to those of us who enjoy talking. Once you’ve past the 8 minute mark you better be wrapping it up and preparing to re-engage your audience because you’re just about to lose them.   Why 1 Day? You have 30 10 minute blocks to fill in just one day! That’s a lot of content for your learners. Your learners already have a slim chance of remembering it all. And we know that utilizing spaced repetition to exercise recall greatly increases an attendee’s chance of remembering the content over the long term. But my guess is that most companies have nothing in place to support spaced repetition.  Therefore one day of training is already pushing the limits of memory.   But there are business priorities to consider. In many cases, especially where travel is involved, you have no choice but to schedule multiple days, back to back. And that’s okay. The important thing to remember is that keeping your learners engaged should be your main focus. You can use the template for as many days as you need. Sample 30-10-1 Template   Time Content Slide(s) # 8:00 AM Course Introduction 8:05 AM Personal Introductions 8:15 AM 1 8:25 AM 2 8:35 AM 3 8:45 AM 4 9:00 AM Topic 1: Introduction 9:15 AM 5 9:25 AM 6 9:35 AM 7 9:45 AM AM Break 10:00 AM Topic 2: Introduction 10:15 AM 8 10:25 AM 9 10:35 AM 10 10:45 AM 11 11:00 AM Topic 3: Introduction 11:15 AM 12 11:25 AM 13 11:35 AM 14 11:45 AM 15 12:00 PM Lunch 12:15 PM Lunch 12:25 PM Lunch 12:35 PM Lunch 12:45 PM Review 1:00 PM Topic 4: Introduction 1:15 AM 16 1:25 AM 17 1:35 AM 18 1:45 AM 19 2:00 PM Topic 5: Introduction 2:15 AM 20 2:25 AM 21 2:35 AM 22 2:45 AM PM Break 3:00 PM Topic 6: Introduction 3:15 AM 23 3:25 AM 24 3:35 AM 25 3:45 AM 26 4:00 PM Topic 7: Introduction 4:15 AM 27 4:25 AM 28 4:35 AM 29 4:45 AM 30 5:00 PM End   Using ILT for eLearning Design and Development The most valuable part of the 30-10-1 Framework rests in being created with future training development in mind. Starting your design process by producing an ILT event is a great way to provide business value during your design/development process. Creating 10min chunks of content for the classroom pre-designs your content for transformation to other technology driven formats. Utilizing the 30-10-1 framework for an ILT course is part of an iterative design process considering all future iterations of this course. But since ILT is highly desired, and easily produced, use it to deliver business value quickly and test the learning content with an audience of learners. Each 10 minute segment that you create is the starting point for future media content production. After you’ve delivered your ILT a few times you will begin to see which 10 minute segments are gaining the most interest, and which are falling flat. Popular segments can then be turned into videos, or other media formats. Less popular segments can be revised and tried again.   The post An ILT Framework Perfect for eLearning Design appeared first on Litmos.

Mobile phones have come a long way over the last few years. Even if your phone is a few years old it still has the ability to record video. And for that matter digital cameras and digicams have come a long way as well. But you shouldn’t be deciding to use one or the other. You should be using both, or which ever one you feel the most comfortable using. Everyone is watching video. It's time we started taking video production seriously as part of what training departments do. "91% of smartphone users turn to their smartphone for ideas while doing a given task." Source: Google/Ipsos, Consumers in the Micro-Moment study, March 2015. Based on the online population n=9598. Smartphone as Production Studio Most smartphone users have benefited from watching how-to videos, or other content on their smartphones. But I would venture to guess that not many have purposefully recorded video for sharing as learning content. And that just doesn't seem right. I often promote the idea that training departments should function more like news departments. In fact, much of what I've done as an instructional designer/developer has felt very much like what I did in broadcast news. The only difference being that news departments produce significant amounts of content daily while training departments produce very little by comparison. I'd like to encourage those in our industry to take content production seriously as part of the work we do, and not handed off to others. Check out this article from the BBC Academy titled Smartphones for News. Using Your Smartphone to Record Video Use your mobile device to record while on the go. And empower employees to do the same. Capture moments, processes, or conversations, that may not happen again. I’m sure there are plenty of moments where you wish you had your video camera. You do. It’s part of your smartphone. In many cases the rarity of the opportunity trumps quality.  Shaky, hand-held, video is okay and tolerated when the content is needed. Capturing and having the process, or moment, recorded is far more valuable than not at all. So don’t be afraid of using your phone for video recording. Using Digital Cameras to Record Video Most digital cameras these days also record video. And the pocket sized cameras are inexpensive and easy to use. If you can’t afford to hire a production team, then this is the way to go. Most pocket-sized digital cameras and DSLRs records video, but either will work fine. Camera options give you more settings and features than your smartphone. And this allows you to get better video quality if you take the time to learn how to use it.  Digital cameras have the added benefit of an SD card slot allowing for as much recording as you have SD cards. Your mobile device is usually limited on space, and will struggle to process long segments. For some reason within our industry I've found a stigma attached to recording video. There is a fear of doing it wrong, or that it's someone else's responsibility. And so great opportunities are missed because, "I wish the video guy was here to capture this." Well, guess what? Everyone is the video guy! Be proactive and capture great learning moments. Share them on your internal social network, or incorporate them into your training courses in your Learning Management System.  Business moves to quickly to wait for the production team. Practice recording video, and learn to be prepared when opportunities present themselves. Tell me how you produce video. I'd love to share your stories of success with others who need to hear it. @Litmos The post Why You Should Produce Your Own Video Learning Content appeared first on Litmos.

As a featured guest blogger here, Jay Cross was known by many members of the Litmos team. He will be missed by everyone. This post was scheduled to be published later this month. On a personal note, I've known Jay for many years. He was one of the first bloggers I discovered in the learning industry even though his blog was called Internet Time. It didn't take long for us to connect on a more personal level because that's just how Jay rolled. He was genuinely interested in reaching out to others who shared his passion for learning and technology. And while Jay was a hard core believer in businesses supporting informal learning, he also understood the realities of business and that formal training still had it's place. He dreamed of a future we all still hope for while understanding the day to day struggles of the training practitioner. He got it. I've taken some time over the last few days to reflect, view old photos, watch old videos, and talk with others who knew Jay. I think he would laugh at much of the attention he's receiving on social media, and industry blogs. And he would love it! But I think more than anything he would want everyone to DO SOMETHING! Reading his books and being inspired is meaningless if the inspiration is not put into action. He and I both agreed that the technology is driving change whether we as an industry embrace it or not. The question is how will you respond? What will you do differently? In this posthumous post from Jay he offers his insights into how we can all become better learners. His hope was that we could perhaps start with a better understanding of learning, and then begin to change how we design, develop, and deliver, learning content with technology. I will miss Jay a lot. But I'm comforted in knowing that his words, and influence, will continue to be a part of our industry and the work we do. ---------------- Six Ways to Improve Your Learning Effectiveness by Jay Cross Neurologists and brain scientists tell us these practices improve the depth and speed of learning. 1. Take Frequent Breaks Brains tire easily when they encounter something boring. A half-hour talk or a twenty-page paper will overtax most people’s mental focus. The brain begins to switch off at that point. It’s time to change activities. Reflect. Talk if you’ve been listening. Perk up! For your health as well as your clear thinking, take a minimum of five minutes every hour to rest and reset. Your brain is going to be tired after you focus on something for an hour. Stand up. Take some deep breaths. Remember that you have a body. Stretch. This is not a waste of time because in the long run, you’ll accomplish more. 2. Don’t "Multitask" You can’t learn very well if you’re not paying attention. Interrupt someone in the middle of a task and it will take them 50 percent longer to complete it. Furthermore, they’re likely to make 50 percent more errors. Multitasking is a myth. Put a cell phone in a driver’s hand and they will have more wrecks than drunk drivers. Brains work on one thing at a time. If something’s not part of the solution, it’s a problem. Focus intensely for a short burst and then take a break. 3. Sleep on it Zzzzzz. Some of your best thinking occurs while you sleep. Use it to your advantage. Before turning in, plant the seed by telling yourself you’ll awake with a better understanding of the problem under consideration. Visualize it. As you sleep, your brain is actively making connections and figuring out where to put things. That’s a lot of the reason you sleep at all — to give your mind time to reflect on and link up the day’s experiences. When you awake, you’ll be surprised by the new perspectives and renewed clarity that appear, seemingly out of nowhere. 4. Exercise Physical exercise boosts brain power. It’s amazing that some jocks don’t do better in school. The brain’s executive function improves with aerobic exercise. This is simple and irrefutable. Get twenty minutes of aerobic exercise at least three times a week. 5. Pick a lively place A little background music or a barking dog make learning a little tougher but also make it more likely to stick. Changing location, say from your desk to Starbucks to sitting on the john, makes it a new and slightly stronger memory. 6. Leave room for doubt Take two groups of students. Tell the first group to read an essay and answer a set of questions about it. Tell the second group to read the same essay and to answer the same questions, but tell this group that the material is terribly controversial. The second group will answer more questions correctly. Uncertainty engages the mind. Harvard University’s Ellen Langer writes that uncertainty challenges people to refine and internalize their take on things. This is what learning is: mapping a subject’s relative position in one’s personal context. In the real world, everything flows. Nothing is certain. Meaning is relative. The post 6 Ways to Improve Your Learning Effectiveness appeared first on Litmos.

If you identify your work and job title as Instructional design(er), then you are a creative person. I would consider anyone doing corporate training work of any kind creative. Most corporate training professionals I have met throughout the years have a unique creative aspect to their personality. Not all. But most. With "designer" in the title how can we not feel like our work expresses our inner creativeness. The work we do in corporate training is a creative endeavor. And yet, there is a real sense of industrial production, non-creative repetitiveness reflected in our industry conversations. We look for "rapid development" tools, pre-designed templates, and step-by-step processes or models to make our job easier. And that's okay. But being a creative is hard work. And it's not hard because being creative is hard. Being creative is not the hard part. The hard part is getting it done! Listen to what Seth Godin has to say about it. And if you prefer someone a little more hip, and edgy, then listen to Casey Neistat's take on it. (His words of wisdom come at 3:45) The Heavy Burden of Instructional Design What if your job was to create AND DELIVER a training course every day? Could you do it? Probably not. And those aren't fightin' words. That's just a fact. And it's why training departments fail to deliver business value. Not that you need to deliver one course per day. But because you believe that training is one certain thing, you can't see that other content can be useful even if it doesn't fit the mold of legacy training models. I learned this lesson in my first career as a broadcast news producer. Monday thru Friday at 5, 6, and 10 we delivered content. No excuses. The ancient video editing equipment would randomly die all too often. We could not cancel the broadcast. Did my car breakdown on the way back to the studio after getting the big story? Yes. Did they stop the broadcast until I got there? No. No matter what happened. We delivered. And sometimes what we delivered wasn't exactly what our best work, or what we wanted to deliver. But we delivered. And yes, our news room was filled with creatives. I've told this story many times over the last 20 years. And I've asked why a training department couldn't function like a broadcast news department. Sadly, the idea has been met with rolling eyes, and my ever favorite quip, "but that's just an information dump. It's not training". That may have mattered 20 years ago, but today that's just an excuse to not deliver. Not because it can't be done, but because you carry the heavy weight of legacy thinking on your shoulders. Learning to Think Differently About Training In 1997 Apple launched it's Think Different campaign. And as Steve Jobs famously stated, "Real artists ship". You may not consider yourself an artist, but that wasn't really his point. His reminder to all creatives is how critical it is to deliver. What that means for corporate training is that a really mediocre course delivered now is 100 times better than your good course currently undelivered. Have you ever taken the time to reflect on the work you are doing? I've recently attempted to help people think different during event presentations. I've been a little disappointed by the responses from attendees just wanting me to tell them the answers. They loved the idea but didn't want to do the work. I will explain the exercise here and look for your feedback. First eliminate all training solution thoughts from your head. For this to work you must start with Shoshin, "beginner's mind". Consider that the ultimate learning experience is one on one. It's just a subject matter expert and a learner. When both are physically in the same space there is no need for a middleman. What would you do in the following situations: SME is in Africa and a learner is in Canada. SME is not available for any more 1:1 instruction. SME is still not available and there are hundreds of learners in the same location needing his knowledge. Change #3 to thousands instead of hundreds, and instead of local they are spread out across the globe. This is a bonus question: It's 8am Monday. Can you deliver business value from a training solution in all situations by 8am Tuesday? If not, contact me @Litmos and I'll tell you how.     The post Think Different and Deliver Training That Adds Value appeared first on Litmos.

Lately I've been following their Think With Google site thinkwithgoogle.com. They share great insights. As you might guess, Google has some excellent data on user habits. One of their latest articles is titled "I Want-to-Do Moments: From Home to Beauty". At first glance you may not think this article would apply to the work you do. But it does. Here's some data that might change your mind. "Of smartphone users, 91% turn to their devices for ideas while completing a task." "More than 100M hours of how-to content have been watched in North America so far this year." Let's assume that 100% of your target audience own smartphones. How are you supporting this moment of need? This may not be a training problem, but it does relate to workplace performance. And in 21st century organizations employee performance is what training departments measure. Measuring a positive change in employee performance speaks to business value your training department provides. Outside the workplace video and other media play seamlessly across mobile devices. You employees expect this type of access to the content they need when they need it. You may not have control of your company's enterprise social network, or other systems for sharing content, but you do have control over your choice of LMS. And more importantly, you have control over how learning content is designed, and developed. The Google provides us a window to look into the minds of our employees and see how their content needs are being met outside the workplace. Your Learning Management System should be able to meet this need. You don't need one system for desktop courses and another system for mobile content. A mobile enabled LMS like Litmos can handle the conversions for you. There is no need for training solutions that are specific to mobile devices. Yes, mobile devices are smaller, require connectivity, and have touch screens instead of a keyboard and mouse. But if you design your course content with a mobile mindset first, and you have an LMS designed for mobile, then you're already doing mobile learning. Read the entire article from Think With Google. The connection to corporate training is clear. Employees have I want-to-do moments both inside and outside the workplace. The Google data is telling us their needs are being met outside the workplace, but would the data be the same inside your company? If not, then you need to consider an mobile enabled SaaS based LMS.   The post Support Employee I-want-to-do Moments appeared first on Litmos.

There are many ways in which we’re not using technology in good ways, and yet there’s still the excitement over new technologies. We’re naturally excited by the new and shiny, but is there any substance behind the hype? Let’s investigate, with a keen eye on real learning potential. Most of these technologies, for reasons of ease of reference (and marketing) have emerged with two letter acronyms. We’ll talk about a whole suite of TLAs (two/three letter acronyms): AI, AR, VR, VW, before touching on ARGs, and then WC. AI One of the biggest areas of activity has been in adaptive learning and artificial intelligence (AI). They’re not the same thing, so let’s be clear. We can hardwire separate paths to create adaptive systems, so hypothetically we could have separate learning experiences for learners characterized by some criteria to distinguish them (e.g learning styles, though the utility of this is debunked). Or we can have a system that dynamically adapts based upon the learner’s recent actions. This can also be somewhat simplistic, whereby recent success or failure triggers a simple algorithm to keep them in place or advance the difficulty. The non-intelligent ones are not particularly new nor of interest. What’s happening with AI, however, is of interest. There has been a long history of intelligent tutoring systems (ITS), whereby systems look at what actions the learner has taken and determines what to do next. These are typically characterized as consisting of three systems: a learner model, a domain model, and a tutoring model. The tutoring model is about your pedagogical strategy, and can work on simple ‘put them back on the right path’ to more advanced pedagogies like allowing some learner strategies to play out before intervening, and the type of intervention can vary from direct instruction to graduated hints. Further, the system can have the learner work on one thing ‘til it’s known or cycle between several different topics. The learner model typically tracks evidence for what the learner knows, or not, and can assign probabilities for these. It’s the domain model that’s been problematic. The early models, starting with the MYCIN system, are based upon a representation of expert knowledge, and these were costly and problematic to build. As a consequence, they tended to be built around abstract and logical worlds such as mathematics and programming. (The Carnegie Learning work was gestated around one such model for algebra.) These systems build expert models of teachers, and problem-solving in the domain. To be scalable, approaches needed to find a way to develop a basis for adapting that goes beyond domain specifics, or find ways to capture the knowledge in tags and relationships. More recently several startups have developed mechanisms to do this adaptation by strongly characterizing content development in ways that support the adaptation. They can send learners different questions depending on how they do, diagnosing specific areas that need work. Two of the startups in this space are creating such solutions, though they require specific content building skills or have relatively simple adaptation. Another new approach is mining texts for knowledge, and can auto-generate questions from source material. Importantly, these systems typically demonstrate better outcomes than typical classroom instruction, achieving performance a standard deviation better, but not the two standard deviations that individual tutoring provides. Of course, this depends on what you’re assessing. Is it knowledge, or actual skills? Intelligent tutoring systems address performance within a specific problem, while most systems select different problems based upon the last one. And the problems largely are still in choosing the right answer, and not addressing the problem-solving process used. Then the issue becomes one of meaningful learning experiences. If learning is about deep practice, can these systems provide it? Generating knowledge questions from text isn’t really going to lead to meaningful new abilities. And how about learning to learn? This is a powerful outcome from good instruction, but how can that be built into the learning experience delivered by system? And what are the role of mentors in these learning experiences? I think that there’s tremendous promise in AI for learning in terms of reliable and bias-free results, but I think we still need to answer questions of curricula and pedagogy, including meta-learning, before we’re ready to truly capitalize on the opportunities. Right now, we may be better focused on using better design to create rich media content and meaningful practice than adapting the entire learning experience. So maybe we want to look at AR instead of AI. AR As an alternative to adaptive technology, another smart approach is to use the user’s context to specify information. Augmented reality (AR) is a technology with some already demonstrated success in supporting performance and learning. Augmented Reality involves layering on specific information onto the existing world by sensing and matching to the context whether location or what’s seen through the camera. A classic example is holding up a phone with a camera and screen, and the system recognizes the image and adds information to it. It can be pointing to restaurants in the direction being looked, or layering on images of parts or system components when viewing an engine. The information can be audio instead, so a continuing narrative as you move or accomplish a task, triggered by the location or other clues. A variety of systems now exist to support context-sensitive information. They provide the capability to specify the context and the additional information to be presented. And there are powerful reasons to instrument the world instead of trying to put it in the head. Certainly, AR can be a powerful adjunct to learning. Exposing the underlying workings of something, or pointing out specific items relevant to learner’s goals, can augment formal instruction in important ways. However, another role may be more performance support than formal learning. Helping someone in the moment accomplish a task can be a valuable outcome whether any specific ‘learning’ happens. AR is, indeed, ready for prime time, and already seeing real use cases. And there’s an extension that’s also of interest, VR. VR Virtual Reality, or VR, is a different take than AR. While AR augments reality, VR creates it’s own. The typical implementation is a set of goggles that presents visuals (stereo, one to each eye) that create a separate reality. You see a completely simulated world. What’s different from regular virtual worlds is rather than just an image on the computer screen is different in two separate ways: first, it’s 3D, owing to the stereo eye images; and it’s also responsive in that as you move, your moves adapt the scene relative to where you were and where you’ve moved to. The benefits here are several-fold. First, the world doesn’t have to be real, and it can be in any scale. It’s highly immersive too, in that your vision is completely embraced and it reacts to your motion (the original motion sickness problems have largely been eliminated). Most importantly, you can create a fully envisioned 3D world to be explored. Learners can move around or through any creation of importance, at any scale. You can visit molecules or galaxies. What’s more, you can take action. With suitable (and non-trivial) programming, you can have interactions that create experiences. There are downsides. While the prices have dropped dramatically, the sets still have additional costs on top of your existing hardware. The costs to develop the worlds can be somewhat steep. And the lack of awareness of the rest of the world has the potential to be dangerous. Overall, however, in the right place and time the learning outcomes can justify the expense, and things will get more powerful and cheaper over time. VW Virtual Worlds were a version of Virtual Reality that was instead communicated by computer screen and navigated by mouse or keys. No extra headset was required, though originally they used to require separate applications. Eventually, browser-based versions emerged. They’re not new, but they’re re-emerging. There were some overheads involved; they could be quite processor-intensive to handle the digital image rendering, and acting in the worlds could require some learning overhead. Depending on the capabilities involved, these could prove to be substantial barriers. There were two main opportunities that these worlds provided: 3D and social. The combination had significant value in specific situations. When the situation benefited from sharing information in an environment where space mattered, there were real opportunities for learning. Of course, the original hype that these worlds were overblown. The overheads meant that they couldn't be a panacea. Using these worlds just for social communicating or just 3D didn’t make sense, as there were lower overhead solutions. Consequently, these environments underwent a collapse after the initial excitement. Over time, however, these environments have returned, with much more careful attention to where they make sense. ARG One other acronym, alternate reality games or ARGs, also has learning opportunities. ARGs are games that, instead of being housed inside a computer or console, permeate the real world through channels like phone, email, text messages, or real world incidents. Spread out over time and space, they can be single player but more frequently are multi-player. Sharing the benefits with serious games, situating important decisions in a thematic story, ARGs add the possibility to use the communication tools typically used in the workplace. So, for instance, in a demo we created once we had the player in a sales role and engaging with a potential client to close a deal; sending the right information in response to the dialog. The infrastructure to support such games is evolving. It used to be that you needed to custom-code the systems, but increasingly there are platforms available. These platforms provide one location to support cross-channel communications so a text message can trigger a call or an email, or any other such mapping desired. WC While mobile learning has been relatively mainstream for a number of years now, a new facet is becoming available, wearable computing (WC). Wearable technology, whether in form factors such as Google’s recent glasses or wristbands such as watches, is increasingly hitting the mainstream. While the glasses supported AR, as above, the wrist opportunities provide new capabilities. The way to conceptualize wearables is by their usage. The attention time a wearable gets is seconds, while a pocketable (e.g. a smartphone) gets seconds to perhaps some minutes. (A tablet really is used for at least minutes and potentially up to a few hours at a time.) What does this give us? A few seconds is generally not considered the right span for learning. In fact, it’s short for even performance support. However, we can imagine a few use cases. For example, just a quick quiz question, reinforcing knowledge, or maybe even a mini-scenario might make sense. Similarly, a quick contact after a performance experience could transform that to a learning experience. Naturally, reminders of events, or pointers on a path, or a quick question and answer could be considered a form of support. As with many new technologies, our initial uses will mimic previous solutions. New opportunities tend to come after we become familiar with the new affordances. The point is to map learning to the technology (not the other way around). Good Pedagogy And that’s the crux of new technologies. We want to map them to good pedagogy, not use them to continue to perpetrate old mechanisms. We want to start from designing the learning experience we need, and then figure out what technologies can help. The reverse, where we look to find how a new technology can be used for learning is wrong. Look at the core capabilities, and then design with this new opportunity on tap when it makes sense. There are and will be new technologies arising continuously. It is our role to evaluate their new and unique offerings, and capitalize on them in the service of learning and improving performance outcomes. Whether it’s through providing meaningful practice, augmenting learning or performance, or connecting people, we want to align technology with how we think, work, and learn. In this way, we can truly advance our abilities to improve our situation. The post 10 New Learning Technologies - by Dr. Clark Quinn appeared first on Litmos.