The L&D industry talks a lot about mobile learning. But what about mobile training? With as much as we focus on the learner these days, its equally important to focus on the instruction. Many will argue that you can't/shouldn't deliver entire classes on mobile devices. Let's put aside the notion that "courses" are wrong, and that mobile devices should never be used for delivering them. Let's consider for a moment the possibilities. What if mobile devices were your only choice...for everything? How Mobile Devices Impact Training Development Today the training industry concerns itself too much with making a distinction between desktop eLearning courses and mobile learning. The argument seems to be mostly based on form factor. And for the last 8 years, and maybe the next 3-5, that’s a very real concern. However, looking at the trajectory of innovation in computing I see only one logical future: The elimination of desktops and laptops as we know them today. How does that change conversations like "mobile devices are best for performance support"? Legacy of Training Development Confines Mobile Devices to Performance Support Our industry’s legacy carries with it the burden of existing courses, development tools, and processes, invented only for the desktop or "big screen". Many of those models and processes, originally invented for the 50 year old classroom, were used for early computer based training design and much of what we call elearning courses today. All of which were created before hardware like the touch screen iPhone and tablets were even imagined. And so while both the desktop/laptop and mobile devices exist together it's easy to confine mobile devices to performance support. But I'm not sure that will always be the case. Mobile Devices Support Shifting Focus from Learning to Teaching Everything designed and developed for mobile devices focused more on the learner, and how they would consume the knowledge, than on the instruction. But how much of your training content is currently created on a mobile device? Probably little to none. I would guess that the development tools you’ve purchased to create today’s mobile learning are mainly for the desktop/laptop. But hardware technology is quickly becoming more powerful and more capable than laptops and desktops. And this extra power is being used to manage the production of content like live video streaming, video capture, voice to text transcription, and so much more. Powerful Creation Tools Enable Everyone as Teachers/Creators For the training industry that not only means content creation, but live instructor presentation as well. Today it’s not the devices themselves that limit this instructional potential, but the connectivity access and reliability. But that will soon be a thing of the past as well. Mobile devices will then make it possible for everyone to become an instructor, or subject matter expert, of something. Much like musicians can now create and distribute music all from one device, those same devices will act as both learning consumption and training creation/presentation tools. But even if connectivity remains an issue, the newest smart phones are powerful multimedia production tools, putting the power of creation into anyone's hands. How Mobile Device Software Innovation Changed the Game In order to support the mobile hardware of the future there will need to be software. What we call cloud computing today will be the computing of the future. If you want a preview into what this will look like just take a look at YouTube and Google Chat, or even apps like Periscope, and blab.im. The YouTube site functions seamlessly across all hardware platforms, software systems, and mobile devices. The experience is beautiful and easy to understand. On the iPhone video from any website or app automatically optimizes to play based on the orientation of your phone. Most of what we call eLearning today cannot do that. Consumers will begin to reject this lack of flexibility and ease of use. But this is an industry problem, not a hardware/software problem. We need to adapt and move forward with the technology. How New Software Impacts Training Google chat (or Hangouts), Periscope, and blab.im all give us a window into the future of devices as live communication tools. Both planned and spontaneous events are supported. Our industry’s legacy of webinar tools is slowly seeing the change and allowing for presenters to deliver via mobile devices. But is it too little too late? I don’t know. But I do know that in the heat of a "lines down" problem, or other expensive business issue, time is money. And being able to discover a solution and present it to multiple people, around the world, quickly and easily will save businesses a lot of money. Mobile live streaming tools like Periscope and blab.im can do this with just a few clicks almost instantly. And they can record it which makes it available as future training content. The aftermath of these discoveries is updates to training, so the issue never happens again. And this needs to occur faster than our current models can handle.  Mobile devices and the new software on them give training departments a new tool in the trainer’s toolbox. The legacy of mobile learning is in devices as learning consumption tools. Today’s reality, and into the future, is software providing a powerful option to the trainer as well. Does Mobile Instructional Design Die or Evolve? Is there a special design model for mobile learning versus traditional eLearning? There shouldn’t be. Maybe right now, today, the two still need to be differentiated. And there are plenty of books to help you do that. But the future holds a different path for training design. Everything mentioned above regarding software and hardware will drive a revolution in training that makes most of what we know as instructional design unnecessary. Questioning The Validity of Instructional Design It’s like the success of Khan Academy. It starts as just one guy sharing his knowledge with his family. Then he realizes that friends and others are finding his tutelage helpful. And you know the rest of that story. There are more subject matter experts like Salman Khan than there are instructional designers to help them design their training content. And when they go it alone, they do just fine providing value to many. If ever there was a time to question the validity of instructional design it was 5 years ago. Employee Empowerment Will Be The New Instructional Design The new instructional design model, thanks to mobile devices, is collaboration and communication. It’s about everyone creating content, connecting, and sharing with others via mobile devices. My kids have laptops, but rarely use them. Everything they do is mobile device enabled. However, I’m not advocating a free-for-all in corporate organizations. There is still a need for specific content to be defined by the business for it to be profitable and free from litigation. And this is not a call for businesses to throw up their hands and leave it all up to the employees. Employees come in as young recruits with an expectation of training, and direction from leadership. But that is only a small piece of what encompasses the learning process of an employee. The rest of what they learn, and teach, is made possible by those outside the training organization because of mobile technologies. The LMS Remains Key to L&D During Transition to Mobile Everything Learning management systems are evolving like all other technologies. But like everything listed above it is more evolution than revolution. And that’s okay. Litmos started the cloud LMS revolution in the late 2000s. From where I was sitting in my career at the time, it seemed to take forever for LMS vendors to move into the cloud. The launch of Litmos LMS renewed my hope in the vendor community. And today it’s evolved into a powerful platform continuing to expand it’s capabilities through development and a marketplace for integration with other applications and systems. The Flexibility of SaaS Based LMS Supports Our Mobile Future The power of a cloud LMS like Litmos is that it doesn’t care who is teaching and who is learning. It simply helps makes the process of organizing, delivering, and tracking, as frictionless as possible. The LMS is a tool to enable the success of anyone wishing to teach or learn. If your LMS is only capable of delivering legacy courses in the SCORM format, then you’re trapped in the past. The new mobile device hardware and software enable motivated employees to control their learning and their teaching. Your LMS should support that. It’s the future. My Closing Thoughts In the future all devices will be mobile. They will be with us where ever we go. We won’t need specialized devices for simply viewing content and engaging with information, artificial bots, and other human beings. In the future all training will be done in simulated environments with an LMS tracking/analyzing performance. Any information we need will be accessible via some sort of ubiquitous hands free technology. It’s hard to imagine what that might be, but it’s coming. Until that time arrives, there is work to be done. You can begin by unbundling your course content. If you have text, images, videos, audio, animations, and interactions all bundled into one giant SCORM file then it’s time to start unbundling. All of that raw content does nobody any good hidden and locked away inside the legacy course model. Cut it loose making the individual parts strong enough to stand on their own. Because in the not so distant future intelligent LMSs will organize the content for each learner based on their individual needs. And that will be based on job performance. Everyone should not be submitted to exactly the same epic long training course bundled in a SCORM package. That was yesterday's legacy, not what you can expect to see in the future. The builders of the internet had the right idea separating content, coding, and design elements. It’s about time the training and development industry joined the party. At the very least you should be considering training solutions and LMSs that support development options outside the standard SCORM package. Litmos can help you navigate into the future. Let me know if you'd like to hear more @Litmos. And if you want to learn a LOT more, then register for our Litmos event at CallidusCloudConnections.com  The post The Future of Mobile Devices, Mobile Software, and Mobile Learning appeared first on Litmos.

Features, spec lists, and comparison matrices… While those can tell you something about a product, they seldom tell the whole story, and they can be downright misleading. In the sense that Mercedes cars, just like Fiat’s, have 1 engine, 4 tires, 2 airbags, and 2 wipers, but your experience with each of those brands will be far from identical. Or take eFrontPro as an example: we have lots of features, including some that the rest of the competition still lacks. But, what we’re really proud of is our legendary ease of use and flexible workflow, something that you cannot put on a spec list. That’s why we’re big on taking our products for a test drive and getting a sense of their power and ease of use for yourself. And our new demo program for eFrontPro allows you to do just that. From our demo site you can create your personal demo account and evaluate eFrontPro for a whole month. Now, if spec lists and features galore are your thing, we’ve got those too. But there’s nothing like a little hands-on experience to show you how a product performs in real life. So take eFrontPro for a test drive today, and see how its best-of-breed design and workflow make deploying your eLearning courses faster and more efficient. Vroom vroom vrooooooom! The post eFrontPro demo: take the Mercedes of the eLearning world for a test-drive appeared first on eFront Blog.

In his famous "Ballad of East and West", the 19th century english poet Rudyard Kipling writes, rather prematurely: "East is East and West is West, and never the twain shall meet". Little did he know that a little over a century later East and West would not only meet frequently and have plenty of cultural exchanges, but also become very good business partners. Or that Asia would be a much coveted marketplace for western business of all sectors, including eLearning. China, the economic miracle of the 21st century with its rising middle class, is a huge potential market for eLearning services, with its overall training market estimated to be worth around RMB300 billion (a little short of $50 billion dollars). Besides its vast population and huge economic growth, there are three important factors that make China an ideal eLearning market: 1) It has a traditional cultural focus on education, which families invest heavily on, for their children’s studies. 2) It has the necessary internet penetration, with an estimated 650 million internet users as of 2014, the majority on DSL lines. 3) It has a long history of private education. eLearning, with its lower costs and easy accessibility, is perfect for the upwardly mobile Chinese middle class households who can’t afford costly private schools or sending their kids abroad. Furthermore, the vast amount of available training subjects that can be had at the learner’s own pace and location, make it perfect for employees looking to expand their skills and improve their hire-ability. Last, but not least, eLearning fits the needs of Chinese business, enterprises and organisations, that need agile and cost effective solutions to train their personnel to new technologies. It’s no surprise then that the online education market quadrupled in China in the last decade, while still having a vast growth potential (considering that eLearning users are less than 10% of the Chinese population). As for Japan, its advanced internet infrastructure, web-savvy population and large middle class also make it a very important market for eLearning. In fact it is estimated that Japan’s eLearning market has been growing by 100% year over year for the last few years. The same phenomenal growth is seen all over SE Asia, whose internet users now represent over 40% of the world’s users. So, we’re excited to report that our CEO and co-founder Dimitris Tsingos, currently concluding his business trip in the region, signed a partnership agreement with Tokyo based Brastel Telecom for the sale of eLearning services to the Japanese market, and another one with Chinese eLearning consulting agency Shanghai 4INS, for the resale and implementation of eFrontPro based solutions for the Chinese market. While eFrontPro has always been an international product, our greatest adoption has been in USA, Europe and the English speaking parts of the world. We’ve very proud of expanding our reach even further, and we look forward to working with our new partners to help bring the Epignosis family of products and services, with their legendary flexibility and ease-of use and our world-class support, to the Asian market. The post West meets East: eFrontPro enters the Asian eLearning market appeared first on eFront Blog.

Contrary to tradition, the majority of the training in healthcare is now available as eLearning. Of course, there will always be courses that need to be facilitated via face-to-face, like CPR, but the rest of the statutory and mandatory training is completed in front of a PC at the learner’s convenience and pace. In this post we will look at 5 tips on how you can boost the compliance figures of an organization, focusing primarily on healthcare. Popularity of LMS The LMS is the car that drives the learners to training success. But not everyone in an organization has yet driven it and those who haven’t rely on the comments of those who have. The smoother it is, the more enjoyable the ride, the better the reviews. The word of mouth is very important when it comes down to the reputation of an LMS. What people have to say about it influences directly all those who haven’t used it. How easy is it to log in? How responsive is it? How fast? How many clicks does it take to launch a course? This is why acquiring an LMS that suits best your organization’s needs is the first step to increase your compliance levels. Engaging courses No matter how many times we point this out, it will never be enough. No one wants to do a course that is not fun, easy and as short as possible. If the content and the interface of a course are not engaging, it is more than certain that the learner will quit. They will exit the course thinking "Nah… maybe some other time". We don’t want that, do we? And we don’t want that because, most of the times, there is no other time. As L&D professionals, we want to keep our learners happy and we can only do that by offering courses that amount to a pleasant break in a busy shift. Protected time and facilities The majority in a healthcare organization are frontline staff who deal with patients and emergencies throughout their shift. Even when there’s no knocking on their door, they are busy filling out paperwork and responding to emails and phone calls. The only time they can actually pause is when they go for their break. So, when is the best time for them to complete a mandatory course? This is an answer only a good manager can give. They need to reassure their staff that they can leave for an hour or two without worrying about the hectic situation they are leaving behind. Having access to IT facilities, where staff can go and find the peace of mind needed to absorb the information of an eLearning course, is absolutely essential. The lack of such facilities is traditionally associated with low compliance. Spirited managers We just mentioned how managers can help their staff to update their outstanding training. They chase up their team’s compliance by reports they run themselves, or by reports they receive on a regular basis, or -very rare!- because they are so organised that set reminders about trainings that are about to fall out of date. No matter what an L&D team may do to increase the organization’s compliance rate, if a manager is not up to speed with keeping their team in date with their training, they will never be. Culture OK. I don’t know whether I should write it in bold or in capital letters, but the culture of eLearning is the most crucial, pivotal and paramount factor in training compliance. If staff frown every time they receive an email from the L&D team, if a manager doesn’t get alerted by his team’s low compliance, if the organization has not invested in a fully functioning LMS or has not provided the facilities required, then it is obvious that there is something fundamentally wrong. Training and eLearning should be considered as an opportunity to grow and develop and not as something that needs to be squeezed in a diary so we can get the L&D team off our back. Conclusion It is not actually difficult to increase the training compliance in a healthcare organization. You just need to take into consideration all the special attributes that can pose a burden. And if things don’t seem to work out, never blame your staff about the low numbers. Revise your strategy and start over. The post How to increase the training compliance rate in a healthcare organization appeared first on eFront Blog.

In this third part of our series of behind-the-scenes posts, we’ll be interviewing Simon Birt, a recent addition to the eFrontPro team, who is in charge of the product’s global business development. Could you please introduce yourself for our readers? My name is Simon Birt, and my background is in technology and business development, and more specifically the application of these into the enterprise space (large and medium-sized businesses). For the past nine years, this has been in the field of Corporate Learning and Development. My role at eFront is to lead the business development of the eFrontPro Learning Management platform throughout the global corporate marketplace. Where would you place eFrontPro in the competitive landscape? eFrontPro is a unique platform because it addresses formal and informal learning needs in an Enterprise Deployment Model (Private Cloud). This makes it attractive to buyers who prefer an option to Software as a Service (SaaS). What do you think are other companies’ shortcomings with regards to how they design and market their LMS platforms? The LMS marketplace is crowded. This is great because buyers have lots of choice, but it is confusing because it is hard to determine which LMS is the best fit. The features that make one LMS a good purchase for one company will not be applicable to all. Among the best LMS options, such as eFrontPro, there are common areas of focus: the blend of formal with informal needs, the ability to integrate easily to Human Capital Management (HCM) and Customer Relationship Management (CRM) systems, the ability to manage mobile content with Responsive Design, and the option to deploy in the Enterprise (Private Cloud). The weaker LMS are not designed with this functionality, and consequently they will struggle to attract large user numbers. So, whilst the LMS marketplace is crowded, once the buyer understands the importance of the aforementioned focus areas, there are fewer realistic choices available. eFrontPro has had some undeniable success in the global market already. How do you plan to take it to the next level? There is a promising future for this platform, as I am convinced that buyers will be searching for an Enterprise (Private Cloud) solution. This is for a few key reasons: the ability to deeply integrate and embed learning into workplace software such as IBM Connections, SAP Jam, Jive-n and Yammer; the need to ensure complete data integrity and security; and the need for a great user experience around learning content delivery, management and reporting. Having said that, we need to dramatically increase our presence in the marketplace by recruiting a large number of partners to drive our business development, in every geography around the world. My primary objective is to attract, meet and sign up as many partner companies as possible to resell and locally support eFrontPro. In addition to this, I will work closely with our very talented team to ensure we have great lead generation, online marketing, and partner business support in place to strengthen our growth. You have a lot of experience in the eLearning industry, both as a professional and also for having (literally) "written the book" about the use of eLearning in the modern enterprise, ‘Learning Unscripted’. What insights can you share with our readers regarding the present and future of this industry? Technology Enhanced Learning is going through a dramatic change. This is being fueled by the redesigning of workplace productivity from email to social networks, our adoption of smartphone and tablet platforms, and our repositioning of services from Enterprise to SaaS (Social, Mobile and Cloud). Our experiences and interactions with technology are becoming more sophisticated and demanding. For the Learning and Development industry, this will be about delivering technology that supports informal and formal learning in one single, personalized and social environment in the short term. Further out, we will see the emergence of adaptive ‘smart’ learning platforms that are deeply integrated into our workplace infrastructure. On another level, there will be a tremendous take-up of SaaS-based learning platforms that are needed to deliver content with little management, maintenance and integration. I believe that this area will have tremendous growth in the EdTech Universities and Schools market. How do you like working for eFront thus far? Anything particularly rewarding or challenging regarding your new role? I have been working here for one month. In that time I have been impressed by the passion, commitment and talent of the people I have met. It is particularly noteworthy that the company lives and breathes the new way of doing business e.g. delivering great software using a predominantly internet-based business model. Without over-extending itself, I believe the company is well positioned for the next phase of business development. This is essentially a break-out from the virtual to the physical marketplace; in other words, getting large numbers of partner salespeople into customers on our behalf. This is a challenge to execute well, and I am really excited by this opportunity. Do you have a concrete roadmap of where you want the platform to be in 2 or even 5 years? Yes. This is something we have been formulating with the company leadership over the past three weeks. eFrontPro is already a strong LMS for those businesses that wish to deploy it within their enterprise as a stand-alone or lightly-integrated eLearning platform. However, in line with my comments earlier, I would like to see eFrontPro become deeply integrated to the user workplace of today and tomorrow. I would also expect the platform to become more adaptive and ‘smart’, in the sense of being able to capture learner interaction and behavior to deliver a more personalized and effective learning experience. Anything else you’d like to add? The only thing we haven’t mentioned is our search for enterprising learning companies to join us on this journey to growth. I’m very interested in talking with any company working in Learning and Development, HCM, or in the wider area of Social Software deployment about becoming partners with us. We have a tremendous value proposition for the right partners in these areas, and I’d like to hear from any who would like to learn more about partnering with us. Furthermore, we have four other categories for our partners outside of the one I just mentioned. I am also keen to add partnerships with companies around eLearning and other learning content, marketing opportunities for eFrontPro, and technology. This is a great moment to be in the business of learning technology and, together with our partners, I’m sure we’ll continue to be at the forefront. Thank you. The post Meet the Team Part 3: Simon Birt, VP of Global Business Development appeared first on eFront Blog.

"We believe that learning can become better through technology, and we work hard to prove it. Our main product, eFrontPro, is a new type of learning tool that emphasizes the user experience without compromising functionality." - eFront Our intent at eFront is to deliver leading learning technology to our customers, and to remain at the forefront of learning platform research and development. In a market of hundreds of vendors, it is hard to maintain a position at the top, but that is our goal. Central to the achievement of this ambition is the delivery of the latest software to support learning needs as they evolve. Our key focus is the corporate learner. Professional learning and development have unique challenges that schools and universities do not have - and vice versa. A learning platform for one is not necessarily suitable for the other, except in a most generic way. eFrontPro is a new and rewritten evolution of our original open source LMS, eFront. The user experience has been completely reshaped. It is now more attractive and easier to use. There are some great new features such as informal content creation from web-based content, which can be quickly combined with a test if desired. Another excellent feature is the responsive design which allows your content to be displayed accurately to users regardless of the platform (PC, Smartphone or Tablet). This fully serves the growing requirement for Mobile Learning, which is becoming central to any learning content-delivery strategy. Another feature worth mentioning is that eFrontPro is a private cloud LMS. This means that it can be deeply integrated and extended across other software platforms within the organization, such as social workplaces, to embed the learning content directly into the user environment. When this feature is leveraged, it becomes possible to deliver personalized learning environments based on user choices. In short, eFrontPro is a modern LMS - it combines all the power of a formal eLearning platform with the additional functionality of an informal, workplace learning software solution. Not surprisingly, eFrontpro is becoming a fast favorite for corporate buyers today. Whether starting out with a learning platform for the first time or replacing an older, less-functional system, LMS buyers are opting for the flexibility and power of eFrontPro. As a result of this rapid success, we at eFront find ourselves in need of Partners to serve the market demand. And that is the point of this blog post. We are looking for new Value Added Resellers to serve our global market. The global LMS market is forecast for substantial growth in the next few years and is already a multi-billion-dollar market. The most successful LMS vendors will be those like eFront who continually deliver functionality for formal and informal learning and knowledge sharing. If you are a learning solutions provider considering the addition of an LMS option to your portfolio, or if you are doing a review of your current products and would like to see what we have, please contact us today for an initial discussion. You won’t be disappointed in our value proposition or our business support, and you will be delighted with our commitment to making you successful. Want to learn more about partnering with us? Simon Birt is VP Global Business Development for eFrontPro at Epignosis LLC. He is an experienced business developer in the learning and development software market, specifically in helping resellers increase their revenues across the world. He is the author of ‘Learning Unscripted: Conversations and Presentation with Learning Leaders‘. The post The LMS Partner Search appeared first on eFront Blog.

When we design courses, we inadvertently borrow many learning strategies from the K-12 classroom setting. Add to it the layers of andragogy (the science of teaching adults) and you have a well-rounded course. Whether or not you are confident about including these learning strategies, go through this article. We will jog your memory and demonstrate how these scenarios play out and improve in the eLearning environment. Workbook Drill and practice activities are given in workbooks. Young learners are given structured material to help them master a concept. The level of the activities gets increasingly challenging, but remains within the scope of the subject. The main purpose of the workbook is to practice through reinforcement exercises. You are doing this in a kinesthetic way; you fill in the blanks, draw, erase, cut and paste, place stickers, etc. It is fun and educational at the same time. Consider these tips to transfer workbook exercises into the eLearning environment: Create an eLearning course mainly based on exercises. This could be highly interactive using the quiz feature of your LMS. Colourful drag and drop and rearranging exercises are attractive and stimulating to the learner. Build an easy-to-difficult practicing path based on competency and skills. Use interactive scenarios that are work-context based. Make it an enthralling experience in terms of visuals and sounds. You can never go wrong with the print option. Allow learners to print exercises and notes. We still love scribbling away with a pencil! Provide immediate feedback as a self-evaluation tool so that they can gauge their success. Field Trip We’ve all been to those eye-opening field trips we took back in the day to a museum or historical sites, castles and battlegrounds. How about those horticulture visits where we experienced rain forests and other biospheres? Aren’t they still vivid in our memories and most concepts related to them are still pretty recallable? This is a classic multisensory learning experience that brings together social learning (learning with and from peers), storytelling (by a guide or a teacher), and by-the-way learning. Do you remember writing reflections regarding your findings, and using them for further learning activities? Such field trips break the mundane routine into a creative and energetic time for learning new material! So how do we bring field trips in our eLearning environment? Develop a route for a virtual tour around the web for a project. Good examples in virtual field trips include: Customer service call center for placing an online order for pizza. Reflect on the online purchase experience. Request your eLearners to undergo an experience based on their course, for example talk to a product manager about the company’s latest product. Then ask them to comment and reflect on their observations based on structured criteria. Require your eLearners to share their reflections with peers and supervisors through the course. Repetition According to Hermann Ebbinghaus’ Forgetting Curve theory, all people have to repeat in order to remember things and routines. If we do not repeat newly learned formulas or definitions, we may forget it within 24 hours of learning. Repetitions are done through introducing similar scenarios with same problems requiring the use of newly learned solutions. How do we integrate the repetition concept in our eLearning courses? Present booster quizzes between sections of your eLearning course after the section is completed and before a new section begins. Throughout the eLearning course, repeat the critical information: Tell stories, summarize, provide exercises and quizzes. Towards the end, administer a comprehensive test to ensure recall of the course objectives related information. Follow up with your eLearners through an email a month or so after they complete the course, with critical information from the course. As a rule of thumb, always provide multiple formats for assignment presentation and learning resources - let them print out cheatsheets, checklists, visuals, mindmaps, etc. Note taking Haven’t we all, at some point during our earlier school or high school education, taken notes? Note taking is the most popular form of active or kinesthetic learning. We listen to lectures and presentations and want to scribble important data that will be deciphered later. This technique encourages us to rewrite the lecture by paraphrasing it, arranging it in our own structure, or connecting it with our own experiences. Various forms of note taking such as stand alone texts, notes on a margin of the publication and highlighting text, reinforce memory. Pictograms and other visuals placed close to text also help us understand the material better. So how can we stimulate note taking in our eLearning course? Enable the note taking option in your LMS. Provide freebie tools like mindmapping, pictogram making, visual note taking or speech input apps to your learners to encourage this technique in your eLearning courses. Summarize all sections towards their end and provide a print option for highlighting and other note taking activities for your learners. Create paragraphs of content and ask learners to fill in the missing areas. Ask eLearners to summarize important points and email it to their trainer, manager, or mentor. Basic learning methods can easily be integrated in your next eLearning course using these ideas. Collaborate with the course mentor, the training manager and the learner to create more activities related to the basic learning methods. Do tell us about your own experiences related to converting basic learning methods to eLearning activities. The post The 4 Basic Methods of transforming Learning into eLearning appeared first on eFront Blog.

The best way to look like a fool is to attempt to predict the future. Like those well respected analysts back in the fifties, who said that by 2000 we will all have personal robot assistants and flying cars. That doesn’t mean that predicting the future is impossible ― just hard. Besides, 50 years is probably a few decades too many. In this post we’ll attempt to predict how eLearning will be in 10 years, a much more constrained and manageable task, not to mention far more useful for your business planning. The general shape of eLearning in 2025 Remember going from 1980 to 1990, 1990 to 2000, 2000 to 2010? Things changed, but not that much. Some trends run their course and some fashions began to look slightly ridiculous but not entirely. In general we mostly had more of the same, but better, with a few slices of "new" thrown in for good measure. Even in the fast paced IT industry, the change was somewhat predictable. The only exception was the emergence of the web, circa 1994, that took over the world around 1999. But that’s a "black swan", a rare event that’s difficult to predict. The development of eLearning in the next 10 years will be more of the same. Some existing smaller trends will see growth, some older trends will decline, and a few new trends will emerge in the process (but will still be undeveloped by 2025). There might be a new "black swan" or (more likely) there won’t be any. In any case we won’t go into that. So what will eLearning be like in 2025? Mobile learning, MOOCs, Gamification, Instructor-Led Training and Social Learning will dominate. Virtual technologies and wearables will have their small niche, but nothing to write home about. Oh, and eLearning will be bigger than the traditional learning industry, and inseparable from it. Mobile Learning Mobile learning, or mLearning for short, will be the dominant mode of eLearning content consumption. Already, surveys show that Americans rely more on their smartphones (and tablets) to access the web than on their PCs. This trend will only accelerate as smartphones get more powerful, 4G (and 5G) connections get more accessible and widespread, and tablets turn into a hybrid tablet/PC fusion that’s good enough for people to use as their main computer (e.g. attached to a monitor and keyboard when on their desk). Then there are developing countries, were there are enormous populations without PCs, but with ever more capable mobile phones, and with a huge demand for education and professional training. MOOCs MOOCs (short for Massive Online Open Courses) is a trend on the rise, with most top profile universities investing in this area (and countless other educational institutions, either traditional or online only). MOOCs allow for thousands of people to take the same course from the same institution (and indeed tens or even hundreds of thousands of students are enrolling simultaneously for courses in the most popular ones, such as MIT’s and Stanford’s). Those MOOCs now tout their open free access to students, but we are already starting to see it being complimented with paid-for MOOC-based tuition. Georgia Tech, for example, began offering a completely MOOC-based master’s degree in computer science. While free MOOCs wont go away (they would grow and be the first tier to a multi-level offering by large educational institutions), monetization of MOOCs is inevitable, and is estimated to create a multi-billion dollar market of accessible degrees. Gamification If a boring class is an ineffective class, then traditional education was always boring. eLearning fixes some of the issues with that — heck, even not having to sit down in a classroom for hours listening to a professor’s hypnotic delivery is a big improvement, but anything to make training even more fun is always welcome. Gamification does just that, so it’s no wonder that it caught on like wildfire in the past few years, or that it’s poised to grow much more in the future. Gamification brings a sense of challenge and competition to learning, far beyond having students fighting for the better grade. By leveraging gaming themes and insights from cognitive psychology, gamification adds interaction, strategy building and immediate feedback to the learning process. These elements increase not just engagement but also knowledge retention. In the future, gamification will be the expected and dominant way of delivering learning material, with eLearning courses looking more like video games than books or websites. This will not be limited to kids training either; even corporate training will include gamification elements. Short-term prediction That concludes our first part of our attempt to glimpse into the future of eLearning. I predict that there will be a new post here next week, covering the future of Instructor-Led Training, Social Learning and Virtual Reality based training. Stay tuned and drive your flying cars carefully. The post The future of eLearning: part 1 appeared first on eFront Blog.

Organizations complain about the lack of the right human resources and training tools. Why? They do not see the expected results in performance. We hear too many companies complain of a gap between training and performance. They seem to have the required talent, the relevant knowledge, the needed tools and even the desired experience, yet they are unable to reach the company goals. Extant research blames these failures on one element alone: lack of knowledge management. In this article, we present thirteen ways in which you can use your learning management system to manage your organization’s knowledge. Let’s examine each of these knowledge management related complaints and prescribe a feature of your learning management system for appropriate correction: 1. Lack of performance indicators and measurable benefits Training managers and organization strategic planners can combine forces to create key performance indicators (KPIs). Each of these performance indicators need to be measureable. For example, 60 software sales per week, 35 memberships sold per quarter, 150 hardware assembly per month and so on. Measurable goals need to be assigned in the learning management system. This involves the entire organization in the goal making and goal achievement process. Don’t forget to announce incentives to motivate employees as periodic notifications: win a trip to Thailand with your family if your team achieves this KPI, for example. 2. Inadequate management support Manager involvement is the key to improve performance through training. In fact, managers are responsible for measuring the current KPI of a given goal. Have managers check on employee performance a week after completing an eLearning training. Any improvement can predict the achievement of the KPI. Have managers create a space in the learning management system in which they recognize and encourage rising performers! 3. Improper planning, design, coordination, and evaluation Your LMS is an excellent tool to establish a practice for each department in your organization. By providing access privileges according to the role of an employee, you can provide more control to key players in the organization. These key players can plan and coordinate tasks more efficiently. Using project management metrics in your LMS, you can gauge project progress and update everyone involved easily. 4. Inadequate LMS skill of knowledge managers Train knowledge managers on using all functionalities and potential of your learning management system. Mandate the use of this system for all employees. 5. Problems with organizational culture Create easy to read or just-in-time flyers that help technology-averse employees learn the basics of how to use the LMS. Encourage casual chatting, both live and online. Also, encourage employees to write a reflections log (or record their video) to share their performance experiences with everyone. Sharing is caring! 6. Improper organizational structure Use the organizational hierarchy chart to create access privileges to the learning management system. Managers and senior managers can see activities of employees. This will enable them to gauge progress towards KPIs. 7. Lack of widespread contribution Create a space in the LMS that recognizes outstanding performance. Shoot a video in which they explain their breakthrough experience with everyone. Conduct live chat sessions between employees and experts. Create experience documents for common problems and archive them in the LMS for common use and reference. 8. Lack of relevance, quality and usability Many times organizations promote irrelevant training. This training seems to be the hype, but it only ends up wasting time and human resources. A clear description of the KPI helps all members of the LMS stay on track. 9. Overemphasis on formal learning, systematization and determinant needs Sometimes problems can be fixed referencing previous materials and talking to experts instead of extensive training. Determine true training topics for the next eLearning course based on consensus and manager recommendation. 10. Improper implementation of technology Your LMS is the best place to announce the use and training of a new technology that improves the performance of your employees. Productivity improving technology is very common these days. You can create a quick course using screenshots and images to guide employees on the use and benefits of new technology. Request new technology users to share their experience with all members of the LMS. 11. Improper budgeting and excessive costs Concrete KPI planning and implementation strategy using the LMS will help reduce costs and improve ROI. 12. Lack of responsibility and ownership Assign responsibility for different tasks to deserving employees using gamification badges. This will not only create a sense of ownership towards the project for the employee, it will also improve their performance review. 13. Loss of knowledge from staff retirement Loss of staff or retirement of a senior employee leads to an organizational "brain drain". Mandate a two month notice before leaving and during these two months allocate training sessions for the employees who are leaving. These employees will train the successors of their positions. Dedicate a special knowledge retention section in your LMS that deals with such eLearning sessions. Good luck! Your LMS is not only meant for eLearning courses. It is also a space where groups and teams meet for exchanging novel ideas. This is only possible if you develop the skill to mentor activities in your LMS. We hope this article will help you become a better mentor for your LMS. The post 13 Ways to Use Your LMS as a Knowledge Development Tool appeared first on eFront Blog.

Managers are crucial drivers for learning success within an organization. Ever heard of the expression "learning organizations"? Well, managers are behind such organizations. Constant learning leads to innovation. Unfortunately, managers are also too busy in their daily activities to offer the desired support to their teams. This counts double when teams are in training mode. Managers are enablers of learning. Senior management needs to support front line managers to support their learning teams. This practice is crucial to adopting new technologies, changes in business, improving performance and yielding better business results. In this article, we will reveal the best practices of leading organizations in supporting their line managers that can lead to inevitable success! 1. Create Learning Programs With Managers Make sure your line managers are involved in the learning solution design stage of your eLearning course development. This initiates their engagement, their responsibility to implement learning, add real challenges in the training and create new ideas in the learning solutions. 2. Combine learning with existing performance context Link learning solutions directly with the problems presented by the line manager. Avoid creating isolated solutions that do not include job related issues of your learners. 3. Relevant eLearning only Make sure that your eLearning solution is relevant to current jobs and directly supports important work initiatives (leadership, sales, new systems and processes). 4. Apply eLearning Your eLearning solution should redirect learning to application. Monitor progress closely by: Supporting coaching skills and peer group sessions. Providing learning aids that reinforce eLearning concepts at the desk, for example checklists, workflows, job-aids etc. Building online learning communities through forums or in-house social networking. Mentoring a culture of intellectual conversations in online chats. Involving learners immediately into projects that require them to apply their new skills. 5. Receive feedback from learners Encourage peer to peer communication about learning and performance improvements. Share these between managers as well as learners. 6. Empower Managers through model experiences Finally, the best way to teach leadership to managers is to model it. Help managers become better leaders! Watch how more and more learners benefit from their managers and develop better relationships with each other. A well supported learning experience goes a long way! The post 6 Ways to Help Managers Support eLearners appeared first on eFront Blog.