In the first article, we explored the most common pitfalls that we’ve found eFrontPro users face. We also offered a few quick workarounds that can make your courses pop! In this episode, we’ll dive deeper into what makes a well developed and appropriately delivered course succeed its goals, your goals. With no further ado… 5. Don’t rely on one learning strategy Think carefully about what you’re asking your learners to do. Reading text, text and more text isn’t usually the best way to get people to learn. Clicking "Next" after every screenful isn’t enormously motivating. Different people learn in different ways - some like reading, others like listening, quite a few find images or video more helpful. Many are more engaged by having to do something, to make decisions or choices and learn from the consequences. Some like to learn the theory first, but many more prefer to learn by trial and error. To follow only a text-based learning strategy, and to assume that everyone will achieve their learning goals in this way is a recipe for boredom. 6. Don’t overlook the importance of clear design Today’s eLearning authoring tools are great at allowing you to incorporate all kinds of graphic design elements into your course, but unfortunately, they don’t exercise any kind of quality control. Designing a course often seems to be a matter of starting from a blank screen, or accepting one of the default templates on offer, which are probably nice, but might not suit your content. There are several different issues involved here. Some element of consistency, provided by templates, themes and master slides is important, but it shouldn’t be so uniform as to be stultifying. Maybe experiment with different colors for different topics, or different placement of images on the screen. Clear, consistent design rules let learners know where they are in the course, and help to promote effective learning. 7. Don’t assume everyone is using a Windows PC A few years ago, eLearning designed for an 800 x 600 laptop screen would look OK to most users. Not any more. Although a lot of corporate clients will still insist on all learning taking place in work time on standard PCs, more and more users will either have much larger screens, or much smaller screens (tablets and phones). And with some organizations experimenting with BYOD (bring your own device) policies, your eLearning needs to look good in a much wider variety of sizes. Fortunately, most authoring software can cope with this - but it takes a bit more design work. 8. Don’t rely on boring imagery All too often, good course design is let down by unimaginative use of clip art or stock photos. Groups of fresh-faced young executives gathered around blank laptop screens with exaggerated smiles may be appropriate for some types of learning, but probably not that many. Ideally, you’d have photos and video specially commissioned for each new course, or graphics created by a skilled artist, but most of us have to settle for less. All is not lost however - vintage photographs, striking images, or unusual camera angles can transform otherwise dull subject matter, and attaching a moving path to an image (sometimes known as the Ken Burns effect) can often be more effective than video. Don’t settle for the mundane and familiar. If your learners have seen it before, it’s unlikely to help them remember what you’re trying to teach them. 9. Don’t overlook the LMS When the course is more or less complete, you’ll probably start thinking about how you’re going to host it, and whether it’s going to be compatible with the company’s Learning Management System. Wrong! This should have been part of the planning process from the beginning. Conventional LMSs that rely on SCORM can only really track success or failure on assessments, the number of screens viewed and the time spent on a course. If you have to track other things, you’ll need to find imaginative ways of using advanced features within your course authoring tool to set variables, and perform a few calculations. Most things are doable, but not at the last minute! 10. Don’t forget about assessment and evaluation Finally, the course is ready to roll, and managers are going to want to know if it’s doing the job it was intended for. Are learners learning? Are the relevant business metrics moving in the right direction? To answer these questions, you’ll need to address issues of assessment and evaluation. Formative assessment (within the course) and summative assessment (at the end) may help, but to really assess the return on investment, you’ll need to think about evaluation strategies that track learners long after they’ve completed the course. All too often, eLearning courses are regarded as cheap and cheerful interventions that allow learners to pick up what they need to know and then move on. However, as you now realize, there’s a bit more to it than that! The post 10 Common mistakes when developing and delivering an eLearning course: Part 2 appeared first on eFront Blog.

If there was ever an ideal fit for eLearning that would be the military. After all, it’s one of the biggest employers in any given country, with lots of distributed departments, offices and bases, a constant need for training and re-training its people, and puts an emphasis on standardization. It’s not just about teaching recruits how to march and how to fight either. Any modern military has to train its people in all kinds of skills to support its multi-faceted operations, from cooking and first-aid to electrical engineering and foreign languages. An LMS, such as eFrontPro, possesses all the right kind of features for military use: - It’s massively scalable. It can handle from a small platoon to a whole army division, and all from a single installation. - It can be deployed quickly. You can be over with installation and configuration in under an hour, and all that’s left is to add your training material. - It can be re-deployed at will, for different army units, or with different courses for the same users, whenever the need arises. It saves you time and effort by making it easy to re-use existing material, or adapt it to cover new training needs. - It’s cost effective. While the military in general might have a huge operating budget that’s not always the case for all individual training camps. When you need to do the most with little, eLearning trumps traditional classroom based education every single time. - It’s flexible. The fact that we put the foremost emphasis in ease of use and intuitiveness doesn’t mean that we skimp on features. eFrontPro supports all common (and plenty of uncommon) file formats, can import multimedia files (audio, video, etc), provides interactive quizzes, tons of categorization options for your users and content, instructor-led training and gamification support, and, last but not least, detailed reporting. - It’s interoperable. eFrontPro can talk to all major Single Sign On protocols (LDAP, AD, SAML, Facebook, etc), can leverage the WebEx and BBB teleconference tools, can integrate the OpenSesame eLearning content marketplace, and has a PHP-based plugin API as well as a REST API that can be used to create custom integrations with any third party tool or service. Here are a few major use cases for an LMS like eFrontPro in the military: Orientation With the constant onboarding of new recruits, officer cadets and support personnel, the army will always have a need for orientation courses to introduce rookies to their new environment and give them the basic information they need to be productive fast - stuff such as basic operating procedures, policies, restrictions and guidelines. eFrontPro lets army instructors organize orientation material in lesson units, add video and audio, and include any third party content needed (from Wikipedia to YouTube). Training The military is first and foremost a huge educational institution, training its people not just in the "art of war", but in all kinds of skills, from the conventional (cooking, driving, first-aid) to the more specialized (engineering, martial arts, foreign languages, etc). With eLearning you can handle these training needs in a quick and cost-effective manner, while allowing students to learn at their own pace (after all time is of the essence, not only during the physically demanding training period but, and even more so, when deployed in the front lines). eLearning also makes sense from a logistics perspective: it lets create and continuously update all your training material without costly textbooks and wasted paper, and share courses between different departments, bases and camps, anywhere in the world. There’s also the flexibility to choose whether to run all of your eLearning from a central location (for complete control), or use a dedicated LMS instance for each camp. Whether for onboarding or training, eFrontPro also provides a comprehensive statistics and reporting system that gives superiors quantifiable information and statistics for trainee performance, progress and understanding of the material. Conclusion With its emphasis in speed and ease of use, and thousands of satisfied customers (including several multinational companies and organizations in both the private and public sectors), eFrontPro is a great and battle-proven (pun intended) choice for military training. Take it for a test drive today and see for yourself. Our sales and support teams will be happy to answer any question you might have. The post eLearning for the military with eFrontPro appeared first on eFront Blog.

When adults join a training program, they bring with them two elements: they have varying levels of knowledge and they learn at varying paces. Competency-based training programs recognize these differences and match the training with the learner. Unlike the content-based training, competency-based training programs focus on the trainer. This enables learners to move through topics on an as-needed basis. It also means that the adult learners can progress through the training program quickly, without spending time on material they are already familiar with. They can focus on new content longer. Competency-based training saves time and money for you as a training manager. The basic feature of any competency-based training is that it measures learning that occurs in a training program, rather than time. Simply put, your employees would progress through training based on their skills and competencies regardless of the time needed to complete the course. Compare this with the "seat time" needed to complete a traditional course. In many cases, especially with experienced employees, traditional training is more detrimental than useful in terms of performance. So, what you are doing here is holding the learning outcome constant while letting the time vary. This is the true essence of adult learning. A great recipe for training success. Implemented effectively, competency-based education can improve quality and consistency, reduce costs, shorten the time required to complete, and provide you with true measures of employee learning. So how can you implement a competency-based training program? Follow these four basic rules: 1. Measure employee learning rather than time Why would you want to measure the time taken to complete a training program anyway? Your focus should be the learning achieved in the course and the rate of transfer to the performance context. Allow the flexibility to move through training based on the skills of your learner. This means enabling learners to tackle chapters and exercises in any order they desire. Also, have a grading scheme that measures the quality of online community submissions. If learners respond to each other’s help questions, make them leaders in their area. This gives their peers the idea of exemplary behavior and performance. 2. Harness the power of technology for teaching and learning A typical feature of competency-based trainings is that they are computer mediated. They could be online on a learning management system or standalone. Educational technology provides the desired flexibility to modify the training according to the learners. Technology fulfills the learning measurement requirement of the competency-based program. Have the learners submit their assignments using a variety of educational technology tools. Create links to tutorials or create short tutorials that teach learners how to use a tool to develop an assignment. A simple example is the use of Prezi or Powtoon instead of the usual Power Point tool. In the same way, use Facebook or Twitter to communicate with your learners by creating dedicated course pages in these social media applications. In short, try to re-create the real-world work environment scene through productivity-enhancing technology. 3. Shift the focus from the Trainer to the Trainee When trainers become talking heads, holding scheduled training sessions for a pre-determined time, the instruction takes place at the trainers’ pace. For most trainees, this will be the wrong pace. Some will need to go more slowly; others will be able to move much faster. Competency-based learning shifts the role of the trainer from that of "a sage on the stage" to a "guide on the side." Trainers become the mentors who redirect conversations to synthesize and transfer knowledge according to the work context of the learners. This is one of the biggest benefits of an eLearning course. Learning is more focused on the learner than the trainer. This means that the course dynamics will change with each batch of learners based on their unique needs, experiences and goals. 4. Align competencies with assessments Competencies or performance objectives define the performance in your organization. They enable you, the manager to evaluate your employees based on the performance criteria. Align these competencies directly with the organization’s performance requirements. Then, create practice opportunities in the training environment. These are assessments that will gauge the learning progress. Involve experts in this stage and have the line managers assess the learners during the training program so that improvements can be reinforced. For example, if you have a low-score assessment result, you can increase reinforcement activities to improve competency achievement. This strategy saves time and creates a true competency-based training program. Creating a competency-based mainstream training program is not as challenging as it seems. Good luck. Do share your experiences with us! The post 4 Ways to Implement a Competency Based Training Program appeared first on eFront Blog.

We’ve built eFrontPro from scratch with a revamped architecture and the latest web technologies to showcase our vision for how a modern eLearning platform should be. Now, after eFrontPro has proved itself in the market as a worthy successor to our first generation eFront LMS, and with the latter finally getting the EOL treatment, we’re stepping up our game with new releases delivering even more performance and polish and exciting new functionality. In fact, the first of these new versions has just landed, bringing along two great new features: the Site Builder and the Gamification engine. As both features are quite extensive in their capabilities, we’ll decided to break down their introduction in two separate posts. First we’re gonna have a look at the Site Builder — what it is and how you can leverage it to build great looking web pages from inside eFrontPro. As for the the Gamification engine, stay tuned, for we’ll be covering that in a follow up post. Let’s get site building Managing and displaying eLearning content is the first and foremost duty of an LMS, but it’s hardly enough. As most people who’ve ever run an eLearning portal discovered, you often need to display custom content and messages to your users or the internet viewers at large. eFrontPro has long catered to that need by letting you create content "Blocks", and use them to assemble a customized homepage for your eLearning portal (kind of like Legos for your content). While that covers a lot of use cases, it’s hardly the most flexible implementation possible. To give you even more freedom, starting from this release, we’ve extended on the blocks functionality by introducing Pages. This means that you’re not restricted to customizing your homepage, but you can create a full, beautiful and extensive web-presence solely with eFrontPro and without having to pair it with another CMS like WordPress or Drupal (though, of course, you can always do that too, if you want). The all-new Site Builder lets you extend your eLearning portal with additional pages like an "About Us" or "Contact" page, add promoted courses on the main landing page, implemented your own FAQ section, etc. And the best thing is that, since the Site Builder extends upon the Blocks functionality, if you’re familiar with those then you already know how to use it. The Site Builder even lets you re-use your blocks between pages by simple dragging-and-dropping them on the pages you want. This allows you, for example, to have a "Register Now!" block in all of your pages or have a banner displayed on some specific pages. And if you don’t know where to start from, eFrontPro includes a couple of built-in Blocks with specialized functionality (namely a "Contact Us" block and a "Promoted Courses" block — we’ll keep adding to that list in upcoming updates) to help you begin building awesome looking websites straight away. Can’t wait? The latest eFrontPro update is available immediately to all registered users. Get it while it’s hot, and be the first to play with the new features. If you’re not an eFrontPro user yet, but would like to know more about the platform, email us or take it for a ride for free and join the eLearning revolution with the best LMS in the industry. The post Site Builder on eFrontPro 4.3: A familiar, brand new feature! appeared first on eFront Blog.

Gamification is not all fun and games. Or rather it is, but it’s also a serious business feature that can increase engagement, learner retention and course completion rates, translating to happy users and a nice, big, return of investment. In this post we’ll have a look at the all new Gamification engine landing in the latest eFrontPro, and how you can use it to make your eLearning courses more fun and instill a sense of competitiveness and community to your learners. Game on Gamification, along with mobile learning and micro-learning have been the three strongest eLearning trends in the last couple of years. In fact, gamification has taken not just eLearning but the whole software world by storm, from social media sites to enterprise portals. While the possibilities for gamification are endless, there are a few market-proven, reliable and intuitive techniques that have been routinely employed to "gamify" web applications — and for eFrontPro we’ve chosen to implement exactly those, namely Points, Badges, Levels and Leaderboards. With our new Gamification engine, you can now mix-and-match among all of those options to tailor the gamification experience to your needs and your audience. Let’s go through the basic options on offer: Points Points in eFrontPro are the equivalent of "keeping score" in a game. A user’s total points are shown on the user’s homepage header, while any new points being awarded are briefly displayed in a non-intrusive message. eFrontPro lets you configure when points are to be awarded (for example, when a user completes a course, for each login to the LMS, etc.). The whole scheme might sound simple, but there’s nothing like a subtle touch of gamification to ignite the competitive spirit in your learners. Badges Badges are the equivalent of real world badges (or "medals"). They are visual stamps (images), that are unlocked for certain achievements, and are displayed in the user’s homepage header and profile info. eFrontPro implements a badging system that makes acquiring badges easy in the early stages (e.g after a few logins, or on course completion), and increasingly difficult as the user progresses (e.g after getting a certificate, after getting a perfect grade on a test, etc). This helps to get users hooked in collecting badges (initially) and maintain their interest (in later stages). Levels Levels are a hierarchy that the user can move up on (like getting a promotion at work, or moving up to the next grade at school). All users start on Level 1, and eFrontPro lets you define when a user should get to the next level (for example every X points, every Y completed courses, every Z badges, etc.). Leaderboards Leaderboards are eFrontPro’s "high score" list, showing your user’s ranking under several metrics (points awarded, badges earned, number of certifications, etc). Leaderboards always mention the best user for the selected metric, as well as several students directly above and below the current user. This gives the user a good overview of his or her overall position. Engine on eFrontPro’s Gamification engine allows you to select and modify all available gamification options, and fine-tune them according to what you’re trying to achieve. For example you can choose whether to use points and badges or not (and, for the latter, customize their appearance), or opt to incentivize users to login more frequently by awarding them more points per login. Ready to play? The latest eFrontPro update containing the Gamification engine (as well as other niceties, like our new Site Builder) is available immediately to all registered users. If you’re not an eFrontPro user yet, you’re seriously missing out. Contact our sales or support stuff or take eFrontPro for a ride for 7 days for free and join the eLearning revolution with the best LMS in the industry. The post Playing with eFrontPro’s 4.3 Gamification Engine appeared first on eFront Blog.

Where would we be without aviation? In far fewer places, and we’d get there much slower, that’s for sure. There would be no mass tourism industry, a much hampered global trade, and, one would imagine, no duty free shops. Fortunately, the Wright brothers averted this dystopian future, and aviation is now a $800 billion industry (according to IATA figures). It’s a challenging and complicated industry, with lots of specialties and supporting roles that have to work well together — from pilots, control towers and mechanics to boarding desks and airport management. It’s also a highly regulated industry (which makes sense, considering the risks involved), with IATA, government, airport and airline regulations filling sky-high stacks of volumes and being actively updated. And whether for pilots (for which annual re-examinations are required by law) or for something like an airline’s support desk, the training needs in aviation are a constant. All the above (plus a few more, like the crazy schedules for everybody involved) make eLearning a great fit for the aviation industry. While certain details change, most of the use cases for eLearning in aviation are not that different from any other business. Employee orientation Employee orientation is the task of introducing new hires to your working environment and giving them the basic information they need so they can be productive fast, including your company’s operating procedures and policies, restrictions and guidelines. Airlines and airports hire new people frequently, so automating employee orientation with eLearning software, such as the eFrontPro learning management system (LMS) is one of the best investments. eFrontPro lets instructors organize orientation material in accessible units, add video, audio, images, PDFs, PowerPoint presentations etc., and include third party content (YouTube, Wikipedia, blog posts, etc). It also includes tests, quizzes, automated grading and detailed statistics designed to help instructors and managers assess the training progress. What’s more, in a litigation heavy industry such as aviation, with lawsuits covering anything from traveler treatment and lost luggage to delayed flights and more, eFrontPro’s tracking of training attendance can serve as proof that an organization or business has informed its employees about company policy, sexual harassment laws, etc., in case of legal dispute (of course, as law differs around the world, consult your legal team before relying on this). Training Aviation industry’s rules change frequently and employees are often re-assigned to handle different posts, departments or destinations, and, as we discussed before there are always new hires (including temporary hires for the holiday seasons). eLearning makes handling these training needs easy and cost effective, something important as aviation, while a huge industry revenue wise, often has margins as low as 4%. It also enables you to train your employees at their own pace, without business disruptions which cannot easily be afforded in the fast paced world of commercial flights. And if your training material changes frequently (new IATA rules, new airport guidelines, new operating procedures, etc.) an eLearning based solution helps there too, as it lets you update all your courses without costly textbooks and wasted paper, re-use and expand content, and share courses between different departments and airports, anywhere in the world. You also get the flexibility to choose whether to run all of them from a central location for complete control, or install dedicated platforms in each branch. And with eFrontPro’s integration with content markets such as OpenSesame, you can even buy ready-made professional grade courses in thousands of topics. Last, but not least, eFrontPro provides a comprehensive reporting system that gives you quantifiable information and statistics for your employees’ attendance, progress and understanding of the material. Knowledge retention All businesses have a few employees whose experience is crucial for their day to day operation, or for handling some special crisis scenarios that occur once in a while. Ideally, this shouldn’t be the case, and with eFrontPro it doesn’t have to be. An eLearning solution will help you store this valuable information in a formalized and easily accessible way that can be consulted from existing employees and taught to new hires. Adding that knowledge in an eLearning platform (as opposed to some document management system, or worse, some Word files), makes it immediately usable as training courses for your employees, leveraging all of your LMS’ eLearning features. Conclusion eFrontPro has thousands of satisfied customers, including several multinational companies and organizations in both the private and public sector. It is renowned for its emphasis in speed and ease of use (stemming from our attention to detail and our no-bloat-allowed policy). Take it for a test drive today and see for yourself how, with a modern LMS platform for the aviation industry, the sky is the limit. The post eLearning for the aviation industry with eFrontPro appeared first on eFront Blog.

Graphic design is a process of visual communication using elements such as type, space, images and colour. All of these are important in producing eLearning materials, so let’s look at them each in turn. Content is obviously important, but a large part of the effectiveness of any learning material is the way it’s presented. When your learners are regularly exposed to hundreds of other exciting forms of graphic design in print, on screens and in the street, they won’t pay so much attention to materials that quite simply aren’t that good. But, what is "good"? If you’ve never had any training in art or design, it may be difficult to appreciate the skill involved in making what often appear to be very simple things. Take type for example. Typography involves the design of letters and numbers into consistent groupings, or fonts. Immediately we tend to think of the Roman alphabet (A, B, C) and Arabic numerals (1,2,3) - but these days, typography must also accommodate other lettering systems (Cyrillic, Greek, Arabic and a whole variety of Asian languages), together with other specialized commercial, technical or artistic shape sets. Commonly used symbols - ticks and crosses, check marks, star shapes and arrows - also have their own font sets, as do the wide variety of emoticons now in common use. Until barely fifty years ago, these things had hardly changed since Caxton and Gutenberg, and even early computer systems could only handle a few fonts. However, in the last twenty years, the range of possibilities available has exploded, meaning that anything is possible. Sadly, design skills haven’t quite caught up. Take a look around you. Pick up a newspaper or magazine and open it at a random page. Try to count how many different fonts are being used. You’ll need some definitions to start with. Size is fairly obvious - some letters are bigger than others. They’re usually measured in points, where 72 points equals one inch. Body text - the main bulk of text for reading - will usually be around 10 to 12 points, and there will be a hierarchy of headings of larger sizes. Some will probably be in line with the text, dividing it up into recognizable sections or sub-sections. Others will be offset, perhaps in separate boxes or areas of their own, drawing attention to a particular phrase or quotation. There may be some smaller text alongside pictures or diagrams - these are usually known as captions. However, there will most likely be no more than five or six different font sizes in use on any one page. Weight is another important consideration. Printers and professional typographers use a whole range of terms, but at their simplest, they’re variants of things like bold, italics, narrow and maybe extra-light. Again, you will only find a few variants on any one page. Above all, with both size and weight, notice that they are being used consistently. A particular form of text - a caption, or a sub-heading - will almost always be exactly the same size and font, whenever it appears. The space around it (printers refer to this as "leading" from the old days of lead type), and which is also measured in points will be consistent too. Another factor is the design of the letters themselves. There are many strange font sets available, but most fonts can be described as either serif or sans serif. Serifs are the tiny extensions at the ends of strokes in letters - they originated when stonemasons tried to engrave painted brush strokes, and they developed into consistent embellishments. Serif typefaces, like the variants of Times New Roman used in many newspapers and books are supposed to be easier to read, although the evidence for this is not conclusive. Conversely, most text designed for reading on a screen will be sans serif, often a variant of Arial or Helvetica. But, small differences between fonts are important. The Arial font from MS Word may look good in print, but it doesn’t look at its best on screen. Fonts like Tahoma and Verdana, although very similar, are sized and spaced better for reading online. And some newer fonts like Lucinda or Calibri are even more balanced. What does all this have to do with eLearning? Well, the most important thing is to develop habits of consistency. Just because you can use any shape or size of font doesn’t mean that you should. Don’t change the font size or weight randomly. It’s often better to remove a few words from your text than to change the font size to fit an overly long heading. In design, less is usually more! The post Graphic Design for eLearning: Part 1 appeared first on eFront Blog.

Space is the second element in our definition of graphic design. It refers both to the placement of elements in relation to each other, and to the gaps between them, where there are, to all intents and purposes. Empty space. It’s usually white in printed material, although it may well be coloured, or a muted background image on a screen. Why is this important? Good use of spacing allows the eye to process visual information more easily, and to transmit it to the brain in a logical sequence. Bad spacing doesn’t do this, so your message will get confused or ignored. Start with the shape of the screen, the space in which you are designing your learning. This shape is no accident. Most screen sizes are now based on what’s known as the "golden ratio", which is roughly 1 to 1.6. The golden ratio has a long history in art and architecture going back to ancient times, with buildings such as the Parthenon, Milan Cathedral, the Great Mosque of Kairouan and even Stonehenge allegedly designed with these proportions in mind. It also appears in paintings - either in the overall size of the canvas, or in the placement of elements upon it. Although paintings can be different shapes, and many buildings are far wider than they are tall, there is something inherently pleasing about the 1.6 ratio which lends itself to the presentation of imagery. Text, by contrast, usually works best if presented the other way up. From the earliest days of printing, books using typography have usually been taller than they are wide. The two terms for these alternative presentation styles - portrait and landscape - come from art history, and at a time before mass literacy, they referred simply to different but familiar ways in which artists could present images so that they would be understood. Portraits would essentially be "read" up and down - landscapes, and the symbols within them were designed to be "read" from left to right. In either format however, the eye can only process so much information. If you try to cram in too much, the whole message will get ignored, as there is so much competition for our visual attention. When there were fewer visual messages around, artistic statements, whether in the form of books, buildings or canvasses could afford to be full of intricate and extensive detail. Nowadays, to make things stand out, they need to  be presented more simply, and in their own space. Search for a term like "the power of white space" and you will find hundreds of books, essays and design ideas. Yet far too many business presentations and eLearning courses still present cluttered and busy screens, with words and images fighting each other for our attention. The reasons are varied. It’s partly due to the history of learning material design. A few decades ago, "slides" were prepared on acetate sheets for overhead projectors. These were fairly expensive, so there was a tendency to use as few as possible. This kind of thinking transferred into the design of software like PowerPoint and hierarchies of bullet point levels. It also fitted in well with a culture of compliance and risk aversion - in many mandatory training courses, there is a tendency to insist on presenting qualifying statements and using legally waterproof language which doesn’t sit well with creating memorable messages. Nowadays however, there’s no excuse for screen clutter. The solutions are very simple. Use more screens, with less text on each screen. If you simply have to present six bullet points, use six screens. Some designers also counsel against using more than six words on any screen. The space around text boosts readability, and guides the readers’ eyes towards the main message. If there are too many messages on one screen, most of them will get lost. It really is as simple as that. And as always, try to be consistent. There is a reason why captions and text boxes appear in particular places on slide templates, and why they are spaced the way they are. It’s probably to do with the golden ratio. Although it’s easy to move them closer together to get more on the screen, it’s rarely a good idea. If you do have to move screen elements however, don’t just guess. Check the precise placements in the elements’ sizing or spacing properties, and make sure you use the same measurements everywhere. If headings or text boxes are in slightly different places on consecutive screens, the learner will notice, and it will detract from the content. The post Graphic Design for eLearning Part 2 - Space appeared first on eFront Blog.

You may have a brilliant course that attracts many learners and eventually these learners score well. But, do their managers give you equivalent reviews? Are your learners applying their learning in the performance context? This is the one and only tell-tale sign of an eLearning course that is devoid of critical thinking exercises. Critical thinking can be described as a mental exercise - the capability to think about complex issues or relate learning directly to experience. It improves the problem solving skills of the learner and enhances their decision making capabilities. Corporate learning courses are required to have such mental exercises in order to improve the value of the eLearning course. Critical thinking skills are required in almost every industrial sector training programs. Current pedagogy and andragogy research and practices are rife with critical thinking strategies in the learning environment. Educational technology, especially eLearning authoring tools provide a plethora of techniques and ideas to integrate critical thinking. Hisham Al-Mubaid of University of Houston, penned a paper titled ‘A New Method for Promoting Critical Thinking in Online Education’ in which he discusses an effective method of embedding critical thinking strategies for developing higher order reasoning skills in the eLearning environment. According to Al Mubaid, critical thinking can be enhanced through two components: Individual Component that occurs in an independent and self-paced learning environment. There are three parts in the individual critical thinking component: List: In the first step, a learner will have to develop a list of facts or concepts that provide a true definition of the topic in hand. The list depends on the kind of course or content the learner is being trained on. Evaluate: the learner evaluates the list of facts created in the first step. This includes ranking and scoring the items in the list as a means of self-evaluation.This process involves a higher level of mental activity as the learner has to get rid of any kind of bias and evaluate the items in the list in a fair manner. While the first step starts the process of conceptualization, application and understanding of the information, the second step kindles critical thinking required for evaluating the assimilated information. Re-structure: The third step includes revising and improving the understanding of the concept by restructuring the list as per the evaluation in the second step.This third step requires a high intellectual process where the learner improves upon his or her learning himself through the process of restructuring what he or she had first understood. Team-based Component that is best carried out in the peer-based and collaborative learning environment. The team-based component includes three steps: List: The first step here is similar to the first step of the individual component, but here the process of listing is done in groups. The students are grouped in teams and each team develops a comprehensive list of concepts or facts describing the chosen topic in the e-course content.The team collects all individual lists and creates one comprehensive list, which is the cumulative understanding of the entire group. Discuss: In the second step the team members proceed to evaluate the possible solutions through discussions and debates. Evaluate, Integrate & Restructure: In the third step, the learners collectively integrate the ideas and restructure their possible solutions based on the discussions and debates of step two. In the individual component, especially in a self-paced eLearning environment, the learner is provided with ample opportunities to absorb information. Through traditional drill and practice exercises, knowledge is transferred and tested through quizzes. The final step in each module is to administer an assignment that takes a relatively longer time to complete. This assignment requires the newly acquired learning to be utilized in different scenarios. The process of listing newly learned facts is similar to summarizing the main ideas of the module. Then comes evaluating the list and selecting the appropriate idea for the scenario in the assignment. Finally, restructuring would involve "customizing" the ideas to make it work in the given scenario. Think for example, in the healthcare field, the learner is confident about their indications of various drugs used for controlling blood pressure. How would the learner apply this knowledge? Provide them clinical scenarios in which different patients have different conditions. The learner is required to prescribe the right drug for the patient and justify their prescriptions. In group learning, the team-based component comes into play. Learners exchange perspectives with each other through discussion. All participants can view a scenario with a fresh perspective. This creates an in-depth learning experience through critical thinking. Discussion board activities provide opportunities for team-based critical thinking practices. By keeping the above two components in mind while creating your next eLearning course, you can encourage critical thinking and knowledge application skills in your learners. ELearning environments are notorious for having a series of information followed by a quiz. This practice may provide temporary satisfaction to the learner when they score well, but may prove to be detrimental when the learner tries to utilize their learning. Critical thinking skills can be incorporated easily if the eLearning author is aware of the need to apply learning to work context. The post Individual and Team-based Critical Thinking Skills in the eLearning Environment appeared first on eFront Blog.

With most economies quickly moving towards knowledge-resourced survival strategies, eLearning is the most sought-after knowledge management pedagogy. If you are one of those innovators, who favor lifelong learning and want to promote a business based on this value, then an eLearning Organization might be the answer for you. Having accumulated a wealth of knowledge in an organization, managers are looking for ways to make it available to employees in a meaningful way. We see a plethora of eLearning organizations springing up to respond to these needs. It’s a lucrative, but a competitive eLearning market out there! Without the right eLearning business model, your eLearning venture may sink before it launches! In this article, we will share with you some best practices in developing the right eLearning business model for your eLearning organization. So, you have finally decided to test the eLearning business waters. You have researched the market trends of eLearning offering organizations and you feel you can offer better eLearning products to the market. Congratulations on this noble idea! Let’s help you make it a successful reality. If you don’t have a business model, then it’s never too late. Simply apply our strategy to your eLearning venture. If you already have an eLearning business model, then compare yours with ours. Share any additions you made in the comments section, or any new points you can share. Sharing is caring! Before you begin working on your new eLearning business organization, determine a list of knowledge, learning needs and wants of a typical organization. What has been frustrating people in the presence or absence of an eLearning program? What are the gaps in eLearning offerings? What kind of eLearning programs are more in demand? Also, make a note of the groups of learners you would be serving. Are they large in size, geographically distributed and/or what is their level of expertise? Are there any culture and language considerations required for your learners? Get to know your learners well in order to study your target market. Once you have defined the target market and its segments for your eLearning organization, begin developing your business model. Your goal is to determine what makes you unique and stand-out in comparison to your competitors. The journal MERLOT (Journal of Online Learning and Teaching) is rife with research findings that suggest core strategies to develop an eLearning business model. Here are the latest on an eLearning business model development. Answer these questions to define your eLearning program offering: Define your target market and its segments. What is your relationship with your customers (learners within the target market): Will you be serving all the members of the target market or a subset? What makes you unique: in what situations will your target market turn to you for their eLearning needs? How competitive is your selling strategy? What factors will drive your customers to your business? Are your courses all about purchase-and-download-eLearning-programs? Or, do you have eLearning facilitators that will interact directly with course participants? Define the scope of your eLearning courses: What content area will you be focusing on? What content would be beyond your scope? Who are your competitors? What is the frame of reference used in your courses? For example, which country and economics are your courses based on? What is the deciding factor that makes your customers/learners choose your eLearning organization? Define the value you will provide your learners. A value not present in the market. What values are you NOT providing? What existing eLearning frustrations are you addressing? How will the learners be affected from your eLearning offerings? What is your secret success factor? Something that will be hard for the competitors to copy. What are the distinguishing factors that set you apart in the market? Why can’t these factors be copied? Define the factors of your eLearning development and implementation process that bring profits. Define effective methods to develop eLearning programs. Effective methods to market your eLearning program. How will you keep your courses current - content and technology included? Define strategies to learn about current learner needs. Developing an eLearning business model early in your organizational development process is crucial to its success. Simply define these parameters orf your eLearning business and you can be on your way to sell online courses. And do consider creating a web presence for your new eLearning venture. No matter how good your organization is in terms of skills and experience to develop the right eLearning courses, without an insightful eLearning business model, you cannot go too far. A strong business model will enable you to focus on the desired target market and improve your eLearning offerings to satisfy them. Apply these five questions to your model to get started or to steer your business in the right direction. Good luck! The post How to Create an eLearning Organization Business Model appeared first on eFront Blog.