Continuing with the theme of extending slide content in Articulate Storyline, this week I’m showing you just how easy it is to extend slide content within a ‘container’ by using a scroll panel. If after this demo you’re interested in learning a bit more about scroll panels, check out the Automatic Scrolling Effect demo! (Also - Please excuse the sound of my dog gnawing on his toes)

First - Hats off to David for not doing this sooner! - I can only imagine how tiring it can be to come up with challenges and examples for challenges each week. The Concept This week’s challenge was to choose your own e-learning challenge topic and create an example for that topic, with the caveat that it must be an original challenge (a feat when you consider there have been 129 challenges - go, David!). The Method I had a dream about this last night…well. More specifically, I had a dream about colour palettes and one of my favourite websites, Coolors.co. I love the colour generator feature of this website because it makes my life a whole heck of a lot easier when my creativity is waning and I need some colour inspiration for my e-learning projects. With that, my e-learning challenge topic is: App-Inspired E-Learning Resources. The challenge will be to create an e-learning resource inspired by one of your favourite, existing, applications. To achieve a coolors-inspired resource, I tossed 5 rectangles on a slide, changed the colours for each rectangle, added the hex code to the bottom of the shape, and modified the player to appear as desired. After duplicating each slide and adjusting colours and hex codes appropriately, I added a trigger that would jump to the next slide when the user presses the Space key. While this coolers-inspired resource is not as all-encompassing as the actual app itself, I feel like it’s a pretty good representation and it can definitely be expanded upon with an infinite number of slides/colour palettes. The Result To view the full interaction, Click Here. To download the .story file, Click Here.

This week I thought I would leave Articulate Storyline alone for a bit and show you an application that I have been rapidly recommending to faculty members for syllabus inclusion as a helpful hint for students, especially in courses that are largely video-based. It is an AMAZING student study tool! Check out the demo, below, and hopefully you too can find some use for this handy, open-sourced application.

I’m often asked where I find clients and/or e-learning support, and my answer is always "E-Learning Communities". I’ve learned so much from my peers, and have found many fantastic clients by participating in e-learning communities, so I recommend joining any of these: Articulate E-Learning Heroes - The E-Learning Heroes Community has by and large been one of my greatest support systems, particularly when I was first starting out as an independent contractor. The weekly e-learning challenges have helped me grow my development skills and my portfolio, the community members have provided continual support - from reviewing my e-learning and providing feedback to helping me troubleshoot projects in a pinch, and I’ve met many of the Articulate folks at Community Roadshows and conferences - all of them are incredibly fantastic and supportive. Another great thing about the E-Learning Heroes Community is the new(ish)-fangled Job Board - there are LOADS of e-learning jobs being posted here all the time, so if you’re in the market for clients, you should be trolling this board regularly The Online Network of Independent Learning Professionals - Patti Bryant started this group on Linkedin, and members meet every Thursday (live and online!) to chat about pointed topics or have community hours. Usually, one member will present on a given topic, and then a panel will be available to answer community member questions. Each session is recorded, so if you can’t tune in live, you can watch/listen later! This group has such a wealth of knowledge and I would consider participating - even if it’s only passively listening to the sessions - to be essential for any learning and development professional. The Instructional Design Sub-Reddit - Fellow E-Learning Heroes Community member, Rachel Barnum, keeps this sub-reddit moving like a well-oiled machine, and there always seems to be readers kicking around asking questions, providing feedback, posting jobs, and offering support to folks new to the industry.  

This week I’m showing you how you can use the Audio Editor in Articulate Storyline to trim audio tracks and add silence. Hopefully these quick tips will make your audio editing a little less stressful!

I’m ramping up to attend ATD ICE 2016 next week, so I’m busy planning my conference map, deciding which sessions get to make the cut for my attention. One such session is being presented by Shannon Tipton on the 21st-Century Toolbox. Today, she tweeted about the session with a link to a brief article she wrote last month. It’s here that I came across a term I hadn’t heard in several years; a term that took me back to my graduate studies, and one which I here said every now and again: Integrative Learning. Integrative Learning The idea behind integrative learning is that it is learning designed to allow learners to connect information and enhance understanding of topics across disciplines. When I do hear this term tossed around, it’s usually in the context of K-12 education - why? Because K-12 education, at least around these parts, is largely based on curriculums that have been carefully crafted to created integrated learning experiences. However, integrative learning is happening in many other places. For example, any higher education course that’s been offered has usually undergone a behind the scenes development to ensure that learning objectives and learning outcomes are closely linked with appropriate assessment measures. We also see integrative learning in procedural training, where learners are taking theoretical concepts, such as their knowledge of lug nuts, and applying that knowledge to a task at hand, such as connecting the lug nut to the 1/4 inch screw (full disclosure - this was a horrible example - I know nothing about lug nuts or screws, I’m sorry). Or, their prior knowledge of how their cat will behave when they try to clip the cat’s nails - in this context, the individual is integrating their prior knowledge of how their cat will react with the steps they take to proceed, such as first wrapping the cat tightly in a towel in a burrito-esque manner (that was a better example, yeah?). What I’m trying to say here is that integrative learning is happening all around us, albeit, we may not be thinking too much about it. If you’ve experienced a traditional K-12 education, you may especially be oblivious to it because it’s just ‘the way it is’, but now that you know a little bit more, you’ll likely begin to notice integrative learning happening around you a bit more often!

The lovely Kristin Anthony interviewed me last week for her podcast, Dear Instructional Designer (which is bananas - thank you, so much!). After our recorded session, we had a little informal chat about my path, and she asked something to the effect of ‘have you ever blogged about that journey?’. I had to think about it for a moment, because I’ve blogged about it a lot but in several different posts, so it’s a bit disjointed. In any event, I figured I would take the time to let my readers know about the path I took to get from novice Instructional Designer to my present day self…maybe it will become my origin story and I’ll get paid as much as Hugh Jackman in Wolverine…maybe I’m delusional? Like many, my road to Instructional Design was accidental. I had just graduated with a BA in Linguistics and Psychology, my friend (a former K-12 teacher) told me her company was hiring and that they needed warm bodies and she thought I was smart enough, so I interviewed and got the job (which I’m pretty sure was because the VP at the time was super impressed with my background in Linguistics, thinking I spoke multiple languages…a moment in my life where staying silent was a good thing). I slogged around there for about 5/6 years, in a training company with very little training, worked on a lot of really cool projects, met a lot of great people (many of whom I still play softball with each year), and completed my Masters of Education (Post-Secondary Studies). At the time, I had freelanced a bit, but it was bumpy. Initially, my goal was to pay off my student debt, so I took on really random projects (proofreading PhD thesis, transcribing audio interviews, etc.) that I really felt kind of gross about - some were alright, but many were a huge rip off. When I paid off my student debt, I vowed off freelancing, because that was a horrible experience. After about a year or so, I went back to the freelance game, but with a target in mind of providing Instructional Design and e-learning development services. After cultivating a small regular client base, I jumped corporate ship and haven’t really looked back since. One of my early contracts was with the university I now work at full-time. Yes - I’m not a full-time business woman in the grand scheme of things, but my passion was higher education, so I couldn’t really turn down an offer of full-time employment at a university. Since accepting that offer, I’ve scaled back my business in terms of which contracts I choose to work on, but believe me, I’m still as busy as ever, essentially working two full-time jobs, but I love what I do! Working in an academic environment is a very interesting experience, much different than working with military personnel, but that’s for another post… Working two full-time gigs is rewarding because I get my fill of analysis, design, implementation, and evaluation at the university, where my role is predominantly project management, but independently, I get to work develop e-learning for clients that I really love working for! It’s the best of both worlds. In the last year, I’ve been able to take my business in a more strategic direction. Instead of working full-time and having 20+ contracts a year, I’m working full-time at the university and full-time for my business, but I’m working with much fewer clients with more repeat business. It’s been great! That takes me to present day - I’m getting ready to hit up some professional development opportunities at ATD ICE (for my independent professional development), and CAUCE-CNIE (for my institutional-self), so if you’re at either of those conferences and run into me, please say hello and ask me anything you want to ask! I won’t promise to have all the answers, but I’ll try to be as helpful as possible.

This is my first year attending ATD ICE, and it has been equally overwhelming and exciting! But at first, mostly overwhelming because I’m just one little person in a sea of Learning and Development professionals. Session 1 The first session I chose to attend was e-Learning and the Science of Instruction, with Ruth Clark, because my Instructional Design journey began with Canadian Military, and Training Development Officers (TDOs) in the Canadian Military LOVE them some Ruth Clark. I figured that after hearing so many rave reviews and reading e-Learning and the Science of Instruction, I had to meet the person behind the book. First impressions? She’s the littlest lady I’ve ever met! But she seems incredibly friendly, chatting with random audience members. Session overview: There are three main additions to the 4th edition of the book, including: Evidence on Learning Games How to Leverage Online Collaboration Boundary Conditions Everything in e-Learning and the Science of Instruction is evidence based, which is awesome! Games can be effective, but the data needs to be analyzed as academic evidence. For example, Ruth explained that first-person shooter games have been shown to increase perceptual attention, but there have been no studies as of yet to indicate that games have been shown to increase reasoning, motor, and memory skills. The speaker looked at whether online collaboration was effective for learning, and found that collaboration is more effective when working together on a difficult problem (vs a simple problem - the transactional effort has a better ROI when working on a difficult problem). She also found that completion rate declines with asynchronous assignments, whereas there tends to be a higher completion/response rate when participating synchronously. In discussing boundary conditions, Ruth identified situations where certain instructional strategies work better than others. Novice individuals may benefit from words + text, whereas Experienced individuals may do better with just words. Adding visuals increase the retention between both groups of individuals. There is no correlation between what learners like and what is best for their learning - just try not to make learning disruptive (coherence principle). Overall impression? Ruth Clark is a pretty informative lady. I can definitely see why DND was so interested in her, and I would definitely recommend picking up the latest edition of e-Learning and the Science of Instruction (I originally read the 2nd edition). Session 2 Next up, I wanted to check out Connie Malamed’s Crash Course in Visual Design - 1, because I enjoy reading her blog and following her on Twitter, and 2, because I think she has some pretty good information about visual design that I should really be absorbing. First impressions? She seems well-organized and has some jokes on hand - "Whats the difference between a pizza and a musician?" - "A pizza can feed a family." - THAT STING, THOUGH! Session overview: First up - she’s threatening to send a note home to our parents if we fail the visual design pop quiz. She’s tough! Connie identifies a shocking, but common, issue: employers often don’t understand the importance of investing in graphics/visuals for learning materials, but "50% of the brain’s cortex is devoted to processing visual information," so visuals really are important, and we have to make the case for visuals - the ROI is there! The picture superiority effect dictates that we have a better memory for pictures than words, especially when it comes to retaining concrete knowledge. When you see something beautiful and well-designed, you have an aesthetic experience. That’s how I felt about the mountains when we were in Breckenridge yesterday - it illicit a positive emotion, which is beneficial to learning. Anyone can improve at visual design, because it’s not art - well thank goodness, because I will never consider myself an artist. But the design needs to be effective. It needs to work, or what’s the point? Visual design = the arrangement of visuals and text in graphic space. There are 8 key points of visual design: Align visual design (with your audience/content/organization) Organize your graphic space Consider all of your image options Simplify fonts Consider colours Create a visual hierarchy Direct the eyes Transform bullets to visuals (and she promises we’ll kiss her after she explains this) Overall impression? Connie knows a lot about visual design, but there was a lot of ground covered, and I think folks are either going to be rushing to buy her book in the bookstore, or will be scouring the internet doing their homework on visual design. Her 8th point of visual design seems to have been kiss-worthy for the majority of session attendees…the military taught me to hate bullets (because they often cram them down your throat), and the phrase "bullets are too verbose", so I learned this lesson quite awhile ago, but it’s a good one!    

Keynote The keynote this morning was incredibly inspiring. Simon Sinek, author of Start with Why: How Great Leaders Inspire Everyone to Take Action and Leaders Eat Last: Why Some Teams Pull Together and Others Don’t, spoke with us about leadership and why some organizations thrive, and others fail. Session 1 First off - I got to meet Patti! So that was awesome - we led the charge on searching for session 1, eating lunch, and attending session 1.5. I had intended to attend Your Brain on Creativity: The Secrets to Making Creativity Work for Your Business, but couldn’t for the life of me find the exhibitor’s session! And I wasn’t the only one. Ah well. It gave me time to wander around the expo and pick up some materials. The next session I wanted to attend, 10 Practical Principles for Creating Impactful E-Learning, was full…so we stumbled across the hall to sit in on What Caused it? Techniques to Isolate the Effects of Your Programs, with Patti Phillips. Results are important, but my mind does not work well when confronted with Return on Investment (ROI) speak. Initially, my pants were confused off. She explained the ROI process, identifying some guiding principles and results-based solutions. Techniques were provided to isolate the effects of programs, which seem very comparable to techniques used in most academic research (using control groups, trends, input, etc.). Full disclosure: I had to leave the session - there was too much math, and there were other sessions that were more closely aligned to my business. Session 1.5 I ducked into How to Boost Your Career Well-Being with Beth Cabrera, and came in just in time for a 2-minute meditation…MUCH more therapeutic than doing math. Phew! The first portion was about mindfulness, and how to incorporate it within your career. The next part was about gratitude - intentionally looking for what is good and taking note of it. She had us write down three good things: Hiking the mountains in Breckenridge, and getting to share that experience with people I care about Meeting new people within the e-learning industry Finding a session that’s more closely aligned to my career and personal interests. She explained that an organization had individuals do this (writing down good things), for 3 weeks, and noticed increases in levels of gratitude and happiness. She discusses how doing this activity can help reprogram your brain to intentionally scan the environment for good things. You can easily change the tone of a meeting by starting a meeting going around the table to talk about one thing they’re excited about. It sets the tone for gratitude. If we create a culture of gratitude, individuals will become more successful, because they will be surrounded by positivity. Looking at a situation like grocery shopping, you can look at the negative of having to go to the grocery store (the act of shopping), but you can reframe the situation by appreciating that you have the ability to go to the grocery store, and have the money to purchase healthy food. She talked about strengths - focusing on our strengths allows us to become happier, feel more successful, and have a sense of meaning and authenticity - you’re doing what you naturally do best. You will be more efficient, and it’s good for overall performance. Strength spotting: Enjoyment - We love doing things we enjoy doing Ease - Something is natural to do and comes to you with ease Energy - What we do energizes us Advocate - Push yourself to use your strengths more Once you figure out what your strengths are, and save them for when you don’t have as much energy (e.g. after lunch, when you’re usually more tired). Locate complementary partners. Find people who have strengths that complement your strengths, and partner with them to create extraordinary organizations. Recognize the impact you make. If you didn’t wake up each day, people would be missing out on what you offer! Understand your importance, even if you feel small in a very large world. To recognize impact,  complete the following: Task: Who Does This Help? Who does This Help? Essentially, you will be able to see the larger landscape of who you’re helping by doing task x/y/z Modify tasks or change interactions to use your strengths to best help others to make their lives better/easier. Session 2 The final session I attended today was Women in Learning Leadership: Lessons From the Field. I like listening to others talk about their experiences, and this session had an all-star panel: Cammy Bean, Jane Bozarth, Trina Rimmer, Koreen Pagano, and Pooja Jaisingh. This session began with each panelist identify themselves and their learning backgrounds. All panelists are all heavily weighted in technology. Cammy asked the audience "how many of you feel imposter syndrome?," which was a great question, because I know I certainly feel that way sometimes - it kind of ties back to the last session, and the concept recognizing your impact. There are many days when I feel unsuccessful, and unqualified, but on many stages I’m overqualified and even considered an expert. It makes me truly realize that I am a successful woman, and I really need to recognize the impact I have on my clients and readers. Many panelists spoke about exhaustion, sacrifice, and being taken seriously. I can definitely empathize with these feelings. My first year of business was incredibly exhausting, and I sacrificed a lot of my social life when I was doing my graduate studies, writing books, and starting my own business. Being taken seriously is something I still struggle with - when I first started out in Instructional Design at a corporate gig, I found it hard to get clients to take me seriously, but I think this was less because of me and more because of them and the hierarchy. Now that I run my own business, my clients take me seriously, because if they don’t, then what’s the point of working with me? Pooja identified a huge challenge: staying on top of the latest technologies. As learning leaders, there’s added pressure to stay on top of the latest technologies, and because technology is constantly evolving, it can be exhausting to stay on top of technology! When looking for a mentor/boss/ally, most panelists don’t want to be told what to do, they need more of a guidance-based motivation to do the task at hand. Not directions. They look for managers that aren’t looking to take the easy way out, are straight forward, and who want to make progress. Great managers are those who enable you to become your best self (professionally or independently). When interviewing, women tend to hide portions of their personal lives (e.g. having children or being afraid to ask for the compensation they deserve), but it’s important to be upfront, and if the organization doesn’t support you or want to pay what you’re worth, is it an organization you really want to work for? You want to work with people who look up to you, not people you need to prove yourself to. - Koreen Pagano Overall impression: This was a great panel session, and I certainly think that many of the experiences discussed can also be applied to men, so the panel wasn’t only of interest for women - it’s a shame that more men weren’t in attendance (but shout out to all those who were!).

Keynote I have been so excited for this keynote! It may have even swayed me to attend ATD 2016 (shhh). I’ve read Daring Greatly and Rising Strong, and have watched all of Brene Brown’s Ted Talks (and have seen them used countless times in academic contexts at the university - my therapist has even recommended them)! Needless to say, getting to hear Brene Brown speak can only be considered an honour and inspiration! Brene began her keynote by sharing her first professional love - her first real job: training; she was a trainer for AT&T. She also share her secret passion of becoming an MTV VJ on Headbangers Ball. Her research lies in courage and vulnerability, and first began her vulnerability research by researching shame, before she realized that shame was really vulnerability. She shared her publisher’s failed attempts at choosing an appropriate book cover for Daring Greatly - an elephant ass would never appear over her name. What story are you telling yourself right now? Most people I know, at some point, have been committed to a shame narrative of "I’m not good enough" or "I’m not successful." Whenever you feel as though you’re over your head, you go to that shame narrative. But you need to see the struggle through the trees. See it for what it is. Emotion gets the first crack of making sense of a difficult situation. - Brene Brown Be honest before you let your emotions create a narrative. If someone does something you perceive as being negative/passive aggressive/etc., speak with the individual first because the story your emotions are making up, may just be that - a story. You need to empathize with that individual and understand where they’re coming from. Courage is teachable, but it is not easy. If it was easy to teach courage, everyone would be brave all the time. The most terrifying emotion we experience is joy, because we feel as though it’s time-limited. That the joy will end. We’re inviting disaster. These feelings aren’t true - they’re how we self-protect. We need to show up at the arena, and not sit in the cheap seats. We need to show up and dare greatly. Try new things, be vulnerable, take off the armour, show up, and just be you! Shame, scarcity, and comparison are season ticket holders in the arena, and they will always be there. The only thing you need to have when you enter the arena is full clarity and values. Empathy and self-compassion are the most important seats in the arena, because we’re always entering looking for critics. Braving: Boundaries Reliability Accountability Vault Integrity Non-Judgement Generosity We work in the dark - we do what we can - we give what we have. Our doubt is our passion, and our passion is our task. The rest is the madness of art. - Henry James. This keynote was just what I needed! It was incredibly inspirational, and I really need to try and be more empathetic with myself to breakdown my internal narrative. Brene has motivated me to get moving on somethings I’ve been holding off on - and I’ll try not to get myself too far underwater, but if I do, I’ll ask for help. Session 1 For the first session, I attended Virtual Presence: Inspire and Engage in the Virtual Classroom and Beyond. Where hopefully I will glean some good information for an upcoming project I’m working on, for my own professional development when it comes to public speaking, and when it comes to making effective recommendations to faculty members at the university for conducting their synchronous sessions. The session kicks off with several questions: How many of you have forgotten about a virtual colleague in a mixed in person/virtual meeting? How many of you have video conferenced with someone who was not camera ready? How many of you have facilitated a meeting, remotely, and wanted more organized participation? How many of you have left a webinar or presentation early because of the presenter’s unique vocal quality? How many of you felt uneasy because you don’t know how your content is landing? Virtual presenter, Kate Nugent, begins with a story about how she always crushed it as a classroom trainer, but how in her first virtual training session, she fell flat. How do we make impact with virtual presence? Virtual presence allows you to connect authentically with virtual audiences, so they feel included, engaged, and inspired. We need to work harder to include people in a virtual session. vPRES Model: Virtually… Present Reaching Out Expressive Self-Knowing Sometimes we need to push people a bit, and make it easy for people to put in the extra effort to participate. Try different platforms and devices, and make requests of others to put in extra effort to join you on the preferred platform. Your IQ would be better in a virtual meeting if you were stoned versus multi-tasking. Be present - Focus on the now, being flexible/adaptable, and be aware of what’s happening in the virtual ‘room’. Presenting tips - Take a deep belly breath before picking up the phone and when you find your nerves taking over, and strategically eliminate distraction - close all applications and hide devices. Reaching out is about building relationships of trust, virtually. You can do this by asking questions that solicits opinions. Ensure you’re exercising your listening skills, and show empathy. Express yourself with voice, body, and face, and ensure your message is aligned with these expressions. Self-knowing - Ask a colleague for feedback to build self-awareness, and set your self up for success by preparing - send an agenda in advance. Sometimes you have to channel your inner middle school teacher to guide users through the steps. Session 2 For my second session of the day, I chose to attend Using the Science of Attention, Willpower, and Decision-Making, with Julie Dirksen…because it’s Julie Friggin’ Dirksen, and a pretty interesting topic - although, I might get reamed for blogging while listening haha. Julie begins her session with a bit of a rant on micro-learning. She wants to spend a bit of time talking to the concept of ‘if we make it smaller, we can squeak in under the ever-reducing attention spans of our users." She hypothesizes that instructional design has a primary responsibility of ruthlessly managing cognitive load. She follows that with a brief tutorial of cognitive load - which I developed a Storyline interaction for way back in the day - check it out here! We’re flooded with data at any given time, and the act of attention is deciding which data is important to you at any given moment in time. The information processing model is essentially a data filter for our minds. Is the data important? Is it not? That’s sensory memory. Working memory allows us to hang on to data for a little while. Long-term memory involves information that sticks around for the long haul…maybe not forever, but for awhile. Segue: I recently watched Patton Oswalt’s most recent comedy special on Netflix, and he had a great bit where he talks about how he can remember radio jingles he heard as a kid, but regardless of how many times he’s taken infant CPR training, he can never remember whether he’s supposed to press on his daughter’s chest first or blow in her mouth first. Julie’s discussion on sensory versus working versus long-term memory. How long is the average attention span? It’s debatable. There are types of attention: voluntary, involuntary, or habitual. There are tons of cues out there to emphasize where we should pay attention. For example, environmental cues or social cues, and these cues depend on the audience. She talks about hyperbolic discounting - when do you get a reward and how does it effect behaviour? We don’t want people to have to pull out the two-minute video on evacuating the building. - Julie Dirksen Doodling to reduce attention drift - This is productive when it comes processing information. Your brain is staying engaged, without having to drift. I do this often when sitting through intense meetings, and I find it quite helpful; however, I also feel guilty when others can see me doodling. When it comes to decision-making, we’re looking for some sort of emotional pull that tells us whether something is important or not, and these pulls are also what tells us if something is worth paying attention to. The power of defaults impacts how we make decisions. For example, countries who have the ability to opt out of organ donation, but it’s the default. These individuals seldom opt out of organ donation because of the power of defaults… When you’re provided with fewer choices, you’re more likely to make a decision versus when you’re presented with many choices. Your cognitive load has been reduced by the presentation of fewer choices. To reduce cognitive load, try to: improve readability, do user testing (where are people getting stuck, expending extra effort?), make choices easier or harder depending on the behaviour you want to see, let people choose where they would like to start (e.g. choosing from a menu versus locking down navigation), make it as short as possible (but not shorter), create a sense of immediacy, don’t strip out the emotion (emotion tells us that things are important), tie the information to the learner’s experience, and keep decisions short and relevant.

Today I’m only attending two sessions, so it shouldn’t be too overwhelming a post to read. Albeit, it should be informative. Session 1 For session 1, I’m attending Discover 7 Techniques to Enhance Learner Motivation (and 5 ways to avoid squelching motivation), and it started with a giveaway worth $20,000 of services, so not a terrible way to begin the morning. There are also clickers, so I think they’re overestimating everyone’s alertness at 8am…but we’ll see. There’s a lot going on in this session - Becky is a fantastic presenter; she’s loud and engaging, and no-nonsense (it seems). Curiosity is motivation to acquire new knowledge; we want the brain to be prepared for long-term memory. People are better at learning things they’re interested in (or are curious about). Curiosity and extrinsic reward motivation create more effective learning experiences. Curiosity has a significant influence on academic performance. - Becky Pike Pluth Next up, Becky had us play a very loud quizzing game about curiosity, which was great, but I really hope no one was attending with a hangover haha. At the end of the game, we received a 60-day trial of  the same game developed by the Bob Pike Group. How do you engineer curiosity? Becky provided a very handy workbook that has a ton of creative training techniques to enhance learner motivation. I wasn’t lucky enough to win any of the giveaways, but I’m alright with that! Session 2 The second session I chose to attend was The Neuroscience of Change, with Britt Andreatta - Director of Learning and Development at Lynda.com - this one was a full house! Change at work - Change is fast-paced, constant, and coming from all different places, all of the time. Your role/team/job/personnel/technology/processes may change - change is always happening! Not all change is created equal, but the distinction is: How long does it take to acclimate? How much disruption is there? Change is hard to measure because it’s personal for each of us. If we chose the change, it’s a lot different than having someone else dictate the change. There is a change curve, where there’s the current state, and current level of productivity of moral. When a change is announced, the change curve begins, and the change curve indicates how easily we can adapt to the change. What happens on the road to accepting, embracing, and supporting the change. Change can be overwhelming, because change is happening all of the time, and individuals may have just accepted a 1 change, when they become presented with another change. When we learn something new, an MRI can pick this up. The Basal Ganglia is responsible for habit formation. It takes 20 repetitions for a neural pathway to become created, and 40 repetitions is when the basal ganglia lets us take less energy to do the task. So if we’re doing something daily, the change will occur faster than if it’s something we only do occasionally. We have a portion of our brain that focuses on failure: the habenula - this portion of our brain helps us make better decisions. It guides decision-making and action by restricting serotonin and dopamine. With this restriction, we feel bad for a period of time, which will prompt us to make a better decision at a later time, and when that happens, we will receive an increase in serotonin and dopamine/happy feelings. When it comes to change, we should: Help our leaders implement change easier, and help them understand that the emotional response to the change is not personal. Be transparent about the change, and give people a heads up that the change is coming. Problem solve instead of set goals - If we embrace change as a series of phases of problem solving, it turns on the rewards section of the brain. Measure change fatigue - make it someone’s job to look at data points (e.g. marketing has had 3 changes so far this year, maybe we should roll out the next change to that department last instead of first). Enhance adaptability - start with why, share the roadmap, create safety, have patience, celebrate milestones, encourage self-care, maximize mindful, and leverage learning. Mindfulness allows your brain to reduce stress and change the structure of your brain. People who meditate for 10 minutes a day are less reactive to stress, and compassion also increases. There is nothing that is happening in change that learning is not going to support. We can learn mindfulness, we can learn how to problem-solve, we can learn how to improve our emotional intelligence. This is a great way to end my experience at ATD 2016 - keep learning!

This week, I was asked by a prospective client to complete a work sample - on looking at the sample files, I promptly had flashbacks to my military contract days where I spent years (YEARS) creating task analysis for flow diagrams (Aircraft AC/DC, I do not miss you). However, the design aesthetic this particular client looks for is one of Material Design. So, what is Material Design? Google came up with the language, concept, and initial delivery of material design; it’s a design language that focuses on responsiveness, grid-based design, and the use of light and shadows for depth. Material design is very clean, and you may recognize it when using any Google application - such as Maps (below). Notice the clean lines and flat design elements. Material design was based on the concept of paper and ink, and Google is currently in the process of rolling this design language out across all of its applications. Want some more examples? Check these sites out: Material Design Lite design.google.com MaterializeCSS Material Design Icons

Sprout E-Learning First off, I want to apologize for the unanticipated hiatus that Screencast Monday and Terminology Tuesday has taken. I was travelling for what felt like three weeks straight, attending ATD 2016 and CAUCE-CNIE 2016, and then I got sick when I got back home. Oof! But, today’s post is a little different. It’s about a new adventure I’m taking: Sprout E-Learning. What is Sprout?  Throughout my instructional design and e-learning journey, many colleagues and aspiring instructional designers/e-learning developers have lamented the lack of professional development opportunities. Yes - they do exist, but often times they’re quite costly (e.g. conference attendance can run $1,500 plus meals and accommodations, industry certificates can be of comparable pricing, and formal educational opportunities are expensive and often aren’t as targeted as learners need). Through Sprout, my hope is to offer affordable and sustainable training solutions that are inform its learners and help them on their journey to become successful e-learning professionals. I love instructional design and have always been passionate about spreading the word (a lot of people don’t even know it’s a career option!). In the past I’ve thought about teaching instructional design, but was intimidated by the prospect of having to find teaching contracts and the limited number of opportunities available in the traditional higher education system. Instead of letting that red-tape get me down, I’ve decided to use Sprout as a platform to share my knowledge with my audience! Initially, Sprout will focus on teaching instructional design and Articulate Storyline courses. Both are topics I love and have a vast knowledge of, so it’s a great jumping off point. In the future, I hope to expand to additional courses. I’m really excited about this new adventure, so please check out Sprout E-Learning and sign up to stay up to date on when it will launch!  

Learning Technologies 2016, or #LT16uk, is the largest L&D conference in the UK. The expo was similar to many U.S. conference expos only much bigger and always filled with attendees. The conference also had a similar feel to it. And with dedicated "tweeters" in each session the event backchannel was quite active. It's an event you attend no matter where you are based in the world. The Day 1 keynote was from Marshall Goldsmith who has been called the number one executive coach in the world. He doesn't get paid unless his clients improve. Now that's confidence. His message was engaging and thought provoking. If you scroll down through the LITMOS Twitter stream you should find a Periscope of the session but I think the event coordinators are also making the video available on their website. The Day 2 Keynote was Ben Hammersley a noted futurist and journalist. Hammersley has authored or coauthored several books on the same topics. In his keynote he brilliantly told stories of how the future is being created. And he urged us as a community of L&D professionals to remember that we all need to learn how to learn...again. I noted in a tweet that we should also point out that it's about learning how to learn with new tech not learning how to teach with new tech. It's a paradigm shift the L&D industry as a whole struggles to embrace. The concurrent sessions were well attended. They covered the spectrum of L&D topics including Mobile learning, learning leadership, marketing the training department, video for learning, performance support, and all the other usual hot topics in our industry. The L&D community is certainly growing in the UK. Over the years I've met many new colleagues online via Twitter and other channels. So getting to meet them all face to face was an added bonus. My attendance at Learning Technologies was part of supporting a new ELearning charity called Learn Appeal. Litmos is the first U.S. Based company to support their mission. Lesley Price is leading the effort and describes herself as Chief Cook and Bottle Washer. Currently she is hard at work looking gathering ELearning content to load onto the Capsules that are sent to schools and rural communities that have no connectivity. And you may ask yourself how are they doing ELearning without internet connectivity. And that is the brilliant solution they've created with the Learn Appeal Capsule. I will have a short video posted soon, and you can check out their website at learnappeal.com to learn more. Currently you can help by becoming a sponsor. Or if instead you'd like to donate your time, they need content created. And it's really not that big of a commitment. You could simply volunteer to convert content currently in pdf format to something more engaging. Or if you have more time or resources I would encourage you to engage with them in creating some custom content. Lesley has designed the Learn Appeal organization to be a charity for the L&D community since it's a community she's been a member of for many years. Give her your support in any way you can.   The post Learning Technologies 2016 - Litmos and Learn Appeal appeared first on Litmos.

If you look at what’s changing in the organizational landscape, the overarching challenge is agility, the ability to adapt faster. What’s emerging as a consensus for success is that this comes from people working together in particular ways. So it’s worthwhile exploring what those ways are, and what can be done to facilitate these outcomes. And this is inherently social. There are many contributions that come from working smarter on your own. We can make sure we’re good at researching, evaluating, reflecting, and more. However, then we should also make sure we have optimized the contributions coming from us working together. The key schema to this is ‘learning’, in a particular way. When we trouble-shoot, problem-solve, design, research, and more, when we innovate, we don’t know the answer when we start. So, in a meaningful way, these too are learning opportunities. However, the difference here is that there isn’t someone with the answer who can coach us, so we need to work in the best ways possible. And lots of information is known about working productively in these instances. You have to be clear about what good collaboration practices are. How do you ask for help in ways that someone will be willing to assist? How do you offer help in ways that will get someone to listen to you? How do you distribute work, check on progress without seeming like a control freak, and more? You shouldn’t assume that these skills are known. There are many dimensions of working together. For one, the nature of the contribution is a factor: are you communicating or actually contributing? You can be pointing to useful information triggered by the situation, or actually investing effort in analysis of the problem and brainstorming and evaluating potential solutions. Both can be valuable, but they’re very different ways to be engaged. A second dimension is the time frame. Are we working to solve a particular problem, brainstorming and then moving on to leave it to someone, or is this a working team that meets regularly to address an ongoing situation? The commitment here is an issue. Are we agreeing to work until we have a solution, or are we willing to drop in for a time and give our thoughts and contributions in a focused and constrained effort. Both are viable and valuable, but require different types of processes and support. Another dimension is your motivation to contribute. Harold Jarche talks about collaboration versus cooperation, where in the former you’re actively pursuing a goal for some personal or external reason, whereas in the latter you’re contributing because it is in the general interest of a networked era. The latter, of course, is a nice situation, but can be hard to engender in places where the culture isn’t conducive to contribution. The important thing is to find effective ways to think alone and then together. There’s a saying that "the room is smarter than the smartest person in the room", but there’s a caveat: if you manage the process right. If we allow one person to speak before others have had their chance to think about the problem, that response will color (and limit) the others. Similarly, we want everyone to have enough time to process the situation. So ensuring that there’s private time for preparation and cogitation before converging together is important. It can be done in the meeting: presenting the problem and then giving quiet time first, or before meeting preparation. Diversity helps too. It turns out that having diversity of background, culture, and more amongst the team members helps. It can be more challenging to manage, but the outcomes are better. Another element is making sure that everyone gets a chance to contribute. When contribution is equal, the quality of the outcome goes up. Similarly, having the right number of people helps. There needs to be enough people that you get the required breadth and depth, but too large a group and the management gets unwieldy. Research suggests teams in the range of 5-9 individuals work best, but factors such as representing the necessary skills can influence the optimum total. Further, you have to actually be willing to consider new ideas. If the response is "that’s not how we do it here", are folks really willing to listen? There has to be a commitment to solicit and evaluate new ideas with fair consideration. And, it has to be safe to contribute. If you’re in what I call a Miranda Organization, where anything you say can and will be held against you, you’re not going to get participation. A competitive environment, where you don’t want to give your fellow employees an advantage, isn’t going to be able to tap into this information without external motivators. People will reserve information until it does them a personal good, whereas in another culture the contribution to the general good will be seen as a personal benefit as well. In short, there has to be a culture for learning together. Attitudes about the benefits of contributing have to be complemented by a desire to improve. The values have to be coupled with specific skills on how to learn together. Importantly, the atmosphere and skills can, and should, be developed. So how do you shift to an environment where collaboration can flourish, delivering the best outcomes for the organization? There are several paths, each with it’s own contribution. And there’s no reason they can’t be implemented in parallel. One of the ways is to instill practices about "working and learning out loud", or as Jane Bozarth terms it in her book of the same name, "show your work". Here, employees are encouraged to leave evidence of what they’re working on, and the underlying thinking behind it. The benefits to communication, being able to track progress, are clear. There are also benefits to collaboration, if others, visiting, can and do provide feedback. To get there takes the usual change elements: there has to be a rationale, someone modeling it, evangelism and support, etc. Difficulties should be anticipated, and support for unanticipated outcomes should be available as well. As with any such change, it will take time, but with systematic work it can be accomplished. Arguably, having it instantiated in a small group first, and working, will help spread the idea. Another approach is to build it into your formal learning. In courses, online and face-to-face, have assignments where workers need to collaborate. Ideally, they’re spread out over time, mimicking the ways in which such assignments will likely happen. Have them practice working together in groups first, and then send them away on the same or other projects to work online. This latter, in particular, is the way to get them using the tools that you want them to be using. Whether a dedicated tool for work like a wiki, or the collaborative document tools that are increasingly available, have learners use them for tasks as preparation for using them in work. Here you have an opportunity to observe and develop their ability. You can do so in real practice, of course, but this is a time when the task is known, and the expectation of observation and feedback is encouraged. A number of elements come into play. Your learners will have to develop the ability to comment on the outcome, not the person. They’ll have to learn how to review changes over time, and how to resolve conflicts in vision that can result in bouncing back and forth between two versions. Culturally, you’ll have to make it clear that effective collaboration is not only valued, but expected. Of course, you’ll have to help your L&D team learn about the facilitation of collaboration too, such as when to intervene and when to step back. It’s clear that the future of business is social, and that tools and skills to facilitate this are part of an organization that can continue to innovate and be adaptive enough to not just survive, but to thrive. The question is whether you’re ready to make the step, and willing to invest the effort to develop the skills and the culture. The post Why The Future of Work is Collaborative appeared first on Litmos.

How To Integrate Branding In eLearning Developing a successful brand image is not an easy task. In fact, it takes a great deal of dedication, planning, and determination to cultivate an online brand that stands the test of time. Fortunately, integrating your brand into your eLearning course design can help build your brand and make it flourish. In this article, I’ll share some unexpected ways that you can brand your eLearning experiences without devoting a significant amount of time or resources to the process. Including your logo and contact information are two of the easiest ways to integrate your brand image into your eLearning course. However, there are a variety of ways that you can take your branding to the next level and offer online learners more subtle reminders of your online presence. In other words, you can introduce them to your brand without hitting them over the head with large logos and website links on every page. Here are some of the overlooked brand integration techniques that you can use in your next eLearning course design. Fonts that reflect your company’s message. Even the font in your eLearning course can reflect the image and message, as well as the specific tone you are trying to convey. If the company already has a font type that they use for promotional materials, then you may want to consider carrying it over to your eLearning course. Otherwise, opt for a font that is legible and clearly depicts the overall feel of your organization. For example, a tech firm might want to use a more modern and sleek font for their eLearning program. Brand-specific layouts. Many eLearning authoring tools have templates that allow you to simply input your information, make minor modifications, and then upload the eLearning course. Search through their media library to see if there are any eLearning templates that align with your brand image. If not, you may want to create a master template yourself that you can use for all future eLearning courses. This gives you the opportunity to create a cohesive eLearning program without spending a great deal of time on the development process, as you already have an eLearning template on hand. Images featuring your locations. If you have a physical location, you can opt for images that showcase your office or sales floor. This not only brands your eLearning materials, but makes the eLearning experience relatable and realistic for your online learners. For example, an online scenario that features actual pictures of the work station creates a greater sense of immersion for your employees. You can also include pictures of your employees to give everyone a glimpse of your business team. This puts a personal spin on your organization and integrates the all-important human element. Color palettes. One of the easiest ways to incorporate branding in eLearning is to customize the color scheme. Many eLearning templates even feature color modification tools to personalize every aspect of the eLearning course design. Just be sure that you keep your colors consistent throughout. The exception to this would be using a different color scheme for different branches or departments within the organization. For example, you can set the customer service training apart from the HR training by using a different color palette. Background images. In addition to realistic images that feature your offices, you may also want to include background images that are reminiscent of your brand. These can even be abstract graphics or images that convey your message or overall style. Keep in mind that background images should not be distracting or chaotic, as this may prevent your online learners from focusing on the key takeaways of the eLearning course. Also, make sure that the font and background do not conflict with one another, such as using a dark colored font on a busy black and white background. Social media buttons. Social media buttons are one of the most overlooked branding tools that you have at your disposal. Rather than making your online learners search the web to find your Facebook and LinkedIn profile pages, they can simply click on a link or button to quickly like or subscribe to your social media feeds. Social media buttons also give you the opportunity to keep your learners informed and cultivate a social learning culture. When they have issues and need to reach out, they can post on your page or send you a private message in a matter of seconds. This further enhances your brand image, as online learners know that you respect their opinions and care about their experience by offering them social media contacts. Ensure that ALL online platforms are cohesive. Every eLearning course and promotional site or page that you may have online should align with your brand image. They should all contain the same logos, fonts, and general color scheme, so that online learners immediately recognize your organization. This also helps your company to build credibility. If you have not taken the time to clearly identify your brand image, then this is the first and most important step in the process. Sit down with your team to figure out the message you want to convey, the image you are trying to project, and which niche you fall into. If necessary, speak with a branding expert who can point you in the right direction and offer advice. Then you will be able to incorporate a solid and cohesive brand image into all of your learning and marketing materials without any ambiguity. Including branding in eLearning to show your pride for the finished product and attract new clients who are impressed by your top notch eLearning experience. Use this guide to pick and choose the branding elements that are right for your eLearning strategy, when creating your next eLearning course. Looking for ways to improve your online eLearning presence? Read the article 5 Tips On How eLearning Professionals Can Create An Effective Online Presence and boost your online exposure. The post 7 Unexpected Ways To Integrate Branding In Corporate eLearning appeared first on Litmos.

From 20 to 200! This is how fast hundreds of small businesses want to grow. Like those currently attending the SaaStr Annual Conference in San Francisco. And in today's environment, that growth needs to happen fast. But that can be a huge challenge. Not only for the leadership of the company but for anyone given the responsibility for training as the company grows so large so fast. The internet is filled with blogs and discussions and thought leaders rambling on about the learning and development industry. Very few, if any, discuss the unique training challenges of the small fast growing businesses in today's economy. The practical actions required to get your training done are vastly different from that of a Fortune500 company. It's important to understand those differences and to not feel like you're "doing it wrong" based on what the internet says. In my experience, the Fortune500 could learn a lot from bootstrapped startups handling their training needs with limited resources. Why the L&D Industry is Not Helping the Little Guy Much of what the L&D industry discusses is aimed at large enterprises like those in the Fortune 500 or Global 2000. Most case studies presented at large industry conferences are presented by CLOs and other senior managers from these same enterprises. Strategy conversations revolve around these companies that have had training departments in place for many many years. These mature enterprises have had adequate time to launch and relaunch training initiatives, implement Learning management systems, and in some cases multiple LMSs. These are important conversations for the L&D industry to have as we can all learn from their experiences. However, we rarely hear about what their training department was like when these same companies were considered small and medium sized businesses. And to complicate things, even if we did hear about those experiences, that occurred 10-20+ years ago, it is highly unlikely their solutions would apply to today's small business environment. SMBs need to act fast. If you are responsibility for training in a SMB you need to act fast as well. It's a different environment than a mature enterprise already staffing an entire Learning &Development(L&D) department across all business units. SMB training departments do not have the luxury of 6-7 figure budgets and a small army of resources. In most cases the small business has one employee in charge of getting training done. This need for speed and lack of resources means the SMB training manager needs to be resourceful and accept solutions that enterprise L&D professionals might frown upon. Such is the life of a training professional building a training department in a rapidly growing businesses. Small Fast Growing Businesses Should NOT Follow Current L&D Practices SMBs are uniquely situated at a point in time where there is major disruption in the L&D industry. It's obvious that technology is, and has been, disrupting all industries for many years now. Sadly, the L&D industry has been disrupted as well, but has not responded well to the change. Your SMB is growing fast. You probably utilize powerful new communication tools like slack, twitter, and maybe even snapchat. So much of growing a small business is now supported by SaaS based systems, and apps. Many of those systems are outstanding tools for sharing knowledge, and collaborating with team members. However, when you're tight on resources and still need to onboard new employees, deliver customer training and channel sales training, and more, then you need a powerful SaaS based Learning Management System to get the job done. Don't be fooled in to thinking you need to buy an authoring tool AND a learning management system AND instructional design consultants. At the current stage of your business, you need to keep things simple. A powerful, flexible, quick to implement, and easy to use system like Litmos will not only get you started, but will grow right along with your business.  You may only have one person responsible for making sure the training gets done, but an easy to use system allows everyone in the business to pitch in and help create training related to their unique area of expertise. It's okay to shoot instructional videos with your mobile phone. It's okay to publish your powerpoint presentations as courses. It's okay to create multiple choice questions as an assessment. All of these things are perfectly acceptable as training content at this point in your business. Despite what you might read, see, or hear, from the L&D consultants of large enterprise companies. When your business grows beyond 200 and you have the resources to expand your training team, THEN you can think about upgrading your content. Until then, depending upon your situation, you may be just throwing money away that could have been used for marketing or product development. Of course, all of this will depend upon your unique situation. But the point of this post is to help you understand that as you grow, you can be successful by not following "the rules" of the L&D industry. You can be a rebel and still get the job done. You will be hiring very smart people that mostly want content and for people to get out of their way.  Even relatively average adults have a significant drive to learn things on their own. Use a system like Litmos and make content available as quickly and easily as possible. And give everyone the ability to create courses and teach. Your training department should not be a gatekeeper to the acquisition or creation of learning content. Find out for yourself and sign up for a trial account today. It's even possible to have your course content uploaded and delivered before you end your day. Do it! The post Fast Company Growth Requires Faster Training Solutions appeared first on Litmos.

Is the rewind button one of the most underrated learning technologies of all time? Consider that question for a moment. The concept of spaced repetition is a hot topic in learning communities. While the spacing part may be new the repetition part is not. Today's technologies can support spaced repetition much better than ever before. However, was there a time when this was never possible? Today's digital programming technologies can define the most effective time variation and deliver the content to any device. That's a big deal. Automating all the aspects of successfully spaced content repetition is quite amazing. But this got me thinking about older technologies. Like the underwhelming brilliance of the rewind button. If the content is needed, no matter how bad the production value is, the rewind button makes it effective learning content. Life Before Rewind Video is something we all take for granted. We've all had TV in our lives. And our kids have now grown up with digital video and Youtube for most, if not all, of theirs. Learning from TV was possible. But you only got the information one time, unless the program "aired" again. Audio had a separate history. I remember a time before rewind when repeating a certain guitar riff meant lifting the turntable needle and swinging it back a few grooves to replay that part of the song. 8 track tapes never had a rewind. Much like broadcast TV, you had one shot at it. If the riff passed, then you had to wait for the track to cycle around. However, 8-track tapes did give the user control of when the song would air next in it's entirety.  So, in that respect, it was a big step forward. During that time before rewind, however, we did have books. Books have always had rewind, or review, built into their structure. If you owned the book you could read it when, and where ever you wanted. You could read it how ever you wanted as well. In the order it was written. Or jumping around from chapter to chapter in your own particular order. If something in the content did not make sense you could read it again, and again, and again until something clicked and you understood. So the practical nature of printed content, and the ability to review it, still made print the preferred medium for content. Most other forms of entertainment were live events you need to attend, or broadcastings of live events across radio or television. The Power to Record Gives Us the Ability to Rewind Fast forward to the age of the cassette tape and we discover a simple, yet powerful, learning feature in the rewind button. That ability with books to go back in time was now available to both audio and video content. The rewind button is never quoted in books as a technological marvel. But why not?  That one simple button probably did more for learning in that time than most other technologies. Did we miss it? The shift from live broadcasting to recorded content was a big shift. At least as big as the shift to live broadcasting from live events. But at the time few people cared. Maybe some did, but schools certainly didn't. Well that's probably not true. Schools cared enough to trade in their film projectors for tape machines. But I don't remember pedagogy changing at all. I don't ever remember a teacher saying, "hey students, let's rewind that part and watch it again because it's important". And I definitely don't remember them saying, "watch this video when you get home as often as you need too." School didn't change with the invention of rewind, but that doesn't mean that learning had too. I remember my early days of learning to play guitar. The rewind button was a critical part of the learning process. Listening to one section over and over and over again, while searching for the same notes and sounds on my guitar. I believe the rewind button is also responsible for countless hours of watching, and unknowingly memorizing, almost every Monty Python, Saturday Night Live, and SCTV skit we could get our hands on. The rewind button gave us choice and control. Something we never had much of until that point. Looking back on it now I feel like the rewind button just made our lives easier, and better. All because of the simple ability to learn something faster, with less effort, than previously possible. How we interacted with technology changed...but nothing else did. (Something to think about: Are we experiencing the same thing with today's new tech?) Why Should We Care About the Rewind Button? I'm not sure I can answer that as this thought only recently crossed my mind. Today we move through recorded digital content effortlessly all day long. We skip commercials on TV. We listen to radio shows when we want too not just when they air. We even listen to podcasts at 1.5x and 2x speeds just because real life goes too slow. We take all of this technology for granted and forget how young it all is.  And we act like much of this technology is brand new. That we had to wait until digital tech and internet became real. When in fact, we've had rewind for many decades. You may not care about the rewinding of cassette tapes from 30-40 years ago. But you should be caring about video in general. And rewind is one of the biggest reasons why recorded video and audio has only just begun to take over the media landscape. And that includes taking over the learning content landscape. Control is the main reason I think the rewind button never changed education. The rewind button is all about learning and nothing to do with training/teaching. Individuals with the drive to own their own learning found the rewind button quickly and used it effectively. Teaching practices didn't change because teachers hated rewinding their lectures. "What do you mean you want me to repeat THAT? Weren't you listening?".  The the rewind button changed nothing for teaching. It changed EVERYTHING for learning.     The post The Most Powerful, and Mostly Ignored, Learning Technology appeared first on Litmos.

Last month I had the pleasure of speaking at the C3 conference in London. I participated in a Fireside Q&A, which was part of a series of learning seminars hosted by Litmos. I was interviewed by Rory Cameron, Vice President of Callidus Cloud, who asked me the following questions: 1. What are your top predictions for 2016 in the industry and technologies for learning? "Every year we are asked the same question about where we see the e-learning going. And I think it’s safe to say that we are not going to be seeing any huge changes in direction. It will be more evolution rather than revolution, with some of the key trends that we have seen over the past 3 to 5 years continuing to develop. This question has hundreds of answers! But one area that we are seeing really make an impact is gamification. Now although gamification is a huge buzz word in e-learning at the moment, it is nothing new. I remember sitting in bed as a 10-year-old, reading my adventure books before going to sleep. I would often reach the end of a chapter, only to be told that there was a decision to be made - do you want to go through the red or the blue door? Whichever door I walked through had a different consequence and would take me down a different path in the book. And this is a perfect example of gamification in practice. However the key change that we are seeing today is that the tools needed to create learning games are becoming more readily available. Even 5 years ago, the only way to create a computer game would be to hire a developer with video game development experience - which was usually way out of anyone’s budget. Nowadays, we are seeing affordable tools with which most developers can create learning based games." 2. What are your thoughts on improving adoption in employee training? "One of the most valuable pieces of advice I received when I started implementing e-learning within huge organisations was to ‘treat your e-learning solution as a business, and your learners as customers.’ I never forgot this piece of advice and it stood me in good stead as I tried to create something sustainable and effective. One of the key problems that I see time and time again with e-learning is that our L&D teams forget to market their solutions. Going back to the business analogy, there is no way you can create a successful business without a strong sales and marketing strategy. And the same must be applied to L&D. You have created a website, added valuable content, but nobody is visiting. You have to market your product! There is so much competition for your audience’s attention, why should they look at your LMS when they could be looking at the company intranet, YouTube, Facebook or chatting to their colleagues instead? Your e-learning will never be front of mind unless you are in constant communication with the audience. A simple first step could be creating an email marketing campaign. You already have the email addresses of your audience, why not send out monthly or biweekly email advertising the latest content available, and really focusing on the value that is being delivered. Why would your audience benefit from logging on to the LMS today? What’s in it for them? If you can communicate the value, you will see more people logging into the system and benefiting from the training." 3. How can the impact of training be measured? "There are many different ways to measure the impact of training. However, this must be an intentional part of the design process. If you don’t know before you start developing a course what you are intending to measure, there it becomes extremely difficult to measure anything! So my advice for measuring the impact of training is always the same - start with why. Why are you creating the course? What are you trying to achieve by implementing this training? Start by picking out one important reason that this training is required. Maybe you can then think of two or three more objectives, but try to keep to a maximum of five. Once you have identified these objectives, figure out how you are going to measure these. Will it be purely through analysing data from the course? I.e. does the learner know more now than they did before they took the training? If this is your method of measurement, can you measure this further down the line rather than just immediately after they taken the training? I.e. can you implement a refresher module six months down the line that will prove your training has been effective? Alternatively, are there more tangible statistics that you can use to measure the effectiveness of training? This could be an increase in sales, reduction in customer service issues, an improvement in staff retention or any other metric that has tangible business value. What we are measuring is irrelevant, but it is essential that you pick something before you develop the course and figure out how you plan to measure it." 4. Is there an ideal course formula for effective e-learning? "One of the analogies I find myself using frequently at the moment is that of watching television. Quite often, I get home from work and my girlfriend feels like putting on a movie. Yet I prefer watching box sets. I asked myself recently why this could be, and the answer was purely down to my inability to sit still for any period of time. I am a fidget! And whilst I will often sit down and watch three or four episodes of the box set, there is something that scares me about watching a movie - it’s the amount of time I’m committing upfront to watching a movie! What happens if I get halfway through the movie and decide that I want to do something else? 2 hours is a big commitment! And I think the exact same psychology applies when we deliver online training to our audience. If we provide them with one option, which is ‘do I open this e-learning course or not?’ the answer we often find is that they do not! So to reduce the commitment we are placing upon our learners when they arrive at the LMS dashboard, we should not only be breaking down the courses into much smaller components, but we should also be indicating how much time they will be committing to undertaking that module. A simple (5 mins) at the end of the module title can be enough for the learner to feel happy committing that much time to doing the course." (If you are interested in learning more about bitesize learning and the psychology behind that then please click here). 5. What are your recommendations for taking a training program to the next level? "Another great question! I can think of a couple of tips straight off the top of my head. First of all, I think one of the most important tips is to ensure the key stakeholders within the business are excited about e-learning. And the only way you are going to do this is to really deliver value to that group of people. One of the ways that I used to do this was to run small training sessions, and invite along these folk to educate them on how e-learning can positively impact their team, their customers and the organisation as a whole. For example, educating them about content - are they aware that they can go onto websites such as Coursera and Open Sesame and download courses for their teams, that can be delivered via the LMS? This is often something that is a complete revolution for these people. Another example is giving them a thorough demonstration the LMS in an administrative capacity - this can be really eye-opening. Very often they are unaware that they have access and can see granular training activity for their teams. But by educating this group of people, you will ultimately create a tribe. A group of people who champion e-learning within the organisation. And that is a much more effective tactic to generate excitement about what you are delivering than to try and tackle this all on your own. My second tip is communication. Communicate with your audience. It is very easy to push e-learning out into the ether and to never hear any feedback about what the audience enjoyed, what they disliked and what could make the experience better. It would take literally minutes to put together a series of short questions in a survey, and email the URL out to the audience. Even better, make it anonymous so that they don’t feel nervous about giving negative feedback. You may be shocked as to what you hear, it is often very difficult different to what you expect. Once you have this information, you will be able to start addressing the most commonly mentioned items and start seeing improvements in adoption." Conclusion The Fireside Q and A was a really exciting session, with lots of questions from the audience and deep discussion, specifically around how we can make elearning more engaging and increase user adoption. If you enjoyed this article then please take a look at Why engaging learning content and a state-of-the-art LMS is not enough... The post 5 Important Questions to Ask Yourself in 2016 appeared first on Litmos.

Earlier this year I attended CES2016 (Read more here, and here.) and discovered some very cool new tech. One of my favorites was not ready to ship until February. And once it arrived I was not disappointed. The Training and Development industry talks a lot about mobile learning in the sense that mobile devices are great tools for delivering training content. But today's mobile devices have become incredibly powerful mobile production studios. On there own, you can point them at the action and get some incredible video footage. And with a few quick taps and swipes you can edit that video a little, or import it into your favorite video app and edit it a lot. But you will quickly begin to realize that, while the phones are pretty good on their own, you will want to kick the quality up a notch or two. And this is where my favorite CES2016 discovery comes in handy. The Studio case by olloclip immediately caught my attention in their booth at CES2016. I tried to buy it right then but it was not yet shipping in January. Most of the cool products at CES were not shipping at the time. It's an event for announcements and demos of what is coming soon. And thankfully I didn't have to wait very long for this. I was hoping it would arrive before my trip to London for the Learning Technologies 2016 event, but no such luck. However, it was waiting for me when I got home. This morning I did a spontaneous, LIVE, "unboxing" on blab.im. Watch the video below to understand why I like it so much for video production. The rig I've been using until now was great but it was not as sturdy as I would like a setup like this to be. As you can see in the video, the clip attachments secure nicely to the case securing the phone to a tripod in either landscape or portrait mode, as well as 2 cold shoes for mounting a light and an external mic. I'm using the Rode Videomic Pro ($189) and a small LED light ($22) on my cold shoes. There is also a very clever handle that gives you a better grip on the unit when your shooting video of yourself, vlog-style, on the go. And the 4-in-1 iPhone lens attachment also fits perfectly on the case as well. It truly is a very convenient way to produce mobile videos a step above what your device can achieve on its own. In March I'll be at SXSW Interactive and putting this rig to the test of event vlogging. I'm looking forward to sharing a lot of video from Austin. Be sure to follow my Litmos Youtube channel if you want to stay updated. And don't forget about the C3 event this year. It's going to be bigger and better than ever! The post The Ultimate Mobile Learning Video Production Studio appeared first on Litmos.

As a franchisor you want your franchisees to be successful. You need to empower them. They need to know your vision and all the practical details required to execute that vision in their franchise. You know the old saying, "knowledge is power." That means training is a critical part of executing your franchise vision and empowering franchisees. You already have an operations manual. And you might think that manual is enough. While it has everything a franchisee would possibly need, it's not a training document. The operations manual is a reference document that is great to have at hand when questions arise. But there are better ways to empower franchisees with knowledge. And that's where a learning management system comes in. As the franchisor, you want to know who and, more importantly, who has not taken your training courses. A learning management system can give you quick and easy access to those reports. You'll also want the flexibility to assign courses to your franchisees. Some regions may require specialized training. Instead of pushing training to everyone, you need an LMS that allows you to decide who needs to take training based on criteria you define. And with the massive growth of mobile devices you need a system that can deliver your training content to any device. This empowers your franchisees by making training available to them any time, any where, and on any device. Why Choose a SaaS LMS Like Litmos? You need an LMS with a solid track record working with franchise business entrepreneurs. Zumba, Real Mex Restaurants, and Cellairis are great examples of the Litmos platform at the foundation of global training and development within a franchise. Cellairis uses Litmos to deliver the Cellairis University training program to franchise stores: "When it comes to our franchises, there are so many unique users and locations," states Blake Mohler, Franchise Training and Development Manager. "The hierarchies within Litmos are a lifesaver for us, making it easy to deliver training to specific people depending on their store and their specific role." After evaluating elearning LMS vendors, Real Mex restaurants chose Litmos LMS and created an online university, ‘Real Mex University’, for providing a single online training center for its employees and franchisees. And Zumba used Litmos to seamlessly globalize its continuing education programs for fitness instructors worldwide. Just few of the many reasons why the Litmos LMS is right for you and your franchise business: One of the best part of SaaS based systems is no infrastructure costs. Up and running in hours, not months. Moving your training online also reduces, or eliminates, expensive travel costs for classroom training events. As you grow Litmos grows with you. Automated communication keeps everyone updated with notifications. Document storage for your operations manuals, and any other documents. Deliver training to mobile devices. Sign up for a FREE trial right now!   The post How to Spend Less on Training Your Franchisees appeared first on Litmos.

In yesterday's blog post we covered the importance of managing your franchisee training program with a learning management system. Today, we talk about making that training mobile. Are You Comfortable with Your Training Strategy? Every franchise owner must first look at their specific business and find out what type of training program s/he is most comfortable with. Many consultants will present a right way and wrong way to you. But the reality is that the most successful training programs are the ones you are most comfortable with and willing to support both financially and culturally. It doesn't matter how good a specialized training program is if it's created by someone outside of your organization, and you don't even understand what it is. If you're not comfortable with the solution then there is a much higher chance of failure. It would be better for you to approve a classroom based training strategy, if that's what you will support, than invest in an advanced eLearning program that doesn't make sense to you. Your support is critical to your training success. It's Okay to be Unsure about Mobile Learning No matter what you decide, you will need a system in place that can not only support a comfortable strategy, but will support strategies you will be comfortable with in the future. Mobile learning is a perfect example. There are many ways to approach the effective use of mobile devices as learning tools. The idea of mobile learning is still relatively new and there is little consensus on what it the definition might be. This confusion might make you uncomfortable. And that discomfort might make it difficult for you to support immediately as you launch your franchisee training program. However, it's not hard to see that mobile devices will be around for the long term and at some point you will begin to feel comfortable with incorporating a mobile learning solution into your training program. It's okay to put off the fancy solutions for a while, but your systems supporting your early solutions should also be capable of supporting your future training programs as well. But You Need to be Confident in Your Systems SaaS-based learning management systems like Litmos give you the best balance of ease of use, flexibility, and expandability. You can quickly launch your Litmos LMS with one basic course if you need too. And then you can build your library up from there. Adding additional modules to one course is simple as well as adding new courses, and building collections of courses called Learning Paths. But a powerful feature of Litmos allows your learners to view all of your courses on mobile devices. Your online presence within the Litmos platform is completely mobile enabled. And that mobile capability will empower your franchisees by giving them the content they need when and where they need it. A Powerful Flexible Learning Management System Makes Everyone Happy It's okay to launch your franchise training program in a simple format because you need to get it done. But once you're up and running you will need to know that your systems will be able to keep up with the growth of your business. Mobile learning can be available to you immediately with Litmos. And as you grow and begin receiving feedback on your courses you will discover how best to move your training strategy forward.  And when your franchisees realize how convenient your mobile enabled courses are to take, they will thank you. You know your franchisees are very busy. Everything you give them should be flexible enough for them to view no matter where they are and no matter what device they are on. It may not sound like much. But giving them the opportunity to view training on a Saturday at home on the couch will make them happy as well as improve the chances of them viewing the content at all. And the more you can inform and educate your franchisees, the more successful they will be. And their success is your success. Start a FREE trial today!   The post Upgrade Your Franchisee Training Program with Mobile Learning appeared first on Litmos.

The ACA has caused a steep increase in patient responsibility by way of higher co-pays and deductibles. These factors have become a bigger part of the revenue cycle and are a challenge for facilities to capture the additional costs. Patients have become savvy consumers, comparing costs for services and selecting providers, clinics, and hospitals that yield the greatest result to the consumer. The ability to maximize their benefits, reducing their costs, while receiving the highest quality of care, is a driving force behind consumer healthcare decisions. There is a lot of misinformation regarding the healthcare exchange and Revenue Cycle Management, and managers need to adjust the way their staff engages with patients. Staff processes continue to be the same as they were 5-10 years ago, but the landscape has extensively changed in an alarming way — organizations need to work hard to keep up. Like any business, there is now consumer competition in the healthcare space. It is imperative to develop customer loyalty as you would in any other business. You do this by engaging your patients from intake and through the completion of the revenue cycle. Doing this will reduce your time to cash, improve your response rate and minimize the cost to collect. By communicating in a way that is transparent, you can create or modify the behaviors of your patients into one that is efficient to both parties. Staff Communication - Synergy within the Revenue Cycle Team: ICD-10 required most facilities to increase their training budget, as well as their staff size. Successful organizations started by reviewing provider documentation and educated physicians, in order to eliminate revenue cycle bottleneck. Online education allows physicians to audit and review documentation best practices in smaller chunks without having to sacrifice clinic or patient hours. Physician communication and engagement is integral to a healthy revenue cycle. Create Revenue Cycle integrity by: Keeping open communication between denial management team and coding team. Understanding denials due to documentation and those due to coding. Preparing to work with payers to overturn denials. Building reporting to identify cash trends and make inpatient case by payer. Revenue Cycle is a team sport and it is important that every player know and practice their role. The post The Affordable Care Act (ACA) and the Revenue Cycle appeared first on Litmos.

In memory of my friend, mentor, and colleague, Jay Cross, and his most recent campaign for Real Learning, I thought it appropriate to talk about learning to learn, or meta-learning. It was a passion we both shared, e.g. coming together to form the Meta-Learning Lab in the early 00’s, and it has persisted in both of our independent work. And it’s of real value to organizations. We all learn, naturally. I’ve suggested that natural learning taps into the 7 C’s of learning: Choose: we are self-service learners.  We follow what interests us, what is meaningful to us, what we know is important. Commit: we take ownership for the outcomes.  We work until we’ve gotten out of it what we need. Crash: our commitment means we make mistakes, and we learn from them. Create: we design, we build, we are active in our learning. Copy: we mimic others, looking to their performances for guidance. Converse: we talk with others. We ask questions, offer opinions, debate positions. Collaborate: we work together. We build together, evaluate what we’re doing, and take turns adding value. Arguably, it’s schooling that hinders our natural learning, where we lose choice, failure is considered bad, copying and conversing are viewed as cheating, and so on. As adults, we’re expected to learn effectively, yet we’re confounded by our natural approaches versus the approaches we used to succeed at the relatively artificial goals that school dictates. Consequently, it shouldn’t be surprising that the evidence suggests that we’re not as effective at learning as we could be. While we learn naturally, we may not naturally learn effectively. We can have flaws in our skills for and beliefs about learning, and these are addressable. Then the question is, should we be addressing them? A number of years ago, Jay Cross and I proposed that arguably the best investment one could make in an organization was developing the learning ability of employees. This is increasingly true, as the pace of change means that organizations not only need to optimally execute, but continually innovate. And here’s the necessary insight: when you’re problem-solving, researching designing, etc., you don’t know the answer when you start, hence you are inherently learning! It’s not formal learning, with instructors and known goals, it’s informal learning. And that means it’s inventing and innovating and collaborating and communicating, but at core it’s learning. It is this knowledge work, this learning, that is the necessary differentiator for organizational success. The need for agility is every more important, and that agility comes from being able to learn faster. Thus, if you want your people to be optimally successful for your organization, you’d like to have them be as effective as possible at learning, so they can be as effective as possible at the work that will make a difference to the organization. What is Meta-Learning? So if we’re clear about why we want to ensure that our people are good learners, then we need to discuss what meta-learning really is. And it’s a suite of things that interact with each other, but we can focus on a few things that are worth addressing. There are many more than can be comprehensively identified here, but there are steps to take and some general guidelines. First of all, meta-learning is a set of skills about how to learn. The range is vast: how to frame good questions, what resources are good for different types of questions, how to use those resources, how to document your progress, and more. Each of those breaks down into finer granularity, too. For example, documenting your progress can have component skills in storytelling, visual representations, and more. And it’s not just solo, but we also know that beyond one’s own learning, we learn better together. Certainly the outcomes of efforts to meet organizational needs are better when we tap into the power of people working together. And yet, here too, some specific approaches yield far better results than others. The room is smarter than the smartest person in the room, if you manage the process right! And it’s not just about learning in the moment, but developing over time, so setting up and regularly reviewing your information feeds, staying on top of social media, showing your work, presenting, and more are valuable activities too. It’s both in-the-moment abilities and a set of ongoing habits that are to be developed. Most importantly, to be ‘meta’ about it, you should be reviewing your learning processes as well! Are you reviewing the sources you check, the ways you search, the ways you represent your understandings, etc.? These are they types of habits that differentiate the best learners. Another component is your beliefs about learning. Do you believe that your learning ability is fixed, or can you influence it? Do you believe that failure is an opportunity or a problem? What do you believe is your responsibility in learning? These and more are beliefs that can facilitate or interfere with learning. There’s evidence that believing that you can get smarter, and that persistence through adversity is a personal commitment, leads to better performance. And, of course, the environment can be conducive to, or interfere with learning. For instance, making it safe to share failure allows lessons to be learned. Time for reflection needs to be allowed, as well. Providing resources for learning, both in house and externally helps, and support for learning is also valuable. Not all of these are easily achieved. To develop these takes awareness of the nuances, and a systematic plan to develop them. However, it can be done, and it should. So how can we make an impact? How to Learn How to Learn Self-learning really requires the learner to take responsibility for learning. The first element is awareness, and the usual org change tactics can be used; so you should evangelize why it’s important, model the process yourself, provide resources about learning to learn, and help individuals understand that they can take actions to make themselves more effective. Too many people aren’t even aware of learning to learn skills, nor that they can be changed for the better! Then you can scaffold specific skills. You can collect evidence about searching behaviors, and uses of resources to solve problems, so you can show folks how they’re doing. You can also offer courses on specific skills, such as searching using particular tools, and more. Certainly there can be support for how to use the organizational resources. And/or you could be available for coaching on problem-solving. Of course, you do need to know these skills yourself. This extends beyond personal skills to how to work well together. Sample skills include how to give feedback in ways that people will listen, how to ask questions in ways that get responses, the value of diversity, size of teams, ways to brainstorm effectively, and more. Organizing sharing sessions about learning is a possibility as well. There are external models, such as #lrnchat that can be used to help yourself or others learn more about learning. Any support you offer should focus on developing skills. Your course could, for instance, start off by providing resources on a topic, but then start asking learners to search on their own for resources, document the strategies, and share. Similarly, if you’re coaching, work out loud about looking for resources and annotate your work. This builds not only the awareness but the skills themselves in an intrinsic way. However, this really won’t help if you don’t have the culture where it’s safe to share. If your workplace is a ‘Miranda organization’, where anything you say can and will be held against you, people won’t share, yet that’s one of (if not the) most powerful form of learning. So you really do want to create a learning organization, where you have a conducive culture, leadership that supports learning, and explicit practices. Culture change is hard, but if we take the premise that agility is the key to organizational success in this era, a learning culture is the optimal advantage. There are steps to get there. So get busy learning to learn for yourself, your team, and your organization. It’s doable and valuable, arguably the most valuable thing you can do. Leaving it to chance is leaving money on the table, and who better to do it than the learning unit? The post Why Learning to Learn is More Important than Ever! appeared first on Litmos.