Vote for the Top 100 Tools for Learning 2014until Friday 26 September 2014. The list will be revealed on Monday, 29 September 2014. It is possible to vote through the c4lpt website or by tweeting to @C4LPT. Voters much choose 10 tools for learning.My vote in 2013 and my vote for 2014:Small differences regarding the choices in 2013. I still vote for Classdojo, the only gamified tool in my list. Last year's list is available at The Top 100 Tools for Learning 2013 (#1 Twitter, #2 Google Drive, #3 Youtube). 

Hi All, My sincere apologies to all of you who come to this blog regularly. Its been a year now and haven’t been able to write much or post useful stuff here. I have been reading all your comments and even queries. I am so sorry for not responding. I am taking some active steps to revive this blog. As a supplement to this blog, I have created a Facebook group which will serve as a learning platform for all us. Here’s all you have to do: Click on the image below to view the group. Click Join Group and I will accept your request Let’s get to know one another, interact and discuss Instructional Design through this group. Hoping to see you all join this group. Thank you   Rupa Rajagopalan

CSEDU 2015, the International Conference on Computer Supported Education, aims at becoming a yearly meeting place for presenting and discussing new educational environments, best practices and case studies on innovative technology-based learning strategies, institutional policies on computer supported education including open and distance education, using computers. In particular, the Web is currently a preferred medium for distance learning and the learning practice in this context is usually referred to as e-learning. CSEDU 2014 is expected to give an overview of the state of the art as well as upcoming trends, and to promote discussion about the pedagogical potential of new learning and educational technologies in the academic and corporate world.Conference Areas:Information Technologies Supporting Learning Learning/Teaching Methodologies and Assessment Social Context and Learning Environments Domain Applications and Case Studies Ubiquitous LearningUpcoming Deadlines:Regular Paper Submission: December 16, 2014 Regular Paper Authors Notification: March 11, 2015 Regular Paper Camera Ready and Registration: March 25, 2015

Its been quite some time since I connected with you all. So I am just curious to know what you/other Instructional Designers are working on these days? Please go ahead and take this poll. Feel free to choose more than one response. If you are working on custom e-learning, please do not choose the rest of the options. I am sure the results are going to be interesting Note: There is a poll embedded within this post, please visit the site to participate in this post's poll.

CHI PLAY is a new international and interdisciplinary conference (by ACM SIGCHI) for researchers and professionals across all areas of play, games and human-computer interaction (HCI). We call this area "player-computer interaction". The goal of the conference is to highlight and foster discussion of current high quality research in games and HCI as foundations for the future of digital play. To the end, the conference will feature streams that blend academic research and games with research papers, interactive demos, and industry case studies.CHI PLAY grew out of the increasing work around games and play emerging from the ACM annual conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI) as well as smaller conferences such as Fun and Games and Gamification. CHI PLAY is sponsored by the ACM Special Interest Group for Computer-Human Interaction (SIGCHI).Important Dates (Submission Deadlines):May 18, 2014: Full papers (talks/demos/videos) and workshopsJune 26, 2014 Student competition, courses and tutorials, panels, doctoral consortium, industry case studies and works-in-progressThemes:Game InteractionNovel Game ControlNovel Implementation Techniques that Affect Player ExperienceEvaluation of Feedback and Display Technologies for GamesGamificationNeurogamingPersuasive GamesGames for Health, Learning and ChangeExertion GamesPlayer ExperienceVirtual and Augmented Reality GamesGames User ResearchGame Evaluation MethodsPsychology of Players and GamesPlayer TypologiesAccessible and Inclusive Game DesignNovel Game Mechanics Impacting Player ExperienceCasual Game Design StudiesSocial Game ExperiencesSerious GamesAlternate Reality GamesTools for Game CreationDeveloper Experiences and Studies of DevelopersIndustry Case Studies

Target Audience: Beginner/Intermediate (Instructional Designers/Content Writers/Technical Writers) _______________________ Before I get to the crux of this post, here is a short note on what prompted me to write this post: I like taking good photos, though am not particularly interested in photography. I find it really hard to work with SLR settings. So I settled for a camera which has a lot of automatic settings and some basic SLR settings, that are easy to work with. I was not sure what to do with the options AV/TV. So I googled to learn about these options and stumbled upon lot of articles. I did get something out all of those articles I read. But then, I was still confused. It is then I found this article : How to use aperture priority, AV (for Canon) or A (for Nikon) mode on your digital SLR camera.  While I clearly learned how to use the AV option in my camera, I realized that this article very nicely  illustrates the 4 essential steps you need to follow to teach a new concept/technique to a user/learner. And this prompted me to list the 4 essential steps here. So here we begin:    Always define/explain the new concept/technique with an example Explain the benefits of using the concept/technique  List the steps to use the the concept/technique using a real life example.      Finally allow the learner/user to try out  the concept/technique The assessment below not only gives a recap of the steps but also allows the learner/user to practically try out the steps to use the AV mode. _________________________ So what do you think about this post? Please take some time to post a comment.

Agree or not, ours is a very weight conscious society. Meet people after ages, the first thing they tell you how fat or how slim you look. Most often it is either a compliment on your weight loss or a criticism on weight gain. Aishwarya Rai’s weight gain became a national issue, recently. Sounds funny but it’s true. Why am I talking about all these here, you may wonder? Well, I do find a striking similarity between dieting and learning.  You got to do both these right to get good results. So in this post, I use dieting as an analogy to convey how to do your learning activity the right way. Here we go: 1. Start with a small target, something that is doable It is highly ambitious and unhealthy to lose 20 pounds in a month.Rather you must target about 10 pounds or less in a month, which is doable. Likewise while learning, you need to set short targets. For example, if you are trying to learn a new programming language, a reasonable target is to write basic programs within 1 or 2 months and then you move to the next level. 2. Choose a program that  fits you There are tons and tons of diet plans all over the internet. You need to keep your target in mind, and then choose a program that fits your requirement. Let’s say I need to lose 2 pounds in a month. I would choose a plan that will help me achieve this target. For example, I will eat frequently but small meals throughout  the day. I will choose a diet plan that has a lot of  sprouts and fruits, some vegetables and less carbohydrates included. I cannot forgo milk and sugar completely so I will include them in my diet in such a way that they do  not add to my calories and keep me away from my target. Probably I will do some light exercise 4 days a week. Likewise, when you are starting to learn something, you will find lots of learning tools/ schedules/plans/material. Plan your learning in such a way that you learn effectively. For example, you are trying to learn Photoshop and are freaked out by the instructions in the help manuals. Then stop. Do you enjoy watching videos? If yes, look up videos on YouTube and try out the tasks in Photoshop. This will probably speed up your learning. 3. Enjoy the process Be it dieting or learning, you need to enjoy it. Believe me, if you do not enjoy, you will never get the results you want.  Let’s say, you are on a detox diet for 7 days and all through you feel deprived of pizzas and burgers. There are a lot of chances that you give up your detox diet much before the 5th day or you end up frustrated/distressed at the end of the 7th day. Either ways, it is not working well. You must never force yourself to eat something that you do not like and never starve. Likewise, when you are learning something new, make sure you are enjoying it. For example, if you are taking up an e-learning program in your organization just because it is a part of an induction program, then let me tell you it is as good as not taking the program. Instead if you think, you need to be aware of the company business, process/policies and more, so that you can contribute better and it will add value to your career, it will make a lot of difference. 4. Don’t get desperate about results You diet for two days and expect the weighing scale to show a pound lesser. No way! This is not going to happen. You need to give this some time. Likewise, while learning, don’t overwork your brain. This will end in a lot of tension and frustration. Most students in India fail to learn, because all that they see is the grades/marks they need to score in the examination. You just need to focus on your target which is reasonable to achieve and keep working towards it. Learning will happen automatically. ___________________ What do you think of this post? Please leave your 2 cents in the Comments section.

Do you have experience working with Graphic Designers? How would you interact with Graphic Designers and get things done? How would you sort out difference with Graphic Designers? These are common questions asked to Instructional Designers. These questions may not make sense to you, if you do not work with Graphic Designers in your organization. In some organizations, Instructional Designers also wear the hat of  Graphic Designers, especially if they are working with rapid e-learning tools. In some other organizations, where Instructional Designers work with templates, they have no direct interaction with Graphic Designers. However in custom e-learning companies, where flash based e-learning courses are developed, Instructional Designers work as a team, where Graphic Designers play an important role. In such a set up, creative differences between Instructional Designers and Graphic Designers are just too many. Instructional Designers conduct needs analysis and come up with course structure, design ideas and instructional strategies.  Based on these ideas, they create the storyboard with explicit design instructions to the Graphic Designer. But then finally, when the e-learning program is developed, though the course structure/content remains the same, the presentation is completely different from what was initially planned. How do Instructional Designers deal with such issues? Here are some tips: PS: I read this article - Working with Graphic Designers: Are you a graphic designer, or a non-designer? How do we work together? and the tips in this article are very valid. In this post, I use these tips and make it relevant to Instructional Designers. 1. Involve Graphic Designers right from the Analysis phase If you are working with Graphic Designers to develop your e-learning program, value their contribution. Make sure they are present during initial client interactions. If there are too many Graphic Designers, involve the lead Graphic Designer. Remember Graphic Designers need to know all the requirements for the e-learning program - why an e-learning program needs to be developed? what’s the subject? who is the target audience and what will appeal to them? and more. Make sure Graphic Designers are convinced that they are there not just to add color and decorate. 2. Don’t try to design alone Take some time to explain the course structure to the Graphic Designers. Remember Graphic Designers also need creative freedom just like Instructional Designers. Always brainstorm with Graphic Designers and then finalize design strategies for the e-learning program. While brainstorming, never propose solutions upfront - Graphic Designers will lose interest and do what they think is right. Let’s say, you want to create an interactive quiz. Instead of saying, "We have come up with a storyline. You need to create the visuals and use the drag and drop function here", try explaining the requirement and ask the Graphic Designers, "What are your ideas/suggestions?" There are high chances, Graphic Designers might suggest something more creative and appealing. Indulge in a healthy discussion - always reason out why you think a specific design strategy is critical to the e-learning program. Once your team has come to a consensus, create the Analysis and Design document and make sure  Graphic Designers also sign off the document. If the client requests a design change after the Analysis and Design document is created, make sure you inform  Graphic Designers and come  up with an alternative design idea, keeping them in loop. 3. Keep designers in loop while storyboarding Make sure you show Graphic Designers how the storyboard is shaping up. If there are multiple modules with a couple of lessons in each module, with the completion of each module/lesson, share the storyboard with Graphic Designers and allot some time to answer their questions or clarify their doubts. This will help you fix the instructions to the Graphic Designers in the storyboard and save errors during the development phase. 4. Sort differences before designers begin development Make sure Graphic Designers have no design issues with the storyboard. If there is an issue, sort it out before they start  the development activity. Make sure Instructional Design Reviews and Language Reviews  are done before the development activity. Frequently fixing/changing the content/ design after development can get highly frustrating for Graphic Designers. 5. Follow up with  designers during development While  Graphic Designers develop the e-learning program, make sure you drop in regularly and check how the program is shaping up. Request Graphic Designers to map the storyboard with the flash files. Request Graphic Designers to share the files after every module/lesson is developed. 6. Make sure designers also test the e-learning program In most companies, it is the Instructional Designer’s responsibility to test the e-learning program before it is shipped to the client. Since Graphic Designers also play an very critical role in e-learning development, they must be involved in testing. Give Graphic Designers a framework for testing the e-learning program. Use the framework to test the e-learning program yourself. Make sure everyone documents the bugs and Graphic Designers fix them on time. 7.  Acknowledge and appreciate designers’ work Articulate Graphic Designers’ contribution in the work done. Never take all the credit, if the e-learning program is appreciated by the client. _________________ You have any tips to work with Graphic Designers? Please post in the Comments section.

I recently changed my job and have been busy getting adjusted to the new environment, learning new technologies and picking up some Articulate skills. This is the first time I am actually using the tool and I experienced a shorter learning curve. While the tool is very easy to use, there are issues that crop up every now and then and the issues are varied. In this post, I would like to talk about a recent issue that I faced while using Articulate 09 and show a way to resolve the issue. I sent a mail to the Articulate team and they quickly sent me a fix. Let’s talk about the issues and the fixes now. I faced two major issues while publishing my e-learning course: Issue with the label of slide number in progress bar Solution Select Player Templates->Text Labels. Set the Language to "English". Select Close button and save changes and republish your content. Email icon didn’t show up after publishing the course Articulate applications are not currently supported using a large DPI setting. If you are using 120 DPI some symptoms are: Elements of the application appear misplaced or distorted. The published output is distorted or does not display correctly. Solution You can resolve this issue by following the steps outlined in the Knowledge Base article below. Presenter ’09: http://www.articulate.com/support/presenter09/kb/?p=188 Hope you found this post useful. Stay tuned for more posts.

Its been ages since I blogged and am I really feeling bad about it? I still can’t figure out.  I was just wondering why I stopped blogging: New job New stuff to do Bored of blogging Unwillingness to write full length posts Am running out of ideas Nothing new to share Blogging is not helping me in any way or Simply lazy Reasons could be many. But then I don’t want to stop sharing stuff here. Probably I should start writing snippets - a few lines or a paragraph about something that I want to share. What do you think?

Ask 3 different people, the question : What is Instructional Design? Now compare and contrast the responses. I am sure you will be amazed at the different perspectives you get. As far as I know, Instructional Design exists in different forms and Instructional Design might mean different things to different people. How you perceive/describe Instructional Design depends on your: Location/Context Nature of work you do Here are 3 scenarios to illustrate this: PS: Some scenarios here may apply only to Indian workplaces. Scenario 1 Instructional Designers working in a company catering to e-learning/training requirements of various organizations work on various subjects (soft skills, K12, technology), and develop e-learning courses/training programs for varied audience. In such a situation, they do extensive needs analysis, audience analysis, come up with new ways to engage learners for every project because every project is unique. The requirements, strategies to design the training, budget and so many other factors differ with every project. Scenario 2 An Instructional Designer has to create a new learning environment (game based learning program on mobile devices) for underprivileged kids residing in some remote village in India. Now this is a highly challenging task.  This would require lot of research skills, creativity, time and budget more than anything else. This kind of work is more analytical and creative. Scenario 3 Instructional Designers working in a software product company mostly catering to internal training requirements may not be paying too much attention to learning needs analysis, audience analysis, design strategies for every project because the audience and their needs are fixed. The objective in this case is to  release all the required technical training material in a short time for learners to consume quickly.  It is more important to provide the right information, in an understandable  language in a short time than anything else just to help learners do their job. This kind of work demands creativity within limitations. To serve the purpose, Instructional Designers  work on low budget rapid e-learning courses, mostly text based with little interactivities. Simulations and demonstrations are used when necessary. Standard e-learning templates and course developments guidelines are available. These templates are designed keeping learning needs and learners in mind . Improvements to the course development process or templates  happen after every release based on learner feedback. Following any other approach other than this will mean waste of time and money for the organization. You could call this content development. Yet  the content itself might be of great instructional value. Scenario 4 A trainer delivering a training on some topic may or may not be the one who actually designed the program. He/she might actually do a brilliant job without even knowing Instructional Design principles or theories. Now here is a question for you: Where are you located? What is Instructional Design to you?   Please leave your thoughts in the Comments section. I would like to hear from you.

I downloaded the trial version of Articulate Storyline and have been playing with it. The best thing about Storyline is that Try Me Simulations are automated. You just need to open any web application and perform the tasks as you record your screen and then insert the slides as Try mode steps. Your job is done. All your mouse clicks/text entries are captured and when you preview, the same actions are available for the learner/user to try out. Isn’t that cool? But there are still some things, I am trying to figure. I see that not all actions get converted to Try mode. For example I captured a screen where I moved sliders to set image quality. Storyline captured these actions but these appeared as a demonstration after publishing. Also the caption appears only when you click on a button or you place your cursor on a text field. I want to move the caption before the hotspot appears, but haven’t been able to do. Still figuring out. So that’s all I have to share for today. More later.

A bit late but now fully available: Proceedings of the PLE Conference 2013 are now online and can be used as Open Resources under CC-Licence.The 4th PLE Conference focused on the theme of "Learning and Diversity in the Cities of the Future", among others addressing the issue of smart cities, one of the key research priorities worldwide and the strategic direction of Beuth University of Applied Sciences Berlin.Papers on "PLE and Gamification":Using Gamification to Improve Participation in 
a Social Learning Environment
Jorge Simões, Rebeca Redondo, Ana Vilas, Ademar Aguiar Gamifying Quantified Self Approaches for Learning:
 An Experiment with the Live Interest Meter
Benedikt S. Morschheuser, Verónica Rivera-Pelayo, Athanasios Mazarakis, Valentin ZachariasDecentralized badges in educational contexts: the
 integration of Open Badges in SAPO Campus
Carlos Santos, Luís Pedro, Sara Almeida & Mónica ArestaSocial badges dynamics in institutional supported
 platforms
Carlos Santos, Luís Pedro, Sara Almeida, Mónica Aresta

This is one of the best instructional videos that I have come across. Some highlights of this video: Focuses on a single learning point Has a storyline Has humour Is instructionally sound Focuses on real life situations Demonstrates practical application of skills The best way to open a sales talk - Explania

Está em fase de lançamento e pré-registo, a plataforma EuProf, uma nova plataforma web, centrada no professor e para o professor, em português.Porque o professor é um profissional especial e existe para além da instituição onde leciona hoje.Porque precisa focar-se no importante, ensinar, suportado por uma infraestrutura sólida que suporte a sua atividade complexa.A plataforma assenta em quatro pilares fundamentais: Preparar e Organizar Gerir o dia a dia Analisar e Avaliar Reaproveitar  O pré registo, com acesso a condições especiais, pode ser feito até 31 de agosto. Para já, está apenas disponível o site associado à plataforma. A plataforma em si está prevista para ser lançada em setembro.Ver também: https://www.facebook.com/euprof(declaração de interesses: sou consultor e parceiro do projeto)

I was a complete novice when I entered the world of Instructional Design. I wasn’t a technical writer before (as is common notion that technical writers graduate to become Instructional Designers) nor was I working in another company. I was a fresher. Yes, a fresher. Working with complex technologies and understanding the nuances of Instructional Design is an art. As with other art forms, it can be honed by constant practice on the job. Initially, I was overwhelmed by the processes and strategies that abound the world of Instructional Design but beyond the initial jitters, it is a highly satisfying job. Hiring  freshers in Instructional Design is a good thing, contrary to the corporate thinking. Here are some reasons:  Open mindset: Freshers plunge headlong into this field with an open mindset, willing to learn and understand the nuances of instructional design. For me, it was about offering a fresh perspective into what works in training and what doesn’t, as I had already been exposed to different forms of training in college.  Ability to spot problems in the process: A fresher is a good judge of processes or training methodologies that work. As a fresher, I always think beyond rules and regulations that constrain an experienced person. High risk taking capacity: Freshers are not bound by barriers. They are not drilled into long-standing systems, long-held assumptions and regulations. They have a high sense of enthusiasm and are always willing to try new things. This enables them to identify highly creative solutions to difficult problems undeterred by  potential roadblocks in the implementation process. Highly creative: Since freshers aren’t constrained by rules, regulations and processes of Instructional Design (yet!), they are usually good at projects that require creativity and enthusiasm. High energy levels: Freshers are more energetic and proactively jump into learning new skills, processes and methodologies. They improve group dynamics that lead to a better, happier, and more energetic workplace. As an ex-fresher (I have been one year in the system now), I would say that beyond the initial jitters and the time taken to understand the system . . . there is a world that you would love to be in - A world of creativity and innovation. Hope you liked this post. Stay tuned for more. Do share your thoughts on this post in the Comments section. I would love to hear from you. About the Writer Vishnu Vardhan is an Instructional Designer by profession and a poet, cricketer, and explorer by passion. He loves meeting new people, learning new technologies, and creating amazing courses. He is specially inclined towards Gamification in eLearning.

One of my latest challenges is to redesign our induction program for experienced hires across the globe. While I'm working on this problem, I've had a few thoughts that I'd like to share on this blog. To give you some context, we're a consulting firm -- consulting being a bit of a generative domain, people join us at various levels of experience and as a consequence, with a huge variety of training expectations. I can imagine that for other organisations operating in such a domain as versatile and diverse as this, challenges could be similar. So here are some of my thoughts about designing induction programs.The components of an induction programTo me induction programs are about "making new hires comfortable" in an organisation. To feel comfortable, a new hire needs the following things. I'm sure you will recognise these steps in an induction program though I'm guess different organisations label these steps differently.OrientationEvery organisation has a set of policies and procedures that people need to know about. Everyone needs to know about the systems that keep the lights on, and the people that keep the engine running. These are pieces of information that define how the organisation works. Fortunately enough these are so black and white at most times, that it perhaps makes sense to take the facilitator out of the picture and consider the approach of conveying this information through some online learning. That said, this part of the induction experience is common to everyone, you have the economies of scale working in your favour and you can actually choose to do this with a bunch of people in a room, with a facilitator leading the session. That it is extremely boring to sit through a series of "Powerpoints" conveying nothing but facts, is a separate issue to consider.Context SettingThere are other aspects of an organisation that lend themselves to more generative discussion. A company's purpose, mission, values and the rationale behind them; their business model and the surrounding challenges; the career development framework and the surrounding support systems, all merit significant discussion. It makes a lot of sense to get people together, either in a synchronous, online environment or preferably, in a colocated environment with a specialist business representative in attendance. Again, this is the part of the induction experience common to everyone, so doing this together with everyone makes perfect sense.Competency BuildingOrientation and context setting aside, the bulk of most induction programs is the part around project readiness. Unless you're hiring people in purely transactional roles, there's very little chance that you can achieve the economy of scale to get a fair number of people in the same room to train them on a specific set of skills. An analyst with 2 years of experience will have significantly different training needs from a developer with a decade's experience. In the same way the training needs for a senior project manager could be significantly different from that of a fairly senior quality assurance analyst. This is where the challenge comes in designing the 'right' induction experience. How do you design an induction program that absorbs the variation in training needs for such a diverse audience. Obviously, a one-size-fits-all program will fit nobody.Competency Building - how about a pull-based approach?Learning is a process, not an event. Malcolm Gladwell's book - The Outliers, explains how it takes 10,000 hours of practice to become good at something. Many months back, Tom Kulhmann wrote about how learning happens over time. Often out of the dozen skills an individual needs to perform her job, there's only one or two skills that one needs to 'get started' at their job. This is key. There's a common tendency to throw the kitchen sink at the induction program. Trainers, designers, SME's and the business will say - "but they need to know X as well!" My belief OTOH is that your induction should serve the purpose of kick-starting an individual's learning process. From that point on, its upto the individual to seek out continuous learning opportunities as the need comes by. Learning is a process, not an event (and yes, I know I'm repeating myself).What other opportunities do people need to learn? So, its easy to say that its upto the individual to seek out continuous learning opportunites. 'What may these continuous learning opportunities be?' and 'How should the individual seek out the bare minimum training they need?' Let me answer the second question first. Here's where I see a great role for elearning. If a training department can create a bouquet of online training programs that are bite-sized to the extent that they help people perform specific actions, then new hires can pick exactly what they think they need. There's an obvious question that comes up when I talk about this. What if a new hire needs more than what they think they need?I feel this is valid question -- you can't expect everyone to be a 100% self aware. This said, if you can create a culture of feedback then no error in judgement is an error for very long. Its only until someone gets feedback that the 'mistake' remains a 'mistake'. In a culture of failing fast and learning from one's mistakes, the ability to choose the learning resources you need puts the power right back in the hands of the learner. Yet again the power of online, self-paced learning is the fact that individuals can exploit them the way they deem fit. They can access the resources as many times as they want and they can access only as many resources as they want.So with the second question answered, lets get back to the first question - "What constitutes continuous learning opportunities?" Let's look at the picture above. There are a number of ways to create continuous learning. Of course there's elearning -- but you'll see some other modes up in the picture. Many of us know about learning lunches and some of you may have read my previous article on the role of social media and why synchronous learning makes so much sense today. The fact is that if people can choose to attend some of the more formal training events, based on a need they perceive, it lends a great deal of effectiveness to the training program itself. Every facilitator knows how much fun it is to train a group of people that are motivated to learn. Above all, the best way to foster a culture of continuous learning and improvement, is to foster a culture of continuous feedback. Pat Kua knows something about that, and I recently aggregated some of his posts here. The last part of continuous learning in an induction experience is the hugely underestimated part around project onboarding. If projects can learn how to practise lightweight, onboarding practices then very early in their career in your company, it helps new hires develop an awareness about what it will take for them to be successful on their first project.So what I was trying to say in this blogpost was this -- how about an induction program that is colocated only to the extent of providing an orientation and setting context about the organisation? You can't need any more than a few days for this. How about, from that point people pull every piece of training that they need, by themselves? How about you put the power back into the hand of your learners?Let me know what you think. I'm sure your thoughts will help me focus my thinking for my own project. Post your comments liberally and write to me if you need to.© Sumeet Moghe, 2009

Have you ever had a time when you got slammed in the face with a huge plate of food which you just couldn't say no to? I have. Picture the above meal -- for some it might just be the tastiest thing they could imagine. For me, while I find it difficult to say no sometimes and even if I only want a little, I have to labour through the entire meal. I just got off a five hour flight to Hong Kong, and I've had a bit of an epiphany. Let me tell you the story first. This flight left Bangalore at about 2:35 AM -- a time at which I'm usually fast asleep. So what I really wanted on this flight was some sleep. That said, airlines have a strange sense of hospitality so at about 3:30 AM they made me put my seat back upright, turned on the lights and gave me some food to eat. Well I can't say no to food, so I ate. They then kept the lights on at full-blast; don't know why, but they did. If that snack wasn't enough, at about 6:30 AM they shook me up and asked, "Vegetarian or Non-vegetarian". My instinctive response is "Non-vegetarian" and well I got what I asked for while being half asleep, but really I didn't need a big breakfast with beans, tomatoes, sausages, an omelette, potatoes, yoghurt, fruits, cheesy bread and juice. I really just wanted some sleep. A part of me wondered if it was ever going to be possible for me to tailor my flight experience for the next several years that I travel economy! And then, all of a sudden I thought about training (like I always do!).Most training experiences push learning to the learnerRegardless of our good intentions, many of the courses we design tend to take a whole bunch of learning objectives which we then push onto the learner. We keep asking ourselves the question of whether something needs to go into a course and then we say, "But they really need to know this..." and we slam that topic right into the training. While some learners enjoy it and others endure it, we need to ask ourselves if this is really effective. Research proves that human brains work very sensibly in these situations -- we stay conscious only about the pieces of knowledge or the skills that we will need/use on our immediate work. The rest slips into the subconscious and we incubate those bits of information until we need it at a later time. John Medina's Brain Rules, explain these phenomena in great detail. So if people are only going to retain what they will use, why contaminate that message with the surrounding nice-to-have stuff?Learners need to be self awarePeople learn from experience and most learning sinks in, on the job. People learn from feedback and feedback comes not only from peers and coaches, it also comes from your environment. When you keep attempting something and get a result that you didn't expect, you're getting some feedback. The key is that as people progress on the job, they get feedback from various sources and become more and more self-aware about where they are and where they'd like to be. A safe environment to fail fast and learn from mistakes is critical to this self-awareness. So I often think that while training is important, its more important for organisations to provide a safe environment that's conducive to learning. Only then can you develop people that are truly in control of their development and have the awareness they need to succeed.Self aware learners can pull the learning they needOnce you're self aware, you automatically know what resources you need to learn. The key is that different people learn differently. Some people learn by reading a book, others by attending a course, a lot of people can learn effectively online and there are others who learn by networking and socialising with people. The key to being a learning organisation is in providing these learning opportunities throughout someone's career. There are many ways to create these opportunities. Here are some I can think of:Design your instructor led courses to be no more than 90 minutes each with a targeted set of objectives for each 90 minute chunk. This way, you increase your flexibility to run them on-demandDesign your elearning to be in the form of small coursels (like morsels in case of food). Think of bite-sized chunks no longer than 10 minutes. Adopt a how-to approach. Invest in Enterprise Social Software for your firm, so that people can crowdsource learning. After all, most learning happens by talking to the guy that sits beside you, or over that cup of coffee. Most importantly this opens up opportunities for your learners to network with people they never knew Facilitate informal events, like Hack Nights, Lunch and Learns (people bring in food and sit in a session over lunch), Pecha-Kucha nights and Ignite evenings. Institute other forms of support such as a book budget where people have the opportunity to spend money on something they feel can help their learning. I'm sure there are dozens of other, non-intrusive ways to create opportunities for continuous learning. What has your experience been with things such as this? Feel free to share your thoughts liberally in the comments section of the post and if you'd like to, please write to me.(Photograph in this post taken from cocomo7's Flickr stream)© Sumeet Moghe, 2009

Important dates:Abstract Submission Deadline: March 26th, 2015. Notification of Acceptance/Rejection: April 20th, 2015.Final Paper Submission Deadline: May 21st, 2015. Registration deadline for authors: May 21st, 2015. Conference Dates: Barcelona (Spain), July 6th-7th-8th, 2015.See the conference topics. Among them, gamification and serious games:

If we've ever corresponded online, I'd love to have the opportunity to put a face to your name. Please do get in touch and say hi -- I'm looking forward to networking with a lot of learning professionals at the conference. See you there!© Sumeet Moghe, 2009

The Second International Workshop on Gamification for Information Retrieval (GamifIR’15) focuses on the challenges and opportunities that gamification can present for the IR community.Important Dates:Submission: 2 February 2015Notification: 20 February 2015Camera-ready: 27 February 2015Workshop: 29 March 2015Topics of Interest:  Gamification approaches in a variety of contexts, including document annotation and ground-truth generation; interface design; information seeking; user modelling; knowledge sharingGamification designApplied game principles, elements and mechanicsGamification analytics Long-term engagementUser engagement and motivational factors of gamificationPlayer types, contests, cooperative gamificationSearch challenges and gamificationGame based work and crowdsourcingApplications and prototypes

Today was my second day at DevLearn 2009 and I must say its been a great investment this far. If not for anything else, its been a great opportunity to meet a lot of great learning professionals not just from the United States, but from all across the world. The ideas and thoughts that we've shared will be of great value to my work back in Bangalore, India. Today I sat through the workshop by Ruth Clark on the topic of "Scenario Based Learning" and I thought I could do a quick report on some things I learnt from the experience.What did I learn? Scenario based learning can be described as follows:What: Scenario based learning uses simulated, real life scenarios to trigger the acquisition and simultaneous application of a skill. It gives the learner the opportunity for Whole-task practice. Whole task practice involves being able to combine various non-integrated parts of skills and information to put together a real-world, real-life performance. An example of whole task practice is the ability to put together a budget in Excel as against the part-tasks of editing cells, creating formulae, etc. Scenario based learning also allows for better Far transfer of learning as against the procedural near transfer.When:Scenario based learning is effective in to simulate situations that are rare, strange, high-risk or impractical to simulate in a classroom or in the workplace.Who: Scenario based learning is best suited for Novices and Apprentices. The experts are perhaps the people that can help design this learning!There's empirical evidence to suggest that Scenario based elearning benefits the most from rich multimedia additions, such as real life videos.As with every other teaching strategy, its best not to use this as a silver bullet - consider your subject and your audience carefully before you deploy this approach. Lastly, I learnt that to build a learning scenario, you need to consider and plan six factors in your design:Task Deliverable: What will the learner do to demonstrate competence?Trigger Event: How the task or problem normally initiates in the job setting.Case Data: What background information is needed to solve the case? Guidance: How will learners get assistance when solving the case?Feedback: How will the learners receive intrinsic feedback as the scenario plays out? How will they receive traditional, instructional feedback a.k.a Teaching Moments?Reflection: What opportunities will the learner have to review their actions/ decisions and consider alternatives?Overall, I think the workshop brought out some really interesting discussion and I think the various perspectives and styles that people applied to their own design situations was particularly amazing. I'll recommend Ruth's session to anyone that has the opportunity to attend in the future.© Sumeet Moghe, 2009

I just sat through a session called "Actions Speak Louder than words - Creating Meaningful e-Learning Interactions", by Ethan Edwards of Allen Interactions. The session was about interactions that create mental stimulation to eventually improve workplace performance. Ethan explained that an interaction has four aspects to it; namely Context, Challenge, Activity and Feedback. The focus of the session was on crafting and implementing meaningful challenges and activities for elearning.What did I learn?Ethan's session provided a balance of detail between instruction and demonstration. Here are a few things I'll remember. A different style of presentations: Show and tell -- Ethan didn't just talk about his work, he actually showed real life examples of the interactions he's worked on. He embedded these as clickable links into the presentation and that made the entire experience almost seamless.It helps to have some time aside to answer questions as a conference speaker. Ethan did pretty well to set aside almost 20 minutes for QnA. On the content front, my big takeaway was Ethan's rules for elearning interaction design: Measure an observable action. The interaction should need attention and thought. This I feel is particularly important since a lot of elearning seems to be just a lot of click and turn! The interaction should have relevance and meaning in the real world. The interaction should allow the learner to model real world performance. The interaction should require effort to complete. And lastly, in keeping with my philosophy of "a safe environment to fail fast and learn from mistakes", the activity should be reversible. If a learner makes a mistake in elearning, it isn't the end of the world and we shouldn't be making the learner feel that way either!© Sumeet Moghe, 2009

Motivar através de desafios e incentivos é essencial na Formação, dinamizando a aprendizagem.A GAMIFICAÇÃO aplica elementos característicos dos jogos a ambientes não lúdicos, como é o caso da formação e-learning, potenciando a aprendizagem.Este e-curso focará técnicas e estratégias de gamificação, ou elementos de jogos, que, combinados, podem contribuir para que os cursos online sejam mais motivadores e envolventes, tornando-os mais eficazes.Objetivos:Compreender o conceito de gamificação e a sua aplicação na formação e ensino;Conhecer as principais técnicas e estratégias de aplicação do conceito em situações reais de formação;Desenvolver capacidade para conceber atividades pedagógicas gamificadas com o auxílio de plataformas de apoio à aprendizagem e de ferramentas digitais de gamificação.Início: 26 de fevereiro.Duração: 30 horas (2 horas presenciais, 5 síncronas e 23 assíncronas).Conteúdo Programático:  Módulo 0: Introdução ao curso e ao ambiente e-learning - 2h presenciais  Módulo 1: Dos Jogos à Gamificação - 1h assíncrona, 5h assíncronas  Módulo 2: Elementos de Jogos - 1h síncrona, 5h assíncronas  Módulo 3: Psicologia e Gamificação - 1h síncrona, 5h assíncronas  Módulo 4: Cenários de Aplicação - 2h síncronas, 9h assíncronasFormador: Jorge Simões »»  Informações adicionais e inscrições disponíveis aqui  ««  TecMinho - interface da Universidade do MinhoCentro e-Learning - elearning@tecminho.uminho.pt  Tlf: 253 510 590www.tecminho.uminho.pt/elearning