At the end of the year, I feel like I find myself searching for new or different tools/activities even more than I normally do. Why? Simply because I need to find something new or different to motivate my students. The light at the end of the school year tunnel is getting bigger, the weather is […] The post Creating a Database with Google Sites appeared first on Teaching with Technology.

Let's go back to Barry Oshry's research. Tops seek to strengthen the capacity of what they are accountable for. They inform, involve, ask, give and coach. Under stress, Tops sabotage themselves by taking all the responsibility, away from others. Read this weekly to understand the perspective of your leader. Notice their purpose is not evil or crazy. They are trying to help. If you've noticed them taking on more responsibility, figure out a way to talk about it. Tops feel very isolated and often believe that no one is helping them. Ironically, at the same time you'll feel that they are taking work from you because you are inadequate. The negative reinforcement continues to challenge collaboration. Looking at the bias you bring to the conversations, you are either coming from a Bottom or Middle condition in this case. Think about your play in the system. Bottoms seek to identify and fix things that are wrong. Bottoms sabotage themselves by blaming the higher-ups for messing things up. Are you addicted to blaming up?  Middles are the web, connecting and coordinating the parts. They share, diagnose, and coordinate. Middles sabotage themselves by aligning to one part of the organization and losing the other (disperse / integrate). Are you playing favorites?  

- This post is by Therese Longo, my right and left hand (and sometimes my brain). My first generation iPad mini was about to die, so I recently decided to retire it and buy myself the new iPad mini 4. I love buying new electronics and this time was no different. I rushed home to take it out of the box and set it up. After the initial set up, I was eager to install my apps. It was fun to look through all the apps I’ve used over the years…the ones that became favorites and those that I never really explored after the initial install. Among the latter, were those that I thought I could use as an instructional designer.  I’m now revisiting these apps, exploring their capabilities and usefulness. As I do, I will share what I find with you in this and future posts. The first is Captivate Draft, a free iPad app that allows you to create storyboards on the go. These storyboard drafts can then be distributed to the team for review and imported into Captivate 9 for further development. It also integrates with Adobe’s other iPad apps such as Color, allowing you to use custom color pallets. It’s a great tool to get preliminary ideas down during design meetings. I’ve created a short video with an overview - Adobe Captivate Draft. I haven’t had a chance to try it myself on a project, but would love to hear any feedback you have on how it performed.

Universities and colleges have been the bastions for professional, higher education for hundreds of years. From these institutions have come world changers such as Sir Isaac Newton, Francis Bacon, Albert Einstein and these are just samples from the sciences alone. From the corridors of the arts have come those who through there expertise have defined the very cultures that we now enjoy. However, now in the 21st century with the exponential growth of information and knowledge in many disciplines, institutions of higher learning are faced with some perplexing questions in which they no longer have the luxury of setting up longitudinal research studies to gather verifiable data on. Some of these questions might be:Does the original vision and purpose of university or college education still hold when everything around them is changing?Can we justify the growing cost for students to receive a quality university education when other educational organizations are challenging them with online courses customized around the personal life style and goals of learners?Are separate disciplines that create silos of knowledge and skillsets still viable in a digital world where cross disciplinary collaborative learning fits the needs of a our societies as we attempt to deal with complex real world problems?Do attempts at creating hybrid universities through the establishment of MOOC's meet what is required or are they merely veiled attempts at transformation while below the surface they follow same old pedagogy and model of education?In light of these perplexing questions we are faced by the challenge:"What will it take to bring about honest transformation of a higher education system so that it is more in line with the need to educate this generation and those following to be "agents of change" who will enrich, create and innovate in building the societies of the future?"A Question of VisionOne statement that has taken on even more meaning in the digital world even though its origins were from the ancient world is:"Without a sustainable and an adaptable vision, a people perish!"This statement can very well apply to higher education and especially, business organizations but when you talk about institutions of higher learning, you are talking about a cascading chain of failure because those who are learners go out into the world, into business organizations, into government positions and into education systems believing that the vision of the way things should work does not need overhaul but instead requires the exercise of power towards others to make sure that they conform to that vision unquestioningly. Ironically, one of the principle past advantages of being an university student was that you were encouraged to listen to many points of view even if you disagreed with what was being said and question to learn more. This is the very practice that Socrates encouraged in his learners and it was the very practice that he lost his life over. Teaching his learners to think and question was seen as a threat to the establishment of the time because from that discipline of the mind would come the cradle for wisdom.Credit:www.buzzle.com Today on many university and college campuses, instead of open and honest debate on issues dealing with the human condition, we have "group speak" in which if you don't conform to the common mantra, "ad hominem" labelling and categorization is used to silence opposing points of view. This is a return to the command and control mentality of industrial economy ethos. "There can not be a nurturing of wisdom in university learners when wondering is censored and healthy, open and reasonable argumentation and critical thinking has been abandoned!"Necessary Paths to Transformation: Part IThe following are suggestions as to where we can re-imagine and re-design higher education so that it is more in line with the actual needs and the complex real world problems of our societies in a 21st century world:Dedicated return to fostering effective habits of the mind in higher education learners. We can not assume that the learners who reach university or college level are effective thinkers; that they actually know the difference between a fact or an opinion; that they understand that an argument is not an argument unless it included verifiable, evidential support and are aware of counter-arguments. Pointing fingers at the other levels of education is not a solution but a refusal to take responsibility for a common cause.In this world, there is a need to encourage cross-disciplinary approaches to solving complex real world problems. In terms of university and college organization structure, it means re-thinking the knowledge silo approach of the disciplines. There is a need to educate learners to approach tasks by learning to analyze the task from more than one perspective and then to work collaboratively with others utilizing each others perspective on the problem to arrive at a reasonable and perhaps an innovative solution. A useful analogy which I have used in the past is the six blind men trying to describe an elephant. A true picture only happens if the blind men pool their perspectives to the task and actually collaborate. Necessary Paths to Transformation: Part II---Networking, Mentoring and E-LearningThere is a need to go beyond the classroom early in the learner's university or college career. One criticism that learners have of their education is that "it is a world that is not real because it does not extend beyond the classroom". In university, students have to wait until graduate school before their education links in a relevant manner to the "real world". Why? It is important to make networked connections between professional groups outside the walls of the university who are on the leading edge of their professions. This is a "win-win" situation for both groups. The professionals are exposed to new ideas that have them leave their comfort zones to consider new possibilities and the students prosper by being exposed to the actual professional lives of those who they have an interest in following. Mentoring relationships can be encouraged to further refine how students think about things.Universities need to be honest about their motives for introducing online initiatives to students. For example if they are driven by a profit motive then students should be aware of this up front. An example is when universities offer MOOC's. Effective MOOC's should have a cost so that students take them seriously and actually finish the course they registered for. Students have the right to "see under the hood" before signing up. If the pedagogy is exactly the same as in the "brick and mortar" school, then there is something wrong.There are many ways to avoid changing the status quo in higher education and those who have a vested interest will shake their fists at such changes or create ongoing "paralysis by analysis" ad infinitum  but there has to be a point where we put self-entitlement and a fear of the future aside. In doing so, we advance from a "ME society to a WE society" and our learners will once again wonder and in doing so take the road to wisdom which benefits all.Credit: www.quotesgram.com  Next.. Challenging a Disconnected Generation to Take Up Education Once Again

A leadership legacy is not defined by title or position, but by the impact we have on people’s lives.

Information visualization has emerged as the linchpin leadership skill between business complexity and compelling messaging.

Danny Iny is the founder and CEO of Mirasee, host of the Business Reimagined podcast, and best-selling author of multiple books, including Teach and Grow Rich: The Emerging Opportunity for Global Impact, Freedom, and Wealth. Today, Danny is teaching us about his concept of piloting courses. Intrigued? Read on to find out what it means.  "What if my course bombs?" The excitement you felt for your online course has turned into a litany of what ifs: What if nobody buys it? What if my students hate it? What if I suck? You’ve done your due diligence. You know your course idea will meet a need and fulfill a desire that matters to your market. You’re confident in your ability to teach them something that will change their lives. But still, you wonder… what if you’re wrong? Unless you want to be another frustrated, disillusioned online course creator, there’s a better way to move forward with your course idea… one that guarantees people want it, will pay for it, and will benefit from it. Educators who skip this step find themselves wasting hundreds of hours of work on a course that few people want or doesn’t deliver the promised results. All because they assumed they knew what the market wanted. They thought they knew the best way to deliver the content. And they assumed wrong. There’s a better way to test your course idea in the real world. And even get paid while you’re at it. It’s called piloting. You know how TV producers pilot their shows? They assemble the cast and crew and produce the first few episodes. They promote the show and air it. Then, depending on how viewers respond, they decide whether to continue the series or not. That’s what you’ll be doing with your pilot course. You’ll plan and sell a small portion of your full online course and see how your target market responds. From there, you can decide to either move forward with the full course or to pivot to a different course altogether. Either way, you’ll be armed with the insights you gained from your pilot students. And you wouldn’t have spent all your time and energy on a failed experiment So how do you test your course idea in the real world? This post will walk you through the steps. PS - You can get Danny’s book (along with 11 other brilliant books for course creators) in our Book Bundle Giveaway. Check it out here! Step 1. Determine your minimum viable outcome. Your pilot course is a scaled-down version of the full course you have in mind. It must be small enough in scope that you can implement it within six weeks or so. But not so small that it doesn’t deliver appreciable results to your students. To find that sweet spot, you must determine the minimum viable outcome for your pilot course. Start by thinking big. If you had a magic wand, what outcome would your students want you to create for them? (Credit for this magic wand technique goes to BJ Fogg.) In all likelihood, this outcome is something so outlandish that you or anyone else couldn’t possibly deliver it. For example, if you’re considering a course about weight loss, the answer might be, "My students want to lose their excess weight, burn fat, and build lean muscle in seven days." It’s a wonderful outcome, but also unrealistic. Since you don’t have a magic wand, you can’t deliver this ultimate outcome. But you can deliver something close enough.  Ask yourself, "What’s the next best thing I could provide?" Keep asking this question, until you have a result you can deliver within three to six weeks—the typical duration of a pilot course. In this case, it could be: "At the end of four weeks, my students will learn how to manage their cravings for sweets and other unhealthy foods." That’s the minimum viable outcome of your pilot course! Once you have a clear, focused, and market-validated promise, then you can move on to planning your pilot course. Step 2. Choose your pilot type and price. Decide whether you want your pilot course to be high-touch or low-touch. Each has its pros and cons. A high-touch course requires you to spend more one-on-one time with each student. For this reason, it will take up more of your time and energy. But at the same time, you’ll be able to get more in-depth feedback and insights from your beta students, which would be valuable in developing your full course. You’ll also be able to charge more for the pilot course. Examples of high-touch courses include individual coaching, small group coaching and training, or a hybrid of the two. Low-touch courses allow you to reach more students with one effort. You’ll have to charge less for the pilot course, but you’ll be able to accept more students. Low-touch options include live bootcamps, large group coaching, and email training. How Much Will You Charge? You’ll also need to decide how much to charge for your pilot course. Start with how much you plan to charge for the full course, then adjust relative to the amount of content and outcomes in the pilot vs. the full course, and the relative amount of individual attention and support you’ll provide. Let’s say you want to charge $997 for the full course, and the pilot will be a low-touch course with 20% of the final course content. A reasonable price for the pilot would be $197. On the other hand, imagine your full course will be $4,997, and the pilot will be high-touch and will provide 25% of the full course content. A possible price for your pilot could be $1,497. Whatever number you arrive at, validate it against your financial goals and target market. Each market is different and will have a different threshold. Speaking of pricing, now’s also a good time to figure out how you will get paid. If you’re looking to accept only a handful of students, maybe all you need is PayPal. If you want a larger group, look into Gumroad with integration through Zapier. Editor’s note: Of course, if you’re using Thinkific to host your course, you don’t need to worry about this at all. Step 3. Plan your pilot curriculum Now you’re ready to plan your pilot curriculum. I guarantee you’ll have it ready within a couple of hours. In fact, your pilot plan won’t take up more than a page of letter-sized paper. Keep your pilot plan short and simple, because you want to give yourself plenty of room to maneuver as you respond to feedback from your students. Leave most of the curriculum development work until after you’ve sold the pilot. Right now, you need only the broad strokes of what you’re going to teach, how long the pilot will last, and what the experience for the student will be like—just enough details for you to sell the pilot course. The first step is to define the start and end points of your students. Point A is the problem or challenge they’re currently experiencing and want to solve. Point B is the minimum viable outcome or promise of your pilot. Think about the things your students need to learn to achieve success, to go from Point A to Point B. The big concepts or steps you’ll cover in one shot are the lessons. Each lesson should build on the prior skills and knowledge of your students, to scaffold them, so to speak, to the next step. Under each lesson, make a bulleted list of sub-topics you’ll cover. It doesn’t have to be too detailed, just enough so it’s clear to you and your prospective students exactly what the pilot course will cover. Keep in mind: give your students only what they absolutely need to achieve the minimum viable outcome your pilot promises. It’s not to be stingy; it’s to be judicious and avoid anything that might distract or divert your students from the desired outcome. Also, remember that you want to deliver the pilot within six weeks, at the most. This is brief enough that your students will stay motivated, engaged, and available to give the feedback you need. But at the same time, it’s long enough to achieve an outcome they care about. You also want to complete your pilot as quickly as possible, so you can learn and iterate rapidly towards your full-scale product. When you have your one-page pilot plan, fill in the actual dates for each of the lessons. The first lesson should begin within a week of the last day of your launch. Mode of delivery Now that you know the content of your pilot course, it’s time to think of how you’re going to actually deliver the lessons. Your mode of delivery should be as simple and low-tech as possible, considering the requirements of your topic. Avoid having to learn new technologies, and minimize the use of new or unfamiliar technology. In other words, don’t use Skype if the phone will do. Don’t use GoToWebinar if Google Hangouts will serve just fine. Step 4. Sell your pilot You’ve got your pilot course all planned. Now it’s time to sell it! Here’s the basic process for selling your pilot course: 1. Float the idea of your pilot to people who may want it. Announce that you have something in the works, and tell the story of how you came up with the idea. Use email, a blog post, or whatever medium you normally use to connect with your audience (And if you don’t have email subscribers, you still have an audience by way of your personal, professional, and social media connections). You’ll also want to get people excited about your pilot course, by engaging them in some way. Ask for feedback on your pilot idea through a phone call or online survey, for example. If you already have an audience of 500 subscribers or more, and are comfortable with the technology, you can give them a taste of your pilot through a webinar. While you’re building excitement and anticipation for your pilot course, you can also get your audience’s inputs on what type of a pilot course would really help them. 2. Make your offer. With your audience primed, it’s time to open the curtains on your pilot course. Focus on the problem it will solve, and what outcomes it will create. Describe what the experience will be like, so your audience can imagine themselves as your students. And paint a picture of what their outcomes will be. Don’t forget to put a cap on the number of students you will accept. Because this is a pilot, you want to keep the class size manageable while you’re still figuring out the best ways to refine your course. When you make your offer, remind your audience of the number of students you’re taking and the deadline to register. This gives your offer urgency, which can help people take action and buy, instead of putting it off. 3. Close the sale. Collect their payment and give them a spot on your pilot course. If you’re on the phone with them, offer to get their payment details so you can process the payment through PayPal (or whatever payment processor you use). Or, if you made your offer in an email or webinar, send them to either a checkout link or sales page to process their registration. That’s all there is to it. But while the general idea is the same, the execution will be different depending on the size of your existing audience or network. If you don’t have a mailing list, you could accomplish the first step through email, and the second and third steps through a single phone conversation with each of your prospects. If you have a bigger audience and are comfortable with the technologies involved, your pilot course launch could involve a series of emails, blog posts, and other media, ultimately leading to a sales page. Step 5. Proceed or Pivot If you enrolled as many students as you hoped for, then congratulations! You can proceed with delivering your pilot course. But if you’ve followed these steps and didn’t fill your pilot course, you need to go back to your notes and ask yourself: Is there really a demand for the course? Is the pricing wrong? Do your prospects like the topic but not the mode of delivery? Did you misunderstand the outcomes that they care about? Now’s the time to pivot and adjust your plans. It’s very disappointing to be in this situation, but it’s much better to cut your losses now than to invest the time, energy, and money developing a full-blown course that doesn’t sell. You may have to go back to researching your audience’s pains, problems, and frustrations. And then follow the steps again, from nailing down a minimum viable outcome, to planning and selling your pilot course. Eventually, you’ll have a successful pilot course. You’ll have real-life validation that there’s a demand for your course. People do pay for it. They like your content and the way you deliver it. And they’re actually getting good results. That’s when you know you have a potential winner on your hands. Then you can put your worries to rest and get excited about your course again. # # # If you liked this post, then you’ll also like Danny’s webinar, "60 Days to Build and Sell Your First Course." Register here. The post Will It Work? 5 Steps To Test Your Online Course Idea In The Real World appeared first on Thinkific.

Here at Thinkific, we’re constantly at work listening to your feedback and building the features that you, as course creators, need the most. If you’re in our Facebook group you know that we listen and make a better product for you to help you with your online courses. We released the following new features in March 2016. Here’s our announcement video. Additional Pricing and Payment Plans So one of the first things I wanted to mention to you was additional pricing and payment plans and they kind of work together. Now, you could always create multiple prices for a course in the past on Thinkific, but we’ve made it super easy with these new features. So now, when you go to price your course, there is a little button there for additional pricing. And once you have added a price, you can add another price and so you can sell your course at two different price points. Usually people use this to have, say, a one-time fee and a monthly subscription. Or you can combine it with the other new feature, payment plans, and give students an option between a one-time fee and the payment plan. Payment plan is subscription that ends after A payment plan is subscription that ends after a period of time but you can still give people continued access to the course. So, for example, you could sell your course for $1000, or three equal payments of $400 each and they will pay them once a month for three months and then they’re done paying but they have access to the course for as long as you want them to. Now I have actually been wanting payment plans for ages for my own online course because I constantly hear from people that they are waiting on that next paycheck and they can put a portion of it down now and pay the rest later. So opening up payment plans really gives people the opportunity to buy your course right now. Revenue Sharing One of the other things that we have put in is the ability to track and share revenue with co-instructors. So what this does is for any product that you have created, any course, you can actually assign a revenue percentage to other people (it can be multiple people). And Thinkific will automatically track and split up that revenue between those people and essentially handle reporting for you so you can see detailed reports about the sales that you’re making and the portions of revenues and how they are split. And when you’re ready to make payments, you can record payments so that you know they have gone out and those payments are taken care of. So, if you’re co-creating courses or looking to co-create courses, definitely check out the revenue sharing. If you aren’t, it can be a great idea to reach out to other people in your industry and talk about co-creating courses with them. You may even have them create the course entirely and you’re just handling the marketing, or vice versa and then you can share the revenue that way. Language Localization Another thing we’ve got is the ability for you to change your site’s language. This is full localization, if you want to switch your whole site over to German, one click and you’ve got a German site. Very easy to do, we’ve got a bunch of languages already in there for you and if you’re looking for more, just let us know. The benefit of this is you can reach a wider market by targeting people in other countries. And if you’re from a country like Germany, and you’re unhappy about the lack of options to sell courses online in your country, well now you can use us! Cloud Uploads Another one is just making it easier for you to upload content. We already have our bulk importer where you can go into the course builder and just drag and drop all of your videos and PDFs and audio files and it will automatically build the course. But we’ve also added the ability to upload from the cloud, so whether you’re using Google drive or blogs or Dropbox or other cloud hosting services, even FTP, you can do that from the video library and you can just suck in all of that content, so you don’t have to worry about downloading it and then re-uploading it to Thinkific. It should make it a lot easier for you to bring that content in. Infusionsoft Integration Finally, we have a direct integration with Infusionsoft, now. We’ve had an integration with Infusionsoft through Zapier for quite some time but now we actually have that direct integration with Infusionsoft, so you can pass that information over to Infusionsoft, you can create tags, you can create contacts and I definitely recommend checking that out if you’re an Infusionsoft user. Thinkific combined with Infusionsoft creates a really powerful marketing engine for your online courses. Tons of other little fixes that are going on just based on lots of feedback that we are collecting. So you might see some minor little tweaks to our user experience, all about making things easier for you and it’s all based on your feedback. Thanks so much for giving us all that wonderful feedback, giving us great ideas for how we can make Thinkific better. I hope you keep it coming and we’ll keep doing our best to build a wonderful product for you to support you and your online courses. The post Teach Online TV #24: Payment Plans, Revenue Sharing, And More Exciting Features appeared first on Thinkific.

Earth Day Network’s mission is to "broaden and diversify the environmental movement worldwide and to mobilize it as the most effective vehicle to build a healthy, sustainable environment, address climate change, and protect the Earth for future generations." According to the website, http://www.earthday.org/earth-day, the first Earth Day occurred in 1970. The movement gave an organized voice to an emerging consciousness, and began the work of channeling our attention toward environmental issues. Earth Day is entering its 46th year and continues to inspire and motivate people to action. Earth Day is to be celebrated on April 22, 2016 and this year’s theme is "Trees for the Earth!" The Earth Day Network reports that our planet is currently losing over 15 billion trees each year due to deforestation, land development, and poor forest management. EDN’s Trees for the Earth (#Trees4Earth) is a plan to plant 7.8 billion trees by the 50th Earth Day celebration in 2020. This goal reflects one tree for every person on the planet! Earth Day Network reports that planting these 7.8 billion trees will: Fight climate change and pollution; Support communities, their local economies, and their way of life; Protect biodiversity; and Inspire millions of people to practice environmental citizenship and stewardship. Register your own event, or find an event in your area here. At Ed4Online, we hope to set a standard for sustainable education practices in our industry. We believe that we have a responsibility to take care of our planet and preserve its beauty and natural resources for future generations. In addition to maintaining environmentally responsible business practices, we promote balanced and healthy living for our staff. Ed4Online is also proud to offer many Green Career Courses, including courses in sustainability, alternative energy, green interior design, and much more. View our catalog of green career training options, and get started today! Sources: http://www.earthday.org/earth-day/#sthash.ErKWoJS6.dpuf http://www.earthday.org/2016/01/19/earth-day-2016-trees-earth/#sthash.t9AzHr9h.dpuf          

About the Role Due to our rapid growth we are now looking to hire a Digital Marketing Assistant who will be responsible for supporting the marketing team. This is an exciting opportunity that will see the successful candidate play a key role in LearnUpon’s future growth. Specifically the role will involve: Organising everything from booth space to brochures for eLearning events in the US, UK and Australia Updating and maintaining email marketing list data Maintaining our online listings and ensuring all data is up to date and accurate Other marketing related tasks as required Collaborating with, and reporting to, the Marketing Manager Supporting the entire marketing team.   Who We Are Looking For The person we are looking for will have: Third level degree in marketing or business Strong organisational skills Event management experience Data entry and data cleaning experience Social media and email marketing experience Be highly motivated and want to achieve something special with our company You will be bright, hard-working and have the initiative and ability to solve problems by yourself while knowing when it’s time to call on your colleagues for some assistance Ability to work collaboratively in a team environment Ability to develop and maintain strong relationships Strong organizational skills and an ability to multi-task You will have excellent written and spoken English for communicating with our customers (in a friendly and personable way!).   Considered a bonus for the role: Strong WordPress and MS Excel skills Experience with marketing tools such as Google Analytics, MailChimp, Crazy Egg and SEMrush Experience with SaaS and/or at a SaaS company is a big plus An eLearning / LMS background while not necessary would be a bonus.   Benefits Competitive salary and benefits 22 days annual leave Flexible working hours You’ll get the chance to learn from a team of experienced SaaS marketeers Exciting start-up environment with rapidly expanding superstar team Excellent career progression opportunities for the right candidate Team building events   If you are interested in applying for this role please send your CV in confidence to caroline@learnupon.com. We look forward to hearing from you!   About LearnUpon LearnUpon is a new, exciting cloud based software company headquartered in Dublin, Ireland. Our mission is to change the way online learning is delivered by developing a Learning Management System (LMS) that companies love to use. We are addressing the common frustrations with traditional learning management systems by developing a platform that can be set-up in minutes, is easy and intuitive to use, looks amazing and doesn’t cost a fortune. Since launching LearnUpon in mid-2012 we are now one of the fastest growing LMS platforms in the world with new customers signing up for our platform every day. Our customers are based in the US, Canada, UK, Australia, New Zealand, Japan, Spain, France, Holland, South Africa and of course here in Ireland.   LearnUpon is growing incredibly fast with established and increasing revenue. The company is a very open, collaborative environment where team and individual accomplishments are celebrated and encouraged. Our product is on the path to being very successful and the people who join now will be critical contributors to its ongoing adoption throughout the world.   Life at LearnUpon is fun and challenging. You will get to work with a great team in a Dublin city centre location. We are constantly making LearnUpon better for our customers and never adopt an "it will do" attitude when it comes to our platform. We love releasing new features which make our customers go "wow". All the team are given time-out each month to come up with amazing new ideas which will make LearnUpon even better. Everyone contributes and everyone’s ideas are respected. We treat our staff like our customers, they are the most important elements in our business without whom we would just be another run of the mill, boring, clunky LMS. The post We’re hiring! Digital Marketing Assistant appeared first on LearnUpon.

Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is essential to successful marketing today. And effective SEO is as important to selling online courses as anything else. This article will walk you through the three main ways you can use LearnUpon’s SEO features to help you sell more online courses. It does assume you know a little about search engine optimization already. If you don’t, go take a look at the Moz Beginners Guide to SEO and brush up on the most important terms, like keywords and meta tags. To benefit from these guidelines, LearnUpon’s eCommerce features should be enabled in your portal. Contact your account manager if that’s not the case.   Step 1: Create a list of keywords The first step to implementing effective SEO for eLearning is to draft a list of keywords prospective customers will use to reach your website. You can use Google’s keyword planner tool to research a list of keywords to include in your eCommerce storefront on LearnUpon and on each course page. If you offer a small number of courses, your keyword lists for different courses and pages might overlap quite a bit - but don’t worry about that. If you offer a large number of courses, there might be no overlap at all between the main portal and the individual course descriptions - and that’s fine too. Each keyword should be a word that people searching for your course would use - so avoid jargon known only to people who are already experts, and use plain language wherever you can. The higher the search volume associated with a keyword, the greater its potential to drive traffic to your store.   Step 2: Configure LearnUpon’s SEO Settings There are three settings you need to configure for SEO purposes in LearnUpon: two for your overall shopfront and one for each course. Storefront settings The first setting you will be concerned with is the main description of your storefront, which looks like this: This setting defines the main content for your storefront page, so you’ll need to create a good, reader-friendly description of the courses you have available, the overall theme of your course catalogs, using plenty of keywords in all descriptions. eCommerce settings The second set of related settings in LearnUpon can be found under the eCommerce header. To configure them, go to Settings, in the top right, select "eCommerce Settings", and then "SEO & Google Analytics". It looks like this: The "SEO Keywords" you place here will show up in the title of your store page (where they’ll be separated by vertical bar characters), and in the keywords meta tag. The "SEO Snippet" appears in the description meta tag. These are probably the most important settings in LearnUpon when it comes to SEO. Google and other search engines pay a lot of attention to the title of a page. And the description is where you can begin to convince searchers to click through to your store. Make sure to include a Call to Action in your description.The words you use here must be persuasive to encourage readers to click through and view your content - the first steps in their path to purchase. Course settings There are opportunities for SEO optimization on the Course page as well. The relevant settings look like this: The "Course Name" will appear as the course page’s title tag, so use relevant keywords here too. Content you add to the "Description" field will appear on the course page and also in the description meta tag, so you need to draft it with both in mind. It should encourage someone reading to click through to the page but also to continue to buy. The "Keywords" appear in the keywords meta tag, but nowhere else, so they’re not as important here. And finally, the "Objectives" section acts as your main on-page content, so use relevant keywords and make sure it’s well-written. Step 3: Optimizing links Once you have the on-page content in place via the various fields above, the next most important aspect of SEO is linking. Essentially, you need as many links as possible to your storefront and to the individual course pages. These can be from your main website, from your blog, or any other website you control. After that, you can ask other people to place links on their websites for you, possibly even running referral programs which we discuss here. People who have previously completed your courses, sponsors, advertisers, suppliers, writers, and so forth are all possibilities, and the more links that exist to your storefront and courses, the higher they’ll rise in the search engine results pages.   That’s the three first steps to using SEO to sell more online courses: Define a list of keywords prospective customers are most likely to use to find your courses Correctly configure SEO settings in your LearnUpon LMS Build links between your courses, online content and as many other relevant websites as possible. After that, use Google Analytics and Webmaster Tools to monitor which keywords are driving most traffic to your website. You can also track which pages are attracting most organic traffic. Monitoring what’s performing best will help you to tweak your keyword list as you continue to create eLearning content and improve organic performance to ultimately sell more online courses.   Try LearnUpon free for 30 days .learnupon.com Agree to Terms of Service Start my free trial The post How to do SEO for eLearning in 3 easy steps appeared first on LearnUpon.

I have been thinking about storytelling lately as a lot of people are talking about it as essential for business, leadership, and whatever ails you. I have discussed it a few times over the years and have reviewed these thoughts. It appears that in the network era, storytelling is being retrieved, especially through podcasting and... Read more »

It's been awhile since we talked about TOGAF and learning architecture.TOGAF - Overview Preliminary Phase Present or Future FocusRequirements ManagementTOGAF - Requirement TypesTOGAF - The Relationship Between Principles, Requirements and MatricesPhase A - Architecture Vision - Learning Ecosystem v2Phase B - Business Architecture  and a WarningPhase C - Application Architecture and A High Level Application View. Data Architecture goes here too.  I haven't written about that yet.  Life doesn't necessarily work in a linear fashion...Phase D - Technology Architecture (This is mostly in the realm of our IT folks since this deals with our networks, servers and switches.  You've made friends with your IT folks, right?) and Technical Reference ModelPhase E - Opportunities and Solutions - First Draft of Your Roadmap----------------------------All that project management talk recently had a purpose.   Phase F - Migration Planning in TOGAF is when you finalize your plans.All of that preliminary planning - the calculation of risk, the cost estimates for various options, and time estimates go into the decisions around your final architecture and migration plans.Don't forget the environment.  Even if all of the risk, cost and time estimates argue for one direction - you may still be forced to go in an alternate direction because....emotions. Mostly fear. Especially when you are arguing to consolidate and get rid of things.  Because - without those things...what are they going to do? Have you inadvertently diminished that stakeholder's importance?  Reduced his/her power?  Scary stuff.At the end of all of this will be a final target architecture for your Learning Ecosystem. We hope.----------------------Phase F has a few steps.Making sure your plans align with any management frameworks within the organization.Are you (still) aligned with your organization's business strategy and desired outcomes?  This should be a consideration throughout ALL of these processes.  More easily said than done at times - especially when there is misalignment between what the organization says it wants and what is actually happening.Are you aligned with the Enterprise Architecture for your organization?  Real important if you are expecting IT support. No alignment = no help when you get into trouble.Are you aligned with the Portfolio, Program and Project Management frameworks? This will help you get this stuff done.Are you aligned with Operations?  This will help you run the thing when it is finished.I am also going to add - are you aligned with DevOps (development to operations, or the bridge between when something completes as a project and when it becomes something you operate)?  If your organization HAS DevOps.  I have found over the years that most implementations struggle and/or fail because project teams are so focused on finishing the product that they neglect to consider pesky things like training and support until the last minute (usually after they have pushed training off and they are 1 week out from go-live and realize that real people actually have to use the thing.  Then the support teams find out about it after the first angry end user calls....)Assign a business value to each work package.I'll go into business value in a later post, but fundamentally you are looking at:Performance evaluation criteria (ie - what are the uptime / downtime expectations, speed between screens, etc)Return on investment criteria (you should have some of this from your cost numbers crunching)Business valueCritical success factors (this should have been defined in your Architecture Vision)Measure of effectiveness (is it doing what you think it should do?)Strategic fit (with the greater business and with the target architecture)Refine your estimates for resource requirements, project timing and delivery vehiclesThis is essentially the planning estimates for each project you will need to perform as you move from your baseline to your target architecture.As you initiate each project, these planning estimates go into the Initiating and Planning process for that project. Confirm your architecture roadmap and update your architecture definition documentInclude any transition architecture and how long you anticipate that transition architecture to be in place.Generate the implementation and migration plan. Include the following: All projects, activities and dependencies - internal and external to your architecture.  Basically - anything that might impact your learning environment.The impact of the change. Make sure you address any potential negative impacts to areas outside of your learning architecture.  The timing of any resource availability needs.  I would also make sure to include any necessary skills required here. This should allow some time for any necessary upskilling OR external sourcing.Complete and finalize your architecture documents (or the ADM) and document lessons learned from this cycle.Make sure you get any necessary formal signatures and approvals.  Especially important in more formalized or politicized organizational cultures.-------------------------At the end of all of this, you should have:An implementation and migration planA project and portfolio breakdown of the implementation Project Charters - to launch the projects Finalized architecture documents - includingThe Architecture Definition documentArchitecture Roadmap Transition and Final Target architecturesArchitecture Requirements SpecificationReuseable architecture building blocksAny implementation governance models - especially for formal culturesChange requests for the architecture capability as a result of the lessons learned. There might be a request for a completely new iteration of the whole cycle and a redo of the architecture work. Technologies change, business needs change, environments change.  Often faster than you can implement your first target and faster than you can go through this cycle the first time.Be prepared. As you have seen over the past year or so from my postings (and the fact that I have written a lot of this out of order) - this often isn't a tidy process.

The University of Vermont (UVM) and National Louis University of Chicago (NLU) have both recently adopted Acrobatiq’s adaptive courseware at their institutions. In-depth case studies of these implementations, featuring interviews with key project leaders, including instructors and administrators, provide valuable insights about implementing this tool and designing effective programs. Below is a sneak peek at some of the key insights from those case studies, particularly on the question of readiness. 1. You’re seeking strategic cost savings A switch to adaptive courseware cuts down on students’ need to purchase costly print textbooks. For UVM, the transition away from a traditional print textbook was practically seamless. The book’s content was already licensed as part of the adaptive courseware module adopted. NLU sought to expand access by offering a program with zero out-of-pocket costs for low-income and first-generation college students (after federal/state aid is applied). In its new Harrison Professional Pathways Program (HP3), adaptive courseware became an important element in its toolkit to achieve such affordability. 2. You want real-time gap analysis Adaptive learning software offers students many practice opportunities, generating a wealth of observations of student learning. That means students get timely feedback, and, because the practice is measured against clearly defined learning outcomes, they get targeted feedback and tailored follow-up practices. UVM, for example, previously used a home-grown, instructor-developed database to analyze how well students did on each question of "high stakes" exams. The problem was that by the time the instructor found out that students were performing poorly on a given question, it was too late to do something about it. The real-time tracking of adaptive learning replaces these previously time-consuming, time-delayed, and, significantly, "static" analyses of student outcomes. 3. You "see" the value of visualizing progress in real time The online prompts of adaptive learning software have proven to be very effective tools for student engagement, especially for digital native learners who enjoy and tend to fully immerse into interactive environments. NLU, for example, has seen that students are often amazed when shown the correlation between how active they are on the software and how well they do in class. That visual, the university says, has been an inspiring, ongoing "push" in promoting and encouraging student success. 4. You yearn to reenergize classroom time With adaptive courseware, instructors gain a different vantage point, a sneak peek into what’s going on with their students and are thus able to use classroom time in new ways. At NLU, students now get an introduction to course material through the adaptive courseware, with instructors reviewing data from student practice before class, finding gaps in student knowledge, and customizing class time based on those needs, including using success coaching. Similarly, UVM students are given a deadline to work through the courseware so that instructors can thoughtfully analyze learning analytics and then refine the activities they intend for the next class meeting. While receiving real-time data to inform upcoming class time has its challenges - UVM warns that faculty should be ready to adjust lecture plans on short notice - the new dynamics afforded by adaptive learning are ultimately energizing. NLU instructors, for example, relish having time to focus on the learning science and improve their teaching practices in a way they wouldn’t have been able to before. They are experiencing a process of discovery where they see themselves having new and expanded capacity inside the classroom. 5. You need a critical, effective core base for blended/hybrid course models Like many higher education organizations, UVM and NLU are increasingly adding online components to their curriculum. In NLU’s HP3 program, for example, students meet in class twice a week and the remainder of their work is done online. NLU intentionally chose adaptive courseware to avoid the common problem of using online learning uncritically, where students would have had the same problems with persistence and completion as in more traditional educational delivery models. For UVM, adaptive courseware has been so engaging and successful that more courses are now being transitioned to a hybrid format, replacing some class time with adaptive learning online work.     Judy Quinn is an education-beat journalist who has also served as a community college instructor and university student media adviser.

For decades, I’ve been talking to new managers about their biggest challenges. One thing I still hear over and over is how hard it is to balance being the tough boss and being the nice boss. I think this feat is especially difficult for the new manager who started as a high performing individual contributor, was promoted, and is now managing former colleagues and friends. This common first-time manager dilemma reminds me of my longtime friend and coauthor Don Shula, legendary coach of the Miami Dolphins. In our book Everyone’s a Coach, he says it is more important to be respected than to be popular. I offer two pieces of advice. First, think back to a leader who inspired you to great performance. More than likely it was someone who combined toughness with compassion. You knew that person cared about you, but also that they would not let up on you in the quest for excellence. To achieve this balance you need to set high standards to make sure each person on your team is adding value to the organization. You also need to be present for them to offer support and direction along the way. You must be willing to set stretch goals with your people, pushing them beyond their comfort level—and then you need to help them achieve those goals. This is where the art of communication comes into play.  Having honest and open conversations with your people when setting goals, providing feedback, and giving direction will pave the way to building mutually respectful relationships with them. My second suggestion is to ask for training. Our research shows that more than 40 percent of new managers go years without receiving any training in their new role! That’s incredible. Is it any wonder that 60 percent of new managers underperform or fail in the first two years? Without proper managerial training, you are likely to develop poor habits that will prevent you from being as effective as you need to be. And those poor habits you developed early can become the familiar, comfortable behaviors that will be more difficult to change as time goes by. For example, as a new manager you might find it hard to delegate—especially if you were a successful individual achiever who was promoted into a management role. But even though it might be easier and faster to do some tasks yourself, you must learn how to get work accomplished through others. If you don’t delegate, your direct reports might see you as a nice boss, but if you show each person you care about their development enough to require them to carry their own weight, they will respect you as their leader. This relates back to Coach Shula preferring respect to popularity. Are you ready to ask for training to learn the skills you need to get your management career off to a great start? And are you ready to push your people to find the greatness within themselves? I guarantee if you focus on both of these issues, you’ll set yourself and your team up for success.

Venturing away from the safe and familiar might make your corporate learners a bit uneasy, but it can offer them a variety of long-lasting benefits and significantly enhance their work productivity. In this article, I’ll share 7 convincing reasons why you should push your corporate learners beyond their comfort zone. Why You Should Push Your Corporate Learners Beyond Their "Comfort Zone" The "comfort zone" consists of behaviors, beliefs, and activities that we have made part of our daily lives. It’s what we are most familiar with. Thus, we tend to stay within the boundaries of this zone in order to reduce stress and avoid uncertainty. The trouble is that this can prevent us from growing as individuals, leading to stagnancy in both our personal and professional lives. As Instructional Designers, we have the ability to encourage our corporate learners to move beyond their comfort zone and seize new opportunities, which gives them the chance to: 1. Reach their true potential When corporate learners stick to a routine and get comfortable with who they are and what they can do, they stop trying to test themselves and their limits. Pushing beyond the comfort zone allows corporate learners to test their mettle, so to speak. Once they venture away from thoughts and ideas that are familiar and safe, they have the power to grow and expand their self-awareness. Things that were once "impossible" are now within their grasp, and they begin to understand that determination and planning can help them to achieve anything. The only caveat is that they must be ready and willing to step outside of their comfort zone. 2. Learn from mistakes When we try out new things or explore new ideas there is always going to be a margin of error. Not every trip beyond the comfort zone is going to go smoothly, but that just gives corporate learners the opportunity to learn from their mistakes and expand their knowledge. It’s all about taking risks, even if it makes them a bit uneasy. Every error they make allows them to correct performance behaviors and build new skill sets that can benefit them in the real world. Most importantly, it offers them the opportunity to improve their weaknesses in order to achieve success. 3. Increase creativity and problem-solving skills When your corporate learners encounter new challenges that are outside of their comfort zone, they must develop new problem-solving approaches to match. This prompts them to get creative about overcoming obstacles and put their lateral-thinking abilities to good use. This can be attributed to the fact that their current solutions are geared toward everyday problems, which are no longer an issue outside of the comfort zone. Now they have to use all of the tools, resources, and knowledge at their disposal to arrive at new conclusions. When they are asked to tackle a new or unexpected challenge in the workplace, they will seize the opportunity to try out some newly acquired skills. 4. Take control of their career path When corporate learners stop doing what is familiar and start trying new things, they become more empowered and self-confident. This is due to the fact that they know what they are capable of and that they have what it takes to be successful. Instead of settling for the safe and secure, they are now able to tackle bigger tasks that once made them nervous and pursue more ambitious professional goals. In short, they are aware that they are in control of their lives and that they can dictate every step of their career path. This also increases their engagement during online training sessions and prompts them to actively participate in the process by boosting their intrinsic motivation. 5. Broaden their professional experience Corporate learners who have a significant amount of experience are typically more productive and flexible. They can draw upon a vast amount of knowledge, past mistakes, and past successes to solve current problems and help their colleagues to expand their understanding. In many respects, corporate learners who aren’t afraid to go beyond the comfort zone are ideal mentors. Corporate learners who aren’t afraid to go beyond the comfort zone are ideal mentors.Click To Tweet They encourage their peers to seek out new online training experiences themselves and respect the viewpoints and opinions of others. They are also well-rounded, as they have dabbled in a variety of different niches and tasks throughout their career. 6. Improve their ability to adapt When corporate learners leave behind their comfort zone, they also begin to understand the importance of change. Rather than fearing it, as many of us do, they respect the fact that we must all adapt in order to grow and achieve our true potential. Above all else, employees learn how to effectively cope with change and accept it as a natural part of life. This can be extremely useful on-the-job, especially when it’s time to move up in the ranks or deal with a new task or tool that will improve their work process. 7. Put their existing knowledge into practice Employees who experience new situations or challenges must put what they’ve learned into practice. The information they’ve gathered in the past and stored in their long-term memory now becomes an invaluable asset. If they cannot apply it directly, then they will at least be able to link it to new ideas or concepts in order to build upon an existing schema. In fact, knowledge that they may have thought was unnecessary or extraneous can actually become a powerful tool in their arsenal. Stepping outside of the comfort zone can be one of the most challenging things that your corporate learners will ever have to do. This is particularly true for employees who may be "set in their ways" or simply unaware that they are maintaining the status quo in their careers. However, giving them the opportunity to explore exciting and unfamiliar territory can turn them into lifelong learners. Are you looking for ways to make your online training program more engaging and learner-centric? Read the article 6 Tips To Create Personalized Online Training Experiences For Your Employees to discover how to provide your corporate learners with the customized online training experiences they need to achieve their objectives and enhance their workplace productivity. The post 7 Reasons You Should Push Your Corporate Learners Beyond Their "Comfort Zone" appeared first on TalentLMS Blog.

Change in all human life facets is inevitable. The eLearning industry is not safe from changes either. Technology comes and goes. Pedagogy strategies come and go. Similarly, instruction and eLearning course design ideas come, stay and move out to make way for new, more effective ones. In this article we will talk about some changes that need to be made in your eLearning design toolbox. Are you ready to say goodbye to some eLearning trends? As research in eLearning broadens and evolves, so do adopted practices. Some practices have been very successful in the past, but they now need to retire, for justifiable reasons. Why this dramatic change in eLearning development strategies, you may ask. The main reason behind this quick fade-out and fade-in is user experience study. UX, as it’s most commonly referred to, is now dictating the way learners (and website users) prefer to view online interfaces. Another notable reason to make space for a change are the multiple devices adopted by learners. It is not uncommon for learners to own a tablet, smartphone, document reader and laptop. So, here are some of the eLearning trends in design and development that we’re waving goodbye to: 1. Away with the Text! The PDFs, PPTs and DOCs that have dominated the eLearning content scene for too long are the first to see the door. In the field, there has always been the need to integrate interactivity with large volumes of text. The goal is to create highly engaging test items adjacent to the newly introduced content. Text-based content is still necessary to convey the message. But, in this visual age, which is coupled with shorter attention spans of learners and tighter schedules, text is not the only way to convey the message. Text needs to be replaced by descriptive images, infographics, videos and gamification. Content is definitely still the king, but not all content is preferred to be in text form. And what does this mean for eLearning developers? More design time to convert text to visual. 2. Simpler LMS - the hottest of new eLearning trends Simple is the new golden word. Simple style, simple learning environment. We cannot stress this enough! With multimedia consumers quickly becoming producers, the need to create in-house eLearning programs is a progressive practice! An LMS cannot be complicated and expert-friendly only. Corporations are observed to have moved away from larger, stand-alone systems and into smaller, resourceful, versatile and manageable learning management systems. Simpler LMSs will gain a wider market share. Gone are the days when a course needed certain bells and whistles to shine well in an equally "techy" LMS. 3. Screen Real Estate Cloud computing is the master in the corporate training environment. Our growing mobile dependency has shifted the corporate learning scene from the traditional, server-driven and browser-based experiences to the Cloud. Mobile-learning, or mLearning, is rising to the occasion. This translates to smaller screen sizes, faster connection speeds, touch based interfaces, resourceful-power based interfaces and a unique user experience, not limited to special learning needs and styles. Looks like versatility is the new eLearning trend! Processing power is no longer contained within the device; it has moved to the Cloud. With the rising popularity of augmented reality through most smartphone auxiliary devices, we wouldn’t be surprised if eLearning dominated the arena. So what does this mean for current eLearning developers and corporate trainers? Train to train using the mobile! 4. Traditional Classrooms phase out… Unfortunately, another of the eLearning trends that is really being phased out is classroom learning - and we can demonstrate this argument through several examples. Medium to large corporations are increasingly offering telecommuting options to their employees. Distributed workforces and the need for custom-based training content or localized content is demanding eLearning solutions. Also, the popularity of the Cloud is driving eLearning higher up in the demand list, leaving the traditional classroom surprisingly emptier by the year! Another word from the extant statistics: The eLearning industry business is expected to touch $107 billion in 2016! 5. Bye bye Flash! Okay, we have three uprising developments that are bidding final farewell to Flash: the need for better performance, the need for greater security and the influence of mobile devices (especially smartphones). All three have united to phase out Flash-based eLearning programs. The decline of Flash designs has been observed for quite a while now. This is due to the HTML5 influence that boasts greater device compatibility. In fact, Flash is no longer available in Google Store or Apple Apps Store. eLearning companies are swiftly working towards the flash to HTML5 conversion. It’s high time you too jumped the cloud-based eLearning bandwagon with non-Flash interface design options! Change in learning organizations is the root for change in the organizational culture. Change truly begins in the way we learn and perceive learning in relation to performance. eLearning programs are moving in the direction of performance. This is a welcome change and should face fewer re-development/re-organization hurdles. The eLearning design approach is more sensitive and responsive to the learner than ever. The eLearning design approach is more sensitive and responsive to the learner than ever.Click To Tweet Keeping up with this growing need by changing your personal and professional approach to eLearning design is the wiser way to go. The post 5 eLearning trends to wave goodbye to today! appeared first on TalentLMS Blog.

Before you expect to influence 360 degrees, you must do some pre-work to mitigate confusion and churn.  Clarify why your request matters / purpose: What's In It For Them?      Who are you influencing specifically? What is their role in the problem? What authority do they have? What is the perspective from their seat? Be prepared to construct and monotonously repeat a tagline pitch with this structure (taken from our Project Management practice): My issue, when resolved will  (Increase Revenue -or- Avoid Cost) for our organization (replace with your words) by doing something very important. In other words: Sell. The. Dream. People want to be helped with important and engaging work. Help them explicitly connect the dots. Clarify roles and accountability Be mindful that there is a big difference between the perspective of a Project Sponsor, Project Manager and critical Stakeholders similar to what  Barry Oshry wrote about with Tops, Bottoms, Middles and Customers.  Adapt your approach. Who has the ability to approve timelines, budgets, dates and who does not?  Which people are required for networking to get to the decision makers?  Build a strategy to move to the right person for the right decision. Understand how decision making and governance really works in the organization. Clarify what you need specifically We often start meetings without clarifying what we expect of the people we have invited. My friend, Jeff Clancy (retired CIO), shared this model that he used to start meetings to clarify what his meeting expectations were. Supporter means he is holding the meeting to inform, not to change anything. Clarifying questions are fine, but the decision has been made and feedback is not useful. Evaluater, on the other side of the spectrum, means that he is in prototyping mode and wants all the feedback he can get. No decision has been made. Meetings are usually somewhere between these two extremes and by drawing this on the board at the start, you can clarify what you want:    What many people forget to explain when they ask for something is 'what will I have after that I don't have now?' The Vision/Why can be vague and inspirational (ex. World Peace) but your specific request must be crystal clear (ex. lunches for an inner city school in the summer). You are much more likely to get what you need if you know what it is and you can articulate it briefly and clearly. Tell the truth about constraints and risk If you don't know, find out by behaviors (not words) how you would prioritize and whether you are limited by money, time or quality. If your highest leader were to prioritize these, what order would they be in? Again, everyone wants all of these, but choices show what's really the most critical. In addition, if you know there are risks that are very likely to occur, share these authentically. Here's a table to help you figure out your messaging around risk (taken from our Project Charter template) : Quite often our students come up to us and ask how they can make someone else change their behavior.  Clearly, you can't. And, quite often under stress, I strike out and blame everyone else for something not acknowledging that I am part of the dysfunctional system, too. It's easier to blame others but it leads to sabotaging the relationship. To be successful requires that your leader also be successful, regardless of whether you like them or not. You can influence that by focusing on how to do the following three strategies to collaborate:

Wavosaur is fresh Wavosaur, our free audio editor, come with two downloads : 32 bit version & 64 bit version. If you don’t know what version you should use, here some tips : 1) you run a 32 bit OS a good old Windows XP 32 bit for example! you have no choice : only the 32 bit Wavosaur will work. 2) you have a 64 bit OS and don’t use VST plugins with Wavosaur you can choose the 32 or the 64 bit Wavosaur, Wavosaur 64 bit can adress more RAM of course, but basically you’ll have exactely the same software, with the same performance. 3) you have a 64 bit OS and use lot of 32 bit VST plugin effects you have to use the 32 bit Wavosaur if you want to use your VST plugins inside Wavosaur ! for the moment Wavosaur doesn’t come with a "bridge", so you have to match : 32 bit Wavosaur for 32 bit VST plugins. 4) you use a 64 bit OS and use 64 bit VST plugins effects you have to download the 64 bit Wavosaur ! 5) you have a 64 bit system and use 32 & 64 bit VST plugins you can dowload and use both versions of Wavosaur, but you won’t be able to mix 32 & 64 bit VST effects in the same project/session.   and don’t forget, if you want to export in mp3 format, you have to use the right version of the Lame encoder DLL. The 64 bit Lame encoder dll can be found here : http://www.rarewares.org/mp3-lame-bundle.php

It’s happened to all of us: we’re presented with information and yet we forget it. Why does it happen? One of the most common reasons is because our attention is elsewhere. It’s similar to what happens when a student is attending a lecture, yet is simultaneously spending time on their smartphone. While they may be physically present in the lecture, their divided attention leads to a failure to retain most, if not all, of the information taught.  Another reason we don’t encode information is because we don’t see it as relevant. If you’re training employees and they don’t see content directly related to their job or their career growth, they’re likely to lose focus and fail to embed the information in their memory. The third most commonly cited reason we don’t manage to remember information is because our brains feel like they’re being bombarded with too much information at once. Your brain has only a certain threshold of information it can process. If you inundate the brain with huge amounts of data, it will selectively decipher what to retain and what to let go.

Bill Mezzetti is the Manager of eLearning at The Royal Australasian College of Surgeons (RACS). The College is recognised for the high standards it maintains through its educational, training and professional development and support activities. This commitment to educational excellence includes working with eWorks to embrace the latest developments in online education. Here Bill shares … Continue reading Surgeons amp up e-learning

Take these two simple words, work and play. Which appeals to you the most? My guess is that most of you chose ‘play’ due to its connotations of fun, exploration, and doing things your own way. 5 Reasons Why Gamification remains a HOT Trend for 2016 Gamification provides the means of infusing an element of […] The post Gamification: The Training Trend for 2016 appeared first on PulseLearning.

We know how important it is to get kids exposed to computer programming, but how? Here are 10 easy ways to get started with coding in the classroom. 1. Pencilcode DrawPencilcode.net is for everyone and works much like the old Logo program where you write simple commands to make a turtle move on a grid. forward 10, right 90, forward 10, right 90 forward 10, right 90, forward 10. Boom. You just coded a square. Make more interesting shapes as you learn more code. goo.gl/DDpZHV2. Android App InventorWith a computer and an Android device, you can learn to be an app developer and make truly functional apps. Start with the Hello Purr tutorial. goo.gl/KPf63J3. Code without a ComputerInspired by Pencilcode, have kids invent their own computer language and have other students execute the commands out in the playground. goo.gl/WnxuUK4. Code with Google FormsUsing multiple choice questions in Google Forms, you can enable the "Go to page based on answer" feature to create branching logic "Choose Your Own Adventure" style stories. Should you go in the cave or into the woods? goo.gl/7pzqyH5. Code in a SpreadsheetWhenever you reference one cell in another, you're starting to understand variables. Have students make a tip calculator app into a spreadsheet by formulating simple division. goo.gl/dEHHkI6. Learn HTML, CSS, and Python with CodecademyCodecademy offers bite-sized lessons in coding that middle and high school students can follow and learn to code like a pro. Added bonus … students earn collectable badges. goo.gl/vQz7Od7. Control BB8 at code.orgCode.org is one of the largest platforms designed to get kids coding. You can learn coding by playing games with a Star Wars theme. goo.gl/SRNBtG8. Get hands-on with a Raspberry PiLearn how computers get physical by running your own code on a computer you wire yourself with LED lights and motors. Get started at raspberrypi.org.9. Hello Processing!Learn how code and art interact at hello.processing.org and take really fun tutorials on how to create your own visual magic with computer programming. goo.gl/Xct2rZ10. Robotics with MINDSTORMSAdmit it: you want to build a robot army. You need to start somewhere, and LEGO MINDSTORMS is a great platform to design, build, and code your own robots that respond to the the environment. Please use your power for good. goo.gl/DJWq46 CALL FOR LESSON PLANS! Do your students code? We're sourcing coding lesson plans for an upcoming book, Code in Every Class by Kevin Brookhouser. Share yours! Extra bonus: We'll be sending Raspberry Pi's to the winners each week!Submit your lesson plans through by filling out this form submit.codeineveryclass.org Help share this challenge on Twitter with #codeineveryclass.Need an idea of what we're looking for?Here's one example.*Note: submissions gives the publisher rights to publish your coding lesson and your attribution.

If you’re in training, you’re probably familiar with the sheets that trainers pass out to learners after a training session, asking the learners to evaluate the training session and the trainer. These are known by a variety of names. Maybe you call them training-evaluation forms, or student-response forms, or trainee-reaction forms. But they’re also commonly-maybe most commonly-known as smile sheets. Why smile sheets? Because it’s common for the learners attending training to give the training/trainer high scores that make everyone smile. But the common assumption is that the trainees do that politely, kindly, quickly, uncritically, and without giving any great thought. And so the term smile sheet is generally used somewhat dismissively, with the assumption that the information they contain doesn’t really provide a lot of value. And yet, quite a few trainers continue to use smile sheets, and many of those trainers do nothing to improve them. Maybe they’ve never even thought of improving their smile sheets. It’s all become a bit of a habit to them, one they don’t think about because there’s so much else to think about, worry about, and to do. I recently read a very good book called Performance-Focused Smile Sheets: A Radical Rethinking of a Dangerous Art Form by Dr. Will Thalheimer. The book explains some of the common problems with smile sheets, but also gives some very helpful tips to help make them better. We definitely suggest that you buy and read the book, and we’ve included a bunch of information to help you do that at the bottom of this article. But for now, let’s look at some of the general points Thalheimer makes in his book and see what we can learn from them. Convergence Training is a training solutions provider. We make a many libraries of off-the-shelf e-learning courses, several learning management systems (LMSs), custom training solutions, and more. Contact us for full-length previews, to set up a demo, or to ask a few questions. While you’re here, why not download some of our free guides? Guide to Effective Manufacturing Training Guide to Effective EHS Training Guide to Online MSHA/Mining Safety Training Guide to Writing Learning Objectives Some Basics on Smile Sheets Let’s take a look at a few basic issues about smile sheets and their use, including: Who uses them and who doesn’t What’s the point? Some thoughts about their place within Kirkpatrick’s four levels of evaluation Who Uses Smile Sheets? In my own unscientific poll, you can break trainers down into five groups (mea culpa: that’s bad that I’m using an "unscientific poll," because we should be using data-driven, evidence-based methods, but the exact accuracy of this breakdown isn’t a critical issue for our purposes today, so we’ll go with it): Trainers who have never heard of nor used smile sheets Trainers who have heard of smile sheets, but don’t use them primarily out of laziness Trainers who have heard of smile sheets, but don’t use them because they think they bring no value Trainers who use smile sheets, but use traditional smile sheets that bring little value Trainers who use smile sheets, and who have somehow put shoulder to rock and, largely on their own, and improved the smile sheets they use so they deliver real value We think this article will be of interest to those different groups for different reasons. Here’s our thinking: Type of Trainer Why You Might Care Never even heard of ’em We are all interested in knowing about stuff from our field that we don’t yet know and that might possibly help us, no? Heard of ’em, too lazy to use ’em Hey, we get it. Sometimes we’re all tempted to be a bit lazy. But if you read on, you may find that these can deliver enough value to make them worth the effort. Heard of ’em, don’t use ’em ‘cuz they’re no good Well, good point. That’s largely been true up to now, although there are exceptions. But our goal here is to show you that you can make really good ones. Heard of ’em, use ’em, but use the ones that provide little or no value OK, so you’re making them. Maybe even because you think you have to. But since you’re already making them, we bet you won’t resist making better ones that provide more value. Heard of ’em, use ’em, already write great ones Great! Well, maybe you’re doing fine on your own, but we bet that if you’ve already gone to the effort of figuring out how to make good ones, you’re also interested in learning more. Right? What’s the Point of Using Smile Sheets? So you may be thinking what’s the whole point of using smile sheets anyway? Seems like a good place to start the conversation. There are plenty of good reasons to write smile sheets. Thalheimer gives a list of nine reasons (which he explains he himself modified from an earlier list created by leaning measurement expert Rob Brinkerhoff). Two that are kind of clever, that raise legitimate points, and that you might not think about are: "Upholding the spirit of common courtesy by giving learners a chance for feedback" (1) …and… "Enabling learner frustrations to be vented-to limit damage from negative back-channel communications." (2) But the real reason for using smile sheets, to collapse a few of Thalheimer’s points into a single point, is to identify weaknesses in current training and use that information to make future training better. Here, I want to quote Thailheimer at length, because he writes about this passionately and eloquently in his Preface: "I took this path [studying learning & development] because I believed strongly-and still believe-that learning is a noble cause. It is learning that has enabled human civilization and growth. It is learning that enables individuals to excel and thrive. It is learning that holds the promise of the future. If learning is so important and our task is such a noble one, don’t we, as learning professionals, have an almost sacred responsibility to do our jobs well? The way I see it, there are two main lynchpins to our performance. First, scientific research must guide our starting assumptions. Second, we must use good learning measurement to get valid feedback so that we can refine our understandings, improve our learning design, and live up to our promise-so that we can maximize the benefit of learning… While smile sheets should never be the only way we get feedback on learning, by improving them, we can get significantly better information about how we’re doing. With better information, we can create virtuous cycles of continuous improvement. We can build more effective learning interventions and meet our obligations as learning professionals."(3) Kudos! Well said, right? If we never try to evaluate the effectiveness of our training, we can’t use that data to see if our training is working well or not. Which means if our training isn’t working, we may not know that, and we won’t have helpful information to make it better. And it also means we can’t apply the same lessons to other training we may create in the future. So not evaluating the effectiveness of training is a loss/loss. Consider that phrase Thalheimer uses-"virtuous cycles of continuous improvement." Maybe it’s just the third cup of coffee in me talking, but I love that as a professional goal in any discipline. You’d think our friends in lean manufacturing, with their emphasis on kaizen, would be big fans of Thalheimer’s efforts. Smile Sheets and Kirkpatrick’s Four Levels of Evaluation If you’re familiar with Kirkpatrick’s Four Levels of Training Evaluation, you may know that smile sheets are level one. If you’re not familiar, and you want the exenteded introduction, check out that link above. If you are familiar, or just want a quick review, check out the bullets and image below. Kirkpatrick’s Four Levels of Training Evaluation Level 1-Reaction: Smile sheets-surveys handed out to the learners, online evaluations, etc. Level 2-Learning: Role-playing scenarios during training, focus groups, case studies, tests, etc. Level 3-Behavior: Observation of on-the-job behaviors and other evaluation metrics. Level 4-Results: Direct measurement of business goal-cost, revenue, production, etc. Trainers seem to fall into two camps when it comes to how the smile sheets (level 1 evaluations) relate to level 2 and even the higher levels. Specifically, this relates to whether or not the results of level one evaluations are related to results at the higher levels. As before, we’ve broken it down for you below. Type of Trainer Thoughts on Level 1 (Smile Sheets) and Relation to Other Levels Believe that positive learner reactions lead to positive learning, behavioral, and business outcomes (Note: Here, "positive learner reactions" means learners said they liked the training or that they learned a lot from the training). A positive learner reaction is going to lead to positive learning, behavioral, and business outcomes. A negative reaction won’t. Believe that positive learner reactions don’t necessarily lead to positive learning, behavioral, and business outcomes (Note: Here, "positive learner reactions" means learners said they liked the training or that they learned a lot from the training). A positive learner reaction may or may not lead to positive learning, behavioral, and business outcomes. The same is true with a negative learner reaction. The interesting distinction here is whether or not a positive level 1 (smile sheet) evaluation is necessary for effective learning and behavioral change, or even if there’s a correlation between having the learner say they "liked" the training or say that the training was "effective" and the reality of whether or not the training prepared them to perform well on a test and/or if the training will lead to desired on-the-job behaviors and movement toward desired business goals. We’re going to discuss that in more detail in the very next section, but before you move on, give this question some thought yourself. Is it more likely that employees learned during training if they said they "liked" the training or that the training was "good?" And what if employees rated one training activity (or one trainer) lower than another—are those employees less likely to learn, to perform desired behaviors on the job, or to contribute toward the business reaching business goals? What do you think? What’s Wrong With Traditional Smile Sheets? There are quite a few problems with "traditional" smile sheets. Thalheimer goes over them in detail in his book(4), and we’ll briefly cover a few of the key points below. Probably the big bomb-shell Thalheimer delivers is that, according to two meta-aanalyses of studies on smile sheets (level 1 evaluations) and their correlation to test results (level 2 evaluations), there’s ALMOST NO CORRELATION with learning results. Again, a little quote from the book: "They found that smile sheets were basically uncorrelated with learning results! To be specific, they were minutely correlated with learning-test results at a correlation of 0.09. You will remember from your statistics that correlations go from -1 to 1. Correlations between -0.30 and 0.30 are considered weak correlations. Having a correlation of 0.09 is practically no correlation at all. It would be like correlating the household level of peanut butter use with the household level of television use." (5) So that’s a biggie right there. Some of the other problems that Thalheimer notes with traditional smile sheets are: We’re asking the wrong kind of questions We’re giving our employees the wrong kind of answer options We’re getting feedback that doesn’t tell us how effective the training was We’re getting feedback that isn’t actionable We’re translating the answer options we get into a numerical score We’ll look at each of these issues in a little more detail in the section below. Improving Traditional Smile Sheets: Some Tips on How to Do It Let’s look at some of the biggest problems with smile sheets and get some ideas of how we can improve. We’re Asking the Wrong Kinds of Questions One of the big problems is that we’re asking the wrong kinds of questions. The kinds of questions that we often ask relate to things like: Did you like the training? Did you learn from the training? But studies show that having a high score for "liked the training" and/or "learned from the training" doesn’t mean the training was actually effective. In short, that means that the people who attend a training aren’t good judges of whether or not they learned. What we should be do is asking if the learners feel that the training prepared them to apply the skills explained during the training when they return to the job. Breaking that down a touch further, Thalheimer recommends questions that get at the four following issues: Do the learners understand? Will the learners remember? Are they motivated to remember? Are there after-training supports in place? (6) Go ahead and pick up a copy of the book to learn more about this. Thalheimer goes into great detail on these issues, explains their importance, and includes a lot of sample questions too. We’re Giving Employees/Learners the Wrong Kind of Answer Options Many smile sheet questions ask the learner a question and force them to answer by choosing one of five options, which typically include options like Strongly Disagree; Somewhat Disagree; Neither Disagree Nor Agree; Somewhat Agree; and Strongly Agree. Or the options are similar to that. This is commonly known as a Likert scale. There are at least four problems with these kind of answer options: They’re vague and it’s not clear where the "boundary" between one and the other is. When does Strongly Disagree shade into Somewhat Disagree? What’s the difference between Somewhat Agree and Strongly Agree? They may mean different things to different people. Your Somewhat Agree may be the same as my Neither Agree Nor Disagree, or even our coworker’s Strongly Agree. They’re not related to learning effectiveness and/or job preparedness. Even if the question is phrased well, so that it’s targeted at valuable information about training effectiveness and later, on-the-job performance, these answer options don’t give the learners a chance to correlate the training to whether or not they’ve learned the material and are prepared to apply it on the job. They don’t give trainers actionable information. So you gather all the responses, add up all the numbers, divide by the number of respondents, and you learn that for question 1, you’ve got an average score of 4.2 (out of 5). Is that good or bad? Where’s the cut-off between good and bad, exactly? How can that 4.2 score help you in your "virtuous cycle of continuous improvement" of training materials? If you do want to improve something in the training, what should you improve? What’s a better way to write these smile sheet answer options? The screen grab below (taken from a recent webinar we hosted on Effective EHS Training) shows some better answer options (and a better question, relating to the last section, too). You can see these answer options are: Much less vague Related to ability to transfer training to later on-the-job performance Written to provide feedback that gives the trainer insight into whether or not the training was effective Written to provide feedback that provides valuable information to the trainer who wants to improve the training                       We’re Getting Smile Sheet Feedback that Doesn’t Tell Us How Effective the Training Was For the reasons we explained above, plus others, the feedback we’re getting from our smile sheets doesn’t tell us if our training was effective or if it wasn’t. This is one of two things that Thalheimer says a smile sheet should do.(7) We’re Getting Smile Sheet Feedback that Isn’t Actionable And, also for many of the reasons we’ve explained above, we’re getting feedback from our smile sheets that doesn’t let us-as training developers, trainers, training materials, etc.-act to appropriately follow-up on the information from the smile sheet in order to improve our training. Remember those "virtuous cycles of continuous improvement?" We’re Translating Smile Sheet Feedback Into Numbers and Averages Not only are we asking the wrong kinds of questions, and not only are we giving learners the wrong kind of answer options, and not only are we getting feedback that doesn’t tell us how effective the training was and that isn’t actionable, but because we often use a five-point Likert scale as answer options, we often translate those answers into a number-like 3.7 or 4.2 out of 5. What’s a 4.2, again? Is that good or bad? What should I do if I get a 4.2? Can you reminder me again why we thought  it would be a good idea to take poor information and make it one step more abstract? More About Performance-Focused Smile Sheets: A Radical Rethinking of a Dangerous Art Form by Dr. Will Thalheimer So we encourage you to run, not walk, to go buy yourself a copy of Performance-Focused Smile Sheets: A Radical Rethinking of a Dangerous Art Form by Will Thalheimer. We haven’t addressed this in the article yet, but here’s more that we can say about the book: It’s (admirably) short and gets to the point It’s based in research and is evidence-based It’s funny; Thalheimer takes his subject seriously but not himself, and you’ll have some good laughs along the way In addition, Thalheimer is a positive influence on social media, and fights the good fight for advancing good, data-driven, evidence-based training learning practices. Here’s some additional information about Dr. Thalheimer and his book: SmileSheets.com: This is where you can buy the book. As Thalheimer explains, if you buy it here instead of elsewhere, he gets a bigger slice of the cut and can therefore afford to spend more time researching stuff that helps us all. Will At Work Learning: Thalheimer’s blog. Always interesting. Podcast with Will Thalheimer and Connie Malamed: Listen in to a 24-minute podcast during which Thalheimer discusses his book and the topic of smile sheets with Connie Malamed (one of my favorite instructional design bloggers). Hope you enjoyed this article, good luck with your smile sheets, and let us know your thoughts in the comments section. And hey, why not download our free guide to Effective Manufacturing Training? Book Cover and Notes And finally, here’s the book itself, and your proverbial opportunity to judge a book by its cover. Notes from this article are below the book cover.                                   Notes: Thalheimer, Chapter 1 (What Are Smile Sheets For?), Location 257. Apologies to those of you who might by this as a physical book-I bought it as an e-book and it doesn’t display page numbers Thalheimer, Chapter 1 (What Are Smile Sheets For?), Location 257. Thalheimer, Preface, Location 109-119. Thalheimer, Introduction, Location 133-143 (he’s got a list of 10 problems there). Thalheimer, Chapter 2 (Your Smile Sheets Suck!), Location 325. The two meta-analyses he references are one from 1997 (Alliger, Tannenbaum, Bennett, Traver, and Shotland) that included 34 separate studies, and a second from 2008 (Sitzmann, Brown, Casper, Ely, and Zimmerman) that covered 136 separate studies. Both meta-analyses found exactly the same weak correlation-0.09 (what are the odds of that?). Thalheimer, Chapter 3 (Smile Sheets Should Predict Training Effectiveness), Location 808. The post How to Write Better Smile Sheets: What’s Wrong With Traditional Training Evaluation Forms and How to Make Them Better appeared first on Convergence Training Blog.