InSITE 2015 is an exciting conference which will cover topics such as Informing Science, It Education and Information Technology and more. InSITE is often quoted as the best conference delegates have ever attended. Its focus is todevelop the trust elationships needed to enable collaborative research with colleagues from other nations and other disciplines. It is a unique experience in which the leadership in the organization truly welcomes new and old researchers like. Unlike conferences that are designed for cliques of insiders, at InSITE you are the insider. In this, its 18th year, InSITE returns to the USA, this time in sunny Florida. InSITE 2015 Multi-Conferences Chairs Dr.T. Grandon Gill & Dr. Manish Agarwal, Muma College of Business The conferences of InSITE 2015 are: InSITE: InFORM, issues in effectively and efficiently informing clients through IT InSITE: TeLE, Technology Enhanced Learning Environments Teaching & Learning using IT InSITE: TeachIT, research topics related to teaching IT InSITE:Connect, Learn the local culturefirsthand InSITE 2015 multi-conferences will be held from July 1 to July 5 with paper sessions taking place on the campus of the University of South Florida, July 2-5 This post was first published on eLearning Industry.

By and large, product training is used to improve sales. The entire industry is aware that sales people no longer sell products, they sell solutions; and, to do this, sales people need the most useful information. So, as eLearning course designers, how do we make our product training courses for sales people relevant and ensure they cover what is most important to these personnel? In this post, we will look at some instructional design tips to develop an effective product training. Most sales people travel extensively. It’s important that they receive the right information at the right time, so that they can have a glance at the key takeways before meeting a customer. Tip 1: Start with Icebreaker Questions Ask questions such as ‘Do you know the target market for this segment? Do you know the profile of the potential customers or business?. These questions set the stage for the training. Then, provide a clear message about the position of the product in the company’s business portfolio. Tip 2: Clarify What’s In It for Them Always provide a clear, precise explanation of the product features/ benefits of selling the product. Sales people need to be equipped with this information so that they are able to confidently make a sale. Tip 3: Specify What’s In It for Customers In a research conducted by Forrester, it was found that 88% of executives who have had experience with sales people observed that while they were able to talk about their company’s products, only 27% actually understood the customer’s business and what they were looking for. Customers are buying the product benefits, not features. Your solution should help them solve their problem. They would always want to know how the product will benefit the customer, rather than what it is. Tip 4: Compare with Competitor’s Products Provide realistic information about the competitor’s products, along with proper unique selling proposition(s). Having this "competitive" information at fingertips is important because prospects choose your solution over the competitors’ solutions. Focusing on these tips will help you design an effective product training course. Hope you find them useful. Related PostsHow to Make Your E-learning Initiative WorkHow to Create a Customized E-Learning Course? Step 2 - Instructional Design ProcessReady, Steady, Set, Go - Tips to Decode Your SME’S Brain

Videos And Movies In eLearning I am not against videos and movies as a learning medium. In fact - in could be a very powerful tool of transferring knowledge, building skills, explaining something or influencing ones behaviors. There are a lot of great examples of using videos and movies: just take a look at interactive movie LifeSaver explaining how to help people in critical situations or check the best speeches on TED.com or try one of the free Coursera courses or or log in to Lynda.com and learn something new using movie as a primary source of wisdom. Movies are great because they stimulate both of our brain's hemispheres and affect both hearing and sight senses. Especially the latter one impacts us during consumption of this medium. Movies are also a very expressive medium with a strong capabilities of building emotions among spectators. Such emotions reinforce the cognitive process. Videos let us to meet and experience people and places we can't see in person - this feature creates out of them a truly egalitarian way of communication. Movies are also considered as a credible source of information - especially when they are narrated by people we trust. It is also worth to remember that feature movies has a big power in 'by-the-way learning' process. While watching a movie we can learn a lot about the World, history, geography; we can learn how to react in certain situations. Movies has also strong influence on our behaviors, shape understanding of culture, let us understand other people, etc. Business impact of this medium is very strong at this moment. There are a lot of reasons of this phenomenon - check this Video Brewery post to learn about 18 of them. They concern marketing industry but still tell a great story about benefits of using videos and movies in the training function. What's Wrong With Video As A Medium? Let's take a look at challenges in using videos and movies in corporate environment we usually notice while working with our clients. Size Videos are much heavier than content based on text, pictures and flash animations. We usually don't have a problem with this volume while using movies at home - our private networks are handling it. Many of of our clients, however, reported such a problem in corporate network. Corporate network is scaled to support transactional systems - there is a risk of jamming it if you push additional volume of massive video content to it. Cost of development Professional production of movies (or event simple videos) is much more expensive than development of 'typical' e-learning content. This is not a problem of equipment (the prices of it dropped down dramatically in the couple of last years) but rather of the process. Movie production requires much more time and effort during filming and post-production. To fight with this challenge we can cut these costs by taking decision to prepare such a video material 'on-the-fly'. We can just create a simple video material with our smart-phone and put it into the e-learning course. If we don't take much care about its quality disadvantages connected with costs diminish. Updates It is much easier to make updates to static content (text, pictures) than to dynamic one (animation, movie, simulation). Sometimes, to make such an update of video material we have to produce it from the scratch. Such a risk should be taken into consideration during budgeting of e-learning project. If we anticipate rapid changes of information provided by video material it is worth to decide either for simpler delivery method (text, visual) or fast and cheap preparation of the movie ('on-the-fly' approach). Usability Usability of videos is being constantly improved. We have a progress bar, preview, full screen mode, transcription, tags, etc. All of these features, however, are not giving us such flexible and convenient mechanisms of skimming and searching of materials as we are provided by simpler content forms (texts and visuals). It is quite easy to skim a post like this in less then 15 seconds (all you have to do is to take a look at headings and mind-map). If I had prepared a video with the same message you should have spend here at least 2-3 minutes just to find out if this material is interesting for you or not. Access Videos are also problematic due to access challenges. To consume them you have to be able to see and hear - which means you have to either be equipped with headphones or let the movie be audible in the whole space (room, office, shop, etc.). Even if you have headphones you have to focus both your sight and auditory senses on the movies - which means that you can't control your surroundings (eg. clients). If you work in the customer service business it is a real problem. It is even bigger if we take into account that consumption of such a movie will be probably interrupted many times which will dramatically affect the quality of the learning process. Boredom Well - it is easy to prepare just any video material. All you have to do is to ask somebody to say something to the camera. Such 'taking head' materials, filmed with no preparation at all are usually boring. An average subject matter expert (especially unprepared) is not a TED speaker - not every person has something important to say; not everyone can do it with full engagement and passion. Bad videos, apart that they are not liked by trainees, also destroy confidence in e-learning within the organization. What we can do? We should remember about all of these corporate challenges of using videos and movies. Such a medium should be used in these situations which reinforces benefits and decreases barriers and threats. We should also prepare videos with proper engagement from all perspectives: subject matter, instructional design and development. This post was first published on eLearning Industry.

Often, during the development of an eLearning course, we hear the term Graphical User Interface (GUI). But, what is a GUI? Why is it important in the development of an eLearning course? The main purpose of a Graphical User Interface (GUI) in an eLearning course is to enable learners to navigate through the course in a hassle-free manner. It tells them where they are in the course i.e., how much they have completed and how much they should complete. A typical GUI has buttons, such as Play, Pause, Replay, Previous, Next, Glossary, Resources, Audio on/off, Exit etc., which enable the learner to navigate easily through the course. Here is an info-graphic which shares 9 examples of learner friendly GUIs. Hope you find this post interesting. How do you design the GUIs of your online courses? We’d love to know. Related Posts4 Effective Ways of Presenting Scenarios in E-learning CoursesEssential Elements of Your E-learning Course GUI6 Instructional Design Principles For a Sound Learning Experience - An Infographic

How To Measure Your Online Training Effectiveness Regardless the amount of time, energy, and resources you invested on designing and developing your online training course, you can’t just assume it is effective. Online training is a sound investment only when you are able to measure the results. If you cannot determine whether your online training strategy is improving employee performance or giving them the skills they need, then you won’t know if it’s worth your resources. In order to find out whether your employees actually learned what you offered them, you need to evaluate your online training strategy, and thus be able to review its strengths and weaknesses for making the necessary improvements. In this article, I’ll share 8 tips to measure your online training effectiveness, so that you can make the most of your training budget and offer your employees the training they need to succeed. Observe on-the-job application of newly acquired knowledge. One way to determine whether your audience retained the knowledge you offered them during your online training course is by simply checking whether employees are able to apply newly acquired knowledge and skills to practice. Are they changing their behaviors and displaying that they know how to carry out their job duties on a daily basis, or do they have to ask for assistance when it’s time to perform a transaction or deal with a customer service issue? What were the goals of your online training? Improving skills, acquiring certain knowledge, modifying behaviors and attitudes? To measure your employees’ learning, consider observing them before and after they attend the online training, so that you can compare their results. The true test of a training program’s success is whether the employees have the knowledge and skills necessary to do their job effectively and efficiently. Use scenarios and simulations. If you cannot afford or you are unwilling to take the risk of measuring the effectiveness of your online training on-the-job by observations, you may create scenario-based tests that allow employees to show how to apply what they have learned during the online training. Rather than sending them out onto the sales floor, for instance, you are able to determine if they have the skills and knowledge they need to help customers or carry out basic job related tasks in a supportive environment. This enables you to measure the effectiveness of your online training course without compromising your level of customer service. Ask them to perform specific tasks and observe the outcome of the scenario, to check if the participants pass or fail the test. If they fail, you may need to revise your method, modify certain behaviors, remedy mistakes or to provide additional training content until they master the learning objectives; effective online training means all employees being able to put what they have learned into practice. Use performance goals. Performance goals are a great tool for measuring the effectiveness of your online training course. How to use them? Again, you need to compare performance before and after training. In order to evaluate performance prior to online training, you must analyze your audience and make sure that you know exactly their knowledge base and experience level. Then, you will be able to determine how closer your employees have come to reaching their goals, after they have completed the online training. To keep your audience focused to their performance goals throughout their online training experience, always link your training back to performance expectations. Use assignments that simulate real life processes and help employees put their skills to practice. Moreover, you may consider conducting interviews, or integrating questionnaires that record co-worker complains or supervisor reports into your post-course evaluation. This way, you will be able to accurately measure the your online training effectiveness and determine whether your goals have been met. Use assessments to gauge employees’ knowledge and skills. While assessments can test employees’ knowledge for their own benefit by allowing them to analyze their weakness and fill in knowledge gaps, they also give you the opportunity to determine how effective your online training really is. For example, if a vast majority of employees are not able to pass an assessment at the end of the second module, then you may want to consider reworking this module to improve either its content or the delivery method. You might include more interactive elements or break the online training content down into chunks that are easily digestible. Quizzes, tests and exams on skills assessment will help you get an insight on whether employees benefit from your online training and therefore are developing their skill sets or, if they are falling behind and they need additional help to improve their job performance. Measuring their skills sets prior to and after online training is, once more, essential; when identifying the specific areas in which you want to support employees, it becomes much easier to design an effective online training course. Provide your audience with the same tests that assess their skills twice: in the beginning of the online training and at the end of it. This way, you will be able to compare scores and check whether your online training had any effect on their performance. Finally, always keep in mind that a learner-centered approach will help you personalize the online training experience by focusing on specific skill sets and thus it will make it easier for you to assess your employees’ skill development. Promote social learning; turn employees into instructors. Why not turn your employees into instructors by encouraging them to teach a specific topic or discuss concepts with other employees? There are two benefits in applying the concept of social ownership to measuring your online training effectiveness: First, it engages your audience to teach and learn from each other, which encourages the collaborative spirit in the company and thus motivates your employees to work faster and better together. Second, it helps you determine whether the online training participants have learned what they were supposed to have learned. In order to instruct others, they must first have an in depth understanding of the subject matter. And if they have a grasp on the topic, then you know that the training strategy is actually working, as being able to effectively transfer the "message", may be considered as a proof that you really own it. Furthermore, by having employees teach others what they have learned will not only help you to check whether your online training was successful or not, but it also helps them reinforce the newly acquired knowledge. It is a win-win situation, but it needs careful planning: in order for employees to be able to teach others about a particular topic, they will need to demonstrate that what they have learned can also be applied to the real world. Incorporate scenarios with real world benefits into your online training course design, so that you can help your audience apply social ownership successfully and become real experts of the subject matter in question. Gain insight directly from your employees. Employees are in fact the best critic of your online training course. Their perception of and response to your online training will provide you with valuable feedback for measuring your online training effectiveness and thus help you to establish its strengths and weaknesses in order to revise it and improve it. To determine whether your it was engaging and meaningful to them you can use your Learning Management System as an evaluation tool. By programming it to ask questions that determine the degree of employee satisfaction and positive reaction in online training, you can collect valuable data, such as whether your audience believed that your online training course was worth their time, if they would recommend it to their colleagues and what were the topics that they found most interesting and useful. Furthermore, consider holding focus groups, in which employees will be given the chance to inform you about how they feel about their online training experience as a whole and maybe to suggest ways to improve it. Surveys and one-to-one interviews can also offer insight with respect to the online training effectiveness, employee satisfaction, and even help you to pinpoint weak areas of your strategy. You can get an accurate gauge of how employees perceive your online training course and if they are truly benefiting from the activities and exercises you’ve incorporated. Employee satisfaction is key in investigating your online training effectiveness. Beyond everything, if your audience is not satisfied with every aspect of the online training experience, it is unlikely that they will be interested, engaged and motivated to fully commit themselves to it; a situation that is not only alarming, but also an infallible indicator that you are doing something wrong. Take full advantage of learning analytics. Many learning management systems have built-in analytics that give you an overall picture of how employees are progressing, how quickly they are completing each module, and how often they are logging into the system to access their online training. All of this data can help you the opportunity to gauge the effectiveness of your training and custom tailor it to meet the needs of your employees. For example, if you find that most of your employees are taking much longer to progress through a module than expected, you may want to assess its difficulty level to see whether it's too challenging. Calculate ROI. Finally, to measure your online training effectiveness you need to measure its ROI. Without checking Return Of Investment you will never be absolutely sure of your online training course’s success, as you need to make sure that the performance results you have achieved were actually worth your investment. To calculate ROI you need to estimate costs, such as design and development cost for your online training, as well as the benefits associated with your online training program, such as increased productivity, increased sales, fewer customer complaints, etc. By evaluating costs against performance results you will be able to get a cost-to-performance ratio that can truly help you determine whether your online training was effective or there are still areas that need to be improved. An effective online training strategy can help to improve your employee retention rates and increase the profitability of your organization. Use these tips to measure the impact of your online training and you will be able to easily determine whether your online training development time and energy were worth the investment, that is, whether it is really working or you need to identify ways to boost its effectiveness for the future. No online training strategy is complete without evaluation. After all, how can you know that you are getting a sound ROI if the effectiveness of your online training cannot be measured? In the article, 10 Tips To Effectively Evaluate Your Online Training Strategy you will find 10 online training strategy evaluation tips you can use to ensure that your strategy is in-line with the objectives of your eLearning course. Interested in learning how to enhance the effectiveness of your performance management training? Read the article Top 5 Performance Management Online Training Strategies where I highlight the top 5 performance management online training strategies that you should be aware of. This post was first published on eLearning Industry.

The menu of an eLearning course lists the titles of all its slides. It enables the learner to navigate to the slide of his choice. Articulate Storyline facilitates navigation through the menu, by default. Based on the requirement, we can set/adjust the menu. The menu can be also restricted, so that the learner cannot proceed further without finishing the current slide. Once the learner has visited all the slides, then he can navigate through the menu. In this post, I would like to share 2 ways to restrict menu in Articulate Storyline. Process 1: Step 1: Click the Player option in the Home tab to open the Player Properties window. Step 2: Now, select Menu.  Step 3: Click the Additional options button at the bottom to open the Menu Options window. Step 4: Click the Dropdown arrow for options. Select Restricted from the list opened and click the OK button. Step 5: Publish your eLearning course to view the restricted menu. Process 2: We can restrict navigation through the menu from published files, considerably, using this process. This is very useful in a scenario where you have don’t have the source file. It can also be used if you have a heavy source file which consumes lot of time to open and re-publish.  Step 1: In the publish files, double click the story_content folder to open it. Step 2: Open frame.xml file in a text editor. Step 3: Find the piece of code that looks similar to the one given below (it’s better to use the ‘search’ option). <optiongroup name="menuoptions">  <options> <option name="flow" value="free" /> Look at the screenshot below for better a understanding. Step 4: Replace the word "free" with "restricted", save the file and close it. Note: You can use any of the three options (refer Step 4 of Process 1 for three types of navigation) here. Step 5: Now, open the story.html file in the published folder to see the restricted menu. These are the two ways to restrict navigation through the menu in Articulate Storyline. Hope these help you. Please do share your views. Related PostsHow to Combine Your Adobe Captivate Projects Into Single Course?Rapid E-learning through Storyline Tool: 5 Infographics Sharing Key FeaturesCreating Customized Tab in Articulate Storyline Player

As gomo evolves from authoring tool to learning suite, we’ve refreshed our website to reflect the next chapter of our innovation. The idea behind the gomo learning suite is that whether you have a huge LMS or absolutely no learning infrastructure in place at all, the gomo learning suite can  bring you a number of hosting, distribution and analytics capabilities that you don’t have already. The gomo learning suite with an LMS You can host content in gomo, send an LMS  wrapper to your LMS and take advantage of gomo’s Tin Can analytics dashboard. With an LMS wrapper, you’re able to update your content in gomo and see all changes reflected in your LMS - no taking courses down and uploading updated versions. The gomo learning suite with no infrastructure On the other hand, you can host and distribute your via the gomo cloud, which is great for small, rapid growing companies or even larger ones who are just looking to invest in the own e-learning. On top of this, multi-device ready content comes as standard, making your e-learning content super flexible for author and student. Alongside the gomo learning suite, we’ve updated our authoring tool as part of our efforts to constantly improve the authoring experience with gomo. Here’s what’s new in the latest version of gomo authoring tool… Rich design and editing capabilities with gomo you can easily align your assets for maximum design flexibility. Left, right and center-justify your images or get them to fit to width. Image the wrong shape or size? No problem. Our in-built image editor allows you to modify your images in gomo. (Even more) Powerful actions Actions allow you to enhance the interactivity of your courses. Actions include the ability to link to screens or sub-screens, external web links, linking to group resources (e.g. PDF files), setting image states and setting gomo variables. Online review/ preview with full workflow No more spreadsheets and email trails - your courses can be reviewed live on our server. Easily include your subject matter experts in the review process and add review notes directly into the course preview with full workflow and task assignment. No more ‘which screen did you mean?’ - gomo knows exactly where you are and drops the notes straight onto the screen. Direct link and QR code sharing Deliver your courses for review and testing to your colleagues via direct link or even via QR code. Links can be emailed to colleagues for direct course access. By using a QR code reader, colleagues can transfer the course straight to their smartphone or tablet. New display conditions As well as tailoring your screen content to the device type it is being viewed on, you can now add question locking, customized assessment results screens and role filters to your courses using the enhanced Display Conditions feature on every screen asset. gomo hosting & analytics Hosting The gomo learning suite includes a full hosting and distribution solution, allowing you to deliver your content into the hands of learners instantly. Hosting supports four methods of content distribution: gomo central Our learner portal provides instant access to gomo content. Existing LMS (coming soon) Leave your content in gomo and deliver it straight to your LMS with the gomo LMS wrapper. Instantly update your learning directly from gomo. Direct link access Send students a direct link to content, or even a QR code. Website embed (coming soon) Embed gomo content directly into your website. Analytics gomo’s built-in experience API (xAPI/ Tin Can) reporting dashboard gives you an easy and visual way to analyze learner data. Instantly view items such as: who has (or hasn’t) taken the training training dates results completions The gomo analytics dashboard allows you to view reports by date range, learning, device type, geography and more. Advanced analytics will allow you to see trends and drill down into detailed information on learning effectiveness. Like the sound of that? You can trial gomo today to have a play yourself, check out the gomo feature tour or join our next webinar in order to learn more about gomo authoring tool and our brand-new learning suite. The post The evolution of gomo appeared first on gomo Learning.

Welcome to today’s blog post. I’ve come across several articles that compare eLearning development process with that of feature films. One common step involved in the development process of both these is the storyboarding. What is that we do in a storyboard? We write the screenplay for the course similar to film makers. In today’s post, I want to discuss about the advantages of using one key element from the feature films in your eLearning courses - drama. Add Life to Your Course: Drama brings life to your boring courses, if used properly. Generally, we use avatars and scenarios to interest the learners and make them understand the concepts better. In these scenarios, we add call outs in a comic style and develop conversations between the characters to bring in a realistic look. I’ve recently witnessed a course that had taken this approach one step further. The course used the familiar scenario-based learning approach, but in the form of videos. Instead of digitally created avatars and characters, they’ve used real artists to enact the scenario and the same has been recorded in a film. This brought in a lot of difference in the course. The course, like a good TV show, had the attention of the audience throughout. Let Your Course Express Itself to The Learner: Drama need not be only through a video. There are many ways to integrate drama into your course to make it more expressive. I know expressive isn’t a word often used with anything other than living beings. But yes! A course can also be expressive. A good example would be using emoticons in assessments. For example, if the learner has selected the wrong answer, you could display a sad emoticon that says "Oops! You’re almost there. Shall we try once again?" Here the course has expressed that it’s sorry for the learner’s performance and encourages him to give another shot. Isn’t this expressive? This makes a lot of difference to the learner and connects to him at an emotional level. Finally, I would say it is never too late to unleash your creative side. Anything and everything can be made to look better and personified in an eLearning course. Adding a little drama element to your training programs will make them stand out as long as you plan and predict the learner experience. Hope you find this post interesting. Please share your views in the comments section below. Happy Reading!! Related PostsCreative Ways to Present Click on Tab Interactivity in E-learning Courses - An InfographicBest Inspirational and Motivational blogs of 2010Success @ Learning - Thanksgiving to Your GURU

eLearning Content Development: Why Is Speed Important? Shelf life of content. A lot of training in organizations has a sell-by date, either because changes in the business require new or additional knowledge or because the audience needs it done differently. Demands of the organization. For example, compliance, product knowledge and new hires each require unique training. Urgency in response time to issues affecting business needs. A lot of the time a new training request comes in because there is an immediate need. An organization with a crystal-ball approach to planning what interventions will be needed in a month, six months or even next year may be able to do it differently, but for most others, where organizations have to respond quickly to events and trends from outside, there’s a pressure to respond rapidly. Let’s look at three ways you can speed up eLearning content development. 3 Ways To Speed Up eLearning Content Development 1. Manage your team more effectively with these tools. Your team may no longer be centrally located in one office. Distributed team working is becoming more and more prevalent. In fact, Gartner estimates that over 54 million employees are currently involved in some form of remote work. It’s increasingly likely you’ll be working with a distributed team at some point, e.g., multiple authors in different offices, freelancers and agencies. Use these tools to help you manage your team as if they are all in the same office: Trello Project management tools such as Trello help you assign your team tasks and monitor their progress. You can access Trello from anywhere on any device. Slack Communication tools such as Slack run in an app or from a browser. You can set up groups for your team for real-time communication on any device. Elucidat Cloud-based eLearning tools such as Elucidat allow multiple authors to work on one project simultaneously, cutting the time needed to set up freelancers and agencies, as well as the time needed to package, distribute and update project files. Every member of the team has access 24/7 to the most recent project and there is no confusion caused by duplications and/or earlier drafts. Plus, you can spend less time managing the team. 2. Look for features that help you speed up development. Cloud-based eLearning tools can help support a full end-to-end process for developing eLearning content - from prototyping, through production and on to release and implementation. You can work straight out of your prototype - no need to switch tools and technology. Here are some features to look for when selecting an effective eLearning tool: Instant publishing. Select a development tool from which content can be published immediately and uploaded to an LMS in seconds. This can help cut the waiting time for getting a project built or published. Only use one tool. Make sure your whole team is working within one tool, so you can reduce time spent on version control issues and managing releases. Re-use projects. Some tools let you design once and use many times. Reusing and gifting projects within teams is a great time saver. The concept of master courses - efficiently managed from a central template - reduces time wasted maintaining individual variations. This can speed up eLearning content development time, as you’re not reinventing the wheel, and you can also ensure consistency across your team’s projects, which means reduced time needed when applying these retrospectively. Prebuilt themes. Tools that offer prebuilt templates and themes allow your designers and developers to create themes and interactions that can be used over and over again . Elucidat offers four prebuilt themes to help you get started quickly: Multi-device compatible. Tools that let your team simultaneously develop eLearning content for desktop and mobile devices can effectively cut time in half, allowing you to create one version of your content for all devices. This eliminates the need to create, publish or maintain multiple versions. For inspiration, take a look at this multi-device eLearning example by Channel 4. The added bonus of a tool that allows you to create responsive eLearning is that you’ll have happier learners receiving high-quality eLearning from any device - no COMPROMISE. Easy maintenance. Don’t underestimate the time (and cost) that maintenance can add to your project. Consider tools that allow you or your client to maintain content - making changes, updates and publishing - quickly and reliably. Some tools, like Elucidat, organize your projects so that all the courses under a course master will update with the pushed changes - EVEN the ones on an LMS. No need to redeploy! 3. Embrace collaboration. Inbuilt reviewing and commenting. Consider adopting eLearning development tools that have inbuilt reviewing and commenting capabilities. This will empower your non-technical SMEs and scriptwriters to edit courses with no training. Such tools can help reduce the workload by letting you dispense with other solutions such as Word scripts or Excel spreadsheets to capture modifications or bugs. Inbuilt file management. A system that has an inbuilt method for handling files is a bonus. Once selected and uploaded, you can store assets such as images and sound files that are then available for use in all your projects. This helps reduce the time spent trying to locate these assets over and over again. The added benefit of having the assets in the cloud also means that agencies and freelancers you work with can use them without needing to access your internal networks. Conclusion: Speed up development time by using the right tools. Not all eLearning tools are the same. Give some thought as to what your specific requirements are and what tools are best for speeding up your eLearning content development. Desktop tools are great for small or one-person development teams, but can create challenges for high-volume authoring teams. Instead, use a cloud-based eLearning tool. These tools are better designed to solve the specific challenges of high-volume eLearning teams. They make the process of authoring, publishing and maintaining eLearning easy and fast. This post was first published on eLearning Industry.

Articulate Storyline has made the lives of GUI (Graphical User Interface) designers, easy by providing a customizable GUI. It has inbuilt next/previous buttons, resource/glossary, menu, notes, etc. But, it does not provide an Exit button. So, today, we will see how to add an exit button to a course in Articulate Storyline. The steps to add an exit button in Articulate Storyline are as follows. Step 01: Click the Player Properties button in the Home tab. Step 02: In the Player Properties window’s Player Tabs section, click the Add button. A trigger wizard will appear. Step 03: You can add the name for the button in the Name field. For example Close or Exit. Step 04: Choose the place on the player for your Exit button from the Align drop-down list. We usually have it on the top right corner of the player. Step 05: Choose the Action for the button as Exit Course. Step 06: This trigger must be executed when the user clicks the Exit button. So, select User Clicks from the When drop-down list. Click OK both in the trigger wizard and the Player Properties window when you set all the options. You can now preview or publish the course and check for the Exit button and its functionality. Removing the Exit button is quite simple. Step 01: Click the Player Properties button in the Home tab. Step 02: In the Player Properties window’s Player Tabs section, you can see all the existing buttons. You have to uncheck Exit. Then, click OK. You can again preview or publish the course and check for the Exit button and its functionality. This is how we add customized GUI buttons. For more information on eLearning design and development, stay tuned to my blogs. Related PostsHow to Combine Your Adobe Captivate Projects Into Single Course?Rapid E-learning through Storyline Tool: 5 Infographics Sharing Key FeaturesHow to Customize the Storyline Player?

Following the launch of the gomo learning suite, we descended on Learning Solutions 2015 in Orlando to showcase the new capabilities of both gomo authoring and our new xAPI based gomo hosting product. The event was fantastic and really well organised.  Credit is also due to the fantastic gomo marketing team for ensuring we had everything we needed. We got to work building the stand on Tuesday in preparation for the event.  We even had a little time to help out our sister company LEO learning to set theirs up as well. The exhibition side of Learning Solutions ran on Wednesday and Thursday.  During both days the show floor was packed and we had lots of great conversations with people interested in learning about the gomo learning suite. From all the conversations we had, the top 5 trends were: xAPI tracking and analytics We had some great discussions both around tracking but also how the data is then presented back as part of our analytics offering.  The feedback was  fantastic and we have some great ideas for future enhancements. Team workflow With the latest gomo release, teams can now collaborate on content reviews using our task management system to track and implement feedback during the content development. Responsive, multi-device content As the absolute cornerstone of the gomo solution, gomo’s capability to deliver content that works on smartphones, tablets and desktops from a single source really resonates with people looking for a multi-device solution.  Demoing gomo’s realtime preview capability with the newly added QR code functionality really shows off how this works. Distribution and hosting In addition to gomo authoring, the ability to publish and distribute content to end users via the gomo hosting solution in a matter of clicks demonstrates how simple the process is. Built in theme customization Visitors to the stand really liked how you could take one of gomo’s built in themes and easily customise it to match their brand, look and feel. When we weren’t busy demoing gomo, we also got chance to meet up with some of gomo’s existing customers who were attending the event. The event was topped off by spending time with AICPA, who were presenting at the Learning Solutions Demofest. This was especially exciting for us as the gomo content they were demoing won an award for Best Business Process Solution: Design for the Heart: Not-for-Profit Certificate Program - it’s great to see gomo supporting the success of its users! Overall, we had a fantastic event and look forward to working with everyone signing up for our 21 day trial as a result of the event. Thank you Learning Solutions 2015! The post Learning Solutions recap appeared first on gomo Learning.

Successful Tips For Successful Custom eLearning Initiatives As technology-aided learning gains more popularity among modern corporate houses, it is clear that it has a lot of potential to significantly improve the way that learning and work are integrated. In this light, the Learning and Development function needs to clearly find important links between learning and business objectives of the organization. It is now imperative to align custom eLearning efforts of employees and individual departments towards business success. It is important for the Learning and Development function to create a continual eLearning process that is beneficial both to the learners as well as to the organization. This builds the confidence and capability of workers, as well as improves business results for organizations. According to a research done by Towards Maturity, there is a definite lag in how well the objectives of learning and business are actually defined within the organization. Here are some baffling numbers: Only 36% of organizations work with business leaders to identify business needs within the organization and performance indicators that they want to improve. While demonstrating value back to the business only half of those organizations -a mere 16% in total, measure against the business metrics they agreed! And finally, only 55% analyze the business problem before recommending a solution. This is why often eLearning, for all its vast potential, does not measure up to the expectations of the learners as well as of the organization. Here are 7 things that most evolved Learning and Development leaders suggest to create ‘aligned’ learning within the organization - for the benefit of all. Involve corporate leaders and top honchos in learning decisions. This may be easier said than done, for the top honchos find it difficult to get time out of their busy schedules. Before approaching the top management, Learning and Development managers should do up the reading on what the senior leaders are sharing in reports and media interviews. These are the values that create the objectives for the business and help the Learning and Development team to build a learning program to deliver these objectives. In addition, Learning and Development managers can involve the top management in other ways that do not take up much of their time or effort. Building a channel of communication - over something as basic as email, might be the first step that will aid involvement. Know the answers to key implementation questions before the board asks them. This will demonstrate preparedness and also save the precious time of top management. Prioritize learning through strategic business objectives. From a clear understanding of business objectives, successful Learning and Development functions establish custom eLearning priorities as well as set up a longer term strategy. While working along business managers, Learning and Development teams don’t have to simply take learning orders from business managers. They should analyze business problems before recommending solutions. Not only does this improve the learning impact, but the strategy is also inclined to adapt with changing business priorities. The focus should be on the end results. The Learning and Development team should be clear of learning goals and focus that online training strives to meet the goals. Thus, all eLearning solutions should be designed with the business outcome in mind. This means ensuring that learning professionals are clear about the strategy and priorities of the business. Top learning organizations succeed by setting up business targets for learning interventions as well and then measure against them. They also demonstrate a commitment to ensuring the skills that are developed are then actively utilized in the course of work. Integrate with HR and talent strategy. Custom eLearning is a social activity and even within the corporate houses, it never occurs in isolation. Many modern organizations have established talent management strategies and their Learning and Development function makes sure that their learning activity fits within the wider talent strategy. In such organizations, learning is closely meshed within succession planning, recruitment and performance management strategies. Calculate ROI, demonstrate business value. Successful Learning and Development teams are focused on adding real value back to the business. Learning-inclined organizations calculate the return on investment for their learning programs and go beyond efficiency savings by calculating actual value to the bottom line. This makes sure that management teams are clearer about how learning is aligned to their overall business plan and push the learning efforts accordingly. Ensure that the staff understands their contribution. Learning and Development managers should make sure that learning is embedded directly into the workflow of the learners. This encourages them to develop a learning culture. It also answers the important question ‘why am I learning this?’. Learning and Development should ensure that their staff are clear about how their learning supports the organization’s performance and that their workers understand their personal contribution to business success. Proactive management commitment is the cherry on top. Lastly, successful learning companies run impactful custom eLearning initiatives through the proactive support from their top managers. If senior managers demonstrate an ongoing commitment to learning, including technology-enabled learning within the organization, it is a huge push for learning, which not only benefits their staff, but also themselves. Managers influence the employees the most even more than top learning professionals within the organizations. So, if Learning and Development can convince the managers to embrace learning initiatives, the reach and impact increases exponentially. Modern organizations implement successful learning by clearly understanding what is important in the business. They understand how learning adds value back to the business. And with a well-defined alignment of business goals as well as learning, the value of the entire organization increases. Suggested further reading: In-Focus: Aligning Learning to Business (2014) This post was first published on eLearning Industry.

The demand for eLearning is increasing with each passing day because online courses help enhance the productivity of the workforce. That’s the reason why many organizations are now willing to use online courses to train their employees. Organizations now spend billions of dollars every year on employee training. According to Global Industry Analysts Inc. (GIA), corporate training is a $200 billion industry and the share of eLearning is $56.2 billion. Why is the demand for eLearning solutions skyrocketing? What are the various benefits that the online training medium can offer? Well, here is an infographic that lists the advantages of using this format to equip your people with the needed knowledge and skills. Hope you find this post interesting. How do you train your workforce? Please do share your experiences with us. Related PostsWhy E-learning for Retail Employees - Five Reasons - An InfographicWhy do You Need to Go Beyond ‘E-learning Development Cost Per Hour’?The Growing Demand for E-learning to Train Employees

As the creators of an e-learning authoring tool, we understand that many businesses take the traditional approach to e-learning and learning infrastructure, looking for an authoring tool to create content and an LMS to host it. There are a load of alternatives, but an LMS is certainly one of the most popular ways to do it. If you’re tasked with finding and implementing an LMS, however, it can be quite a tricky process - there’s a hell of a lot of LMS vendors out there who offer a lot of similar but also very different products. Bare in mind that an LMS isn’t the sort of thing that’s easily changed once it’s in place, though, so it’s super important that the fit is right before you’re tied in. What is an LMS? There a load of ways to look at an LMS, but at its most basic, an LMS hosts your e-learning content, with front end access for your learners to login and learn. It can be as a bare-bones as that, simply acting as a portal to access and track e-learning, or it can get as big and as complex as an organisation requires. Some LMS’ are capable of storing and supporting a whole curriculum of learning, connecting events and lessons with a load of online learning. This is the kind of thing that universities and school districts manage their students progress, giving you an idea of just how big you can go. Do I need one? You might think you need an LMS, but if you are looking to keep things basic, there’s a chance that all you need is a content repository for your e-learning - somewhere to store courses that can be accessed in a way that suits your learners. After all, each and every extra feature that comes as a part of your LMS package will cost you, so if you aren’t using it to it’s full potential, it could prove a costly business expense. Of course, if you have a large or very specific requirement, then an LMS may be exactly what you’re looking for. As covered by our sister company LEO, over a third of LMS customers are dissatisfied with their choice of learning platform, so it’s important that you make the right decision. Finding the right LMS As an e-learning authoring tool, we’re very used to being asked about how our courses will play with an LMS. Authoring tools, like gomo, generally output SCORM files, which can be uploaded and played on a SCORM compliant LMS. SCORM is a standardized form which allows completely unrelated authoring tools and LMS’ to work seamlessly together. SCORM is also what allows a level of tracking (not too much, though, if you want a lot of that, you should look into Experience API), so all in all, it’s probably pretty important that your LMS is SCORM compliant. Here are some further high level pointers to consider as you evaluate what you need from your learning platform… What e-learning content do you have/ what do you plan on building? What file types do you need to upload? Cost of ownership - you may find what looks like a cheap while you only have a few users, but what happens in the future as you need to increase your package? Cloud, in-house or external hosting? Hosting can add a recurring cost, so it’s important to factor this in or consider a SaaS solution, which will cover the hosting cost as everything is based in the cloud. What data do you need back from your learners? SCORM/ Experience API? - if you’re looking at multi-device courses and access then you are probably going to need Experience API tracking, as this will track across devices and not just per course per sitting. It’s worth mentioning that this is more of an authoring tool output requirement, but certainly something that will inform your platform choice. User experience and usage - it’s important that the LMS is easy to navigate and your workforce will want to use it to their benefit. Multi-device access - even though the world of learning technologies lags behind more than some industries when it comes to embracing mobile and multi-device, your learners will expect to access learning content when they’re away from their desk or on the move. This feeds into the usage and experience of your LMS, but it’s certainly an issue of its own. You’re not going to get the same experience on mobile as you would on a desktop, but it’s important that the key features are there and that the experience is great. On top of this, it’s good to make a list of key features that you need, would like and don’t need your LMS to do in order to keep you focused during what can be quite a confusing selection process. Calendars, grading, blogs, forums/ community, instant messenger… the list of possible features goes on. Putting in some time to work out exactly what you need can make things much easier for you and your team further down the line. Found this useful? Read our last post The Evolution of gomo, which outlines how gomo can be used with or in replace of an LMS to deliver multi-device learning content to your workforce. The post Finding the right LMS for you appeared first on gomo Learning.

Compliance training is very important for insurance staff. This is because if an insurance company violates the applicable rules and norms, then it could face serious problems. So, how do you deliver compliance training, and which learning format is ideal? The Towards Maturity Benchmark Survey stated that about 98% of organizations prefer technology-based compliance training. This is because eLearning is cost-effective and can be used to reach wide audiences. It also helps maintain learners’ records, keep track of the their performance and so on. Now, let’s see a few instructional strategies to deliver effective compliance training. 1. Have a Curriculum: Curriculum-based learning will be more effective than learning through standalone courses as it covers all topics, right from the basics to advance concepts. A curriculum can have short modules. For instance, we can have a module which introduces the learner to compliance issues and another short module on licensing requirements of insurers. We can also include a module on unethical sales practices. Dividing the course into various modules is more effective because the cognitive load on the learner is reduced. Moreover,the learner will know what is going to be covered in the online training program. 2. Use Case-studies: Case-studies are ideal tools to train the employees on compliance issues. They enable them to understand the nuances of laws and regulatory norms effectively, and this helps prevent their violation. For instance, you can include a case-study of a company that has violated the provisions of Life Insurance Act 1995 - C2014C00510 and as a result, was penalized. The case-study helps your learners clearly understand the norms and consequences of their violations. This will be very useful to prevent similar violations in your organization. 3. Provide a checklist of dos and don’ts: It is advisable to provide clear instructions on what the learners should do and what they shouldn’t, regarding compliance to statutes and regulations. For instance, while imparting training to the members of your legal team on the provisions of Insurance Act 1973 - C2014C00564, you can provide a checklist of the things to avoid. The legal staff members can use the checklist as a reference whenever they are in doubt. These tips go a long way in the making of good compliance courses to train the personnel of insurance companies. What do you think? Related PostsWhy do You Need to Go Beyond ‘E-learning Development Cost Per Hour’?Why to Use Authoring Tools for E-Learning Development?How to Create Section 508 E-learning Course Using Flash

 The pharmaceutical industry today faces lots of challenges from the market. If I try to list those challenges, they can be listed as follows. Dynamic nature of the market: Getting new drugs into the market. Competing with other players: Survive in the race when there are many other competitors. Effective pricing of products: There are other players in the market who are ready to deliver a product at a much lesser price. High ethics: Regulatory agencies are very aware and cautious about keeping their intellectual property rights in safe hands. Information to physicians: This is one area where we have to market the product. Make the doctors aware about your product line. Content enhancement: Content management is another very important thing. Every now and then, you need to upgrade the content as per the marketing needs.  So, if we consider each of these challenges as obstacles - then how can we provide effective solutions to them? It is very interesting to know how eLearning solves these problems. Solutions:  E-learning to meet the demands of market dynamism  People working in clinical research are exposed to eLearning. With eLearning courses and certification, they are well aware of the standardization of procedures and how to comply with the various international and national regulatory bodies. Thus, with all this knowledge, they can do better research to bring new drugs into the market. Moreover, with beautiful, engaging and animated courses, we can demonstrate a particular phenomenon of drug development. Thus, these interactive courses help refresh and reinforce the knowledge of the learners. E-learning to sustain in the ethical market E-learning needs to sustain in the ethical market. A company might get sued if it is discovered that they have violated some of the patented rights of another organization. Here, eLearning can help by giving all the requisite knowledge on regulatory norms and compliance issues. Employees can understand when a patent infringement really occurs. Here, I am sharing a small case study on patent infringement. A Washington court ruled against Illumina ($ILMN) in a patent lawsuit Thursday, finding that the sequencing giant infringed on Syntrix Biosystems’ intellectual property and ordering the company to pay out $96 million in damages. The suit covers Illumina’s BeadChip array, used in DNA and RNA analysis, which the court deemed to have infringed on Syntrix’s similar technology. The $96 million figure is based on a royalty rate of 6% of BeadChip sales from 2005 to 2012. Illumina maintains that it did nothing wrong, however, and the company plans to file post-trial motions in an effort to vacate the court’s decision. (Source: FierceBiotech) E-learning enables sales professional to sell the product in the market  Today’s market is already flooded with lots of other competent players who are aggressive enough to sell any product. Therefore, to survive in this market, you need very good marketing skills and the knowhow to sell a product. We can reap the rich dividends from eLearning by training the sales professional on product features and benefits. Thus, with eLearning, we can find solutions for all the challenges and pave beautiful solutions for each of them. The pharmaceutical workforce should be better equipped with all these facilities of eLearning. What do you think? Related Posts4 Tips for Developing E-learning Course Using Rapid Authoring ToolsHow to Add and Sync Closed Captions/Subtitles in Lectora?5 Types of Training for Sales Representatives of Pharmaceutical Firms - An Infographic

Multi-device learning, both in practice and in theory, is everywhere in our industry today. Beyond that, it’s the way our world operates, and it’s how your learners will grow to expect to consume your learning content. Here are six reasons why you should (if you aren’t already) look to invest in multi-device learning. Responsive design is everywhere Websites today are built to look great on our laptops, smartphones and tablets… responsive web design, which takes on the functional heavy lifting to create this seamless experience, is crucial in today’s connected world. Responsive web design allows us to create one version of a website in order to service each and every device, browser and operating system. As more and more technology is able to access the web, we expect nothing less than a tailored experience, however we might be accessing it. All digital ‘things’ like videos and apps are expected to follow suit and work seamlessly across multiple devices, and there’s no reason why your organizations learning should be any different. The future of devices Creating multi-device e-learning is as much about covering the legitimacy of your content for the next wave of technological innovation as it is about serving todays. By repurposing traditional, desktop learning for a multi-device world, you can be safe in the knowledge that your e-learning will respond and adapt to any and all devices which are released in the future. It’s one thing to have mobile ready content, but another that it’s truly responsive and adaptive. The responsive and adaptive bit is crucial here as this is what makes it look great in any sized screen. If you’re multi-device learning can respond and adapt to it’s surroundings, you can be safe in the knowledge that when it comes to new iPhone or tablet releases, your e-learning has the capability to perform, regardless of what devices and screen sizes are in use. Enjoying the blog? Tweet it to your community. Fixed delivery is a thing of the past Ten years ago, there were no smartphones or tablets. All learning practitioners had to deal with was desktops and laptops, which were pretty much the same device when it came to running e-learning content. Learning isn’t just a fixed thing that we are told to do for 1 hour of a week anymore, it’s something that sits much closer to how we operate, taking on an increasingly diverse form, spreading across devices to reach us at the time we need it. With that in mind, people don’t care what learning is built in or why it doesn’t work on their smartphones, they just want to be able to access it quickly to support them. Investing in multi-device learning gives your learners access to more materials, improving the support you can offer them and ultimately how they perform. A mobile workplace It’s increasingly common for businesses to promote flexible and mobile working, or in some, forward-thinking cases, to not even have a centralised office at all. Speedy modern internet and mobile connectivity (4G and the like) allow us to take advantage of multi-device learning and working, and it isn’t going away anytime soon. We could well be moving into a time where the ratio of mobile to laptop work skews further and the majority of what we do takes place on a mobile device. It’s best to get ahead of the game and put the foundations for multi-device learning in place to ensure you can empower and upskill your workforce using the medium they are increasingly turning to. Reap the benefits of BYOD If you have invested in multi-device learning, you can allow your employees to use their own tablets, smartphones and laptops for learning in and out of the workplace, while you can rest in the knowledge that all browser/ device/ operating system combos will work beautifully. This is a ‘bring your own device’ (BYOD) approach, which not only increases access in time and space to the right materials, but will bring huge cost savings, which is never a bad thing, right? Multi-device is what we expect As a particular piece of technology allows us to do more, we begin to expect the same level flexibility across the board. The more we get used to leaving our desks and continuing to work from a mobile device, the more we expect that everything will allow us to do the same. Your learners will expect to pick up content at their convenience, whatever form that takes. In summary Multi-device learning is only going to be of increasing importance. It’s a valuable means of reaching a busy, diverse audience. Here’s a summary of what multi-device learning can do for your organisation… flexibility for learners boost engagement put downtime to use use across platforms digestible easy access aids the remembering process acts as glue to continue the learning journey between training sessions easy to track takes advantage of Bring Your Own Device (BYOD). Enjoy the read, why not tweet and share it with your community? The post 6 reasons you need to invest in multi-device learning (if you haven’t already) appeared first on gomo Learning.

What eLearning Professionals Should Know About Short-Τerm Μemory An eLearning course cannot be truly successful unless it is memorable. Learners must be able to not only complete the eLearning course, but also to recall that information when they need it. To do this, they must first store it in their short term memory banks. But how can eLearning professionals use short term memory when developing and designing eLearning courses? In this article, I’ll discuss the basic principles of short-term memory and I’ll share some tips to help you take advantage of the cognitive processes involved in short-term memory, in order to create eLearning deliverables that really enhance learning. Short-term memory is, in essence, the gateway to long-term information storage. When we learn new information or acquire new memories, these are first stored in our short-term memory before making their way to the long-term memory. Information that is not reinforced or not worthy of being tucked away for later use is discarded to make room for new concepts and ideas. Short-term memory is very frequently confused with working memory and many times these two terms are erroneously used interchangeably. Compared to short-term memory, that is just the temporary storage area, working memory is the mechanism that takes place within the short-term memory that manipulates incoming information and "decides" whether it is significant enough to get transferred into the long-term memory, or simply not useful enough and should be discarded. In other words, while short-term memory can be viewed as a temporary storage of information, it doesn’t entail its manipulation or organization; this is what working memory is responsible for. Learning actually takes place only when information is transferred into the long-term memory, and therefore can be retrieved again for future use. Storing information in the long-term memory is created by a conscious effort on behalf of the learners. The aim of eLearning professionals should be both to understand what exactly happens within the short-term memory in order to facilitate knowledge transfer, as well as to provide learners with the proper intrinsic incentives in order to motivate them to get more involved in the learning process. The Short-Term Memory Characteristics There are three characteristics to take into consideration with respect to the processes involved in short-term memory. These are: It's limited capacity. According to Miller's Magical Number Seven (1956), the short term memory has a limited capacity, being able to store 5 to 9 items simultaneously. Miller believed that our short term memory is not capable of handling more than 7±2 pieces of information before all of its "slots" are full. When this occurs we begin to experience cognitive overload, at which time we are no longer able to effectively acquire or retain information. It’s limited duration. As its name implies, short-term memory keeps data for a short period of time, about 20 seconds. After that, unless we make a conscious effort to retain the information just stored there, it disappears forever. Encoding processes. Information comes to our short-term memory through our senses. Encoding is referring to the way information is "registered" in the short-term memory. There is evidence that, for the majority of learners, encoding seems to occur as an auditory process, as the most frequently used strategy people employ in order to retain new information seems to be by mentally repeating it over and over. Another strategy some learners employ is visualizing the mental representation of the information stored. It is, therefore, not infrequent when talking about short-term memory to come across various terms such as acoustic or iconic memory, to refer to the mental strategy employed during the encoding process, depending on the strategy individuals tend to use for keeping new information in the short-term memory longer. To sum up, iconic memory is the human ability to hold visual information, like images or pictures in short-term memory, though acoustic memory is the ability to retain auditory information in short-term memory. Acoustic memory has been found to have bigger capacity than iconic memory, meaning that sounds can he held longer than visuals. Enhancing Short-Term Memory Processes: 5 Strategies For eLearning Professionals Chunk information to reduce cognitive overload. Information chunking, that is grouping of related information together, has been proved an effective strategy in order to prevent cognitive overwhelm. Given Miller's 7±2 principle described above, by chunking similar concepts or ideas together, we may be able to place more information in each memory "slot", thereby expanding the capacity of the short-term memory of our learners. Use auditory stimuli to improve knowledge retention and recall. As mentioned earlier, the short-term memory thrives on auditory stimuli. According to Atkinson and Shiffrin (1971), our short-term memory can hold information anywhere between 15 to 30 seconds. However, if we hear concepts or ideas repeatedly in audio form we can acoustically encode the information, a process referred to as "rehearsal", thereby committing it to our long-term memories. Believe it or not, our short-term memory even transforms visual data into sounds to memorize it more efficiently. When creating your eLearning course include audio presentations, narratives and music to boost knowledge retention and information recall. Encourage learners to apply previously learned concepts. When we encourage our learners to apply information they have already learned, this gives them the opportunity to decrease the amount of knowledge decay. The old adage "if you don’t use it you lose it" aptly applies to the short-term memory. When we don’t give learners a chance to rehearse and repeat information they have gathered, they will begin to forget key concepts within a matter of seconds. Scenarios, simulations, and end-of-chapter assessments are all exercises that involve information recall. Support key takeaways. Interestingly, our short-term memory is actually able to remember items at the beginning and at the end of a lesson more effectively than those in the middle. This is known as the serial position curve, which is comprised of two tendencies: primacy and recency. Primacy suggests that concepts in the beginning of a lesson can be more easily remembered because, as they are learned first, the short-term memory has the most time to absorb them. Recency refers to the other end of the spectrum, dictating that the concepts at the end of the lesson are stored in the short-term memory because no other concepts were learned after them. There were no additional items to serve as a distraction, so your mind could easily absorb them. You can take advantage of the serial position curve by placing important ideas or key takeaways near the beginning and the end of your eLearning unit. For example, you can highlight the most important concepts on the first page, and then review them again on the last. Grab their attention with stories and scenarios. Learners can more effectively memorize new information if it is somehow connected to real world challenges or situations. You can help to improve knowledge retention by offering them simulations, scenarios, or stories that tie into relevant and relatable issues or tasks they may encounter on a daily basis. This not only shows them the benefits of learning the information, but also directs their attention to the key points of the eLearing course. Thus, they will be less likely to forget the subject matter if they have formed a connection with it during the learning process. Short-term memory is the gateway to long-term knowledge retention. Designing eLearning courses that cater to the short-term memory can give your learners the opportunity to remember the key takeaways in their short run, so that they can put them to good use in the long run. What is the learning curve and how can you use it to design memorable and engaging eLearning courses? Read the article The Forgetting Curve in eLearning: What eLearning Professionals Should Know to discover everything you need to know about the forgetting curve in eLearning, so that your learners will always come away with the knowledge and skill sets they need to achieve their goals. Looking for more scientifically proven brain facts to take into consideration before creating your next eLearning course? Read the article 6 Scientifically Proven Brain Facts That eLearning Professionals Should Know and keep these interesting brain facts on hand to develop eLearning courses that offer the most value and benefit to your learners. References Atkinson, R. C., & Shiffrin, R. M. (1971). The control processes of short-term memory. Institute for Mathematical Studies in the Social Sciences, Stanford University. Miller, G. (1956). The magical number seven, plus or minus two: Some limits on our capacity for processing information. The psychological review, 63, 81-97. This post was first published on eLearning Industry.

In an earlier blog titled E-learning to Cater to Varying Digital Literacy Levels of Employees - Why?, I talked about why employees need to be divided based on their digital literacy and assign online courses accordingly. I had borrowed the suggestion from Ray Wang, founder and chairman of Constellation Research. In this blog, I will attempt to explore various eLearning design options that best cater to the needs of employees with varying digital literacy levels.E-learning courses involve engagement with the course interface, but the degree of engagement varies based on the way the course is designed. For a digitally savvy employees, complex interactivities and game elements may be incorporated. However, for digital novices, minimal interactivities and easy navigation elements are required. Let me explore them in greater detail based on the categorization of R Wang. Multi-device compatible, multiple learning paths and multiple formats for digital natives: These are employees who grew up surrounded by internet technology and have seen a multitude of gadgets within the short span of their lifetime. They adapt to new technologies very quickly and spend at least some part of their time in playing video games, online games and so on. They use multiple devices and switch between devices easily to perform their activities. So, how should eLearning courses be designed for them? E-learning courses can be designed such that employees can access them from anywhere through any device such as laptops, iPads, smartphones etc. Complex gamification strategies, scenarios and assessments involving a lot of interactivities can be used in the course modules. E-learning curriculum spanning multiple modules can be planned covering subject matter in depth.  Flexible learning options for digital immigrants and digital voyeurs: These are employees who are aware of the changes in technology. They would have sent their first e-mail well after their teens and have seen the rapid changes in technology being employed for communication at the workplace. Some have learnt to adapt to new technologies as demanded by the situation and work environment. Others may be reluctant to experiment beyond what is absolutely essential. E-learning needs to be less intimidating and more inviting. You can adopt the same strategy as done for digital natives but with relatively simpler interactivities, case-studies and scenarios. Multi-device access is still useful but the interface needs to be less cluttered with simple icons and instructions so that employees are not put off with an interface that is not user-friendly. Videos and bite-sized modules for digital holdouts and digital disengaged: Digital holdouts and digital disengaged are those employees who are not comfortable with technology and do not use it for their day-to-day activities. They, at best, use mobile phones, DVD players and watch television. They may be forced to interact with computers to a certain extent at work but computers do not constitute an essential part of their job profile. For such employees, learning can be in the form of ‘push learning’ to their mobile devices. This can be in the form of short, bite-sized videos or apps with user-friendly features and interactions. Short videos could also be developed and shown at workplace. For example, videos can be very useful to educate employees about workplace safety and best practices on the shop floor. These videos can be aired where there are display monitors or TVs. If you would like to read the blog that talks about why you need to consider digital literacy of employees when designing online training solutions, read my earlier blog titled, E-learning to Cater to Varying Digital Literacy Levels of Employees - Why? To learn more about Ray Wang and his views on categorizing individuals based on digital literacy, click here. Training need not necessarily be based on the age groups of individuals when we are working across multiple generations of workforce. When training is provided digitally, it makes a lot of sense to tweak instructional strategy based on the digital literacy of employees. Don’t you agree? Related PostsE-learning to Cater to Varying Digital Literacy Levels of Employees - Why?4 Tips for Developing E-learning Course Using Rapid Authoring ToolsHow to Convert PowerPoint Presentations to Interactive E-learning Courses: Free E-book

How To Personalize Your eLearning Program Using An LMS In an ideal world every eLearning program, independently from the delivery method, would be designed specifically in order to achieve the best retention rate (you can check this article to better understand the importance of personalized learning). Unfortunately this requires a tremendous expense in terms of money and time - which most companies can’t afford. Luckily in the past few years, also thanks to the flexibility and ease of use allowed by Cloud SaaS solutions, customization of the learning experience has become much simpler to achieve. Tools like customizable dashboards, multi-branding and white labeling, extended enterprise and more, allow companies to be extremely precise in the delivery of training by creating dedicated environments for each one of their customers or for specific user groups (such as users, administrators, power users etc…). To better explain my point, I am going to present you with a fictional case study. ACME Corp. has a problem. ACME is a global company with many divisions, specialized in many different sectors such as Food & Beverages, Health & Safety, and Sportswear. As you can imagine, all employees have some training in common, such as on-boarding, safety, compliance etc. On top of this group of basic courses, every division has specific needs based on their particular market and business challenges. To make it even better, because ACME really cares about developing its employees, every single business unit within each department has to take specific courses based on employee role and training gaps. You can see immediately how this kind of scenario poses some extremely complex challenges to your Learning and Development team. This kind of audience not only requires you to set up different environments with different access rules, roles, associated courses, branding and reporting, but also requires an LMS to be extremely lean and yet fully customizable, in order to avoid chaos. There are 2 elements that I think could help ACME to achieve this kind of detailed organizational scheme. I think the first necessary choice is to pick a Cloud SaaS Learning Management System, preferably developed in a modular way, so you can add on modules and enable or disable apps according to need. In fact, by choosing an LMS with strong core features and add-on modules, eLearning specialists avoid spending time cutting through unnecessary features that only make your system harder to navigate and manage. A system like this allows you to pick only the resources that you need, when you need them, reducing clutter and expenses. The second necessity is what we call an Extended Enterprise approach. An Extended Enterprise LMS has the same structure as an army. There are different vertical divisions or battalions, each one with different purposes and training needs, each one with internal managers, according to an internal hierarchy, which have similar roles across the different units and there are new recruits, who all need to go through basics and survival skills. Modern SaaS LMSs with Extended Enterprise features allow Learning and Development teams to replicate their company structure into the platform, personalizing every single branch with tools such as custom enrollment rules, custom domain, and branding with a dedicated login page for every branch. With this model it is possible to assign roles to managers within the unit, with permissions that can be the same across the whole company or custom based on the unit specific needs. Another important element of customization that can make your employee’s life easier (and yours too!) is the ability to modify your users dashboard or portal homepage in order to show them at a glance the items that matter the most to them, based on their roles. For example, standard users might need to have a quick overview of the courses they are enrolled in, their own progress, notifications and a calendar with upcoming courses or deadlines. On the other hand, managers are going to need a better understanding of how the learners are performing, or if someone needs some extra motivation. Just to give you an idea, you could create a custom report that highlights users that haven’t renewed or have failed to achieve their certification, with custom notifications associated to users failing multiple times. Obviously using this model means that we could assign different courses to different branches or sub-branches, using a vertical approach, or to company-wide groups, using horizontal approaches, or even hand-picking specific users of your Enterprise LMS, in order to achieve the perfect, customized, eLearning experience. If you want to have a better understanding of the Extended Enterprise (EE) concept or you would like to get a hands-on feel for it, I suggest you to take a look at Docebo’s EE model. This post was first published on eLearning Industry.

Imagine a situation where in an eLearning course is assigned to a busy employee. He completes a part of the course during his working hours on his desktop and the remaining unfinished part at home on his tablet. When he is accessing the course on his mobile, he expects the course to function the same way as on desktop. But, Is this possible? Yes, certainly, with responsive eLearning. But, what is responsive eLearning? Responsive eLearning facilitates the development of online courses that can be accessed efficiently on multiple devices with varied screen sizes - from desktop computers to smart phones. Here is an info- graphic which shares 5 proven tips to design and develop highly effective responsive eLearning courses. Hope you find this post interesting. Do share your views. Related PostsMaking E-learning Courses Mobile: 5 Aspects to Consider - An InfographicCreative Ways to Present Click on Tab Interactivity in E-learning Courses - An InfographicAre E-learning and M-learning the Same…?

We recently ran a webinar with eLearning Industry on the fundamentals of adaptive and responsive theory. This theory underpins multi-device learning and allows us to view apps, websites and courses on much more than just our laptops and desktop computers. It’s the way our world works today and it opens up a load of really exciting opportunities for learners and designers alike! Check out the full recording from the webinar below… The post Webinar recording - multi-device learning in action appeared first on gomo Learning.

In online courses, learners will be able to navigate the course with the help of mouse. What if the learner wants to navigate with the help of a keyboard? Can we develop a course which allows him to do that? Yes, we can. Let us see how to create such a course in Articulate Storyline. If you want to allow your learner to navigate to the next or previous slide using left arrow and right arrow keys respectively, here are the steps you need to follow. Step 1: Create your eLearning course, as per the requirement. Step 2: Click the Properties icon on the bottom right corner of the slide. Step 3: Uncheck the Next and Previous checkmarks to remove the Previous and Next buttons for your eLearning course and click the OK button. Step 4: Now, click the View option in the menu bar and select the Slide Master option to open the master slide view. Step 5: In the master layout, add two triggers for navigation. Trigger 1: Jump to previous slide when the learner presses the left arrow on the keyboard. Trigger 2: Jump to Next slide when the learner presses the right arrow on the keyboard. Step 6: Publish the course and check the output. In this way, we can create other navigational buttons in the GUI (M- for menu (opens customized menu), X-exit course and others) of your eLearning course. Hope you find this post useful. Do share your views. Related PostsRapid E-learning through Storyline Tool: 5 Infographics Sharing Key FeaturesHow to Combine Your Adobe Captivate Projects Into Single Course?2 Ways to Restrict Navigation Through Menu in Articulate Storyline

The MERIT Program 2015 seeks to show through qualitative and quantitative measures that engaging technology in the hands of a well-trained teacher can improve student learning. Participants have the opportunity to learn to use and contribute to a variety of resources for collaboration, and are required to design projects not simply to provide dynamic learning experiences for their students, but also create open educational resources that will be of value to other teachers and students near and far. In helping to make learning and teaching more dynamic, MERIT is working to bring education out of the past and into the future that unfolds before us constantly. Who should apply MERIT Program 2015? Participants in MERIT range in age, years of teaching and experience with technology, but all accepted applicants have the potential to help their colleagues develop their understanding of and techniques with a variety of powerful technologies. The MERIT program 2015 is open to California teachers and educators (librarians, administrators) of a variety of disciplines, grade levels, and school types. International applicants are encouraged to apply, too! The program includes a special focus on math and science, where there is a significant need to help students develop confidence in and excitement for their future possibilities with these subjects. MERIT Program Goals The MERIT Program 2015 will: Model a 21st Century classroom environment that demonstrates a) critical thinking and problem solving, b) communication, c) collaboration, and d) creativity and innovation that teacher-participants can replicate in their classrooms. Integrate innovative technology tools and practices into the program learning environment that enhances teacher-participant engagement and learning. Guide development of MERIT Teachers’ technology-enriched, student‐centered learning projects designed to improve students’ learning outcomes. Present and model assessment strategies for educational technology projects, teaching practices, and learning outcomes. Develop MERIT Teachers’ leadership in peer coaching, mentoring, and training skills in school and district venues as well as conference presentations at the local, state, and national levels. MERIT Teacher Learning Outcomes MERIT Teachers will be able to: Facilitate and inspire student learning and creativity Design and develop digital-age learning experiences and assessments Model innovative, digital-age work and learning in a global and digital society Promote and model digital citizenship and responsibility Engage in professional growth and leadership with confidence MERIT Program 2015 will , take place at the Krause Center for Innovation at Foothill College on July 6-17, 2015 This post was first published on eLearning Industry.