In the last few years markets have become more competitive as product lifecycle is reducing and go to market timing is becoming more and more important. But the real factor that makes marketing more complex is that products and services are becoming more technological and therefore complex and so they require more knowledge to be used. The potential customer (in both the B2B and B2C markets) needs to be familiar with the product in advance: they have to know it BEFORE they buy it. Knowing a product before purchase is related to market education. Since technology moves so fast, it in fact anticipates trends by satisfying needs the market doesn’t even know it has yet - this is why marketing today has the role of actually preparing the market for new products and services which are evolving at an incredible pace. This begs the question - do we need marketing evangelists for each and every product? The marketing education strategy In the B2B sector, sophisticated services that are widely used in mature markets (Ex. cloud / SaaS software, complex marketing strategies for Inbound lead management and so on) are not yet adopted in the emerging markets that are usually more "traditional" when it comes to adopting innovations. Managers operating in those markets need to be educated and engaged about these new opportunities. In this marketing education strategy, content marketing is the first step. Content is made to engage and educate, but are blog posts and whitepapers enough? The market is asking to be educated and education is something related more to training than blogs or papers, because training means learning and sharing through experiences, it really means to be coached about a product. This approach works well both in the B2B and B2C sectors. Customer/dealer academies for B2B and B2C But, do all customers need to be trained? Do Marketing Managers need to create customer or dealer ‘academies’ for each and every product? I don’t think so, but the more complex the product is (also regarding the regulations/laws behind it) and the more it comes with ‘grey’ areas in communication, the more it makes sense that customers need to be engaged through training. Here you can find examples on how ‘customer/dealer academies’ can be implemented in a B2B or B2C sector: Personal financial services: Financial markets are become more and more complex, this is why trained customers are those who better understand complex financial products and they are more likely to use bank, insurance, fintech company financial services compared with untrained customers. Software for accountability and laws: If you are selling payroll or accounting software your main clients would be CPA’s or Lawyers. So, if you can train them about specific topics (and better yet, give them professional credits for it) they will then refer their customers to you. Product certification: A trained partner network sells 10 times more than untrained partners. Certifying your network of partners and dealers gives partners a competitive edge. Dealer and Reseller training: Share company culture with partners and dealers, and train them in a timely manner about new upcoming products - you can use an extended enterprise training approach and corporate MOOCs to leverage your sales through channel partners. Imagine Mark Zuckerberg creating a customer academy about internet.org, explaining the benefits of a distributed internet in poor countries in order to engage people supporting the cause and to involve other evangelists. 3 tips and tricks to make your customer and prospect academy more successful and appealing: Use top influencers and VIPs for your courses: When you build your training material use influencers, well reputed people and subject matter experts. Add gamification components: Engage your students with badges, points and contests in order to improve course completion Rewards and incentives for top performers: If training is a key component for your "Extended Enterprise" ecosystem (like partners, dealers or franchisors) you can leverage incentives for rewarding the completion of a course ladder Conclusion In a market where speed and complexity are the two main key factors of success, a blended approach that mixes Training and Marketing can be the perfect vehicle between Lead generation and an increase in sales. The post Do we need product evangelists for each product/service? appeared first on Docebo.

In his book The Manager as coach and mentor, Eric Parsloe succinctly explains what coaching is, and why it should be a common practice in the training process. "Coaching is a process that enables learning and development to occur and thus performance to improve. To be successful a coach requires a knowledge and understanding of process as well as the variety of styles, skills and techniques that are appropriate to the context in which the coaching takes place". In a best case scenario, even if a training program has been built by an expert, it will satisfy only general needs. Moreover, people who attend training need to have the right motivation to complete the training program successfully - this is true especially for employees already overloaded with daily tasks. Coaching: from Sports to Business Much like athletes in sports, employees should be stimulated by a coach. In the business field, the manager becomes a coach: his job is to help learners learn how to act and behave during specific situations in the workplace. Only in this way will learners be able to build their own working processes (and also acquire knowledge and competencies of course). Basically, this is what Sir John Whitmore says in his book Coaching for Performance. A former racing driver, he’s the pioneer of Business Coaching. Even if the coaching process belongs to the field of sports, it has naturally become a part of business. Perhaps because standard training techniques are no longer enough to develop skills and improve personal performance. In his book, Whitmore quotes his mentor Tim Gallwey:"Coaching is unlocking a person’s potential to maximize their own performance. It’s helping them to learn rather than teaching them". Coaching in the Military field Well before becoming the norm in business, ‘coaching’ was always fundamental in the military. Army doctrine in the Field Manual 6-22 defines coaching as "the guidance of another’s person’s development in new or existing skills during the practice of those skills". This definition tells us something more: the coach is someone who has technical competencies. He will drive someone to acquire the same competences by working on possible situations. Unlock learner potential In the business coaching process, the key is the manager: s/he has to let the learners be, rather than impose his or her individual way of facing situations. S/he has to think about people in terms of their potential, not their performance. In other words, the manager has to be confident about the learners. In education it has been demonstrated that when the teacher trusts his/her students, this influences their performance. In business this is true as well. A manager will give co-workers tasks s/he believes they will complete successfully. But by acting this way, this person will get stuck in working at the same level. In order to help co-workers move forward, the manager should be helping them to achieve goals. And this is supposed to be done not by imposing his/her own methods, but instead by stimulating co-workers to create their own way to perform. The result is a more confident and reliable co-worker with improved skills. When should we use coaching? We clarified what coaching is, but when should we integrate coaching with traditional training? It could be useful for managing problem solving, relationship issues, task performance, team working, staff development, assessment, and team building. It’s useful for motivating staff and facilitating the delegating process. Even if a lot of books and essays have been written about this topic, Whitmore warns us that: "Coaching is not merely a technique to be wheeled out and rigidly applied in certain circumstances. It is a way of managing, a way of treating people, a way of thinking, a way of being". A smart tool to coach Companies should adopt best practices to integrate standard training programs - deployed both in elearning and classroom mode - with coaching, in order to have skilled and confident employees who are able to both follow procedures and also build their own. That’s why Docebo has created the Coaching feature for the Docebo learning management system - it’s designed for companies that need to create coaching sessions associated with elearning courses. Coaches can arrange one to one sessions to assist single learners, but they can also be involved in group meetings and drive learners to compare their experiences in peer to peer sessions. This is a big step forward: by combining elearning technology with coaching, the coach becomes a virtual coach - becoming more present, effective and useful than ever. With Docebo’s Coaching feature, companies are able to have a smart and simple tool to bring coaching inside elearning, and make their already running distance learning programs even more effective with an invaluable live-support added value. The Coaching feature will be available in a few days, if you’d like to test it out, sign up for a free 14-day trial! The post How Coaching enables L&D and improves workplace performance appeared first on Docebo.

Companies and organizations involved in elearning need learning content to be compliant with some requirements, i.e. with regards to the way content is packaged and tracked within the training program. AICC and xAPI (Experience API, or formerly Tin Can) are among the most important standards: whilst AICC has been around for a while, the xAPI is relatively recent. Companies and organizations today need both standards: this post explains why! AICC is a well known industry standard: it was born in 1989 and it has had broad acceptance in the last year. But saying "1989" sounds like we’re talking about the ice-age, especially in IT. So why is AICC still important for elearning adopters? AICC: the reasons behind its long shelf life There are two good reasons behind the long-lasting success of AICC. The first one is all about its tracking system: the way this system works is that it allows companies and training administrators to have the learning content in a location that does not necessarily have to be the learning management system used to play it. And this first reason drives us to the second one - due to the ability to keep content on its own server, a lot of big course vendors still have a huge catalog of courses which are using this standard. Those catalogs are extensive but also really expensive to update, and this is why these vendors are not able to adopt new technologies in short timeframes - as switching to a new standard would mean a complete revision of all the training content hosted on the catalog. This is the reason why we have recently added AICC support to the Docebo learning management system (check out this article). All the organizations currently running AICC elearning courses can now use Docebo, hassle-free. From Tin Can to xAPI: a core called LRS What we used to know as "Tin Can" is now called xAPI. It is the new, up and coming standard in the elearning industry, and it has a good chance to grow even more in terms of adoption, and in comparison with other standards, for at least two reasons: Like AICC, xAPI is able to perform tracking within an LRS that is not in the same place as where the content is Unlike SCORM and AICC, by using xAPI companies are able to track whatever information they need, with no more limitations related to a specific set of possibilities (The "authority" behind the still-a-work-in-progress AICC standard has moved its efforts to xAPI and has discontinued evolving the AICC standard). Whilst this is all definitely cool in elearning terms, you might be asking yourself right now, "wait a sec, LRS, what’s that?" It is a new concept introduced by xAPI, and it stands for Learning Record Store. In simple terms, the LRS is the place where all the tracking information is actually stored (e.g. content your users are viewing) and it acts like a huge data collector from which you can later extract all the saved data. This new tool opens two scenarios on the elearning market: a pure-LRS series of vendors and LMS vendors who decided to build an internal LRS, of course integrated with the LMS itself. This second way is the one we chose at Docebo. xAPI and new analytics scenarios In the short term, the main advantage you have using xAPI is the collection, in a single place, of everything you want and need (as you can choose to store things like learning activities, classroom activities as well as user interactions with company software). It’s still too early to predict how the market will be in the years to come, but we can say that having all this data in a single place - and in the exact way you need it - will be disruptive in terms of statistical analysis and reporting about training projects. The post Package & track elearning: why companies need both AICC & xAPI appeared first on Docebo.

Docebo has just released a whitepaper, authored by David Wilson, CEO of Fosway Group, on Integrating the HR landscape on the Cloud. This paper sets out practical strategies for IT and HR managers to overcome the monolithic approach to HR suites by leveraging the Cloud for seamless online integration of HR tools and systems. Download the whitepaper "Cloud is a future-proof technology which enables IT and HR managers to easily integrate systems and tools online - just in time - and according to the evolving needs of the Enterprise. This whitepaper is a guide for IT and HR departments, with practical strategies, uses-cases and best practices on how large organizations are able to integrate systems on the Cloud and simplify data exchange and management." Claudio Erba, CEO of Docebo   The Docebo whitepaper covers: The challenges of connecting the people data picture and the drivers to do so The role of LMS as a central hub for integration among HR, talent and work Systems legacy & the growth of Cloud in the systems landscape How key people data elements are critical for driving real business outcomes How to work with IT to address these challenges Download the whitepaper The post Docebo whitepaper: Integrating the HR Landscape on the Cloud appeared first on Docebo.

As you may have already heard in previous posts, we have been working on some additional Docebo LMS features. This new features roll-out focuses on Audit Trail and Coaching, two brand-new apps designed to make your elearning training more compliant and effective. Audit Trail: thorough tracking for thorough Compliance If you are running a training project you’ll be very familiar with the numerous international regulations that require logging and tracking events inside a learning management system. The Audit Trail app has been developed to provide you with superior tracking related to everything that happens inside your Docebo elearning platform: this makes you compliant with all the regulations that require an audit trail. One of the most commonly known regulations is the FDA’s 21 CFR Part 11: Title 21 CFR Part 11 is the part of Title 21 of the Code of Federal Regulations that establishes the United States Food and Drug Administration (FDA) regulations on electronic records and electronic signatures (ERES). Part 11, as it is commonly called, defines the criteria under which electronic records and electronic signatures are considered to be trustworthy, reliable and equivalent to paper records (Title 21 CFR Part 11 Section 11.1 (a)). Source: Wikipedia.org Moreover, the audit trail report provides written evidence of the entire sequence of activities that have affected specific operations, procedures, or events - this is useful in order to allocate the appropriate accountability in case of incident, specifically incidents related to compliance. Create and assign coaches to learners The second big news in this Docebo roll-out is the release of the new Coaching app which allows you to create coaching sessions inside an elearning course. The specified coach will support learners in achieving professional tasks and goals, and each coach can follow one or more users simultaneously. As we have recently highlighted, this is a big step forward: by combining elearning technology with coaching, the coach becomes a virtual coach - becoming more present, effective and useful than ever. By using the coaching app, you can make your already running distance learning program even more effective with an invaluable live-support added value. You can read more about how Coaching enables L&D and improves workplace performance here. CSV, Report, Custom menu and more Let’s go over the minor features which come along with these new apps: CSV export: you can simply export the users list into a CSV file. It really is as easy as it sounds. Learning Plan report: you can create reports about user progress in learning plans and keep everything under control Remove users from branch: this is now doable as a massive action, so you can save plenty of time Customizable menu items: change your LMS menu by adding or removing items to create a customized learning experience Automatic redirection at log-out: if you need to redirect users to a specific page when they log-out of the LMS you can now do this! Sessions info: for a more comfortable learning experience when selecting a classroom course users see detailed information about each session of the course Do you want to get a hands-on feel for these new features? You can activate a Docebo free trial in a few seconds, click here to find out more! The post Audit Trail & Coaching now live on the Docebo LMS appeared first on Docebo.

Many regulations worldwide require specific data tracking in an LMS so that evidence of all events that have occurred in the elearning platform can be provided. Corporations need to be compliant with these requests. This post goes over how you can make your online training compliant by using Audit Trail for deep tracking of events that happen in the LMS. Audit Trail: what is it? An Audit Trail is an immutable record that keeps track of administrative actions performed in the learning management system, such as important changes to course completion and enrollment status changes. The Audit Trail report provides written evidence of an entire sequence of activities that have affected specific operations, procedures, or events, and is useful to allocate appropriate accountability in case of any incident specifically pertaining to compliance. Why do you need Audit Trail in your LMS? There are a couple of good reasons why you need to have Audit Trail available in your corporate learning management system. 1. Total control over your training project Firstly it makes life easier for your customers - when you are dealing with any kind of software and you have more than one administrator in charge of the system, management encounters common issues (such as ‘who deleted this user?’ or ‘who updated this item?’). The Audit Trail app addresses this so you’ll always be aware of who is responsible for what inside the learning management system! 2. Compliance with international regulations Secondly, compliance is another reason you want Audit Trail in your LMS. Many regulations worldwide require specific data tracking so that evidence of all events that have occurred in the elearning platform can be provided - this ensures accuracy and trustworthiness of the certifications data that the LMS provides. For example, one of the most well-known regulations is the FDA’s 21 CFR Part 11 compliance: One of the most commonly known regulations is the FDA’s 21 CFR Part 11: Title 21 CFR Part 11 is the part of Title 21 of the Code of Federal Regulations that establishes the United StatesFood and Drug Administration (FDA) regulations on electronic records and electronic signatures (ERES). Part 11, as it is commonly called, defines the criteria under which electronic records and electronic signatures are considered to be trustworthy, reliable and equivalent to paper records (Title 21 CFR Part 11 Section 11.1 (a)). Source: Wikipedia.org How to achieve compliance by activating the Audit Trail report The Docebo learning management system has been just updated with the Audit Trail feature. Here I will show you how you can create and implement the Audit Trail report and assure full compliance of your corporate online training (please note, this is available for the Docebo Enterprise solution only!). Once you have activated the app you will see a new type of report inside the custom report area: the Audit Trail one. Select this and, after choosing users and courses you want to apply to the report, identify the kind of information you want to get. You can find information about: Power users - main actions concerning allocation / purchasing / reclaiming seats, performed by each power user. Courses - actions concerning deleting or updating courses, catalogs, training materials, widgets or the courses category. Custom reports - actions concerning creation, publishing (for Power users), or deletion of customized reports. Learning Plans -  actions concerning creating, updating or deleting learning plans. Users management -  actions about creating, deleting and updating users into the platform and the association (or disassociation) of a user in a group. You can also find information about groups management. Once you have included all the information you want to see, you can run the report for a view of the entire list of actions.  What is interesting is that you will also have evidence of the IP address of the user who performed each action. You can run an Audit Trail report each time you need to, or you can schedule the sending of this report to your email inbox, and also to anyone else involved in the certification or compliance process. Ready to get started with elearning compliance? Start your Docebo LMS free trial and run a test-drive of the Audit Trail feature! The post Corporate elearning: managing compliance training with Audit Trail appeared first on Docebo.

As Harbinger Knowledge Products unveils a brand new version of Raptivity Essential that lets you publish interactions in the HTML5 format in addition to Flash SWF format, I thought it would be interesting to talk to Shweta Kulkarni, who was involved deeply in the engineering of this product upgrade.What is the significance of Raptivity Essential?Raptivity Essential provides a sufficient selection of templates for a novice user to get a hold of interactive learning. This best seller pack of Raptivity helps users create a variety of interactions like interactive questions, brainteasers, presentation aids,  simulations, glossary and surveys.  Many of Raptivity Himalaya users have started their association with Raptivity using Raptivity Essential and eventually went on to upgrade their license all the way to Raptivity Himalaya.  What prompted you to go the HTML5 way?As everyone is now taking their courses to mobile devices such as tablets and smart phones, there is a need of quick transition of eLearning courses to m-Learning platform. Course developers who have already made an investment in Raptivity Essential are looking for a solution which quickly migrates their existing content to tablets and smart phones without hassles. HTML5 support for Raptivity  Essential pack will fulfil this requirement and make them HTML5-ready for their future course creation without losing the Flash output. What makes this a significant milestone?The entire Raptivity Himalaya library will be available in HTML5 format soon. This release of Raptivity Essential marks a major milestone in that direction. When we started with HTML5 Turbo Pack, and followed up with HTML5 Starter Pack, we were taking baby steps. Now we are nearing 40 HTML5 interactions, the largest HTML5 library of learning interactions available anywhere. And more are in the works as we speak.What were the technical challenges in porting Flash to HTML5 ? Most of the challenges boil down to replicating the Flash user experience. For example, take special effects like dissolve, explode, fly, blinds, magnify and so forth. We had coded these relatively effortlessly in Flash. To make them work as smoothly in the HTML5 version wasn't easy.Standard scroll bars don't work on iPad and iPhone. We designed custom scroll bars. Also, until recently drag-and-drop functionality was hard to implement. We are now betting on new libraries that will make this easy.Another area is inconsistency in filetypes supported on different browsers. In the Flash world, you worked with an .MP3 sound file and you knew it would work across browsers. With HTML5, you may need .OGG format.Thanks, hopefully we can do another post on this last topic. Software developers would love it.Certainly we can. You are most welcome.

In a recent online event, we polled hundreds of course designers spread throughout Australia, Europe and USA with four simple questions. The results are quite interesting.Question 1.In your experience, over the past several years, are customer budgets per hour of eLearning increasing, decreasing or remaining about the same? Figure 1: Poll Results on E-Learning Budgets Per Hour of Seat TimeQuestion 2.What level of interactivity do clients expect in the courses you deisgn? Figure 2: Poll Results on Level of Interactivity Clients WantQuestion 3.What types of tools do you currently use for eLearning course creation?Figure 3: Poll Results on Current Tools in use for E-Learning Course CreationQuestion 4.Do you use a greater number of tools today than you did three years back? Figure 4: Poll Results on Number of Tools over the YearsMy key take away from this set of poll questions is that eLearning budgets per hour of seat time have shrunk, but customers continue to demand higher level of interactivity. Given the pace of technology advancement, producers are able to meet the customer demands by using the right set of tools. That explains the use of a greater number and variety of tools.Feel free to share your thoughts and interpretations of these poll results.

If the title of this post makes you think I will list a whole bunch of tools here, let me first set the expectations right. It is my endeavor to take a look at the e-learning course design process here, so that you can decide how to build a tool kit that addresses all process components.E-learning course creation is all about having a design process in place to build the right course in time. Every instructional designer follows some sort of an e-learning course design process. What I proposed one such process in a recent webinar titled  "Interactive Courses on a Shoestring Budget" organized by Raptivity in November, 2011. As you may have noticed in the figure shown above, the graphic image of the doughnut has been divided into two parts.The lower part of the image has process steps such as screen capture, image editing, audio recording and video recording. These steps aid in the creation of assets for the course. These assets add to the picturesque quotient of the course and make it more engaging with videos, images, etc. The lower part also includes one final step of testing, which we will come back to later.The upper part of the doughnut has processes such as special artifacts creation, interactivity building, content authoring and integration. This is where you assemble the assets and make the course interactive and complete. Interactivity building makes the course content more easy to adapt and retain in an interactive format through games, puzzles, etc. The final milestone is reached when all the assets, interactions, special artifacts created are put together in the content authoring and integration process and thereafter, you test the course on the Learning Management System (LMS).Every course designer will follow some variation of this process. The process then, forms the basis of your tool selection. Building your e-learning course design tool kit is a matter of identifying the tools that help you execute the process efficiently. Some may be freely available tools, yet others commercially available. To view the narration of the doughnut given during the webinar, you can view the recording here.

These days designing and delivering end-to-end e-learning on mobile devices is on everyone's mind. What kind of capabilties must tools have to support m-learning? Here is a quick 4-point checklist.Device CapabiltiesDepending on the target device, user interface capabilities will vary. The m-learning tool should utilize fully the capabilities of the target device. TemplatesReady-to-use templates for all supported devices go a long way in ensuring professional presentation while saving time.   Preview CapabilityDue to the wide variety of form factors mobile devices come in, preview of learning material is a crucial step before publishing content.Media supportWith an explosion of device types and browsers, it is important to keep track of media supported by each combination. One way for an m-learning tool to create value would be to alert the user when a non-support type is referred to. Even better the tool could intelligently select an alternative media from multiple media provided.Both the creation and consumption of m-learning content on mobile devices is substantially different from traditional e-learning. Tool vendors will need to keep the differences in view while designing their wares.

This summer's thought leadership webinar from Harbinger Group attracted over 1000 registrants. Perhaps it was the powerful and relevant theme that drew such crowd: Interactions on Mobile. What works? What Doesn’t? The Raptivity-sponsored event provided several insights in interactive mLearning. Here's a  brief outline of the webinar:The need for interactivity in mLearningCharacteristics of mLearning interactions Challenges in mLearning, native vs. web apps Flash vs. HTML5Why HTML5 Tips for creating interactive content for mobileIn case you missed it,  you can access the slide deck and the  recorded webinar here.The webinar speakers were Janhavi Padture, Vice President at Harbinger Group and Robert Gadd, President and Chief Mobile Officer of OnPoint Digital. 'As always, we hosted the webinar three times in the day to cater to Asia-Pacific, Europe and Americas', added Jamaica Bracken, chief anchor.

Assessments are inherently interactive. There is no assessment unless the learner interacts with the e-learning course in some way. What then does 'infusing assessments with advanced interactivity' mean?Some instructional designers believe that throwing in some multiple choice questions make learning sufficiently interactive. We would like to question that. Learners are bored to death with the chore of answering the same types of questions: MCQ, Matching, Fill-in and Drag-drop. They need variety. They need to enjoy their assessments. Don't they?Formative assessments, sprinkled throughout the learning material, aim to perform a knowledge-check. Here, there is huge potential for using a wide variety of exciting interactions. When the nature of the learning content drives your decision, you might choose interactions accordingly. For example, a product familiarization course may involve labeling, a soft-skill course may use videos or simulations, and so forth.Sometimes your instructional objective decides the interaction type. This would lead to interactions that require recalling a concept and applying it or simply memorizing it. Finally, the nature of  your target audience influences the choice of interactions. Competitive audiences will enjoy games, those needing motivation could use other types of interactions.Summative assessments, which occur at the end of a learning module, aim to evaluate the learner and report a score. Prima facie it stands to reason that summative assessments are more serious business, and should somehow steer clear of interactivity. On close examination, though, we find several situations where summative assessments too can benefit from advanced interactivity.For example, a compliance training can include an assessment delivered as a simulation exercise. Similarly, when teaching leadership development, games can still deliver. The case of interesting assessments for K-12 is more obvious to make. Several questions can be delivered through game-like activities.In conclusion, then, both formative and summative assessments can be infused with advanced interactivity to enhance learner engagement, enjoyment and retention, without compromising the key goals of knowledge checking and evaluation.One great example of a simple interaction that works equally well in both types of assessments is Rapid Check. To see a demo of Rapid Check, click here. To hear about the various ways you can use Rapid check, watch this webcast.

The tools you use for producing e-learning day-in and day-out are no more than a bunch of software, programmed to work in a certain way and produce course output, right? Well, in part that may be true, but you might want to think again about that one.Consider this: The last time you were stuck with an animation that wouldn't work, or a picture that was looking distorted, or the exam score that wouldn't appear correctly on the LMS - who did you turn to for expert help? The last time you had a great idea on how the tool could be improved, how did you share that with the vendor? And when your team hired a couple of fresh developers new to the technology, how did you arrange for their training?Products that you use are not just software - they come with professional relationships you build with the vendor, other users and experts in the ecosystem. When you become a user of a product, you belong to a world of professionals that are linked to the product.  Every tool you have in your bag is like a relationship.  That is why I am excited about Raptivity Evolve, a remarkable new initiative that brings value to Raptivity users on an on-going way through new complimentary interactions, webinars, samples and more. Also interesting is InteractivityHub, a vibrant online community,  where  users exchange thoughts and ideas, ask questions and provide answers. The Raptivity Valued Professionals (RVPs) are experts that volunteer their help on community. Raptivity Empower provides an array of complementary services, including in-depth training, to help users get the most out of the tool. The idea of an innovative software that actively supports an on-going relationship has found good traction amongst e-learning developers. At the end of the day, it is all about relationships.

A new complimentary whitepaper titled 5 Creative Ideas of using Raptivity in Online Training outlines five innovative ways to make online learning interesting and engaging with the help of learning interactions.In specific, the paper suggests instructional designers and trainers consider the following techniques.1. Combining an interactive e-book with a rapid-check assessment to implement an open book test.2. Using games such as crosswords, TV shows and board games and to make learning fun and exciting.3. Simulations where user gets to play a role in a situation and apply knowledge to decision making.4. Using characters to provide opening and closing remarks, intermittent summaries as well as dialogs.5. Encouraging exploration through the use of walk-through, zooming and other interactions.While these techniques can be implemented in a variety of ways, the paper suggests over a dozen interaction templates within Raptivity that make the implementation quick and easy. You can download the whitepaper from the Raptivity website.

According to Tom Kelley, the innovation guru, one of the ten faces of an innovator is that of an anthropologist - someone who really understands what people want, and why. Well, when it comes to software tools, who knows what users want better than the users themselves?We recently discovered this quite serendipitously. A user on Raptivity community, InteractivityHub, suggested we build a learning interaction that involves characters and speech bubbles. His idea was to allow the course designer to input a dialog, and then for the software to render it in speech bubbles in a sequence. The Raptivity team liked this idea, and the 'Character Dialog' interaction was born. Another user on the community wrote about the need for cliparts, backgrounds and such media elements people need in course design. Again, the Raptivity team thought it over and came up with the Raptivity Asset Library with over a hundred such assets.This is the spirit of customer co-creation at its best. With Raptivity Evolve, we continue to build new exciting interactions that premium users get for free. We say to users: Now you are in the driver's seat. Tell Raptivity what you want us to build in the next interaction. We will built it.

Of late, some vendors in the e-learning tools industry have started using the word 'interactivity' in a rather loose way. You hear of authoring tools that provide interactivity building features. This leads some users to believe they are getting course authoring and interactivity building in one package! Of course, we do welcome the efforts by authoring tool vendors to help their users build engaging courses. What is important for course designers to understand is that the state-of-the-art in interactivity is further along. With a tool like Raptivity, which focuses only on interactivity, and works with other authoring tools, you make an investment in interactivity building that goes a long way.Why a separate interactivity tool? There are many good reasons. One, it does not lock you into one authoring tool or platform. You can use multiple authoring tools - depending on what the content or client demands - and still use the same interactions. Second, you get a large variety of interactions, and more get added with time. Third, among all kinds of content, interactions are the hardest to migrate across platforms and devices. A specialized interactivity tool can anticipate the migration issues and make your work future-proof. Finally, interactivity tools treat each interaction as a unit, which can be re-used as it is, or with tweaks.Interactivity building is different from content authoring. Course developers use many authoring tools. To make their courses engaging and interactive, they need one interactivity builder.

Since time immemorial, job aids have been in use by workers and artisans of all kinds. A well-designed job aid helps in improving efficiency, cuts down time to get the work done, and reduces frustration. We recently spotted one opportunity for a new kind of job aid for Raptivity users. Raptivity has the largest number of interaction templates among all elearning tools. Being a specialized interactivity builder that works with all authoring tools, Raptivity continues to the at the forefront of interactivity. Users often express that they cannot locate, much less remember, every interaction in Raptivity. To make the selection of interaction easier and more intuitive we have put together Raptivity Album, a free job aid. To download the Raptivity Album, click here.Even in the online learning world, some of us prefer a handy printed manual. The newly released Raptivity Album is yours to download for free, print and keep.

For all the discussion on learning and interactivity in these pages, I always had a hunch that I would discover something new about learning if I were to go back to school. As it turns out, the hunch was right. I did get the opportunity to spend some time at Harvard Business School recently. And, getting back to campus life was both enriching and fun.So, what are the 'new' things I discovered about learning? Here we go.A lot of learning is accidental. You run into someone from a different walk of life, start chatting and come away with a new idea. Happens all the time.Stories are a powerful way to immerse yourself in the subject matter. Nearly a hundred and fifty case studies that we completed were an amazing experience. It was like we were living inside those stories. In some cases, the real-life protagonists would show up in the classroom. That was cool.Lecturing is easy, listening is the hard part. The best HBS professors get it.When the learner understands that enjoyment of learning is directly proportional to the preparation beforehand, no additional motivation is needed to flip the classroom.The design of the classroom and seating arrangements should encourage interaction - it has a big impact on the learning outcomes.In our graduation ceremony at Harvard earlier this year, my classmates and I were ecstatic. We had endured the hard part. Now, I miss the campus, and  our cohort of over a hundred owner-presidents and CEOs. The time we spent together in various interactions spread over the three years has been most memorable.

There are two reasons I love the new user interface of Raptivity.One, it is trendy. The look-and-feel, colors, white spaces and screen layouts are pleasing to the eye. The design is simple and soothing.  Two, it boosts productivity. Its customer-inspired design helps you get around in fewer clicks. The interaction search is powerful. Help is embedded in the right places, so users can access support materials, other users' work samples and community from the application. The descriptions of interactions include useful tips on how and where you can use them. Besides, Raptivity now provides a HTML5 preview of your work - another first in the industry. Download Raptivity to try this yourself. Or check out the six cool things about the new Raptivity interface here. 

e-Learning course designers have traditionally turned to traditional classroom instruction for insights in instructional design. Now with a couple of decades experience of e-learning, classroom instruction can incorporate some of the best practices in e-learning. The use of learning interactions is one such example.Self-paced e-learning courses employ learning interactions that allow learners to engage with the course materials in interesting ways. Interactions include games, exercises, simulations, drill-downs and so forth. Course authors typically use ready templates of such interactions, and add content as appropriate. When effectively incorporated, interactions make learning more engaging and memorable, provide a change of pace, and improve outcomes.In the classroom environment, too, there is a need for enhancing outcomes. Since PowerPoint is one of the most commonly used presentation tools, I will limit my comments to a typical PowerPoint presentation here. All of us know that slides after slides of ‘training’ content can be boring. The way to overcome this is adding interactivity. If you incorporate a quiz game, a quick exercise, a brainteaser or even a few trivia questions, the classroom comes alive. To make this process simple, Raptivity, the leading interactivity builder, recently released a PowerPoint add-in. This free tool installs a menu for interactions inside PowerPoint. Using the add-in, people can search and add interactions to their presentations in a single click. To know more, write to info@raptivity.com.

The purpose of a learning arc is accomplish a change in the learner, as implied in the learning objective, by taking him/her through multiple learning interactions.Think for a moment of a TV series drama, which follows a story arc, spread over several episodes. The main character undergoes transformation as the plot progresses. The story culminates with the resolution of plot towards the end. A well-designed self-paced learning experience parallels some of these elements. The learner experiences one or more ah-ha moments as s/he moves through a series of interactions with the learning environment, completing a learning arc. Learning arcs transform the cognitive state of a learner, and concerns get resolved as learning progresses.With that background, then, here is a definition of interactive learning arc for instructional designers who build e-learning courses. An interactive learning arc consists of multiple interactions linked together in a cohesive learning experience that is complete in itself, and can be part of a larger online course. Have you used learning arcs as short learning nuggets all by themselves? Have you used learning arcs as branches within longer web based courses? What are your thoughts about the various ways in which learning arcs get implemented?

Came across an article on Vista Training's blog that talks about 8 trends in eLearning. Last one in the list is about mini-bites of learning (also called learning chunks by Craig Weiss in his blog) where the author talks about learning which is incremental and can be done through short learning programs. Here is a portion of the article, which paraphrases Craig Weiss's thoughts. (You can access the article here.)"Mini-bites" of learning: Not all training is focused on teaching a new hire how to perform a task from scratch. Some of it is incremental or remedial in nature. That means a growing demand for short learning programs, packed with just one or two nuggets of knowledge that help workers get a specific task done. Weiss envisions lessons that are five minutes in length at maximum. Formats could include brief videos and one-page documents.Performance support is one possible use for "mini-bite" training: In the construction and mining industries, an equipment operator could watch a brief video in the cab of his machine prior to performing a task. This would bring the required best-practice knowledge to the top of his mind, increasing the odds that he will perform it at peak efficiency.Are you too thinking about short learner attention spans? Is five minutes too long for many of your learners?

We are doing this post a bit differently. We present a short interview with Vikas Joshi, the primary author of this blog, and Maheshkumar Kharade, a technology expert. In this post, we start by understanding the opportunities inherent in crowdsourced learning content.Q: How is the nature of learning content changing with time?[Vikas Joshi] Nowadays crowdsourcing is playing an increasing role in the creation of learning content. When people have a question, they simply post it on a social networking site, and elicit responses. Sites like Quora organize questions and answers into topics, and make them searchable. People are increasingly open to participating in online platforms such as Wikipedia, that deliver crowd-sourced content. Increasingly, organizations are seen using internal portals that support crowdsourcing among employees. Learning content, therefore, comes not only from some pre-defined curriculum, but it evolves as people ask questions and contribute answers.   Q: Can this lead to new ways of evaluating learning?[Vikas Joshi] Absolutely. Now we are not limited to evaluating learning outcomes—we can also evaluate the learning process. There is an opportunity to evaluate people based on how they are contributing to crowd-sourced content. There is also an opportunity to observe how people are learning, the kind of questions they are asking and how engaged they are in the community of learners. Such fine-grained evaluation can create opportunities for better remediation, leading to better outcomes. Q: Doesn’t that make the job of evaluation more complex?[Vikas Joshi] Undoubtedly. The key issue is the following. If you evaluate only behaviors, you will get right behaviors, but you won’t know if the student has really understood the subject matter. You will keep wondering if the student is simply parroting the right answer. If you observe the thought process instead, you get a better view into the student’s learning. This is hard work, but it may be worth the effort. Maybe peers can play a role in making this easier in an online community.  Next week we will explore the technology challenges in making this possible.

Last week, Vikas Joshi shared his thoughts on opportunities inherent in crowdsourced learning content. This week we talk to Maheshkumar Kharade, a technology expert, to follow up on the previous post.  Q. How are tracking systems keeping pace with the opportunities inherent in crowdsourced learning content?[Maheshkumar] Due to its multidimensional nature, crowdsourcing apparently brings in multiple challenges and opportunities for tracking systems, content creation and content delivery platforms. I think development of TinCan API specification is on the lines of supporting crowdsourcing requirements. Its activity based tracking model enables LRS (Learning Record Store) to record almost any user action. Recent advancements and usage spike in MOOC paradigm in education is another major step in creation of online platforms for crowdsourced learning content. Though these steps have helped gain some momentum, it’s not yet enough. Q. What needs to be done?[Maheshkumar] We are getting to the goal in pieces like enriched tracking specifications, delivery mechanism, etc. In my opinion, content creation should be at the center stage of crowdsourcing, other challenges would revolve around it. The key is to provide an ability to create semantically structured content through proper community collaboration. It will enable maximum reuse and re-purposing. Social networking has to be given equal consideration. Video content adds lots of value to learning experience, but we have to look for ways to enrich it further using crowd sourcing. Imagine what can be done if we have both TinCan API and MOOC together on a single platform.  This combination will enhance current MOOC based learning experience i.e. set of sequential video lectures to next level by means of collaborated learning. Currently, multiple dimensions of crowdsourcing are different stand alone systems; we need better interoperability.Q. How can the industry encourage platform vendors to support a common structure?[Maheshkumar] The focus right now is on an individual aspect of crowdsourcing which is tracking systems; it needs to be widened. Also, solving problems in proprietary ways will limit overall outcome, so equal importance should be given to developing a standards based approach while addressing any aspect of crowdsourcing. Interoperability amongst multiple systems holds the key to successful crowdsourced learning.We would love to hear from our readers in the e-learning industry if they are familiar with any work in this direction.