Image courtesy of: Michael Cahill  Being a ubiquitous device in mobile learning, a smartphone has done almost all of the unthinkable, especially in helping learners master a foreign language. A 2012 survey done by the University of Colorado, revealed that 14% of instructors and 60% of foreign students use mobile phones for language-learning purposes. However, students are taking these nifty devices for granted, the same survey confirmed, they still need guidance on how to leverage their resources for learning a new mode of verbal communication. That said, here are effective ways in which the use of smartphones can help learners master a new language: 1. Voice Recognition Technology With the latest advancement in mobile technology, smart devices are now equipped with special features that can be used during learning sessions.  According to Phys.org, Apple’s iPhone line leads this trend, even the budget-friendly iPhone 5C. Its page on O2 suggests that the handset comes with Siri, a valuable voice recognition software in speech learning. The tool is a semi-immersive learning system, where students can practice speech proficiency including pronunciation and phrasing. Siri can also do simple translations, making it easier to bridge the communication gap. 2. Smarphone Widgets Last November 25, Camelia Nunez, a Spanish instructor from the University of Waterloo, launched a facility that would aid students in mastering a certain mode of verbal communication. As an educator, she noticed that the best way for students to acquire a new language is by engaging them into a meaningful conversation. Nunez’s concept was simple: she devised a smartphone learning portal where students can exchange messages. The resulting product was dubbed as Milao (Greek word for "to communicate"), which will be used by university curriculums for beginner’s courses. Nunez argues that Milao uses artificial intelligence, which is combined with a technology called "natural language processing," generating text samples that would correspond to human speech. As of the moment, Milao is conducting a beta test at the University of Waterloo. The team also hopes to venture into other languages, starting with English next year. 3. Smartphone case for language-challenged students In virtual learning, there is a wrong notion that educational technologies are not applicable for students with disabilities. Fortunately, this is about to be changed, as mobile devices come with accessories with advanced assistive technologies. A good example is the iTok, an iPhone case that speech therapists use to introduce letter and sounds to children with verbal communication disorders. iTôk It is an iPhone accessory to help speech therapists introduce letters and sounds to children with speech disorders. Clipped into the iPhone, iTok designer Yanin Alexa Kramsky notes that the case is proposed as a simple learning tool, which gets rid of paper records through digital archiving. To use iTok, children need to blow a series of mouthpieces, each one representing specific sounds and letters. The iPhone then proceeds to recording the airflow patterns, which will project an animation indicating the correct use of each sound. 4. Smartphone Applications Compared to tablets, smartphones have a greater market penetration when it comes to speech learning and translator applications. According to Rare Job Daily News, mobile software developers are taking advantage of this trend, releasing their own tools to facilitate learning. Perhaps the most popular tool is the Google Translate, which has the ability of translating a spoken phrase in a certain language. Another popular company is Rosetta Stone, a language learning institution that released their own mobile tool. The iOS and Android-capable app provides students with activities to practice basic German, Italian, French, and Spanish. Rosetta Stone on Smartphones Indeed, mobile phones have gone a long way in language learning, with the first attempts dating back to 2001 that exploited the use of SMS or text messaging. In your opinion, what does the future hold for this nifty device in language learning?   About the Author: Allie Cooper is an online college student from the University of London. She’s always on the loop with the latest trends in mobile learning, which she can use to make her short course in the university more productive. If you have suggestions, you can reach her via Twitter: @AllieCooper_18 and Google+.    4 Ways Smartphones are helping People Learn a new Language was first posted on November 11, 2014 at 6:54 am.©2014 "The mLearning Revolution Blog". Use of this feed is for personal non-commercial use only. If you are not reading this article in your feed reader, then the site is guilty of copyright infringement. Please contact me at rjjacquez@gmail.com

This week's interesting finds from across the web. Curated by Jessica Petry @JessLPetry   THE JOB SKILLS GAP YOU HAVEN'T CONSIDERED via fastcompany.com Ninety percent of all jobs in the next year will require information and communication technology skills , according to research by Capgemni. Yet more than half the companies polled lacked social media skills. That's despite a McKinsey report that projects social media adding up to $1.3 trillion in our economy. Just hiring Millennials isn't the answer.   Why you should be interested? Many of our organizations have social media policies that clearly outline what not to do in social media. Many organizations block "evil social media sites" all together. $1.3 trillion - I'd say that's pretty impactful. Instead of banning, block and censoring, let's consider...how can we teach employees to use social media as an advantage? How can we use social media to our advantage in learning and development? BizLibrary has added some great social media courses to the BizLibrary Collection . The short videos range from foundational knowledge on different sites like LinkedIn, Facebook and Twitter to more advanced courses on measuring impact and creating campaigns. Here's a sample of an introductory course on LinkedIn:       THE BEST LEADERS ARE INSATIABLE LEARNERS via hbr.org In these head-spinning times, the challenge for leaders is not to out-hustle, out-muscle, or out-maneuver the competition. It is to out-think the competition in ways big and small, to develop a unique point of view about the future and get there before anyone else does. The best leaders aren't just the boldest thinkers; they are the most insatiable learners.   Why you should be interested? According to numerous industry reports, leadership development continues to be the area where most organizations are investing their training and development dollars. Why? Because leadership development has the biggest and most immediate impact. This article is full of great and inspiring quotes that you can share with your employees. Some of my favorite include:   "It's what you learn after you know it all that counts." Proverb   "When you're a kid, every day is full of firsts, full of new experiences. As you get older, your firsts become fewer and fewer. If you want to stay young, you have to work to keep trying new things." Roy Spence, author of The 10 Essential Hugs of Life.   "Are you learning, as an organization and as an individual, as fast as the world is changing?" Bill Taylor   FORGET THE BUS! DEVELOP TALENT TO CREATE A FAST, NIMBLE FLEET via @JesseLynStoner Organizations need people who know what they’re doing, where they’re going, and have the skills to get there. We call that "talent." According to the article the best way to infuse your organization with talent is to develop it internally.   Why you should be interested? As learning and development professionals we know that developing our employees is critical to the success of our organization. The article outlines clear benefits and helps create a pretty powerful visual analogy that you can use when presenting the business case for your employee learning and development in initiatives.   A gas guzzling bus vs. a fast nimble fleet of vehicles...   Stay curious and keep learning.     Jessica Petry is a Senior Marketing Specialist at BizLibrary. LinkedIn Twitter About.me Scoop.it             Try out BizLibrary's Online Library! BizLibrary provides 7,000+ training videos and eLearning courses in various business training topics, with new courses added every day.   Got Content? How to Use Off-the-Shelf Content to Build Strong Employee Learning Programs In this eBook we’ll discuss how to incorporate off-the-shelf learning content into your employee learning program. BizLibrary's Mobile Learning App meets the needs of today's digital learners. Employees no longer wait for training departments to push learning content to them. Employees are used to pulling information to themselves, when they need it, on their own terms and conditions, and on their own devices.

by Kevin Siegel      I've been creating eLearning since the early 1990s. Back then, eLearning (or E-Learning, pick your style) was known as CBT (Computer Based Training).My first attempts at creating software video training was with a program called CameraMan. That program was ahead of its time, allowing you to capture your mouse actions, add captions and audio, and then publish into a video format that could be viewed on most computers. It was awesome software for the times but crashed a lot and had very few options. It was pretty much a record-pray-publish kind of tool.When TechSmith released Camtasia I gave CameraMan the heave-ho and began producing slicker content in half the time. Then RoboDemo came out (RoboDemo later became Adobe Captivate) and I was quick to add that to my toolbox.Today you have plenty of options when it comes to developing eLearning, including Camtasia, Captivate, Storyline, and two Presenters (one from Adobe, the other from Articulate).While developing content for my Getting Started with eLearning mini course, I became curious about the origins of eLearning. As I mentioned above, I began developing eLearning 20 years ago. Surely that makes me one of the more senior eLearning developers around. It turns out I'm am just a young pup when it comes to eLearning. In fact, at a recent conference I met a person who said she started developing eLearning 30 years ago. 30 years ago? Wait, wouldn't that be the 1980s? Sure computers were around in the 80s... I was an early Mac adopter and I remember PCs with early versions of Windows (heck, I used DOS and floppy disks when they were still floppy). Those early computers struggled to do just about anything beyond word processing. How could anyone have developed eLearning on those early systems?At the same conference, I met another person who said he was creating eLearning in the late 1970s. And that got me thinking... just how far back does eLearning go? And who was the first person or company to provide eLearning?It turns out that eLearning really got going in 1953 when the University of Houston offered televised college credit classes. A few years later, the first adaptive teaching system (named SAKI) went into commercial production. Basically, with this system, the course got more challenging as learners improved.When I was creating eLearning in the 1990s, the eLearning content I published consisted of video files that were huge. The files wouldn't fit on a floppy disk and computer hard drives weren't very big. Thankfully, DVDs were available (expensive, but available). The content I published was burned to a DVD, and then I hired a DVD replicating service to mass produce my content.With the ever-growing popularity and power of the Internet and cloud computing, the need for DVDs went the way of the dinosaur. While many people think the Internet got started in the late 1990s, it came along far earlier. In 1969 the U.S. Department of Defense commissioned the Advanced Research Projects Agency Network (ARPANET), which became the Internet as we know it today.In the 1970s, a company started delivering live training over corporate networks in what they dubbed "virtual classrooms." And in the 1980s, the first CBTs were rolled out. In my discussion with the conference attendees I mentioned earlier, they revealed that those first CBTs were little more than teaching machines. And while they were limited in scope, they were nevertheless CBTs.What's your earliest memory of eLearning? What tools did you use back then? And when did you first notice eLearning replacing the term CBT? Feel free to post your experience below as a comment. ***If you'd like to learn more about eLearning, come hang out in my next eLearning basics mini course. And if you'd like to learn more about the history of eLearning, the infographic below is a great place to start.   Source: Roberta Gogos, Social Media & Content Marketing Consultant. 

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As you may have noticed, I have been mostly inactive online for the better part of the year (on a bit of a sabbatical from Tech if you will) and now I’m slowly coming back, more excited than before, motivated, inspired and ready for the new year! Looking back, perhaps I should have done this right after leaving Adobe. I’m feeling refreshed and ready for round two with new ideas for my blog, books, courses on mLearning, presentations, and excited to take on a new projects for organizations looking to mobilize their learning. Technology moves fast and waits for no one and right now I’m in catch-up mode, reading up everything I missed and reviewing product updates, and here are 9 things I’m really excited about: 1. Storyline 2.0 and the new Android Support and Sliders - I’m now working on a review of Storyline 2.0 and there’s a lot to be excited about, especially the new Android support and Sliders, which I personally believe is one of the ways to re-imagine eLearning on Desktop into thumb-friendly mLearning on any device. Kudos to Articulate! 2. Techsmith’s new AppShow, Mac and Windows mobile features, including TechSmith Fuse - I see that my friends over at TechSmith have been busy embracing the mobile revolution by adding features that make it easy to develop mLearning. The idea that you can use Camtasia on a Mac to record your iPhone and then add mobile gestures to the recording is very exciting to me and should be to you, too. They also have a mobile App called Fuse, that can allow you to record video on the go and then import it into Camtasia to supplement your projects. This is exactly the type of innovation we need these days from Tools vendors. Kudos to TechSmith! 3. Captivate’s new Responsive Workflows - I’m also excited to see that Adobe has been listening to us bloggers about adding truly important functionality into Captivate for mobile learning and while I’ve only started testing Captivate 8’s responsive workflows, I see a lot of potential. Kudos to Adobe! 4. Mobile Learning in General - The Mobile revolution waits for no one and much has evolved in the past few months, Apple has bigger phones, that once again challenge everything we knew about designing for 4.7″ screens, the onslaught of new Android phones continue and we need to constantly adjust how we address all of these new mobile devices in our learning design. 5. Skype Translator - Microsoft has been busy working on some exciting technology for Skype. Turns out that an upcoming version of Skype will translate the spoken language between two people, all on the fly while they chat. This is amazing and it opens up a whole lot of possibilities for the future of education, colaboration and learning in general. If you haven’t seen it, take a few minutes to watch this video: Kudos to Microsoft and the Skype team! 6. Wearable Technology - As Samsung would say, this is the next big thing after mobile and I’m excited about it. Having said that, I’m still not convinced an iWatch-like device is supposed to be a simple replacement or even an extension of today’s mobile smartphones, I think there’s more to it, but I do think what we see today from Apple and Samsung are a good start, to at least start thinking and brainstorming about it. I think what Google is doing with their Glass project is a more accurate view into the future of wearable tech, so I’m excited about that, too. 7. Amazon Echo - When I first heard about this new product from Amazon I thought it was a crazy idea but not anymore, I think Amazon is on to something. I recently received my new Amazon FireTV stick, which allows me to connect it to any of my TVs and stream most anything from Amazon, including Prime video. That’s pretty cool. Echo to me is an illustration that voice recognition is an exciting technological advancement and a better way to communicate with our devices, through natural speech recognition. I don’t have one right now but will eventually buy one. Kudos to Amazon and the Echo team! 8. ProProfs - I came across this company that is doing big things in Learning and it made me wonder whether the future of Learning Design apps will be web-based vs. the traditional desktop based apps we use today. I plan on posting a review but in case you haven’t looked at it, I recommend you check them out. They have a number of products online, but the one that caught my eye as innovative is Quizzes. What I find unique about ProProfs is that they are ‘democratizing‘ the creation of Quizzes by allowing anyone to create assessments in a few minutes and by knowing little about the subject. Say you are tasked with creating a Quiz for HR on ‘new hire training’ and you don’t know where to start. Just type ‘New Hire Training’ into the search box and just like that ProProfs returns 11,181 quizzes on the topic and you can reuse any question in any of them for developing your own quiz. Now that is amazing in my mind, and it challenges everything we know about creating learning today. According to their web site, there have over 100,000 quizzes and assessments that users can reuse. Kudos to ProProfs! 9. Mindfulness - I watched this fascinating piece on 60 minutes by Anderson Cooper on Mindfulness, which is the idea of being present in the now through meditation and I started practicing it and recommend it to anyone, who is involved in technology especially mobile technology with all the distractions it comes with. Here’s a short video: http://bit.ly/rjacquezMindfulness What are you excited about? These are the things that I’m excited about, how about you? What Can I do to Help? As I prepare for an awesome 2015, I’ve been thinking a lot about where to focus my time, especially here on my blog, but why not ask you. What can I do to help you with your eLearning and Mobile Learning projects? What is it that you are struggling with and what type of topics can I write about to help you? Equally as important, what topics are not of interest to you that I should not spend time blogging about? It would mean a lot to me if you share your honest feedback with me. Either leave a public comment below or write to me directly via the simple form on my About Page. Thank You for your time reading my blog and here’s to an amazingly productive 2015! Back from a year-long Sabbatical from Tech: 9 Things I’m excited about was first posted on December 18, 2014 at 9:35 am.©2014 "The mLearning Revolution Blog". Use of this feed is for personal non-commercial use only. If you are not reading this article in your feed reader, then the site is guilty of copyright infringement. Please contact me at rjjacquez@gmail.com

by Willam Van Weelden     Last week, Kevin taught you how to embed YouTube videos in your eLearning projects. This week I'm going to keep with the YouTube theme and show you how you can embed YouTube content into your RoboHelp project. Go to YouTube and locate the video you'd like to use. Click the Share button below the video. Go to the Embed tab and copy the embed code. In RoboHelp, open a topic and switch to HTML mode. Paste the embed code in the topic. In the src attribute, type http: in front of the url. Save your topic and generate your output. See also: Embedding Captivate HTML5 output in a RoboHelp project. *** Looking to learn RoboHelp? We offer a live, two-day online RoboHelp class once a month. Feel free to contact us to learn other ways to meet your RoboHelp training requirements.

View and download the webinar slides. View the webinar recording.     Additional Resources, Information and Inspiration:   "...if employees' relationship with their managers is fractured, then no amount of perks will persuade the employees to perform at top levels. Employee engagement is a direct reflection of how employees feel about their relationship with the boss." Source: Self-determination Theory And Facilitation Of Intrinsic Motivation, Social Development And Well-being, American Psychologist Association   From Bud to Boss: Secrets to Successful Transition to Remarkable Leadership by Kevin Eikenberry and Guy Harris   A Succession Plan for First Time Managers, Maria Plakhotnik and Tonette S. Rocco,   T&D Magazine, December 2011   Why Good Managers are So Rare, Harvard Business Review   When a Millenial Moves from Buddy to Boss, American Management Association   Drive by Daniel Pink         7 HR Law Training Topics for New Managers (and Experienced Ones Too!) In this eBook we’ll discuss: The main legal pitfalls that new managers need to avoid and what their legal responsibilities are as a manager The challenges faced by new managers The risk and costs associated with not training managers on employment law Legal responsibilities of managers.   Try out BizLibrary's Online Library! BizLibrary provides 7,000+ training videos and eLearning courses in various business training topics, with new courses added every day.   Got Content? How to Use Off-the-Shelf Content to Build Strong Employee Learning Programs In this eBook we’ll discuss how to incorporate off-the-shelf learning content into your employee learning program. BizLibrary's Mobile Learning App meets the needs of today's digital learners. Employees no longer wait for training departments to push learning content to them. Employees are used to pulling information to themselves, when they need it, on their own terms and conditions, and on their own devices.

image credit: table xi Three years ago when I began focusing on mobile learning, I looked at the most popular rapid eLearning development tools and I was convinced there was very little chance they could re-invent themselves into decent mobile learning design tools. However today after several iterations to their products, most vendors have made great strides in reimagining they products, and I’m not so sure I believe that anymore. There were simply too many things going against these tools back then, for example the fact that Adobe Flash is not supported on mobile devices, the myriad of mobile devices coming out with different screen sizes and operating systems, and perhaps most importantly the fact that most eLearning tools are based on a ‘fixed sized’ slide paradigm, etc. All of these I thought would make it extremely difficult for vendors to overcome. Thankfully I was wrong and today we see these companies embrace the mobile revolution, and with each update, they are overcoming these limitations and enabling their users to design learning that is more suitable for consumption on multiple screens, so kudos to them! There’s much more work ahead but they are definitely off to a great start. Looking at the two biggest players in this space, Articulate and Adobe, it’s worth noting that both companies have taken different approaches to mLearning design. Articulate’s mobile learning strategy is mostly via their native app, called Articulate Mobile Player, which was initially only available on the iPad and in their latest versions of Storyline and Studio, is now also available on Android, too.   Adobe with Captivate 8 has chosen to go the Responsive Web Design route in order to enable users to create learning for multiple devices. I’m still in the early testing stages, but from what I’ve seen, I think there’s potential. My Question to You There are multiple advantages and disadvantages two both approaches, which approach do you think is better, Articulate’s native app approach, or Adobe’s Responsive Design and why? If you were a long-term investor, where would you put your money and why? Cast in your vote below and leave a comment sharing the why for your answer. Note: There is a poll embedded within this post, please visit the site to participate in this post's poll. What is the future of #mLearning Design? Storyline’s native app vs. Captivate’s Responsive Design [Poll] was first posted on December 22, 2014 at 10:21 am.©2014 "The mLearning Revolution Blog". Use of this feed is for personal non-commercial use only. If you are not reading this article in your feed reader, then the site is guilty of copyright infringement. Please contact me at rjjacquez@gmail.com

Written by Chris Osborn   In today's Q&A, we discuss the questions you should be asking before you consider implementing off-the-shelf content and provide suggestions to help you make the right choice.     Access 7,000+ Employee Training Resources BizLibrary offers 7,000+ training videos in various business training topics, with new courses added every day.   Got Content? In this eBook we discuss how to decide what’s right for your employees and organization, how to incorporate off-the-shelf learning resources into an effective employee learning strategy, and how to find the right off-the-shelf solution for your organization.. BizLibrary's Mobile Learning App meets the needs of today's digital learners. Employees no longer wait for training departments to push learning content to them. Employees are used to pulling information to themselves, when they need it, on their own terms and conditions, and on their own devices. Video Transcription Hi, Chris Osborn, VP of Marketing with BizLibrary with today's Q&A. It comes from Phil, he's a training manager at a financial services organization. He wanted to know a little bit more about the key questions to ask as he looks for an off-the-shelf learning conten t provider. Well, Phil is starting in a perfect place. He wants to ask the right questions, and that's exactly where any organization looking to deliver great content to employees should start.   Content is king. You have to deliver great learning content to your employees if you expect behaviors to change, knowledge to increase, skill to grow, or most important: performance to improve. The challenge is whether your organization can build enough content to meet the growing and complex learning needs of your employees in today's market. So the first question to ask: can we build all of the content we need ? Can we build content in key competency areas like leadership, management, supervisory skills, communication, sales, customer service, compliance, health and safety, or IT and desktop computing? The most common answer for organizations is no, but really why would you even want to? Focus your energy on content development in areas that are really critical to your subject matter expertise or unique to your own organization.   The next question you need to ask is how much content exists in this collection we're looking at? Quantity matters! You want to make sure you have a deep, broad selection of topics and courses within those topics to meet the learning styles and preferences of all your employees. Next, what is the quality of the collection? Are the courses current? How often are new courses added? Next, you want to ask about the format of the courses. How are the courses going to be delivered to your employees? Remember, most of your employees are likely already using mobile devices to access information they need to perform their job, so can you find a collection that they can access on mobile devices ? You would be surprised at how many content collections on the market are not mobile optimized. Last, but not least, do you need an LMS or technology platform along with the content? If so, look for a content partner that can deliver both a content collection and high quality LMS platform in one, all-inclusive solution.   Okay, is there such a solution out there? Well, as a matter of fact, there is, and it's right here at BizLibrary! We offer the largest collection of content anyplace on the market, and it includes 7200 mobile-optimized video courses ready for you right now. Oh, and it comes with one of the top learning management systems on the entire market! Just click on the button to get a free trial started and gain immediate access to 7 courses right now and check it out for yourself!

by Jennie Ruby    "My 8th grade English teacher taught me this little gem many years ago" says Laura Witte:   "Never use a preposition to end a sentence with!" Witte also gives us this one: "Off of sounds like you're stuttering. (Just off will suffice.)" Both of these are about that perennial problem of ending a sentence with an UNNECESSARY preposition, which so many people misremember as "never end a sentence with a preposition under any circumstances." The true test is whether you can delete the unneeded preposition, and both of Witte's examples beautifully illustrate that concept. If you delete with and of, the sentences retain their meaning. Contrast those with instances where the ending preposition is actually part of the verb, completing and changing its meaning: I didn't need the receipt, so I threw it out. Here, if you delete out, you change the meaning. So just keep the preposition at the end. Years ago, teachers would have us revise the order of a sentence this way in order to avoid ending with a perfectly fine, necessary preposition: That is not the ladder you are supposed to go up. That is not the ladder up which you are supposed to go. If you find yourself in this sort of mess, a better answer is to recast the sentence as That is not the ladder you are supposed to use. Here are some more memory aids for spelling, along with warm memories of the teachers who gave them to us. Krista Wolter writes: Seeing the posts from others reminded me of one from high school. Our chemistry teacher taught us "there is a rat in separate." He took points off your lab work if you spelled separate wrong. I still think of him when I type that word. Sherrie L. Trechel says, "I am a fan of a memory aid a friend told me about long ago for loose vs. lose":  "You can't lose your nose." And I really related to Elaine Study's experience described here, when she remembered that "There are 3 e's buried in cemetery." Elaine said "I will never forget a few years ago I was watching the TV show 'JAG' with my husband and the scene location printed on the screen was "___________ Cemetary. "I was so outraged at the misspelling on a national TV show that I kept chanting at the screen, "There are 3 e's buried in cemetery!  There are 3 e's buried in cemetery! My husband's response was, "I didn't know that."' And that reminded me of one of my own tricks--how to remember the difference between stationery and stationary. "Stationery is about envelopes." (e) "When you are stationary, you are standing still." (a) Send me more if you've got them..   *** If you love Jennie's articles, you'll love her classes. Check out some of Jennie's mini courses.

by Lori Smith    Adobe Captivate has provided System Variables for years. In fact, there are more than 70 Captivate System Variables in Captivate version 8. Unfortunately, many developers don't use System Variables because they either don't know about them or don't know how to use them.This week I'm beginning a series of articles that will take you through Captivate's System Variables, one group at a time. First up, Date variables, which are a subset of the System Information variables (variables that pull their information from the learner's computer when a Captivate lesson runs).  The table below lists the different date variables available in Captivate.  For this example, let's say that today's date is Sunday, November 17, 2002. If you need  to build your own date string that showed only the month and the year (11/2002), you could simply insert a text caption like this: If I were to use the System Variable cpInfoCurrentDay in a text caption, the learner would see the word "Sunday" on the slide if it's Sunday, "Friday" if it's Friday, and so on. But what if I want the learner to see the current day of the week in a specific format ("Sun" for Sunday; "Fri" for Friday, etc.)? Because there isn't a System Variable for that, I need to step in and create a user variable along with a little Advanced Action.First I created a user variable called myDayOfTheWeek. (You can create a user variable via Project > Variables.) Then I created an Advanced Action named DayOfTheWeek.In the image below, notice that I used the provided cpInfoCurrentDay System Variable in the If area of the Action and compared it to 1 using the is equal to comparison. I used the myDayOfTheWeek user variable in the Actions area (shown above). My Advanced Action contains seven Decision Blocks, one for each day of the week (some of the Decision Blocks are shown in the image above where you see blue word "Sunday").Here's the recipe I used when I created each of those Decision Blocks. I used the myDayOfTheWeek user variable in a text caption and that was that.  As far as I'm concerned, the most interesting date variable iscpInfoCurrentLocaleDateString. For my computer, it displays November 17, 2002. But for my friend's computer, the same lesson displays Sunday November 17, 2002. Curious as to why, I accessed my computer's time and date setting (Control Panel > Clock, Language, and Region > Change date, time, or number formats). My settings looked like this: I changed my Long date to this: ... and my Captivate lesson displayed the date as Sunday, November 17, 2002.See also: Adobe Captivate's System Time Variables  *** Looking to learn Adobe Captivate? We offer several Captivate classes. Feel free to contact us to learn other ways to meet your training requirements.

View and download the webinar slides. View the webinar recording.   Try out BizLibrary's Online Library! BizLibrary provides 7,000+ training videos and eLearning courses in various business training topics, with new courses added every day.   Got Content? How to Use Off-the-Shelf Content to Build Strong Employee Learning Programs In this eBook we’ll discuss how to incorporate off-the-shelf learning content into your employee learning program. BizLibrary's Mobile Learning App meets the needs of today's digital learners. Employees no longer wait for training departments to push learning content to them. Employees are used to pulling information to themselves, when they need it, on their own terms and conditions, and on their own devices.

OMD research: viewers switch devices regularly while the TV is on (Image credit: Nathan Daniels)   6 Reasons Why Responsive Design Makes sense as the Future of #eLearning and #mLearning http://t.co/14qp7Oi0Bc — RJ Jacquez (@rjacquez) March 5, 2015 How many devices do you own? For me, the answer is a whole lot, perhaps too many. I have two iPads, two iPhones, a Samsung Galaxy Tab 10″, a Nexus 7, a Moto X, an old Motorola Xoom, three Kindles, a touch-enabled Windows 8 laptop, two Apple MacBook Pro laptops, an iMac and a Windows 8 PC. What about you, how many devices do you own? If you answered more than one, we are not alone here. According to Cisco, by the end of 2014, the number of mobile-connected devices exceeded the number of people on earth, and by 2017, there will be nearly 1.4 mobile devices per capita. What’s your time to screen in the morning? In other words, how long does it take from the time you open your eyes in the morning to the time you reach for one of your devices? How would you describe your daily use of mobile devices? If you are like me, you probably start with your smallest device and work your way up slowly until you get to your PC. Also, if you are like me, you probably find yourself doing more and more work on your mobile devices and less and less on your PC. How many times do you pick up your smartphone throughout the day? Here’s another one. How many times do you reach for your smartphone even when you are in front of a fully capable Mac or PC computer? A Tecmark Survey finds the average user picks up their smartphone 221 times a day? How close are you to this number? How many times do you find yourself switching between devices, especially at home when watching television? Another survey found that People change the device they are using an average of 21 times an hour when they are at home, according to findings from OMD UK’s Future of Britain research project. To say that Mobile has been a game-changer in our lives is an understatement. Today more and more of us live our lives across multiple screens. According to Google, 90% of users use multiple screens sequentially to accomplish a task over time. So what does this have to do with Learning Design? The answer is simple, we live in a multi-device, multi-screen world and we need to embrace it and design learning with this reality in mind! In other words, simply designing e-Learning for a desktop computer is no longer a viable option! One positive change I have noticed in the past two years, is that we have gone from asking ‘why should I care about Mobile Learning?’ to ‘how should I design Mobile Learning?’ and that is great news. Here’s another powerful truth that will make you think twice about your current learning design strategy. Today you don’t get to decide which devices Learners use to access your learning! So How Should We Design Mobile Learning? When you consider the new multi-device, multi-screen world we live in and the idea that we no longer get to control which devices learners want to use to access our learning, the answer to this question becomes quite obvious. We need to design learning that is intelligent, flexible and fluid to work everywhere and on any device, content that is device-agnostic if you will. Here’s what I wrote about this in my previous post: This is how we should view the future of learning design and consumption, we should focus on designing learning that is flexible and fluid across multiple screens; intelligent learning, that always points learners to a single URL, and avoid at all cause the need for installing different native apps for different mobile operating systems, in order for learners to access the learning. via 10 Things Adobe gets Right about Mobile Learning with Captivate 8 [Review] | The mLearning Revolution Blog. This is why I’m excited about Responsive Web Design (RWD) and why I believe it makes perfect sense as the future of Learning Design in the 21st century because it takes all of these trends into consideration. This is also why I encourage you to choose your Learning Design tools wisely and lean towards those with support for Responsive Learning Design, for example, the new Adobe Captivate 8. Here are some more reasons why Responsive Web Design makes sense in Learning Design: 1. The Web. No Apps. No Downloads. The first reason why Responsive Web Design makes sense for designing future learning is that it’s web-based, which means that your learning will be accessible via a single URL. For your Learners, it means they won’t need a mobile app to consume the learning. This is especially important when you consider if you choose to distribute learning through a native mobile app, learners will need to have an app per mobile OS, i.e Apple iOS, Android, Windows Phone, etc. 2. One Learning. Multiple Devices. When you adopt e-Learning and m-Learning Design tools that support Responsive Web Design, you don’t have to worry about building and maintaining multiple projects, each targeting different devices with different resolutions and screen sizes. With tools that support Responsive Learning projects, you simply build and maintain a single project, publish it and that’s it. Learners will access your learning in the same way they have in the past, through a web browser, and by using the device of their choice. 3. Responsive Web Design is LMS friendly Another advantage of continuing to design learning around web technologies is that your mobile learning is Learning Management System (LMS) friendly, which means that you don’t have to switch LMS vendors in order to create learning modules that will be accessible anytime, anywhere and from any device. 4. Simple Publishing By embracing Responsive Web Design, you don’t have to worry about specific publishing options for different learners, using different browsers, technology, devices, mobile OSes and screen sizes. Take for example Articulate Storyline 2 which does not support Responsive Design and Adobe Captivate 8, which does. In Captivate 8, when you create Learning based on the new Responsive Project option, you simply select File > Publish, give it a name and click Publish. That’s all there is to it. The learning can now be viewed on any device, desktop computers and laptops, Tablets, and Smartphones. Just the way it should be. In Captivate 8, when you create Learning based on the new Responsive Project option, you simply select File > Publish, give it a name and click Publish. That’s all there is to it. The learning can now be viewed on any device, desktop computers and laptops, Tablets, and Smartphones. Just the way it should be. In Articulate Storyline, things are not so simple. Case in point, here’s an excerpt from a Storyline web page, explaining what you need to keep in mind whenever you target different scenarios, like whether the learner has a device that support Flash, or a browser that supports for HTML5 or their proprietary mobile app, the Articulate Mobile Player: Step 3: Choose HTML5 and/or Mobile Publishing Options If learners will view content on a device that doesn’t support Flash, use the following options to make your course viewable in HTML5, the Articulate Mobile Player app, or both. Include HTML5 output: This prepares your course so that it’s viewable as HTML5 content. Bear in mind that not all web browsers handle HTML5 content equally. See this article for supported HTML5 browsers. Use Articulate Mobile Player for iOS or Android: This prepares your course so learners have the best viewing experience on iPads and Android tablets, using Articulate’s free mobile player app. via Publishing a Course for Web - E-Learning Heroes. As I said in my previous post, Articulate and Adobe approach mobile learning design very differently and while I applaud both companies for taking different routes, in my humble opinion, I feel that Adobe is winning in the space of Mobile Learning by embracing Responsive Web Design. 5. Happier Learners I mentioned above that as Learning Designers we cannot control what devices our Learners will use to access our learning and that we need to design with this truth in mind. When you design learning that is intelligent and fluid regardless of the device and the size of the screen, the result is happy learners. 6. Responsive Web Design is future-proof 7 years ago we were blindsided by the speed with which the mobile revolution took over, and while we don’t know exactly what the future of computing holds for us, one thing is for sure, we will continue to see more and more mobile smartphones, tablets, touch-enabled computers, oh and the wearables are coming, too. The number of different screen sizes between all of these devices will continue to increase and the only way to future-proof our learning design is by designing fluid content that can scale intelligently across all of these screens! The number of different screen sizes between all of these devices will continue to increase, and the only way to future-proof our learning design is by designing fluid content that can scale intelligently across all of these screens! Conclusion For a long time, I have thought that the e-Learning and m-Learning tools that support Responsive Web Design principles would win big in this space and was always disappointed that with every new version, vendors would come out of their software, no one was implementing RWD. Fast forward 3 years later and here we are now living in exciting times, where software vendors are now taking mLearning design very seriously. I am especially excited about Adobe Captivate 8 and I encourage you to download a trial and give the new Responsive Project features a try, it is really well done. When I first tried it, I realized this is the version of Captivate that I have been waiting for a long time. Over to you Where are you right now in terms of adopting a more holistic, multi-screen, multi-device learning design strategy, and what are your thoughts on Responsive Learning Design? Please chime in below and share this post. 6 Reasons Why Responsive Design Makes sense as the Future of e-Learning and m-Learning Design was first posted on March 4, 2015 at 11:00 am.©2014 "The mLearning Revolution Blog". Use of this feed is for personal non-commercial use only. If you are not reading this article in your feed reader, then the site is guilty of copyright infringement. Please contact me at rjjacquez@gmail.com

by Jen Weaver     Ah, the Kingdom of the Netherlands. Today let's explore some common cultural facts about the Dutch and their expectations when it comes to training and development.  Test your Knowledge of Dutch Culture True or False? Another name for the Netherlands is Holland. True or False? The Netherlands ranks among the top 12 trading nations in the world. True or False? The Netherlands is part of NATO. Quick Tips for Training & Development in the Netherlands1: Guard your words carefully. The Dutch highly value honesty and will take your statements at face value. Avoid exaggeration or misinformation as well. Make sure every point is substantiated by real data. While Dutch is the official language of the Netherlands, English is also widely understood. Find out from your in-country contacts if translation of your training materials is preferred. Outside information is often perceived as risky and viewed with caution. Greater importance is given to facts over emotion. Subjective arguments are not accepted as valid reasoning for decision-making. Decision-making is slow and involved, but resolutions are final. While it's difficult as a perceived outsider to form relationships with the Dutch, you'll find friendship and mutual respect go a long way in gaining buy-in from your students and local contacts. The Dutch favor hierarchy with clearly defined roles and structure.  Compliments and accolades are paid to the group as a whole, not to individual participants. In the same way, individuals are not singled-out for mistakes-rather, issues are attributed to a faulty system or failed oversight. If you must address an individual's achievements or shortcomings directly, do so in private. Consistent with their structured culture, punctuality is of great importance to the Dutch. Planning is a key component of daily life, and time must be used efficiently. In fact, people who arrive late may be assumed to be incompetent or untrustworthy since they are apparently unable to manage their time. Spontaneity is not a virtue. Dutch communication is straightforward and professional, with preference given to efficiency over pleasantries. In some industries, employees with higher rank may dress more casually than lower-level staff. Executives may dress in jeans and a button-up shirt while support staff are in suits. Knowledge Answers from Above: False. Holland, which includes Amsterdam, Rotterdam, and the Hague, is only a part of the Netherlands. True. True. It's also part of the European Community. References:   1Morrison, Terri, & Conaway, Wayne A. (2006). Kiss, bow, or shake hands (2nd ed.). Avon: Adams Media.   *** Developing international training and development materials? Contact Jen at Carmazzi Global Solutions. And if you love Jen's articles, check out her new Localization mini courses.

This week's interesting finds from across the web. Curated by Jessica Petry @JessLPetry   HOW TO HANG ON TO YOUR HIGH POTENTIALS via hbr.org The war for talent shows no signs of letting up, even in sectors experiencing modest growth. According to a global study, only 15% of companies in North America and Asia believe that they have enough qualified successors for key positions.   One important finding highlighed in the article and research was that the effective management of the next generation of leaders always encompasses three sets of activities. The first involves the establishment of clear strategic priorities, which shape the way companies groom high-potential leaders. The second involves the careful selection of high-potential candidates—and communicating who they are to others in the organization. This can be touchy. And the third comprises the management of talent itself—how high potentials are developed, rewarded, and retained.    Why you should be interested? Succession Planning. This is a top priority at most of our organizations as more and more employees are approaching retirement. In a matter of just a few years we went from worrying if we were going actually keep our jobs - to facing the fact that our employees skills need some fine tuning if we want to remain competitive and successful organizations. This article poses great questions to get you thinking about your high potentials and the strategic value to your organization. It also outlines a helpful framework that you can adapt and apply in your own organization.     KEVIN SPACEY'S TOP 3 TIPS FOR BETTER STORYTELLING. YES, THAT KEVIN SPACEY via cmo.com Kevin Spacey was a keynote speaker at "Content Marketing World" a conference with more than 2,500 attendees."Isn’t good storytelling just luck and a guessing game?" he asked. "No. Good content marketing is not a crap shoot—it has always been about the story.".   Why you should be interested? Better yet, why the heck are you including an article about content marketing? Ever heard the phrase "you're not in training, you're in marketing." Chris Osborn , BizLibrary's VP of Marketing, shared this take-away with me after a conference he attended a few years ago. It's crazy how similar learning and development and marketing are.   You need to get someone from point A to point B. Whether that's encouraging an employee to improve performance or enticing a consumer to try your product. Not that different. The strategies are pretty similar. To get employees engaged with our learning and development initiatives we should apply some of the best practices shared by Spacey. Everyone loves a great story! I hope you get inspired by this article and the three key elements that make better stories.   THE EDUCATOR WITH A GROWTH MINDSET: A STAFF WORKSHOP via Jackie Gerstein Ed.D This link - not really an article - includes activities and resources from a teacher and staff workshop on growth mindsets.   Why you should be interested?   In addition to a lot of education-focused resources. There are some really forward-thinking ideas for the actual structure of a learning event/activity. The workshop consisted of pre and post work, social learning, video, and more. I'm sure you'll start thinking about how you can incorporate some of these elements into your own workshops.   Stay curious and keep learning.     Jessica Petry is a Senior Marketing Specialist at BizLibrary. LinkedIn Twitter About.me Scoop.it             Try out BizLibrary's Online Library! BizLibrary provides 7,000+ training videos and eLearning courses in various business training topics, with new courses added every day.   Got Content? How to Use Off-the-Shelf Content to Build Strong Employee Learning Programs In this eBook we’ll discuss how to incorporate off-the-shelf learning content into your employee learning program. BizLibrary's Mobile Learning App meets the needs of today's digital learners. Employees no longer wait for training departments to push learning content to them. Employees are used to pulling information to themselves, when they need it, on their own terms and conditions, and on their own devices.

As part of the eLearning Tour, Christopher von Koschembahr demonstrated a podcast where he conducted an interview.  The interviewer was a female voice asking questions.  She would ask a question and then he would respond.  What was interesting is that the interviewer was produced using Text to Speech.  You can listen to the result at the 12:23 mark of the first video on the eLearning Tour page. The effect was interesting.  For short bursts of text, the computer generated voice was okay.  Thus, it works well with the interview structure.  Of course, you quickly know that he's written the questions.  Still it works for me.  In general, I think the response during the session was positive. Based on the comments during the session, a few questions came up: Does Text to Speech work for longer form content? Captivate 4 contains built in Text to Speech.  Are people using that much?  For what kinds of content? I did a couple of tests with a few of the free Text to Speech services that I found to see what something that's a big longer would sound like.  I tried YAKiToMe!, Feed2Podcast, SpokenText, and ReadTheWords.  None of them produced something that I could listen to for any length of time.  My conclusion - Text to Speech works for short bursts, not for longer amounts of content.   I'd be curious what anyone is doing out there with Text to Speech beyond the example that Chris discussed. Anyone using it in their Captivate courses?  How?  How much text do you use? eLearning Technology Browse eLearning Content

by Jennie Ruby   This week I bring you more spelling and word usage aids. Aimee Bosse brings us three that are more about word usage than just spelling. These pairs of words are easily confused, so a memory aid is the best way to keep them straight, short of looking them up every time you use them. Torturous (pertaining to torture) versus tortuous (indirect, not straightforward)--think of the extra R in torturous for Really painful.Discreet (showing prudence) versus discrete (separate, distinct)--you separate the e's with the t.Premier (head of state or first in rank) versus premiere (first public showing)--not sure of an easy way to remember, for me an extra e makes it look more fancy [you have to really dress up to go to the premiere--JR]. Lisa J Stumpf gives us another version of the desert versus dessert distinction: You want more dessert so use more letters--two s's. And one more, just on spelling, brought to us by Marsha Kuhn: My seventh grade teacher told us that the "villain lives in the villa." Grammar Pet Peeves: Word Crimes While sending in these memory aids, several of you wrote in to tell me about Weird Al's video "Word Crimes." I totally love it! Thank you! Check it out if you have not seen it before. And in the spirit of Word Crimes, this week I'd like to hear from you about your grammar pet peeves-you know you have them! Aimee Bosse starts us off with these: Residence versus residents: this should be a no-brainer! Someone living in my college dorm actually wrote a sign asking "residence" to be considerate of others.   Feel free to post your grammar pet peeves below as comments. *** If you love Jennie's articles, you'll love her classes. Check out some of Jennie's mini courses.

One of the coolest things about working for BizLibrary is unlimited Learning! Each month BizLibrary Employees share their favorite courses. This month features employees from Bizlibrary's Content, Marketing and Sales Teams.     October Pix from Left to Right:   Sarah Coleman, Content Coordinator   Be S.A.F.E. (Not Sorry) Preventing Violence in the Workplace Violence does not just occur in darkened alleyways; it is also a very real part of the workplace setting. Approximately two million assaults and threats of violence occur in the workplace each and every year. This video provides factual information with small vignettes that explains how serious the situation is and different forms of workplace violence. The video is easy to watch and does an excellent job explaining the different ideas. The vignettes provide a more "human touch" to a topic that many may not have thought of before watching this video. View the video preview below:   Debbie Williams, Vice President of Operations   Persuasive Presentation Skills: Go For the Goal (Part 1) Most of us at one point in our lives need to be able to stand up in front of a group and deliver a presentation. Our newest producer partner, Mary Sandro of ProEdge Skills, created this video series to share her expertise in this area. Mary presents her tips in a fun, quick and energetic way. It all starts with setting a presentation goal…watch this 4 minute video and you are on your way to obtaining "persuasive presentation skills." There are three follow-up videos in this series. View the video preview below:   Chris Osborn, Vice President of Marketing  @chrisosbornstl   Impedership Leadership is such a critical part of business success, but so many people just get it flat out wrong. This video really does a great job of explaining some of the most common things "impeders" do that get in the way of motivating team. What’s great about the video is just how often we’ve seen these very behaviors! View the video preview below:   Dirk Engel, Account Executive   Creating Great Customer Conversation According to the White House Office of Consumer Affairs, It’s 6-7 times more costly to attract a new customer than it is to retain an existing customer. Now more than ever, it’s important to ensure that every conversation that we have is a great one; not only with prospective customers, but existing customers as well. Creating Great Customer Conversations is a excellent course that provides you with a step-by-step guide on how to make the most out of every customer contact. Whether you are an entry level employee or in management, it’s a great course to utilize when brushing up on your customer service skills! View the video preview below:       Try these courses and more! BizLibrary provides 7,000+ training videos and eLearning courses in various business training topics, with new courses added every day.   Got Content? How to Use Off-the-Shelf Content to Build Strong Employee Learning Programs In this eBook we’ll discuss how to incorporate off-the-shelf learning content into your employee learning program. BizLibrary's Mobile Learning App meets the needs of today's digital learners. Employees no longer wait for training departments to push learning content to them. Employees are used to pulling information to themselves, when they need it, on their own terms and conditions, and on their own devices.

The primary reasons for doing the eLearning Tour was that it is hard to see examples of what is being done by fellow eLearning professionals and get a sense of the patterns that exist.  As part of pulling together the tour, I asked for contributions from this blog and from Learn Trends.  I received quite a few responses.  Far more than I could accommodate.  And while I believe that I gave a flavor of what's happening out there through the tour, my gut tells me that it would be helpful to capture more examples. So first question - after participating or viewing the videos for the event: Is it helpful to capture examples?  Should we look to capture more examples? Assuming that the answer is that it would be helpful, then the next question is naturally how we will do this.  Most of the people who submitted were quite willing to spend time pulling screen shots together and talking through their example.  But my belief is that putting up a series of videos like the current videos might not be quite right. In my recent exchange in the post Metalearning with Vic Uzumeri about the use of video, I questioned capturing examples or other knowledge pieces via video, and the accessibility of that information.  Vic's response: After a bit more than a decade of experimentation, I have formed some strong opinions about video's role: Video is at least as valuable a knowledge capture tool as it is a knowledge delivery medium. There is absolutely nothing wrong with recording an expert on video, then hunting through the video to help you write a text manual or text and image eLearning course. You can grab stills to illustrate the points. Just because you record it doesn't mean that you have to inflict it on some innocent viewer. The shorter the video the better. Chunk, chunk, chunk - then use other media to organize the chunks. Including synchronized subtitles makes a rapid seek far more effective. You still can't really search video content directly, but you can search a companion transcript, text descriptions and meta-tags. Video is superior to text for explaining some types of knowledge. There are tons of things that should never be put in a video and no one should ever be forced to watch - a talking head reading a dry script is my pet peeve. I think that's well said and when I have been thinking about how we should capture examples, I have found myself debating the merits of: A 30 minute call where we use a Google Doc or something similar for real-time editing of a screen shots and description/notes around the example.  This would then get published as a web page. A 15 minute web session where we record a discussion and include text notes from the chat, possibly editing those later via something like a Google Doc - maybe a real-time editing session.  We would then publish a web page with the recording and the text on the same page. Something else???? Part of my goal here is to find an easy, repeatable way to QUICKLY and EASILY capture these examples.  Particularly, given the shear number: It shouldn't require more than 30 minutes of my time (or another moderators time). It should be easily scanned. It should be easily indexed by Google. It should be HTML, i.e., not in PDF. It should be easy to have other people moderate the capture sessions. Again, assuming that people are interested in seeing more examples, my question is: How should we capture examples? eLearning Technology Browse eLearning Content

by Lori Smith    Last week I showed you Captivate's date variables. This week, let's take a look at the Time variables, the System Information variables, and a handy little variable called cpInfoMobileOS. Specifically, I am going to address the variables listed in the table below using 2:15 PM and 32 seconds as my example. Perhaps you do not like military time (24 hour) and instead you want to use 12 hour time. A little advanced action can easily convert military time to 12 hour time. I have also created two user variables to help out: am_or_pm and myHour.  When added to a text caption as shown below, the variables will display 2 PM.  Now let's talk about the cpInfoEpochMS variable. It can be used to determine the play time for a lesson (or part of a lesson). By subtracting the value of the variable at the beginning of the lesson from its value at the end of the lesson, you can calculate the lesson's play time down to the millisecond. In the image below I have created a couple of Advanced Actions that make use or CpInfoEpochMS and a few user variables that I created:startTime, endTime, and timeElapsed.First, you need to capture the lesson's start time using this Advanced Action: At the desired point in your project, capture the time and calculate the timeElapsed. Last but not least, let's cover the cpInfoMobileOS variable. It's only job is to indicate if the learner is using a desktop computer of a mobile device (iPhone, iPad, etc). If you have certain elements or slides in your project that you want to behave differently depending upon the learner's device, you can use this variable in a conditional Advanced Action to create the desired behavior.  *** Looking to learn Adobe Captivate? We offer several Captivate classes. Feel free to contact us to learn other ways to meet your training requirements.

Written by Chris Osborn   Today's Q&A discusses how you can keep employees and trainers from falling into boring routines during onboarding.      Access 7,000+ Employee Training Resources BizLibrary offers 7,000+ training videos in various business training topics, with new courses added every day.   Got Content? In this eBook we discuss how to decide what’s right for your employees and organization, how to incorporate off-the-shelf learning resources into an effective employee learning strategy, and how to find the right off-the-shelf solution for your organization.. BizLibrary's Mobile Learning App meets the needs of today's digital learners. Employees no longer wait for training departments to push learning content to them. Employees are used to pulling information to themselves, when they need it, on their own terms and conditions, and on their own devices. Video Transcription Hi, Chris Osborn, VP of Marketing with BizLibrary with today's Q&A. Today's question comes from Krista, she's an HR manager at a professional services organization, and her question is about explaining why we do things during employee onboarding. She wanted to know how to prevent trainers from being overly process-driven order-takers for new employee onboarding training.   Well, it's a common issue with onboarding. It can get to be about processes. Here's your benefits, you HRIS system, here's your handbook, and now here's your mandatory compliance training, etc. Well, by treating our onboarding training like this, we miss a great opportunity. Employees are NEVER more fully engaged than when they first start a job, so let's take advantage of that! Talk about why. Why the organization has these goals for the year, why these are our products or services that we provide, why this employees job is important and how it contributes to the success of the organization. WHY is a really important concept.   Once we understand WHY we're asked to do things, adults generally very well at other important things like making decisions, taking appropriate risks, directing their own learning, and keeping motivated and engaged because they understand the purpose behind their role. So don't leave out the why during employee onboarding and take it out of being process-driven and you're going to have a lot better results.

by Megan Pitkin   While I was working as a bedside nurse, my organization decided to adopt a new way of approaching patient care and improve workflow: Lean. As described in this article about Lean in health care, "Lean is an industrial managerial system that aims to eliminate process waste in the forms of transportation, inventory, motion, waiting, overproduction, over-processing, and defects." While Lean was originally intended for industrial applications, the article describes the efforts of Dr. M. Peggy Hays, associate professor in the UAH College of Nursing, to bring industrial Lean practices in healthcare."Nursing staff today have more and more duties," said Dr. Hays. "How can they make their job more efficient so they can focus on patient care, which is why they got into the profession in the first place?"According to the article, Dr. Hays said that "healthcare applications [for Lean] include unearthing greater efficiencies in emergency room waiting times, operating room use, use of nursing rounds, medication rounds, processing patient paperwork in administrative offices, and workflow of the staff."The planning and assessment phase for my unit started with the team receiving Lean education and concluded with a list of probable projects and action items needed for the week. Because the main action item was patient wait times, data was collected for the time it took for call lights to be answered.An initial assessment found that we walked over five miles each shift between patient rooms for medication delivery, gathering of supplies, locating equipment, and patient care needs. After streamlining workflows, reorganization of the medication rooms, and standardizing equipment processes, my walking was reduced by a mile for my first shift of the implementation week. With the improved processes and reduction in the amount of walking required for the nurses to complete their tasks, there was a significant decrease in call light wait times.         Seeing how successful Lean was in my unit and throughout the organization, I began to question if the Lean principals could be applied to the materials I used in my Electronic Medical Records (EMR) training classes. While adopting an industrial process in the creation of training materials may sound like a stretch, I'd like to illustrate one simple way that I applied the Lean principles to a PowerPoint presentation I use in my classes.Since standardization is a key Lean component, I used my organization's approved fonts and colors on my first slide. I also organized my lesson plan sections and agenda using approved colors, and I used the colors in a very deliberate way. For example, in the image below notice that "Locating the Patient" is a dark purple on my agenda slide. I used that same dark purple banner on all of the slides in the "Locating a Patient" segment of the course. (One of those slides is shown below.) Lastly, I color-coordinated the supporting training materials, like pocket guides, so that they match the colors used in the presentation. As a nurse, it is encouraging for me to see more hospitals doing an excellent job of implementing Lean tools that manufacturing has been evolving for more than half a century. As an Instructional Designer, I have been pleased with the overwhelming positive feedback I have received by adopting these Lean philosophies into the creation of materials for EMR classes. ***If you like Megan's articles, you'll love her live, online classes such as Train the EMR Trainer.

I received an inquiry from a reader who was trying to find tools that they should use for creating their eLearning Script.  They are in a Mac and PC environment and they have to pass scripts around fairly widely for review and input.  The scripts are for eLearning with media (voice-over and video).  They are considering a pretty wide range of solutions from eLearning specific, to media specific, to standard tools like Word and PowerPoint, to doing it as rapid prototypes using an authoring tool. I was going to respond and then I realized that I hadn't looked at tools in this space in quite a while, so I'd like to hear from readers: What do you use to create your eLearning Scripts? What tools should this person consider?   Please add your comments.  I'll try to compile things in this post a bit like we do in the Big Question so that it becomes a pretty good resource based on responses. eLearning Technology Browse eLearning Content

View and download the webinar slides. View the webinar recording. 5 Ways to Build a Better Leadership Development Program - Webinar 10.09.14 from BizLibrary       Try out BizLibrary's Online Library! BizLibrary provides 7,000+ training videos and eLearning courses in various business training topics, with new courses added every day.   Got Content? How to Use Off-the-Shelf Content to Build Strong Employee Learning Programs In this eBook we’ll discuss how to incorporate off-the-shelf learning content into your employee learning program. BizLibrary's Mobile Learning App meets the needs of today's digital learners. Employees no longer wait for training departments to push learning content to them. Employees are used to pulling information to themselves, when they need it, on their own terms and conditions, and on their own devices.