You may have a brilliant course that attracts many learners and eventually these learners score well. But, do their managers give you equivalent reviews? Are your learners applying their learning in the performance context? This is the one and only tell-tale sign of an eLearning course that is devoid of critical thinking exercises. Critical thinking can be described as a mental exercise - the capability to think about complex issues or relate learning directly to experience. It improves the problem solving skills of the learner and enhances their decision making capabilities. Corporate learning courses are required to have such mental exercises in order to improve the value of the eLearning course. Critical thinking skills are required in almost every industrial sector training programs. Current pedagogy and andragogy research and practices are rife with critical thinking strategies in the learning environment. Educational technology, especially eLearning authoring tools provide a plethora of techniques and ideas to integrate critical thinking. Hisham Al-Mubaid of University of Houston, penned a paper titled ‘A New Method for Promoting Critical Thinking in Online Education’ in which he discusses an effective method of embedding critical thinking strategies for developing higher order reasoning skills in the eLearning environment. According to Al Mubaid, critical thinking can be enhanced through two components: Individual Component that occurs in an independent and self-paced learning environment. There are three parts in the individual critical thinking component: List: In the first step, a learner will have to develop a list of facts or concepts that provide a true definition of the topic in hand. The list depends on the kind of course or content the learner is being trained on. Evaluate: the learner evaluates the list of facts created in the first step. This includes ranking and scoring the items in the list as a means of self-evaluation.This process involves a higher level of mental activity as the learner has to get rid of any kind of bias and evaluate the items in the list in a fair manner. While the first step starts the process of conceptualization, application and understanding of the information, the second step kindles critical thinking required for evaluating the assimilated information. Re-structure: The third step includes revising and improving the understanding of the concept by restructuring the list as per the evaluation in the second step.This third step requires a high intellectual process where the learner improves upon his or her learning himself through the process of restructuring what he or she had first understood. Team-based Component that is best carried out in the peer-based and collaborative learning environment. The team-based component includes three steps: List: The first step here is similar to the first step of the individual component, but here the process of listing is done in groups. The students are grouped in teams and each team develops a comprehensive list of concepts or facts describing the chosen topic in the e-course content.The team collects all individual lists and creates one comprehensive list, which is the cumulative understanding of the entire group. Discuss: In the second step the team members proceed to evaluate the possible solutions through discussions and debates. Evaluate, Integrate & Restructure: In the third step, the learners collectively integrate the ideas and restructure their possible solutions based on the discussions and debates of step two. In the individual component, especially in a self-paced eLearning environment, the learner is provided with ample opportunities to absorb information. Through traditional drill and practice exercises, knowledge is transferred and tested through quizzes. The final step in each module is to administer an assignment that takes a relatively longer time to complete. This assignment requires the newly acquired learning to be utilized in different scenarios. The process of listing newly learned facts is similar to summarizing the main ideas of the module. Then comes evaluating the list and selecting the appropriate idea for the scenario in the assignment. Finally, restructuring would involve "customizing" the ideas to make it work in the given scenario. Think for example, in the healthcare field, the learner is confident about their indications of various drugs used for controlling blood pressure. How would the learner apply this knowledge? Provide them clinical scenarios in which different patients have different conditions. The learner is required to prescribe the right drug for the patient and justify their prescriptions. In group learning, the team-based component comes into play. Learners exchange perspectives with each other through discussion. All participants can view a scenario with a fresh perspective. This creates an in-depth learning experience through critical thinking. Discussion board activities provide opportunities for team-based critical thinking practices. By keeping the above two components in mind while creating your next eLearning course, you can encourage critical thinking and knowledge application skills in your learners. ELearning environments are notorious for having a series of information followed by a quiz. This practice may provide temporary satisfaction to the learner when they score well, but may prove to be detrimental when the learner tries to utilize their learning. Critical thinking skills can be incorporated easily if the eLearning author is aware of the need to apply learning to work context. The post Individual and Team-based Critical Thinking Skills in the eLearning Environment appeared first on eFront Blog.

With most economies quickly moving towards knowledge-resourced survival strategies, eLearning is the most sought-after knowledge management pedagogy. If you are one of those innovators, who favor lifelong learning and want to promote a business based on this value, then an eLearning Organization might be the answer for you. Having accumulated a wealth of knowledge in an organization, managers are looking for ways to make it available to employees in a meaningful way. We see a plethora of eLearning organizations springing up to respond to these needs. It’s a lucrative, but a competitive eLearning market out there! Without the right eLearning business model, your eLearning venture may sink before it launches! In this article, we will share with you some best practices in developing the right eLearning business model for your eLearning organization. So, you have finally decided to test the eLearning business waters. You have researched the market trends of eLearning offering organizations and you feel you can offer better eLearning products to the market. Congratulations on this noble idea! Let’s help you make it a successful reality. If you don’t have a business model, then it’s never too late. Simply apply our strategy to your eLearning venture. If you already have an eLearning business model, then compare yours with ours. Share any additions you made in the comments section, or any new points you can share. Sharing is caring! Before you begin working on your new eLearning business organization, determine a list of knowledge, learning needs and wants of a typical organization. What has been frustrating people in the presence or absence of an eLearning program? What are the gaps in eLearning offerings? What kind of eLearning programs are more in demand? Also, make a note of the groups of learners you would be serving. Are they large in size, geographically distributed and/or what is their level of expertise? Are there any culture and language considerations required for your learners? Get to know your learners well in order to study your target market. Once you have defined the target market and its segments for your eLearning organization, begin developing your business model. Your goal is to determine what makes you unique and stand-out in comparison to your competitors. The journal MERLOT (Journal of Online Learning and Teaching) is rife with research findings that suggest core strategies to develop an eLearning business model. Here are the latest on an eLearning business model development. Answer these questions to define your eLearning program offering: Define your target market and its segments. What is your relationship with your customers (learners within the target market): Will you be serving all the members of the target market or a subset? What makes you unique: in what situations will your target market turn to you for their eLearning needs? How competitive is your selling strategy? What factors will drive your customers to your business? Are your courses all about purchase-and-download-eLearning-programs? Or, do you have eLearning facilitators that will interact directly with course participants? Define the scope of your eLearning courses: What content area will you be focusing on? What content would be beyond your scope? Who are your competitors? What is the frame of reference used in your courses? For example, which country and economics are your courses based on? What is the deciding factor that makes your customers/learners choose your eLearning organization? Define the value you will provide your learners. A value not present in the market. What values are you NOT providing? What existing eLearning frustrations are you addressing? How will the learners be affected from your eLearning offerings? What is your secret success factor? Something that will be hard for the competitors to copy. What are the distinguishing factors that set you apart in the market? Why can’t these factors be copied? Define the factors of your eLearning development and implementation process that bring profits. Define effective methods to develop eLearning programs. Effective methods to market your eLearning program. How will you keep your courses current - content and technology included? Define strategies to learn about current learner needs. Developing an eLearning business model early in your organizational development process is crucial to its success. Simply define these parameters orf your eLearning business and you can be on your way to sell online courses. And do consider creating a web presence for your new eLearning venture. No matter how good your organization is in terms of skills and experience to develop the right eLearning courses, without an insightful eLearning business model, you cannot go too far. A strong business model will enable you to focus on the desired target market and improve your eLearning offerings to satisfy them. Apply these five questions to your model to get started or to steer your business in the right direction. Good luck! The post How to Create an eLearning Organization Business Model appeared first on eFront Blog.

Multiple choice quizzes - often the norm for eLearning course assessments, right? Perhaps not in all cases, but I’m sure that most of you reading this will acknowledge that quizzes are a widely adopted strategy when it comes to eLearning course creation. Now, on the surface it certainly makes sense to test your candidates’ knowledge of their new-found learning by directly quizzing them on the crucial themes and facts throughout. But, are quizzes the most appropriate form of assessment in understanding your employees’ learning and development? Are they the most effective method available, or could we learn more from adopting a different technique? That’s what I’ll explore in this post. So why are assessments so important in eLearning? According to Stephen Meyer - an authority in the field of online learning - eLearning assessments are assets when it comes to planning content, measuring individual performance and motivating your employees. In a nutshell, eLearning assessments are essential for your employees’ development. They facilitate simpler coordination of courses for employee ease of use, and they also have a positive influence on user motivation and commitment to their training which can only have a positive impact on learning outcomes. But what are the actual benefits of using assessments? Well, this is just one question that Terence Karran (University of Lincoln) explores in his review titled ‘On-Line Assessment for E-Learning: Options and Opportunities’. Building on the foundations of some stellar work already done by scholars at Oulu University in Finland, Karran outlines both the benefits and drawbacks of eLearning multiple choice quiz assessments. For the purpose of this article I have summarized the primary benefits and drawbacks of relevance to this article only below. Karran points outs the benefits of multiple choice quizzes as easy to apply to a broad range of subject areas and of great assistance in lessening the likelihood of plagiarism affecting results. And the drawbacks? Most interesting however is Karran’s findings on the negative connotations of implementing multiple choice quizzes into eLearning courses: Inhibit high level cognitive and evaluative skills The quiz might be testing a user’s logical and interpretative skills rather than knowledge acquired Can restrict insights into how complete an understanding a learner has gained due to the element of chance involved Let’s dissect those drawbacks. Is your subject matter relatively straightforward such as a basic fire safety induction? Or, alternatively, is it of a more complex nature such as an accounting and finance course? If it’s the former, then perhaps a multiple choice quiz will be a suitable form of assessment, providing you also utilize at least one other form of assessment through your eLearning delivery. If it’s the latter, then you may miss out on insights into just how well your learners know the subject. If your learners have been able to truly understand the complex subject matter and explore combinations of your content and their own ideas, then they may be able to reach remarkable conclusions beyond the simple, finite answers you provide in your multiple choice quiz. To ensure you’re testing your learners’ knowledge - and not their ability to simply guess the right answer - you should manually generate your multiple choice quiz questions. All answers, both correct and incorrect, should have multiple variations and wordings. This way, you can pull answers from a bank of answers with varying tones; it makes your multiple choice quizzes more unpredictable. But these suggestions can only help you so much. What else do I need to consider? You need to think about the distinct requirements of your eLearning course. What are the desired learning outcomes that you would like your employees to reach? What type of knowledge do you require your employees to have? What level of understanding will your employees require to apply from their learning in the workplace? How will this new-found knowledge be applied in their roles? When you can answer these questions with confidence, you should then question which eLearning assessment method is most suitable for what you want to achieve from your eLearning-based training and development program. What are my options? There are so many different types of eLearning assessments available - what you need to focus on is which are most suitable in relation to the questions we just pondered. For example, let’s say that you require your employees to learn about the most recent anti-bribery legislation. This can be quite a complex subject matter to absorb. A simple multiple choice quiz may not have the capability to illustrate the level of learning or knowledge demonstration that you require from this particular training initiative. As such, you would opt for a method that would have that capability - in this instance, it may be audio-based assessments, or a memory matrix. What matters is being able to make that intangible link from your eLearning objectives to specific assessment methods. It’s important. Why? Measuring your employees’ learning is vital in ensuring that your investment in their training has actually been successful and worthwhile. It’s not always a straightforward process to select assessment methods; I actually advocate the use of multiple assessment methods anyway, in order to keep learners engaged, stimulated and challenged throughout their training. My final tip is to point you once again in the direction of the study by Terence Karran that I linked to earlier in this post. On pages 8-10 you will find a highly useful and actionable table outlining the advantages and disadvantages of a variety of eLearning assessment methods. With the help of this resource and from what you have taken away from this post, you will hopefully enjoy increased success in prescribing the most effective eLearning assessments to each online training program that you produce. The post Are Quizzes Really That Telling? - Assessing eLearning Assessments appeared first on eFront Blog.

Most instructional designers believe that their job ends with the launch of the eLearning program. While the content of your course determines its quality, the planning efforts needed to implement the course determine its delivery quality. Don’t get us wrong, but delivery quality truly creates a learning community - the inevitable soul of the eLearning course. A great content is brought to life when it is communicated through different views of the learners. Let’s discover how you can be mindful in planning and implementing a well-collaborated course - an increasingly important post-launch activity. While we know how precious the involvement and contribution of an SME is to an eLearning course, we cannot ignore how the content is relayed to the learners. Your eLearning course can become dynamic in terms of application if you collaborate with your learners based on their learning needs and the organization’s learning goals. A single concept has versatile applications. Bearing this in mind, you can drastically change how learners perceive and apply your content towards a better performance. Let’s explore the planning stage of eLearning program collaboration. Collaboration is an important part of the eLearning course. Creating effective collaboration requires real planning and continuous efforts on the part of the course mentor. Here’s what the best practices dictate: 1. Pre-plan the interaction: This includes ensuring that all assignments are not the regular Word-document submits. Require your learners to present themselves and become socially visible. Others should be able to recognize their presence easily. They should know what to expect. This comes from quality introductions. This is necessary in every eLearning course. While an "About Me" paragraph is becoming increasingly pedantic, you can create alternative methods of introduction. Have learners create a webpage that has a dynamic view of their interests and aspirations. Require them to record a video or some audio or an animated video to introduce themselves in a real-time manner. 2. Prepare an agenda for the collaboration and stick to that agenda: Create a collaboration visual or a diagram as a starting point for your eLearning program. Demonstrate what collaboration means for the course and how it will benefit everyone. When you list the benefits explicitly, learners will understand its value and participate instantly. 3. Summarize the previous week’s learning and make an attempt to wrap up learning objectives: Always relate concepts you teach with learning objectives. This keeps learning on-track and offers a sense of accomplishment. Also, relate the learning objectives directly with their work context. How were things done before the training? How will they be different at work now? Have learners comment on their real-world work-based problems. This will lead you to any uncovered concepts or ideas for another training program. 4. Ask unique questions to each participant and allow them to play an integral role in the session: Around the second or the third week of the course, you should have a fair amount of info about each learner. Try to frame questions for each learner. This works well for small groups of learners. For larger groups, create question topics as separate discussion board headings and groups learners based on the right question for them. For example, if you have an expert in productivity software, have them talk more about their ideas and software suggestions for various purposes. Productivity software is actually a set of eLearning tools that enable users to present their ideas, expressions, designs, and Internet searches in an innovative and collaborative manner. Also request them to create a tutorial or direct learners to tutorials to encourage them to adopt eLearning tools. 5. Take learners on web field trips: This is a great learning activity. Discover sites that are like information-museums to encourage reading and discovery. Have groups create a combined report. 6. Share real world experience and knowledge: This discussion can go forever if directed intelligently and with empathy. Ask learners to share one issue at work and propose how they would change it. Listen to what they have to say and probe further. 7. Make the material relevant and current: We know you prune your course before each session. Do look into current articles and blogs for latest information. A current topic is a sensational topic. 8. Do not rush collaboration: Start slow and steady, and build upon the responses you receive. 9. Use graphics and color to keep the collaboration interesting: Create interactive diagrams for concepts wherever possible and immediately have a slot for comments available under the interactivity. Keep them engaged! Collaboration is seldom automatic. Trainers need to learn the art of collaborating online with participants. Collaboration creates sense of direction in a course. It also brings out the much-needed excitement and anticipation of the eLearners. We hope you find these collaboration planning activities useful. Do share yours with us. The post Planning Collaboration Activities appeared first on eFront Blog.

The eLearning market has gotten increasingly larger with time, as businesses recognize its cost, time and efficiency benefits. But while eLearning is estimated to bring in around $110 billion global revenues by 2015, market pundits agree that there’s still plenty of room for the industry to grow both horizontally and vertically, as certain countries and certain industries have been quite slow to adopt it. The maritime industry is one such case. Of course, eLearning has started to make inroads there too, but it’s still not widely adopted as much as in most other industries. Which is surprising, because the nature of the maritime industry, and especially the shipping business, makes eLearning a great fit for it. Of course there are practical skills needed in the maritime world that cannot be properly taught through eLearning — stuff that requires face to face training. Still, that leaves all the other maritime skills and knowledge where eLearning is not merely applicable, but even more effective (in cost, time and results) than regular training. Besides, a capable, modern Learning Management System like eFrontPro can help businesses manage and keep track of both their online and traditional training needs, since it supports blended learning (aka Instructor-Led Training). What makes eLearning a good fit for the maritime / shipping industry The shipping industry is one of the most heavily regulated industries, with tons of complex rules, guidelines and regulations at the regional and global level that have to be followed — regulations such as construction standards, navigational rules and crew competence standards. This includes every rule issued by the International Maritime Organization (IMO), as well as export, environment and labor standards applicable to seafarers. eLearning enables shipping companies to train their employees in navigating this complex regulatory landscape efficiently and in a cost-effective manner. Specifically, by embracing eLearning for employee training, maritime businesses benefit from: Training Flexibility eLearning lets employees educate themselves at their own pace, removing the need for time off work to attend physical classes. Unlike the latter, which have to be scheduled in advance and might be held in some remote location, online training is available to the workers 24/7, and can even be followed from the convenience of their own home. In an industry with tight schedules, were there are often unexpected delays or rushed shipments, and that maintains offices and personnel the globe over (including in the middle of the sea), this flexibility is a real game changer. Cost Savings Online learning has an order of magnitude lower costs compared to traditional classroom based learning — and the savings only get bigger as the number of learners grows. While cost per seat in classroom based training can vary, and the total training cost can skyrocket when you need to rent multiple classrooms to fit all your students, eLearning just incurs a small upfront cost which can cover thousands (or hundreds of thousands) of "seats". Besides eliminating the need to maintain or rent classrooms to deliver your courses in, eLearning also removes the transportation and lodging costs that are often incurred when sending workers to attend a course. As for instructors, while you still need people to write any custom courses you might have, or interact with your students and oversee their training, eLearning is again much cheaper, as a single LMS platform can handle thousands of students with one or maybe a couple of instructors overseeing them all. Central Deployment and Control Maritime enterprises by necessity have to operate in multiple locations, not just within the same country, but often in many different countries around the world. With eLearning, a single deployment which the IT department can easily manage, monitor and secure, can deliver training material to all those locations, while also providing central management of the whole process. This enables maritime businesses to keep all of their employees up to date to the latest rules and regulations, as soon as they are delivered by the IMO and in the same, standardized manner. The same flexibility of central management and immediate and cheap network delivery, makes updating eLearning material far easier and more cost effective compared to traditional training (as there is no need to print new physical manuals and textbooks). Instant Insight When you have lots of offices and employees scattered around the world, not only scheduling and managing their training becomes difficult, but also assessing its effectiveness. At least that’s the case with traditional training. With eLearning, and the advanced reporting capabilities of eFrontPro, managers can keep track of courses, groups of learners, or even specific employees across all of their global branches and offices, and stay ahead of everything training related, from attendance and test scores to certificates awarded. Standardized Onboarding As employee orientation (or "onboarding") is nothing more than the fast-track training of new employees on their roles and responsibilities, eLearning applies here too. eFrontPro could be used with a special onboarding course to inform new hires of the company’s operating procedures and policies, and educate them in IMO’s and other agencies’ regulations and even sexual harassment laws and racial discrimination issues. The latter could even be used as legal proof in case the company ever gets caught up in a lawsuit because of some employee’s conduct (though you have to ask your lawyer about that, as this differs between jurisdictions). Conclusion Given eLearning’s obvious (and numerous) advantages over traditional face-to-face training, and taking into account the maritime industry’s needs and use cases, we’re certain that online learning will continue its meteoric rise there too, as has been the case in many other industries. Take eFrontPro for a free test drive, and talk to our sales and support stuff about how you can leverage eLearning to make plain sailing of your training needs. The post eLearning for the Maritime industry with eFrontPro appeared first on eFront Blog.

eLearning programs are seldom developed without videos. If you have ever experienced one without videos, you may have noticed how lifeless it is. Videos add the "human" element to eLearning. The voice and the human footage create a sense of classroom environment that is so hard to create otherwise. In this article, we discuss some essential tips on creating eLearning videos. Videos are rapidly becoming the leading Internet traffic pathway in eLearning environments. In fact, an extant research indicates that videos would capture 84% of eLearning traffic by 2018. How will you beat a competition so fierce such as this? Revamp yourself with some new video development strategies. Pedagogy and andragogy experts tell us that showing a skill is better than telling a skill. Connect the learner directly to the real-world, and they immediately recognize the value of their learning program. Videos have a knack to do just that. By visually demonstrating the learning concepts, videos can hook learners right from the start! The popularity of YouTube videos suggest a strong affinity of humans towards visual content. Teaching strategies that incorporate videos, immediately motivate the learner and continue to engage them throughout the learning session. Let’s look at some in-demand practices for you, the eLearning developer, to create better videos in your next eLearning program: Establish Clear Goals Without a clear goal and matching objectives you cannot create a video. A clear goal is the same to a video that a theme or central idea is to a movie. Create a video storyboard and scripts based on learning objectives. Divide tough objectives into sub-objectives and then create the video in order to remain clear throughout the process. When your intentions are clear, they will come across loud and confidently through the video! Be Brief You are by no means creating the next Ben-Hur! If you really want to, then you are in the wrong business! eLearning videos are short and segmented. The story for each learning objective may be long, but it is presented in segments. Lengthy videos are broken into bite-sized snippets that may range from 1 to 2 minutes. The length should help learners digest the information easily. Include more visuals than text. Voiceover for Videos If you want to emulate the classroom training, add voiceover to your videos. To be honest, you can record your own voice, as long as you sound lively and speak clearly. Make sure you add closed captions for accessibility. Voiceovers are easier to prepare nowadays, with various websites offering professional VO services on the cheap. Closed Captioned Videos As mentioned before, closed captions add to the accessibility of your eLearning program. Your learners will also be aided by transcripts and closed captioning to make sure they have the "notes" of the lecture. Again, adding captions will make your eLearning akin to real classroom learning. Students who do not speak English as their native language will also thank you for this additional layer of information. A popular caption creating software is Camtasia Studio. Screen Capture Simulation videos are one of a kind. They capture a process or an application in progress through screen capture software like Camtasia and Screenr. You can even insert interactivity in simulations so that the steps are guided and controlled using questions and answers between course and learner. For example, you need to show your learner how to create pivot tables in Excel. You can create one while capturing your actions using Screenr and inserting the clip alongside your instructions. Learning about pivot tables will be more interesting and memorable this way than by reading only the instructions or viewing accompanying images. These tips should help you create effective videos for your eLearning courses. Creating videos is a fun activity. With the availability of video development and editing in handheld devices, videos are easier to produce to meet the demanding eLearning industry. The post 5 Tips on Using Videos for eLearning appeared first on eFront Blog.

Dr Carmen Simon, joint founder of Rexi Media is a cognitive scientist who applies the latest neuroscientific research findings to corporate presentation skills. A frequent keynote speaker at conferences in North America, Europe and Asia, Carmen holds doctorates in instructional technology and cognitive psychology, and was formerly in charge of eLearning Research and Development for AT&T. She is currently researching what helps people to remember and is working on a forthcoming book, "Impossible to Ignore: A scientific approach to influencing other people’s memory and decisions". David Evans - I’m interested in your background and how it led you to your current research interests. Carmen Simon - My first doctorate degree was in instructional design and distance education. When you study eLearning in those kinds of formal settings, you start developing a sense of how you can appeal to people in ways that they’re motivated to change behavior. And that’s the link to presentation skills and what I’m doing now; because it doesn’t matter ultimately if you’re creating eLearning or if you’re creating a presentation. If you are after behavioral change you have to narrow down some principles for behavioral change - and I think that what is missing in many communication artifacts is exactly what gets people moving into action. DE - So tell us something about your recent research projects on memory. CS - I believe that memory is a precursor to action. So as we study what moves people into action, we must first understand better how memory works. I completed a project two years ago, in which the question was, "How much would people remember after 48 hours from a deck of twenty slides?". I had included only one message per slide. The reason I chose 48 hours to test memory is because of how the brain remembers. Memories are not formed instantly, they require some consolidation period, and sleep helps with the consolidation. So it’s not efficient to test memory immediately after exposure to information if you are after long-term memory. If you’re after short term memory then that’s fine, but if you’re after a long term memory—which is what I’m intrigued by—then you have to give it a couple of days for things to consolidate. DE - However, when testing is done with eLearning, it’s usually immediately after completing a course? CS - The way we define short term memory is memory that lasts up to one minute. After completing eLearning segments, participants will probably keep some principles in mind longer than a minute, if nothing else to pass a test, which happens after maybe ten minutes, or however short the spreads are these days—I know there is a trend for microlearning, where you have shorter and shorter chunks. But the problem with a lot of mandatory and skill based learning is that you have to have enough repetition to make sure that it sticks long-term. Just because you said it once and they pass a test doesn’t mean that they will act on it weeks later. There’s nothing necessarily wrong with something being tested immediately. In another study I am completing currently, I am analyzing fifteen variables that may be able to predict whether people are going to like, click, download, embed, or comment on a SlideShare presentation. In order for viewers to complete any of these tasks, they have keep that information active in their memory. In order to make a comment after going through thirty, forty, fifty slides—it means they are acting on those memories. To embed something however is not always instant - a day or two later you might think ‘I’m going to put that Slideshare in my blog’ or ‘I’m going to use that in my next assignment’. Some responses are instant, and others require long-term memory. DE - But for some kinds of mandatory learning scenarios, for example, people will need to be tested regularly, to make sure their knowledge is still current? CS - Yes, we call this the distributed practice effect - what that means is that you’re exposing somebody to information today for 20 minutes, let’s just say. And then the following day you come back to that short segment again, for just 10 minutes. And a week or a month later you do a 5-minute review. With each exposure, it takes less time to reactivate memories and make them stick. Depending on how precisely you want people to remember your content, we can distinguish between two different types of memory: verbatim and gist. If you’re after verbatim, then you expect the information has to be recalled in exactly the same way. For gist, you expect people to remember the overall meaning. DE - How much do people tend to forget from business content? CS - When people approach content with no conscious effort to remember or categorize it, they will forget it exponentially. They forget fast at first, and slower later. We call that the "forgetting curve." We can explain this is a metaphorical way, we tend to forget 90% after a few days. I am saying "metaphorical," because outside of academic or formal learning environments, it is tough to place a strict statistic on how much people forget. For the ease of conversation, I look at it as a 90-10. The fifteen variables I’ve identified in my recent research are those that I think you could control when you want to influence somebody else’s memory. We have many other variables that we can’t control. If I wanted to influence your memory right now, I can’t control how much sleep you got last night, the mood you’re in right now or your level of stress or your hormones—and all of those affect memory as well. Another question I’ve been asking my research is: "Can we influence the metaphorical 10% and not leave it to chance?" Otherwise, what I am noticing is that if you leave it to chance, and 10 people listen to you, they will each walk away with a different 10%. If you don’t take control over a pattern, they will build their own patterns, because the brain is a pattern-building machine. However, you’ll have to wait until the book comes out for the answers to these questions! Stay tuned for part 2…! The post Interview with Carmen Simon - Part 1 appeared first on eFront Blog.

In the first part of the interview with Carmen Simon of Rexi Media, we discussed her recent research on ways of making business presentations more memorable. In this second part, we turn to the implications of her findings for the creation of eLearning content. DE - Perhaps we could now move on to look at some of the major differences between presentations and eLearning in terms of how and what people remember, and how we can control that? CS - With eLearning, you can probably expect that an audience goes in with the intent to learn and remember, even if it’s just to pass a test. For presentations, we don’t have that luxury. People don’t come to a business presentation thinking, "You know I’m going to sit down here and I’m going to remember as much as I can." Here’s an example. In the US, we have the ability to erase from our records a minor traffic violation such as a speeding ticket so that the insurance does not go up. We can do this if we have not had any other violations in the past 18 months, and after we pass a traffic school test. Over the past five years or so, traffic school content has been converted to online training so that people can complete it online. Those are some of the worst eLearning courses you have ever seen. But because you are so motivated to pass the test, to achieve your goal which is to make sure that your insurance doesn’t increase, you will put up with that stuff; you will pay attention and you’ll remember enough to pass the test. In a business presentation, we hardly ever have that luxury from our audiences. These days you’re lucky if people even take out a piece of paper and take notes when you’re speaking. Most people sit skeptically with their arms crossed in poorly lit rooms already in a state of partial attention. You know that many are on their phones and it’s a little bit hard to achieve long-term memory here. DE - in your presentation research, you talk about the "10% slide"—ways of reinforcing the key messages that you want to get across by, and repeating it throughout a presentation. How would that work in a self-directed eLearning course, where people can choose their own route, and maybe skip bits they see as repetitive? CS - When you create these courses you’re still in charge of what it is they see on that path. In any PowerPoint template, I always advise people to use the opposite state in terms of the layout to enhance this 10% slide. Memory is, among many things, a problem of discrimination, and the reason people forget a lot is because so many slides look exactly alike. After two days, it is hard to remember which one was which. There’s nothing wrong with that because memory still needs some sidekicks, you can’t make everything stand out. You have to have some weaker stimuli in order to make other things stand out more strongly. So pick your strongest designs and reserve those for the slides that really count. DE - Some kinds of eLearning have always been very effective, and never had this problem. I’m thinking, for example, of what we might call high-stakes technical training, which often originated years ago with CBT? CS - The effectiveness of any communication, whether it’s eLearning or a presentation is often just a function of the amount of time you spent creating it, or preparing for it. And it’s to do with your expertise, so it shouldn’t take as much time to create it as if you’re a beginner designer. Take pilots, for instance. They might have some plane equipment that has changed, or they’re traveling to an international airport where some rules are different. Their online training ranges from simple information to skills training to very sophisticated simulations that may only take ten minute to complete but may have taken six months to develop. And in these circumstances, pilots come to the eLearning modules with the intent to remember. And it’s very likely that they will, through repetition and exposure—many complete the same modules multiple times through the distributed practice effect. So we can count on the fact that they remember more than 10%. Business presenters and sales presentations…they don’t have that luxury. DE - What about mandatory training, in areas like compliance, or health and safety that everyone has to complete, but only few people are really interested in? CS - To answer "how do we make mandatory training more exciting," we must look at some definitions of terms. There are three variables related to what pushes people into action: rewards, emotion, and motivation. Let’s consider rewards as stimuli that ensure our biological fitness. Emotion is the feeling we have as we get closer or further away from rewards. And motivation is the amount of work that we’re willing to do in order to obtain those rewards. So if those definitions are clear, it’s easier to understand, how we can make training more exciting, especially when it’s a dry subject. Let’s look at motivation, one of the elements that is lacking when mandatory training is concerned. We have to realize that sometimes we’re naturally motivated to do something. For instance, most children are naturally motivated to draw. But what scientists are noticing in studies is that if you give kids money for drawing (so there is a reward), they draw less creative pictures or they’re not even willing to put that much work into a drawing. If you ask a kid to have a vaccine (which does not come with natural motivation), then you have to give them some extrinsic reward to increase the amount of motivation. And it’s no different with training - there is some training that we’re naturally drawn to complete. For example, training that enables us to master a skill we value, or give us some sense of autonomy or purpose, or even training that we know leads to keeping your job, such as compliance training. We don’t have to add a lot of flashy things or animations in these kinds of training. If you just keep them short and clean and simple, people will be naturally drawn to complete them. The fake wax does not help with mandatory training. DE - Finally, I know that in your writing and your talks, you often draw examples from advertising. I wonder if there are any lessons for eLearning there too? CS - There are many lessons we can learn from how advertising messages are made. This is because many companies have large advertising budgets and they can also afford to do research and investigate what works and what does not work. For example, a 10% message in a campaign does not change, but it can vary across contexts, therefore ensuring consistency and novelty at the same time. In the US, we have an insurance company called Geico that use a line, ‘fifteen minutes will save you fifteen percent or more on your car insurance’. That message has been the same for many years. But what makes it fun is to watch how they portray this message across so many contexts, and in a humorous way. Ultimately, we often act on familiarity and consistency because if the message changes constantly then you won’t know what to trust. The post Interview with Carmen Simon - Part 2 appeared first on eFront Blog.

Here is a not-so-surprising dilemma for you to ponder on: What would you choose: A lavish freebie-filled day off at an event held at a glamorous venue accompanied by an overnight stay in a swanky hotel? Or, taking time away from your usual work to take an eLearning course at your desk instead? For many, the draw of training outside your normal work environment is just too much, and that alone can sometimes influence how we elect to develop our professional skills. But that shouldn’t stop your business from utilizing eLearning to the benefit of your organization. Of course, there are various other factors that we take into consideration - there are benefits and drawbacks to each and every different type of learning. However the point is this: we can’t allow the initial appeal of other types of training detract from the actual benefits of the most suitable training method in each scenario. That’s the purpose of this post. Below I offer up some solid strategies on how you can incentivise other learning methods that are of clear benefit to the business, but are perhaps deemed undesirable by your workforce. Specifically, I’ll be using eLearning as the example throughout. Hopefully however, from my workings you can adapt my suggestions to meet your own requirements if eLearning isn’t the type of training you’re trying to encourage the uptake of. I’ll demonstrate exactly how you can combat the benefits of these other methods by positioning eLearning as beneficial for both similar and additional reasons. Let’s start with why your employees may favor other training and development methods over eLearning. The benefits of traditional training Business decision makers such as HR managers need to be able to make an informed decision on the types of training that are most suited to employees’ specific roles and thus have the optimum benefit and ROI for the organization. In order to do so, it’s important that such decision makers possess up to date knowledge of the benefits of all different types of learning available. L&D decision makers will already be acquainted with the factors to take into consideration when allocating training to staff - learning styles, available resources, individual progression plans and the nature of the learning topic to name but a few. But when informed and aware of all the reasons why any particular learning method could be more beneficial than another, the job of the decision maker will be made much easier. What is most suited for each individual - as well as the business as a whole from a financial perspective - will instantly become more apparent. The purpose of this post isn’t to go in to so much depth as to describe the benefits of every type of learning that your staff can undertake, however. This post from TrainingToday already serves this purpose, and as such makes a good reference for L&D decision makers. Incentivising eLearning Your employees don’t always know what’s best for them. It’s your job to determine the most suitable method of training for each employee, in collaboration with your staff. Use the following suggestions to aid your communication and implementation of any potential new training method. Reward performance Because eLearning is entirely under your control, it’s so simple to measure the performance of your employees. This is an advantage to your management and your business as a whole, but that same benefit might be lost to each individual staff member who is understandably interested in their own development, rather than your advancement as a business. So why not change that? Use this to your advantage and incentivize performance so that your employees can be rewarded for their results and learning outcomes. Obviously this will also act as an excellent staff motivator too, so it’s a win-win really, and to what cost? However you reward your employees - financially or not - it’s likely that the benefits to this scheme will outweigh the drawbacks. Incorporate into your review process This tactic may seem a little underhand, but you could be surprised by the level of positive responses you receive in its implementation. Setting targets based around an agreed learning method can aid in increasing acceptance of the shift to a new L&D system for the company. It positions the desired training method as commonplace, widely accepted and almost non-debatable. Set staggered goals The issue you may encounter - with some employees of a certain disposition at least - is that eLearning could potentially be viewed as extra ‘work’, and thus become less interesting to your employees. Repositioning this as an ‘opportunity’ can be quite patronising, so instead, allow your employees to realise the full potential of the opportunity themselves by gently nudging them in the right direction. The idea of running through an eLearning course hour after hour is kind of boring really - so set staggered objectives and deadlines! If you task your employees with only completing one assigned module at any given time, they’re more likely to crack on with the training. Once their learning has begun, they’ll soon discover the benefits and enjoyment of what you have set out for them. Encourage knowledge sharing There’s so much to be learnt in such a short space of time - talking about this experience can help fortify that new found knowledge, and spread expertise throughout your entire organization. Information sharing also provides a welcome break from the monotony of eLearning and could actually aid the learning experience - after all, studies show that we’re more productive when we take breaks from our work. How will you incentivize your desired training method? Use the above ideas as inspiration, direct solutions or simply prompts to reconsider how your employees learn, and perhaps your workforce will benefit from a change in tactic. The post How to Incentivise in-House eLearning & Succeed At It appeared first on eFront Blog.

We curated a list of the best content on elearning gamification from our industry’s top companies and influencers. Read on to learn how leading companies are using gamification to increase learner engagement. 5 killer examples of gamified elearning Games are often more effective for learning than traditional training approaches. So in this article we show you five examples of great gamified elearning and guide you on how to design your own great gamified course. 8-step elearning gamification checklist Gamification is the buzz word in eLearning at the moment, but of course, you don’t want to gamify elearning for the sake of it. In this post, we’ll explore the principles underpinning good gaming design for eLearning, and set out an eight point checklist to help you create better, gamified learning. 4 innovative companies that gamified elearning: Deloitte, ExactTarget, Brainscape and Class Dojo In an era when over a million students drop out of high school every year and workplaces suffer from contagious, chronic disengagement, getting people to invest in their own learning is of paramount importance. 23 useful resources for gamifying your elearning There are loads of great resources available to help you design really killer gamified elearning. Here we’ve curated just a handful. See what you think and feel free to contribute to the list in the comments section. 5 tools to help you gamify your elearning content How can you "gamify" your eLearning content? There are many HTML5-based authoring tools that can help you create engaging online content. We’ve rounded up 5 tools to help you do just that. The post Elearning gamification tips to help you create more effective elearning appeared first on Elucidat Blog.

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

Doing more with less has been a mantra in corporate training departments for the last decade and if you’re an eLearning manager looking for new ways to develop eLearning more efficiently, read on. Likewise, the ability to create home-grown courses on a shoestring budget has an obvious appeal and certainly is a way forward for small businesses as an accompaniment to their one-to-one training. So how do organizations - large and small - ensure that training is well designed, compliant and adds value to the business? The Agile eLearning Authoring Team With the growth in eLearning authoring tools, seemingly anyone can be their own eLearning developer, designer and project manager. The benefit of this do-it-yourself approach is that organizations can save thousands from their budgets, whilst retaining complete control over the content and design. With this being the case, commissioning departments no longer require the services of eLearning agencies - but that doesn’t mean they don’t need an agile eLearning authoring team. So how do you get your team to think like an eLearning agency? 1. Boost productivity by using the right tools Choose the right tools. If you have non-technical or inexperienced authors creating your eLearning, you’ll need to source a simple system - like Elucidat - that is easy to use. By empowering more of your team to author eLearning, you can increase your team’s productivity and get your courses out to learners faster. 2. Collaborate and iterate directly inside your authoring tools If you’ve been around the eLearning block a few times, you’ll be familiar with the roadblock that the review phase creates. One of the biggest challenges in managing your project is that subject matter experts and reviewers are busy people with full-time jobs and often content reviews have to fit in around the day job. Make this process as easy as possible for SMEs and reviewers by using a tool with an online review and comment system. In the old days, if you had an eLearning module built in Flash that needed review, you would end up with a Word document full of screen shots. Reviewers would leave feedback by referencing Page 4 or that picture in a separate document. Fortunately, these new tools allow your team to put a fully-functioning module online for your reviewers who can write a comment directly onto the system. In terms of tools, online review is a huge step forward in helping your review cycles to become more efficient. Watch this video to see how a comment and review system works: 3. Design and develop once, build many One of the big challenges (ergo, opportunities) that you may be facing in your organization is BYOD (bring your own device) and how to ensure your content renders correctly on different browsers and devices. It’s not feasible to build a separate module for every device - the development and maintenance alone would bust your budget. So the key is to select authoring tools that have done the hard work to ensure cross-browser compatibility and responsive rendering on different devices. This will allow you to design and develop once, but build for many environments. Related: How Utility Warehouse Rolled Out Responsive eLearning To 46,000 BYOD Learners For elearning inspiration, check out PetSync’s living with a dog in a shared community. Developed in HTML5, this elearning utilizes a responsive design which allows the course to be displayed on desktops as well as mobile devices. 4. Create an agile culture We know that easy-to-use authoring tools, a central system and an agreed process all help create a high-performance team. We’ve done research into what makes a high-performance learning team that shows this. Whilst the widening choice of eLearning development tools available to author and develop online learning has greatly helped, the need to involve multiple team members with different talents in the process still poses a number of challenges. These will have an effect on your culture, but the most important thing is how you view your team. In an agile approach, the team is one and everybody in the team is responsible for the result. This is a big game changer. No more being late because the testing didn’t finish on time. The team is responsible for the tasks (user stories) and for keeping the project on track. In the ideal situation, all members have all necessary skills. This is never the case in the real world, but it is still surprising how much work and responsibility people can share if that’s the expectation set from the start. 5. Create an agile customer In waterfall methodologies such as ADDIE you will have a lot of contact with the customer (internal or external) during the sales process and the design stage. But during the production period, there will be hardly any contact. And then suddenly: the delivery of the result. In an agile approach, you stay in contact all the time, iterating and demonstrating the results every week or every two weeks. You show progress, get feedback and decide together what the next priority needs to be. This connects the customer with the process and gives them responsibility. Instead of being we (developers) and them (customers), it can become us (collaborators). Final thoughts to help you build an agile authoring team Use inbuilt online review. The best way to improve team efficiency is to use a tool with inbuilt online review. Consider selecting an authoring tool - like Elucidat - that provides reviewing and commenting functionality. Host team hangouts. Try hosting knowledge-sharing hangouts twice a month where your team comes together and presents a project. Discuss the challenges they encountered and how they worked around them. This helps teach your team new practices that increase efficiency. Improve design skills. There is a lot more to eLearning development than meets the eye. That’s why instructional and graphical design as disciplines are differentiators in good eLearning. Great eLearning design not only covers the important knowledge and skills, but also maximizes learning and actually changes behavior.  It is not simply enough to put the information on a page and hope that learners will assimilate it. Remember the basics. Improve efficiency by reusing assets, aligning the right person with the right task and sharing knowledge across your team. The biggest mistake I see is eLearning managers letting their teams work in silos. This is an instant efficiency killer - avoid it at all costs. Keep learning. Stay up-to-date on the latest technology and ideas that can be used to make your authoring process more efficient. Register for Elucidat’s eLearning time-saver course. A version of this article originally appeared on Elearning Industry. The post How To Build An Agile Elearning Authoring Team appeared first on Elucidat Blog.

Incorporating game elements into your learning program is a great way to empower learners to act freely, show competency, and work together. Here are the hot gamification trends impacting elearning in 2015: 80% of learners say that their productivity would increase if their university or organization was more game-like 70% of Global 2000 organizations have at least one gamified application (Gartner) 89% of learners would be engaged with an LMS if the application had a point system 90% of learners recall information if they are applying content within a stimulation Litmos visualized this data in a beautiful infographic. Check it out below. The post Elearning Gamification Trends 2015 appeared first on Elucidat Blog.

Building high quality eLearning collaboratively with colleagues is a time-consuming challenge. In this article we’ll look at how to use branded themes, collaboration tools, and Rapid Release™ republishing to save time when building and delivering eLearning. Here are 3 strategies to help you quickly deliver high quality eLearning: 1. Reuse branded themes Look for opportunities to create eLearning themes that you can use over and over. This will help save time and money as you build more projects. It also makes the development process more efficient and easier for your entire team. How to reuse branded themes: Use an eLearning authoring tool that provides ready-made themes that you can customize with your own branding. These themes will already be built to industry standards and include design best practices that will save you heaps of time. Some tools like Elucidat provide responsive themes that will automatically adjust to different mobile and tablet devices. Set up your theme and brand the first time, then just focus on the content for future courses. This will speed up eLearning content development because you won’t have to spend any time designing your eLearning. Pick a tool that provides Master courses (or Master templates). Master courses are reusable courses that you can use to quickly build new projects. All changes made to a Master course are automatically synced with the linked projects. This saves your team lots of repetitive work, since they don’t have to manually make changes to each project. Master courses also make localization projects much more efficient. You can quickly create courses in different languages and empower reviewers to comment on and collaborate directly inside the project. 2. Use cloud-based collaboration tools Stakeholders will need to review your projects at some stage in the development process. This is often where your work runs into some snags. How do your stakeholders manage the review and feedback cycles, track changes, and monitor version control? These tasks can be particularly challenging if you have multiple stakeholders and reviewers working on the project. How to enhance stakeholder collaboration: Make sure everyone reviewing the project has access to the most up-to-date version. The best way to ensure people are working on the current project is to use a cloud-based eLearning tool that automatically manages updates and keeps the project current. Use a system to track and manage review cycles and changes. eLearning software like Elucidat incorporates this functionality to help you track updates. For example, Elucidat has an easy-to-use comment tool that lets team members, subject matter experts and stakeholders add notes for the rest of the team. You can quickly see what changes or additions have been made and who made those changes. Is it time to throw away that frustrating spreadsheet you use to track changes? Sign off on changes inside the project itself. This makes it easy to keep the updates and the tracked changes together in one place. Never again will you need to use another tool to manage the review process. 3. Reduce maintenance time with Rapid Release republishing As an eLearning manager, you’ll likely need to factor in time for maintenance of content and projects. This is especially the case if your company requires annual updates to your compliance courses. How to speed up eLearning maintenance: Use an authoring tool that enables authors to push updates out directly to their Learning Management Systems. This is a serious time saver. No longer do you need to make the changes, republish the project, and then upload it again in the Learning Management System. Elucidat’s Rapid Release™ republishing feature enables you to quickly update content in your Learning Management System without having to download and upload files to SCORM each time. Changes are processed straight to the Learning Management System - no need for republishing, packaging, or redeploying. Conclusion: Embrace new technology. Embrace new technology that can help you design great-looking eLearning and increase the efficiency of your authoring team. Tools that make the development process more efficient will help you reduce the time it takes to develop eLearning projects. In turn, this will help you to control costs and deliver high quality eLearning, faster. Next step: Discover more ways to deliver eLearning faster by signing up for Elucidat’s eLearning Time-savers course The post 3 Strategies For Quickly Delivering High Quality Elearning appeared first on Elucidat Blog.

Under pressure to deliver more for less? Time-poor but creatively rich? Modern eLearning tools help managers of eLearning teams deliver great courses while saving development costs. In this article I’ll show you how to reduce eLearning development costs by using pre-built themes, Master courses, and responsive designs. Once upon a time, I was commissioned to work as part of a team on an extensive set of learning courses for a well-known business school in the USA. We are talking turn of the century here, so it’s some time ago in terms of learning technology. Back then it took us 18 months -and tens of thousands of dollars- to design, build, and deliver 60 hours of high value learning content. It was cutting edge at the time, but in today’s world it would be considered too costly and would be out of date before it was even deployed. Since the old tricks no longer work, let’s look at 3 ways modern eLearning tools can help you reduce eLearning development costs and deliver your eLearning quickly, cheaply, and without compromising quality. 1. Use pre-built themes Instead of spending time and resources on eLearning design, use a pre-built theme that has been designed using instructional best practices and with learner experience in mind. Ready-to-go themes help you start authoring content faster, which means you can get your courses out to learners more quickly. A theme is a set of basic building blocks for your project. You’ll want a theme where everything on the page is editable so you can add your own branding, colors, fonts, and imagery. Pre-built themes let you build afresh or modify existing themes so you don’t have to waste time (and money) setting up your courses from scratch each time. Some authoring tools like Elucidat come with pre-built themes and also give you complete flexibility to create your own bespoke themes. Here’s a quick look at Elucidat’s themes: 2. Use Master courses Master courses are reusable courses that you can use to base any new project on. Any changes that you make to a Master course will automatically update to all of the linked projects. This feature saves you heaps of time because you don’t have to manually go through and make changes to each project one at a time. Why is this good? Well, here are two examples to show you how Master courses can save you time and money: Example 1: You need to create and maintain similar projects for different internal departments. Imagine you need to personalize each course with each department’s colors and contact details. By using a Master course, you can make the course once and then release slightly different versions for each department. If you need to update all these courses, you can make the change to the content in your Master course and that change will automatically push to each of the linked projects. Example 2: You need to create courses in multiple languages. A Master course is a time saver for when you need to release courses in multiple languages. You can create your Master course with the pages and assessments set up and then create a project for each language you need to release. Now instead of starting from scratch for each language, you use the base structure and edit the content accordingly. 3. Build once, deliver on multiple devices The Bring Your Own Device (BYOD) phenomenon is enabling more and more learners to use their own devices to take courses online. Here are the 4 reasons why I’m a big advocate of BYOD learning: It increases engagement with your content. It saves time and money: A sales person out on the road can learn without physically being in the office. Learners can complete courses while commuting to and from work. Learners can focus more on the learning if they are using a device they are comfortable using. Whether you like it or not, BYOD learning is here. This means you need to make sure your courses are accessible on all devices. You need responsive designs that adapt to the screen size on which it is being viewed. Instead of creating multiple versions of eLearning for different devices, you can reduce eLearning development costs by using a tool that is multi-device compatible. Authoring tools that let you create and test responsive eLearning can save a lot of duplicate work. Take a look at this screenshot that shows how Elucidat enables you quickly test responsive eLearning: eLearning inspiration: Learn how Utility Warehouse used Elucidat to deliver responsive eLearning to 46,000 leaders Final takeaways Instead of building brand new designs each and every time, use pre-built themes to get started quickly. Instead of starting from scratch for every new course, use a Master course with a base structure that can be used and tweaked for your future projects. Instead of creating multiple versions of eLearning for different devices, use Elucidat’s authoring tool which makes it easy to build and test responsive eLearning. A version of this article first appeared on Elearning Industry. The post 3 ways to reduce elearning development costs appeared first on Elucidat Blog.

Under pressure to deliver more for less? Reusing elements from projects such as design, interactions, logos, look and feel, media, assessments, and content can really help you save time. Let’s look at how you can use Master Courses to create eLearning themes that will allow you to reuse these elements over and over again. In the 19th century, Britain built the world’s first and very best rail system. It was so good that countries from around the world replicated it. Now the rail systems in many major economies run comfortably, on time, and cheaply. Countries were fortunate to learn from Britain’s mistakes and eventually build even better rail systems. Building from the bottom up is sometimes the only way to make a product the way it needs to be made. eLearning designers and developers, like rail builders, try to build with blocks that have already been created. Why? Because you can be certain the elements are best practice. They’ve been tried and tested, free of errors, and inefficiencies. What Are Master Courses? Master Courses, often called templates, are reusable themes that you can use on multiple projects. All design aspects, code, and interactions you develop in a Master Course can be reused each time you create a course. You can base any eLearning project on a Master Course. In some eLearning development tools such as Elucidat, changes that you make to a Master Course are automatically applied to all linked projects. This saves you time (and money) since you don’t have to go through and edit each project one at a time. Why Αre Master Courses Effective? Let’s look at 3 common scenarios to see how Master Courses make delivering eLearning easier and more efficient. Scenario 1: Multiple client projects. Imagine you are charged with creating product training materials for several clients. They all require almost identical courses, but you want to personalize each course by adding the client’s logo or brand colors. By using a Master Course, you can make the courses once and then release slightly different versions to each client. Then if you make a change to the content in your Master Course, the change will automatically get pushed to each of the projects linked to it. This saves you hours of development time and significantly reduces your costs. Related: 3 Ways To Reduce eLearning Development Costs Scenario 2: Product training changes. Picture your marketing team changing the name of one of your products. Instead of going through and changing each instance of the product name in the course by hand, you can edit the product name in the Master Course and the change is pushed to all courses. This flexibility makes eLearning maintenance more efficient. You can now make updates on a regular basis to ensure learners have the most up-to-date content. Related: 3 Ways Cloud Publishing Can Save You Time On eLearning Maintenance Scenario 3: Localization. Now imagine that you are charged with creating a general health and safety course for all your organization’s employees. Your organization is large and the workforce is located in different countries. Some employees are full time and others are contractors, but all have various levels of digital and reading literacy. For example, last year I authored a course for a large French engineering firm who hired workers on a daily or weekly basis to help build railways all over the world. The course was created entirely using imagery and iconography to convey key life-saving messages for a user group that included postgraduates and people who couldn’t read. The training material was taken onto construction sites to help generate conversations in local languages about best safety practices. If you release courses in multiple languages, you have the ability to create a Master Course with the pages and assessments set up and then create a project for each language in which you want to release it. This means you don’t have to start each different language course from scratch. The timesavings are really seen when you need to make a change. For example, if you want to make an update in accordance with legal requirements or company policy, you only need to do this in the Master Course and then that change is pushed out to all the projects belonging to the Master. Final Takeaways In summary, Master Courses (templates) offer three key benefits: Build once, use many times. Set up a course once -as a Master- and then produce all subsequent courses that require similar content from that Master Course. Update one course. Make updates at the Master level and the changes are automatically pushed out to all the courses below it. This saves you the time needed change each and every course manually. Quickly personalize courses. Use Master Courses to personalize projects with different imagery, branding, logos, and languages. What’s Next? Check out these resources to learn more ways to deliver eLearning faster: How to speed up eLearning content development 3 Strategies for quickly delivering high-quality eLearning Register for Elucidat’s eLearning time-savers course The post How To Use Master Courses (Templates) To Deliver Elearning Faster appeared first on Elucidat Blog.

Are your elearning projects being held up due to bottlenecks involving your SMEs? In this article, Steve Penfold shows you how to manage SMEs so you never miss another deadline. SMEs are valued for what they know in their respective fields. Typically, Learning Designers or Instructional Designers (LDs or IDs, respectively) extract the SME’s knowledge so that they can get on with the task of producing the learning. After they extract the information, they send the SME away and don’t care what they do as long as they don’t interfere with the production process. And that’s a shame. Why? Because when you treat SMEs like bare resources, they will lack the motivation to help you with the content you desperately need. Learn how to manage SMEs more effectively so you can speed up elearning production. 1. Involve the SMEs right from the start Firstly, it’s wise to involve SMEs from the earliest project meetings. Don’t just pull them in to fill in content blanks once the broader decisions about scope, look and feel, deployment options, etc. have been made. All of these other things are there to support the content, so it makes sense to let the content experts have a say. SMEs shouldn’t necessarily have the final say - content may be king, but logistic reality is his headstrong queen - but SME input will help validate the early decisions being made. It can also highlight areas where later rework would otherwise be necessary. For example, imagine if stakeholders want to implement mobile but the knowledgeable SME points out that the environment that the audience operates in is not mobile friendly. Steve Penfold: SME input will help validate the early decisions being made…Click To Tweet In addition to being great sources of subject and audience-demographic knowledge, SMEs are also often a first-line testing resource. Because the L&D function may not have vision of SME availability, another plus of having SMEs involved in early discussions is that L&D can understand their schedules and factor this into the overall production timeline. This can help avoid wasteful production and testing bottlenecks later. Related: 7 practical tips to help you to get the best from your Learning and Development team. 2. Challenge SMEs to keep content tight SMEs know a lot about their subject and they’re often keen to share it all! But including more content doesn’t necessarily make for better courses. Tight, concise content has three huge benefits over a bloated alternative: It’s easier and quicker to produce; It’s easier and quicker for the audience to consume; and It’s more powerful and useful to the audience. When mining an SME for information, you can make long-term efficiencies by asking the SME to justify (in the nicest, gentlest way, of course) why they want to include particular content. If content isn’t necessary for a learner to do what it is that you want them to do, then consider dropping it. For example, understanding the history of widget manufacture probably won’t help a salesperson sell widgets, so it wastes everyone’s time to include it in a widget sales course, both at the production and consumption ends of the process. 3. Use SMEs as an authoring resource SMEs can be an enthusiastic, untapped production resource. Depending on their skill level, availability and desire, you can leverage this enthusiasm and have them write some content. Examples of where SMEs could add value in this respect are writing simple cheat sheets, coming up with scenarios for developers to drop into interactions, writing realistic distractors (incorrect options) for quiz questions, or even plugging content directly into a simple authoring tool like Elucidat. Instructional writers may need to tweak SMEs’ words to make the language consistent with other material that’s been written, but the expert thinking and hard work for that piece would have been done. The key is to provide a rigid framework to keep the SME on track and capture their work by using master templates and being very specific about what the course and downstream production team needs. Here’s a quick animation to show you how Elucidat can gives SMEs structure while authoring content: For example, let’s say a course calls for an interaction where a client-customer conversation evolves over four screens or reveals. An SME would know what a conversation like this sounds like, so it makes sense to let them write one for you. You could provide a document template to the SME that includes: Immovable background information like the characters to use and environmental setting,  perhaps because these had been established elsewhere in the course; Minimum and maximum word counts to guide the SME because the conversation text needs to fit into defined areas on the course’s screens; A clearly-labeled area for the SME to indicate what each speaker’s mood is at each point of the conversation so that appropriate character graphics can be sourced; and A clearly-labeled area for the SME to populate what the actors actually say at each of the four conversation points. Tools like Elucidat can help you give SMEs a tight brief and a simple template that make it easy for them to write a piece of content - you can cut out one or more iterations of a design and review process and free the LDs and IDs to work on other elements of the course. Related: 3 advantages of involving more non-technical stakeholders in the elearning production process 4. Be specific about what you don’t want And finally, be specific about what you don’t want from an SME. This is especially true if you’re using them in a writing or review capacity. For example, if an SME is reviewing some alpha release deliverables, let them know that you don’t want them commenting on things like colors or navigational standards that were signed off on months before. In this example, be clear that they should report things that are wrong, not working or ambiguous, but not things that are a personal preference. It’s a waste of everybody’s time for SMEs to consider and report aspects of a deliverable that can’t be changed. The good news is that if the SMEs were present in the earlier project meetings, then they’ll already have a good idea of what these things are! Stay on top of the latest elearning ideas, trends and technologies by subscribing to the Elucidat weekly newsletter. The post Poor management of Subject Matter Experts is slowing down your elearning production process appeared first on Elucidat Blog.

New technologies are forcing L&D teams to change the way they produce elearning, says Steve Penfold. He explains how new processes are helping organisations speed up production, increase team productivity, and enhance elearning quality. Once upon a time, it was necessary for an L&D team to have two broad groups of people with very different skillsets to create elearning. You might have the designer group that handles the front-end design and content, and the development group that use their technical skills to bring the designers’ vision to life. What if I told you this process was outdated. What if I told you it’s inefficient and costing you hours of time and thousands of dollars? Modern elearning managers are rethinking their elearning production process to involve more stakeholders. New tools are enabling this shift by shielding stakeholders from the technical complexities of creating elearning. This shift is empowering non-technical stakeholders at the front-end of the production process. They now have direct access to create a working elearning product. Let’s look at the three advantages of involving more non-technical stakeholders in the elearning production process. 1. Increase the speed of production By allowing the people who know the content to actually put it directly into an authoring tool, you can speed up the production process. This increased speed can be the result of several factors: Fewer links in the chain: Each step (person) that content needs to go through in the production process adds time, e.g. from Subject Matter Expert (SME) to Learning Designer to Graphics Designer to Developer. Removing steps will reduce time. Imagine a situation where SMEs take the role of developer and enter their own content via a templated authoring tool like Elucidat. This could save hours of discussions and clarification meetings between team members. Development efficiencies: Developer resources are often stretched and can be a bottleneck in the production process. Allowing non-technical resources to create finished content, or at least working prototypes, will largely, if not entirely, remove this issue. Simplified review cycles: Like a game of Chinese whispers (or Gossip), each set of production hands that the content goes through, from initial idea to finished product, opens the door to errors and misinterpretation and makes extra quality checks and approvals necessary. Reducing the number of steps in the production process simplifies and reduces the number of reviews required and minimizes another potential production bottleneck. 2. Increase team productivity and efficiency In addition to increased development speed, general efficiencies can also be realized: Higher output: By using simple, powerful elearning authoring tools and enabling your non-technical resources to reach more deeply into the production process, your overall output capability will increase. A more flexible team: By using the majority of your L&D team and not just your developers to develop content (i.e., actually building a working product), you will have a more flexible production team and greater production capability. Remove reliance on third parties: If you currently outsource development to an external vendor, then huge time and costs savings will be realized by bringing some or all of the development function in-house using your available non-technical resources. Bring teams together: Web-based authoring tools like Elucidat allow multiple team members, regardless of their technical ability, to work concurrently on a single project over the web. Apart from the efficiency of having multiple people working on a single elearning deliverable, this means that geographically dispersed members can be formed into flexible, effective virtual teams. Related: How to speed up elearning content development 3. Improve quality of end product All of these savings and efficiencies that come from using your wider team for development don’t have to come at the expense of quality. The processes and features in the tools that will enable your non-technical workforce to author elearning can actually make for a better end product: Less chance of miscommunication: With a more direct route from subject knowledge to working product, there’s less chance of miscommunication, confusion, rework and errors. Centralized stakeholder input: Many elearning authoring tools that enable non-technical team members to create elearning have built-in web-based workflows that allow multiple SMEs and other stakeholders to access, review, comment on and approve content right inside the authoring tool. The chance of missed email comments, duplicate or conflicting comments and reviewer feedback in different (often developer-unfriendly) formats is removed. Consistency: By using templates in the elearning authoring tool that your team members use, the overall output will have a consistent look and the end users of the courseware will be familiar with how to use and interact with it. And templates don’t have to mean boring or inflexible. For example, Elucidat’s screen templates (or themes) can have as many or few screen types as necessary for a project (e.g. several question types, sequence builds, image carousels, multiple text and graphic layouts, video, etc.) and these can either be locked down or open to some adjustment depending on how much flexibility you want to give your authors. Give your non-technical team members the ability to dive into the elearning production process.Click To Tweet So, with these potential savings and benefits, the question for me isn’t why you would give your non-technical team members the ability to dive more deeply into the elearning production process, but rather why you wouldn’t. Stay on top of the latest elearning ideas, trends and technologies by subscribing to the Elucidat weekly newsletter. The post 3 reasons why you should rethink your elearning production process appeared first on Elucidat Blog.

Boring eLearning fails to engage learners. Li Whybrow shares her ideas on how you can create innovative eLearning that really stands out in the crowd and keeps learners engaged. In this article you’ll discover 3 ideas to help you create innovative eLearning. Use these ideas to create eLearning that that is more engaging and interactive for the user. 1. Use scrolling to improve the user experience Scrolling used to be considered bad eLearning design, but now, with smaller touch screens, it’s making a comeback. That’s because small screens make it cumbersome to have to touch a button to continue through the content. Instead of clicking, scrolling the screen up and down makes for a better user experience. Take a look at this example here: The Dangers of Fracking is a great eLearning resource that shows you how effective scrolling can be use in an eLearning environment. Benefits of using scrolling in this example: All the information is on one screen, saving the user from multiple unnecessary steps. Downward scrolling engages the learner because they feel like they are digging down into the earth to learn about the fracking process. User is in full control of the navigation. As the user progresses through each stage of the journey, relevant information pops up automatically. Interactive elements, like pop-ups, help the user explore and drill down deeper to learn more information. The background graphics are contemporary and create a relevant, meaningful canvas for the content to be displayed on. Elearning Superstars review: The Dangers of Fracking (Linda Dong) 2. Use clickable regions to link between pages Instead of using standard buttons to link between pages, consider using interactive elements on top of images. For example, in the Out of my window example below, a cut-out image of one of the people acts as a clickable region, which links to additional content (a pop-up layer containing video). Take a look at this example here: This eLearning works well because the interactive links help you navigate to each section of the course. Creative image effects (rollovers) make for an engaging and interactive experience. Elearning Superstars review: Out My Window (National Film Board of Canada) 3. Use navigation that makes consuming your content easier User-driven menu design, such as side or top tabs, put the learner in control of the order in which they want to access content. eLearning tools like Elucidat have ready-to-use menu templates that enable you to compile interactive menu screens quickly. You can link each topic to the relevant part of the course. A tabbed screen is also an option, wherein you can present a whole course within just one screen. This gives you the ability to put a range of media on each layer while using the theme of your choice. Here’s a great example of a creative navigation: I particularly like the simplicity of the navigation. At any point, you can quickly switch between the different stories by using the top navigation menu. Elearning Superstars review: Amazing Girls (New York Times) Conclusion: Increase Engagement By Innovating I have highlighted just a few ways to build innovative eLearning. Draw inspiration from what other eLearning professionals are creating. eLearning Superstars is a great resource that curates some of the most innovative eLearning examples from all over the world. Stay on top of the latest eLearning ideas, trends, and technologies by subscribing to the Elucidat weekly newsletter. The post Is your elearning boring? Spice it up with these 3 innovative elearning ideas appeared first on Elucidat Blog.

Elearning Superstars is a curated list of inspiring elearning examples, published every Tuesday. Subscribe to get weekly updates via email. This week we have some great elearning by FAUN Trackway, CLE India, and Open University. Showcase your elearning: Have you created a great piece of elearning that you’re really proud of? Showcase your elearning here to win awards and get published on Elearning Superstars. FAUN Trackway: Training that uses computer-aided imagery and animation CLE India: A program that educates handlers on the procedures to be followed while loading and unloading live cattle during transportation Open University: This interactive module uses fictional case studies to raise questions about what is good healthcare The post Elearning inspiration: FAUN Trackway, CLE India, Open University appeared first on Elucidat Blog.

With technology moving at an exponential rate, we are always facing new challenges in the elearning industry. Read on to discover the challenges elearning professionals face in this ever changing environment. Christopher Pappas: Top 10 instructional design challenges in elearning Instructional designers face a variety of challenges due to the multidimensional nature of their job. In this article, Chris shares the top 10 instructional design challenges faced from elearning professionals. Learn about Chris’ top 10 instructional design challenges faced by elearning professionals Marek Hyla: Elearning course hierarchy of needs: 5 key elearning challenges Elearning professionals should expect and be prepared for new challenges. In this article, Marek uses a hierarchic approach to discuss five challenges professionals face in the elearning industry. Read Marek’s five key elearning challenges Monique Honer: Got E-Learning subject matter expert challenges? Are your subject matter experts (SME’s) controlling, difficult and indecisive? Before you give up on your SME’s, try applying some of these strategies Monique shares in this article about the challenges we face with subject matter experts. Read Monique’s overview on subject matter expert challenges Nikhil Shrikhande: Risks and challenges with a globally distributed elearning team In this article, Nikhil discusses seven risks that a globally distributed elearning development team face. Try applying his advice to overcome elearning challenges with your development team. Read about Nikhil’s seven key risks Elucidat Content: Top 5 HTML5 e-learning challenges   HTML5 is a programming language that allows elearning projects to work on web and mobile devices. In this overview, we’ve shared solutions to five potential "snags" you may encounter with HTML5 in your elearning content. Read about the five problems you might come across in HTML5     Li Whybrow: Overcoming some of the challenges of working with desktop tools for e-learning   Are you using a desktop authoring tool to create your elearning content? In this article, Li shares the challenges you may face with desktop only authoring tools. Read about the challenges of desktop tools for elearning     5 articles on the challenges elearning professionals face in 2015Click To Tweet   The post What challenges do elearning professionals face in 2015? appeared first on Elucidat Blog.

Do your learners have the desire to learn? Motivation in elearning is a hot topic. Here are some fresh ideas from five industry leaders to help you motivate learners. Christopher Pappas: 5 tips to enhance motivation in elearning Improving your learners’ engagement can enhance their motivation to learn more. In this article, Christopher discusses this idea and others on the ways you can improve your learner’s motivation. Read Christopher’s five tips to enhance motivation Elias Parlavantzas: Learning motivation for employee engagement Employee engagement is critical for business success. Innovative elearning solutions, like gamification and mobile learning, can motivate employees to produce more, share more, acquire more and retain more knowledge. In this article, Elias discusses why employee engagement is an old problem that needs new solutions. Learn more about employee engagement solutions Jayme Jenkins: Building motivation and feedback with gamification In this article, Jayme explains how taking advantage of gamification in your elearning courses can create an exciting, motivational and stronger learning experience. Read Jayme’s article on building motivation with gamification Rambo Levin: Rethinking employee motivation Do you really know what motivates your employees? In this article, Rambo rethinks the traditional "stick and carrot" approach. He summarizes seven flaws of the traditional approach and gives insights on new ways to look at motivation. Read more about Rambo’s new age take on motivation Elearning motivation made easy: How to keep learners engaged   One of the key issues with elearning is the struggle to retain, engage and motivate learners. In this article, Aurion Learning tackles this topic head on and gives some ideas to help motivate your elearning users. Read more about ways to excite and motivate your learners   Do your learners have the desire to learn? 5 ideas to help you motivate learnersClick To Tweet   The post Motivating learners: 5 leaders share their ideas on how to increase motivation in elearning appeared first on Elucidat Blog.

Learning on mobile tablets is becoming a popular way to access elearning material. Users want easy accessibility and touch screen capabilities to learn from. Below are five articles on ideas you can use when creating tablet-friendly elearning courses. Christopher Pappas: 7 tips for creating tablet-friendly elearning courses Did you know 82 million people in the United States now own a tablet? If your elearning courses are not tablet friendly, you may be missing a good percentage of your target audience. In this article, Christopher shares seven tips to make your elearning courses tablet friendly. Read Christopher’s seven tips on creating tablet-friendly elearning courses Training Zone: Move over to tablets for elearning In the professional world, tablets are no longer just for entertainment purposes. They have become an integral part of the learning and development process in organizations all around the world. In this article, Trading Zone shares the main reasons for this revolution in mobile and tablet elearning. Learn more about tablet elearning Nikos Andriotis: mEnable your elearning - 6 things to consider when creating tablet compatible courses Mobile capability in elearning frees the learner from having to be situated at a desk using a computer. Classes can be had anywhere and material can be learnt anywhere there’s an internet connection. In this piece from Nikos, he shares six concept you must consider when building your tablet-friendly courses. Read Nikos’ six tips to creating tablet compatible courses Elearning on tablets - What, Why & How? (Slideshare) Amit Garg and Alan Samuel explain the current state of tablet use in the elearning industry. Click through the slides to learn how and why tablets are being used in the elearning industry. Intel Case Study: 21st century elearning soars with tablet computers   This comprehensive case study by Intel explores the exponential use of tablet learning in schools. Intel shares reasons why people prefer tablets to learn from and some ideas on what tablets are best for different levels of schooling. Read the case study by Intel   Try these ideas when creating tablet-friendly elearning coursesClick To Tweet   The post 5 ideas to help you create more effective tablet-friendly elearning appeared first on Elucidat Blog.

Elearning Superstars is a curated list of inspiring elearning examples, published every Tuesday. Subscribe to get weekly updates via email. This week we have some great elearning by Vodafone, KMI Learning, and Train4TradeSkills. Showcase your elearning: Have you created a great piece of elearning that you’re really proud of? Showcase your elearning here to win awards and get published on Elearning Superstars. Vodafone: Netpolis is an educational knowledge and strategy game about mobile telephony Business continuity training for financial services firms Train4TradeSkills: The Virtual Reality House let’s trades trainees - i.e. plumbers - practice their skills in a safe ‘walled garden’ setting The post Elearning inspiration: Vodafone, KMI Learning, Train4TradeSkills appeared first on Elucidat Blog.