I’ve talked about Jean Piaget before, and likely will talk about him again, but this week I wanted to talk a bit about the concept of transference and how you can apply transference (indirectly of course) through your e-learning design. What is transference? Transference applies to the concept of schemas; schemas are generated when we explore our environment and they help shape what we think about components of our world. Transference involves the redirection of feelings (or associations) from one object or person to another. For example, puppies may learn to submit to another dog higher in the pack order by showing their stomachs. These puppies may also expose their stomachs when interacting with a dog of a larger size than themselves once they become adult dogs…they have transferred their knowledge, from puppyhood, of pack order behaviour and have applied it to their new situation (e.g. when I was a little dog, I submitted to the bigger dog. That dog over there is bigger than me, so I’ll submit to them). Wow. That was a long-winded example. I’m sorry. I probably confused all yawl more. Examples in E-Learning Folks talk about personalization in e-learning all the time, but they rarely relate it to the idea of transference, but this is exactly what’s happening! When we have users select an avatar to represent them throughout their learning journey, we are indirectly having them apply their feelings to this avatar. This avatar IS the learner! Video games do a good job with this. While almost all video games can fall in this category of transference, I am particularly reminded of The Sims. So many people model their sim family after how they want to see themselves. They want to live vicariously through their characters. Therefore, a lot of gamification approaches are related to transference.Very interesting, yeah? Food for thought.

Upscaling is a hot buzzword today that is being met with mixed reviews, and I think it warrants a little bit of explanation. What the heck is ‘upskilling’? I know. Upskilling hasn’t quite made it to the realm of common terminology…as proven by my computer’s insistent autocorrect to ‘upscaling’, but it’s something that’s happening a lot more lately. Upskilling is essentially a professional development opportunity for employees within an organization to enhance their current skill set by learning new skills. Opportunities for upskilling can enhance an employee’s opportunity for promotion, may enhance their competitiveness within the industry, and will help keep employees current with changes to a given industry. However, employees and organizations alike have met the concept of upskilling with mixed reviews. Why? Well. From the employee perspective, some people don’t have a desire to learn new skills, and others may view upskilling as a means for their employer to provide professional development and employ these new skills without having to appropriately compensate employees for changes in their roles. From an organizational perspective, some organizations aren’t ready for lateral movement and tend to operate in a more linear environment. From a prospective employee standpoint, upskilling may be viewed as taking away opportunities; by upskilling internally, these prospective employees may need to start at the bottom and work their way up instead of moving directly into the role for which they’re qualified. Whichever camp you’re a part of (for or against upskilling), upskilling is a necessary evil in today’s economy for several reasons: There is increasingly more competition for the jobs that are out there, and to have the potential to be successful candidate for a position, employers may want to see that you’re comfortable with continual learning; Baby boomers are retiring, and there is a huge influx of jobs for which individuals aren’t formally qualified for - this is a great example of where upskilling could benefit employers: less time spent searching for a qualified candidate, and being able to refocus those HR hours on training internally; It’s a lot cheaper to train someone internally than hire someone new; and Technology means that we are in a constant state of change - if it isn’t one thing, it’s another. Resources: Some tips on upskilling by clearviewcoaching Is "Upskilling" Just a State of the Union Pipedream? by Julian L. Alssid Upskilling through foundation skills: A literature review by Alison Gray The Deskilling and Upskilling Debate by Ulrich Heisig

I was first introduced to the 70:20:10 model from a business perspective, but it’s a great model from the learning and development perspective as well! 70:20:10 Working for an organization that went through three CEOs in a matter of five years was very overwhelming. Each had their own strengths, each had their own level of support, and each had their own new-fangled ideas. One of these CEOs introduced me to the concept of 70:20:10. From a business perspective, this meant that the organization would focus 70% of their time and effort on core business needs, 20% of their time and effort on projects related to core business needs (e.g. moving into adjacent markets), and 10% of their time and effort on projects outside of core business needs (e.g. moving into an untouched market). For example, we were a company working on contracts primarily within the air force, so we spent 70% of our time working on projects for the air force, 20% of our time working on or attempting to work on projects in adjacent markets (e.g. naval or army training), and 10% of our time attempting to move into uncharted (for us) markets, such as commercial air training. But…how can this model apply to learning and development? I think you can use this model in learning and development as a means for managing your time and effort. Perhaps you want to learn some new skills that will benefit your role. You could spend 70% of your time pursuing learning opportunities related directly to your role (e.g. if you’re an instructional designer, perhaps you want to learn how to better organize content), 20% of your time learning a somewhat new skill (e.g. perhaps you’ve created basic graphics using powerpoint and want to learn how to use photoshop), and 10% of your time learning something completely unrelated to what you do, but which could still benefit your role (e.g. learning a programming language). Additionally, you could apply this to your workflow management. You could spend 70% of your time working away at your deliverables, 20% of your time liaising with clients, and 10% of your time seeking new projects. However you choose to apply the 70:20:10 model, it can be used to more effectively manage your time, which is great if you’re a micro-manager and super planner like myself!

Many Instructional Designers work in distance education (even if not directly linked to an institution), and I am one of those Instructional Designers. Within my full-time role, I assist in the development of online, hybrid, and blended courses. Within my quasi-full-time role, I develop e-learning for a variety of clients. However, the term ‘distance education’ has taken a bit of a turn when it comes to its definition, so I thought it might be handy to discuss this. This week’s post was actually prompted by the move of our department to change their name to Online Learning, instead of Distance Education. Distance Education Depending on which generation you’re from, distance education could have very different meanings. Some folks may associate distance education with correspondence courses (aka snail mail coursework), broadcast courses (aka televised), or online courses. All of these associations are correct, as distance education broadly includes any educational format wherein the instructor and student are separated by geographic location and/or time. At the institution I work at, they were a regional pioneer in distance education in the televised/broadcast format. We still have the ‘on air’ light in the department hallway! However, technology has facilitated a shift in delivery mode. We now offer distance education in online and multi-access (hybrid and blended) formats in order to cater to the needs of our students. While many programs are available entirely online, we’re always working to expand our current program and course offerings in an effort to enhance accessibility to a high-quality distance education experience. With the emergence of Learning Management Systems (LMS’), synchronous technology (e.g. Skype, Blackboard Collaborate, Adobe Connect) and video and/or e-learning authoring technology, faculty members now have many options when it comes to developing their courses. Distance education has become very popular over the last twenty years, and it’s certainly where education is moving simply because of how it addresses issues of accessibility and convenience. My graduate degree was completed entirely online (with the exception of one project that I painstakingly snail mailed in to a prof), and the experience I had prompted me to seek employment within higher education so I could become part of the distance education movement. Do I think distance education will overshadow traditional education? No. There’s still a very large population of individuals who want the traditional experience perhaps due to preference or learning style, but it is great to have an option to study while not being tethered to a single location. The only real con I would associate with distance education is that learners truly need to be self-motivated. Without that motivation, there is seldom someone else to hold the learner accountable, and it can be very easy to get off track. So when people ask me about distance education, I really cater it to the demographic. For example, it might not be the best option for first year students who have no prior experience with self-paced learning or no prior exposure to a college or university setting. At least not at the very beginning. If distance education is your only option as a first year student, that’s fine. Just know that you need to be organized and focused or things we’ll snowball out of control very fast.

The construction industry is a conservative one — as you have to be when you’re a bona fide engineering discipline, and people’s lives depend upon your products. As such it’s not one known to embrace the latests fads and short term trends. Which is just as well, as eLearning is neither a fad nor a short term trend. Not just because it’s a mature technology that has been around for a couple of decades already and has been adopted by all of Fortune 100 companies, but also it’s essentially just a variation of the age old practice of training and educating. Training and educating people is, of course, something that’s needed in every industry. And since it can help improve training efficiency while keeping costs low, it’s a perfectly good fit for today’s competitive construction industry. Especially as the complexity that construction companies have to manage is now at an all time high, with complex rules and regulations at the regional and national level to be followed, such as the International Building Code that has been adopted throughout most of the United States, but also the tons of special regulations related to things such as environmental factors, sustainability, power efficiency, etc. eLearning enables construction companies to train their workforce in navigating this increasingly complex landscape efficiently and in a cost-effective manner. Specifically, by embracing eLearning for employee training, construction companies gain: Scheduling flexibility Employees can educate themselves at their own pace, taking advantage of down-time within a project’s stages or between projects (even if such down-time is difficult to predict in advance, e.g. due to delays in supply lines or permit acquisition). This is unlike standard classroom based learning, were classes are remote, inflexible and have to be scheduled in advance. Cost Savings eLearning has an order of magnitude lower costs compared to traditional classroom based learning, with increased savings as the number of learners grows. With eLearning based training you don’t have to maintain or book a school to deliver courses in, or pay for employees’ travel expenses (which in some cases can include plane fares and hotel stays). You also don’t need to employ as many educators, since a single eLearning platform deployment can handle thousands of students with one or a couple instructors overseeing them all. Central Deployment Large construction companies can operate in multiple locations, in different cities and often in different countries. eLearning allows such businesses to deliver training to multiple locations while retaining central supervision, with a single deployment that their IT department can easily manage, monitor and secure. This enables construction companies to have all their workforce up to date to the latest rules and regulations, something especially useful in compliance training. Central, web based, deployment also makes updating eLearning material easier and more cost effective (compared to prepared classroom based lectures and printed textbooks), something that’s important considering that construction codes and regulations are frequently updated, and new techniques and construction materials might be needed for specific jobs. And with the advanced reporting capabilities of an LMS like eFrontPro, managers can keep track of courses, groups of learners, or even specific employees across all their sites and branches, and even automatically award specific certifications upon the successful completion of a course or a set of courses. Onboarding Last, but not least, an eLearning management system can be used for employee orientation (or "onboarding"), that is, for introducing new hires to their working environment and giving them the basic information they need to start being productive. This information includes your construction company’s operating procedures, policies, restrictions and guidelines, as well as the ever more important education in professional ethics, and sexual and racial discrimination issues. Conclusion In today’s competitive construction landscape, eLearning can help minimize costs and increase training effectiveness. Fill out the form, and our representatives will show you how you can leverage eLearning to upgrade employee training in your construction business to a solid foundation, just like Carter does. Image credit Or just watch our video: The post eLearning for the construction industry appeared first on eFront Blog.

Banking. It’s what makes our modern economy tick (and, perhaps, tock), and a big enabler of the business and innovation progress we’ve had in the 21st century. It’s, to paraphrase the proverb, a lucrative job, but somebody’s got to do it. It’s also a demanding job, one where books of regional, national, and international rules and regulations can be stacked as high as the Empire State Building. Add to the mix operational guidelines and procedures internal to your financial organization, and what you have is informational overload. In a sector where information is leverage and mistakes can cost billions (and trivially DO cost millions), continuous training is par for the course, and an eLearning solution is a no brainer for multiple reasons we’ll delve into below. The cost factor One factor in favor of eLearning in most industries is cost, namely that an eLearning solution costs less to deploy and run compared to traditional learning. This is probably not as much a concern in the financial sector, as the money involved for both options are small peanuts related to the average budget of a large financial institution. So, while the reduced costs of eLearning is a nice to have, it’s not a deciding factor in this case. What does matter in finances is the overall efficiency and return of investment of the training, and that’s something were eLearning also helps a lot. In the fast-paced world of finance, where working long hours is the norm, classroom based education, with its rigid schedules and its commuting requirements, is disruptive. eLearning allows employees to educate themselves at their own pace, between customer and board meetings, when work winds down, or when NYSE is closed for the night. Even commuting time, on a plane or train, can be used for training, with an eLearning platform like eFrontPro which can work both with and without an internet connection. With eLearning your employees waste less time going to and out of classrooms and spend more time learning and being productive, which in turn translates to huge savings and less disruptions to the operation of your organization. Privacy and control Financial organizations have all kind of internal procedures and training material to use, and not all of it should ever be outside of the company. With internet based eLearning you can deploy your courses in a tightly controlled manner, providing fine-grained access only to the right employees and securing the whole thing behind your company’s firewall or VPN. And for financial organizations operating in multiple cities, countries, offices and branches, an LMS (which is required for eLearning) allows you to deliver training to all your locations from a single deployment, that your IT department can easily manage, monitor and secure. Staying up to date The financial industry is not a static environment. In fact it’s perhaps the most dynamic sector of the so called knowledge based economy, with each day and week bringing unique challenges and changes (especially in areas such as compliance training). When it comes to training, this means that a lot of the learning material has to change frequently to adapt to new developments. This is another area were eLearning beats classroom based classes that need printed textbooks, specialized instructors and a predefined lesson schedule. Central, web based, deployment makes updating eLearning material quick and painless, and compatibility with third party and external sources means that all kinds of pre-packages and already available content can be incorporated to your eLearning courses in a heartbeat. Employee Onboarding Employee orientation or onboarding, the task of introducing new hires to their working environment and giving them the basic information they need to start being productive, is another great fit for eLearning and eFrontPro. This includes your organization’s operating procedures, policies, restrictions, compliance regulations and guidelines, as well as the ever more important education in professional ethics, and sexual and racial discrimination issues. Training Insight The last major benefit of eLearning we’ll cover in this post is that it gives managers and decision makers quick and comprehensive insight over the status and progress of your organization’s training programs. Instead of delivering seminars to your employees and hoping for the best, or waiting for some instructor to grade and deliver employee progress reports at the end of the learning period, with eLearning you get automated and fast insights on how your employees are doing and how well your training material has been absorbed. eFrontPro, for example, includes advanced reporting capabilities that enable supervisors and management to keep track of courses, groups of learners and even the learning progress of specific employees, across all of your organization’s departments and branches. Conclusion For a fast-paced, knowledge-driven industry like finance, where training is a matter of survival, adopting eLearning is a no-brainer. Take eFrontPro for a free test drive, and talk to our representatives about how you can leverage eLearning to take employee training in your bank, financial institution or related organization to the next level. Photo credit The post Why eLearning in the finance industry is very important appeared first on eFront Blog.

Compliance training. It’s a tough job but somebody’s got to do it. And that somebody is you, if you are a business owner that wants to enter certain markets for which the law mandates it. So how to encourage your employees to comply with compliance training requirements? Yelling at them would help, but if you want some more sophisticated ideas you could try, read on. Make it lighter Just because it’s compliance training doesn’t mean it also has to be boring. An eLearning platform allows you to spice up a bland compliance training material with presentations, audio, video and even interactive exercises and quizzes. It might also allow for discussions and comments exchange from the learners, in some kind of forum or chat system, which can live up an otherwise dry lesson. Take advantage of the multimedia and interaction facilities an LMS offers to take your presentations as far away as you can from merely citing rule after rule and guideline after guideline. Make it heavier The different aspects of doing business that compliance training covers (legal, ethical, environmental, etc) can have quite heavy repercussions if the rules are not followed properly and the case is taken to court. And that’s not just for your company, but also for the individual employee. Making your employees understand that paying attention to their compliance training will help them avoid getting sued or fined, can be quite motivational. Use concrete examples Compliance training content might seem as something abstract and outside your employees’ regular duties, especially if it’s presented in a dry and formalistic manner. To make them understand how it connects to them, use concrete, real world, examples of situations in which they’ll get to use the knowledge they gained from their compliance training. Examples of how someone’s failure to comply with a rule led to a whole production run being discarded (a common issue in factories), or past employees getting in the hot seat for disobeying an ethical rule (e.g. against racial discrimination), will help them understand the day-to-day importance of their training. Accommodate them Sometimes the reason employees have issues with compliance training is that it obstructs their daily workflow. People do not like it when their daily routine is disrupted, especially if this means they might get behind on their workload. Even worse is when compliance training demands some of their free time (e.g. by asking them to stay after work or to study at home). eLearning helps alleviate this situation, by enabling employees to study from everywhere, and at their own pace Take advantage of this, and give them the choice of how and when they’ll study. This includes giving them the option to study on their commute, e.g. by also providing your compliance course in a mobile friendlyversion (most LMS nowadays support mobile/tablets). If the compliance training course is too demanding (which can happen depending on the industry), you slightly reduce your employees’ workload for that period so that they can manage better, or even allow them some time off from work for studying. Compensate them Employees like to be compensated for their time. This includes their time spent studying for their compliance training. That doesn’t mean you have to take out your checkbook ― there are several other ways to reward them for their successful completion of their training and motivate them to try harder. Giving them some time off of work is an obvious reward, and it’s quite fair too, especially if they had to put on longer hours or study from home for their compliance training. Another approach would be to give them some kind of "points" upon the successful completion of their training, which could be tied to a future bonus or promotion. Taking advantage of the reporting facilities of modern LMS systems, you could even tie those points to their individual performance. Last, but not least, you could award them some kind of certification upon the completion of their compliance training, something that they could use as an asset in their future career in the industry too. Conclusion Those are just a few ways we’ve found to increase participation and minimize employee friction and complaints when doing compliance training. If you have any related tips to share with our readers from your experience in applying compliance training to your company, please drop us a comment. And if you’re interested in compliance training and applying eLearning solutions to your enterprise or organization, check out our free online demo or contact our sales department who will answer your every question*. *= eLearning related, but we’re good at computer and math questions too The post The complete guide for making complying with compliance training easier appeared first on eFront Blog.

They say that nobody likes lawyers until they need one. I don’t know, I always liked the profession. Heck, I’m somewhat of a certified lawyer myself, in the sense that, while I have not actually studied the thing, I’ve seen all episodes of Law & Order, The Practice, Boston Legal, Shark, The Defenders and lots of others. That should count for something, right? In this post we’ll show how legal professionals can benefit from eLearning, and why it is a great fit for law firms and the legal profession in general, an industry where training and re-training is a constant and available time is limited. It saves time When you’re trying to save your clients from "doing time", you usually don’t have that much time yourself. Lawyers and legal professionals are notoriously overworked, and long hours are the norm, whichever branch of law they practice. eLearning based training doesn’t have the time and location requirements that classroom based training has. Studying can happen at home, during office downtime, etc. at the employees’ own pace. Since training happens on-demand and can be served through web interfaces, it can be used on any kind of device: desktop, laptop, tablet or even a smartphone. A lawyer can study while at court waiting for the judge to arrive or the jury to come back with their decision, or even while commuting or waiting at the airport to catch a flight. This makes eLearning a convenient and effective method for lawyers to study for their continuing legal education (CLE), something which is required by law in most countries. It’s location independent Lawyers often have to be in different cities, to follow up on a court case or represent a client. That’s especially true for larger law firms that maintain offices in different cities or even in several countries. Scheduling seminars in all those places, besides being costly and a huge time-sink to manage, leaves lawyers and staff in each office learning something different, as instructor skills can vary widely, and even the same instructor might skip some important points or change his delivery. eLearning ensures that the exact same content is presented in the same way across all of your branches and offices. And, what’s even better, you have a centralized way to schedule, monitor and manage courses and employee progress. It’s easy to deploy Modern LMS platforms are easy to install and deploy. If you have an IT department, installing an LMS like eFrontPro would be a piece of cake for them. And even if you don’t, there are hosted options that give you a turn-key solution, ready for you to start developing your courses. It’s easy to update The things lawyers and legal staff have to study change all the time (as do laws, especially in areas like business or when dealing with international cases), making it difficult to keep up via seminars and printed textbooks. eLearning material is just bytes on a hard disk, so it’s as easy to update and change, as it is writing a document on Word (or WordPerfect — I’m told a lot of legal professionals, especially in the US, still swear by it). A modern learning management system (LMS) like our eFrontPro, also allows you to incorporate existing material, from presentations to pdf documents, and from web pages to videos in your courses. You can even buy and include off-the-shelf prepackaged courses made available by third parties into your training material. It’s easy to track As a legal professional you’re surely familiar with the "chain of evidence" and the need for careful tracking of everything. eLearning gives you an easy way to track course completion, employee progress, time spend, skills acquired, and numerous other events and data associated with your training program. eFrontPro’s reporting capabilities for example, ensure that you’re always ahead of what’s happening during your employee training programs, with up to the moment information of individual and group attendance, performance and grades, and pretty graphs to show to your boss (or get insight from, in case you’re the boss). It’s a full blown learning experience eLearning is not just a fancy way to describe webpages with some text and a few automated tests. With a capable LMS platform, eLearning is a full blown learning experience in its own right, one that has been shown to have even better results for corporate training than traditional seminars and classroom based training (which usually end up being a yawn-fest). With eFrontPro for example you can add images, presentations, interactive elements, and multimedia assets (sound and video) into your training courses. This allows you to include things like newspaper clippings and forensic expert reconstructions related to a case, or graphs and supporting material to help get your point across. When you need them, real time instructions and face-to-face meetings are available too, with LMS support for tele-conference sessions and electronic whiteboards. Or the whole class can have a lengthier asynchronous discussion by taking advantage of the chat and forum functionality. Last, but not least, you can combine classroom based education with online courses in a "blended learning" scenario. eFrontPro for example has a special type of course that can be had in the "real" world but be managed (graded, tracked, etc) as an online class, helping you integrate traditional and on-demand learning. It’s cheap This one is kind of obvious. Deploying a fully featured eLearning solution is cheaper than hiring one or more instructors and renting some classrooms, or paying the travel costs for your staff to attend a seminar. This gets even more impressive when you add remote offices into the equation, as the same LMS deployment can serve up to thousands of employees all over the world at the same time. eLearning, being on-demand, is also less disruptive to your normal (hectic) workflow, something that not only will be appreciated by your lawyers or legal staff, but will also save you time by keeping productivity up. Closing arguments eLearning is a perfect fit for the legal industry for several reasons: - It’s cheaper than traditional learning - Lawyers and legal staff can study at their own pace and from wherever they are - It’s on-demand, so it doesn’t disrupt your firm’s busy schedule - It’s great for continuous legal education (CLE) - It’s easy to deploy, manage and update - It’s a full blown learning experience, just as valid and effective as classroom based learning. Have you reached your verdict? If you’re interested in deploying an eLearning solution in your firm, contact us and we’ll be happy to help you and overrule any objections you might have. Or take eFrontPro for a free demo, and you’ll agree with us that… res ipsa loquitur! The post How eLearning can work in the legal industry appeared first on eFront Blog.

There’s a line from the 80’s Kevin Costner flick "Field of Dreams" that has outlived the movie: "If you build it, they will come". Sadly it seldom works that way in real life, and almost never in eLearning. Even before you start your eLearning business you have to think of your target audience. And after you’re done with writing your courses it’s time to market them, that is, if you want people to know about them. In time, you’ll learn that to run a successful eLearning business you’ll have to wear many hats (or hire the right people to do the wearing). Here are a few tips to help you with this. 1. Scratch an itch If you want to create a business, begin by considering what would attract enough customers to sustain it. Your courses should solve a real problem ("scratch an itch") that people have. Learning english, learning the guitar or learning business administration are actual things people pay for. Sure, you might like Latin and want to offer courses for it but there’s a reason it’s called a dead language: not even zombies speak it. It would thus be unwise to start an eLearning business based on selling Latin courses to the masses. Similarly, a subject that millions enjoy but nobody would pay to learn is also a no-no. That doesn’t mean you should stick to what everybody else offers or to a few "safe" options. Just that there has to be a market willing to pay for the kind of courses you want to offer. Which brings us to our next tip: 2. Find a niche There are two ways to succeed in a market. Either offer something everybody wants and many sell, or offer something fewer people want but only a tiny number of business sell it. McDonalds does the first. Ferrari does the second. If you go for this then offering an obscure course might not be a bad idea, as long as there are enough people willing to enroll for it and there’s little competition. Such small and specialized markets are called "niches", and if you decide to cater to one, you’ll need to know it well. Studying such a market is usually easy, because there are fewer competitors you have to check. By the same token, however, those that do exist might be too entrenched and command such a large percentage of the market that you will need to have a really compelling offer (quality or price wise) to break into it. Which brings us to our next tip: 3. Create your courses with your customers in mind Of course you always have to create courses with your students in mind. But if you’re selling courses (as opposed to doing enterprise training for example), you’ll also have to think of your students as customers. Enterprise training is "easier" in this regard, as employees can (and usually are) forced to go through their courses. Your students, on the other hand, are there by choice, and can leave whenever they want. One important rule is to neither bore them nor discourage them with difficult to follow lessons. Bored and discouraged students seldom renew their subscriptions. Try to make your courses fun and rewarding to follow, and try to have the appropriate learning pace for your audience and its age, prior skills and knowledge level, and time availability. Which brings us to our next tip: 4. Be flexible Whether you cater to a mass market or a smaller niche market, you will get the best results by offering a flexible curriculum and multiple training options. After all flexibility and adaptability to particular needs is supposed to be a core advantage of eLearning compared to traditional classroom based training. Since your students might be in different timezones or study at home after work, try to offer several date and time options for any real-time course activity (e.g. teleconferences, due dates for homework, etc), so that everybody can fit their schedule around them. Offer courses in several "packages", allowing your students to pick the one that works for them depending on their skills and prior experience. Listen to your students’ complaints and remarks and adapt your courses accordingly if you see a common pattern. Don’t see their criticism defensively; what they really do is help you market-optimize your business. Which brings us to our next tip: 5. Market the hell out of it Marketing. You can’t avoid it. Heck, Coca Cola has to spend millions every year, and they are the most recognizable brand on earth. Don’t be afraid to be social. Embrace blogging, Facebook, Twitter, YouTube etc to your advantage. These are the places your potential students are. Be there too. That said, avoid scams like paying "black hat SEO" guys to make your eLearning portal #1 in Google. You might as well wire your money directly to that troubled Nigerian prince. The only way to get your name out and rank high in search engines is to offer quality content regularly. Find out the best places to advertise and market your business depending on your market. If, for example, you sell guitar lessons, ads in magazines like "Guitar World" or "Rolling Stone" will get you more students than one in the New York Times or The Sun, even if more people read the latter. Follow your target audience. Don’t use marketing as a facade to lure people to a poor experience. You have to have a solid presence at all levels and keep your branding consistent throughout. Don’t pay to have great TV ads and then greet people coming to check your eLearning service with a lousy web presence and an ugly logo. Which brings us to our conclusion: Conclusion Running an eLearning portal is not unlike running any other business. You need to find your niche, solve a real problem people have, cater to your customer needs, be flexible, and market the hell out of your product. And if you need an example of a product that solves the very real need of proving a best of breed eLearning platform, is cost effective and a breeze to use, and offers tons of flexibility and customization options, take our own product, eFrontPro, for a free test drive. The post 5 tips to help you sell your eLearning courses appeared first on eFront Blog.

In IT there’s this notion of a 10x programmer. This legendary creature is someone who is ten times more productive than the average programmer (in other words someone who contributes as much as ten other employees). Admittedly this might be a little on the hyperbolic side, but the truth is that in any industry there are indeed employees that are much more valuable, motivated and productive than their colleagues. Your job, as a manager, is to create an environment and a company culture such that those star employees can be discovered, empowered and allowed to flourish. In this post we’ll examine five ways in which eLearning, with the help of a modern LMS, can help you do just that. 1. Keep an eye on newcomers In Employee Orientation (or "onboarding") you’re introducing new hires to your working environment and giving them the information they need to start being productive. Traditionally done in the form of office tours and welcome seminars given by senior employees, employee orientation is now being automated in the form of online courses that new hires can study at their own pace and refer back to at any time. This is also the perfect moment to separate the wheat from the chaff. Instead of randomly assigning new hires to any available position they have the necessary qualifications for, have them complete one or more aptitude tests as part of their onboarding. Use the results of these tests to determine what would be the best position for each, and who shows the most potential going forward. Keep an eye on those that scored best on such tests — they’re most likely to be your future star employees. 2. Measure training results Employee training is not just about teaching your employees some new skill. It’s also about accessing their performance during this training. Using the built-in capabilities of a modern learning management system (LMS) you can have access to multiple performance indicators: submitted exercises, tests and quizzes, grades, skills and certificates awarded, etc. You can also use the powerful reporting facilities available in an LMS such as eFrontPro to generate detailed reports based on employee performance, or to dive-in and examine the training history of your best students in minute detail. 3. Spot self-motivation Most companies run their eLearning courses for specific subsets of employees and at specific times (e.g. when there are new hires, or when they need some existing employees to pick up some new skill). That doesn’t mean that their LMS platforms are powered down for the rest of the time. Usually they’re kept in operation, waiting to offer courses on demand to anyone interested. In any case, it pays to check your eLearning platform’s access logs. You may find that some of your employees log in to your LMS even at times when they’re not asked to. Some might want to refer back to their old training material. Others want to study more advanced stuff, or learn the skills needed for another position. Whatever the reason, those users are among your potential star employees. They are people that exhibit an intellectual curiosity beyond that of their colleagues, and that are motivated enough to study on their own even when it’s not required of them. 4. Pin a star on them Using your LMS platform to spot your star employees is own thing. Keeping them happy and letting them be productive is another matter. Giving them the appropriate position within your business or organization is the first step. For some this might be the position that their training results tell you they are already good at. For others, this might be the position that they aspire to have and try to learn as much as they can about. You must also signal to your other employees that such training performance and motivation is something that you value. Pay raises, bonuses and promotions to your star employees are great ways to show that. It’s not wise to be stingy in this regard; your competitors might not be. Besides, if your star employees know that they are more talented and productive than their peers (and they *will* know), then your failure to acknowledge and award them will create ill feelings and ultimately a negative environment. That said, sometimes a simple token of appreciation, such as awarding them a certificate or merely expressing your gratitude can be enough (as long as it’s followed by something tangible in the long run). 5. Let them teach others As we showed, eLearning can help you identify your potential star employees. Beyond that, though, it can help you leverage those same star employees to train the rest of your workforce. You see, the secret behind your star employees’ productivity is not just their natural talent or motivation. It’s also the workflow they follow, the skills they’ve picked while on the job and the techniques they came up with. And while raw talent might be in one’s DNA, all of these can be taught. Ask them to create some training classes of their own, in which to teach their productivity tips to their colleagues. Such classes will serve both as an acknowledgment of their "star" status and as a method of knowledge retention within your company. If they are team players they won’t see this negatively (e.g. as others "stealing their secrets") but as a chance to pass down their expertise to others; and if they aren’t team players, then you probably don’t want them in your team in the first place. Conclusion In this post we’ve examined several ways in which you can use your eLearning portal to identify and empower potential star employees: shorting them out during employee orientation, using reporting tools to evaluate their training progress, checking for employees that are motivated enough to learn by themselves, and letting star employees create eLearning courses to pass on their special skills and expertise. If you want to try these techniques on your own enterprise or organization, then take our own eFrontPro LMS platform for a free test drive. It comes with all the tools you’ll need to create and run your courses, organize employee orientation and evaluate your employees’ training progress. If you have any questions regarding eLearning or our eFrontPro LMS, contact us and our own star employees will be glad to assist you. The post 5 ways to identify your star employees through eLearning appeared first on eFront Blog.

Social media have become an indispensable part of modern life. A huge part of our social lives already happens online rather than in the "real world". And while individual social media networks might rise and fall (remember MySpace?), social networking itself is not going anywhere. It makes sense then to want to use those powerful and hugely popular platforms for things besides posting cat videos or catching up with Alex from high school. And indeed, people already use them for things ranging from gaming down to email replacement and even disaster management. But how about using social media as vehicles for eLearning? In this post we’ll go through the six most popular social media networks and evaluate their fitness for the task. Twitter The most appealing thing about Twitter is also its major limitation: you have to fit your content in 140 characters. This limit makes using Twitter for general eLearning problematic. Even if your content could somehow fit, Twitter encourages a rapid-fire consumption of tweets, so it’s not the best place for a deep learning experience. There’s also the fact that Twitter provides few mechanisms for saving, cataloguing and viewing tweets at a later time, besides the rather inflexible hashtags; it’s more a stream-of-messages than a content repository. On the other hand, the 140-character limit makes Twitter a handy platform for micro-learning. Especially combined with the abundance of mobile clients, it enables you to use Twitter as a delivery mechanism for short bursts of eLearning content (think flash-cards or "word of the day" kind of affairs). Besides using Twitter for eLearning delivery, you can also use it as a supplementary tool for your main eLearning platform. It excels in real-time feedback and discussion, but also as a marketing tool for your eLearning offering and as a way to advertise new courses and content. Twitter is also very popular with the younger demographics. If your eLearning content is targeted primarily to them, then this makes Twitter ideal for connecting with your desired audience. YouTube The world’s largest repository of cat videos, is also a bona fide social network of its own right, just one that doesn’t use text but video as its starting point. The main ingredients are all there: your uploaded content is shared with the internet at large, which can then view it, "like" it or "hate" it, add comments, post "video responses", annotate it, share it and subscribe to your channel. Compared to Twitter, using YouTube for eLearning is more straightforward. In fact, there are tons of YouTube channels doing just that, e.g. providing foreign language lessons, cooking lessons, musical lessons, and everything in between. This works great for material that can be taught visually, but YouTube doesn’t make it easy to accompany your videos with textual content, slideshows, quizzes, etc. For this, you’ll need an actual LMS platform. You also shouldn’t depend on YouTube ads to monetize your lessons, as it pays around $1000 per million views, while producing compelling videos that attract as many viewers can require many times that amount. It’s better to use YouTube as a complementary channel to your existing LMS portal, one that provides free or ad-sponsored teasers, free lessons and previews in order to attract people to sign-up for your pay-walled content. If, on the other hand, you’re not selling courses (e.g. you do enterprise eLearning) or you’re not creating your own videos, you can still benefit from YouTube as a huge repository of ready-made content. YouTube contains a large variety of high quality material on every subject, and modern LMS platforms, such as eFrontPro, make it easy to embed its videos in your eLeaning courses. Instagram Instagram is kind of like Twitter, but its limitation is that it’s all about visual content, either pictures or video that’s only up to 15 seconds long. Unlike YouTube, Instagram is not much good as a content repository to get course related material from. It’s also more distracting and limited compared to Twitter (which is saying something). While Instagram might seem like a lost cause, it does have a couple of redeeming qualities. For one, it can re-post your messages across several social media (Facebook, Twitter, Foursquare and others, including China’s hugely popular Weibo). So, you can use it as a convenient way of cross-posting your content to different audiences. Second, it’s popular with the younger demographic, and being based on photography and video, quite fun to use. You can leverage this by incorporating it in your assignments as a light research tool (asking your learners to gather images related to what they’re studying, e.g. examples of buildings in various styles for an architectural course, etc.). Facebook Facebook is the Godzilla of social networks. It’s also the more feature complete one: it has text, images, videos, scoring, comments, pages, sharing, and a full web-based embedded app platform. As such, it has a huge potential for eLearning, which, we think it hasn’t really stood up to. This doesn’t mean that it isn’t used already for eLearning purposes, or that you shouldn’t use it for those ends. On the contrary, there’s already a lot you can do with it. For starters, if you’re selling eLearning courses Facebook is your ideal marketing platform. It’s a social network with over a billion people, that keeps detailed statistics for their preferences, hobbies, friends, social status, income and other such data. Besides, eLearning content is something that can benefit from a longer FB post, compared to a smaller AdSense ad in Google’s search results. Facebook is also a handy way to create an online community page based on specific courses you offer or for your whole eLearning business as well. As for course related feedback and collaboration, you can use it for that too, but perhaps it would be better to use your LMS built-in forum functionality (if available), so that this content remains in your control for the long term. Last, but not least, there’s the app platform. This enables you to create web-based applications embedded in Facebook and even monetize them. This can, and has, been used for eLearning, including for some eLearning meta-platforms. As with every proprietary platform though, you have to think if the tradeoff of giving up control (since Facebook dictates the terms around third-party apps) is worth it for the extra convenience (exposure, infrastructure, etc) the platform provides. If you decide to go this route, we’d advise you to not put all of your eggs in one basket. As Zynga discovered, it can get bad if the owner of the basket wants to change the terms of use or increase its share of the profits. Google+ On paper (or monitor), Google+ looks good. Several hundred million accounts, backed by Google, well featured, modern design, etc. In practice it’s the online equivalent of a ghost town. See Google+ never really caught on, and the user count Google gives is based on inflated statistics (trust me, I’m a Greek, I know from doctored statistics). Google is basically counting as a Google+ user anyone with an updated YouTube or Gmail account ― despite the fact that they have never set foot on "Google+ the social network". Don’t get us wrong: Google+’s actual active user base is still substantial, but nowhere as large as that of FB. This scarcity of users makes Google+ unfit as a marketing vehicle to attract eLearning customers. If you’re OK with that, e.g. if you just want to invite your existing students to a Google+ group, then it’s probably just as good as Facebook, features-wise, and with a cleaner and more focused UI to top. There are also the Google+ Hangouts, a popular solution for teleconference that includes video chat and instant messaging. Google+ Hangouts are quite limited compared to some other teleconference platforms (e.g. it only allows up to 10 people at a time, it doesn’t support shared screens or virtual whiteboards, etc), but it can come handy if your LMS doesn’t offer that functionality. LinkedIn Unlike the rest of the bunch, this social network is all about your professional life. After all it started out as a glorified resume site that recruiters and HR teams could use to find potential hires. As such, it might not be great from using as an eLearning tool, but it can be of great benefit for your students. If you’re in the business of offering professional training courses, for example, you’re mostly catering to people that want to further their skills in order to improve their hireability and land a better job. These are exactly the people that will benefit the most from a well crafted LinkedIn profile, but you’d be amazed by how many of them either don’t have one at all or have a neglected, incomplete, profile. Teaching your students how to craft the perfect profile and how to leverage LinkedIn can make a big difference in their professional life after they complete your courses ― which increases the odds of them recommending your eLearning service to others and coming back for more. In fact, if your lessons are targeted at job-seekers, it might be a good idea to not just leave it to LinkedIn, but to offer a class to teach them all about creating a good CV, preparing for an interview, and the like, of which LinkedIn and online reputation management in general should be a core part. Oh, and if you offer business administration and management style courses, LinkedIn user posts have a trove of information from big players and business veterans that you can point your students to and incorporate in your courses. Conclusion We had a look at the 6 most popular social networks, Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, Google+, LinkedIn and Instagram. While not all social media platforms are equally fit for eLearning purposes, a successful eLearning business should take a good look in incorporating one or more of the major social media in its offering. Keep in mind though that each social media platform has its own strengths and weaknesses and it’s own peculiar take on the concept of "social" that you should respect and try to work within its bounds. Liked this post? Like us on Facebook, tweet about it on Twitter, snap a picture of it and post it on your Instagram or upload a video response on YouTube showing your appreciation. Until next week, happy eLearning! The post Using social media for eLearning (a look at the top 6 social platforms) appeared first on eFront Blog.

You’ve enjoyed the platform, you’ve dug the features, you’ve appreciated the support and you loved the end product. It’s time to meet the people behind it all. In this series of behind-the-scenes interviews, we’ll be introducing the team that created eFrontPro, is managing your private Clouds and keeps churning all those nice updates. We’ll start with Eleftheria Papatheodorou, an eFront customer service veteran that’s been with the company since its humble beginnings and helped us build a solid support team that gets high praise from our customers. (Oh, and in case you’re wondering about the title: Eleftheria does mean freedom in Greek). Please introduce yourself to our readers. What’s your name, background, and responsibilities inside the company? I am Eleftheria Papatheodorou, or El which is my nickname! After studying Management Science and Technology at the Athens University of Economics and Business I was hired by Epignosis and for the last 8 years I’ve been a member of the team. I am responsible for customer training and support management. eFront customers praise your team’s responsiveness to their support requests. In an industry were support is often an afterthought, what’s your secret? Well, it IS a secret, so we better leave it as it is. We wouldn’t want our competitors to read about it But here’s a small hint: loving your job helps a lot. eFront, and now eFrontPro, have come a long way since the early days. How has the support team kept up with their ever expanding user base? I think that having a great support service is one of the features we use to attract new customers, so expanding our user base and keeping our support top-notch were always interdependent. As a customer oriented company, our support service has been and still is our top priority. We were never afraid of working hard to cope with our ever increasing number of customers. Of course at times this has been very demanding, as the team was small and had to support really big customers, but we kept at it, determined to succeed. That said, supporting a product with such a user friendly interface and built according to actual customer needs and feedback, has certainly made our jobs a lot easier. Is there anything regarding support that you find particularly challenging? I’d say that understanding how the end users actually use the product is a big challenge, as it’s those needs that should guide our product development. Through support we get to have an in depth communication with our customers, and besides helping them solve their problems and teaching them how to work with the software, we must also be capable of "decrypting" any implicit messages. Obviously no one knows what’s lacking or what’s needed in an eLearning product better than its actual users, but they can’t always put it in concrete terms, and what’s important to one customer might not be to the market at large. So, part of our job is to gauge what the market needs based on the support questions and requests we receive, note them down, and use them to plan our roadmap. Many see support as a thankless job for a "silent hero". Do you think support can be rewarding? The most important thing is that you, yourself, feel thankful for your job. In this sense there is really no thankless job. When it comes to support, I find it really rewarding and I can assure you that when the customers are happy they can become really generous with their praise. Often I’ve been touched and flattered by our customer’s comments. The real silent heroes for me are the developers, who are behind the scenes and do all the hard work. Do you study the competition? What you think are other companies’ shortcomings when it comes to their support offerings, and how does eFrontPro differ? To answer this I would ask for our customers help. I would welcome them to post their comments and share their opinions with us. How do you like working for Epignosis? How does it compare to the average Greek company, based on your prior experience, or what your friends in other IT companies tell you? I could not ask for a better workplace environment. The team is great and we are more like friends than colleagues, something which is very important to me. As for comparing it to other employers, I don’t like comparisons in general since they can lead to the wrong conclusion. Everything in life has its pros and cons, nothing is perfect. And there’s always our personal perspective to consider. What’s great for me may be irrelevant to someone else. The challenge is to find what best suits you. You’ve been been with the company for nearly 8 years now. What do you think has changed, if anything, since the early days, regarding your job function, the team, and the product? Many many things have changed, as you probably can imagine. First of all, many new members were added to our team and this requires better organization and more formalized procedures. We are still working on these since we are still growing our team and we often have to reconsider and improve our procedures. As far as the product is concerned, I can assure you that you wouldn’t recognize it as it was 8 years before. The philosophy is still the same but the implementation is much more modern and feature complete. My job function has also changed. When the team had fewer members each of us had to undertake many different tasks, or "wear many hats", as they say, whereas as the company grows our roles get more specialized. What kinds of support methods do you offer (e.g. email, web form, chat, over the phone, etc). Which one do you think works better and why? We offer email based support as well as training sessions via web conferencing tools. When it comes to support I think that email works best. First of all, our market is global and the different timezones don’t allow, at the moment, for a live 24 hours support service (though we plan to expand our support services in the future). Furthermore, having the questions or requests in written form in front of you helps you better understand them and gives you the time to find the best possible answer. Finally, there are several cases where the support request has to be forwarded to the tech/development team. The email is the most secure way to transfer the customer’s message exactly as it is. On the other hand, training requires a direct communication with the customer and this is where the web conference tools excel. Through a virtual "classroom" interface, customers can watch my screen, follow the lecture, and ask questions during their training. After all these years have you developed any general theories or personal ideas about what makes for good end-user support? Not sure if it can be called a theory, but I have developed a kind of motto: be truthful! Customers don’t want to hear "beautiful" lies. They just want to know if what they ask for is possible or not and how. Always try to put yourself in the customer’s shoes to better understand him/her. Of course you must first love listening to others, otherwise this job can be painful. Where do you see eFrontPro in 5 years time? And where do you see yourself? 5 years is enough time for us to build a completely new product, so eFrontPro may not exist anymore! (Ok, just kidding! As you can tell from our nearly 10 years in the industry, we’re committed to our products for the long term). I don’t like making predictions because I don’t want to be proven wrong. Just stay tuned and make sure that you "follow" us! The post Meet the team #1: Eleftheria means freedom appeared first on eFront Blog.

Hiring an online instructor or a facilitator is one of the most significant decisions you may make for your newly launched course. Be wary of face-to-face instructors eager to teach your online courses. Online teaching is not the same as face-to-face instruction. It requires certain personality traits that help an individual succeed in the online medium. Online instruction naturally demands more online contact hours than face-to-face instruction. Candidates should also be able to express themselves better in writing. They should be prepared to provide on-going support beyond the office-hours indicated in their job description. The online learner quickly feels isolated if the facilitator is not able to establish an effective rapport (Lammers & Gillapsy, 2013). Online learning is all about autonomy and independence in learning. An effective instructor should be able to encourage self-directed learning habits and imbibe the value of life-long learning in their learners (Reushle & Mitchell, 2009). When hiring an online instructor, the interviewer should look for certain distinct qualities as outlined in the interview questions below. Describe in detail your online teaching philosophy. An ideal candidate would stress the importance of getting to know the learner on an individual basis. This is possible through short surveys in which the facilitator can uncover personal goals, expectations and weaknesses of learners. On a collective basis, the facilitator can refer to a study conducted by Mezirow (1991) in which he described online learning as a dilemma leading to disorientation and then to learning. Preparing online learners for this process should be your candidate’s priority. In one-on-one communication with his/her learners, the disorientation they would experience upon receiving complex or challenging tasks should be mentioned. If learners are encouraged to tap into their past experiences and connect with current knowledge, they would experience learning at an advanced level. This transformative learning experience will enable learners to apply what they’ve learned to their work context with relative ease. It’s all about effectively guiding them through their cognitive processes with patience and empathy. How will you add to our institute’s learning philosophy? This question checks for institute related knowledge the candidate may have researched in order to prepare for the interview. The candidate should talk about the current mission of the institute and how they can further this. Successful online facilitators will talk about creative and innovative solutions to improve online teaching and learning strategies. They should give the impression that their personal teaching philosophies are similar to those of the institute. Tell us your strengths and areas that could need further development. A favorable candidate can answer this question along these lines: If there is one motivating factor in online learning it is the degree of its relevance to the learner’s personal and professional life. An instructor’s main strength lies in connecting closely with learners. He or she should be able to label the learners’ unique needs and try to create "authentic tasks" for them. Research into their immediate work setting, performance context and work requirements to create scenarios they can relate with is a great strategy. While it is not possible to create authentic tasks for each learner, a general idea of the group’s expectations will lead to projects and assignments that generate application of skills directly to their work contexts. An area in an instructor’s teaching that needs further improvement may be organizing assignment ideas according to the course. They may also need more time to develop evaluation rubrics for their authentic assignment ideas. Tell us about the educational technology utilization experience in your classroom. An instructor should use the features of a learning management system to create online learning communities. This is challenging in the beginning, as learners are reluctant to open up to each other. It’s good to use several ice-breaker assignment techniques that encourage learners to get to know each other and be able to relate to their life experiences. How would you motivate average learners to perform better? Average learners are potential over-achievers. They need to be able to appreciate their efforts in the form of visual cues. Average learners need a "bird’s eye" view of their past accomplishments and a clear roadmap of their future milestones. An eLearning portfolio is an interactive and engaging method of consolidating all efforts of these learners to enable them to appreciate their achievements so far. Average learners in the online learning environment also need more attention than others. Understanding their current setbacks and providing them with meaningful feedback should help them perform at an advanced level. Also highlighting the value of the course in their personal life will help them stay motivated. The best way to motivate all learners is to require them to write a reflections statement in which they demonstrate their attitude and behavior before joining the course and the changes they experienced towards the conclusion of the course. Tell us about your current research interests and future professional development plans. Motivated online facilitators are always looking for ways to improve their teaching and subject matter. Their response to this interview question could contain elements like the following: They are currently working on their graduate/doctorate degree, constantly looking for courses (especially online courses) that teach how to use educational technology and multimedia building tools. They write for blogs and educational technology columns. They are also an active supporter of several online learning communities. They have several publications that talk about their online environment related research. Hiring an online facilitator can be a bit tricky. These interview questions and their responses should help you narrow down your prospects for your new eLearning course. References Conrad, R. & Donaldson, J. (2012) Continuing to Engage the Online Learner. Lammers, W. J., & Gillaspy Jr., J. A. (2013). Brief Measure of Student-Instructor Rapport Predicts Student Success in Online Courses. International Journal For The Scholarship Of Teaching & Learning, 7(2), 1-13. Reushle, S., & Mitchell, M. (2009). Sharing the Journey of Facilitator and Learner: Online Pedagogy in Practice. Journal Of Learning Design, 3(1), 11-20. The post Interviewing Potential Online Facilitators appeared first on eFront Blog.

So, your new eLearning course is ready to be launched and you are all excited about the prospects of "immensely" pleased stakeholders in your organization. You know you have integrated the complete bells and whistles of an eLearning program: from using branched scenarios to interactive labeled diagrams. You even have a compelling storyline set in the backdrop of your organization. Your CEO is a cool lady who allowed you to use her cartoon version as an avatar to motivate learners. What more could you possibility need to add to your cauldron of successful spells? Reality check: plenty! eLearning is all about iterations and versions. It’s best to revise with a group of experts and instructional developers than with the major stakeholders and learners In this article, we uncover a research-based model for evaluating your eLearning course before that final takeoff from the runway. Sara de Freitas and Martin Oliver proposed a set of four eLearning design and development elements called the Four-dimensional Framework. This framework can be used by: Trainers and training managers to select appropriate training programs for a training situation. Researchers to assess eLearning materials. Training designers to select specific teaching factors. The question is, why use this Four-dimensional framework? The reason is simple: If you have an eLearning program that includes scenario-based interactions akin to serious games (never mind with the scoring), then this is the tool for you. The fact is, any eLearning program that uses game-like features in the form of reinforcement exercises, assessments and simulations is safely classified as a serious game or a training game. Yes, that includes your newly churned out eLearning course ready to fly shortly! Need any more convincing? This is what the creators of this evaluation tool say: "Although a number of frameworks exist that are intended to guide and support the evaluation of educational software, few have been designed that consider explicitly the use of games or simulations in education. Similarly, research in game studies has generally focused upon approaches based upon playing leisure games, and therefore do not take enough account of factors including the context, learning theory and practice and the attributes of the learner and learner group." (de Freitas & Oliver 2006, p.262) On the whole, this structured analysis provides a comprehensive support to the training developers and facilitators who work in teams to create game-like trainings. The use of this framework is two-pronged: First, it enables training managers to demonstrate the appropriateness of the newly developed eLearning program in terms of the training need. Secondly, it also enables them to find the best way to apply the tool within the learning context. Consider a training scenario for improved customer service through the use of the latest CRM software installed within the organization infrastructure. For each aspect of the Four-dimensional Framework, we describe how the training needs fall into the training provisions of the eLearning program. Notice how specific and general these questions are. By the end of this exercise, you will have a complete report ready for your stakeholders! Context which determines the learning environment - it includes the macro level, so historical, political and economic factors (for example, are you developing this eLearning program because it is a mandatory training, a job aid or a professional development program?). Micro level context is defined through the subject matter experts needed, the instruction designer, the facilitator background and experience, and the development costs Consider the example of the new CRM training for improved customer service. This means, you would be developing training for one aspect of the CRM software (the customer service and experience). This will be your eLearning development context. Define the micro and macro components of this context. Learner specification analyzes the learner completely. This includes their preferred learning style, their previous knowledge and identifying the methods that will support their differing needs. Again in the CRM customer service training example, your learners could be bank tellers, IT help desk professionals, product support team or even sales personnel. Define these learners in terms of their current performance, their education level, their computer literacy level and many other factors that will enable you to design an eLearning program that is attractive to these learners. Mode of representation defines the degree or level of interactivity needed in the eLearning program. Think about the immersion level of the learning context. Should the program simulate the work context completely or partially? How will you brief and debrief your learners in terms of explaining them the learning outcomes etc. Going back to the CRM customer service example, how will you design your eLearning course/program? Will it include a storyline to capture the learner? Will they enjoy a video of funny customer service situations? Should the scenarios include simulations? To teach the CRM dashboard features and other specifications, an interactive simulation is definitely needed here. Pedagogic principles require the trainer to integrate learning models and theories in order to design effective eLearning programs. Learning theories that focus on adults are more advisable in corporate training. Touching on learner psychology will enable you to create compelling reinforcement exercises and assessments. Think about your CRM customer service team once again. As adult learners they would prefer meaningful and relevant information. This means separating information from "need to know" to "good to know". Needless to say, many learners will guiltlessly skip the "good to know" information and focus on the needful. This is because adult learners want immediate transfer of newly acquired knowledge to their work environment. Knowledge about learning theories will help align your course’s content with learning objectives. Now that you have completed this final evaluation on your new eLearning program, you are all set, ready to roll! Good luck! References de Freitas, S., 2006. learning in immersive worlds: a review of game based learning, JiSC. Available at: www.jisc.ac.uk/whatwedo/programmes/elearninginnovation/outcomes.aspx de Freitas, S. & Oliver, M., 2006. How can exploratory learning with games and simulations within the curriculum be most effectively evaluated? Computers & education, 46(3), 249-264. The post Evaluating Your eLearning appeared first on eFront Blog.

Evaluating your eLearning course by the toughest judges - your learners, is the cornerstone of eLearning development. Receiving feedback from your learners enables you, the instructional designer, to improve your course. Since iteration is a recurring step in the eLearning course design, it follows each time after the evaluation step. There are many advantages of conducting a post-course evaluation. For starters, it helps you understand your weak areas - both in design and delivery of your course. The core of this activity is to upgrade the course information according to the current times and needs of the performance environment. A post-course evaluation usually appears as a comprehensive survey. Most of the time, we see this survey too short or too long, but seldom covering the key areas of an eLearning course’s design and delivery process. Now is the chance to involve your learners in the design process of your next course. This step is highly crucial to determine the desired pathway of future course designs. In this article, we will discuss all elements that need to be present in the post-course evaluation survey. Use this checklist to guide you to create your next survey. There are no shortcuts to this step. You cannot cut corners. You need to make sure nothing is left behind. And trust me, this list is anything but short! A total of 15 criteria need to be included in your course evaluation towards the end of your course. Notice how these criteria comprise of a complete eLearning course design: 1. Accessibility Accessibility issues deal with the aesthetics of your course. Were your learners able to navigate easily? How accessible was the online material? Could your learners find information quickly? Did the buttons and links work? Were the footnotes readable? 2. Content Content is king! It is the main gameplayer of your course. You need to determine if the content was relevant to your learners. Did they get what they signed up for? Was the content complete, current and appropriate? This includes your examples, case studies and scenarios. 3. Goals and objectives Did your learners find the course’s objectives clearly defined? Did the content follow the objectives or was it out of scope? Did your objectives tie closely to the performance context of your learners? Do your learners have extra objectives to include in your course? 4. Structure Was your course’s topics and subtopics logically arranged? Was the table of contents a good guide for your learners? Were the topics arranged in a predictable pattern: topic, reinforcement activity, revision, short quiz? 5. Visual design Ask your learners about the choice of colors, font, and graphics etc. - the overall visual design of your course. Was it appealing? Was it obtrusive? Was it confusing to them? Was the content designed effectively? Is there anything that could have been done better? 6. Text Ask about spelling, grammar, language, tone, style and composition of the text used in your course. What are their comments? What could be done to for the text to be more effective? 7. Timing This is critical to know. Every course has an estimated seat time and activity time. Was the time given by your learners close to what you estimated? What sections took the most time? What sections took the least? 8. eLearning resources eLearning resources are additional aids that help your learners gain a better understanding of your eLearning content. Ask your learners if they used the resources provided. Were the instructions to use them clear and understandable? Were these resources useful to understand the content? Do your learners have extra resources as suggestions for this course? 9. Interactivity Interactivity should be appropriate to the content and context of the course. Find out what your learners think about the interactivity. Did it encourage them to think critically? Did your learners find the technology easy to use? 10. Multimedia Not all learners can use multimedia like video, audio or interactive diagrams easily. Ask your learners about the software and hardware needs of the course. Were the instructions complete or was something missing? Ask them to rank the multimedia in the course from 1 to 10 in terms of effectiveness, quality and relevance. 11. Assessments Did your learners find assessments too hard or too easy? Ask them to rank assessments in terms of quality and relevance. Was the feedback provided constructive and clear? Is there any way that your quizzes and tests could be improved? 12. eLearning professional contribution This is where you rate the mentors, facilitators or instructors hired for your course. Ask your learners if they found the mentors responsive enough and whether their feedback was meaningful. Could the learners contact the mentor? Was the mentor reliable? All these responses help in improving the next session of the course. 13. Social interactions availability If you have a collaborative course in which you used various social learning elements, you need to know their effectiveness. Ask your learners if they could form peer-to-peer interactions. Did the collaborations improve their learning experience? Look for learners who complain of being isolated and alienated. 14. eLearning course expectations Did your learners meet or exceed their personal and professional learning goals through this course? Were there any exceptional topics? Were there any missing topics? Were the assignments and activities reasonable? 15. Overall eLearning experience This is a summing up question. You need to find out the emotional reaction of your learners towards the course. Do they feel empowered or bored after completing the course? What was their overall impression? Did the course fit their schedule easily or did it demand too much of their time? After completing the course, do the learners feel confident of their new skills and capabilities? Finally, ask your learners if there are any ways in which the design and delivery of the course can be improved. The post 15-point Post-Course Evaluation Checklist for eLearning Developers appeared first on eFront Blog.

In his famous "Ballad of East and West", the 19th century english poet Rudyard Kipling writes, rather prematurely: "East is East and West is West, and never the twain shall meet". Little did he know that a little over a century later East and West would not only meet frequently and have plenty of cultural exchanges, but also become very good business partners. Or that Asia would be a much coveted marketplace for western business of all sectors, including eLearning. China, the economic miracle of the 21st century with its rising middle class, is a huge potential market for eLearning services, with its overall training market estimated to be worth around RMB300 billion (a little short of $50 billion dollars). Besides its vast population and huge economic growth, there are three important factors that make China an ideal eLearning market: 1) It has a traditional cultural focus on education, which families invest heavily on, for their children’s studies. 2) It has the necessary internet penetration, with an estimated 650 million internet users as of 2014, the majority on DSL lines. 3) It has a long history of private education. eLearning, with its lower costs and easy accessibility, is perfect for the upwardly mobile Chinese middle class households who can’t afford costly private schools or sending their kids abroad. Furthermore, the vast amount of available training subjects that can be had at the learner’s own pace and location, make it perfect for employees looking to expand their skills and improve their hire-ability. Last, but not least, eLearning fits the needs of Chinese business, enterprises and organisations, that need agile and cost effective solutions to train their personnel to new technologies. It’s no surprise then that the online education market quadrupled in China in the last decade, while still having a vast growth potential (considering that eLearning users are less than 10% of the Chinese population). As for Japan, its advanced internet infrastructure, web-savvy population and large middle class also make it a very important market for eLearning. In fact it is estimated that Japan’s eLearning market has been growing by 100% year over year for the last few years. The same phenomenal growth is seen all over SE Asia, whose internet users now represent over 40% of the world’s users. So, we’re excited to report that our CEO and co-founder Dimitris Tsingos, currently concluding his business trip in the region, signed a partnership agreement with Tokyo based Brastel Telecom for the sale of eLearning services to the Japanese market, and another one with Chinese eLearning consulting agency Shanghai 4INS, for the resale and implementation of eFrontPro based solutions for the Chinese market. While eFrontPro has always been an international product, our greatest adoption has been in USA, Europe and the English speaking parts of the world. We’ve very proud of expanding our reach even further, and we look forward to working with our new partners to help bring the Epignosis family of products and services, with their legendary flexibility and ease-of use and our world-class support, to the Asian market. The post West meets East: eFrontPro enters the Asian eLearning market appeared first on eFront Blog.

Contrary to tradition, the majority of the training in healthcare is now available as eLearning. Of course, there will always be courses that need to be facilitated via face-to-face, like CPR, but the rest of the statutory and mandatory training is completed in front of a PC at the learner’s convenience and pace. In this post we will look at 5 tips on how you can boost the compliance figures of an organization, focusing primarily on healthcare. Popularity of LMS The LMS is the car that drives the learners to training success. But not everyone in an organization has yet driven it and those who haven’t rely on the comments of those who have. The smoother it is, the more enjoyable the ride, the better the reviews. The word of mouth is very important when it comes down to the reputation of an LMS. What people have to say about it influences directly all those who haven’t used it. How easy is it to log in? How responsive is it? How fast? How many clicks does it take to launch a course? This is why acquiring an LMS that suits best your organization’s needs is the first step to increase your compliance levels. Engaging courses No matter how many times we point this out, it will never be enough. No one wants to do a course that is not fun, easy and as short as possible. If the content and the interface of a course are not engaging, it is more than certain that the learner will quit. They will exit the course thinking "Nah… maybe some other time". We don’t want that, do we? And we don’t want that because, most of the times, there is no other time. As L&D professionals, we want to keep our learners happy and we can only do that by offering courses that amount to a pleasant break in a busy shift. Protected time and facilities The majority in a healthcare organization are frontline staff who deal with patients and emergencies throughout their shift. Even when there’s no knocking on their door, they are busy filling out paperwork and responding to emails and phone calls. The only time they can actually pause is when they go for their break. So, when is the best time for them to complete a mandatory course? This is an answer only a good manager can give. They need to reassure their staff that they can leave for an hour or two without worrying about the hectic situation they are leaving behind. Having access to IT facilities, where staff can go and find the peace of mind needed to absorb the information of an eLearning course, is absolutely essential. The lack of such facilities is traditionally associated with low compliance. Spirited managers We just mentioned how managers can help their staff to update their outstanding training. They chase up their team’s compliance by reports they run themselves, or by reports they receive on a regular basis, or -very rare!- because they are so organised that set reminders about trainings that are about to fall out of date. No matter what an L&D team may do to increase the organization’s compliance rate, if a manager is not up to speed with keeping their team in date with their training, they will never be. Culture OK. I don’t know whether I should write it in bold or in capital letters, but the culture of eLearning is the most crucial, pivotal and paramount factor in training compliance. If staff frown every time they receive an email from the L&D team, if a manager doesn’t get alerted by his team’s low compliance, if the organization has not invested in a fully functioning LMS or has not provided the facilities required, then it is obvious that there is something fundamentally wrong. Training and eLearning should be considered as an opportunity to grow and develop and not as something that needs to be squeezed in a diary so we can get the L&D team off our back. Conclusion It is not actually difficult to increase the training compliance in a healthcare organization. You just need to take into consideration all the special attributes that can pose a burden. And if things don’t seem to work out, never blame your staff about the low numbers. Revise your strategy and start over. The post How to increase the training compliance rate in a healthcare organization appeared first on eFront Blog.

In this third part of our series of behind-the-scenes posts, we’ll be interviewing Simon Birt, a recent addition to the eFrontPro team, who is in charge of the product’s global business development. Could you please introduce yourself for our readers? My name is Simon Birt, and my background is in technology and business development, and more specifically the application of these into the enterprise space (large and medium-sized businesses). For the past nine years, this has been in the field of Corporate Learning and Development. My role at eFront is to lead the business development of the eFrontPro Learning Management platform throughout the global corporate marketplace. Where would you place eFrontPro in the competitive landscape? eFrontPro is a unique platform because it addresses formal and informal learning needs in an Enterprise Deployment Model (Private Cloud). This makes it attractive to buyers who prefer an option to Software as a Service (SaaS). What do you think are other companies’ shortcomings with regards to how they design and market their LMS platforms? The LMS marketplace is crowded. This is great because buyers have lots of choice, but it is confusing because it is hard to determine which LMS is the best fit. The features that make one LMS a good purchase for one company will not be applicable to all. Among the best LMS options, such as eFrontPro, there are common areas of focus: the blend of formal with informal needs, the ability to integrate easily to Human Capital Management (HCM) and Customer Relationship Management (CRM) systems, the ability to manage mobile content with Responsive Design, and the option to deploy in the Enterprise (Private Cloud). The weaker LMS are not designed with this functionality, and consequently they will struggle to attract large user numbers. So, whilst the LMS marketplace is crowded, once the buyer understands the importance of the aforementioned focus areas, there are fewer realistic choices available. eFrontPro has had some undeniable success in the global market already. How do you plan to take it to the next level? There is a promising future for this platform, as I am convinced that buyers will be searching for an Enterprise (Private Cloud) solution. This is for a few key reasons: the ability to deeply integrate and embed learning into workplace software such as IBM Connections, SAP Jam, Jive-n and Yammer; the need to ensure complete data integrity and security; and the need for a great user experience around learning content delivery, management and reporting. Having said that, we need to dramatically increase our presence in the marketplace by recruiting a large number of partners to drive our business development, in every geography around the world. My primary objective is to attract, meet and sign up as many partner companies as possible to resell and locally support eFrontPro. In addition to this, I will work closely with our very talented team to ensure we have great lead generation, online marketing, and partner business support in place to strengthen our growth. You have a lot of experience in the eLearning industry, both as a professional and also for having (literally) "written the book" about the use of eLearning in the modern enterprise, ‘Learning Unscripted’. What insights can you share with our readers regarding the present and future of this industry? Technology Enhanced Learning is going through a dramatic change. This is being fueled by the redesigning of workplace productivity from email to social networks, our adoption of smartphone and tablet platforms, and our repositioning of services from Enterprise to SaaS (Social, Mobile and Cloud). Our experiences and interactions with technology are becoming more sophisticated and demanding. For the Learning and Development industry, this will be about delivering technology that supports informal and formal learning in one single, personalized and social environment in the short term. Further out, we will see the emergence of adaptive ‘smart’ learning platforms that are deeply integrated into our workplace infrastructure. On another level, there will be a tremendous take-up of SaaS-based learning platforms that are needed to deliver content with little management, maintenance and integration. I believe that this area will have tremendous growth in the EdTech Universities and Schools market. How do you like working for eFront thus far? Anything particularly rewarding or challenging regarding your new role? I have been working here for one month. In that time I have been impressed by the passion, commitment and talent of the people I have met. It is particularly noteworthy that the company lives and breathes the new way of doing business e.g. delivering great software using a predominantly internet-based business model. Without over-extending itself, I believe the company is well positioned for the next phase of business development. This is essentially a break-out from the virtual to the physical marketplace; in other words, getting large numbers of partner salespeople into customers on our behalf. This is a challenge to execute well, and I am really excited by this opportunity. Do you have a concrete roadmap of where you want the platform to be in 2 or even 5 years? Yes. This is something we have been formulating with the company leadership over the past three weeks. eFrontPro is already a strong LMS for those businesses that wish to deploy it within their enterprise as a stand-alone or lightly-integrated eLearning platform. However, in line with my comments earlier, I would like to see eFrontPro become deeply integrated to the user workplace of today and tomorrow. I would also expect the platform to become more adaptive and ‘smart’, in the sense of being able to capture learner interaction and behavior to deliver a more personalized and effective learning experience. Anything else you’d like to add? The only thing we haven’t mentioned is our search for enterprising learning companies to join us on this journey to growth. I’m very interested in talking with any company working in Learning and Development, HCM, or in the wider area of Social Software deployment about becoming partners with us. We have a tremendous value proposition for the right partners in these areas, and I’d like to hear from any who would like to learn more about partnering with us. Furthermore, we have four other categories for our partners outside of the one I just mentioned. I am also keen to add partnerships with companies around eLearning and other learning content, marketing opportunities for eFrontPro, and technology. This is a great moment to be in the business of learning technology and, together with our partners, I’m sure we’ll continue to be at the forefront. Thank you. The post Meet the Team Part 3: Simon Birt, VP of Global Business Development appeared first on eFront Blog.

"We believe that learning can become better through technology, and we work hard to prove it. Our main product, eFrontPro, is a new type of learning tool that emphasizes the user experience without compromising functionality." - eFront Our intent at eFront is to deliver leading learning technology to our customers, and to remain at the forefront of learning platform research and development. In a market of hundreds of vendors, it is hard to maintain a position at the top, but that is our goal. Central to the achievement of this ambition is the delivery of the latest software to support learning needs as they evolve. Our key focus is the corporate learner. Professional learning and development have unique challenges that schools and universities do not have - and vice versa. A learning platform for one is not necessarily suitable for the other, except in a most generic way. eFrontPro is a new and rewritten evolution of our original open source LMS, eFront. The user experience has been completely reshaped. It is now more attractive and easier to use. There are some great new features such as informal content creation from web-based content, which can be quickly combined with a test if desired. Another excellent feature is the responsive design which allows your content to be displayed accurately to users regardless of the platform (PC, Smartphone or Tablet). This fully serves the growing requirement for Mobile Learning, which is becoming central to any learning content-delivery strategy. Another feature worth mentioning is that eFrontPro is a private cloud LMS. This means that it can be deeply integrated and extended across other software platforms within the organization, such as social workplaces, to embed the learning content directly into the user environment. When this feature is leveraged, it becomes possible to deliver personalized learning environments based on user choices. In short, eFrontPro is a modern LMS - it combines all the power of a formal eLearning platform with the additional functionality of an informal, workplace learning software solution. Not surprisingly, eFrontpro is becoming a fast favorite for corporate buyers today. Whether starting out with a learning platform for the first time or replacing an older, less-functional system, LMS buyers are opting for the flexibility and power of eFrontPro. As a result of this rapid success, we at eFront find ourselves in need of Partners to serve the market demand. And that is the point of this blog post. We are looking for new Value Added Resellers to serve our global market. The global LMS market is forecast for substantial growth in the next few years and is already a multi-billion-dollar market. The most successful LMS vendors will be those like eFront who continually deliver functionality for formal and informal learning and knowledge sharing. If you are a learning solutions provider considering the addition of an LMS option to your portfolio, or if you are doing a review of your current products and would like to see what we have, please contact us today for an initial discussion. You won’t be disappointed in our value proposition or our business support, and you will be delighted with our commitment to making you successful. Want to learn more about partnering with us? Simon Birt is VP Global Business Development for eFrontPro at Epignosis LLC. He is an experienced business developer in the learning and development software market, specifically in helping resellers increase their revenues across the world. He is the author of ‘Learning Unscripted: Conversations and Presentation with Learning Leaders‘. The post The LMS Partner Search appeared first on eFront Blog.

When we design courses, we inadvertently borrow many learning strategies from the K-12 classroom setting. Add to it the layers of andragogy (the science of teaching adults) and you have a well-rounded course. Whether or not you are confident about including these learning strategies, go through this article. We will jog your memory and demonstrate how these scenarios play out and improve in the eLearning environment. Workbook Drill and practice activities are given in workbooks. Young learners are given structured material to help them master a concept. The level of the activities gets increasingly challenging, but remains within the scope of the subject. The main purpose of the workbook is to practice through reinforcement exercises. You are doing this in a kinesthetic way; you fill in the blanks, draw, erase, cut and paste, place stickers, etc. It is fun and educational at the same time. Consider these tips to transfer workbook exercises into the eLearning environment: Create an eLearning course mainly based on exercises. This could be highly interactive using the quiz feature of your LMS. Colourful drag and drop and rearranging exercises are attractive and stimulating to the learner. Build an easy-to-difficult practicing path based on competency and skills. Use interactive scenarios that are work-context based. Make it an enthralling experience in terms of visuals and sounds. You can never go wrong with the print option. Allow learners to print exercises and notes. We still love scribbling away with a pencil! Provide immediate feedback as a self-evaluation tool so that they can gauge their success. Field Trip We’ve all been to those eye-opening field trips we took back in the day to a museum or historical sites, castles and battlegrounds. How about those horticulture visits where we experienced rain forests and other biospheres? Aren’t they still vivid in our memories and most concepts related to them are still pretty recallable? This is a classic multisensory learning experience that brings together social learning (learning with and from peers), storytelling (by a guide or a teacher), and by-the-way learning. Do you remember writing reflections regarding your findings, and using them for further learning activities? Such field trips break the mundane routine into a creative and energetic time for learning new material! So how do we bring field trips in our eLearning environment? Develop a route for a virtual tour around the web for a project. Good examples in virtual field trips include: Customer service call center for placing an online order for pizza. Reflect on the online purchase experience. Request your eLearners to undergo an experience based on their course, for example talk to a product manager about the company’s latest product. Then ask them to comment and reflect on their observations based on structured criteria. Require your eLearners to share their reflections with peers and supervisors through the course. Repetition According to Hermann Ebbinghaus’ Forgetting Curve theory, all people have to repeat in order to remember things and routines. If we do not repeat newly learned formulas or definitions, we may forget it within 24 hours of learning. Repetitions are done through introducing similar scenarios with same problems requiring the use of newly learned solutions. How do we integrate the repetition concept in our eLearning courses? Present booster quizzes between sections of your eLearning course after the section is completed and before a new section begins. Throughout the eLearning course, repeat the critical information: Tell stories, summarize, provide exercises and quizzes. Towards the end, administer a comprehensive test to ensure recall of the course objectives related information. Follow up with your eLearners through an email a month or so after they complete the course, with critical information from the course. As a rule of thumb, always provide multiple formats for assignment presentation and learning resources - let them print out cheatsheets, checklists, visuals, mindmaps, etc. Note taking Haven’t we all, at some point during our earlier school or high school education, taken notes? Note taking is the most popular form of active or kinesthetic learning. We listen to lectures and presentations and want to scribble important data that will be deciphered later. This technique encourages us to rewrite the lecture by paraphrasing it, arranging it in our own structure, or connecting it with our own experiences. Various forms of note taking such as stand alone texts, notes on a margin of the publication and highlighting text, reinforce memory. Pictograms and other visuals placed close to text also help us understand the material better. So how can we stimulate note taking in our eLearning course? Enable the note taking option in your LMS. Provide freebie tools like mindmapping, pictogram making, visual note taking or speech input apps to your learners to encourage this technique in your eLearning courses. Summarize all sections towards their end and provide a print option for highlighting and other note taking activities for your learners. Create paragraphs of content and ask learners to fill in the missing areas. Ask eLearners to summarize important points and email it to their trainer, manager, or mentor. Basic learning methods can easily be integrated in your next eLearning course using these ideas. Collaborate with the course mentor, the training manager and the learner to create more activities related to the basic learning methods. Do tell us about your own experiences related to converting basic learning methods to eLearning activities. The post The 4 Basic Methods of transforming Learning into eLearning appeared first on eFront Blog.

The best way to look like a fool is to attempt to predict the future. Like those well respected analysts back in the fifties, who said that by 2000 we will all have personal robot assistants and flying cars. That doesn’t mean that predicting the future is impossible ― just hard. Besides, 50 years is probably a few decades too many. In this post we’ll attempt to predict how eLearning will be in 10 years, a much more constrained and manageable task, not to mention far more useful for your business planning. The general shape of eLearning in 2025 Remember going from 1980 to 1990, 1990 to 2000, 2000 to 2010? Things changed, but not that much. Some trends run their course and some fashions began to look slightly ridiculous but not entirely. In general we mostly had more of the same, but better, with a few slices of "new" thrown in for good measure. Even in the fast paced IT industry, the change was somewhat predictable. The only exception was the emergence of the web, circa 1994, that took over the world around 1999. But that’s a "black swan", a rare event that’s difficult to predict. The development of eLearning in the next 10 years will be more of the same. Some existing smaller trends will see growth, some older trends will decline, and a few new trends will emerge in the process (but will still be undeveloped by 2025). There might be a new "black swan" or (more likely) there won’t be any. In any case we won’t go into that. So what will eLearning be like in 2025? Mobile learning, MOOCs, Gamification, Instructor-Led Training and Social Learning will dominate. Virtual technologies and wearables will have their small niche, but nothing to write home about. Oh, and eLearning will be bigger than the traditional learning industry, and inseparable from it. Mobile Learning Mobile learning, or mLearning for short, will be the dominant mode of eLearning content consumption. Already, surveys show that Americans rely more on their smartphones (and tablets) to access the web than on their PCs. This trend will only accelerate as smartphones get more powerful, 4G (and 5G) connections get more accessible and widespread, and tablets turn into a hybrid tablet/PC fusion that’s good enough for people to use as their main computer (e.g. attached to a monitor and keyboard when on their desk). Then there are developing countries, were there are enormous populations without PCs, but with ever more capable mobile phones, and with a huge demand for education and professional training. MOOCs MOOCs (short for Massive Online Open Courses) is a trend on the rise, with most top profile universities investing in this area (and countless other educational institutions, either traditional or online only). MOOCs allow for thousands of people to take the same course from the same institution (and indeed tens or even hundreds of thousands of students are enrolling simultaneously for courses in the most popular ones, such as MIT’s and Stanford’s). Those MOOCs now tout their open free access to students, but we are already starting to see it being complimented with paid-for MOOC-based tuition. Georgia Tech, for example, began offering a completely MOOC-based master’s degree in computer science. While free MOOCs wont go away (they would grow and be the first tier to a multi-level offering by large educational institutions), monetization of MOOCs is inevitable, and is estimated to create a multi-billion dollar market of accessible degrees. Gamification If a boring class is an ineffective class, then traditional education was always boring. eLearning fixes some of the issues with that — heck, even not having to sit down in a classroom for hours listening to a professor’s hypnotic delivery is a big improvement, but anything to make training even more fun is always welcome. Gamification does just that, so it’s no wonder that it caught on like wildfire in the past few years, or that it’s poised to grow much more in the future. Gamification brings a sense of challenge and competition to learning, far beyond having students fighting for the better grade. By leveraging gaming themes and insights from cognitive psychology, gamification adds interaction, strategy building and immediate feedback to the learning process. These elements increase not just engagement but also knowledge retention. In the future, gamification will be the expected and dominant way of delivering learning material, with eLearning courses looking more like video games than books or websites. This will not be limited to kids training either; even corporate training will include gamification elements. Short-term prediction That concludes our first part of our attempt to glimpse into the future of eLearning. I predict that there will be a new post here next week, covering the future of Instructor-Led Training, Social Learning and Virtual Reality based training. Stay tuned and drive your flying cars carefully. The post The future of eLearning: part 1 appeared first on eFront Blog.

Organizations complain about the lack of the right human resources and training tools. Why? They do not see the expected results in performance. We hear too many companies complain of a gap between training and performance. They seem to have the required talent, the relevant knowledge, the needed tools and even the desired experience, yet they are unable to reach the company goals. Extant research blames these failures on one element alone: lack of knowledge management. In this article, we present thirteen ways in which you can use your learning management system to manage your organization’s knowledge. Let’s examine each of these knowledge management related complaints and prescribe a feature of your learning management system for appropriate correction: 1. Lack of performance indicators and measurable benefits Training managers and organization strategic planners can combine forces to create key performance indicators (KPIs). Each of these performance indicators need to be measureable. For example, 60 software sales per week, 35 memberships sold per quarter, 150 hardware assembly per month and so on. Measurable goals need to be assigned in the learning management system. This involves the entire organization in the goal making and goal achievement process. Don’t forget to announce incentives to motivate employees as periodic notifications: win a trip to Thailand with your family if your team achieves this KPI, for example. 2. Inadequate management support Manager involvement is the key to improve performance through training. In fact, managers are responsible for measuring the current KPI of a given goal. Have managers check on employee performance a week after completing an eLearning training. Any improvement can predict the achievement of the KPI. Have managers create a space in the learning management system in which they recognize and encourage rising performers! 3. Improper planning, design, coordination, and evaluation Your LMS is an excellent tool to establish a practice for each department in your organization. By providing access privileges according to the role of an employee, you can provide more control to key players in the organization. These key players can plan and coordinate tasks more efficiently. Using project management metrics in your LMS, you can gauge project progress and update everyone involved easily. 4. Inadequate LMS skill of knowledge managers Train knowledge managers on using all functionalities and potential of your learning management system. Mandate the use of this system for all employees. 5. Problems with organizational culture Create easy to read or just-in-time flyers that help technology-averse employees learn the basics of how to use the LMS. Encourage casual chatting, both live and online. Also, encourage employees to write a reflections log (or record their video) to share their performance experiences with everyone. Sharing is caring! 6. Improper organizational structure Use the organizational hierarchy chart to create access privileges to the learning management system. Managers and senior managers can see activities of employees. This will enable them to gauge progress towards KPIs. 7. Lack of widespread contribution Create a space in the LMS that recognizes outstanding performance. Shoot a video in which they explain their breakthrough experience with everyone. Conduct live chat sessions between employees and experts. Create experience documents for common problems and archive them in the LMS for common use and reference. 8. Lack of relevance, quality and usability Many times organizations promote irrelevant training. This training seems to be the hype, but it only ends up wasting time and human resources. A clear description of the KPI helps all members of the LMS stay on track. 9. Overemphasis on formal learning, systematization and determinant needs Sometimes problems can be fixed referencing previous materials and talking to experts instead of extensive training. Determine true training topics for the next eLearning course based on consensus and manager recommendation. 10. Improper implementation of technology Your LMS is the best place to announce the use and training of a new technology that improves the performance of your employees. Productivity improving technology is very common these days. You can create a quick course using screenshots and images to guide employees on the use and benefits of new technology. Request new technology users to share their experience with all members of the LMS. 11. Improper budgeting and excessive costs Concrete KPI planning and implementation strategy using the LMS will help reduce costs and improve ROI. 12. Lack of responsibility and ownership Assign responsibility for different tasks to deserving employees using gamification badges. This will not only create a sense of ownership towards the project for the employee, it will also improve their performance review. 13. Loss of knowledge from staff retirement Loss of staff or retirement of a senior employee leads to an organizational "brain drain". Mandate a two month notice before leaving and during these two months allocate training sessions for the employees who are leaving. These employees will train the successors of their positions. Dedicate a special knowledge retention section in your LMS that deals with such eLearning sessions. Good luck! Your LMS is not only meant for eLearning courses. It is also a space where groups and teams meet for exchanging novel ideas. This is only possible if you develop the skill to mentor activities in your LMS. We hope this article will help you become a better mentor for your LMS. The post 13 Ways to Use Your LMS as a Knowledge Development Tool appeared first on eFront Blog.

Managers are crucial drivers for learning success within an organization. Ever heard of the expression "learning organizations"? Well, managers are behind such organizations. Constant learning leads to innovation. Unfortunately, managers are also too busy in their daily activities to offer the desired support to their teams. This counts double when teams are in training mode. Managers are enablers of learning. Senior management needs to support front line managers to support their learning teams. This practice is crucial to adopting new technologies, changes in business, improved performance and yield better business results. In this article, we will reveal the best practices of leading organizations in supporting their line managers and leading to inevitable success! 1. Create Learning Programs With Managers Make sure your line managers are involved in the learning solution design stage of your eLearning course development. This initiates their engagement, their responsibility to implement learning, add real challenges in the training and create new ideas in the learning solutions. 2. Combine learning with existing performance context Link learning solutions directly with the problems presented by the line manager. Avoid creating isolated solutions that do not include job related issues of your learners. 3. Relevant eLearning only Make sure that your eLearning solution is relevant to current jobs and directly support important work initiatives (leadership, sales, new systems and processes). 4. Apply eLearning Your eLearning solution should redirect learning to application. Monitor progress closely by: Supporting coaching skills and peer group sessions. Provide learning aids that reinforce eLearning concepts at the desk, for example checklists, workflows, job-aids etc. Build online learning communities through forums or in-house social networking. Mentor a culture of intellectual conversations in online chats. Involve learners immediately into projects that require them to apply their new skills. 5. Receive feedback from learners Encourage peer to peer communication about learning and performance improvements. Share these between managers as well as learners. 6. Empower Managers through model experiences Finally, the best way to teach leadership to managers is to model it. Help managers become better leaders! Watch how more and more learners benefit from their managers and develop better relationships with each other. A well supported learning experience goes a long way! The post 6 Ways to Help Managers Support eLearners appeared first on eFront Blog.

The Best Career for Your Personality Type Infographic Are you an introvert or an extrovert? A thinker or a feeler? All these things make up your personality type - and have a huge effect on what career path is right for you. The more you know about your personality, the more empowered you become to shape your future. Your personality matters. It colors your interactions with others and affects how you approach your work on a day-to-day basis. Not only does it hold sway over our actions, but it can also help us plan for the future. Your personality traits provide insight into the type of work that will make you happy. The Best Career for Your Personality Type Infographic matches personality types to the careers that best suit them. The infographic breaks down 16 different four-letter personality types that dissect how different people make decisions and understand the world. Use The Best Career for Your Personality Type Infographic to find out what jobs your personality is best suited for, and you will be one step closer to career fulfillment. Some of the more interesting facts include: 51% of people are Introverts who prefer working independently and in quiet spaces; the other 49% are Extraverts who enjoy working with others and prefer busy spaces. 60% of people are Feelers who want work that reflects their values and gives them an opportunity to help others; the other 40%, Thinkers, strive to find work that requires them to use their intelligence to excel. View also: Myers-Briggs Personality Type Infographic   Via: www.truity.comThe post The Best Career for Your Personality Type Infographic appeared first on e-Learning Infographics.