PulseLearning, a Global Learning Solutions provider, announced today that it has been chosen by a global oil and gas service company to create online 3D training courses for Field Service Engineers (FSEs). Under contract, PulseLearning will partner with the company to create two online interactive 3D training modules for FSEs. Providing learners with sufficient access […]

As part of my doctoral course work, I read Dewey’s Experience and Education (1938) lecture series this summer. As an instructional design (ID) practitioner, I noticed numerous connections between what Dewey suggested for optimal learning and the current practices of ID. For example, in his chapter comparing traditional and progressive education, he warned progressive programs […]

Filed under: e-learning, Instructional Design, Research, Teaching Tips Tagged: higher ed, metacognitive strategies, portfolios

Pixlr Tech Teaser (15 min) Instructional Sequence based on Gagne’s 9 Events of Instruction Prep: Download Pixlr software to desktop. Open picture editor. Preload folder with images for practice. Locate some great images edited with the software to illustrate as examples. Software constraints: • Not compatible with Mozilla Firefox; Use Google Chrome or Internet Explorer […]

Or, can we have stories with claws, please? Today’s post comes from David Cameron, one of our Learning Consultants specialising in Instructional Design. David has a background as an author and a poet and as such brings a useful and unqiue perspective to the concept of storytelling in eLearning. We are fortunate to have a real live storyteller in our midst! Over to David… I want to tell you a story. How did it feel to read that? And how disappointed were you to read a question after it rather than the promised story? Stories have hooks. No - being alive, they have claws. They don’t easily let go, if they are strong enough. The strength of real storytelling in eLearning I know the strength of the words I want to tell you a story. They form the opening line of a surreally daft Syd Barrett song I’ve sung to my children to get them to sleep. It kept them awake. Because the promise of a story is like a hard thump on the brain, demanding attention. No matter that, in this case, the only dramatic event is a gnome seeing the sky and a river and saying ‘Hooray!’ Here, the initial promise of a story overrides the resulting absence of one. Even children like their daftness to have some shape, and Barrett gives them that. Storytelling is an important but underused, or perhaps ill-used, aspect of workplace learning. Here I’m going to focus narrowly on its use in the design of eLearning courses, mindful of my colleague Fiona Quigley’s cautionary note in an earlier blog here, that ‘stories are much more useful and can bring better results if you consider them outside of the boundaries of a structured course.’ And to compensate for this narrowness of focus, I will wheel in (for comparison) that notable grande dame, Literature. Too lofty a standard for something so functional and commercial as an eLearning course? At school our art teacher sat us in front of his reproduction of Picasso’s Guernica and said ‘Paint like that.’ Naturally, being totally ignorant of modern art, we thought nothing could be simpler. We were wrong, but it was good to try. Much of the best literature is, in fact, anti-literary, and to write good eLearning stories we have to be a bit anti-eLearning (or, at least, eLearning as we know it). So, make nothing up if you needn’t. Real people tell real stories. You need only listen. And then listen. Developing your dialogue ear It helps to have an ear for dialogue, but reproducing conversation is one skill that can be self-taught, again by (first of all) listening. And you are more than likely in the best place to hear the kind of workplace dialogue you will be writing for a course. Let’s save our learners from the kind of bouncy, hammer-the-point-home stuff that’s been inflicted on them for so long. The kind of ‘conversation’ that goes like this: James: Hi Jenny, it’s great to see you! Jenny: You too, James! James: I know you’re awesome at statistical analysis, and I have this report I’m struggling with. I get what kurtosis is, but what the heck is skewness? Jenny: I’d be happy to answer that, James. Skewness is a measure of symmetry, or more precisely, the lack of symmetry. James: Ah, I get it now! Thanks a bunch, Jenny. Jenny: You’re welcome, James. Getting to natural dialogue and stories OK, nothing out there’s quite this bad (right?), but the same vices are prevalent. And can be hard to avoid. In fiction, a character grows, takes time to develop. There might be a dozen, maybe a hundred, discarded pages before a character’s voice starts to ring true. Almost all characters born of instructional design live only fleetingly - maybe just the space of a paragraph or two. The designer takes little interest in them, perhaps a smidgeon more than the learner does. Each workplace character has a purpose to serve. Like the Roman dancer mentioned in Ford Madox Ford’s novel The Rash Act, whose epitaph was ‘He danced. He gave pleasure. He is dead.’ Except that pleasure rarely comes into it. It doesn’t have to be this way. No, really. For one thing, good fiction writing is densely populated by very minor characters - which really only means human beings glimpsed rather than scrutinised. All it takes is a sharp observation, a turn of phrase picked up on the street, and you’re away. Tip: To make your speech less halting, you could try writing the dialogue just before and after the piece of dialogue you will actually use, and so avoid those awkward beginnings and endings. There’s no need to beat yourself up because a character in your workplace dialogue doesn’t seem as fully human as Anna Karenina. And Tolstoy’s tragic heroine brings me back to the bouncy, relentlessly upbeat aspect of poor eLearning dialogue. As the novel’s famous opening sentence puts it: ‘All happy families are alike; each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.’ Happiness writes white. As we all know, stories worth reading involve conflict, challenge, failure along the way. Learners will appreciate that you’ve researched and expressed the complexities of their workplace and the obstacles and pitfalls they face, where often there are wrong answers but not necessarily an obviously right one. Fine to use a fable-like story to make a single point if a single point needs to be made. But how often does life, or work-life, fall quite so neatly into single-pointedness? You also have more space for storytelling than you might think. A whole topic might be told as a story, and of course characters can reappear throughout a course. Not everything is best told in story form, so don’t force it. You have more tools at your disposal than the traditional author does. No need for visual descriptions of characters when you can show them; no need to slow things down with backstory that a learner could access through optional links (a tip courtesy of Cathy Moore). Getting help on storytelling There is plenty of online advice on using and structuring stories in eLearning. Some of it is good, some isn’t, so root around. I must confess to feeling dismayed by this kind of thing - by no means untypical - from a TrainingZone blog: ‘Research discovered by monitoring the brain activity of monkeys [showed] that whenever a researcher picked up a banana whilst being observed by a monkey, it had the same effect on the activation of neurons as when the monkey itself picked up a banana. Stories that are vivid and appeal to the various sensory cortices in the brain will increase neuro-engagement.’ In other words, learners are dumb animals, feed them stories. If we’re going to draw on this ancient and never outdated human means of communication and understanding, then let’s respect it. Our jargon includes the term ‘learning outcomes’, and we know that the eLearning stories we tell need to be tied to these, but perhaps they are not so different from the moments of illumination - Joyce called them ‘epiphanies’ - on which a short story turns. It all comes back to the question of writing and designing for the whole person rather than a mere cipher. Or a gnome named Grimble Grumble. So back to you. What stories could you pick up in your workplace that could make learning more real? How do we develop our inner Joyce? Logicearth Learning Services specialise in designing, delivering and supporting modern workplace learning solutions, which brings results for individuals and organisations. We are learning technology experts and along with specialist interactive multi-device content development skills, we can provide a complete service for all your organisation’s modern learning needs. Logicearth has offices in Belfast and Dublin but deliver services worldwide, including Ireland, UK, USA and throughout Europe. The post Real storytelling in eLearning appeared first on Logicearth.

Why are visual design skills important? Communication is the foundation of all human interactions. Visual communication is older than reading and writing. Neanderthal man drew shapes and forms on cave walls long before we wrote words and proper sentences. The caves of Altamira in Spain and Lascaux caves in France are the evidence of human progress in the form of visual stories etched on stone. Experimenting with colors and textures is an innate human ability, as our Neanderthal forefathers used a variety of pigments from coal to red and yellowochre extracted from plants in order to create animal forms. So saying artists are born not made can be challenged! We definitely have come a long way in terms of advanced visual literacy from our ancient predecessors. We live in a more visual society than ever, yet design literacy lags behind most other skills. What are the pitfalls of bad design? What are the simple steps you can take to improve your visual design skills and visual literacy? You will find the answers to these questions in our list below. We explain design essentials for a better understanding of what makes visually engaging content. You can jump to a visual summary at the bottom of this post. 1. Creative sparks Inspiration can be derived from the smallest of things in life. Water lilies inspired Monet, while the irregularities and unfairness of life inspired Van Gogh to paint in such exaggerated and intense strokes. You can broaden your horizons by studying books on not only visual literacy, but anything that gets your creative juices flowing. The peculiar thing about inspiration is that it often strikes you at the most unexpected hours, so keep your pen and paper ready at all times to jot down the ideas and draw images to support them, and build upon those ideas by adding details later on. 2. Negative and positive space Balanced negative and positive spaces make the eye travel to the object of attention with ease. Negative space is the background, while positive space is the foreground if you are working on a bi-layered design layout. A very busy negative space may cause fatigue to the eyes and may divert the viewers’ attention from the primary subject of your content. You can create an illusion of a third dimension and depth on a two dimensional surface by overlapping, shading, highlighting and shadowing, building up on linear and atmospheric perspective by changing how air and fog perceive distant objects. For example, for a kids’ website, a negative space that is fluid and without any block images is preferable for easy eye movement. 3. The color scheme Color psychology plays a pivotal role in brand selling and retaining a wide client base. Picking a color is not an easy task, as many options seem to work together just fine, so it is important that you make several color layouts that you think represent the philosophy behind your brand sufficiently. You may have noticed that food brands usually range from hues of yellow to oranges and reds, while social media sites are predominantly blue, like Facebook, Tumblr, Instagram, Twitter, and Skype. Know your target market, and then proceed accordingly with your color scheme. To create a strong color palate for the visual content, Adobe Kuler color wheel tool will help you create shades and find complementary colors with ease. 4. Textures in design Textures in a design are used to create depth and warmth to the overall layout. In digital art, texture means the way a surface is perceived to feel, and can be added to gain or avoid attention for an element. Visual textures include adding the illusion of peaks and valleys, or adding lush leaves to a tree. Repeating a motif or a linear form throughout is also termed as adding texture. Texture can be used as a tool to harmonize negative and positive space as well. But make sure you don’t use too much of texture in your design because it creates a highly busy space and can put a strain on the eyes. Moreover, ensure that the focal point of your design is enhanced, and not diminished by adding a certain texture. 5. Harmony in designs After you are done with your form, space, colors, and texture, focus on the balance and harmony of your layout. Do you feel your design appears heavier on one end and lighter on the other? Or you think the base of your design is not wide enough to support heavy motifs on top? These details need to be addressed accordingly if a visually appealing design is to be created. Achieving visual unity is the main goal in graphic designing, and all elements need to be in agreement. Pay special attention to the perspective, continuation, repetition, and rhythm to create a unified design. This doesn’t mean your designs should always be strictly symmetrical, as asymmetrical designs can also be a way to strike an informal balance in a layout. Think order in chaos. 6. Design hierarchy Hierarchy guides the eye movement of the viewer. It gives you the power to make viewers look at one place, and then guide their eyes to fall on the next. This can be achieved by various methods including using complementary colors, fluid negative space, and interactive foreground. For example, for a kids’ website, you can form a hierarchy in your text by using a specific font for a specific subject. You can also achieve this by using particular colors. 7. Scale and proportion Scale and proportion are significant in keeping the balance and harmony of your design. Make sure that the forms, motifs, and texts in your design don’t downplay the importance of your focal point.This is because using the relative size of elements against each other can attract attention to a focal point. When it comes to scale, if elements are designed larger than life or incredibly diminished, scale is being used to show drama. Disproportionate designs and misplaced elements put off the viewer. Also, it is a rookie mistake to not follow the scale and proportion guidelines. You can enhance your understanding of scale and proportion by drawing design elements and forms manually on a paper. Moreover, studying and understanding the golden ratio may also prove to be helpful in this regard. 8. Dominance and emphasis Ideally, every design should have a key area of interest or focal point that assists as a way into the design. Moving along from this primary dominant design element, a layout flow can be achieved by creating elements with secondary and tertiary dominance.Dominance of a focal point depends on contrast, as without contrast everything would be identical. The absence of dominance between elements leads to competition between them. If there are three yellow squares of equal size in your design, which one should the viewer look at first? It takes away the chance of an interactive communication between the viewer and your design. 9. Using similarity and contrast creatively Developing a consistent and similar design is a vital facet of a designer’s job to make their focal point stand out. Too much similarity is uninteresting, but without similarity key elements will not exist. An image without contrast is flat and mundane, thus the key here is to strike a balance between similarity and contrast. To create a similar design, you can manipulate images and text to correlate, and develop a style manual that remains consistent in all your layouts. Also, you can express continuity in your web pages by including the same headers, borders, footers, and themes. To develop contrast in your layout, you can control space, position, form, direction, structure, size, color, texture, and density by positioning the contrasting characters of stability/movement, organized/chaotic, isolated/grouped, grey scale/color, and transparent/opaque together. 10. Keeping it simple Piling up too much on your plate, and then regretting it later will not prove to be a fruitful work strategy. So instead of adding all the textures, and colors in one layout, follow the less is more mantra. With its slogan of being the ‘New Normal,’ 2015 is the year of making things hassle free and easy to consume, thus your design must not feature too many contrasting elements and tacky textures piled on top of each other. Remember, effective designs are clear cut, balanced, and follow the rules of simplicity. Learning the art of visual communication and design requires patience, and you are going to make many mistakes before finally grasping the science behind this digital art. Follow blogs like Aisle One, Design Observer and Dexigner in order to get in depth knowledge of graphic design and visual literacy. Logicearth Learning Services specialise in designing, delivering and supporting modern workplace learning solutions, which brings results for individuals and organisations. We are learning technology experts and along with specialist interactive multi-device content development skills, we can provide a complete service for all your organisation’s modern learning needs. Logicearth has offices in Belfast and Dublin but deliver services worldwide, including Ireland, UK, USA and throughout Europe. Visual summary of our 10 visual design tips   The post 10 tips to improve your visual design skills and visual literacy for non-designers appeared first on Logicearth.

The explosion of brand-based, user generated content campaigns User generated content (UGC) is increasingly being deployed in the marketing world. Major brands like Nike, Apple and LEGO have been at the forefront of this new phenomenon. To encourage your customers and potential customers to love your brand enough to generate content and ‘talk’ about you on social media platforms is the equivalent of free global advertising. But what if we could also encourage our staff to create content about our own companies? And not only create content, but share it with colleagues to help inspire learning and collaboration? Even better - the potential heady mix of customers AND staff creating content about your company has limitless potential to drive learning in your organisation. This blog post looks at what we can learn from the major brands in their attempts to encourage their customers to create user generated content. This is a relatively new phonememon, so let’s take a look at what makes a successful user generated campaign. Technologies that come in handy First let’s take a look at the technology that people use for creating user generated content. With a myriad of social media apps created every day in the Silicon Valley, it’s easy for users to create content and upload it so that it’s better exposed to the masses. The most famous apps that have been handy in this expansion include YouTube, Tumblr, Instagram and Facebook. Blogging sites like WordPress and Blogger are also active in promoting user content because of their millions of subscribers. Video blogs, also known as vlogs, help immensely with content promotion and learning motivation. This brings diversity to your content, making it more engaging. Content that’s diversified in this way - with various perspectives and narratives of a single topic presented under one umbrella - is more likely to motivate learners and retain their attention. Traits of successful UGC Campaigns There are many examples of successful user generated content campaigns around, such as the Belkin-Lego iPhone Case collaboration. Belkin created one of the most chic and customisable iPhone cases in partnership with Lego. Belkin requested that their customers showcase their creativity by personalising their own iPhone case with Lego studs and upload photos of their creations on social media. As a result, #LEGOxBelkin was trending for weeks on Instagram and Twitter. This integration of UGC onto the product page is a remarkable way of selling a product. It means that customers do the selling for the company by showing how authentic and individual an iPhone cover can get. Next - let’s see what makes an ideal user generated content campaign. Make it mutually beneficial The best UGC campaigns are mutually beneficial. Advertising that’s mutually beneficial offers value for both the brand and the consumer. Giving incentives and rewards encourages participation in social and digital activities that greatly increase the product’s exposure in core market segments. This can take the form of redeemable points for free gifts, or anything that makes the customer feel valued and appreciated by the brand. The result is a win-win for the brand and the customers, with more exposure for the brand and prizes for the customers. Such advertising doesn’t even feel like advertising, but seems more authentic and less intrusive. Bring your A-game Pun intended. Gamify your audience like Nike+ did when they created brand engagement and awareness by offering participation in sports and other fitness-related activities via the NikeFuel app. This app tracked the activity and turned it into points; the points unlocked special trophies, and the users earned badges by reaching higher levels. Marketers typically use games in UGC with elements like points, levels and badges to appeal to our natural competitiveness and create an incentive for action. Today, with the ease of access to technology, every user is tech-savvy, and it is a clever way to increase brand affinity and awareness among the masses. Understand your audience With any marketing strategy, knowing, understanding and analysing your audience is the key to success. A brand launching a UGC campaign for wireless headphones, but targeting offices and not teen and tween music-lovers, will miss a broad chunk of potential buyers. Today’s social media spans the generations, and reaches everyone in the family: even Gramps is now on Facebook. So it’s much easier for marketers to make their products resonate with the target audience. This information can be of great value when kick-starting your user generated content campaign, and is likely to generate a positive reaction from the audience. The much-dreaded pitfalls of UGC Each marketing strategy is laden with potential pitfalls from which recovery can be difficult. It’s important to know what these pitfalls are, and what you can do to get past them. User generated content campaigns can face even more snags than other marketing campaigns, since the brands aren’t controlling them directly. True, they show the most positive results, but when a user generated content campaign goes wrong, recovery takes time, and the brand has to work hard to improve its image. Look out for the following dangers: Inconsistent messaging One of the biggest drawbacks with user generated content is that customers don’t always have a strong grasp of the message and the spirit of each brand. Though the customers are well-intentioned and just want to be a part of something fun, they may not be conveying the brand message in the way you intended. This can leave your audience feeling confused; the brand’s services and philosophy may get lost in translation. There is no way of overcoming this apart from relaying the brand message in simpler and easier words. Clever brands will anticipate misinterpretations and plan accordingly. The hijackers Campaign hijacking can be an extremely negative event for a brand and its popularity. A couple of dissatisfied customers or spiteful competitors can send your marketing efforts spiralling down with ease. Consider the example of #McDStories, which was launched by McDonalds in 2012. This marketing strategy focused on encouraging happy employees to share their success stories on social media using the aforementioned hashtag. Things got ugly when a few users uploaded negative comments with the hashtag, and then a number of others followed. So it’s essential that you come up with strategies to counter hijacking before launching your campaign. Too much or too little of a good thing is bad An effective user generated content campaign features remarkable engagement and interaction on the part of consumers. If a brand actively engages with its customers regularly and pays attention to feedback, then success is more likely. But too much engagement can leave the brand overwhelmed and unprepared to deal with the level of incoming communication traffic. Bringing it back to the workplace So, what can we take from this to help with learning in the workplace? These brands were good at coming up with quirky, unique and inspiring challenges which got people’s imaginations working. How could you inspire your staff in a similar way? Might your marketing or communications team get involved and help you to come up with some ideas? I’ve heard a lot of people talk about user generated content in the eLearning industry as the ‘next big thing’. I’ve seen some projects fail because the organisation hired someone to teach their staff eLearning design skills in a few days: they don’t do what the major brands do - leave it up to the people engaging with them to decide which tool to use, and what is meaningful for them. They are still stuck on ‘I need a course to learn’, and people end up creating wordy PowerPoint slides interspersed with audio voiceover. Then they wonder why no-one engages with the content. Also, they don’t keep the task small. It becomes another overwhelming addition to people with already overcommitted workloads. So perhaps our challenge is to trust our staff to collaborate and produce inspiring messages, and to make it easy for them to do that. User generated content campaigns Some companies worry about moderation - do you have to check content before it’s released? This is a tricky one to judge: it depends a lot on the culture of your organisation. Perhaps starting small with short, focused, self-contained campaigns based around a central issue would make going off-the-point less likely. Some potential ideas: Ask staff to share a personal success story. Ask a specific question - What did you learn this week/month? Ask staff to explain how they overcame a specific challenge. Ask staff to write a letter to a new employee (to help with induction). You can make a number of tools available for staff, such as a simple means of recording and sharing short video clips, and of creating infographics and short audio segments. Offering anonymity can work well. It’s important, though, that senior leadership leads by example - make sure your leadership team share their stories first. For more examples of other brand-based marketing campaigns that we can learn from, check these out. We’d love to hear from you. Do you have any experience of user generated content campaigns? What has worked or not worked for you in the past? Logicearth Learning Services specialise in designing, delivering and supporting modern workplace learning solutions, which brings results for individuals and organisations. We are learning technology experts and along with specialist interactive multi-device content development skills, we can provide a complete service for all your organisation’s modern learning needs. Logicearth has offices in Belfast and Dublin but deliver services worldwide, including Ireland, UK, USA and throughout Europe. The post Learning from brand-based user generated content campaigns appeared first on Logicearth.

How can unusual learning techniques help your staff? There are lots of different ways to learn - from reading, to observation, to rolling up your sleeves and just trying it for yourself. But have you ever considered what are the best learning techniques to capture and maintain attention? To get beyond ‘click-next’ elearning content, coming next we have 7 unusual learning techniques for eLearning that we have used in recent projects with clients. 1. Real photography We can all spot stock images from a mile off. These pictures may be obtained without any hassle, but every eLearning content developer out there is using these photos to support their content, and repetition is, in plain words, boring. If it is possible, take your own photographs and include them in your content. If you are involved in an eLearning project, it can be as simple as taking photos of your staff. You could also use your office and customer settings for any scenarios and examples. Make sure that the photographs are relevant to the content, and add to the depth of understanding, instead of creating a contrast in concepts. However, if you use poorly angled or out of context photographs in your work, they will put your content on the negative spectrum instead of adding a positive character to it. Also make sure you give due credits and reference to the photographer if you are using someone else’s work in your content. You can see an example of our Office Health and Safety course which uses natural, everyday people rather than stock imagery.   2. Humour Some people will feel that you have to be careful with humour as it often doesn’t translate across cultures and different groups of people. While this is true, using techniques such as parody or extending a funny film/TV narrative to a learning situation can work well. This is because people will most likely be familiar to with the story and it can serve as a guidepost to help support the learning. For example, I once used Ricky Gervais’s ‘The Office’ as a backdrop to writing a set of scripts to teach diversity awareness. The key message of the learning programme was that while ‘banter’ was a normal part of everyday office life, without awareness of the impact you have on others, it can go badly wrong. While none of us would ever admit to being a ‘David Brent’, sometimes, inadvertently we do act like him. Another example - our Sustainability eLearning course uses a ‘cast of characters’ who are based on workplace sterotypes. These characters help to get across common challenges in changing people’s behaviour around energy efficiency. 3. Poetry Even without considering learning, poetic words can invoke all sorts of thoughts and emotions. From Shelly to Sassoon to Wordsworth or Wade, poets throughout the ages have captured the hearts and minds of many people. Poetry can be useful as metaphors or just plain inspiration. Have a think about these poems; what type of learning programme could they help with? Robert Frost - ‘The road not taken’ Rudyard Kipling - ‘If’ ‘If’ could be about many concepts, but topics like management and leadership spring to mind. ‘The Road Not Taken’ is a great analogy for decision making; encourage people to think through decisions and be sure you choose your path wisely. Consider what the path of least resistance actually means. 4. Anchored drama An anchored drama is a story that evolves as you move through a learning programme. It contains a plot that supports the main learning themes that you need to get across. The story characters go on a similar journey to your target audience. You tell the story based on the many typical challenges and triumphs that your target audience could face. As an example - consider induction training. Normally, this is a fairly boring subject made up of policy documents and checklists that the new employee has to wade through. But what if you could tell a story about a typical ‘First day’ as a way of introducing a new employee to your organisation? Your character could meet many other typical workplace characters such as cynics and helpers and they have to choose the best sources of help to improve their first day. You could set tasks where your employee has to find information and make decisions on which questions to ask the best people. If the drama is constructed carefully, it will mirror the journey that most new employees should be supported through. 5. Ridiculosity No, we didn’t make up this word. Taking something to the extreme is a great way of helping people to learn and remember. If you can guide your target audience towards saying ‘I thought I was the only one who thought like that’, then you are on to a winning strategy. Marketers are particularly good at this. Think of some of the most memorable advertisements you have seen. For example, a recent British Heart Foundation campaign to help teach CPR used a famous actor and a well-known song. You can see that example here. In our Office Health and Safety eLearning programme we created an opening scene called ‘Office Carnage’. Taken to the extreme, ignoring office health and safety can be quite dangerous! 6. The psychology of language The psychology of language is an underused tool in eLearning. While it is true eLearning content is more visual these days, we still use text to get key messages across. The words you choose and the sentence structure that underpin your words can have a big impact on helping your audience to be more motivated to learn. For example, speaking directly to your audience as ‘you’, rather than in the third-person brings the learning closer and makes reading easier. Also - take two simple words ‘and’ & ‘but’. When you use the word ‘but’, it deletes what comes before it. We’ve all probably heard these words: "He’s a nice guy, but…". The word ‘and’ on the other hand, tends to evoke more positive feelings. So you could say something like: "He’s a nice guy and I think he’d be even more successful if…" Phrasing language in the positive is generally easier for people to understand. This is particularly important when it comes to instructions or requests for people to do things. For example, which of the following instructions are you more likely to remember or adhere to? Why? Don’t forget to turn out the light. Thank you. Thanks for turning out the light when you leave. What we actually hear from the first instruction when we say it, is "forget to turn out the light" - we aren’t very good at translating negatives. 7. Hinge questions This learning technique probably deserves an entire blog post, but let’s summarise the concept for now. A hinge question is an important question that is designed to get your target audience thinking. It usually focusses on a key concept - like a common myth, challenge or pain point. Everything in the question is geared towards learning; the question itself, the correct answer and the alternative choices. Even the feedback should re-inforce the key concept. Hinge questions, as the name suggests are important learning millstones - without understanding the concept behind these questions, then further learning can be impacted. The learning literally ‘hinges’ on answering these questions. A good learning programme will contain a few key hinge questions. Good scenario design is also based around key hinge questions. Hinge questions are unusual learning techniques for eLearning as they take time and effort to get right. For example, say you were designing an introduction programme on leadership. An early hinge question might be: "What is the difference between a leader and a manager?" This is a good opening discussion point to help see where your target audience is at. Some of the common myths could be - there is no real difference, or a leader is just a manager who gets paid more! Can you think of any other hinge questions that you’ve seen in eLearning programmes? We’ve love to hear from you if you have come across any of these techniques. We’d also be happy to give you a demo of one of our eLearning programmes showing these techniques. Just reply below. Logicearth Learning Services specialise in designing, delivering and supporting modern workplace learning solutions, which brings results for individuals and organisations. We are learning technology experts and along with specialist interactive multi-device content development skills, we can provide a complete service for all your organisation’s modern learning needs. Logicearth has offices in Belfast and Dublin but deliver services worldwide, including Ireland, UK, USA and throughout Europe. The post 7 unusual learning techniques for eLearning appeared first on Logicearth.

What is a graphic design sin in eLearning? Today’s blog comes from Erin Doherty, one of our graphic design team. Erin delights in user experience design and loves to get stuck into client projects to drive engagement and learner motivation. Over to Erin… When designing an eLearning course, a very important aspect is the use of graphics. Graphics tend to have a very positive effect on the user, making the course more visually pleasing and therefore enhancing the learning experience. However, if the graphics are not presented correctly, they can have the opposite effect. As either a user of eLearning, or a designer, be on the lookout for graphic design sins. You can and should demand more from your eLearning vendor! Here are 5 common graphic design sins: 1. Muddled meaning When I studied film making, we were always taught that everything in a frame must have purpose. The same can be applied to eLearning. If a graphic is placed on the page with no thought to how it contributes to the message, it probably shouldn’t be there. Irrelevant graphics can distract the user and confuse the learning experience. Keeping graphics relevant to what is being put across is vital. When a user looks at an eLearning page, or any sort of webpage, they will immediately take in all the elements and try to figure out if they enhance the key messages or confuse them. Confused graphic messages are much like sending mixed communication messages - you’ll end up disengaging your recipient and lose an opportunity to influence and persuade. To determine how effective the design really is, next time you see a webpage or a page of an eLearning resource, ask yourself some questions: Is there any part of the design you find confusing? Why has this type of colour scheme been chosen? What do the style of images do to help explain the key messages? Is every image or design technique on the page really needed? 2. Staggering styles/themes Mixing graphic styles in a course can be messy and distracting for the user. Your graphics should look like they belong together and should complement the course content. The example below shows how even when graphics are relevant to the content they do not necessarily complement each other. (Image from: http://blogs.articulate.com/rapid-elearning/) 3. Nasty navigation Using graphics for elements such as next buttons and exit buttons, as opposed to just using text, can streamline the ‘look’ of a course. However, always be mindful to keep these elements consistent. If your next button graphic is green with a white arrow, make sure it stays that way throughout the course. This ensures that the user doesn’t have to think about what the button does as it has been established already. Muddled and confused navigation elements is a common graphic design sin.   4. Stocky staleness Stock images are great for eLearning courses as they give a sense of realism. However, it is worth taking some time to choose images that are high quality and are suited to the content of the course. Using low quality, irrelevant images will only serve to make the course look unprofessional and untidy, as well as giving the user irrelevant things to look at, thus distracting them from the important content. There is nothing worse than cheesy, overused stock images. Consider taking your own shots or trying different stock libraries. People aren’t perfect in real life so your stock images don’t need to be the parade of the beautiful people! Some alternative stock libraries to check out: istock photo - good range of realistic photographic images and visual design metaphors photodune.net - one of the newer stock image sites, with a more easy-to-use layout PhotoCase.com - smaller range, with some more unusual design motifs and metaphors. 5. Forgetting the big four Choosing the right colour scheme with appropriate contrasts is one of the first stages of design. Using contrast is a hugely effective way to guide the user’s attention. It highlights differences, which draws the eye of the user. A great way to utilise contrast is to use large images next to smaller graphics and splashes of colour on a monochrome colour palette to guide the user’s eye. Contrast is part of the big four of design: Contrast - our brains are wired to notice difference, so decide what you want to draw the user’s eye to and use contrast in colours, styles etc to facilitate this. Repetition - common themes should be repeated, such as backgrounds, navigation elements, fonts etc. This brings unity, cohesiveness and makes sure all elements of the design are part of the bigger holistic design. Alignment - Nothing in a design should look like it was placed randomly. Misaligned design elements makes content look like it was designed by an amateur. Proximity - related items should be placed together so they are viewed as a group rather than independent elements. If a design has poor use of proximity, then it can overwhelm the user as everything can appear too ‘bity’. To read more about the big four of design, check this out. The bottom line - when you look at something that is ‘designed’, the designer should make it easy for you to quickly figure out what is the most and least important information for you to take in. Not committing any of these 5 sins is a good way of keeping a design good and wholesome! Thanks Erin for your insights. We all promise to push for better designs in the future! What design sins have you seen recently? Feel free to send us any design nightmares using the form below. Logicearth Learning Services specialise in designing, delivering and supporting modern workplace learning solutions, which brings results for individuals and organisations. We are learning technology experts and along with specialist interactive multi-device content development skills, we can provide a complete service for all your organisation’s modern learning needs. Logicearth has offices in Belfast and Dublin but deliver services worldwide, including Ireland, UK, USA and throughout Europe. The post 5 common eLearning graphic design sins appeared first on Logicearth.

You don’t need us to tell you that we’re living in a futuristic, sci-fi age where information is more free than anyone thought it ever could be. Whether you think it’s an Orwellian nightmare, or the bee’s knees, there’s no getting away from the fact that we’re all connected now, whether we like it or not. Nobody is immune to the effects of free information, especially not businesses. Let’s take your local family-run eatery as an example. Let’s assume also that they take a laissez-faire attitude towards quality and customer service because that’s the way they’ve always done things. Since the advent of TripAdvisor and other review sites, even these small businesses need to take a more serious look at how they are perceived. If they have any interest in their survival, they need to realise that anybody can post a bad review at any time and this can have disastrous consequences. But this transparency can also be a blessing in disguise, giving the owners of these small businesses an absolutely free resource for gauging their customers’ opinions. That’s just one example of the way that barriers between businesses and customers have dissolved. It’s no different at an organisational level. Gone are the days when managers could maintain a professional distance from their employees. Though some managers might have resisted this change, most of them have realised that it brings with it some surprising benefits. This is particularly evident in training and development. With the right Learning Management System, you can take all of the guesswork out of the efficacy of your training programme. Any LMS worth its salt will have a versatile set of reporting tools, but is this really enough? Today, a lot of employers are coming to realise that there is a hidden current to their employees’ professional development. At Growth Engineering, we’re advocates of both social learning and informal learning. The main benefit of both is that they tap into the huge proportion of learning that happens naturally, rather than during formal training. You see, your employees, like everyone else in this information-rich world, just can’t stop themselves from communicating. If you provide the right forum - a dedicated communication area on your LMS - it won’t be long before they are all sharing tips and anecdotes. Aside from sharing useful information, the employees will have a place where they can publicly ask questions. The power of this cannot be underestimated. It highlights gaps in their understanding and gives the employer an insight into the future direction of the training programme. If your learners can’t resist the urge to communicate, we say that you shouldn’t simply let them - you should actively encourage them! Our Academy Platform LMS is optimised to get the most out of social interaction - in fact, it was recently ranked the #1 Gamified Social LMS in the world. Find out what this means and how you can set learning free by downloading our new white paper on social learning - just click the button below! Pop your email address in the box below to subscribe to our weekly digest and find out when we post similar articles!  

There’s a common misconception floating around in organisations that if people weren’t great students at school, they won’t be able to continue learning well into adulthood or pick up the skill again once they start work. We’re happy to tell you that this just isn’t true! Whether you have thirteen GCSEs or three, everyone can become a highly effective lifelong learner - it’s all about changing your habits. Here are 13 habits of highly effective learners that keep them learning new things, expanding their knowledge and developing their skills throughout their lives: 1. They accept that they will never stop learning Ooh, we’re starting with a big’un. Successful learners know, accept and enjoy the fact that learning never truly ends. There’s always something more to learn, some new experiences to try and skills to improve. When learners accept that their learning journeys are never completely over, they are more motivated to continue learning new things each and every day. 2. They don’t cram Rather than cramming all their learning into one night or researching their assignment over a fraught couple of days, lifelong learners have the habit of stretching their learning out over a few weeks or months. Little and often is the key - it keeps them from getting bored and they see knowledge acquisition as more of a lifestyle than a finite task. 3. They approach learning reflectively In other words, they understand that they have individual strengths and weaknesses, and they react to them when they affect their learning. Imagine a learner who knows they struggle with mathematics. They’ll be happy to go over the mathematics part of their eLearning course again in finer detail because they know they need to go the extra mile to master it - rather than ignore it and fail future tests! 4. They put in the effort It stands to reason: the more effort learners put in, the more they’ll get out of their online learning journey. You wouldn’t expect to pick up 1kg weights and win a bodybuilding competition - you’d go all-out and train with 80, 150 or 200kg weights. 5. The visualise the goal Sure, lifelong learners are successful because they recognise that learning never really ends. But here’s the trick: they visualise goals along the way. No one learning goal is ever ‘The End’, but each eLearning module might be a goal, or they think of completing a development stream of online learning as a great goal to aim for. It helps to break their lifelong learning into parts - and parts are often more manageable than the whole. 6. They seek out learning Successful learners don’t wait to be told what to do or handed their syllabus on a platter. They go out and actively work to learn new things. If they spot a gap in their knowledge, they set out to fill it. They hate not knowing things! 7. They participate and collaborate Like #6, effective learners involve themselves in what’s going on in their learning environment, whether it is formal training in a classroom or online learning on their Learning Management System. We’ve talked about the importance of collaboration before - and how we encourage it on our Academy Platform LMS - and it’s definitely a habit of successful learners that we should all try to replicate. 8. They mentor others Lifelong learners understand the importance of collaboration (#7) and sharing knowledge, so they’re happy to mentor and advise other learners. Not only does it make their colleagues happy, but it reinforces the learning content. P.s. We’ve included a link to our white paper on social, collaborative learning on our Gamified Social Academy Platform LMS at the end of this article, so keep reading! 9. They see problems as challenges Most people realise that they’ll encounter problems and difficulties throughout their learning journeys - the difference is that effective learners see these as challenges to overcome, rather than difficulties to stop them in their tracks. To successful learners, every challenge is an exciting opportunity to grow. 10. They create & use a suite of learning tools Books, videos, podcasts, eLearning modules, Learning Management Systems, group study sessions… Effective learners know what works to get them learning and having fun so they make sure every learning journey includes these things. They organise everything they need to successfully accomplish their goals - they know where to go to get all the information and how best to use it. 11. They’re ok with failure That’s not to say they accept failure - they accept failure happens but they’ll keep going and keep trying until they’re successful. Failure is just another learning tool they keep in their armoury, after all. 12. They leverage technology If you’re going to be learning throughout your life, you may as well make it easy for yourself, right? Exactly! Effective learners use all the tools at their disposal - including technology. Whether they’re taking a solo eLearning module or building up to, say, an ISMM Diploma on our award-winning Sales Academy, online learning is an excellent way of making the most of technology. 13. They enjoy learning Rather than seeing learning as boring, dull or a drag, successful lifelong learners enjoy learning new things and developing their knowledge. Of course, they can’t expect to love their learning if it’s poorly designed, badly delivered and terribly tedious - but that’s where we come in to provide them with exceptionally enjoyable online learning environments. We go the extra mile to make sure our learners enjoy their learning journey - our Academy Platform LMS is gamified and totally social, which our learners love. Just click the button below to find out more! If these 13 habits don’t sound familiar to you, don’t worry - they can be learnt! Pop your email address in the box below to get an update when we post similar articles.  

In our travels through the world of online learning, we’ve seen it all when it comes to training and development. One of the things we’ve noticed is that superheroes and ordinary Joes are often separated by one crucial skill - the ability to manage their time effectively. If you’re one of those people who just can’t seem to get organised, there’s no need to have an anxiety attack. If you only use one time management method, then make it the to-do list. It might seem obvious but this could be the one thing that brings order into your otherwise chaotic life. I know what you’re thinking - ‘writing a to-do list is just another thing to do’, but take five minutes out of your day to add a bit of structure and you’ll be amazed at how far it can take you. Now, you might think a to-do list is just a list of things to do - and it is - but there are a couple of things you can do to really make it work for you. 1 Write everything down. Sure, you can try to rely on your brain to remember everything, but you’ll never become a super-productive efficiency machine that way. When you write down everything you need to do, the task of managing your time becomes a thousand times easier. You can write down everything from the largest, seemingly insurmountable tasks to the most minor activity that hardly bears mentioning - once you can physically see them, they will already be less daunting. 2 Prioritise. Once you have your list of things, it’s time to put them into some kind of order. There are many ways to do this including ABC analysis, Pareto Analysis and the Eisenhower method. It’s up to you to decide which method suits you best but the common thread connecting them all is the importance of prioritising your tasks. Only you know what is most important. If a task has a pressing deadline, that should be at the top of your list. 3 Assign a realistic time frame to each task. How long will each task take to accomplish? When you’re deciding this, it’s sometimes better to overestimate. The last thing you need is to add undue panic to your already hectic schedule. If you set the bar comfortably (yet not TOO comfortably) low, then you increase your chances of reaching your target. Once you’ve reached your target with time to spare, do yourself a favour and take a break! 4 Challenge yourself. Although you can reduce stress by creating comfortable time frames, don’t use that as an excuse for laziness. If you want to be the superstar you always knew you could be, you need to challenge yourself sometimes. Remember that bar that we set nice and low? Try nudging it up a little each day - you might be surprised at what you’re capable of! 5 Gamify it. As with most things, managing your time is more fun when you turn it into a game. We love our gamification here at Growth Engineering and we’ve seen the power of adding game mechanics to non-game scenarios. On our Academy Platform LMS, we use points and levels to track learners’ progress - why not do that with your to-do list? You can create a points system that works for you and create some kind of goal. Whenever you reach that goal, don’t forget to reward yourself! 6 Get social. As an expansion to gamifying your to-do list, you can add a level of competition by getting everyone else involved. Why not set up a leaderboard in the office and have everybody publicise their progress on a Monday morning? You can make it interesting by offering a prize to whoever tops the leaderboard at the end of a set period. So stop worrying about the list of tasks in your head that are competing for your attention. Write them down, prioritise them and once you’ve found your feet again, you can turn your simple to-do list into a motivational tool that everyone can benefit from. Our Academy Platform LMS is the #1 Gamified Social Learning Management System in the world, so we know how powerful gamification can be. We’ve seen how gamified elements like points, rewards and leaderboards can get people engaged and send their motivation into orbit. Don’t just take our word for it - why not add an Academy Tour to your to-do list? Just click the button below to get started! We regularly publish plenty of tips for productivity, as well as updates on the #1 Gamified Social Learning Management System in the world. Keep your finger on the pulse by signing up to our email alerts:  

Does the thought of logging on to social media fill you with dread? Do you break out in a sweat when you’re asked to download PDFs, create PowerPoint presentations and search for information on Google? Do you worry that pressing the wrong button will cause your computer to self-destruct? You can’t be that bad at using technology if you managed to find this article - unless someone printed it out for you, of course… Hmm… Nowadays, almost everything is computerised and technological. Your car, your phone, your leisure time; even your toaster is more technologically-advanced than ever before. Did you know, our mobile phones - even those a few years old - are more powerful than the computers that sent mankind into space? Not only is technology in your toothbrush; it’s also in your office and in your training programme. Technology is advancing so quickly, it’s now more important than ever to make sure you can get to grips with the technology that will help you to function best, grow, improve your skills and better yourself. Even the best of us need a bit of help and guidance now and again to keep up with developments in these technological times. Here are three ways you can avoid digital disasters: 1. Ask your organisation for training. It might seem counterintuitive that we’re suggesting you ask for training before you can actually start your online training programme, but bear with us. It’s true that learners don’t have to be particularly tech-savvy in order to get the most out of their online learning. There’s nothing groundbreaking or overly-complicated when it comes to logging on to a Learning Management System and taking a piece of eLearning content. Sure, not everything is as basic as downloading PDF worksheets of your learning experience, or sharing your progress on Twitter or Facebook to get a badge. But on the whole, you don’t need to be a techno-wiz in order for your online learning programme to be successful. But what if you’re seriously unsure about technology and you’re not even certain how to navigate your way around the internet, let alone download a PDF to your computer!? Well, no companies will allow their employees to flounder and fall behind on their work - or training - just because of technology. It’s important to tell your organisation that you need a bit of extra guidance to get up to speed. You might not be the only one that could do with training. And besides, as soon as you’ve figured out how to use your Learning Management System, you’ll be on your way to learning paradise! 2. Ask technicians. Ever had a problem with your work computer that you needed the technician to help with? Maybe they solved the problem over the phone by taking over your computer screen from their centre hub (which basically seems like witchcraft to some of us!), or perhaps they popped in from their office down the hall to give you a hand. Whichever way they solve your problem, you should ask them to explain what they’re doing, because short of formatting the whole darn thing, a lot of problems can be fixed yourself. And if you learn how to do that, you won’t feel lost whenever a computer issue crops up. So ask the computer support worker to explain what they’re doing - and hopefully you’ll be able to learn a few tricks yourself. This turns a problem into a learning opportunity. And what better mindset to put yourself in before you embark on your online learning journey than one of knowledge acquisition! It’s fantastic - the time you’re spending with a defunct computer is actually teaching you something. Rather than wasting your time, you’re expanding your skills. And we’re all about learning extra skills as and when we can! 3. Get a techno-learning-buddy. There will always be someone more tech-savvy than you. While you’re figuring out how to turn your out-of-office on they’re already at the airport; they seem to instinctively know all the shortcuts and cheats to make their day to day work lives that bit easier. Don’t begrudge them their epic skills - make the most of their knowledge! If you and this oracle of computer wizardry are both about to embark on an online learning journey, why not do it together? That doesn’t mean you’ll be copying each other’s work or conspiring to share the answers; and it doesn’t mean they’ll have to be at your beck and call all the time. It just means you’ll have someone close by who knows what you’re trying to achieve when you say, "Uh, I’m stuck on the bit with the square thingy that you need to move to the circle…" Learning in general is more fun when we do it together - so of course learning about technology is, too! This way of learning - social learning - is so effective we’ve dedicated an entire area of our Learning Management System to it. Find out more about the power of social learning by clicking the button below! Like this article? Get updates when we post similar articles - just pop your email address into the box below!  

Congratulations to Kevin Kruse, NY Times bestselling author and entrepreneur, for fighting his way to the top and beating the competition to be crowned this week’s Growth Engineering Learning Hero! We picked Kevin this week because of his excellent research into securing employee engagement - a topic that’s very close to our heart, since we work with organisations to get their employees engaged in their training and development. Kevin’s book, We: How to Increase Performance and Profits Through Full Engagement, was ranked as one of the top leadership books in 2011, and he is also considered one of the world’s top 100 business thought leaders. Not only does Kevin provide guidance for leaders, but he’s dedicated to helping individuals too - the free quiz on his website aims to analyse the kinds of triggers that will help workers to feel fully engaged at work. According to Kevin - and in our experience, too - there are four main drivers of engagement: communication, growth, recognition and trust. Once you know which drivers play the most prominent role in your psychology, you can work with your manager to get you hop, skipping and jumping into work. Another of Kevin’s books, Employee Engagement: 2.0, sets out a plan of attack for leaders - a ‘real-world guide for busy managers’. It’s a step-by-step guide for discovering just what ‘employee engagement’ is and why it’s important, how it directly impacts on profits, and how to implement an engagement strategy. Kevin is also a Forbes Leadership columnist - what doesn’t he do!? - and has written a whole host of articles on employee engagement. They’re all well worth a read, but here are a couple of our favourites: 5 Ways to Fix Your Dysfunctional Team: It’s a dream of all employees to work within teams that ‘get’ each other, and the dream of managers to lead such an effective and dedicated team. But unfortunately so often the reality is that the teams don’t work well together; arguments break out, actions get pushed aside, priorities are misconstrued and communication breaks down. Luckily, as Kevin explains by quoting some great suggestions from organisational psychologist Liane Davey’s book, You First: Inspire Your Team to Grow Up, Get Along and Get Stuff Done, you can to tend to the rust, lubricate the joints and get your team functioning like a well-oiled machine once again. How Do You Measure Love (Or Employee Engagement)?: You know the old adage, ‘you can’t manage what you can’t measure’? Well, it’s true - especially for employee engagement. But how can it be measured when engagement is often something that an employee feels? Not to worry! Kevin has come to the rescue. He explains that, like measuring love, we can develop proxy questions for engagement; questions that get at the behaviours and thoughts related to engagement. So while it’s true that engagement is a feeling, it’s a feeling that encourages you to exhibit certain quantifiable behaviours, like working extra hours without being asked, being more likely to refer a friend for employment at the company and feeling pride in your work. It’s monitoring the behaviour of employees that will show you whether they’re engaged or not. Want to find out more about Kevin Kruse? Check out his website, follow him on Twitter and read his articles on Forbes. We’re also passionate about employee engagement (if you couldn’t tell already!) and we’ve done a fair bit of research too - specifically into how to get employees engaged in their online learning. Check out one of our white papers by clicking the button below! Interested in reading about other Learning Heroes? Pop your email address in the box below - we’ll send you an email when we announce our next Learning Hero!  

It’s no secret that there are a lot of Learning Management System providers out there, and choosing the correct one for your organisation is often a costly and time-consuming process. Do you go for the cheapest? The one with the swanky website? Does it matter if they’re based in the US or are UK-based companies better? How can you be sure whether their promises of fantastic return-on-investment are true or if they’re off in lala land? The best advice we can give you once you’ve decided that an LMS is the right option for you is figure out exactly what you want. Why? Because you can’t know whether a Learning Management System like our Academy Platform LMS is right for you until you know the answers to the following 5 questions: 1. What do I want my LMS to do? Quite a basic question, really! Are you looking for a way to upskill a whole salesforce? Train every employee at once? Implement an incredibly smooth and pain-free onboarding process? If yes, you’re going down the right route: a Learning Management System like our Academy Platform will help you achieve these things easily. If no, you need to give your LMS satnav a smack, because it’s taking you in the wrong direction! 2. What content do I want to deliver through my LMS? By this we mean what kind of training material are you considering: videos, slideshows, full eLearning units, quizzes, spreadsheets, PDFs..? It can seem like an overwhelming choice once you get into the nitty gritty, but the thing is, you need to be sure the LMS you pick is capable of delivering what you need. So don’t be shy: ask! 3. What reporting do I need? Do you need reporting on the Learning Management System to be in depth, monitoring each individual learner as well as segregating and analysing by role, department, location or time at the company? Or do you only need more basic reporting functionality, like ‘Percentage of learners that passed Assessment X’, or ‘Has everyone taken eLearning module Y? Yes/No’? Be careful you get what you think you’re paying for. 4. Who is the LMS for? In order to choose an LMS that will work for your unique situation, you need to think about the target audience. Employees, partners, channels, distributors… Who will use the Learning Management System? We’re pleased to say our Academy LMS is more than capable of adapting to many situations and will suit the needs of all kinds of learners and organisations. But then, we’re not like all the other LMS providers… 5. How do I want to engage my learners? Sorry to break your heart, but what interests you may not capture your learners’ attention! Just because you need to upskill them on their leadership practices doesn’t mean they’ll have fun doing it. It is difficult to predict how well-received a learning topic may be - although most of the time, it’s a big fat fail. But there is a solution: we’ve discovered that the secret of engaging learners lies in making the learning journey fun. We do this by adding gamification features like points, badges and leaderboards to boost engagement and really light a fire under learners to get them learning and having fun at the same time! It’s been a huge success so far… Just check out this case study of what we helped Bensons for Beds to achieve with Bensons Academy! Once you can answer these 5 questions - or at least are aware of the options available to you - you’ll be better able to approach your prospective LMS provider with what you need. And not only does it make the whole process smoother for you, but it makes our lives easier, too! Imagine going to visit your hairdresser to get a new hairstyle, only you don’t know the length, cut or colour you want! In the same way, it’s best for all parties involved if you’re aware of what you need - then you can make sure the LMS can match your requirements. It makes the whole process that much easier: "I need to report on individual learners as well as grouping them by division. Can you do that?" you ask LMS Vendor A. "Err," they reply. "I’m afraid not…" You know it’s time to move on to the next. "Hi Growth Engineering. I need to report on individual learners as well as grouping them by division. Can your Academy Platform LMS do that?" you ask. "Of course!" we reply. Ahhh… Easy peasy. Want to learn more about what online learning can do for your organisation? Check out our research paper on how businesses are benefitting from eLearning: Like this article? We regularly publish blog posts on similar topics, so pop your email address in the box below to get an email when we do!  

Up until now, you might have thought your online learning programme was good - sure, a bit boring and staid, but it did its job, right? Err… Not so much. Brinkerhoff and Apking (2001) found that ‘almost all organisational training is a marginal intervention and has only slight effects on performance improvement … If we define ‘training impact’ as simply the transfer of knowledge and skills to on-the-job performance, research indicates that impact of training is realised only for about 15 percent of all training participants’. 15%! How terrifyingly bad. Organisations are putting so much time, effort and money into developing training programmes that just don’t work! But you’ve probably already realised that there’s something not quite right with your current Learning Management System. That’s why you’re here, after all, isn’t it…? Here are 5 tips to create kick-ass training programmes that will rock your learners’ worlds (and put you in your higher-ups’ good books, too)! 1. Make learners curious When our curiosity is piqued, we become motivated to investigate further. We’re encouraged to step out into the big wide world and explore - no river is too wide, no mountain too high… But enough about Diana Ross.  So, how can we make learners curious? There is research to show that highlighting gaps in learners’ knowledge or understanding will kick-start their curiosity - so giving learners a pre-test before their learning commences can encourage them to work harder to fill any gaps they have in their understanding. 2. Make learning fun Who wants to sit through a boring slideshow presentation, answer unimaginative questions and suffer through a sneezing fit while thumbing through an outdated, dusty textbook? We learn more when we’re having fun: if we enjoy something our brains are significantly more active, meaning we can take in more information. To make your training more fun, make it like a game: add gamification features to your eLearning modules and use great a gamified LMS (Learning Management System) that your learners will be absolutely delighted to use! 3. Self-motivation Make sure learners know what’s in it for them - what they will get out of working so hard and completing their training journey. Sure, you can tell them they’ll get a sales diploma, or a health and safety certificate, but what does this mean for the learner? It means they’ll be able to sell better, which will improve their performance, aid their progression within the company and open up the possibility of promotion and pay-rises. That’ll appeal to them much more than a qualification that they’re not certain will benefit them - suddenly they’ll be much more enthusiastic to log on to their Learning Management System and get learning! 4. Make it social Learning is more enjoyable - and also is more ‘sticky’ in our brains - when we do it with other people. Now that doesn’t mean copying other learners or going through a textbook together. It can mean completing the eLearning unit individually but getting together (physically or virtually) with other learners to discuss the content of the module afterwards. We enable this by providing a dedicated area on our gamified Learning Management System specific to the topic at hand. Learners log on to the ‘Insights’ area, chat about the subject, compare notes and share other helpful links and ideas. 5. Make learners feel like experts It’s natural for human beings to strive to be the best, gain recognition of a job well done and appear to be the top dog in their area of expertise. Our Insights area is perfect for this: the more a learner contributes to the conversation - by sharing information, ‘liking’ others’ posts and commenting - the more ‘experience points’ they get, which push them up the ‘Top Contributors’ leaderboard. Those at the top are seen as oracles of knowledge; they’re the go-to guys and gals for all questions on the topic. It’s possibly not the best thing for their egos, but we’ll give them the benefit of the doubt - they’re working hard and it’s paying off! Want to find out more about how you can get learners enjoying their training? Download our free white paper but clicking the button below! If you liked this article, why not pop your email address in the box below? We’ll send you an email when we post similar articles (no more than one email a week!).  

We recently gave you a list of 7 educational podcasts that aren’t mind-numbingly dull. We showed you the mine of useless (yet amazing) facts that is the QI Podcast; we introduced you to those potty-mouthed guys over at Cracked; and we let the orators fight it out (with words) on Intelligence Squared. But that, kind friends, was only an appetiser… Sadly, the podcast universe is lousy with poorly produced, rambling boredom factories, but there are still a few pockets of hope. As always, you can count on your friends here at Growth Engineering to sort through the rubbish and find the hidden gems. So here we go with another TEN morsels of mind-expanding earfood for your enjoyment. 1. TED Talks The home of Ideas Worth Spreading is your best source of enlightenment for pretty much any topic you can think of. Here, you’ll find industry experts going into depth about their topic and letting you know why it matters. 2. BBC World Service - The Forum You can always count on BBC Radio to teach you something you hadn’t expected to learn. The Forum poses a topic and lets a board of three lead thinkers discuss the topic in depth. 3. A History of the World in 100 Objects Again, the BBC comes to the rescue, hoovering up ignorance as it goes! This series is hosted by Neil McGregor, the director of the British Museum, and his own awe of the subject comes through perfectly. In each episode, a seemingly mundane historical artifact is examined, as well as its impact on history. 4. Radiolab On the Radiolab podcast, science and philosophy collide head-on, but it’s not the senseless wreck you might expect. Instead, each episode takes one big idea and weaves a tapestry of people and stories around it. 5. The Infinite Monkey Cage What? Another excellent reason to listen to BBC Radio 4? Featuring Robin Ince and everyone’s favourite keyboard player/astrophysicist, Brian Cox, you can enjoy the full sciencey wonder of the podcast without any risk of accidentally catching the Archers. 6. 99% Invisible This is a great podcast for anyone with even a marginal interest in design or architecture. The premise is that 99% of great design cannot be seen and exists in the background and the history of its creation. The episodes rarely exceed 25 minutes and some of them are as short as 4 minutes, so you’ve no excuse not to squeeze one into your day. 7. Freakonomics Radio If you’re one of those people who assumed that economics was a boring topic, then this podcast will change your mind. No, really! Following in the footsteps of the Steven Levitt’s book of the same title, Freakonomics Radio exposes the stranger side of economics whilst encouraging creative thinking. 8. Back to Work If you’re always looking to improve your productivity, Back to Work features interviews and discussions centred around professional development, communication and anything else you can think of that might make you work more effectively. 9. Good Job, Brain! If you’re a fan of a good pub quiz, but you’re sick of the same old Premier League questions that you never know the answer to, you should check this podcast out. Good Job, Brain! is part quiz show and part trivia-mill and after only a couple of episodes, you’ll have enough quirky facts to earn yourself a reputation as Quirky-Fact-Guy. 10. How to Do Everything This podcast does exactly what it says on the tin - if you want to know how to clean your tyrannosaurus rex, or how to make the best use of your pet dolphin, then you’ll find a few pointers here. It also includes practical information that people might actually find useful. So there you have it - 17 of the best podcasts for teaching you things you never thought you’d learn. The next time you’ve got a mountain of clothes to iron, pop one of these on and take a step closer to the genius you always knew you could be. We don’t like to toot our own trumpet too much, but we like to think we’re experts when it comes to making learning fun. Enjoyment is just one of the essential pieces of the engagement puzzle. To find out how to use the power of engagement to satisfy your every whim, download the Art of Engagement white paper by clicking the button. If this article has made you smile and changed your life in subtle, yet meaningful ways, you can subscribe to our email alerts and we’ll let you know whenever we post something similar. Just pop your address in the box below.  

When we feel empowered, it’s as though we can accomplish anything. There is no task too difficult, no mound of paperwork too tall, no coffee round too large and no training programme too daunting. When we’re empowered, we feel motivated to push our self-development forward and become the best ‘us’ we can possibly be. Employees shift from having to be closely managed and led to ultimately being self-directed and motivated in their own development. Creating a culture of empowerment in your organisation takes work, but is well worth the effort. Once you’ve established an empowered workforce that is passionate about achieving goals, smashing targets and powering through training courses, you’ll find it gets easier and easier to move forward. It’s like pushing a barrel up a hillside. It’s tough going; your back aches, your calves burn and you’re out of breath. But once you tip the barrel over the crest of the hill gravity takes over and it begins to move under its own steam. Like with most things in life, hard work pays off. Here’s why you need a culture of empowerment that will have your employees happy, motivated and determined to push their personal and professional development skyward: 1. When it comes to training and development, the strength of a company’s culture is the biggest predictor of impact. In other words, the more empowered an organisation’s employees are, the more behavioural change is seen and the greater the success of the training programme. 2.  Strong learning cultures are: - 46% more likely to be strong innovators in their market - 37% more likely to list employee productivity as a strength - 34% more likely to get to the market before their competitors - 18% more likely to currently be a market share leader in one or more of their markets (Credit: Bersin.com) 3. There’s a positive relationship between empowerment and workplace learning. This means that once employees have completed formal training programmes, they are more likely to successfully continue their learning journeys when back at work. This has the huge benefit of tapping into the 70% of our learning that occurs ‘on the job’ (compared to 20% through observation of others and 10% by formal training). It’s such a massive bonus that it directly relates to… 4. Securing the best darn ROI ever! Securing ROI - return on investment - is an important but often unachievable task of Learning and Development departments. The reason for this is that, generally, most training plans focus on only one area of learning: formal learning (like classroom training, workshops and eLearning units). But as we saw above, employees in empowered learning cultures do make the effort to tap into the 70% of learning that occurs on the job. It enables the learners to continue their learning journeys on their own, in their own time, both on their Learning Management System and in the office, store or out in the field when they get back to work. There are many more benefits of empowered company cultures, so it’s really something you should think about: here’s how you can start to create an awesome company culture. If you’re interested in finding out just how an empowered company culture helps to secure return on investment on your training spend, click the button below!  

We’re in the business of making people happy. We engage learners, take the strain off L&D departments, boost organisational profit and are generally quite a nice bunch of people. So it’s heartbreaking for us when we talk to companies for the first time and hear how sad - devastated, even - they are with their current classroom training programmes. It’s tough because we can’t believe they’ve been suffering for so long; their employees are demotivated in their learning, the managers don’t really believe in their training plan and the business is suffering for it. To be honest, we just want to give them a big hug, a cup of tea and a choccy biccy to cheer them up! But the thing is, it’s not the classroom that’s the problem. Sure, that probably sounds strange coming from an online learning company - most would probably say, "Well, there’s your problem: classroom training doesn’t work." But we’re more honest than that. We know that classroom training can work. If it’s done properly. And how do we do that…? People complain that children - and adults - can’t pay attention in classrooms, but then they get home and spend two hours straight exploring the world of Halo and learning new skills in Grand Theft Auto. Imagine if we could take the desire to learn and the dedication required to do so from video games and plant it in classrooms. It would solve all our training problems, right? Luckily, the technology is available to us to make this a reality. Developments like faster processor speeds, better internet speed and touch-screen tablets have opened up a whole new mode of learning. Here are FIVE ways you can bring technology into the classroom to engage, motivate and boost learning: 1. Videos A feast for the eyes! Using videos in classroom training can really help to capture learners’ attention and get them engaged with the content. That’s not to say you should just plonk your learners in front of a television and watch their eyes go square; that’s the route to a classroom catastrophe. 2. Webquests Whether you think of your learners as Hobbits to send on an adventure or as James Bond to go on a covert mission, webquests can add an element of excitement to your lesson. Set learners a task that they can’t simply work out - they’ll have to do a bit of digging, use their Google Fu and uncover the answer themselves. They’ll be much more likely to retain what they learnt if they make the effort to find the answer! 3. Wiki Make the webquest count by getting learners to upload their findings to a class ‘wiki’ (a purpose-built page like on the popular online encyclopaedia site, Wikipedia). This gives more meaning to their quest and makes double-triple sure that they won’t forget what they learnt! 4. Multimedia presentations Hands up if you’ve had to sit through an excruciatingly boring slideshow presentation. Ok, ok, you don’t have to put your hand up - your colleagues might think you’re bonkers. But you know what we’re talking about, don’t you? White slides filled to the brim with reams of text, probably too small to read without squinting. Ugh! Gosh darn it, just add some colour, an image, embed a video - anything to put us out of our misery!! Making presentations more visually appealing and stimulating is a sure-fire way to secure a better ROI on your classroom training spend. It’s not rocket science. 5. ‘Interactive’ classrooms Ooh… Now what do we have here…? That’s right - your friends at Growth Engineering have done it again. We’ve turned the traditional classroom on its head and combined the best bits of online learning with real-world training! When organisations use a Learning Management System to complement real-world training, a whole host of possibilities heretofore impossible are opened up: learners can take tests during the lecture and teachers can get real-time results. Lessons can be tailored to reflect how much is being learnt, and any difficulties are picked up then and there. Classroom events can be created, managed, amended and populated with attendees all with the click of a button. When classrooms are interactive, learners turn from zombies into active learners; they’re excited and raring to go. Want to learn more about interactive classrooms? Of course you do! Check out our hot-off-the-press white paper on the power of the interactive classroom. Booyah.  

This week’s Learning Hero is Vicki Davis, founder of Cool Cat Teacher - the only place to go if you want to teach better! We write a lot about learning and education. Most of the time, we focus on how learners can achieve more from online learning and how business leaders and managers can use the power of online learning to improve their productivity. We know who is teaching the learners, but who is teaching the teachers? Vicki Davis is the founder of Cool Cat Teacher, a blog which focuses on making people better teachers. A full-time teacher and mother of three, Vicki still makes time to curate one of the best online resources for teachers that the net has to offer. She has a passion for improving student engagement which chimes with our own desire to make learning as fun and interesting as it can be. Besides providing plenty of ideas, resources and articles, Vicki maintains a solid presence on social media and a community of like-minded teachers has grown up around her. We love the way she’s always willing to engage with her community and share the best content that the industry has to offer. This is just the kind of social learning that we can only applaud! Her weekly online radio show, Every Classroom Matters, includes weekly interviews with other learning professionals. Here, she looks at topics as diverse as using Google Drive in education, teaching creativity and our own personal favourite, gamification in education. The episodes rarely exceed 12 minutes, so we can see that Vicki understands that attention spans aren’t as long as they used to be - an important thing to remember if you plan on teaching anyone anything. Vicki is full of great tips about being the best teacher you can be (as well as avoiding becoming a terrible teacher!). One of the things we admire the most about Vicki is the way she embraces technology and other methods of teaching. She is constantly pushing the boundaries and exploring new ways to help teachers keep their students engaged, whether it’s through social media, video or the use of games. Cool Cat Teacher is a great place to visit if you’re interested in becoming a better teacher, but there are plenty of interesting articles for everyone else. So stop by and have a look, or you can follow Vicki on twitter and stay abreast of the latest developments in the world of teaching. If you don’t already, you can follow us and keep up to date with the world of online learning brought to you by the makers of the world’s #1 Gamified Social LMS, or alternatively, you can learn a little more by taking an Academy tour. To sign up, just click the button below.  

Drumroll, please… We’d like to introduce this fabulous video put together by Tech Data in praise of the TD Academy. But first, let’s set the scene… The stars of the show: Tech Data Corporation is a wholesale distributor of technology products. Azlan is the Enterprise Specialist Distribution Division of Tech Data. It’s Europe’s largest value-added distributor of infrastructure and networking products. Hewlett-Packard (HP) is a multinational information technology corporation providing hardware, software and services to consumers, small- and medium-sized businesses and large enterprises. The problem: In 2013, HP and Azlan set an aggressive growth target. They realised that if they wanted to hit it, there would need to be some serious investment in training and development to quickly upskill both organisations. They set four goals: 1. Increase solution selling 2. Improve the understanding of HP Solutions and how they are sold 3. Improve support and training for new product launches 4. Outgrow the market and all competition The solution: Azlan responded to the goals by partnering with Growth Engineering (Hello! That’s us!) to create the Tech Data Academy and launch the ‘HP Sales Excellence Programme’. Here’s the finished product (we’re mighty proud): We’re really chuffed that Azlan Tech Data made this video. We think it showcases the functionality of our Academy nicely, and it’s a joy for us that Azlan Tech Data want to share the Academy with the world! Hurrah! It just goes to show how engaging and exciting gamification on Learning Management Systems and in eLearning can be. If you want to find out more about our Academies, join an Academy Webinar Tour by clicking the button below!  

When we first came up with the idea to make real-world classroom booking easier, we didn’t realise just how popular it would prove to be. Now, years after it was first introduced, it has gone through many iterations, improvements and technological leaps to become a behemoth of features, functionality and fun. Here’s how the Academy Platform LMS’s ‘Interactive Classroom’ feature helps to make real-world learning that much easier: Step 1. An Academy Admin creates a classroom event in the ‘Content’ area. They name it, set the location, date and time, set the tutor and specify the resources that will be needed (flip charts, interactive white boards, projectors etc). Step 2. They set tests, assessments and assignments related to the content, which can be set to be taken during the classroom event or pushed to the learner at a later date. Step 3. They invite learners! This is very easily done; Admins simply enter the name of the learners they think would benefit from the training and once they confirm their selection, learners are automatically sent an email to alert them of their invitation. Step 4. Before the classroom training event, tutors can double check who will be attending, make sure they are prepared and, if necessary, alert them of any changes to the day’s events. Step 5. During the day’s training, tutors can pause the lesson for learners to take the related tests and assessments. Learners will log on to the Academy Platform LMS and take the tests that have been pushed to them. The assessments are then marked instantly. This real-time reporting is fantastic as it means tutors can instantly see whether the learning content has been taken on board by learners. It allows them to see any gaps in learners’ knowledge and can help to narrow the focus of the classroom event to topics that might be more tricky. Step 6. After the classroom training ends, tutors can review learners’ progress and fill out feedback forms instantly on the LMS. It’s seriously simple to keep on top of your employees’ professional development! Step 7. We’re passionate about constant improvement, so not only can tutors give feedback on individual learners, but the learners can review tutors and courses, too. This gives a higher level of visibility of the course’s structure, content and enjoyment, and helps tutors and Academy Admins to tailor the classroom events to learners’ needs. You don’t have to worry about whether the classroom training event has been a success - your learners will tell you! There you have it - seven steps to classroom heaven! With our Academy Platform LMS, it really is as simple as 1, 2, 7 to set up classroom events and reap the rewards of an engaged workforce. Want to find out more about our multi-awarding winning Academy Platform LMS, which was recently ranked the best NextGen LMS and the best Gamified LMS in the world? Click the button below!  

You’ll have heard the saying, "Give a man a fish and he’ll eat for a day; teach a man to fish and he’ll eat for a lifetime." But it’s easier said than done, sometimes. What if the chap finds it tricky to learn new things? Maybe he has a short attention span, or is so clumsy and thumb-fingered he can’t tie knots in the line properly? Don’t worry: everyone can learn, given enough time, dedication and effort. It’s one of life’s great joys that almost all of us can achieve whatever we set our minds to. The trick is to train ourselves to become more adept learners; more savvy students; better boffins. Here are 5 ways you can become a better learner when you’re thrust into the scary-at-first world of online learning: 1. Make time for learning Rome wasn’t built in a day, and you won’t learn everything you need to if you try to cram all your training into one short day, either. How can you expect the learning content to seep into all the crevices of your cranium if you give it a flash-in-the-pan learning experience? Make sure you dedicate enough time to your learning - you’ll certainly see the benefit. 2. Set goals Setting realistic, solid goals - or ‘SMART’ goals (specific, measurable, achievable, realistic and time-bound) - means that we get more done. Goals allow us to see at a glance what we need to do and, when combined with to-do lists, give us the oversight and motivation to crack on and get things done. To make them even more motivating, you can even gamify your goals! 3. Gamify your learning In addition to gamifying your goals, you can add elements of gamification and game mechanics to your learning, too. Whether you reward yourself with a chocolate bar for completing an eLearning unit or with a trip to the cinema when you smash the associated tests and assessments, you’ll find your motivation kicks into overdrive when you gamify your learning. That’s why we love gamification here at Growth Engineering. Not only do we apply gamification features to eLearning units, but we also add it to our Learning Management System, too - so all aspects of a learner’s learning journey are gamified. 4. Think outside the box We’ve already written about how important it is to think outside the box - it opens us up to all sorts of new experiences and possibilities that we hadn’t even considered before. And, whaddya know, it also helps us learn new things, too! So keep an open mind and embrace your natural questioning nature; you never know when it’ll pay off and you’ll uncover something truly incredible. 5. Teach someone else There are two ways we know for sure that we’ve learnt something: we can apply it in our day-to-day lives (more about that here), and we can teach it to other people. The reason that our Learning Management System is so great at getting learners to really understand what they’re being taught and retain the information is that we understand the importance of social learning. When learners log on to our LMS, they can communicate with their fellow learners, share their ideas and collaborate on projects. So if you’re not sure whether you’ve understood something fully, hop on board the LMS and check your knowledge by pitting yourself against your colleagues! Social learning is really the next step up when it comes to online learning and professional development. Download our new Social Learning White Paper and find out more by clicking the button below!  

Do you remember the last time you sat down with the express aim of learning something new, bolstering your existing knowledge base or improving your skillset? How did you feel? Whilst you may find the idea of self-development enchanting, it’s unlikely that you found the process quite so exciting. The thought of entering the classroom, booting up a piece of online learning, reading a study guide or learning a new language through an audio-book probably doesn’t fill you with a sense of giddy joy. After all, there’s a lot of hard, oftentimes boring work to be done before you get to reap the rewards. Sometimes it’s tough to conjure up the motivation. Winston Churchill once said, "Personally I’m always ready to learn, although I do not always like being taught." What worries us is that this is the attitude many of us have towards learning and development. What is it about traditional methods of dispensing information that make people shy away from learning new skills and developing their knowledge? It boils down to this: we view learning as ‘fun’ or exciting but give the process or experience that creates this end goal a serious case of stink eye. If only we could learn without actually having to learn. It would be the educational equivalent of having your cake and eating it too. But why can’t the act of taking in new information, practising it, applying it and retaining it be enjoyable? This isn’t the Matrix. We can’t plug you into a computer terminal and instantly teach you everything you need to know about Kung Fu. But we can make the process of learning less of a chore. In fact, if we approach it the right way, we can even make it fun. The benefits of this approach are clear enough. Fun has a positive effect on learners’ motivation levels, determining what we learn and how much information we retain. This is important. Learning is not a one-off event. It requires repetition and dedication. Making the experience fun helps to keep learners curious and encourages repeat visits. We remember being herded around school like cattle, stuffed into uncomfortable chairs, teased by our bored classmates and lectured to by our teachers. But think about the teacher or role model who sticks out most in your memory. Was it the teacher who spent lessons reading to you from a dusty old textbook, or the teacher who cultivated a joyful atmosphere, made the learning experience fun and actively engaged his students? Let’s take another example that proves that fun can be an effective motivator. Given the choice between the escalator and the stairs, most of us will choose the former. It’s not that we’re all lazy slobs, it’s just that there’s no real compelling reason to drag ourselves up a staircase, when there’s an easier, more convenient method of getting from A to B readily available. But what about if you add fun to the equation? As part of their ‘Fun Theory’, Volkswagen put this to the test, by transforming the stairs leading out of a Stockholm subway station into a giant fully-functioning piano keyboard. Those who chose the stairs over the escalator were treated to their own musical composition. Anybody who has seen the Tom Hanks’ movie Big will appreciate the novelty here. As a result, 66% more people than normal chose the stairs over the escalator. This just goes to show: fun can change the way we behave in situation that we previously found to be a chore. Fun is a transformative force. And fun filters through everything we do here at Growth Engineering. There’s a reason our Academy Platform has been voted the world’s best Gamified NextGen LMS - it’s because we take the time to make the learning process fun. Our learners deserve to use a Learning Management System that makes them smile; that they enjoy logging on to and that they come back to time and again. And they deserve award-winning eLearning modules packed full of fun gamification features to capture their attention and get them learning. It’s really that simple: our Academy Platform LMS is the most fun and engaging in the world because we understand how people learn. Want to find out more? Download our free white paper all about how gamification secures engagement on our LMS!