When it comes to accurately identifying skill strengths and gaps in a team, many organizations struggle. Typically these decisions are gut-driven rather than based in analytics, and as a result, they often aren’t as effective as they could be. While many organizations want these decisions to be more data-based, it’s not uncommon for them to not know how or where to pull the data needed to create the most successful teams possible.

Page-turners, cluttered slides, click Next to continue, and complex menus. These are all words and phrases that you’ll often hear when your users and colleagues discuss what’s frustrating about eLearning. If your users can’t easily navigate through your content or can’t find what they need exactly when they need it, that means they can miss some, or even all, of your important content. The good news is, you can calm that clutter and inconsistency with great UI design.

Technology continues to advance rapidly, changing how we live and interact with the world around us. Today’s learning professionals face the challenge of staying ahead of this curve and tracking the technologies that are shaping the future of organizational learning, while at the same time recognizing technologies that may be more of a passing fad.

There has been a lot of hype around games for learning. As a result, games are increasingly used in L&D, but many of these games simply target low-level learning using frames such as Jeopardy or Concentration and have only had minimal impact. There is a need to maximize the value from this approach, and to do this you need to design games that support learning objectives and apply proven instructional methods. And to do this well, you need to understand what the research says about the instructional value of games.

There is some debate about whether personas (or learner profiles, as they’re more commonly known in L&D) are a help or a hindrance. Some argue that personas can end up being a representation of what designers wish their users were like, rather than a true reflection of the users, or that they create distance between designers and users. But others push back on this idea, stating that—when used thoughtfully—personas can increase your empathy for the people you’re designing for, allowing you to keep your work tightly focused on the real needs of your audience and to craft the most effective experiences for them.

The cost of copyright confusion can affect every stage of the development and delivery process. How much does fear or avoidance inform your decision-making when it comes to finding and using online media? Have you missed out on using fabulous free resources because you weren’t (or your organization wasn’t) sure whether you had the rights to use them? Have you seen others accidentally infringe on someone else’s work because of a misunderstanding about fair use? Copyright can seem like a daunting or boring topic to learn—but it doesn’t have to be.

More and more people are learning online, independently and at different times. However, in much of the knowledge transfer that occurs, the “learning” is still passed from person to person through social learning. But in L&D it’s not enough to simply bring people together, facilitate learning, and hope for the best. You’ll want to know whether this social learning is effective and how it impacts performance on the job.

U.S. News and World Report named alternative credentials one of the top five education trends to watch in 2017. IBM and Microsoft are leading this trend by offering career-oriented training and learning pathways, as an alternative to traditional universities and in partnership with universities worldwide. Learners who demonstrate knowledge and competency earn open badges that are easily shared to job sites and professional networks like LinkedIn.

Organizational learning is increasingly becoming a blend of multiple assets from a wide variety of resources. How do you combine YouTube videos, a learning vendor course, an SME white paper and PowerPoint, an internal presentation recording, conference proceedings, and other resources into an effective learner experience that you can track and report on? The simple answer is to use a learning stack with a content aggregation front end. But what does that mean?

Caterpillar has a proud history of working with independent dealers to distribute and service its machinery and equipment. However, delivering consistent customer service through a network of global dealers is a huge challenge. Recognizing the need to focus on people development, they decided to build a technology ecosystem that would modernize dealer learning and development on mobile, provide seamless collaboration and communication, and supply real-time data and insights.

Screencasting is a great way to deliver software training, but that’s not the only use for this approach to multimedia creation. What about using it to create internal production resources by documenting your own development processes? Or how about leveraging it to create other video resources, like a reusable eLearning asset library? There is a wide range of other uses for screencasting that you may never have thought of, and incorporating these uses can make a real difference in your daily workflow.

Audiences today expect richer multimedia in their online experiences. As a result, it seems like producing videos, podcasts, animation, interactive video, or some other sort of multimedia is on every eLearning team’s mind. However, few are ready to launch into production without first building their knowledge about producing effective multimedia, much less submit a request for video and audio equipment or software without having a good plan in place.

Shrinking budgets and constrained resources have made it more important than ever to make the most of the resources you have when designing learning experiences. Thankfully, the increasing availability of cloud-based applications and other free tools makes it easier than ever to create and develop learning experiences that don’t have to cost a bundle.

Who cares how many people attended your training? No, really, who cares? If someone does, then it’s an important metric. However, your stakeholder is probably more interested in behavior change: How much did the employee apply what they learned to their job, and how has performance improved?

When you ask people about their top three roadblocks when trying to create engaging eLearning, one of them is always budgetary constraints. Instructional designers often have bigger ideas than their budgets will allow. This has certainly been my experience, but over the years, I’ve found ways to get around this by using free and low-cost resources and good old-fashioned DIY.

Companies are always looking for innovative methods to convey training content. Particularly in professional roles where training is costly, complicated, or even dangerous, there is a strong need for technology-enabled training that’s easily repeatable and cost-effective. Scalability is just part of the puzzle—content also needs to be designed for accuracy, immersion, and efficacy so that trainers can provide impactful training experiences with high fidelity to the actual task.

Not all games are created equal, and preparation of instructional content for games is an important consideration. How can you (in practical terms) harness the positive attributes of games, including the fun of play, to produce effective and efficient learning?

Many instructional designers and trainers are stuck in the rut of event-driven learning, whether that means eLearning courses, face-to-face sessions, or virtual training sessions. You probably know that varied, spaced learning delivers better results, but many people find it hard to put this into action.

Many people have helpful information to share with others, but the idea of writing a book can seem overwhelming. Even if the writing itself is something you are confident about, the “getting published” part can be difficult. Working with major publication companies is challenging and takes a lot of time; by the time a published book gets out into the world, some information might even be out of date!

Keeping training assets current with a constant cycle of releases is a significant drain on resources. Release notes must be scoured for changes, and corresponding workflows identified and prioritized by customer impact, before training content can be updated. This session is a case study of the tools and procedures developed by the product education team at athenahealth to automate this process and more efficiently update assets affected by each release.

Onboarding shouldn’t be an impersonal and disconnected experience. But today’s workforce is diverse and often dispersed globally, making it difficult for new employees to feel connected. At HDR, an engineering firm, new employees felt isolated and unable to make meaningful connections during onboarding. The result was a lack of engagement and motivation to complete required training. HDR needed a way to build connectivity and accountability into learning and onboarding.

The role of the learning developer is expanding in scope and responsibility. Today’s learning professionals need to know how to deliver useful content at the time of need. They have to take into account the complete user experience, including user context, device capabilities and limitations, mobile interface design, and audience personas. How does a developer know the best tools to create solutions that translate into a memorable user experience?

Communities of practice (CoPs) have become a hot topic in the past few years. They are an excellent tool for developing skills, sharing tacit knowledge, and shoring up retention of high-performing staff. But they differ from teams and other types of groups in many ways. Understanding what CoPs are and how they work—rather than just looking at how to create and manage them—is critical to supporting their success.

As with any team effort, course development projects have specific players with specific functions designed to work cohesively toward one objective: satisfactorily completing on time within budget. It never fails, however, that a new requirement sneaks in at the goal line, forcing designers to scramble for time and resources. What if you could strategize an offense that converts potential obstacles into assets?

Digital learning has arrived, but the learning community is still playing catch-up. When looking at where the L&D industry is going in the future, you need to address two key strategic questions: How can digital learning demonstrate greater value to learners and the business, and how do L&D professionals need to adjust their approaches to learning in order to deliver that greater value through digital learning?

Stories have the power to move people. They allow the storyteller to forge a personal connection with the audience and create a situation where promoting learning and inspiration becomes infinitely easier. At their core, stories create a world where learners are interested, are engaged, and want to learn, which leads to higher retention of information and better understanding of concepts and ideas. But how do you design a good story?

What separates amateur video from professionally shot and edited video presentations? Many in eLearning would be quick to blame small budgets and lack of equipment for less-than-professional video. However, the real problem is that many who shoot, composite, or produce video for learning aren’t visually literate. In other words, they don’t know the basics of visual design and how to apply it to the video medium.

Adobe Captivate is a commonly used tool, but a surprising number of its features are just a bit hidden and not well known. The layers of sophistication these features add can enable you to save a lot of time, deliver more engaging and personalized learning, and tap into resources more easily. It’s just a matter of knowing where these features are and how to use them effectively.

xAPI shouldn’t be fear-inducing, and it isn’t! You can use HTML and JavaScript to create statements to send to a learning record store (LRS). With a little input, practice, and feedback, you’ll learn how easy it is to use HTML and JavaScript to move your organization faster toward the future of measurable experiences.

A large amount of research in recent years has explored the value that music has for the brain and learning. Everyone has experienced it in some way, be it from listening to music while studying, learning something from a catchy song, or learning to play an instrument.

Internal audit reports and consumer research revealed that employees of Turkey’s largest private bank, Isbank, needed support to improve customer service for a wide range of retail banking products and services. For Isbank’s learning team, the challenge was finding an engaging, effective, and easily accessible learning solution on detailed, complicated topics for a geographically dispersed and demographically diverse workforce.

The former state of onboarding for investment professionals lacked content and delivery flexibility in order to meet the needs of many variables in the onboarding process. The new program provides flexibility to allow for optimal learning effectiveness in moving the new associates to productivity as rapidly as possible.

Find the sweet spot of learner engagement by combining the bite-sized power of microlearning with the motivating effect of digital badges. By chunking your content to create microlearning-style tutorials and using digital badges to reward learners and mark their achievements, you will increase learner persistence and success in your online courses!

Your client has just asked you to design an engaging eLearning course. The content will be a challenge, which you like. You quickly come up with a vision for the course: interactive, applicable, fun. You know instantly this course will be your showpiece, an award winner. Then the client says, “We need it to be accessible.” Your dream is dashed as you anticipate extra work and no engagement. But it doesn’t have to be that way!

L&D professionals work hard to create great training and are disappointed when employees fail to learn. It may be tempting to blame the students, but L&D efforts usually fail because they don’t understand the mind of the learner. As a result, you may build training modules that are not consistent with the brain’s natural means of acquisition. Teaching can be more effective once you understand how the learner’s mind operates.

As learners go mobile, demand for learning on phones has increased. Yet options for delivering a responsive, mobile-first, and interactive experience have been limited—until now! Join this interactive session to learn how two organizations embrace an open-source tool to develop elegant, impactful, and engaging learning. Learn how to take advantage of technology, “Adapt” your approach to design and development, and embrace best practices for interactive mobile learning.

Why do you do what you do? Who are you trying to train, and why should they be there? The answer goes way beyond corporate compliance or skill-building initiatives. The answer lies deep beneath the surface in the hearts and minds of the people you are trying to train. But how do you find out what motivates them and how to help them succeed?

Is the LMS dead? Can a combination of today’s mobile apps, social interactions, and game-enabled microlearning replace yesterday’s “macrolearning” platforms? Do training programs need to be so structured and prescriptive when modern adaptive approaches are now a reality? The ever-evolving educational technology landscape presents more choices than ever, but finding the right solution in the deep and wide pool of possibility is no longer a game.

With a direct service delivery (DSD) national workforce that ranges from tenured employees to those just entering the workforce, Farmer Brothers—a national coffee roaster, wholesaler, and distributor—had to identify how to optimize, standardize, and streamline sales training across a diverse, geographically dispersed team. The company addressed how to preserve its legacy of great customer service while simultaneously upskilling employees’ ability to sell additional products.

L&D professionals often think about one single training program only, instead of looking at the entire journey their learners take. Mapping out the learner life cycle and assigning content that engages them along the way not only helps create unforgettable learning experiences and drive individual performance, but also helps with the transfer of knowledge after a training session ends.

Many instructional designers and training specialists find themselves in the position of creating print-ready learning materials on short notice and no budget. Depending on available technologies, content knowledge, and access to a graphic designer, this can be a daunting task. Plus, most approaches used to create training-on-the-go are flat and forgettable. What if there’s another option for designing print-ready learning materials in a short amount of time for memorable learning?