Kick-start your day with Morning Buzz, the ever-popular “Early Bird” discussions. This is your chance to grab a cup of coffee and meet other conference attendees in a relaxed, casual environment, so you can share your best practices, insights, and tips while learning from one another’s experiences.

Kick-start your day with Morning Buzz, the ever-popular “Early Bird” discussions. This is your chance to grab a cup of coffee and meet other conference attendees in a relaxed, casual environment, so you can share your best practices, insights, and tips while learning from one another’s experiences.

Kick-start your day with Morning Buzz, the ever-popular “Early Bird” discussions. This is your chance to grab a cup of coffee and meet other conference attendees in a relaxed, casual environment, so you can share your best practices, insights, and tips while learning from one another’s experiences.

Kick-start your day with Morning Buzz, the ever-popular “Early Bird” discussions. This is your chance to grab a cup of coffee and meet other conference attendees in a relaxed, casual environment, so you can share your best practices, insights, and tips while learning from one another’s experiences.

Kick-start your day with Morning Buzz, the ever-popular “Early Bird” discussions. This is your chance to grab a cup of coffee and meet other conference attendees in a relaxed, casual environment, so you can share your best practices, insights, and tips while learning from one another’s experiences.

Kick-start your day with Morning Buzz, the ever-popular “Early Bird” discussions. This is your chance to grab a cup of coffee and meet other conference attendees in a relaxed, casual environment, so you can share your best practices, insights, and tips while learning from one another’s experiences.

Kick-start your day with Morning Buzz, the ever-popular “Early Bird” discussions. This is your chance to grab a cup of coffee and meet other conference attendees in a relaxed, casual environment, so you can share your best practices, insights, and tips while learning from one another’s experiences.

Kick-start your day with Morning Buzz, the ever-popular “Early Bird” discussions. This is your chance to grab a cup of coffee and meet other conference attendees in a relaxed, casual environment, so you can share your best practices, insights, and tips while learning from one another’s experiences.

Kick-start your day with Morning Buzz, the ever-popular “Early Bird” discussions. This is your chance to grab a cup of coffee and meet other conference attendees in a relaxed, casual environment, so you can share your best practices, insights, and tips while learning from one another’s experiences.

Mobile, video, and games are just a few of the methods that have disrupted the world of organizational learning in recent years. In a constantly changing environment, how does an individual stay innovative? How do you balance the technical knowledge needed to understand new technologies with the creative energy required to explore what these technologies make possible? In this energetic opening session, you will learn how artist Liza Donnelly handles the challenges of maintaining innovation in a state of constant change, and how she deals with a common problem experienced in any creative field: what to do when you’re stumped at coming up with new ideas. Ms. Donnelly will share the tips and tricks she has learned in 30-plus years as a cartoonist for The New Yorker magazine, including how to get out of a rut, how to redirect thinking in response to change, how to disrupt via innovation, and how to inspire creativity in your work.

Designing great user experiences for your learners is critical to their success in engaging with or using your content, tools, and apps. This session will break down what’s important in designing great experiences and provide you with resources to get started, from mobile to desktop and beyond. The discussion will cover design strategies, what works and what doesn’t, and how to plan and prototype, with several great examples. You’ll get more than 10 resources and inspiration to take your experiences to the next level.

Your goal is to provide learners with a terrific learning experience on whatever device they might be using. But spending countless hours tweaking content for various screens when there’s a fast-approaching deadline doesn’t seem like a great solution. Articulate is here to help! Come find out how mobile eLearning development just got easy with the hot new apps in Articulate 360.

Your goal is to provide learners with a terrific learning experience. Increasingly, those learning experiences are occurring on multiple devices—smartphones, tablets, laptops, you name it! How can you deliver that terrific multi-device experience when you don’t know how to code and you don’t have time to spend endlessly tweaking and adjusting your courses to suit every screen size for every device?

In this session, you’ll explore strategies for multi-device eLearning and how to put those strategies to work using Articulate’s tools. You will learn why multi-device eLearning is critical in today’s workplaces. You’ll discover objective criteria for exploring your authoring tool options. You will leave this session with tips for streamlining your multi-device development processes.

In this session, you will learn:

• Why your eLearning needs to work on whatever device your learners may be using
• About three objective criteria for choosing the right tool for creating multi-device eLearning
• Easy tips for streamlining the creation of multi-device eLearning
• How to use Articulate’s tools to create one course that works on every device

Audience:
Novice to intermediate designers and developers.

Technology discussed in this session:
Articulate 360.

Technology required:
Laptop, tablet, or smartphone.

Anyone who has been in the eLearning business over the past 10 years and who works with mobile technology has run into this major issue: Flash. Many legacy programs were either authored using Adobe Flash or an authoring tool with SWF output, and many of today’s mobile devices are unable to support them.

In this session, you will explore a number of different methods to adapt legacy learning programs for mobile HTML5-compliant devices. You will learn how to access resources in previously published Flash files in order to create a new learning experience. You will also discuss how to rebuild courses into HTML when FLA source files are available. Come explore how to create a learning strategy to redesign legacy courses and adapt them for a mobile world.

In this session, you will learn:

• How to create a learning strategy to redesign your legacy courses
• How to rebuild courses into HTML when FLA source files are available
• About different methods to adapt legacy learning to mobile HTML5-compliant devices
• How to access resources in previously published Flash eLearning

Audience:
Intermediate to advanced developers, project managers, and directors.

Technology discussed in this session:
Swiffy, Adobe Animate, JPEXS, Adobe Dreamweaver, Adobe Captivate, Trivantis Lectora, and PhoneGap.

Technology required:
Laptop and web browser.

Designing eLearning can be challenging enough, but designing eLearning for mobile platforms presents its own set of obstacles. In order to move your projects into the ever-growing mobile world, you need to know how responsive design differs from traditional eLearning design.

In this session, you will explore some of the common pain points associated with responsive design, and you’ll discover that these aren’t as painful as you may think. You will explore the full scope of a responsive project, including planning, design, and development. You’ll learn several tips and tricks for rapid responsive design to help you move your eLearning into the mobile realm.

In this session, you will learn:

• How to leverage the tools available to create responsive eLearning
• How to plan, design, and develop responsive courseware
• How to present the idea of mobile learning to the decision makers in your organization
• How to select the proper tool for your mobile eLearning design

Audience:
Intermediate designers, developers, managers, and directors.

Technology discussed in this session:
Adobe Captivate 9 and Articulate Storyline 2.

Your company may have implemented a mobile BYOD solution, but that doesn’t mean you can automatically use those devices for mobile learning. In order to implement mobile learning on a large scale, you’re going to need to partner with your IT department.

In this session, you will learn from one organization’s experience partnering with IT on a BYOD mobile learning strategy. You will explore the struggles, successes, and what still needs to be done to implement mobile learning on a global scale. By attending this session, you will learn what to expect when partnering with IT, and you’ll walk away with tips that will prepare you to launch your next mobile learning project.

In this session, you will learn:

• How to identify the questions you need to ask your IT department
• How to determine what questions you need to answer for IT
• About a basic framework to begin your journey supporting mobile devices
• How to effectively interact with IT as a partner, not a customer

Audience:
Novice to advanced designers, developers, project managers, and managers.

Technology discussed in this session:
Mobile device management (MDM), BYOD environments, Adobe Captivate, and TechSmith Camtasia.

Do you need a simple mobile-first or responsive performance support solution? Today’s mobile workers often don’t need training; what they need is quick access to a knowledge base to find an answer. But the organizations putting these resources in place need something more than page views to measure their effectiveness.

In this session, you will learn how to leverage WordPress and xAPI to build a responsive performance support and learning platform. You will discover how such a tool can provide your workers with the information and guidance they need. You will also learn how to build a tool that will work on all devices and be optimized for speed.

In this session, you will learn:

• About the tools you need to build a prototype
• About basic xAPI functionality
• How to publish content in responsive formats
• How to convert existing content to a responsive or mobile-first format

Audience:
Novice to intermediate designers, developers, project managers, and managers.

Technology discussed in this session:
WordPress, GrassBlade xAPI Companion, knowledge bases, and custom post types.

Today’s L&D professionals are tasked to create more video without breaking the budget. There’s also increasing pressure to ensure that these videos are effective at supporting learning and performance goals. What are some of the metrics used to track instructional video, and how do you make sense of those numbers?

In this session, you will explore different parts of the video equation in order to understand the complete picture. You will discover some of the elements that make for effective video. You will learn tips for keeping the video price tag reasonable. You will examine numerous examples, both effective and ineffective, and break down some of the elements of those videos. You will also explore common metrics to determine whether your video achieved its planned objective.

In this session, you will learn:

• About elements that you can include in videos to increase instructional effectiveness
• Tips and tricks for saving time and money when creating video that focuses on instruction
• About different types of engagement methods (passive and active) that can impact video effectiveness
• About common metrics associated with video and how you can use them to measure impact

Audience:
Novice to intermediate designers, developers, and managers.

Technology discussed in this session:
Videos (YouTube, various websites) and Google Analytics.

Producing videos can be a complex endeavor for learning professionals attempting to bring their courses to life. By incorporating appropriate project management principles, instructional designers can create a smooth process for video production and avoid having to reshoot critical footage they need for a course.

In this session, you will learn the questions you need to ask before creating a video production timeline. You will learn from examples of challenges that might come up that can affect production schedules or video quality. You will discover how to set up dependencies to create a time estimate for production. You will leave this session with tips and tricks for managing the review and editing process as well as implementing a QA schedule.

In this session, you will learn:

• About challenges that can affect production schedules or video quality
• How to set up dependencies to create a time estimate for production
• Some tips and tricks for managing the review and editing process
• How to implement a QA schedule
• About the people and types of technology needed to create quality video

Audience:
Novice designers, developers, project managers, and managers.

Technology discussed in this session:
Project management platforms Wrike and Smartsheet, as well as other platforms that might be similar. Frame.io for preview and approval. Adobe Premiere, Adobe After Effects, and Telestream ScreenFlow depending on production timelines.

Video has traditionally been difficult, time-consuming, and expensive, but it doesn’t need to be. Today, eLearning professionals can produce live-action and animated videos easily, quickly, and on a budget. But which do you choose, live-action or animated? It can be challenging to determine which option will best tell your story and engage your learners while also making the most sense given your budget and time constraints.

In this session, you will learn how to determine the best choice between live action and animated video for your learning projects. You’ll explore when and where it’s best to use live-action video. You’ll discuss the pros and cons of animated videos. You will also explore how to shoot live video, how to create an animation, and how to incorporate both together for best results.

In this session, you will learn:

• When and where to use live-action video
• When and where to use animated video
• The pros and cons of live-action and animated video
• How to incorporate both live and animated videos together
• How to prepare to shoot live video and create animations

Audience:
Novice to advanced designers, developers, and managers.

Technology discussed in this session:
Recorded live-action videos; animated videos created in GoAnimate.

Training comes most commonly in the form of a webinar or in-person presentation with a slide deck. You get a lot of information, presentation of complex topics, and a two-way communication street where questions from the audience can be addressed as they come up. These are all good things. But sometimes you don’t want to know how to build a watch—you just need to know what time it is.

Video can be an effective a la carte component of microlearning. Having digestible content available for your learners is key, and video is an important component of any a la carte learning strategy. This session will present some real-world examples and cover the ideation, strategy, and creative process that go into making a video for a microlearning application. You will have a chance to ask questions and share examples of what has worked for you. Come ready to learn and share.

In this session, you will learn:

• About microlearning from a sales training perspective
• About the strategy that goes into creating a video for microlearning
• A better understanding of the tools necessary to implement microlearning video
• How process and technology can translate between fields

Audience:
Novice to intermediate  designers, developers, project managers, and managers.

Deconstructing Games is a new series of hands-on sessions where you’ll have the opportunity to play a game and then discuss how the mechanics in play can be applied in your own learning context.

Session Description:
In Plants vs. Zombies2, you are a homeowner who must grow, then use, various plants to prevent an army of zombies from entering your house. Each type of plant has special abilities for offense or defense, and each row of the game board requires strategy to protect your home.

In this session, you will explore Plants vs. Zombies 2 and how it shows ways to adjust in different scenarios. You will examine its game structure as a model for how to improve learning of content for success as well as learning through failure. 

Audience:
Novice and intermediate designers, project managers, managers, and directors.

Smartphones are everywhere, and one of the most common uses for these phones is to play games. Their smaller screens require more skill to create a strong learning experience, game experience, and user experience.

In this session, you will explore various mobile games and discuss the decisions that influenced their game design, learning design, and UX. You will examine the differences in each of these areas of design. You will discover the important role prototyping plays in game design. You will leave this session with an understanding of the basic principles you need to follow when designing games for smartphones.

In this session, you will learn:

• About the differences between game design, learning design, and UX design
• About basic principles to consider when designing games for smartphones
• Criteria for evaluating game design, learning design, and UX design
• About the importance of paper prototyping mobile games before doing digital design or development

Audience:
Novice to intermediate designers, developers, and project managers.

It’s not unusual to find gamification elements in software applications across nearly every industry, but only a fraction of these platforms prove to have significant impact on performance. While individual gamification elements may increase engagement and enhance performance, they often are not designed with the user in mind, and there are not enough analytics integrated into the process to assess effectiveness.

In this case study session, you will explore the design process of an award-winning gamification product at Sears Holdings. You will discover how a team designed this project using continuous prototyping and constant engagement with its intended users. You will explore how the team continuously leveraged user-generated data to optimize the gamification experience. You will walk through the entire business case and understand the business problem that the gamification product was designed to solve, and the specific framework the team used in order to ensure the product would impact associate performance.

In this session, you will learn:

• About a prototyping framework to help you ensure gamification is properly implemented in your learning and performance management tools
• How to leverage user testing methods to ensure gamification is effective
• A better understanding of how gamification analytics is done at SHC
• Lessons from a real business case that leveraged gamification to solve a crucial business problem

Audience:
Novice to intermediate designers, developers, project managers, managers, and directors.

The use of online video to support performance is a hot topic these days. But when is it a viable solution? How can it improve performance? And, most importantly, how can you build a solution that uses it effectively?

In this highly interactive and practical session, you’ll learn how to plan, develop, and maintain a convenient, user-friendly, video-based performance support system. You will learn the process to develop video content that’s meaningful to your audience. To build your experience, you will complete a hands-on challenge where you serve in one of four critical roles: subject matter expert, project manager, multimedia developer, or learner. This activity will walk you through the steps needed to create effective video content, including the planning you need to do before you even pick up a camera. But content like this can only be effective if people engage with it, so you will also learn how to track the ways your audience actually uses video content.

In this session, you will learn:

• How the iterative video development process works in practice
• How the four critical roles (subject matter expert, project manager, multimedia developer, and learner) contribute to creating great video content
• What steps you’ll need to create thoughtful video content, including how to develop a shot list to help you produce your video
• About tools you can use to develop and house your video performance support solution

Audience:
Intermediate to advanced designers, developers, and managers.

Technology discussed in this session:
Camtasia Studio and Articulate Storyline.

Technology has made it possible to offer scalable, experiential, and collaborative learning across the globe, while instructional videos can serve as a key delivery mechanism for content from instructor to students. Nevertheless, instructional videos often are too long, too dense, and offer little room for learners to interact with the content.

In this session, you will discover a process for designing and producing instructional videos to achieve learning outcomes. You will examine examples of effective instructional videos in MOOCs, online programs, blended courses, and distance learning sessions. You will also explore the use of 360-degree videos and virtual reality in digital learning. Join in to explore the future of instructional videos for better learning.

In this session, you will learn:

• About an instructional video design process
• About best practices for producing instructional videos
• About the possibilities of 360-degree video for teaching and learning
• About the possibilities of virtual reality for teaching and learning

Audience:
Novice to advanced designers, developers, project managers, managers, and directors.

Technology discussed in this session:
Video, 360-degree video, virtual reality.

Mobile devices are ubiquitous and now an essential tool in everyone’s pocket or purse. But are these devices truly helpful, or are they more of a hindrance to how people connect, communicate, and collaborate with peers, teams, and organizations?

In this session, you will learn about several proven approaches to introducing and managing mobile devices as a significant part of today’s modern blended learning environment. You’ll explore how best to use PDFs and EPUBs as support for learning on the go; the best approaches to surveying and using interactive whiteboards to promote greater collaborative learning; and how you can use both video and game mechanics to help spur increased mobile usage.

In this session, you will learn:

• How to leverage mobile for pre-work before a scheduled ILT class
• How to use digital documents (PDFs, EPUBs) to replace traditional support materials
• How to increase content consumption before, during, and after a blended curriculum
• How to incorporate video and game mechanics to drive mobile usage
• How launching surveys, polls, and interactive whiteboards can increase collaboration

Audience:
Novice to advanced designers and developers.

Technology discussed in this session:
PDFs, EPUBs, survey tools, and virtual whiteboards.

The mobile learning landscape is continually growing and shifting. As intimidating as those changes may be, organizations must be prepared to formulate and execute strategies to harness this growing technology. An understanding of the various devices, the appropriate content, the impact of mobile on traditional training and development, and how to make a business case for mobile in your organization are of key importance in navigating today’s mobile learning landscape.

In this session, you will explore the mobile learning landscape. You will discuss the various types of mobile devices and how these affect your training approach. Additionally, you will explore optimal content types for mobile learning, and the connected discussion around mobile design approaches and the differences from traditional instructional design. Finally, you will help build the business case for mobile in your organization—the “why” of mLearning today!

In this session, you will learn:

• About the various types of mobile devices and how the differences affect your training approach
• Which types of content are optimal for mobile deployment
• How to make the business case for mobile, and why you should incorporate mobile into your organization’s strategy
• Approaches to mobile design, and how it may differ from your typical design process
• Ideal approaches to mobile development using tools you likely already have
• Common examples of mobile deployment and security

Audience:
Novice to intermediate designers, developers, and managers.

Technology discussed in this session:
Mobile devices such as smartphones, tablets, and laptops.

This session will use practical case studies to explore the wide range of user engagement models in learning apps. The discussion will include one-to-one matching and tutoring, multi-party classrooms, student working sessions, broadcasts on social media, and dynamic social-learning environments that go beyond the classroom. You will learn about the design and performance characteristics of different live video models, the pros and cons of PaaS cloud platforms vs. build-it-yourself development approaches, and how to think about video in the context of end-to-end student experiences.

Today’s learners want short, focused, and bite-sized chunks of content in easy-to-consume learning modules. While microlearning is not a new concept, it is better understood and implemented these days. Join this session for a closer look at microlearning and why it should be part of your eLearning strategy. The discussion will unpack what microlearning really means and what to look for in a microlearning platform. You’ll also learn why mobile plays such an important part in microlearning—and some dos and don’ts of mobile deployment. Discover the challenges facing today’s learners, and find out how microlearning can overcome them.

The use of games in eLearning is growing. However, most eLearning designers struggle to know where to start with games. Building an interactive game can be difficult without skills and practice in coding software.

In this session, you will explore some of the new features in Storyline 360 that help put the power of gaming into your hands. You will examine a few basic examples of games in eLearning and then put these ideas into practice. You will practice using new motion path trigger events, animations, sliders, and dials to build gaming functionality that you can easily use in your eLearning courses.

In this session, you will learn:

• How to build motion paths and animations in Storyline 360
• How to work with new motion intersection trigger events
• How to build custom dials and sliders
• How to design and develop unique animations

Audience:
Intermediate to advanced designers and developers.

Technology discussed in this session:
Articulate Storyline 360.

Technology required:
PC or Mac with Windows, running Articulate 360.

You want to create, edit, and enhance microvideos, but you don’t want to spend a lot of money on software or time on learning a complex program. You also need to collaborate with others on projects—and you need a way to organize your raw footage and media files. What are your options?

In this session, you will create videos and then edit them with a low-cost web video editing tool. You will also learn how to collaborate with others on joint editing projects or edit on the go with mobile apps. In addition, the tool that you use will also allow you to manage media including video, images, and sounds.

In this session, you will learn:

• The basics of video editing
• How to enhance your video
• How to import PPT files to create a video
• About the advantages of collaboration with video editing

Audience:
Novice designers and developers.

Technology discussed in this session:
Video creation, video editing, and exporting video for publishing.

Technology required:
Laptop or tablet with Internet access.

Traditional video is an important and engaging component of training programs and curriculum development. However, traditional video only allows learners to see the linear path of video projects. What if you could give learners the ability to fully immerse themselves into the videos they’re watching? With 360-degree video, you do just that.

In this session, you will explore the use of 360-degree video in training to immerse learners into the content. You will learn what it takes to capture and edit 360-degree video, and how you can view and share your 360-degree video content. You will also examine and discuss examples of 360-degree video that are being used for training and development today.

In this session, you will learn:

• About the technology and knowledge necessary to get started with 360-degree video
• How 360-degree video is being using in existing training development
• How to create a 360-degree video recording
• About common pitfalls associated with developing 360-degree content

Audience:
Novice to advanced designers, developers, and project managers.

Technology discussed in this session:
360-degree video recording; Adobe After Effects and Adobe Premiere; Kolor auto stitching software; immersive video; Git2 Pro Action Camera; and 3-D printing.

Have you heard the saying “If a picture is worth a thousand words, a video is worth a million”? Video content can explain very complex concepts, but usually lacks good navigation or interactivity. eLearning, on the other hand, delivers a great user experience, but often comes up short at conveying meaning with just words and pictures. Combining eLearning with video can give you the best of both worlds.

In this session, you will learn how to take large, unmanageable videos, break them into useful segments, and knit them into an eLearning template. You will discover how this enables your audience to navigate your content in a meaningful, organized fashion. Along the way, you’ll see how mixing different types of video content, such as conceptual and step-by-step instructions, with interactive elements can enhance the learning experience. You’ll also look at how to manage different types of content you receive from your team members and keep track of all the various elements as you produce your final product.

In this session, you will learn:

• How to use Camtasia Studio to take a large video and publish many smaller files
• How to build a Storyline template that seamlessly displays multiple videos in a specific order
• How to add navigation elements (next/previous buttons, chapter tabs) that allow a user to navigate to any part of your video content
• How content providers, who don’t have experience using an eLearning development tool, can provide video content for use in the final product
• Tips for getting various media elements (audio, screen recordings, graphics) from different members of your team
• How variables allow you to build a template that you can use to easily produce courses with varying numbers of videos
• How mixing content of different types (Camtasia, GoAnimate) works to enhance the learning experience

Audience:
Novice to intermediate designers, developers, and project managers.

Technology discussed in this session:
Articulate Storyline, Camtasia Studio, GoAnimate, and JavaScript.

Your company keeps growing, but your training department doesn’t. You feel like your current course development methods are making it harder to keep up with compressing development timelines, and yet you’re being asked to create more courses, different courses, smaller courses, and courses that are easier to access. Sales doesn’t like logging in to the LMS every time they need to take some training. And you’re getting tired...

This session will guide you through a case study that explores situations where video should and should not be used. You will learn about the tools, methodologies, and techniques you can use to develop professional-quality video training on a budget. You will discover great options for hosting, delivering, and tracking your video content. The group will round out the session together by discussing the future of video, sharing ideas and questions about how to leverage video for training.

In this session, you will learn:

• How to make a video training plan
• Which tools you need to succeed
• How to compress and encode video content
• How to discuss video training with your colleagues
• About lighting tools and techniques

Audience:
Novice to intermediate designers, developers, project managers, managers, and directors.

Technology discussed in this session:
Adobe Premiere, Encore, Media Encoder, and Captivate; Encoding.com; YouTube; Watershed LRS; and xAPI.

The common approach, when introducing live video into virtual learning applications, is to create an online lecture room where participants watch and can be seen by the lecturer and can easily join the conversation. But this is just the tip of the iceberg! eLearning teams must build on the dramatically changed expectations of new generations brought up in a social revolution that has put live video communication in the hands of over three billion people around the world.

In this session, you will examine practical case studies from Cambly, Chegg, Learntron, Kip McGrath, and others to explore the wide range of user engagement models in learning apps. The discussion will include one-to-one matching and tutoring; multi-party classrooms; student working sessions; huge broadcasts on YouTube, Facebook, or Twitch; and dynamic social-learning environments that go way beyond the classroom. The future will be different.

In this session, you will learn:

• How to think about video in the context of end-to-end student experiences
• About the range of alternative approaches for using live video effectively in eLearning
• How to appreciate the significant impact of social networking models and apps
• How to understand the design and performance characteristics of different live video use-models
• About the pros and cons of PaaS cloud platforms vs. build-it-yourself development approaches

Audience:
Novice to advanced designers, developers, and managers.

Technology discussed in this session:
Virtual classrooms and social media platforms (YouTube, Facebook, and Twitch).

Workplace learning is a two-way relationship between a company’s desire to stay competitive and employees’ need for information to engage job functions. With the struggle for competitive advantage expected to only accelerate, it pays dividends to create a flexible and technology-enabled learning ecosystem that can foster the future generations in the workforce.

In this session, you will discuss the best practices that organizations need to consider in order to support today’s workforce and remain competitive. You will explore examples including the use of mobile technology, the adoption of social learning tools, increased alignment with corporate objectives, the use of adaptive learning principles, and the ability to measure effectiveness. You will also learn about short-term and long-term approaches to workplace learning, including virtual reality, gamification, serious games, and augmented reality for the workplace.

In this session, you will learn:

• About best practices to ensure a successful approach to corporate training and workplace learning
• How to ensure employees stay ahead of the curve with training
• About best practices to ensure that you are equipped to approach future learners and generations entering the workforce

Audience:
Novice to intermediate designers, developers, project managers, and managers.

Technology discussed in this session:
Leap Motion, Microsoft Kinect, Oculus Rift, Google Glass, Mozilla Open Badges, and Pokemon Go.

When videos, presentations, and slide shows start to look ho-hum and just aren’t holding your learners’ attention anymore, it’s time to step it up. Say goodbye to boring bullets and static graphics, and give your audience something to keep them watching.

In this session, you will discover how animation can add activity and life to otherwise dull and static conceptual explanations and demonstrations. You will explore how to create animated video to add to your eLearning content and courses. You’ll examine the types of content that are well suited to animated video, and then explore a start-to-finish lesson in developing material using GoAnimate cloud software. You will design custom characters, add audio, create an animated segment, and produce a final MP4 video. You will leave with a plan for implementing animation in your next project.

In this session, you will learn:

• How to use GoAnimate software
• How to sync audio and video to create animated segments
• Which types of content are best suited to animation
• How easy it is to replace dull presentation content with vibrant video
• How to create custom characters

Audience:
Novice to intermediate designers, developers, and project managers.

Technology discussed in this session:
GoAnimate animation software.

Games and gamification are new ideas to many organizations. Executives may perceive games for learning as child’s play, or may struggle to understand how they’re different from the scenario-based learning you already have. Furthermore, some see gamification as an artificial reward system that will have no long-term benefits.

Moving your organization forward with new approaches to learning and development can be challenging—especially when the new approaches involve nontraditional ideas or technologies. Join our panel of experts as they discuss how you can overcome the most common barriers to games and gamification and ramp up your organization’s performance.

Deconstructing Games is a new series of hands-on sessions where you’ll have the opportunity to play a game and then discuss how the mechanics in play can be applied in your own learning context.

Session Description:
In The Trail, you set out as a pioneer on a long journey across an unknown countryside. Your mission is to reach the town of Eden Falls, but along the way you have to explore, collect items, learn to craft things to help you survive, and create items you can trade. But reaching town is only the end of the first phase of your journey.        

In this session, you’ll examine how The Trail game concept could apply to onboarding a learner to a new environment and how to offer clear short-term and long-term objectives and a personalized experience through the choice of challenges and a customized storyline. The game also reminds us that repetition must be meaningful, not just redundant, in order to keep learners engaged.

Audience:
Novice and intermediate designers, project managers, managers, and directors.

There’s no doubt that augmented reality (AR) is a very popular technology right now. Most of the applications making headlines are focused on entertainment, such as games, video and movies, and other “time wasters.” What are organizations to make of the potential of AR for business in the face of growing consumer use and interest?

There are many considerations in using augmented reality for your business. When done well, the technology can be impactful, cost-effective, and groundbreaking. In this session, you will explore some of the strongest use cases for augmented reality in the workplace, and you’ll learn how to measure these experiences’ effectiveness for real-world business outcomes.

In this session, you will learn:

• When augmented reality will help you the most
• About the value of augmented reality in business
• How to maximize AR’s effect for your organization

Audience:
Novice to intermediate designers, developers, project managers, and managers.

Technology discussed in this session:
Augmented reality.

The pairing of 360-degree video and virtual reality has hit the mainstream, with numerous companies launching new tools to view and even create this content on a constant basis. Yet it’s difficult to fully understand the possibilities of this technology without clear examples of how to use 360-degree video for education and training purposes, what tools are available to develop this content, and how to test whether it’s actually effective at sharing content.

In this session, you’ll experience 360-degree virtual reality projects created for a wide range of learning situations, including secondary education, professional acclimatization, and graduate medical training. After experiencing 360-degree video training firsthand, you’ll then discuss best practices and equipment needs for this kind of content. This will include discussing what costs are involved in producing 360-degree video, what learning domains to measure, and what techniques and processes can help you implement it quickly and effectively.

In this session, you will learn:

• How 360-degree video is already being used for situations such as clinical training scenarios, medical procedure walk-throughs, and middle school science classes
• How effective 360-degree video training is for different scenarios
• About best practices and equipment that can help you create and share 360-degree video simply and affordably
• About the costs involved with implementing 360-degree video

Audience:
Novice to intermediate designers, developers, managers, directors, and senior leaders (VP, CLO, executive, etc.).

Technology discussed in this session:
Kodak 4K 360-degree video cameras; Ricoh Theta 360-degree still cameras; YouTube 360-degree video via Google Cardboard; Homido 360-degree video viewing headset; and various 360-degree video apps and equipment for smartphones.

From Gutenberg to Google, the old model of training that was disconnected from real-world practical experience has been: Read and remember. However, with the hardest skills, which training method is almost universally recognized as effectively impacting learning and retention of workplace skills? Hints: _____ makes perfect.  _____ is the best teacher.

With the hardest skills, how you learn determines how well you learn. This session will look at a new model of high-impact blended training enabled by online video. This approach to training simulations is staged to explode over the next decade: learning by doing, implemented effectively with blended learning solutions that use a variety of media types.

In this session, you will learn:

• How to select and sequence methods and media, similar to precisely arranging puzzle pieces, to have maximum real-world impact
• How to choose among a wide variety of one-to-one as well as one-to-many course relationships
• How to master the risk-opportunity continuum so your training is not just added “noise” for people who are already busy and overworked

Audience:
Novice to intermediate designers, developers, and managers.

How do you implement virtual reality–based training in an organization without breaking the bank? This session will provide a practical guide to implementing virtual reality, mixed reality, and game-based training solutions, and will bust some common myths about hot new technologies like VR and AR. The session will demonstrate impactful, interactive, gamified learning simulations from around the world and show you how to integrate these tools into your training in a cost-effective, practical, and powerful manner.

Eight seconds: the time you have to grab an employee’s attention. Five minutes: the time you can keep it. Both down by 50 percent in 10 years. What’s causing this societal attention problem? Every day, hundreds of emails, chats, texts, notifications, calls, and meetings compete for your employees’ attention and divert their focus. What tool can you use to grab and keep their attention? Training games. Games complement and improve the effectiveness of traditional training. Come learn more, play the Jump Game, and see data in action. High score at the game session wins a $250 gift certificate!

Poor-quality explainer videos can distract your learners and prevent them from getting the message. Many L&D professionals operate on a tight budget and do not have a lot of video editing experience. How do you create professional-level videos that can be delivered on any platform or eLearning tool?

This hands-on session will cover practical, easy, and cheap tricks to help raise the quality of your explainer videos. You will explore the importance of adjusting your screen size to the best size, and how to make different parts of your screen pop as you talk about certain sections. You will learn how to avoid an amateur look in your videos, and even how to set up your videos for easier translation. You will leave this session knowing how to make higher-quality explainer videos with the tools you already have.

In this session, you will learn:

• About optimal screen resolution for explainer videos
• Tips on using ScreenFlow
• Tips on using Camtasia
• Tips on compressing your video
• Tips on exporting for web use

Audience:
Novice to advanced designers, developers, project managers, managers, and directors.

Technology discussed in this session:
Telestream ScreenFlow and TechSmith Camtasia.

Technology required:
Laptop running ScreenFlow or Camtasia for Mac, or Camtasia for PC.

Building mobile interactions for learning is challenging. Adobe Captivate 2017 offers two approaches to mobile development: breakpoints and fluid boxes. When building interactions, you need to put some thought into how to place the objects on the screen. Knowing the rules of how to work with breakpoints and fluid boxes will give you a big head start and help you avoid a lot of mistakes.

In this hands-on session, you will begin creating responsive eLearning interactions in Captivate 2017 using both breakpoints and the new fluid boxes. You will learn best practices for when to use breakpoints and when to use fluid boxes—and why. For both approaches, you will also learn great tips to save time and avoid frustration. At the end, you will publish the course as a single project that automatically delivers the most appropriate experience for your learner’s device.

In this session, you will learn:

• How to create responsive courses with Captivate using breakpoints and fluid boxes
• How to modify the size and position of objects
• How to lay out fluid boxes for best results
• How to make your interactions work flawlessly on all devices

Audience:
Intermediate to advanced designers and developers.

Technology discussed in this session:
Adobe Captivate.

Technology required:
Laptop running the latest version of Adobe Captivate.

Many organizations are eager to utilize mobile learning to meet the needs of an increasingly mobile workforce who may not have access to desktops yet all have mobile devices. However, stringent corporate policy concerning mobile phones often makes this tricky. The more organizations understand the dynamics of legal, corporate, and security-based issues, the more equipped they will be to make a compelling business case for mobile learning.

In this session, you will examine how to launch a mobile strategy that works within your organization’s phone policy constraints. You will explore mobile phone statistics and trends in the workplace. You will learn about the common legal and policy constraints for non-exempt employees and explore security concerns for conducting work-related business on a personal mobile device. You will leave this session able to conduct a mobile learning risk assessment to help you diagnose the level of risk you will face when making a business case for mobile learning.

In this session, you will learn:

• About the legal and security constraints that often inform corporate mobile phone usage policies
• How to assess the risk for mobile learning use cases for your organization
• About best practices for implementing mobile learning based on your organization’s risk profile
• About future trends that will shape mobile phone policy
• About success stories from other organizations that have navigated these issues

Audience:
Novice to advanced designers, developers, project managers, managers, and directors.

Technology discussed in this session:
Mobile phone carrier plans, apps, mobile-optimized websites, and messaging.

Verifying that a new hire is ready for operational responsibilities is a continual challenge, but in the technical support world where “first time fix” is such a crucial measure of customer satisfaction and efficiency, it is vital. Theory tests only go so far; the adoption of mobile devices by this technician community presented an opportunity to gather data in the field to validate understanding and correct application.

In this case-study session you will learn how, while building a mobile-first learning resource for field teams, Prosell realized that the true power of mobile lies in its ability to create active learners through the curation of photo and video records. Additionally, the team learned that encouraging new hires to immediately reflect on experiences was extremely impactful. You will see how devising activities that invited technicians to capture evidence of their learning quickly spawned ideas for how to verify competence in the field. The session will show how this approach has created a new model of competence assessment at Prosell’s client, Comcast.

In this session, you will learn:

• How to accelerate learning by having learners use a mobile device to reflect on experiences as they occur
• How to assess competence in the field without the cost of continual supervision
• How a mobile-first scaffolded curriculum can propel learners through multiple cycles of “learn, check, apply, verify” to significantly improve knowledge retention and increase confidence
• Why mobile devices are brilliantly suited to facilitating learning, rather than pushing content
• How to engage coaches, mentors, and managers in facilitating new-hire development using mobile-first approaches

Audience:
Novice to advanced project managers, managers, directors, and senior leaders.

Technology discussed in this session:
Mobile devices.

Induction and onboarding has become one of the key business challenges of the moment. How do you successfully recruit and induct staff to become high-performing and fully integrated, at a speed that matches the speed of change in business? The answer may rest in the power of the mobile devices that are already in everyone’s hands.

In this session, you will explore how mobile can play many critical but different roles in an effective program design. You will examine a tried-and-tested strategic induction and onboarding design methodology, and explore where and why mobile has an important part to play. You will explore different approaches such as tools, games, and knowledge and learning apps, and you’ll see real examples of mobile in induction and onboarding programs delivering learning, recruitment, support, brand awareness, and many other important aspects of best-practice delivery.

In this session, you will learn:

• About a best-practice onboarding methodology
• About the role of mobile in induction programs
• From examples of different mobile programs that are part of best-practice induction
• About innovative approaches to induction delivery

Audience:
Novice to advanced designers, project managers, managers, and directors.

Technology discussed in this session:
Mobile apps, tools, games, and learning.

Proper lighting in your video makes a world of difference in how your viewers perceive your product. But good lighting can be a challenging aspect of video production. Have you found yourself asking the following questions: “How do I know which lights to get? How do I determine the correct lighting placement? How many lights should I use? Should I buy or rent them?”

In this session, you will examine the secrets of achieving a professional look to your instructional videos. You will participate in an actual scenario of lighting someone on camera. In this exercise, you will learn how excellent lighting doesn’t have to be expensive; you can use many items from your local hardware store during this stage of video production. You will leave this session understanding that with a little creativity, proper planning, and the right tools, you can achieve stellar results in your next video.

In this session, you will learn:

• How to light instructional video
• The basics of how light works
• About the essential tools you need
• What a three-point lighting setup is
• How to light hair
• What colors of clothing to avoid
• How to soften skin tones
• How to plan for proper lighting

Audience:
Novice to intermediate designers and project managers.

Technology discussed in this session:
Fresnel tungsten lights, LED Ice Lights, stands, and Blackmagic production cameras.

Everybody has experienced video training—the good, the bad, and the ugly. But by taking a "real-life" approach to video content, you can up retention and create a unique training experience that goes beyond just training on ideal situations. 

In this session, you will learn how to effectively create custom video content. You will learn how to teach with video, using real-to-life scenarios to demonstrate best practices and behaviors, and you will explore how video can easily blend with other learning tools to support collaborative learning environments.

In this session, you will learn:

• How to create a balance between screen time and social learning
• How providing real-to-life scenarios offers your audience a multi-perspective experience
• How to determine a strong methodology that will result in rapid development and deployment
• How creating real-to-life scenarios sets realistic expectations for the learner, rather than presenting “ideal” situations
• How to use video as part of an overall learning tool to create an impact that results in a shift in company culture

Audience:
Novice to advanced designers, developers, project managers, managers, and directors.

There are many opinions, myths, and facts that surround what mobile technology can or cannot do to influence, educate, and enable users. The problem is that many adult-learning professionals do not understand mobile technology and often end up developing a curriculum that fails to take advantage of mobile’s strengths or even ends up highlighting weaknesses.

In this session, you will learn the basics of how mobile technology works and a broad understanding of the options you have, like native mobile vs. responsive HTML5, custom vs. out-of-the-box, etc. You will learn how to ask the right questions and even call bunk when your IT department says such-and-such “isn’t possible.” You will learn tips, tricks, and what mobile usage habits mean for effective training content.

In this session, you will learn:

• About the basics of mobile technology
• What questions to ask the IT department
• How mobile usage habits will affect the success of your training content
• From examples of custom mobile solutions that have successfully transferred knowledge and improved the formation of positive habits among users
• How to find a community of experts who can answer your questions
• What questions to ask L&D pros who also are mobile developers

Audience:
Novice to intermediate designers, project managers, managers, and directors.

Technology discussed in this session:
HTML5, iOS, Android, Articulate Storyline, laptops/desktops, smartphones, and tablets.

At one point or another, you’ve probably been forced to endure some kind of training that made you want to pull your hair out. You click through the slides as fast as you can, or you stare blankly at the lecturer reading bullet points from each slide. What if you could transform those mandated training programs into something engaging and entertaining instead?

In this session, you will explore how you can use video content to evoke an emotional connection between the audience and the class material. By examining a case study of diversity and inclusion training, you’ll explore how a few minutes of video can turn a subject that might otherwise be boring into one that is engaging and memorable. You will leave this session understanding when it is best to integrate video content into existing training, and when to develop entirely new training programs around videos.

In this session, you will learn:

• About the importance of audience engagement
• How to foster an emotional connection between your audience and your subject matter
• The basics of shooting an interview with a DSLR camera
• How you can use video and audio editing tools to edit and augment existing content

Audience:
Novice to advanced designers, developers, project managers, managers, and directors.

Technology discussed in this session:
Adobe Premiere, Adobe After Effects, Adobe Audition, and basic DSLR videography.

Video is a great medium for learning content; however, designing and developing great videos can be challenging and labor-intensive. Additionally, gaining stakeholder buy-in on a curriculum based on microlearning, like videos, can be a challenge.

In this session, you’ll hear how a team of learning designers at a major investment brokerage started with a simple video and ended up having their curriculum featured in prime-time TV spots. You’ll learn what makes a great video and how to create one (even with limited resources). Most importantly, you’ll learn how you can use a microlearning video strategy to gradually build a library of stellar learning content and ultimately prove the value of education in your organization.

In this session, you will learn:

• About the qualities and characteristics that make for great educational videos
• How to design an extensive curriculum from modular video content
• About best practices for creating videos with limited resources
• Strategies to gain buy-in from stakeholders on your video content

Audience:
Novice to advanced designers, developers, project managers, managers, and directors.

Technology discussed in this session:
YouTube, Adobe After Effects, TechSmith Camtasia, iMovie, and Windows Movie Maker.

After years of existing mostly in the world of science fiction, virtual reality is finally ready for its close-up. With VR normalizing itself within the consumer culture, the interest in using these technologies for learning and performance is growing. But where can curious learning professionals go to learn more about the power and potential of VR? The answer is simple: gaming.

In this session, you will explore how the world of VR gaming is shaping VR’s use for training. You will examine not only how VR gaming is creating new types of experiences, but also how it is transforming existing game paradigms. You will look at multiple examples of VR in gaming, and examine lessons for the training world in each example. You will also learn some of the questions to ask to determine whether VR is right for your organization.

In this session, you will learn:

• How the gaming world is blazing a path for VR
• About the lessons for trainers that are present in VR gaming
• How to determine whether VR is right for your organization
• How early adopters are using VR for L&D

Audience:
Novice to advanced designers, project managers, managers, and directors.

Technology discussed in this session:
Oculus Rift, HTC Vive, and PlayStation VR.

Encouraging experts to create useful content for others in the workplace is a practical and effective way to extend knowledge in an organization. Video is rapidly becoming the medium for sharing demonstrations, quick tips, and longer-form overviews. But how do you fit user-generated videos into your overall learning strategy? What are the best ways to launch and support them as well as measure their use overall?

In this session, you will explore how to add user-generated videos and screencasts to your learning strategy, using best practices and guidelines for getting the most out of this learning modality. You will learn the best tips to launch screencasts and other user-generated video assets and discover the best platforms to host and distribute access.

In this session, you will learn:

• How to add user-generated videos to your learning strategy
• How to provide people access to the videos and reporting (platform considerations)
• How to get started and set users up for success
• About tools and tricks to successfully launch user-generated videos and screencasts

Audience:
Novice to intermediate designers, developers, and managers.

Thanks to the increase in easy-to-use tools and software, everyone now has access to cost-effective tools to create animations and video. Unfortunately, just because content is shared as a video doesn’t magically make it great, and these simple tools can also create a flood of ineffective and boring video content. If you’re not careful, weak content can kill the implementation of video in your organization and cause your audience to dread yet another bad video.

In this session, you’ll look at the simplest, yet hardest, thing to do with video: crafting a compelling structure and story for your content. You’ll go through the process of learning to quickly identify key messages and themes, build out a proper structure, then turn it into a compelling video. You’ll also take a closer look at how you can use the visual aspect of video to strengthen your storytelling and streamline your content. You’ll leave this session knowing how to make the videos you create both more entertaining and better at conveying the information your audience needs.

In this session, you will learn:

• Why taking time to craft a strong story and structure makes your videos more effective
• How you can create a compelling story
• What animation and film principles can make a story more compelling and make the video shorter
• How to use visuals in place of dialogue and narration
• What visual styles and themes work best for educational videos

Audience:
Novice to advanced designers, developers, project managers, managers, and directors.

You have a phone and tablet, and you use them for four or five tools and applications, but there is so much more you can do with them. Mobile devices present fantastic opportunities to create and modify photos, videos, and graphics. You are only limited by your own imagination.

This session will introduce you to several new tools for working with graphics and images, right on the device you have, and walk you through how to take advantage of them. You will learn best practices, tips, and techniques to apply immediately to your production process to get fantastic results in recording audio and video, creating animation, and capturing better photos for use in your projects.

In this session, you will learn:

• How to turn your mobile device into a portable production platform
• How to capture better photos with tips and techniques to frame and improve the quality
• How to plan and select a device (if you don’t already have one)
• How to create graphics and edit video
• How to compose and animate on your mobile device
• How to capture audio and video

Audience:
Novice to intermediate designers, developers, project managers, and managers.

Technology discussed in this session:
The apps Explain Everything, Marvel, and Adobe Capture.

Technology required:
An iOS or Android mobile device running Explain Everything, Marvel, and Capture.

You want to make sure your learners are engaged, and you have an idea for a learning game that will help you achieve that goal. You know that it needs to be focused on the content and the learner’s needs and not something you’re going to throw in just for fun. You’re excited to build this, and you think you will be able to repurpose it for other lessons, learners, and content. Suddenly, you hit a wall because you haven’t acquired the higher-order skills in Captivate yet. What, exactly, do you need to know?

This session will focus on the elements in Adobe Captivate that you need to know to create a learning game. We will go under the hood of a Captivate-created learning game to better understand the functions and features leveraged to make it work. You will learn more about the role of variables and actions, how and why decision points were made, and the design behind the development.

In this session, you will learn:

• How a game is planned and designed
• How to determine what kinds of media and interactivity you need
• How to use variables and actions to track game progress and levels
• How to create decision points and navigation branching
• How to use your superior skills to make eLearning something learners love!

Audience:
Novice to intermediate designers and developers.

Technology discussed in this session:
Adobe Captivate.

Technology required:
A laptop running the latest version of Captivate (a trial version is okay).

Mobile, games, and video are all meaningful endeavors offering unique value propositions, but how do they fit together? Each can be linked, but has unique properties as well. How do you make sense of the opportunities?

In this session, you’ll explore the properties of each of the elements from a cognitive perspective, which includes social, engagement, and more, and place them in the context of organizational needs. You’ll look at the full suite of ways in which organizations learn and work, and characterize how these activities can be facilitated. Then you’ll look at the role mobile, games, and video play in these activities. With this contextual framework, you’ll be better equipped to address these elements strategically, not just tactically.

In this session, you will learn:

• About the full suite of performance ecosystem opportunities
• How technology can facilitate a broad range of opportunities
• Where mobile, games, and video fit in the larger picture
• How to develop a strategy around technology for organizational success

Audience:
Intermediate to advanced managers and directors.

Technology discussed in this session:
Mobile, games, video, portals, authoring tools, learning management systems, social media platforms, content systems, and xAPI.

A team working with major electronics in public areas—installing slot machines in casinos—needed to follow several safety processes. After a year or longer of monthly safety emails and talks at all-hands meetings, the company took its safety program for field service technicians to SMS bimonthly delivery. What happened next?

This case-study session will explore development of the SMS Safety campaign, the decisions made on delivering it, and results from the first eight months of the yearlong campaign. You will learn about both quantitative and qualitative results drawn from the messages, responses, and safety records. This case study explores one organization’s culture of going mobile and how its technicians are adapting.

In this session, you will learn:

• About considerations for designing a yearlong SMS campaign
• How to adopt culture change in transitioning to a mobile workforce
• About lessons learned from the campaign
• About the impact on technicians’ perception of SMS and safety
• About the impact to on-the-job safety

Audience:
Novice to intermediate designers, developers, managers, and directors.

Technology discussed in this session:
Mobile Coach.

Not responding well to responsive course design? Frustrated with the nuances of responsive course development with rapid authoring tools? Tired of trying to get your courses to look great on desktop, mobile, and tablet devices? Need a way to deliver information awareness training that doesn’t require LMS tracking? As responsive course design becomes more prevalent, you must continue to come up with innovative ways to deliver memorable learning experiences.

In this session, you’ll learn how to make a mini-course harnessing the power of the Bootstrap 3 framework. You’ll explore how editing a basic web page template will transform a simple web page into a learning experience that captures the attention of on-the-go, tech-savvy learners. Tapping into the concept of spaced learning, your learners can review content whenever it’s convenient and access small, mobile-friendly chunks of information from anywhere.

In this session, you will learn:

• About the Bootstrap 3 framework
• Where to find Bootstrap 3 resources
• About types of training suitable for mini-course delivery
• How to edit a mini-course (single web page) Bootstrap template
• How and where to test your mini-course
• How to publish your mini-course

Audience:
Intermediate to advanced designers, developers, and project managers.

Technology discussed in this session:
Bootstrap 3 and HTML editors.

Gamification is about using game elements to drive motivation and engagement. Although gamification is most effective when used to drive intrinsic motivation, it is frequently abused as an extrinsic reward system, which hinders learning. Studies have shown that learners seek more rewards in demotivating environments and that players lose interest in an activity after receiving extrinsic rewards. How do you combat bad game design and find the right balance to maintain motivation?

This session will review the most effective practices for gamification, supported by academic research and practical experience. Instructional designers will leave better equipped to leverage gamification in future courses. Some of the best examples of gamification will be highlighted, include role-plays, simulations, and interactive models. Additionally, you will explore the idea that gamification is increasingly being designed as a journey, with meaningful elements such as a narrative, open paths, fun activities, and opportunities to reflect.

In this session, you will learn:

• About the academic and scientific underpinnings of gamification and intrinsic motivation
• How to apply gamification techniques in online and offline courses
• What gamification techniques to avoid
• About actionable steps you can take to improve your next course

Audience:
Intermediate to advanced designers, developers, and managers.

A government office was going through a major reorganization; there was confusion and concern about the future organization. Each division had been working with minimal contact with other divisions, which resulted in a culture of lack of trust and personal connection with other employees. The problem was intensified because employees worked in various geographic locations and time zones. Learning leaders needed to help the employees understand the new organization and purpose.

In this session, you will find out how learning leaders helped employees overcome their concerns and learn about the new organization. They created a fun solution to help overcome the anxiety of change, based on what people already experienced: an “on-demand TV series.” Season one consisted of nine episodes featuring an unedited video interview with each future division director, who all shared information about themselves and their divisions. To encourage viewership (and increase ratings), the team incorporated several gamification techniques. Come to this session to learn how they did it with magic wands, hidden clues, and “Emmy Awards.”

In this session, you will learn:

• How to use gamification techniques to engage learners during change initiatives
• How to create an environment to produce engaging video interviews
• How to write engaging video interview questions

Audience:
Novice to intermediate designers, developers, managers, and directors.

Technology discussed in this session:
Video, Articulate Storyline 2, and LMS (Cornerstone OnDemand).

Consultants face challenging career transitions while working in fast-paced environments with high performance standards. Learning that supports such transitions requires simulation of the complex mix of skills and trade-offs that consultants face on the ground, yet traditional digital simulations often fail to incorporate that complexity.

In this session, you will explore how to leverage game mechanics to introduce the pressures and constraints of real work and to take learning and engagement to the next level. You’ll discuss how to create more engaging and realistic learning experiences for high-performing, time-crunched learners. You’ll see examples of learning games where consultants faced the same time pressures, capacity constraints, and dynamically changing contexts they would in the real world, and you will gain insights into learner behavior and performance.

In this session, you will learn:

• About one firm’s journey from simple digital simulations to more complex serious games for learning
• How to leverage game mechanics (not just gamification features) to create an engaging learning experience for high-performing, time-crunched learners
• About aspects of gaming that L&D can embrace to attract the attention and engagement of learners
• How to leverage advanced analytics behind the scenes to visualize game-play and set authentic benchmarks on performance

Audience:
Intermediate to advanced designers, managers, and directors.

Technology discussed in this session:
Learning simulations and games, and back-end analytics outputs.

New for FocusOn this year! This is a popular session being offered twice. It's also available as session 606.

In business, you are often faced with problems that don’t have neat or clear solutions. There are often multiple solution paths and some solutions that are more optimal than others. How do you simulate the types of complex problems that you face in your career? How do you create interesting game-based learning that allows learners to explore different types of solutions?

In this session, you will examine a single case study in the use of BranchTrack. Throughout, you will learn about creating game-based learning interventions through a choose-your-own-adventure–style game development program. You will first explore the value of game-based learning, simulations, and failure in education. You will then examine one particular use of BranchTrack simulations in training passport acceptance agents. Afterward, you will learn about the features of BranchTrack that make it easy for instructional designers to develop simulation-based learning interventions.

In this session, you will learn:

• How to identify complex problems within your organization
• About the value of game-based learning, simulations, and failure in education
• How to create game-based learning interventions to teach complex problem-solving skills
• How to design a learning intervention using BranchTrack

Audience:
Novice to intermediate designers and developers.

Technology discussed in this session:
BranchTrack.

Deconstructing Games is a new series of hands-on sessions where you’ll have the opportunity to play a game and then discuss how the mechanics in play can be applied in your own learning context.

Session Description:
Apples to Apples is an easy-to-learn game that is different every time. You deal everyone a hand of response cards (often nouns or phrases). When it’s your turn, draw a situation card. Everyone plays a noun response card and the dealer chooses the best answer.             

In this session, you’ll explore the reality that the answer is often “it depends,” or that there are several possible right answers. These situations create an opportunity to discuss the possibilities as a group. This has worked well in various areas, including leadership, project management, and training.

Audience:
Novice and intermediate designers, project managers, managers, and directors.

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.

In this session, you’ll learn about basic principles common to all visual design and how they apply to creating high-quality professional video. You’ll discover how understanding and applying concepts like composition, contrast, negative space, and even typography can greatly improve video quality and watchability. These concepts can be applied whether you’re shooting with an expensive professional camera or an iPhone. You can improve your video quality whether you have a professional editing suite or iMovie. Visual literacy is a critical component of quality video, and after this session you’ll be able to identify weaknesses in your own videos and fix them.

In this session, you will learn:

• How to apply design concepts to video
• How to identify and apply negative space
• How to make good typographical decisions
• How to compose video shots according to the rule of thirds
• How to identify common mistakes in video
• How to identify the components of information graphics integrated into video
• To understand and apply the concept of balance

Audience:
Novice to intermediate designers, developers, project managers, and managers.

Technology discussed in this session:
Video editing software (Camtasia, Adobe Premiere, Adobe After Effects), Adobe Photoshop, and video compositing.

360-degree video is a new and engaging medium. Allowing the user to explore a 360-degree space allows for a deeper immersion and broader sense of involvement. However, it does have inherent differences from traditional video—mainly, the story is no longer in the control of the creator, but of the viewer.

In this session, you will see how adding interactive elements to 360-degree video can help you tell your story. The session will cover everything from guided user journeys to branching, dynamic hotspot placement, and heads-up displays in order to help add to the way you think about 360-degree videos, and how leveraging interactivity can make them the future of your eLearning.

In this session, you will learn:

• How to help guide storytelling in a 360-degree video
• About the use cases for, and difference between, in-video and heads-up interactions
• How 360-degree video is being used in the training and education space
• How to leverage multiple scenes in 360-degree video

Audience:
Novice to intermediate designers, developers, project managers, and managers.

Technology discussed in this session:
360-degree video, interactive overlays, HTML, CSS, and JS.

Most instructional designers have experience creating storyboards prior to developing eLearning solutions. The storyboarding process enables the designer to work through a concept and test various ways of structuring content. Storyboards are also used to communicate design concepts to eLearning developers when working in teams to build training solutions.

In this session, you will learn how the design process is similar and different for mobile. You will learn to apply a step-by-step approach to mobile design and the common approaches to creating design documents that translate well in a mobile environment. This approach may be incorporated into some existing storyboard processes. Yet, you will likely change the way you view design for all forms of eLearning!

In this session, you will learn:

• About the differences between traditional eLearning design and a mobile design approach
• Practices to create a mobile sketch
• To develop a simple wireframe using standard templates and tools
• About mockup tools to help you test and demonstrate your design’s functionality

Audience:
Novice and intermediate designers and developers.

Technology discussed in this session:
A variety of mobile design tools to support everything from wireframing to mockups.