How much does a car cost? How long does it take to build a house? How long is a piece of string? The answer in all cases—it depends. You can run into the same uncertainty with an eLearning project if it is not properly defined up front. If you don’t know what you are trying to accomplish, what stakeholders expect, what your technology constraints are, and what business drivers will affect your project, how can you create and follow a plan to a successful conclusion?

We’re all hooked to our devices and our technology. Most of our work can’t be done without it, let alone the scheduling, management, and communications of our personal lives. Likewise, technology is an essential part of today’s training toolbox. So what does the eLearning landscape look like today? Where have we been, and where are we going?

In this session we will take a look back to better understand the current trends in eLearning in order to help us project what the future will bring. We’ll explore the changing nature of courseware; what mobile technology brings; simulations; and social tools. We’ll define some key terms being used and you will gain both ideas and inspiration for how you can incorporate eLearning into your training plans. You will leave this session better informed and motivated to try something new in your next learning initiative.

Onboarding is arguably one of the most important learning events in the career of a new employee. Many organizations, however, fail to set up a true learning-focused onboarding program. Instead of inspiring new members of the team, they kill motivation by using boring presentations and eReading instead of eLearning. In today’s workplace, there are many tools and technology that can add value and that will greatly improve this critical learning moment.

Many client training models are geared to an onsite visit that compacts training into a deluge of information and often does not allow for the interaction of the client to effectively make the change they need to make. Many learning professionals are confronted with the problem of delivering instruction to clients or others who have a hard time understanding the process, the system implications, and the specifics of the content that is being delivered.

The learning and talent development consulting field has been growing and evolving over the last 15-plus years. With more professionals deciding to become consultants, there are underlying issues that arise and interfere with the day-to-day life of the consultant. Issues can include: finding opportunities to consult, knowing how to price one’s services, invoicing and getting paid, managing client expectations, negotiating changes to the work while it’s in progress, and protecting one’s own intellectual property when licensing it to clients.

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.

According to Forbes, 61 percent of companies that have LMS systems plan to replace them in the next two years. However, nearly a third of smaller companies still do not have a LMS to deploy training. Many companies are well advanced in terms of online training and development for their employees, but many are late adopters. How do you get from behind the curve? Should you? And if so, how do you go from not much, to state-of-the art?

As futurist Ray Kurzweil noted, “We are destroying jobs at the bottom of the skill ladder, we are adding new jobs at the top of the skill ladder. To keep up with that rising skill ladder, we need to make people more skilled. One methodology to do that is education.” To be enablers of the skill sets of the future, jobs in the learning profession will change.

Is your organization employing a workforce of motivated and vibrant human beings? Or is the office full of lumbering zombies barely able to pillage snacks from the kitchen and groan in meetings? Many organizations have employees that are so disengaged that it’s like they are becoming the working dead. But there’s hope, and you can save them!

Learning and development managers are faced with an ever-changing technical environment and a marketplace requiring cost-effective, competitive solutions. Questions most managers face include: how to ensure that an appropriate mix of training professionals are hired to meet customers’ educational and technical needs, while keeping prices competitive; determining the correct toolset needed to reach a training audience; considering if there is a one-size-fits-all solution appropriate for a team; and how to maintain an eLearning team’s relevance in a fast-moving training world. Staying ahead of new technology while keeping price in check is a challenge.

Your company is growing fast. Your team has expanded way beyond the small, intimate group it once was. Demands are increasing. Development tools are changing. The new people have to be brought up to speed, now. And your industry is heavily regulated, so it has to be right. How do you maintain the independent spirit that made your company successful and still get all the work done?

Performance orientation and discovery efforts should be a priority before making any decisions about what kind of training should be developed, if any, and how to design, develop, and deliver training using embedded performance support assets.

Subject matter experts (SMEs) are the lifeline of work for instructional designers, trainers, and facilitators of learning. SMEs bring the content to life and provide both relevance and context. However, it can often seem like you and your SME are speaking two different languages, causing the instructional design process and, more importantly, communication to break down. How can you work better with and coach SMEs through your design and development processes to better ensure a positive working relationship and, most importantly, a successful learning initiative?

Conventional learning methods were quite simply not working for Bloomingdale’s. The learning tactics at Bloomingdale’s were not driving the correct behavior with their 15,000 associates, and as a result the company turned to microlearning as a way to change behavior and drive bottom line results.

In this session, you will learn why Bloomingdale’s decided to break away from conventional practices and try microlearning in 2012—before microlearning was a known term. You will explore the issues the company faced when it was decided to take the organization down the microlearning path and what the dramatic results have been. You will learn from the pitfalls and successes that were encountered along the way. For some, this session will provide a wake-up call for how learning professionals need to adapt their approaches to better meet the needs of a business and its employees. For others, it will help them gain a better perspective on the true benefits of taking a microlearning approach.

In this session, you will learn:

Learners prefer modern learning solutions and companies want increased organizational effectiveness. Learning leaders want to provide the best learning solutions possible, but often face the problem of lacking executive support, funding, IT support, etc. Getting executives to invest money requires changing the status quo, having tough conversations, and making trade-offs.

While there are webinars that talk about what you should consider before becoming a freelance consultant, there remains the challenge of what to do once you make the choice to become a freelancer. In other words, what do you need to put in place to protect yourself and your new business, and how do you thrive in a competitive landscape?

Many L&D professionals look inward toward their own field for professional development. While this approach certainly has its merits, it also has its downsides, such as: the likelihood of groupthink, reduced exposure to other disciplines, and minimized opportunities for thinking and acting differently. None of the downsides are sound ingredients for ensuring that you, as a professional, are as well-informed as you should be.

OER (open education resources) have gained ground in quality and access over the last decade. How did this movement start? Where is it going? How can OER benefit your learning programs? Answers to these questions will be provided by looking at examples of quality OER options for integration to online learning experiences. The bottom line: OER saves money, provides quality materials to the learning environment, and opens doors to education for students who in the past would not be able to afford higher-level learning programs.