Massive open online courses (MOOCs) have received a fair amount of publicity, but mixed reviews overall. Participants appreciate the collaborative nature of MOOCs, and their accessibility—but much of the learning is passive in style, which tends to be fairly ineffective, transfers poorly to on-the-job skill application, and doesn’t maintain participants’ interest. Today’s typical MOOC format is therefore not particularly well-suited for most corporate training needs. Companies are, nonetheless, interested in capturing the positive qualities of MOOCs.

In this session, you will see samples from iMOOCs with courses that include some standard MOOC components but incorporate engaging interactions throughout the course. You will learn about activities in which participants must decide the best approach to a situation and about complex video scenes that participants must evaluate and discuss. This session includes demonstrations of actual course components, so you will gain a deep understanding of the techniques and how you can apply them to your own needs.

In this session, you will learn:

• How to design interactive exercises that promote skill transfer to the job
• How video of real-life situations can be used in conjunction with lecture video and online discussions
• How online learning-by-doing approaches can engage participants and result in skill transfer
• Ways to bring together some of the best elements of instructor-led and self-paced courses together into a single learner experience

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

Technology discussed in this session:
Major browsers in Windows and Mac, tablets and phones using iOS and Android, .mp4, and HTML5 code.

How do we enable learners to practice and improve their ability to respond appropriately in a conversational context? Obvious examples for conversational training are: people who are learning a new language, new hires in call centers or in customer service, or trainees in the hospitality industry. While person-to-person conversational training is ideal, the time available for individual training in person-to-person settings is often limited.

In this session, you will learn how to create realistic simulated conversations that learners can access and use on smartphones. You will explore a case study of how one instructor used simulated conversations with students to improve learning outcomes. You will learn new, cost-effective training approaches related to conversational learning. Have a conversation to practice? Bring a script!

In this session, you will learn:

• How to create realistic simulated conversations
• Why realistic simulated conversation practice is valuable
• Why smartphones are an ideal platform for conversation practice
• How you might integrate realistic simulated conversations into your teaching and training programs

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

Technology discussed in this session:
Linguacomm conversation authoring platform and Linguacomm conversation practice app.

Social learning is the latest trend in eLearning and corporate L&D—for good reason. As organizations move from hierarchies to wirearchies and communities of practice become the new content management solution, building meaningful connections between colleagues is critical. However, most organizations are going about social learning the wrong way, and technology vendors aren’t helping by bolting on discussion forums and adding integrations into social media which are not enough to capture the benefits of social learning.

In this session, using the familiar jigsaw technique, you will work together in a group to discover the key to social learning—felt accountability. That is, as each group learns a topic, you’ll be motivated by accountability to yourself and your group. The session will go through several examples of successful social learning projects. You will leave with a clear understanding of how to correctly implement social learning within your organization.

In this session, you will learn:

• What makes for authentic social learning
• How to avoid common pitfalls of social add-ons
• How to design training programs with social in mind, from the ground up
• How to drive participation in a discussion forum, without begging
• How to build communities of practice with every online training
• How to engender felt accountability in online courses

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

Technology discussed in this session:
Variety of eLearning tools, including course building tools, learning management systems, MOOC platforms, and social.

Despite its growing popularity, online facilitation remains a mystery to many faculty and workplace learning professionals. Often restricted by learning management system platforms, online facilitators feel constrained when designing, developing, and delivering high-impact, high-engagement learning events.

In this session, you will learn how to be more creative in an online environment. You will hear the story of how students in a graduate course on social learning walked away from a university’s learning management system and distributed their learning across multiple social media sites such as Facebook, Twitter, Google, Padlet, NetVibes, YouTube, Pinterest, and over 20 more locations. The students had a dynamic and learning-rich semester, earning the hashtag, #LearningIsFunAgain. You will explore how to get the best out of facilitated instruction and community-based learning in one flexible model of instruction that can be easily adopted in higher education and workplace learning classrooms alike.

In this session, you will learn:

• How facilitated instruction can occur outside of a learning management system
• How to incorporate social media tools into your instructor-led course design
• How to empower learners to own their own learning
• How to develop and sustain the four primary relationships in a learner-centered classroom

Audience:
Novice and intermediate designers.

Technology discussed in this session:
Facebook Groups, Twitter lists, hashtags, TweetDeck, Google sites, YouTube, Pinterest, Skype, Google Hangouts, Netvibes, WordPress, SlideShare, Evernote, BrainShark, bubbl.us, Padlet, Realtime, Board, Jing, and iTunes.

Technology has completely changed the way we live, work, and learn. Technology has brought us the Internet, smartphones, tablets, and many more tools that have changed our lives forever. Of course, these same technologies have also brought us memes like Socially Awkward Penguin, Success Kid, and yes, Grumpy Cat.

These two worlds collide as four industry experts use today’s memes to explore the innovative world of learning. The rules of each presentation are simple: Each speaker’s presentation has 20 slides that automatically advance every 20 seconds. That provides each speaker with six minutes and 40 seconds to share their vision of how learning is being innovated. And there’s one last rule—slides can use only common Internet memes for visuals. Join us for what is sure to be a fun and informative session.

In this session, you will learn:

• How learning is being innovated
• How Ignite session formats can create unique learning opportunities
• What learning might look like years from now
• Way more about Internet memes than you ever thought possible

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

Technology discussed in this session:
Various.