Anyone still struggling with learning projects or courses that exceed schedule, budget, or that do not meet audience objectives needs to understand project-scope management. This project management key knowledge area is often overlooked. However the planning, monitoring, and controlling processes involved are critical to ensuring your projects deliver the required results, on time, and on budget.

Your organization has a mature learning program facilitated through the use of a learning management system (LMS). But now the technology powering the current system constrains your organization’s evolving strategic needs for business growth. Your team may have begun looking for technology solutions or started drafting a wish list, but what are your next steps?

Live virtual learning, while not new, has only recently gained momentum due to a down economy and increased travel restrictions. Learning organizations know that they must increasingly provide live virtual solutions, but they don’t fully understand how to transition their traditional content to a virtual platform. Intel initially struggled with a lack of standards and development skills which led to mediocre learning experiences.

More than four years have passed since the inception of the Open Badges experiment, and in that time the concept of digital badges has moved steadily into the general consciousness. As this novel idea continues to evolve, so do its many opportunities and challenges.   

The coming year will see the launch of inexpensive virtual reality (VR) devices. But this change is not about gadgets; it’s about a massive consumer technology that will be accessible and powerful with huge potential. VR is a medium, not a gadget. How appropriate is it for education and training?

Do you spend more of your time copying and pasting from one content format to another than you do creating new instructional materials? Do you have to deliver the same information for more than one learning deliverable? If you answered yes to either of those questions, then it’s time to reclaim your time and use a single source for your content.

During design and development, SMEs and other stakeholders sometimes suggest ideas or practices that are antithetical to good instructional design. For example, a stakeholder believes it’s best to film a daylong stand-up training session and deliver it as one video. An SME might write learning material on a complex topic without breaking concepts down for beginners. In these cases, it is helpful for the designer to be able to present research findings to help the stakeholders understand why you should design learning solutions differently.

Learning professionals are always looking for the best and most efficient way to distribute training, education, and performance support. Sometimes that is face-to-face (F2F), other times online, and there are times where a blended approached is best. You can easily and cost-effectively create an online or blended approach by using readily available online tools and resources. No expensive LMS is needed!

Tracking learning and performance activities to be able to analyze them and interpret their value has always been a desire of learning professionals. Having this information naturally leads to the opportunity to refine the effectiveness of the learning experiences. Until now, this has been time and cost prohibitive.

There is a huge difference between the traditional levels of interactivity for asynchronous eLearning and interactions. Levels of interactivity delineate the mechanical complexity used during the request for proposal (RFP) and proposal stages of business development, sales, and contracting to determine scope and pricing for an eLearning project. Interactions, on the other hand, have to do with the actual design of the eLearning project to bring about the desired performance change. We have interactivity (mechanical) and interactions (instructional). How do we work with both to achieve what we want for our learners?

We’ve spent years aiming our focus at being good business partners. We build our road maps around urgent and emergent business needs. We have begun to dispel the notion of learning styles. These are all good steps. But are we getting too far away from our understanding of the learner’s experience? Understanding the needs of our business partners is useless if we don’t understand how our work will land with our learners. How can we seek to understand how the learner’s experience plays out in our learning ecosystem?

You have limited resources and need to create from scratch, and you’re under time constraints to deliver targeted learning programs. What do you do? You have to leave the glitter aside and create what you can with what you have. When you are in the trenches of a startup, you have to constantly iterate on learning and training solutions. There is rarely a final learning product, more like an MVP, most viable product. MVP is the quickest way possible to start the learning process. 

Yes, the interest in learning games has exploded, along with the interest in gamification. Many practitioners want to create digital game play experiences as opposed to “Click NEXT to continue” eLearning. But when you get started in digital, how do you do it? How “game-y” does something need to be to produce solid learner engagement while maintaining the integrity of the learning experience? What best practices should you follow, and what pitfalls should you avoid? How is the design process the same? How is it different?

People live in a visual world and are, therefore, conditioned to perceive quality based largely on its visual design. Your digital badge is your visible representation displayed in digital backpacks and ePortfolios. You have been tasked with creating the badge artwork. But you are not a designer and your budget does not support hiring one—so what do you do?

eLearning and instructional designers are often asked to turn long blocks of content into a product that is effective and engaging. On top of that, everyone wants a product that is mobile-ready and adaptive. How can designers with limited skills in programs like After Effects or Blender and limited coding skills create products that fit the content-focused needs of our clients?

As the eLearning industry continues to shift towards a more software-like and code-intensive development model, it’s important for learning developers to understand the process of software development. An understanding of the vocabulary, process, and difficulties of writing code is important to better communicate with software developers and others who are involved in the process of writing complex eLearning.

Many companies are interested in seeing how mobile learning can enhance and supplement current learning practices.