Jump-start your day—and your networking—with Morning Buzz, the popular early-bird discussions held each morning of DevLearn. Grab your coffee, pull up a chair, and join a casual conversation around an important topic. Share your best practices, insights, and tips while learning from one another’s experiences.

Jump-start your day—and your networking—with Morning Buzz, the popular early-bird discussions held each morning of DevLearn. Grab your coffee, pull up a chair, and join a casual conversation around an important topic. Share your best practices, insights, and tips while learning from one another’s experiences.

Jump-start your day—and your networking—with Morning Buzz, the popular early-bird discussions held each morning of DevLearn. Grab your coffee, pull up a chair, and join a casual conversation around an important topic. Share your best practices, insights, and tips while learning from one another’s experiences.

Jump-start your day—and your networking—with Morning Buzz, the popular early-bird discussions held each morning of DevLearn. Grab your coffee, pull up a chair, and join a casual conversation around an important topic. Share your best practices, insights, and tips while learning from one another’s experiences.

Jump-start your day—and your networking—with Morning Buzz, the popular early-bird discussions held each morning of DevLearn. Grab your coffee, pull up a chair, and join a casual conversation around an important topic. Share your best practices, insights, and tips while learning from one another’s experiences.

Jump-start your day—and your networking—with Morning Buzz, the popular early-bird discussions held each morning of DevLearn. Grab your coffee, pull up a chair, and join a casual conversation around an important topic. Share your best practices, insights, and tips while learning from one another’s experiences.

Jump-start your day—and your networking—with Morning Buzz, the popular early-bird discussions held each morning of DevLearn. Grab your coffee, pull up a chair, and join a casual conversation around an important topic. Share your best practices, insights, and tips while learning from one another’s experiences.

Jump-start your day—and your networking—with Morning Buzz, the popular early-bird discussions held each morning of DevLearn. Grab your coffee, pull up a chair, and join a casual conversation around an important topic. Share your best practices, insights, and tips while learning from one another’s experiences.

Jump-start your day—and your networking—with Morning Buzz, the popular early-bird discussions held each morning of DevLearn. Grab your coffee, pull up a chair, and join a casual conversation around an important topic. Share your best practices, insights, and tips while learning from one another’s experiences.

Jump-start your day—and your networking—with Morning Buzz, the popular early-bird discussions held each morning of DevLearn. Grab your coffee, pull up a chair, and join a casual conversation around an important topic. Share your best practices, insights, and tips while learning from one another’s experiences.

Jump-start your day—and your networking—with Morning Buzz, the popular early-bird discussions held each morning of DevLearn. Grab your coffee, pull up a chair, and join a casual conversation around an important topic. Share your best practices, insights, and tips while learning from one another’s experiences.

Jump-start your day—and your networking—with Morning Buzz, the popular early-bird discussions held each morning of DevLearn. Grab your coffee, pull up a chair, and join a casual conversation around an important topic. Share your best practices, insights, and tips while learning from one another’s experiences.

Jump-start your day—and your networking—with Morning Buzz, the popular early-bird discussions held each morning of DevLearn. Grab your coffee, pull up a chair, and join a casual conversation around an important topic. Share your best practices, insights, and tips while learning from one another’s experiences.

Jump-start your day—and your networking—with Morning Buzz, the popular early-bird discussions held each morning of DevLearn. Grab your coffee, pull up a chair, and join a casual conversation around an important topic. Share your best practices, insights, and tips while learning from one another’s experiences.

Stories have been around as long as humans have walked the earth. We use stories to share, connect, and learn. While the technologies used to share stories have advanced over time, the core elements of good storytelling remain fairly constant. But what is good storytelling? In this keynote, we will learn about storytelling from Julie Snyder, the guiding force behind some of the most engaging, successful audio broadcasts in history. We’ll explore some of the core elements of captivating storytelling through the examples of This American Life, S-Town, and Serial, the most listened-to podcast in the history of the form. You’ll discover some of the secrets that made these podcasts so popular, and how you can incorporate some of their approaches into your own storytelling.

Sponsored by:

The eLearning industry is changing quickly, and it can be hard to keep up. Put that on top of ever-evolving tools, mobile vs. desktop development, xAPI integration, and other feature requests, and it’s enough to make you want to throw your computer out the window. But what if you knew what the tool developers had planned for the near future?

For this session, eLearning Brothers asked, “What would happen if we put the industry’s leading tool developers, including Adobe, Trivantis, Claro, and Adapt, on the same stage?” Come to a fantastic panel discussion that explores what’s currently exciting in rapid eLearning development and what’s coming down the pipe. Where would you like to see the technology go? SaaS vs. license purchase? Mobile development on mobile? Come get a peek into what will be in a developer’s toolbox in a few months, years, and beyond.

In this session, you will learn:

• What rapid eLearning authoring tool leaders think about where the industry is
• Where authoring tool leaders would like to see the industry go
• What features authoring tools should have in the future
• About the future of rapid eLearning development

Audience:

Novice to advanced developers, managers, and senior leaders (directors, VP, CLO, executive, etc.).

Technology discussed in this session:

Adobe Captivate, Trivantis Lectora, Adapt, Claro, and HTML5.

Is your online training boring? Are you having engagement issues? Are your learners not passing their training? There is a problem these days—learners prefer online training, but budgets are low and training is often dry, making it hard to stay engaged. But even with online training, the learner is often alone, not stimulated by other people around them. Distractions are easy and infinite with social media, smartphones, and the internet at your fingertips.

In this case study, KnowledgeOne and iSpring will guide you through different examples of branching scenarios, as well as different techniques to apply to your online training programs to connect further with your audience. It’s important to engage audiences, but it is not always easy to do, depending on the content of your training. View different examples of how you can apply branching scenarios to your learning, as well as use videos, quizzes, and gamification to further entrance your learners.

In this session, you will learn:

• About best practices for engaging your audiences with eLearning training
• About different types of branching scenarios using iSpring Suite 9
• About analyzing and conceptualizing content for eLearning output
• From examples of real branching scenarios created this year

Audience:

Novice to intermediate designers, content strategists, instructional designers, storyboarders, content creators, integrators, and production.

Technology discussed in this session:

Adobe Photoshop, Adobe Illustrator, Microsoft PowerPoint, iSpring Suite, and Audacity.

With the constant changing and evolution of technology, you need to know what is possible and how to determine what is a fit for your audience.

Join this in-depth look at the tools, design, and technologies you should focus on in learning today and what’s just around the corner. You’ll explore the technology that will soon be enhancing learning, and find out what you need to get excited about and start planning to integrate into your solutions. What can you learn from the buzz and new tools appearing in the consumer and corporate environments, and how can you take advantage of them to help your users learn? This fun session will give you dozens of ideas and reboot your brain for fresh perspectives on how to enhance your learning today.

In this session, you will learn:

• How to design amazing experiences for your learners
• How personalization of content can improve learning
• When gamification is a fit
• How to move beyond a screen
• How to get started with a personal learning network, and what the benefits are

Audience:

Novice to intermediate designers, developers, managers, and senior leaders (directors, VPs, CLOs, executives, etc.).

Technology discussed in this session:

Open-source frameworks and tools, content organization and tagging, developing for all devices (mobile, tablet, hybrids, and computers), gaming, and personalizing learning.

It’s a common story: An organization implements a proprietary learning platform that promises to meet the company’s every need. This pairing seems to be a match made in heaven... until it isn’t. Gone are the days of a “one-size-fits-all” solution. In today’s rapidly changing eLearning ecosystem, companies require a flexible solution that can be customized to meet a plethora of needs—from onboarding to PD to eCommerce and more.

Open-source solutions are now the key to a “happy-ever-after” LMS choice. In this session, you will learn how you can utilize the four freedoms that open-source platform Totara Learn provides: the freedom to innovate, save, choose, and learn—to achieve eLearning success. By leveraging an open-source learning platform, organizations are able to adapt their training solutions to meet evolving eLearning needs, allowing them to effectively future-proof their learning system and investment. This session will explore how Vistaprint uses Totara Learn to educate and empower its CARE specialists across the globe to achieve business objectives while enjoying the freedom to learn.

In this session, you will learn:

• How to structure your training programs with longevity in mind (and why the technology your LMS uses matters)
• Why current trends in the corporate eLearning ecosystem encourage the use of a flexible and interoperable learning platform
• How the robust functionality and endless integrations of open-source platforms like Totara Learn provide a scalable, customizable, best-of-breed, and future-proof eLearning solution
• How Vistaprint has encouraged educational and business success by embracing the four freedoms of Totara Learn

Audience:

Novice to intermediate managers, senior leaders (CLO, CIO, executive, etc.), and directors/VPs of IT, distance learning, eLearning, training, etc.

Technology discussed in this session:

Totara Learn (LMS).

Learners aren’t just taking courses at their desks anymore. They’re on their phones and tablets looking for quick reference info, performance support content, product guides, and more. And they need your content to look great and work perfectly—because they don’t have time to troubleshoot.

Provide learners with an engaging learning experience on any device—without spending countless hours tweaking content for various screen sizes. With Rise, the responsive course authoring app in Articulate 360, all you need is a web browser to quickly create beautiful courses that are automatically optimized for every device. In this session, you’ll learn how to build beautiful, fully responsive courses in Rise. You’ll find out how to create engaging learner experiences by building custom lessons with modular blocks. You’ll also see how to share your courses with learners.

In this session, you will learn:

• How to create responsive eLearning with Rise, the web-based authoring app in Articulate 360
• How to organize your content with a course outline
• How to use modular blocks to create custom lessons in minutes
• How to share your courses with learners on the web or with your learning management system

Audience:

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

Technology discussed in this session:

Articulate 360, Rise.

xAPI, big data, and analytics for learning and development have been revolutionizing the way training professionals build and evaluate their development programs. Implementing learning analytics for the first time can be a big task—especially where there are many business systems from which you need to collect data. Having a clear process to implement can help accelerate the outcome L&D has been waiting for: tying learning activities to quantifiable business outcomes.

Using a crawl, walk, run methodology can be invaluable in implementing learning analytics for your organization and gaining buy-in for this new technology. In this session, you’ll learn the basis of the crawl, walk, run methodology and how to gain quick data-driven wins within your organization. Within each step, you will discover how to easily incorporate Experience API (xAPI) to start getting rich behavioral data on learning activities. Finally, you’ll explore client case studies that parallel each step of the methodology that you can relate to your journey as well.

In this session, you will learn:

• The basis of the crawl, walk, run methodology  
• How to implement xAPI easily within each step
• From client case studies that clearly parallel each step of the methodology

Audience:

Novice to advanced managers and senior leaders (directors, VP, CLO, executive, etc.).

Technology discussed in this session:

Learning record stores, Experience API (xAPI), and learning analytics.

Adult learning principles state that adults learn best when content is relevant. So why do most virtual classroom lessons rely on lectures and slides? One of the most effective ways to ensure learning sticks is by getting learners involved, and scenario-based learning design does just that. Join this session to discover ideas for producing appropriate scenarios that resonate with your learners in the virtual classroom.

You only have so much time to dedicate to formal learning, so every moment needs to be impactful and relevant. Unfortunately, virtual classroom sessions tend to focus on getting as much content out there as possible and then leave it up to the learners to figure out how to make it all work. This session will explore how to design three types of scenario-based activities in the virtual classroom: problem-based learning, predictive learning, and play-based learning. You’ll leave with detailed examples of each, and a template to walk you through seven steps for constructing scenarios in your virtual classroom design.

In this session, you will learn:

• The role of scenario-based learning in modern workplace learning
• How scenario-based learning supports adult learning theory
• Techniques for implementing three types of scenario-based learning in the virtual classroom
• Seven steps for constructing scenarios

Audience:

Designers, developers, and managers.

Technology discussed in this session:

Virtual classrooms.

For decades, there was only one dominant learning platform that most training departments used: the learning management system (LMS). However, in recent years the learning platforms landscape has expanded. Not only have LMSs evolved over time, but additional platforms—such as LRSs, LXPs, and more—are also growing in functionality and popularity for learning and performance. This makes an organization’s decision on learning platforms much more complex, as it’s no longer a discussion of which platform, but which suite of platforms will meet an organization’s needs.

This session will explore how the growing array of platforms compete, coexist, and work to serve the diverse needs of today’s workforce. We will examine technology-driven performance ecosystems and how workers leverage multiple systems. We will make sense of current systems, explore what’s coming next, and examine how different platforms complement and compete with one another.

In this session, you will learn:

• The differences between the types of learning platforms
• Key questions to ask when seeking a new learning platform
• About the core functionality learning platforms add to an organization
• About the new functionality the learning platforms are introducing to L&D

Audience:

Designers, developers, and managers.

Imagine your worst eLearning nightmare, a dry compliance course. Boring! Is it a talking PowerPoint with a next button and a quiz at the end? Extra boring! Unfortunately, simply chopping a boring course into bite-sized modules doesn’t make it any better. But most struggle to break the cycle because they don’t know how to. How do you make a boring topic fun? Where do you even start?

In this case study session, you will explore how Welk Resorts revolutionized their cybersecurity training into a series of microlearning modules that sparked interest and engagement company-wide. You will discover how the team was able to cut out unnecessary content by adopting outcome-driven design and present information through games, videos, and short interactions to create “purposeful fun.” You will also learn how to think beyond the module and leverage quizzes, surveys, and reflections in your learning strategy. Lastly, you will be able to apply these strategies and transform any boring content into meaningful microlearning that drives excitement, engagement, and retention.

In this session, you will learn:

• What data to gather to drive your microlearning strategy
• How to effectively dissect boring content into meaningful microlearning modules
• How to incorporate games, videos, and interactions to create “purposeful fun”
• How to reinforce post-module learning through quizzes, surveys, and reflections

Audience:

Designers and developers.

Technology discussed in this session:

Articulate Storyline 3, Snagit, learning management systems.

Too often when you’re rushed or don’t have time, you may put your next project out to bid without including the critical information to help your outside resources provide an accurate estimate for what is actually needed. This may lead to misunderstandings, changes in scope, and higher costs.

In this session, you will gain a framework and explore what critical information your outside partners need in order to understand and provide accurate estimates. You will learn how to phrase the challenge, what information is needed, and how to use a starter template to ensure a jump-start on your next project.

In this session, you will learn:

• How to identify what is needed
• How to analyze your audience and define the need
• What to ask your audience
• What to ask your stakeholders
• How to format and provide a document to your teams to create accurate estimates

Audience:

Designers, developers, managers, and senior leaders (directors, VP, CLO, executive, etc.).

Technology is advancing faster than humans can keep pace. Organizations are investing in hundreds of technologies to transform their business, leaving employees overwhelmed and unengaged. Despite heavy investment in training solutions to bridge the gap, the cost to produce these materials is high, speed to market is low, and the impact is suboptimal. Learning practitioners passionate about effective digital adoption can seize this challenge to elevate into a new role.

This session will explore the concept of a new role in the learning practitioner and digital transformation space: the digital adoption manager. You will learn about the importance of supporting this shift through effective change management. You’ll learn how this change takes more than training to support product adoption and generate substantial business outcomes like saved time, reduced costs, and better agility. You’ll learn how individuals who understand the magnitude of digital adoption for the business have an incredible opportunity to move forward as leaders and innovators within their organizations to tackle this challenge.

In this session, you will learn:

• The business implications of digital transformation—from the financial impact to the human impact—and why an effective digital adoption strategy can be the difference between success and failure
• The roles and responsibilities of a digital adoption strategist, what skill sets are needed, and how you can get started today
• How to calculate the ROI of a digital adoption strategy within an organization
• Strategies on how to communicate the need, champion the digital adoption initiative, and secure stakeholders and support within your company

Audience:

Designers, developers, managers, and senior leaders (directors, VP, CLO, executive, etc.).

Access to learning-related data has grown dramatically over recent years. But just because you have a large volume of data doesn’t mean it necessarily provides value. While tools like xAPI make it increasingly easy to acquire data about learners’ activities, this information provides little benefit if you don’t know how to design to acquire meaningful data, interpret that data, or improve your learning design based on what you’ve discovered.

In this session, you’ll dive deep into how data should shape your learning systems design, including exploring the basic principles of how to use data effectively and how to design to provide meaningful feedback. To do this, you’ll look at outside inspiration from fields that are already doing this well: user experience design (UXD), web analytics, and business intelligence. You’ll also uncover some of the pitfalls of data collection and analysis, discuss using both qualitative and quantitative data, and address the difficulties inherent in finding valid measurements of learning.

In this session, you will learn:

• How to use your data and analytics to improve course design
• How to design to gather meaningful data
• How to define your learning data needs based on business and learning objectives
• Lessons, from fields like business intelligence and web analytics, about how to apply data principles to learning design
• Data analysis lessons from fields including business intelligence and web analytics

Audience:

Designers, managers, and senior leaders (directors, VP, CLO, executive, etc.).

Technology discussed in this session:

Experience API (xAPI).

When designing learning games, there is a tendency to overcomplicate gameplay and overshadow the learning objectives. Designers often focus on complex rules of play, convoluted UX, and using too many game mechanic elements. One L&D team was tasked to create two engaging games for new-hire orientation. Where do they start, what are the learning objectives, and how can game mechanics align with learning objectives?

This session will explore the creative process used in creating two types of gamified activities for a new-hire orientation. It will cover several game mechanic elements, such as points, leaderboards, narratives, discovery, challenge, and progression. Throughout the session, you will learn the process behind identifying the learning objectives and aligning the game mechanics to complement each objective. In the end, you’ll see how all of these elements combine to create a simple, engaging, and functional game used in onboarding sessions. The end product combines both digital and analog game components.

In this session, you will learn:

• Basic game mechanic elements
• About aligning game mechanics to learning objectives
• About resources used to create the final playable product
• About combining AR into analog game play

Audience:

Designers, developers, managers, and senior leaders (directors, VP, CLO, executive, etc.).

Technology discussed in this session:

HP Reveal (AR) and 3-D printing.

According to Time magazine, leaders at IBM and other large technology firms project that the future of the digital revolution will be about both social networks and knowledge: “The next phase is not about the network alone, but also about knowledge.” If you believe that this projection is accurate, what role will L&D play? Are there approaches or solutions you can use now to support this ongoing transformation?

There is no doubt that intellectual property—internal knowledge—is an asset that has strategic value. This session will explore how enabling the learner to be a creator of and key contributor to training material allows you to first surface and then scale the best of your organization’s insights. In this way, “collective intelligence” becomes tangible and actionable, helping you to make better decisions and operate more effectively. In this way, the connection between L&D and the success of the business is undeniable.

In this session, you will learn:

• How to evaluate the value of user-generated content as learning material
• About the functionality of OOTB solutions that enable learning professionals and front-line team members to collaborate
• About ways that different organizations are incorporating informal learning into their development opportunities
• About opportunities to use existing tool sets and resources to change the nature of your learning material

Audience:

Designers, managers, and senior leaders (directors, VP, CLO, executive, etc.).

Technology discussed in this session:

Microsoft Office 365, Jive, and SmarterPath.

There are many new web services available from Google and Amazon: image recognition, text to speech, voice to text, real-time data, and more. These services are inexpensive (some are free) and have the potential to make your course more engaging and effective. But how do you incorporate them into your course?

In this session, you will see and play with examples of courses that use these web services. You will explore the features offered by various services. And then you will investigate the JavaScript code needed to connect your course to these services. Specifically, participants will use Google’s Vision API, Google’s Translate API, Google’s Firebase, and Amazon’s Polly API.

In this session, you will learn:

• Which services are available from Google and Amazon
• How you can leverage these APIs to create better eLearning
• The limits of using these technologies directly in your courses
• Samples of JavaScript code necessary to incorporate these services into your courses

Audience:

Designers, developers, and managers.

Technology discussed in this session:

Google’s Vision API, Google’s Translate API, Google’s Firebase, Amazon’s Polly API, JavaScript, Articulate Storyline 360, and Adobe Captivate 2017.

Augmented reality, virtual reality, and similar technologies are useful for teaching complex skills. But how do you know if your users are getting the most out of these experiences? A benefit of these technologies is being able to measure the acquisition of knowledge and skills without needing smile sheets or paper tests. Performance data collected through these technologies can provide a more comprehensive picture of learning outcomes.

In this session, you will learn how to develop an assessment strategy for measuring learning and performance in immersive environments. You will examine the types of skills best suited for training using AR and VR, and how to measure those skills before, during, and after the learning experience. You’ll learn how you can use performance data to predict learner outcomes and evaluate the effectiveness of your training. As an example, you will hear about the speaker learning to play popular VR games in an inflatable dinosaur costume.

In this session, you will learn:

• How to choose between AR and VR platforms based on what you’re trying to teach
• How to design an assessment strategy to capture the learning process
• How to use performance data to evaluate training effectiveness
• How to use performance data to personalize the learning experience

Audience:

Designers, developers, managers, and senior leaders (directors, VP, CLO, executive, etc.).

Technology discussed in this session:

Augmented reality, virtual reality, and HTC Vive.

Imagine you’re a new hire. From applying for your job to your first day it feels like you’ve interacted with 100 people. Learning and development is preparing to host an orientation, and so is your new team, both groups delivering different messages and experiences. At Booz Allen, L&D was delivering orientation, not onboarding, and the business was experiencing an unacceptable level of attrition. A new approach was needed.

In this case-study session, you will learn how Booz Allen leadership’s step to reexamine its employee value proposition and give ownership of the firm’s Workday Onboarding process to L&D lead to the change from a weekly orientation to a cohesive year-long onboarding experience beginning at offer letter acceptance. You’ll explore how technology, marketing, and communications strategies can be used to create the right engagement points from offer through the end of first year. You’ll learn how to connect content across a year and deliver consistent messages about the organizations’ employee value proposition.

In this session, you will learn:

• How learning and development can influence other business processes
• How defining a purpose for Workday Onboarding enables a streamlined pre-onboarding experience
• Ways in which applying branding strategies can energize your instructional design
• How virtual reality and videos can be used to engage new hires and tell the organizational story

Audience:

Designers, managers, and senior leaders (directors, VPs, CLOs, executives, etc.).

Technology discussed in this session:

Workday, videos, virtual reality, Degreed.

Everyone knows that person who has a heavy footstep, a booming laugh, or talks way too loud, and it always seems to be magnified when recording audio. Often you’re working in less-than-ideal environments, trying to make the best of what you’ve got, and you don’t always have time or tools for editing. When you don’t have a professional studio to record audio, the struggle is very real.

Did you hear that? Didn’t think so. In this session, you will learn techniques to help turn a less-than-ideal recording situation into something more manageable. From setting up equipment to final publishing, a few simple steps can improve audio recording quality. On the other hand, if you are next to a busy road with sirens and horns going off almost hourly, editing is a must. Don’t feel pressured to re-record! With a few clicks, that wailing siren can be quieted or removed altogether—all without a recording studio.

In this session, you will learn:

• How to calibrate a microphone so it only records what you want it to
• How to address some of the most common recording challenges, like the “pop” you get at the “p” and “th” sounds
• Considerations in setting up your recording space
• How to edit audio and remove ambient noise

Audience:

Designers, developers, and managers.

Technology discussed in this session:

Laptops, microphones, Adobe Audition, and Audacity.

As a learning professional, your project budgets may be shrinking. You’re being asked to do more with less. Do you ever wish you had a library of free or low-cost tools at your fingertips? Now you can! There are plenty of free or low-cost tools available if you know where to look.

This session will show you how you can “design on a dime” and still deliver high-quality, engaging, and effective blended learning solutions. You will gain a budget toolkit for any situation. This toolkit has been put to the test by designing and implementing a real-life learning solution at as close to zero cost as possible. This zero-budget project will spark practical ideas and provide an amazing toolkit you can apply right away.

In this session, you will learn:

• How to stretch your budget by considering creative uses for free tools
• Which tool to use at each stage of the project (project management, design, development, and delivery)
• How to determine when it’s worth it to purchase the paid version of a tool, and when the free version is all you need
• How to leverage innovative mobile tools to engage your audience
• Clever ways to save on multimedia production (including voice-overs and translations)
• How to access free course content

Audience:

Designers and developers.

Technology discussed in this session:

Prezi, Kahoot, Freedcamp, Hightail, Google Docs, VoiceThread, FreeConferenceCall.com, Pixabay, Creative Commons, DaFont, GoAnimate, FutureLearn, edX, eLearning Brothers, Amazon Polly, Audacity, Rev, Voice123, join.me, Poll Everywhere, QR Code Maker, Bitly, Google Sites, Latitude Learning, and SurveyMonkey.

You’ve probably heard of bitcoin and how early adopters suddenly became millionaires by investing in this cryptocurrency. The underlying technology is called the “blockchain,” and this specific technology has the potential to shake up a lot of industries, including L&D and HR. However, for a lot of people, blockchain remains a mystery. What is blockchain? And how could it eventually affect learning and development?

This session will lead you on a journey of discovery, using concrete examples. The possible applications are numerous: recruitment, learning and development, payroll, etc. Blockchain can efficiently be applied to any area where HR and L&D exchange data and where identifiers and transactional processes are required. You’ll take a non-technical deep dive in this session to understand the blockchain lingo, the components, the actors, etc. And you’ll discuss whether, how, and when L&D will be affected by the blockchain. Prepare for the future!

In this session, you will learn:

• How the blockchain works
• The blockchain lingo
• Current blockchain use cases
• Future blockchain use cases

Audience:

Developers and managers.

Technology discussed in this session:

Blockchain, Ethereum, and Hyperledger.

Adobe Captivate 2017 provides eLearning content creators many interactive tools, but accessibility often takes a back seat to interactivity. In December 2017, a development team was tasked with making a series of interactive presentations accessible to screen readers when they were informed a student with blindness had been enrolled for the upcoming term.

This session will explore how Adobe Captivate interacts with screen readers and how it can provide accessible interactions for students with disabilities. You’ll explore closed captioning, adding accessibility text, and creating a variety of accessible interactions; and you’ll learn about some of the challenges the team faced in converting existing content. You’ll explore the results of those challenges in a screen reader and find out how, with accessibility, you can help equip all learners with an engaging learning experience.

In this session, you will learn:

• Several tips for making your content accessible to learners with vision and hearing impairment
• How to use JAWS and NVDA screen readers to test your content in Adobe Captivate
• About some of the challenges of making Captivate interactions accessible
• About some free tools for testing the accessibility of Captivate files

Audience:

Designers and developers.

Technology discussed in this session:

Adobe Captivate 2017, JAWS screen reader for Windows, and NVDA screen reader for Windows.

Technology required:

PC laptop (or Mac laptop with an installed Windows partition); Adobe Captivate 2018; JAWS screen reader for Windows (offers a free 40-minute-per-session trial); and NVDA screen reader for Windows (free).

A growing number of learners use mobile devices to take their eLearning courses. While modern authoring tools make creating responsive content easier than ever, testing it is cumbersome at best. You must take into account a growing number of screen sizes and form factors, test how your interactions translate to a touch screen, account for limited bandwidth, etc., while having access to a limited number of testing devices.

In this hands-on session, you will discover a handful of free and easy-to-use solutions to transform your workstation into a powerful testing environment. You will leverage the developer tools of your web browser to effectively emulate the mobile situation. You will learn how to configure any device and how to simulate limited bandwidth, using tools built into your web browser. You will also learn how you can use Browsersync, an open-source testing tool, to host your eLearning content so you can test it using your own mobile device without configuring a complicated IT infrastructure.

In this session, you will learn:

• That the mobile experience is not limited to smaller screen sizes and layout adaptations
• How to access and use the developer tools of your web browser to emulate any mobile device
• How to install and use Browsersync
• How to test your eLearning content on your actual mobile device using your Wi-Fi network

Audience:

Designers and developers.

Technology discussed in this session:

Adobe Captivate, Chrome developer tools, and Browsersync (a Node.js module).

Technology required:

The latest version of Adobe Captivate, Node.js, Browsersync (an installation guide for Mac and Windows will be provided), and the latest version of the Chrome web browser.

You’re charged with a high-stakes, high-visibility learning challenge. Perhaps you need to prepare an entire hospital staff to work effectively on day one of a move to a new hospital building, or you need to get a salesforce ready to sell a new product line. How do you do it? There’s no quick fix, no single method that will get full impact. You need to create an integrated learning strategy.

In this session, you’ll get a framework for creating an integrated, multifaceted learning strategy. You’ll see how to design and build a systematic set of learning experiences using technology appropriately, guided by sound learning science principles. You’ll see examples of role-based learning paths that employ eLearning, microlearning, on-the-job learning, coaching, video, workshops, simulations, performance support, and fun reinforcement activities. You’ll learn how to apply learning experience design principles including design thinking, active learning, spaced practice, scenarios, and on-demand content. Finally, you’ll see how to implement an iterative, collaborative design and development process that involves all stakeholders to achieve maximum impact.

In this session, you will learn:

• How to apply learning science–based design strategies for learning multiple complex skills
• How to build integrated learning paths
• How to adapt your organization’s learning ecosystem to support complex learning
• How to apply learning experience design principles and processes to create effective and engaging learning

Audience:

Intermediate to advanced designers, managers, and senior leaders (directors, VP, CLO, executive, etc.).

Technology discussed in this session:

LMS, xAPI, content management system, learning experience manager.

Yesterday’s employees view development and training as an isolated activity outside their daily routine, but today’s employees are pushing organizations into uncharted territory where informal, engaging, interactive eLearning must be incorporated into their lives when and where they need it. Most employees don’t have the time to click through slides or courses that are not engaging or interactive, but how do you take your legacy content and reimagine it quickly?

In this session, you’ll learn the four basic instructional design theories of sound digital content development. You’ll explore how to apply each theory to engaging interactive material using a humorous real-world case study. You’ll leave this session with a renewed focus on how to take your legacy content and turn it into an engaging digital training program that not only engages the learner but produces successful outcomes for your organization.

In this session, you will learn:

• How to both meet employees’ needs and keep your organization relevant and successful by employing a new set of instructional design tools and learning methodologies
• Proven techniques for taking your 20^th-century content into the 21^st century
• How to curate new content and tap into the informal learning space
• How to harness new and existing tools to deliver a continuous, personalized learning experience that is relevant and provided at the point of need

Audience:

Salespeople are learning organizations’ problem children: often remote and on the go, “too busy” for training, and quick to dismiss anything that doesn’t immediately help them. Yet constant product and sales tool releases, nonstop market evolution, and rapid competitive moves mean sales teams stand to benefit from effective learning more than any other function! And moving the needle on sales effectiveness yields enormous ROI.

In this hands-on session, you will see and experience how modern learning techniques enable trainers to engage sales teams and boost their effectiveness. Learn how the five principles of modern learning—including bite-sized content, learning reinforcement, support for informal learning, and more—successfully meet the needs of the challenging sales training environment. If you download the Allego app, you can try several examples yourself to gain deeper understanding.

In this session, you will learn:

• How bite-sized content works in the sales domain
• Why sales teams love reinforcement learning
• How to enable informal learning among sales teams
• When personalized learning does and doesn’t apply to sales training
• Why ease of content creation, not just content access, is the key to engaging sales teams

Audience:

Novice to advanced managers and senior leaders (directors, VPs, CLOs, executives, etc.).

Technology discussed in this session:

The Allego platform.

Learners are only as good as the environments they operate within. Their access to learning, the level of support from managers and executives, and the quality of the training they receive all impact performance and results.

If you want to supercharge learner performance, you need to move beyond the traditional “did they do it or not” mindset and consider all the conditions that impact results. Do employees have time to sharpen their saws? Culturally, is training seen as a part of the business? Is content easy to access? Is the content any good? What works best to engage learners? In this workshop, you’ll explore all of the above and gain a list of best practices you can use immediately to assess the state of your learning environment.

In this session, you will learn:

• Best practices for assessing the state of your learning environment
• How to get your learners engaged and excited
• Strategies for developing content based on the ways people learn

Audience:

Novice to advanced designers, developers, managers, and senior leaders (directors, VPs, CLOs, executives, etc.).

Instructor-led training is where over 50 percent of employee development happens. But it’s difficult to achieve employees’ buy-in if their direct managers aren’t sold on its importance. It can also be hard to capture and measure employee engagement in the session—especially when there are hundreds of instructors running sessions. It’s even more difficult to ensure behavioral changes stick long after the session ends. This session will introduce five practical tactics you can incorporate today—fast activities that increase manager buy-in before training, maximize engagement and learning during training, and magically transform into employee-created job aids after training.

In this session, you’ll be speed-walked through five tried-and-true activities any CLO, instructor, or instructional designer can deploy to an entire team of instructors. You’ll learn exactly how to incorporate them before, during, and after instructor-led training. Specifically, you will learn how to create and deploy a strategic survey that increases manager buy-in before training; a strategic survey that sets employee expectations before training; a “silent discussion” or Q&A technique to use during training; an advice wall employees create during training; and a way to instantly transform training activities into employee-created job aids. You will walk through the why and how of each training activity, so that at the end of the session, you can immediately add them to your toolbox.

In this session, you will learn:

• Practical ways to gauge manager expectations for ILT and increase manager buy-in
• How to create anticipation in employees, to make ILT feel like a privileged event
• How to increase participation and honest feedback during ILT
• How to foster camaraderie and knowledge-sharing in ILT
• How to extend the positive impact of ILT beyond the session

Audience:

Novice to advanced designers, managers, and senior leaders (directors, VP, CLO, executive, etc.).

Technology discussed in this session:

Microsoft PowerPoint and Poll Everywhere.

A high-consequence pipeline operator in the US delivers a large number of safety and operations­–focused training using test scores to document compliance and understanding. With pure SCORM content, their insight into the performance of users at an objective level was limited. Even though students passed the test on a topic, some objectives were failed regularly, identifying issues in content, test design, and training processes.

In this session you’ll learn how, after enabling content and tests with xAPI, the group was able to identify competency gaps and export xAPI data into Microsoft’s Power BI software, allowing them to create analytic dashboards to track which objectives were and were not mastered. Finally, you’ll learn how they overhauled the safety training program to minimize the importance of overall test scores and require learners to master each identified objective. Failure to master an objective results in a review of the content until the learner satisfies all objectives. With this additional insight, senior leadership stated, “The ability to see these analytics puts L&D in a whole new light.”

In this session, you will learn:

• How the group used xAPI to track student interactions and assessments at an objective level
• How they created a series of visualizations and leadership dashboards to identify which students mastered or failed different objectives
• How they tracked SCORM CMI interactions using a SCORM-xAPI wrapper
• How LRS data, along with student demographic data from the LMS, was automatically ported to Power BI using Microsoft Flow

Audience:

Advanced designers, managers, and senior leaders (directors, VP, CLO, executive, etc.).

Technology discussed in this session:

Microsoft’s Power BI will be discussed as one of many valuable business intelligence tools for analyzing xAPI data. Business intelligence tools can also be used to combine and compare xAPI data with other data sources for robust visualizations.

You’ve heard that VR training experiences have a proven higher retention rate, with retention gains reaching 75 percent in comparison to standard video, eLearning, or textbook training. What you need to know is how to create and deploy VR training quickly and cost-effectively with the systems you have today.

In this session, you will learn the differences between VR, AR, and MR, and how you can apply each of them in the training that you are creating today. You will learn about a new tool, CenarioVR, that allows you to rapidly create VR training by linking together multiple 360-degree images and videos to create an immersive story. This session will also cover the creation, editing, publishing, and tracking of VR training. It will highlight the potential learning applications for using VR, and how you can integrate it into your current learning environment.

In this session, you will learn:

• How to design, author, and deliver your own VR content
• Best practices in instructional design unique to VR environments and VR space as a creation medium
• How to use xAPI data visualizations to analyze the effectiveness and measure the impact of VR content
• How to link multiple 360 videos together and add interaction and instruction to your VR content to create a story

Audience:

Novice to advanced designers, developers, and managers.

Technology discussed in this session:

Virtual reality, 360-degree video images and software, VR hardware, CenarioVR, xAPI, and learning record stores.

Melissa is a rising star at your company. She’s been promoted five times in as many years, and is on track to join your leadership bench program. Unfortunately, she just gave her two weeks’ notice. Capturing the knowledge of exiting employees is just one of the ways you could be using video but probably aren’t. Join this session to explore six real examples of how companies are improving their learning strategies with video. You’ll also explore trends driving the use of video, and how you can tap them within your business.

This session will identify six novel and uncommon ways L&D teams can use video for employee training and communications, based on real examples from companies like Qualcomm, Siemens, Tableau Software, Perkins Coie, and more. You’ll also hear about five technology and social trends that are making video more available and expected among your employees, no matter how much (or how little) you’ve been using video to date.

In this session, you will learn:

• New ways to use video to create and curate formal learning opportunities
• New ways to implement video to support and scale informal learning initiatives at all levels of the organization
• About technology shifts that are making video more accessible to all employees
• How Millennials’ learning experiences in college will accelerate the use of video in business

Audience:

Novice to advanced designers, developers, managers, senior leaders (VP, CLO, executive, etc.), and anyone convinced they could be getting more value out of video.

Technology discussed in this session:

Video storage and streaming, video content search, and video recording.

Millennials and Gen Z are entering the workforce at an accelerating rate. These incoming generations’ expectations from their training media are very different from those of previous generations. Virtual reality training offers a potent tool to address the media and learning needs of these younger generations. However, since VR is still an emerging technology, there is a lack of data and case studies and many misconceptions surrounding cost and best operating practices.

In this session, you will explore the global disruption VR is causing as a medium for training and professional development. You’ll deconstruct the myths surrounding virtual reality through an exploration of case studies and the latest data available. This session will provide you with an overview of the startup cost and the best operating practices to allow you to evaluate the ROI of virtual, computer, and mobile-based simulations.

In this session, you will learn:

• About game-based training
• About virtual reality training
• About computer- and mobile-based simulations
• About gamification

Audience:

Novice to advanced designers, managers, senior leaders, and others.

Technology discussed in this session:

Virtual reality, computer, and mobile simulations.

Learn how large enterprises have successfully implemented digital learning and measured results. Find out how Dell Technologies addressed its digital transformation and upskilling needs with EdCast’s learning experience platform (LXP). The presentation will also highlight how EdCast’s AI and machine learning solutions increase learning relevance and overall engagement at Dell.

With over 150,000 employees, Dell is a leader in the technology space. The skills and capabilities span technical, sales, HR, and professional portfolios. Learn how the company is implementing a digital solution that integrates formal and informal learning with internal and external resources to grow engagement.

In this session, you will learn:

• The best approaches to implementing enterprise-wide digital learning
• How AI and machine learning solutions increase learning relevance and engagement
• The benefits of digital transformation for the enterprise
• Why focusing on upskilling needs is relevant for the future of your organization
• How a digital learning solution can integrate formal and informal learning

Audience:

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

Technology discussed in this session:

Dell’s customized PC and mobile instances of EdCast’s learning experience platform (LXP).

Learning is an intrinsically human activity that happens in many places and in many ways. It doesn’t matter how great or feature-rich any one learning system is; learning will never happen in just one place. The modern learning ecosystem not only recognizes this reality but embraces it to support the learner wherever and however he or she learns best.

Getting started on the journey to a learning ecosystem can seem daunting. So technical, so expensive, so involved and exhausting! But it doesn’t have to be. In fact, you’ll learn five smart hacks for making your journey towards a more mature learning ecosystem easier. These are simple, do-able hacks. You’ll start with a definition of a learning ecosystem—both for beginners and advanced audiences—and get into real, simple, tactical activities you can consider now.

In this session, you will learn:

• A functional definition of what a learning ecosystem is and the reasons companies are implementing them.
• To choose interoperable tools to begin with. Even if you’re not jumping into an ecosystem yet, put interoperability on your requirements checklist for any systems you pick up. You’ll be so happy later down the line.
• To set up a learning record store (LRS). An LRS sets you up to future-proof and standardize your data.
• To make measurement part of your world. The old carpenter’s adage says, “Measure twice, cut once.”
• To have single sign on (SSO) in place. It gives your learners a seamless experience and standardizes reporting.
• To have a “launch-support-improve” campaign. It’s more than adoption at this point, it’s about using the learning ecosystem for one of its key advantages—setting you up for continuous improvement.

Audience:

Designers, developers, managers, and senior leaders (directors, VPs, CLOs, executives, etc.).

Technology discussed in this session:

N/A

Dig-It! Games had a maintenance headache with a dated Cold Fusion data collection system and some data reporting into various applications in the cloud. The data was siloed and lacked any form of normalization to make it interoperable for aggregation and analysis. It was time to change old practices for new, and after a requirements gathering exercise, the team decided to prototype with xAPI. Existing xAPI profiles provided a solid baseline of verbs and activity types, etc., but xAPI contextual data lacked any form of structure. Most industries have a common vocabulary and standards, but xAPI profiles do not address context.

In this session you will learn how, with support from the National Science Foundation, Dig-It! embarked on a research project to create a methodology, tools, and vocabulary for using xAPI in learning games in one industry (K-12) that could be replicated in other industries. Find out how they created a framework for the xAPI specification that combined with existing profiles and libraries for a great launch point to address the problem. You will learn how the framework solved the silos and proprietary nature of learning data from games, and how within 30 days they had a pilot reporting learning data from a JavaScript game to a learning record store. Ultimately, it solved the main problem of creating a solution for collecting data, was basic, and created other challenges.

In this session, you will learn:

• How the team planned and developed the GBLxAPI.org open-source project
• How they developed a global vocabulary catalog with over 450 permanent URIs for use with the extensions and over 2,000 additional URIs for US-only standards
• About their API for Unity to simplify xAPI use in games and simulations
• How their data is now visualized in a third-party BI tool with widgets, dashboards, and export options
• How it’s now easier to share meaningful data with researchers, which ultimately could increase the use of learning games in industries

Audience:

Advanced designers, managers, and senior leaders (directors, VP, CLO, executive, etc.).

Technology discussed in this session:

Free Unity API for integrating xAPI into learning games and simulations developed using the Unity 3D game engine. Free Excel sheet for organizing and planning learning outcomes in learning games. Tools for reporting xAPI data, including use of AI bots.

Microlearning is really hot right now. You may be getting pressure to “go micro” on your projects. Or maybe you are already using microlearning but question whether it’s really instructionally sound. To resolve these issues, you need to have a clear understanding of microlearning use cases, and how to use microlearning to bring the greatest value to your learning programs.

This session will start with a discussion about what microlearning is (and is not). Then you will identify a training program you are working on and use an assessment to identify what parts of that content are a good fit for microlearning. Next, you will explore recommendations for designing effective microlearning resources, and you will create an outline for a piece of microlearning that will address the learning needs of your specific project. You will leave this session knowing how your content fits a microlearning approach, and with a design for a microlearning resource that is instructionally sound.

In this session, you will learn:

• How to define microlearning for your team or organization
• How to identify whether microlearning can make an impact in one of your training programs
• How to create effective microlearning resources
• How to create an outline for a piece of microlearning (text, infographic, interactive eLearning, or video) that will address the learning needs of your specific project

Audience:

Designers and developers.

Technology discussed in this session:

Microlearning.

The two goals of any training program are to teach employees new information and then to enable them to transfer their new knowledge into their workplace. But learning transfer is a complex process, and most trainers do not understand the simple steps that they can take to ensure that knowledge transfers from the computer where it is learned to the workplace where it is needed.

To improve retention and transfer, you need to systematically reinforce training. In this session, you’ll learn of four brain-based techniques that Google is using to overcome the forgetting curve and create sustainable behavior change. These techniques include booster quizzing, social elaboration, strategic coaching, and depth of processing. You’ll see how you can easily incorporate these techniques into training programs and dramatically improve learning and retention.

In this session, you will learn:

• How to deploy a systematic program after training that dramatically increases retention and transfer
• How eLearning training can be customized to increase learning transfer
• How pre-tests, such as measuring an employee’s “readiness for change,” can lead to a much higher rate of learning transfer
• About three myths that interfere with successful transfer of learning
• Strategies to encourage executive buy-in on programs that promote learning transfer

Audience:

Designers, developers, managers, and senior leaders (directors, VP, CLO, executive, etc.).

Technology discussed in this session:

Post-training reinforcement and social media.

Every training department has to begin somewhere. Canned content can save time and money while providing a ready supply of material, especially for a newly developed program. At CTG, pre-purchased content built the base of a program but left a gap between the company’s needs and what was readily available. They needed to leverage that library of content against the principles and practices of instructional design to create engaging training.

In this case study session, you will learn how CTG’s learning and engagement department added customized pieces to pre-purchased content, creating a more tailored and applicable learning experience. You’ll explore how to layer personalized materials with pre-purchased pieces, creating engaging and relevant content to take your company’s training to the next level. You will distinguish between opportunities to transform canned materials by adding to them and when to build your own from scratch. By the time you leave this session, you will have a new approach to content development that will make building your company’s library quick and painless.

In this session, you will learn:

• How pre-purchased content can be leveraged to build a content library
• How to add customization to pre-purchased/created content to provide a unique experience
• Why the instructional design process is still necessary when not building content from scratch
• How to identify opportunities to add to pre-purchased content, and when not to

Audience:

Designers.

Technology discussed in this session:

Articulate Storyline, Adobe Captivate, Microsoft Word, PowerPoint, and Litmos.

Many organizations struggle through the LMS RFP process, suffer low user adoption rates, and are at a loss for how to correct the situation or how to have prevented it. What if there was a way to simplify the RFP and demo process and increase user adoption? To align your LMS with your organization’s culture and learning environment, and to ultimately learn to love and understand your LMS?

In this session, you will learn how to overcome two significant flaws in the LMS world that are actively working against successful implementation and user adoption. The first flaw addressed: LMS setup and maintenance is simple. Find out how to recruit a learning technology analyst to keep your LMS on track. The second flaw addressed: Build it, and they will come. An LMS needs to be aligned with your organization’s culture and learning environment. You will learn how to build and use user personas and use cases to quickly and correctly create a features checklist and solicit focused product demos.

In this session, you will learn:

• How to build user personas based on employee demographics and training data
• How to build LMS use cases for the user personas
• How to use the user personas and use cases to identify LMS needs, facilitate effective demos, and aid change management processes
• How to identify what you need in a learning tech team member and then develop or recruit them

Audience:

Managers and learning systems practitioners.

Technology discussed in this session:

Learning management systems.

First it was a curiosity. The curiosity grew into a fad, and then into a genuine trend. Now it’s a necessity. eLearning long ago left the experimental or pilot stage and is now a mainstream method of training and education. Everyone is doing it. But are they doing it well?

In this session, you will explore the pitfalls and key indicators of success or failure that will help you think differently about how your organization approaches eLearning. The rush to eLearning is littered with the bones of mistakes and judgment errors, and of eLearning projects built on high hopes but not much else. Combine this with a field that is rapidly changing, and it’s clear that getting it all right can be very challenging. Join this session and learn what to do (and what not to do) when you’re getting started—and, perhaps more importantly, how not to screw it all up after you and your organization get going.

In this session, you will learn:

• The most common mistakes organizations make with eLearning
• How to avoid the pitfalls that befell many others
• Specific tips that will help get your eLearning projects off on the right foot
• How to adapt your approach to an ever-changing field

Audience:

Designers, developers, and managers.

As adoption of xAPI begins to take hold, it allows for more robust and interesting tracking of the learning process. As actual performance and results data are integrated with learning metrics, designers will have the necessary data to tailor the learning process to individual needs at the same time that they can draw more useful conclusions about learning as a whole across a wider population.

After a brief introduction to xAPI and what’s new about it from the instructional design side, this session will cover three key areas that impact instructional design: (1) identifying learning data needs, data sources, and meaningful visualizations that answer organizational and L&D questions; (2) making choices about infrastructure—how and when to work with your LMS, your LRS, or both; and (3) models for taking advantage of xAPI across a variety of learning vectors: formal and informal, social and private, formative and summative, predictable and variable.

In this session, you will learn:

• To identify new challenges in your work as an instructional designer
• To describe the impact that xAPI can have on your organization’s learning and performance strategies
• To identify data needs and likely sources within the organization to meet
• To choose one or more first projects that leverage xAPI’s capabilities beyond what’s available in SCORM today

Audience:

Designers, developers, and managers.

Technology discussed in this session:

Experience API (xAPI).

Back by popular demand, Hyperdrive returns to DevLearn this fall. This year’s Hyperdrive competition focuses on innovation, showcasing projects that are using technology and solutions to create new and exciting opportunities for learning and performance support.

In this session, you will learn from the three winning entries in DevLearn Hyperdrive, the competition that took place before DevLearn began. You will learn from individuals and organizations that are pushing the boundaries of what learning and performance support looks like, and you’ll explore examples of technology being harnessed in ways that most others have yet to consider.

In this session, you will learn:

• From cutting-edge examples of innovative learning
• How the projects provide business value
• Why a design decision was made
• About the technologies used in innovative projects

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

Technology discussed in this session:
Various.

If you’ve ever wondered why video games skyrocket in adoption, it’s because they’re created with a complex behavioral science foundation and psychology behind the scenes. For L&D professionals, these same principles can become practice through gamification, allowing you to take your initiatives to the next level. But before blindly jumping on the new, shiny-toy bandwagon, it’s important to understand what a successful gamification strategy entails and how to ultimately drive behavior change.

Before getting carried away with the gamification hype, it’s crucial for L&D professionals to understand that there’s more to it than just badges and leaderboards. This session will dive into the innovative ways businesses are using game-based mechanics, aesthetics, and game thinking to impact employees from day one: onboarding. You’ll explore the steps you can take to incorporate gamification into onboarding to create engaged and motivated employees, leading to increased productivity and retention.

In this session, you will learn:

• What the core drivers of motivation are, and how they relate to gamification
• How to thoughtfully implement gamification into onboarding and L&D programs
• What to avoid when implementing gamification strategies
• How gamification can increase engagement and impact productivity

Audience:

Designers, managers, and senior leaders (directors, VP, CLO, executive, etc.).

There’s a common myth that responsive design means shrinking to fit. It doesn’t! And that’s only the start of the misconceptions then applied to eLearning. The truth is, many designers have several courses that aren’t responsive or are merely paying lip service to being so. You need to start converting them now, otherwise you’re frustrating a huge group of your learners. But where do you start?

In this session, you’ll learn what responsive eLearning is, what it looks and feels like, and how to truly achieve it. You’ll walk through a complete step-by-step guide of: things you need to consider; what you need to prepare; best practice media creation; authoring tools you could use; and how you should test your courses. You’ll explore the differences between creating courses from scratch versus converting existing courses, but you’ll leave with a checklist that can be applied to both instances.

In this session, you will learn:

• What responsive eLearning is, and why it’s essential to accommodate it
• What the key points are for creating a responsive eLearning course
• How to prepare media so that it’s best fit for a responsive course
• What the main considerations are when converting existing eLearning content to a responsive platform
• Which common responsive design mistakes you should avoid
• What you need to evaluate when choosing a responsive authoring tool

Audience:

Designers, developers, and managers.

Technology discussed in this session:

Evolve will be demonstrated, and other HTML5 responsive authoring tools will be discussed.

Thanks to learning technology like Articulate Storyline, you are now able to simulate activities normally performed in person, such as role-playing scenarios for learners. But at what cost? What is lost from the learning experience when learners don’t interact with one another in person? What if, instead of “replacing” these in-person activities using technology, you instead “enhanced” them using technology? Using near-field communication technology, now you can.

In this session, you will learn how NFC technology works; how Expedia used it to create a digital card activity to enhance role-playing customer scenarios, and its business impact; and how you can use NFC technology to create learning activities of your own.

In this session, you will learn:

• How NFC technology works
• How it was used at Expedia to create a digital card activity
• What the business impact of that digital card activity was
• How you can use NFC technology for learning activities

Audience:

Designers, developers, managers, and senior leaders (directors, VP, CLO, executive, etc.).

Technology discussed in this session:

Near-field communication (NFC).

Development programs are often measured though goals and end-of-year reviews, leaving little or no opportunity for coaching or on-the-job training to develop leadership competencies. Opportunities exist to coach and develop leadership competencies daily, but the gap is unidentifiable without any assessment or observation.

In this session, you will learn to use surveys and interviews to find direct linkage from leadership competencies to on-the-job tasks and actions as a means for creating precise learning objectives to develop in-role and pre-role leadership. These objectives are then used to create an observation app for mobile devices and a quick reference on-the-job training tool to provide development plans and tracking of progress. The tracking app links back to a larger program level evaluation to show the impact of the entire program.

In this session, you will learn:

• How to structure a complete 360 formative evaluation
• The technique of creating direct measurable linkage from development to competencies
• How to partner with team members to assess and evaluate impact and effectiveness
• How to utilize a mobile app using SharePoint and PowerApps for observations
• How to devise a method for on-the-job opportunities linked to leadership competencies
• How to evaluate individual performers and developmental programs simultaneously through a single analytic device

Audience:

Designers, developers, managers, and senior leaders (directors, VP, CLO, executive, etc.).

Technology discussed in this session:

Microsoft SharePoint, PowerApps, Power BI, and the iPhone.

Interactive video often has a wow factor that’s hard to deny. What’s critical for L&D, though, is thinking beyond the wow factor to ensure interactive video truly supports learning and performance improvement. Interactive video offers a range of design models, each with different strengths. Understanding how to align those strengths to different learning needs simplifies your design process, reduces development costs, and produces the best results for your organization.

This session will explore the range of interactive video options commonly seen and used, in order to build a reference framework. You’ll discover how these models can then be applied to different types of learning needs, contexts, and situations to take advantage of each model’s strengths. You’ll also work through instructional design strategies for each model to help you begin your planning and design work. And you’ll gain a range of practical tips to help you make your designs come to life with the best possible results for your organization.

In this session, you will learn:

• About the design models commonly used for interactive video
• How these models can support different learning needs and contexts
• Instructional design and planning strategies for each design model
• Practical design and creation tips that help speed up the creation process and improve the end-result learning experience

Audience:

Designers and developers.

Technology discussed in this session:

Interactive video examples, as well as some related authoring and delivery tools.

In this session, The eLearning Guild’s director of research, Jane Bozarth, along with writers of recent research, reviews the Guild’s most recent reports on learning styles, learning platforms, and blended learning. We’ll look at what’s happening—or not happening—industry-wide, with an emphasis on what works, such as what factors support success and what content lends itself best to particular approaches.

This review of research is designed to familiarize you with what’s happening in the field and to help you find ways to be successful with approaches you’re considering, or that you’re already using and would like to enhance. You’ll leave with practical, evidence-based advice to help you engage in conversations and apply new ideas back at work.

In this session, you will learn:

• What practical insights you can gain from current research into learning styles, learning platforms, and blended learning
• State-of-the-industry practices in these areas
• Benefits and barriers facing practitioners
• Solutions to common challenges

Audience:

Designers, developers, and managers.

How often do you source a near-perfect image that you want to manipulate to meet your needs, but don’t know how? Adobe Illustrator and Photoshop are powerful tools for manipulating and creating images and design assets, yet many eLearning designers find them intimidating to approach. Rather than a shotgun approach to learning how to use the software, eLearning designers need to target the tricks that best work for them!

In this session, you will learn how to overcome your fear of Adobe Illustrator and Photoshop to become a visual design asset guru. Using these top tips, you will be able to curate ideal stock illustrations, photographs, and EPS and PSD files to modify in order to create your own design assets. You’ll be guided through the process of finding images suitable for editing, and you’ll learn how to import, crop, add, erase, merge, flatten, and export your way to a visual design masterpiece!

In this session, you will learn:

• How to recognize image file formats and understand their implications
• How to remove backgrounds
• How to crop out unwanted elements while maintaining the integrity of the overall image
• How to combine more than one image
• How to color-correct
• How to add simple effects
• How to import and export images

Audience:

Designers and developers.

Technology discussed in this session:

Adobe Illustrator, Adobe Photoshop, and image stock sites (e.g., Dreamstime and Freepik).

Why are most presentations so bad? Truly terrible? They’re too wordy, text-based, and generally dull. They don’t tell stories that engage, excite, or inspire. And they generally do little to actually help people learn. They are linear and non-responsive, with no interaction—pretty much everything you know doesn’t work to convey information effectively. Few people enjoy creating, delivering, or watching PowerPoint presentations, but that can change.

This is a highly practical session where participants will work together on creating half a dozen amazing slides that work effectively, and where you’ll look at how to use those skills in developing your own presentations. And, because it’s all live, you can see just how quick it is to create compelling visual presentation content, so there’s no excuse for bullet-point slides! Don your thinking caps, and get ready to critique some dreadful “before” slides and take part in transforming them into truly mind-blowing presentations that will energize your audience and make your next training course the best ever.

In this session, you will learn:

• How to create visual slides using the full range of PowerPoint’s tools to generate your own graphics
• Ways to use custom highlighting to focus attention and make your point clearly
• Techniques to tell compelling stories using animations, from simple to sophisticated
• Tricks on creating interactive visual content to engage your audience, whether in person or online
• How to develop navigable presentations so that you can respond to your audience

Audience:

Designers, developers, and managers.

Technology discussed in this session:

Microsoft PowerPoint.

Technology required:

Computer running PowerPoint—ideally PowerPoint 2010 or later on Windows PC, or PowerPoint 2016 on Mac. Earlier versions will have some limited functionality.

Augmented reality (AR) is a widely used technology in games, marketing, and everyday apps, but what about learning and development? Where do you get started? Where do you use it? How should you use it? Finding answers to these questions can cause developers to overlook the potential this technology holds and just how easy, effective, and affordable it can be to get started.

This session will demonstrate how easy it is to get started using AR in development. You will be introduced to free and low-cost tools and resources that will make developing an AR project simple, effective, and engaging. During this session you’ll be hands-on creating an AR experience and have the opportunity to live test some existing AR projects. You will leave this session with the working knowledge of how to plan, build, and share an AR project with the world.

In this session, you will learn:

• The differences between augmented, mixed, and virtual reality
• About free and low-cost tools that are available to create an AR project
• What elements make a successful AR project
• How to incorporate AR into your design workflow
• About AR project ideas that can be implemented into your organization
• How to build an interactive AR project you can showcase after the conference

Audience:

Designers, developers, and managers.

Technology discussed in this session:

Google ARCore, Unity development tool, Zappar Designer, Zappar mobile app, and Zapworks Studio.

Technology required:

Laptop and mobile device.

Sigma Chi Fraternity’s existing, traditional learning methods for incoming pledges weren’t received as well as hoped. Young learners reported the training was too long, too “boring” and not “lit.” What changes could Sigma Chi make that would truly connect with Gen Z pledges while still effectively preparing them for their membership in the fraternity?

In this session, you will see examples of how traditional training methods (eLearning, classroom, video, etc.) were redesigned to be shorter, more engaging, and more effective while appealing directly to Generation Z through the use of things like graphic novels, social media–themed interactions (Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Tinder), digital magazines, gamified interactions, and more. You’ll also hear about the reaction new pledges are having to this redesigned material and the difference it’s making for Sigma Chi Fraternity.

In this session, you will learn:

• How to think about design in a way that may be more appealing to the incoming generation of learners
• How to upgrade courses in simple ways with unique media treatments or interactions to help them feel more modern and fresh
• How trimming content down to what’s most meaningful can create a more impactful experience
• How to use storytelling to give life to what may otherwise be dry content

Audience:

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

Technology discussed in this session:

Unity, Articulate Storyline 360, Google Apps Script, and ClickSend.

The idea of creating motion graphics in programs such as Adobe After Effects can be daunting, time consuming, and expensive—but it doesn’t have to be! If you have Articulate Storyline, you have the power to create memorable motion graphic videos that are quick and inexpensive to produce.

In this session, you’ll learn how to plan, organize, design, and quickly develop a motion graphic video utilizing Articulate Storyline and a free audio editing program called Audacity. These simple yet compelling videos are a wonderful way to tell stories and appeal to both visual and auditory learners. Get tips and guidance on how to get started making your own motion graphic videos today! Topics discussed will include script writing and storyboard planning, audio editing tools, animation and motion features in Storyline, how to structure your Storyline layers and timelines, and publishing your video.

In this session, you will learn:

• How to plan a script/storyboard for a motion graphic video
• Tips on organizing content within Storyline to make for quicker and easier editing and animating
• How to utilize Audacity (freeware audio editing) when building motion graphic videos
• How to use motion paths and animation effects in Storyline to bring your story to life

Audience:

Designers and developers.

Technology discussed in this session:

Articulate Storyline2/360, Audacity, Adobe Premiere, screen capture software, Vimeo/Youtube.

With the technology landscape changing rapidly, questions are posed to L&D to answer how emerging technologies could be leveraged to improve learning and development across organizations. You may be an emerging technology guru and able to answer these questions easily, or you may be like many of us and struggle to find the time to do your research on every emerging tech trend in L&D.

In this session, you’d learn the information you need to speak with authority on current emerging technologies, their relevance to L&D, their potential impact, and how to get started in exploring their use. Topics will include blockchain, artificial intelligence (AI), chatbots, AR, VR, biometrics, machine learning, adaptive learning, and more. You’ll leave this session armed with the data you need to determine which emerging technologies are most relevant for your organization, which ones may be interesting to explore in the future, and how your organization can be ready for the next wave of emerging technologies to expand your L&D portfolio.

In this session, you will learn:

• What emerging technologies are on the radar for L&D
• How each emerging technology is relevant to L&D
• What companies have been early adopters/explorers in each emerging technology
• Who the major vendors are for each emerging technology (where relevant)
• How to get started in researching or piloting each emerging technology

Audience:

Designers, developers, managers, and senior leaders (directors, VPs, CLOs, executives, etc.).

Technology discussed in this session:

Blockchain, AI, chatbots, AR, VR, biometrics, machine learning, adaptive learning, predictive analytics for learning.

It’s the job within the job—in addition to designing and developing amazing training solutions, instructional designers often must also plan, organize, and manage their projects. This can be a daunting task, as projects have many components and moving pieces to stay on top of in addition to the actual design and development work.

In this session, you will learn how to create a project plan that will grow and flex to your project needs using something you probably already have access to—Microsoft Excel. You’ll explore a project plan that was used for a large-scale project in order to see practical real-world examples. In addition, you will also learn how to track and organize project information such as budget, communications, stakeholders, and more. You’ll leave this session with a clear understanding of how to develop and maintain a project plan, and with practical tips you can immediately apply back on the job.

In this session, you will learn:

• Why it’s worth taking the time to develop and maintain a project plan
• How to set up a project plan using Excel in a way that allows you to easily view a high-level and detailed status
• How to stay on top of the waterfall of information associated with a project
• Best practices for maintaining a project plan

Audience:

Designers, developers, and managers.

Technology discussed in this session:

Microsoft Excel.

Companies spend billions of dollars trying to understand consumer behavior, but the L&D groups in these same organizations may not be leveraging those insights and strategies to reach their learners. If you look at your learning solutions as a product that you want your learners to consume, where are you creating friction that discourages those learning consumers? And what can you do about it?

In this session, you’ll examine the Fogg Behavior Model and the ideas around “frictionless commerce,” and apply them to your learning organization. You’ll leave this session with a friction assessment of your learning ecosystem, along with a toolkit of strategies you can explore to eliminate that friction in your organization. Moreover, you’ll leave with a new perspective on your learners and their motivations, and how you can best reach them.

In this session, you will learn:

• How to use the Fogg Behavior Model to identify points of friction in your learning ecosystem
• How to translate the five pain points of frictionless commerce to your learning ecosystem
• Opportunities for improvement in your learning ecosystem
• How to identify potential solutions to the friction in your learning ecosystem

Audience:

Designers, developers, managers, and senior leaders (directors, VPs, CLOs, executives, etc.).

Technology discussed in this session:

xAPI, Netflix.

The learning experience (LX) team at LLamasoft meets the learning needs of customers as they use the company’s software to solve problems. Prior to this project, they had limited insight into how internal and external users navigated the help system, and they were unable to analyze whether, and when, users watched the videos the team produced. Without this information, they could not measure the utilization and reach of their tutorials. They wanted to know whether this was a worthwhile investment of time, and whether users found the videos useful. Upon further evaluating the help platform, they realized that this lack of visibility extended to search terms and page views.

In this session, you will learn how the team mapped out key touch points within the help system from which to collect data and the code to generate xAPI statements. You’ll learn how they made a prototype where they added packaged scripts into the help system that sent xAPI statements from the HTML-based help content. Using xAPI, they could now see the search terms used, which helps them understand what topics users are really looking for. Insight into users’ video viewing behavior can help to show whether users are finding the videos to be useful, and what the reach of each video is. Finally, it allows for page view data about a user’s session, which provides insight into how they navigate through the system and helps the LLamasoft team accurately shape future developments and deployments of their software to customers.

In this session, you will learn:

• How the team mapped key touch points to create a strategy and collect data
• About their prototype for sending xAPI statements from help content
• How the data they collected allows them to conceptualize at a deeper level about the importance of looking at learning experiences
• About the impact of collaborative teams that provided a path to understand how learning materials affect the actual use of the software

Audience:

Advanced designers, managers, and senior leaders (directors, VP, CLO, executive, etc.).

Technology discussed in this session:

xAPI.

Employee training expenses in North America exceed $70 billion each year. Unfortunately, much of that learning is passive, dull, and uninteresting—in other words, not effective. An alternative to this type of training is to provide active, interesting, and engaging instruction—in other words, effective instruction. This session will showcase how game-based training motivates learners, improves retention, and drives better business results.

This session will explore six performance objectives and align a unique game mechanic with each one. You will create and play a meaningful, motivational, and memorable game and compete for real-world prizes. This session will provide you with a new toolkit for game-based training and some exercises that you can bring back to your corporate classroom.

In this session, you will learn:

• How to identify the right game mechanic for your training objectives
• How to build fun and effective custom training games in minutes
• How to analyze detailed data analytics to assess learning gaps and behaviors
• How different game types and mechanics can help increase knowledge retention

Audience:

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

Technology discussed in this session:

This session will leverage The Training Arcade to create a game on a PC, and any attendee will be able to play the game on their phone, tablet, or PC with WiFi.

Technology is driving every aspect of business, and learning is no exception. Driven by an always-on, mobile culture, learners today have an “instant gratification” mindset and are easily distracted by email pings, text message buzzes, and fitness tracker updates. For instructional designers and other eLearning pros, this means every second counts when fighting for attention, focus, and retention. How do you arrest attention away from everyday distractions and deliver engaging content?

Video is a catalyst for engagement. Studies show that adding video to your content improves the ability to remember concepts and details with effects that increase over time. Plus, your audience prefers video over static content like slide decks—it’s simply more interesting. In this session, you’ll learn how to move from static presentations to video. You’ll find out how to boil your subject matter down to its key components, approach story and dialogue writing, and reimagine your content as video. Learn to use the power of dynamic visual elements, sound effects, and music to captivate your audience and drive your message home.

In this session, you will learn:

• How to develop compelling stories and scenarios that hold learners’ attention
• How to write realistic-sounding dialogue that supports your learning objectives
• How to visualize your ideas in a storyboard
• How to build a complete animated video from start to finish

Audience:

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

Technology discussed in this session:

Vyond Studio.

When it comes to developer training and software training, many of today’s most common training methods—self-paced, instructor-led, and more—have not kept pace with the needs of the modern learner. In a world of shrinking attention spans, how do you deliver software learning that ultimately keeps your learners focused and engaged?

In this session, you will learn about the power of learning by doing and how it takes shape in the form of virtual training lab environments for software training and developer training. Find out why some of the world’s most innovative organizations are doubling down on virtual labs so their learners can learn and build new software. You will also discover use cases relevant to your software learning needs, such as product training for employees, customer and partner enablement, product demos, lead generation, and more.

In this session, you will learn:

• About virtual software training labs, and why they are a fast-emerging technology
• The advantages of virtual labs over simulations, VMs, and other methods for software learning
• How virtual lab environments are being applied for customer training, partner training, employee training, product sales demos, and more
• How to use virtual labs to lower the friction for getting started with your software or dev toolkit
• How to increase developer mindshare for your product or SDK

Audience:

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

Technology discussed in this session:

Virtual training labs, online learning platforms, and personal learning environments.

One of the keys to making effective training videos is to gather feedback from stakeholders and colleagues along the way. However, the headaches associated with this process can frustrate and deter even the best content developers. The process can take longer than desired, feedback can be provided on the wrong areas, and often feedback comes at the last minute, causing a major rework way too late.

In this session, you will learn the main themes discovered in interviews with over 100 chief learning officers and instructional designers addressing feedback cycles for video content. Attendees will be provided a series of best practices that can help reduce the frustration involved with this process. Additionally, attendees will see a live demo of TechSmith Video Review, a new tool designed specifically for designers and developers creating videos. With this tool, reviewers can leave time-anchored comments and mark up the video using drawing tools as they watch. Making it simpler for reviewers leads to faster turnaround times and quick project completions.

In this session, you will learn:

• The importance of proper feedback loops in the video development process
• How to get feedback on video content being developed that is actionable and useful
• The insights shared by numerous training executives and practitioners related to reviewing video content
• How to utilize new tools to simplify and streamline feedback loops during video creation
• How to consolidate and manage feedback on videos in a single secure location

Audience:

Novice to advanced designers, developers, and managers.

Technology discussed in this session:

Videos, mobile, TechSmith Camtasia, TechSmith Snagit, and TechSmith Video Review.

Modern learning and development (L&D) organizations make it a priority to improve employees’ skills and enhance knowledge—not yearly or monthly, but continuously. These successful organizations have moved away from disconnected, rigid courses and instead enabled flexible, multipurpose, agile learning content. By ensuring their learning content is rich, dynamic, and personalized, they provide their teams with the tools to drive their own learning. As a result, the value of every content asset is maximized and production is streamlined. But many organizations have struggled for years to find a way to enable this dynamic learning. Often, learning content is stored in silos, making it difficult to find and reuse. Reviewing and updating courses is time-consuming, creating derivative courses is problematic, and version control is a nightmare. Distributing learning content in multiple formats (SCORM, PDF, EPUB, HTML, XML, etc.) requires painstaking rework. Sound familiar?

Adopting a learning content management system (LCMS) can help you resolve these challenges by removing content silos; enriching your content assets to make them more discoverable and reusable; streamlining the course development, editing, and review processes; ensuring courses meet quality standards; and enabling team members to easily publish learning content across multiple channels. Join this session to learn how the right LCMS can benefit your organization—and your employees.

In this session, you will learn:

• What a learning content management system (LCMS) is
• The difference between an LMS and an LCMS
• How an LCMS can help you to better store, enrich, discover, assemble, reuse, analyze, and disseminate your learning content
• What an LCMS does and how it works
• Whether an LCMS is right for your organization

Audience:

Novice to advanced designers, developers, managers, and senior leaders (directors, VPs, CLOs, executives, etc.).

Technology discussed in this session:

Ixxus Learning Content Management System (LCMS).

LMS, move over. LRS, you are so last year. LXPs, or learning experience platforms, are the new kids on the block. This session will highlight an emerging category of digital learning tools, the learning experience platforms, and help you to draw your own conclusions about what an LXP really is and how it could be useful in your context.

You’ll discover the results of extensive user research around the concept of learning experience platforms, including the role that “personalization” artificial intelligence might play in the user experience. You will explore the role of the instructional designer as the linchpin in a learning experience versus users simply “discovering” new content. You’ll walk away from this session with a clear idea as to whether an LXP could be a useful new tool, or whether it’s just a bunch of old ideas dressed up in new terminology.

In this session, you will learn:

• About the conditions that have made the learning experience platform concept come to life
• What research suggests learners (and their managers) want from an LXP
• About the capabilities that good LXPs seek to deliver
• The likely differences between LXPs and existing categories of software, including the LMS
• The seven habits of highly effective LXPs

Audience:

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

Technology discussed in this session:

Learning experience platforms, xAPI, AI tools, and personalized learning tools.

Today’s networked businesses must contend with unprecedented levels of complexity and variety. Business simulations provide active, dynamic learning solutions where learners can replicate realistic business environments as safe-to-fail spaces, so learners can authentically model complex, long-term challenges and improve their performance without any real risk. Managing the conceptual and technical load of creating gamified simulations can be its own challenge—but this session will show you how it’s done.

In this case study session, find out how Diageo used a data-driven bar simulation to redefine best practice and make their highly complex net revenue management content easy to understand and enjoyable to learn. You’ll discover how digital simulations derived from real business data close the organizational feedback loop and drive positive behavior change to make a real difference to bottom-line priorities. Explore the theory and practice of how immersive, credible learning experiences provided by this gamified simulation improved decision-making and strategy execution across all levels of a leading global organization—and how it can work for you.

In this session, you will learn:

• The difference between data-driven and scenario-driven simulations
• All about examples of learning simulations making a real impact on business revenue and outcomes
• The nuts and bolts of designing and planning a business simulation—and how to make the lessons stick
• The key takeaways from the development and rollout of complex simulation projects

Audience:

Designers, developers, managers, and senior leaders (directors, VP, CLO, executive, etc.).

Technology discussed in this session:

Diageo NRM—a gamified bar simulation solution displayed via PC.

As expectations rise for the impact you create, but the timeline for creating impact becomes shorter, it can feel like you’re scrambling to find newer and better approaches to design. From waterfall to agile to design thinking, there’s no shortage of methodologies to choose from, but how do you know which is right? Is waterfall bad? Does agile equate to speed and design thinking to engagement? Does it matter?

In this session, you’ll learn a simple framework for selecting the best approach for the problem you want to solve, and you’ll practice applying it to a scenario. Walk away with a set of user experience design tools that help you identify and prioritize assumptions, conduct user-centric research, set goals that hold your team accountable, and engage stakeholders in generating ideas.

In this session, you will learn:

• A simple framework for selecting the right design methodology for the problem you want to solve
• How to use proto-personas to synthesize user research and articulate learner needs and goals
• How to write hypothesis statements that define and measure the outcomes your learning initiatives should achieve
• A collaborative design method that engages your stakeholders to create the best possible solution for meeting the outcomes you’ve defined

Audience:

Designers, developers, and managers.

Technology discussed in this session:

POP app and Google Slides.

In order to meet compliance training requirements, many organizations subject their workforce to isolated training events. Organizations choose this approach based on regulations that mandate training in specific topics, but this does not translate into the workforce understanding the mandated behavior associated with these topics. This approach persists because training engagements are easy to track and serve as evidence for compliance even though they are not viewed as particularly effective.

In this session, you will learn how setting the vision for a different organizational compliance training program can ensure you get the buy-in you need from your many stakeholders. You will learn how to translate learning objectives within your dreaded “nexter” courses into effective animated videos. You’ll see how a simple Storyline asset can become a performance-based assessment to provide customized learning. Finally, you will be given suggestions for strategic communications planning that can prevent your program from stalling out of the gate. Results of a recent enterprise-wide implementation, which substantially reduced overhead training costs, will also be presented.

In this session, you will learn:

• Where and when to incorporate microlearning videos to address compliance training (and where to NOT use them)
• How to integrate a performance-based assessment and microlearning videos into your agency learning management system (LMS)
• About the role strategic communication plays in the success of your microlearning program
• How to design a series of microlearning engagements to address a particular content theme
• How to engage with key stakeholders to make them program champions
• How to measure the program’s return on investment

Audience:

Designers, managers, and senior leaders (directors, VP, CLO, executive, etc.).

Technology discussed in this session:

GoAnimate and Articulate Storyline.

In 2017, 73 percent of L&D respondents to a client survey cited “application to real work” as an important characteristic of leadership development programs, particularly as related to mid-level management. And yet many L&D practitioners do not have a clear path to providing ways for their learners to apply their new knowledge and skills on the job. This session will share best practices for integrating learning with real work.

Today’s busy managers have little patience for learning something they might use “someday.” Learners want actionable solutions to their day-to-day challenges. But what about building capabilities that require leaders to go deeper to learn new concepts? This session will unpack the design challenge of addressing both conceptual and actionable learning. You’ll get access to models for integrating learning with real work, brought to life with real examples. You’ll leave wanting to create a library of actionable projects that you can offer to your learners. And you’ll have a framework to integrate this approach into your measurement strategy.

In this session, you will learn:

• How to design actionable models and assignments that integrate learning with work
• What learning experiences provide immediate value to managers
• How to leverage learning design to measure meaningful business impact
• How to help learners bridge the gap between knowing and doing

Audience:

Designers.

Technology discussed in this session:

Brightspace Core, and Webex and other webinar platforms.

Training alone does not drive performance—it contributes only to potential. Performance does not manifest until learners become performers at their point-of-work (PoW). This means that learning needs to converge with work, and doing this effectively requires holistic learning and performance assessments at the PoW. These evolved discovery methods then require enhanced performance consulting skills and tactics to enable L&D solutions that are agile and responsive.

If the rules of engagement have changed, so must L&D tactics and solutions to best serve learners and performers. In this session, you’ll learn how to address both using a learning performance continuum spanning from point-of-entry (PoE) to PoW. You’ll learn evolved performance consulting discovery tactics used in a holistic, repeatable learning performance assessment methodology. You’ll also learn how intentional design blends formal learning and performance support assets that thread learning continuity from PoE to PoW. If we desire agility in our workforce, L&D needs to be at least as agile and responsive to their demands from learning to work.

In this session, you will learn:

• How to evolve your discovery tactics to adopt a learning performance assessment methodology
• How to address a learning continuum through adopting intentional design
• How to identify where embedded performance support fits on the continuum
• What to consider in the event performance support technology is a good fit

Audience:

Designers, managers, and senior leaders (directors, VPs, CLOs, executives, etc.).

Technology discussed in this session:

LMS/LES, portals, DPS, cloud-based digital performance support

Often, when companies are faced with an issue or problem, the solution they lean toward is training. With training being a billion-dollar industry, companies invest large amounts of capital in the development of their employees. One aspect that is often neglected, however, is measuring the impact of the training on the employees and the company.

In this session, you will learn more about how JetBlue University uses industry best practices to measure the effectiveness of their training, and how the company works closely with their design and development team to improve training programs for crew members.

In this session, you will learn:

• How JetBlue University uses survey data collection to obtain feedback from crew members about training
• How JetBlue University develops and measures crew member learning through knowledge-based assessments
• How JetBlue University develops and measures crew member learning through skill-based assessments
• How JetBlue University incorporates operational data to measure training impact in the operation

Audience:

Designers, developers, managers, and senior leaders (directors, VP, CLO, executive, etc.).

You are struggling to find ways to increase sales within your organization through learning design. Every minute a salesperson is away from selling costs the company money. You need fast, effective, and impactful models of how to develop sales training that works.

In this session, you will learn about three methods to create effective sales training and positive selling outcomes. One is the example of converting a live classroom role-play into an online simulation, which increased sales by 12 percent at a medical device company. Second is an example of how a customized card game helped sales representatives embrace role-plays and discover how to apply the company sales model to realistic situations. Third, you will learn how a board game helped pharmaceutical sales representatives learn how to conduct a “whole office call” using consultative selling techniques.

In this session, you will learn:

• The steps needed to convert a live, in-person role-play to an online simulation
• How you can use board games to teach complex systems
• About the positive impact that sales simulations and games can have on a sales force
• Design principles that make sales-based learning interventions effective

Audience:

Designers and senior leaders (directors, VP, CLO, executive, etc.).

You’ve started using live-action video at work. Perhaps you’ve used it in the past but weren’t happy with the results. If this is you, you’ll agree that using live action to tell a story with the goal of educating the viewer is challenging. A video can just as easily distract or confuse as it can inspire and educate. And it can be expensive to get it wrong!

In this session, you will explore how the five fundamental dimensions of filmmaking taught at film school can be applied to creating live-action videos for learning. You will learn how to combine your knowledge of learning principles with some of the first principles of the film industry, and how to bake this into your scripts to maximize the efficiency and effectiveness of how you bring your concepts to life. Ultimately, you will learn to create more compelling live-action learning videos.

In this session, you will learn:

• How you can use light and color to convey warm vs. cold feelings, saving you valuable storytelling time
• How to use the 2-D space of a screen to focus attention by placing the most important information on the right
• How depth and volume allow you to manipulate point of view and angles to convey new information about characters
• How to neatly control subjective time and use slow vs. accelerated motion to create momentum
• How sounds can convey time, mood, perspective, location, and environment, among many other pieces of information, in your videos

Audience:

Designers, developers, and managers.

Technology discussed in this session:

Video-based learning.

A recent survey by Donald H. Taylor, chairman of the Learning and Performance Institute, revealed that enterprise collaboration is falling out of favor with L&D. Forrester Research has shown that roughly 80 percent of enterprise social platform implementations fail. In recent years, social technology has fractured into social intranets, enterprise social networks, and chat platforms. What are we to make of this? Has social lost its way? Have expectations been overinflated? Should L&D let go … or do more?

In this session, you’ll examine the real value that social technology can bring to an organization through the examination of 10 principles you can leverage to guide your own efforts. You will learn strategies to set the stage for success and how to present data to paint an accurate picture of incremental workforce transformation. Finally, you’ll explore the methods you can take to grow greater partnerships with employees, management, and executives to grow work networks and increase the engagement, innovation, and agility your organization demands.

In this session, you will learn:

• How to cut through the bells and whistles and get back to the foundation of social
• How to use your L&D skills to support workflow learning
• Examples of approaches used to move individuals and groups forward
• Tips on how to identify, capture, and promote the right data to drive decisions
• Why ROI and ROE have no value and are merely vanity metrics

Audience:

Managers, directors, and senior leaders.

Technology discussed in this session:

Enterprise social technology including, but not limited to, Yammer, Jive, WorkPlace, and Slack.

Getting bored with standard Adobe Captivate advanced actions and states? Dive deep into a case study of layered advanced actions and states in a real-world Captivate project. The project has overlay navigation screens, branching sections, and multi-screen knowledge checks. You will learn the benefits and challenges of each part, as well as how they might work in your projects.

In this case study session, find out how the project included several modules with the overlay navigation template. You’ll explore how the layered sections added to the sophisticated presentation of the content, and the issues that arose while developing the modules. You’ll learn how the actions and states allow users independence in exploring the interactive elements. You’ll see how the project connected multiple Captivate files, XML elements, and PDFs to provide resources for the users.

In this session, you will learn:

• How advanced actions and states were used in an “explore the terms” interaction
• How the main Captivate file connected to a secondary support file for resources
• How external resources were added to the project and made available on-demand for the users
• Benefits and warnings for designers and developers in reproducing specific interactive content
• Best practices for naming elements in a multi-module interactivity

Audience:

Designers and developers.

Technology discussed in this session:

Adobe Captivate.

When you move toward designing and delivering mobile learning experiences, many common questions come up. How do you shrink a complex, computer-based, live learning experience down to mobile size for learners on the go? How can you teach nuanced, sophisticated soft skills to a senior-level audience using a mobile platform? What’s different and challenging about designing mobile courseware?

Designing effective and engaging courses for mobile delivery presents a new set of challenges. In this session, you’ll walk through a process for mobile instructional design that addresses practical solutions to constraints such as small screen size, limited typing, and short learning windows. You’ll also take a closer look at a case study to learn about a design and prototyping process that resulted in a mobile learning solution praised by senior-level practitioners for its ease of use and depth of content.

In this session, you will learn:

• About challenges encountered in mobile course design
• Creative solutions to optimize learning and engagement without sacrificing usability in mobile delivery
• Strategies, techniques, and tips to deliver soft-skills training in a mobile format
• A successful design and prototyping approach to mobile course development

Audience:

Designers, developers, managers, and senior leaders (directors, VP, CLO, executive, etc.).

Technology discussed in this session:

Course design and delivery for iPhone users.

In the 2017 LinkedIn Learning Workplace Report, employers reported leadership skills were crucial. Yet when it comes to developing skills, many current offerings teach what to do but lack practice in how to do it. Learners may try role-plays or pre-recorded simulations, but are you truly moving the needle on performance? In light of shrinking budgets, limited time, and lack of effectiveness, how can you demonstrate impactful gains at scale?

Virtual reality (VR) simulations solve the three most compelling training problems: cost, consistency, and impact. In this session, you’ll explore how the emerging field of VR is used for leadership development and discover how learning leaders use VR to realize cost savings. You’ll hear about the latest research in VR from a leading researcher and experience an immersive, realistic learning event in 2-D VR without leaving the room. Find out how leading corporations are using VR simulations to provide a safe, consistent place to practice leadership interpersonal skills at an accelerated pace with learners who are distributed across the globe.

In this session, you will learn:

• How learning leaders are leveraging VR for cost savings
• How VR content can be customized to your workplace
• Why VR solves the three most compelling training problems—cost, consistency, and impact
• About the latest research and VR learning models used by industry leaders

Audience:

Designers, managers, and senior leaders (directors, VP, CLO, executive, etc.).

Technology discussed in this session:

A 2-D virtual reality simulation for leadership skills development.

Learning happens all around us and in all different forms. You want to reach your target audience in as many ways and as simply as possible. You also face budget limitations, internal IT roadblocks, and enterprises architecture or purchasing challenges.

In this session, you’ll explore real-world scenarios in which organizations solved problems by using one or more non-traditional platforms for delivering accessible learning experiences. You’ll learn the simple ways existing platforms can be used to help people learn and engage, and opportunities to measure effectiveness in these platforms.

• Simple technologies to deliver content
• Ways to combine platforms for effective learning experiences
• Methods for rapid prototyping and testing of these platforms
• Techniques for capturing data from these platforms

Audience:

Intermediate to advanced designers, developers, managers, directors, and senior leaders (VP, CLO, executive, etc.).

Technology discussed in this session:

Mailchimp, SendGrid, Thinkific, WordPress, learning record stores, Google Analytics, xAPI, Help Desk, Knowledge Base.

It is no secret that personalized content is more relevant and engaging. Engaging a network of different people in a world saturated with content requires organizations to deliver relevant and personalized information at the right time, in the right place. Travel technology behemoth Amadeus needed to engage and connect a network of 1 million people. The team needed to renew their learning and development strategy and get everyone onboard.

In this case study session, find out how Amadeus scaled personalized learning, engaged users, and synchronized their global operations. You’ll explore how the team developed and scaled their L&D strategy with a learning experience platform, and how to overcome geographic barriers to curate personalized learning content for an expansive global network.

In this session, you will learn:

• How to develop an L&D strategy to scale to a million people
• How to choose the right learning platform for your specific organizational challenges
• How to deliver a new learning solution and get everyone on board
• How to build an agile learning solution so it changes as technology evolves

Audience:

Managers and senior leaders (directors, VP, CLO, executive, etc.).

Technology discussed in this session:

Face-to-face learning events (meetings, onboarding, team-building, ILT courses, etc.) are often confined to a closed space like a training room. What if you could go beyond the room without leaving the physical space? What if you wanted the org chart, or the company history on the wall, to come alive? What if you could augment reality with meaningful clues to collect in order to solve a puzzle? With low budget?

Bring your Apple or Android device! First, you will experience a simple augmented scavenger hunt using your phone or tablet. Ordinary pictures will come alive. In the second part of the session, you will go behind the scenes. You will explore three applications that work together to create engaging augmented reality learning experiences on a relatively low budget: the ClueKeeper scavenger hunt app, the Zappar augmented reality app, and one more. At the end of the session, the group will brainstorm some practical ideas for you to take home.

In this session, you will learn:

• How to design an augmented reality scavenger hunt
• How to engage users to explore new products, intranet, or applications in your organization
• How to create an illusion of static pictures coming alive
• How to use physical cards that turn into how-to videos in your hand

Audience:

Designers, developers, managers, and senior leaders (directors, VP, CLO, executive, etc.).

Technology discussed in this session:

Augmented reality (through the integration of ClueKeeper and Zappar apps), and photo manipulation into GIFs or videos.

Technology required:

ClueKeeper app on Apple or Android devices.

In the past few years, voice user experiences—like Alexa, Google, Cortana, and Siri—are becoming as prolific as laptops, smartphones, and tablets. Learning professionals need to start exploring ways to effectively incorporate voice technology into the learning ecosystem. Designing for voice interaction can be intimidating because the tech is so new. How do you translate your existing skills in order to create engaging voice learner experiences?

In this session, you’ll learn how to translate your existing skills to design for a voice user interface (VUI). You will explore the basics of VUI design, including sample dialogs, flow diagrams, prompt lists, and mocks. Then you will apply these concepts using free tools to develop and test a VUI learning experience that you can then use to program an interaction for a voice AI like Alexa or Google Home. You will leave this session armed with tools that you can take back and use immediately to prototype and demo.

In this session, you will learn:

• How smart devices like Alexa and Google Home work at a high level
• Key voice design elements and their role in the process
• How to design a voice user interface learning experience
• Core principles and best practices of VUI design

Audience:

Designers, developers, and managers.

Technology discussed in this session:

SaySpring, Echosim, Alexa SDK, and Google Voice API.

Technology required:

Laptop or iPad.

Being 508-compliant is meant to make your courses more accessible, but creating 508-compliant courses can be very difficult. Different requirements, changing definitions, and clarifying expectations will add hours to any project.

When it comes to tools for helping developers create 508-compliant courses, the industry has come a long way. This session explores some of these tools and shows how 508 compliance can be much more accessible for everyone.

In this session, you will learn:

• About 508 compliance tests
• About 508-compliant authoring
• How to define your level of 508 compliance
• How to reduce development time of 508-compliant courses

Audience:

Novice to advanced developers.

eLearning has traditionally been overly complex. Learning management systems are clunky and hard to use. eLearning content must be created by experts, meaning that the turnaround time for creating content is extensive, with trainers unable to edit and update content with ease. As a result, trainers often resort to “boring” training resources, such as PDFs, Word docs, and videos. The result is a repetitive learning experience and a disengaged learner.

This session will explain the process behind building a tool that anybody can use to create and deliver engaging online training. It will break down eLearning creation and delivery into its fundamental parts, identifying the pain points of traditional eLearning and pinpointing the key areas of need for the eLearning space. You’ll then examine how to rebuild an eLearning platform in its simplest form, stripping away unnecessary complexity and creating a tool that’s accessible at any skill level. You’ll explore the step-by-step process of creating an intuitive UX and UI experience based on the psychological principles of learning, for both the trainer and trainee.

In this session, you will learn:

• How reducing the complexity of eLearning tools can lead to an enhanced learning experience, better training outcomes, and ROI
• Why simplifying the trainer experience can directly impact learner outcomes
• The pedagogical theory that informs tool design and product management
• The step-by-step process behind refactoring the UX design of a tool

Audience:

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

Technology discussed in this session:

eCoach.

Curious about how to keep up with constantly changing technology? Wondering how to shift your learning programs to be more relevant and useful for today’s learning? Not sure how to plan for the future workforce? This session explores the evolution and new frontiers of learning technology—innovations that are making learning more immersive, contextual, and relevant for learners both today and in the future.

This session will help you gain a deeper understanding of how technology is evolving to shape learning programs. You’ll explore how to embrace new technology and design and make them an integral part of the learning narrative. See how technologies such as mixed reality, artificial intelligence, and 3-D animation are revolutionizing training. You’ll gain insights into the challenges of learning today, and how innovative learning design and technology can truly bridge the gap.

In this session, you will learn:

• How the technology boom of the past decade impacts learning
• About the latest technological innovations that are revolutionizing learning
• How emerging technologies and thoughtful learning design can transform learning programs
• How to better apply new technologies to meet learning needs

Audience:

Intermediate to advanced designers, developers, managers, and senior leaders (directors, VPs, CLOs, executives, etc.).

Technology discussed in this session:

Mixed reality, AR, and VR; artificial intelligence; 3-D and animation; gaming and simulation; and evolving instructional design.

What is innovation? How do you recognize it? Most importantly, how do you continuously innovate in your training design and pedagogy? Come find answers to these questions and more, and walk away with new ideas that will help you drive innovation in your training and development programs.

This session will help you see the difference between “what works” and “innovation” and understand how to move toward innovation. The evidence tells you what works—your creativity tells you what might work, but innovation creates the evidence of what actually does work.

In this session, you will learn:

• How to apply IDEAS pedagogy
• How to use thinking and creative tools
• How to include reflection in training and reward discovery
• How to use teams and project-based learning to foster innovation

Audience:

Intermediate to advanced designers, managers, trainers, and others in L&D, HR, and staff development.

Technology discussed in this session:

Blackboard solutions.

For an enormous number of organizations, training requirements are still driven by urgency, the need for rapid development and deployment, and the need to meet regulatory and management compliance requirements. Many organizations are still in transition from face-to-face training and manual tracking systems. This session will describe the simple procedures and best practices you can enact that will work with any training platform while reducing your risk of failure.

This session will illustrate simple techniques for the rapid development and deployment of online training resources and activities using anecdotes and statistical evidence drawn from a user base of 88,000 member organizations and 166,000 courses. The session is reflective of the user base and demographics of the organizations that have used Udutu, and may not represent all situations, but will be of interest to anyone curious about what goes on in other training organizations around the world and how they deal with challenges. The session will provide an easy-to-follow framework for agile course development, and tips on how to leverage subject matter expertise and non-professionals to develop engaging and interactive training resources.

In this session, you will learn:

• A simple rapid development and deployment methodology
• Why compliance training still drives budgets and frustrations
• About training people external to your organization
• How to take the risk out of transitioning from F2F or a legacy learning system
• About trends observed in 88,000 training organizations around the world
• How to use Windows Kiosk mode for offline learning that must integrate with an online LMS

Audience:

Intermediate to advanced developers, managers, and senior leaders (directors, VPs, CLOs, executives, etc.).

Technology discussed in this session:

Browser-based learning activities on any device that supports a browser. The session will also illustrate how an offline training program can be integrated where bandwidth or connectivity issues are a problem. Most examples of online course development will utilize the free Udutu authoring tool.

Halliburton is one of the leading global oil and gas services companies. It has more than 50,000 employees and 14 product service lines, which means any improvement in efficiency is a major win. Its oil and gas exploration clients and internal Halliburton employees use Landmark software to identify drilling locations and make technical decisions on how to drill, an activity that can take up to 40 percent of their work time. That’s why it’s so important to help these users learn how to best use this software: so they can not only find the best locations for drilling and make the best technical decisions, but also identify them more quickly by leveraging everything the software has to offer. In order to develop resources to help these users, it’s important to be connected to the field and to understand how people are working and learning. The better you understand the process as applied in reality, the better you can evaluate the data and see if you are missing anything.

In this session, you will learn how a Halliburton team approached the exploration of new, innovative learning strategies by first using an online survey tool with embedded video content from their Kaltura video platform and added questions to assess learning. You’ll then see how they combined the experiences from their Halliburton software, Kaltura video platform, and online learning activities into one dashboard using xAPI and the Watershed learning analytics platform. In addition to understanding how people are using the software, they can identify who isn’t and why. Through Kaltura and Watershed, they have a 360-degree view of what’s going on and how training has a real-world impact on users’ behavior.

In this session, you will learn:

• About Halliburton’s dashboard using xAPI and the Watershed learning analytics platform
• How Kaltura and Watershed provided a 360-degree view of how training has a real-world impact on users
• How they improved the way users interact with the software through training, as well as measured the training’s effectiveness

Audience:

Advanced designers, managers, and senior leaders (directors, VP, CLO, executive, etc.).

Technology discussed in this session:

Kaltura, Watershed LRS, and xAPI.

The robot revolution is upon us, and it will transform our lives, businesses, and jobs for the better. At a time when technologists are digging ever deeper into the blossoming territory of robotics and artificial intelligence, tech specialist Ayanna Howard insists that with the right programming, robots and humanity can work together productively. In this fascinating keynote, Dr. Howard will share examples of how robots and artificial intelligence are being used today and how they are transforming what our lives will look like in the future. Join us to discover the opportunities and challenges of robotics and AI in the future of work, and what this all means for the future of training, education, and learning.

Get moving and mingling with Yukon Learning, host of the DevLearn 2018 Expo Reception! You’ll have a great time navigating the Expo Hall in this fun-filled Yukon Scavenger Hunt. Discover various clues, all building up to a secret and the grand finale for a chance to walk away with the grand prize: a sleek new iPad loaded with some awesome freebies.

Jump-start your day—and your networking—with Morning Buzz, the popular early-bird discussions held each morning of DevLearn. Grab your coffee, pull up a chair, and join a casual conversation around an important topic. Share your best practices, insights, and tips while learning from one another’s experiences.

Jump-start your day—and your networking—with Morning Buzz, the popular early-bird discussions held each morning of DevLearn. Grab your coffee, pull up a chair, and join a casual conversation around an important topic. Share your best practices, insights, and tips while learning from one another’s experiences.

Jump-start your day—and your networking—with Morning Buzz, the popular early-bird discussions held each morning of DevLearn. Grab your coffee, pull up a chair, and join a casual conversation around an important topic. Share your best practices, insights, and tips while learning from one another’s experiences.

Jump-start your day—and your networking—with Morning Buzz, the popular early-bird discussions held each morning of DevLearn. Grab your coffee, pull up a chair, and join a casual conversation around an important topic. Share your best practices, insights, and tips while learning from one another’s experiences.

Jump-start your day—and your networking—with Morning Buzz, the popular early-bird discussions held each morning of DevLearn. Grab your coffee, pull up a chair, and join a casual conversation around an important topic. Share your best practices, insights, and tips while learning from one another’s experiences.

Jump-start your day—and your networking—with Morning Buzz, the popular early-bird discussions held each morning of DevLearn. Grab your coffee, pull up a chair, and join a casual conversation around an important topic. Share your best practices, insights, and tips while learning from one another’s experiences.

Jump-start your day—and your networking—with Morning Buzz, the popular early-bird discussions held each morning of DevLearn. Grab your coffee, pull up a chair, and join a casual conversation around an important topic. Share your best practices, insights, and tips while learning from one another’s experiences.

Jump-start your day—and your networking—with Morning Buzz, the popular early-bird discussions held each morning of DevLearn. Grab your coffee, pull up a chair, and join a casual conversation around an important topic. Share your best practices, insights, and tips while learning from one another’s experiences.

Jump-start your day—and your networking—with Morning Buzz, the popular early-bird discussions held each morning of DevLearn. Grab your coffee, pull up a chair, and join a casual conversation around an important topic. Share your best practices, insights, and tips while learning from one another’s experiences.

Jump-start your day—and your networking—with Morning Buzz, the popular early-bird discussions held each morning of DevLearn. Grab your coffee, pull up a chair, and join a casual conversation around an important topic. Share your best practices, insights, and tips while learning from one another’s experiences.

Jump-start your day—and your networking—with Morning Buzz, the popular early-bird discussions held each morning of DevLearn. Grab your coffee, pull up a chair, and join a casual conversation around an important topic. Share your best practices, insights, and tips while learning from one another’s experiences.

Jump-start your day—and your networking—with Morning Buzz, the popular early-bird discussions held each morning of DevLearn. Grab your coffee, pull up a chair, and join a casual conversation around an important topic. Share your best practices, insights, and tips while learning from one another’s experiences.

Jump-start your day—and your networking—with Morning Buzz, the popular early-bird discussions held each morning of DevLearn. Grab your coffee, pull up a chair, and join a casual conversation around an important topic. Share your best practices, insights, and tips while learning from one another’s experiences.

Jump-start your day—and your networking—with Morning Buzz, the popular early-bird discussions held each morning of DevLearn. Grab your coffee, pull up a chair, and join a casual conversation around an important topic. Share your best practices, insights, and tips while learning from one another’s experiences.

Does creative activity have a biological function? There is something common to everything we call the arts. What is it? This “it” is something Lynda Barry calls “an image”; something that feels alive and is contained and transported by something that is not alive. It could be a book, or a song, or a painting … anything we consider an art form. This definition of “it” can be extended to works outside of traditional definitions of art and into other forms of content, including learning content. In this keynote, we will explore this ancient “it” that has been around at least as long as we have had hands, and the state of mind it brings about that goes well beyond traditional ways of thinking. In this energetic kickoff to DevLearn, we will examine our innate creative ability, our need to work with images, the role our hands play in thinking, and more. You will discover what the biological function of this thing we call “the arts” may be, and how it can transform the work you do.

Sponsored by:

The eLearning industry is constantly changing. It can be difficult to keep an eye on what advancements are coming while also trying to manage current budgets and technology restraints.

Gain in-depth understanding on how the eLearning landscape is shifting and evolving, as well as how to make the most of emerging trends including social, microlearning, gamification, and mobile trends you need to know before 2019.

In this session, you will learn:

• What general trends are being seen in the industry
• Mobile trends you need to know
• Trends for Generation Z
• How to prepare for Generation Z
• How to maximize the business impact of learning

Audience:

Intermediate to advanced designers, developers, managers, and senior leaders (directors, VP, CLO, executive, etc.).

Learners don’t always want to sit through a formal training course, and they often simply don’t have the time. Microlearning is a great way to deliver just what people need, when they need it, to maximize effectiveness. But, as a learning professional, how do you create it?

This session looks at the principles supporting microlearning best practices, taking into account the wide range of devices that people use to access microlearning, including traditional laptops and mobile devices. You’ll explore practical techniques to create microlearning content quickly and easily using PowerPoint and iSpring. You’ll be amazed at the way you can use these industry-standard tools to deliver visual content with animations and rich media—and export it to video or HTML5 for easy distribution, in isolation or through your LMS. Learn how to make your microlearning an effective tool that your learners will be delighted with.

In this session, you will learn:

• How to capture your audience’s attention and maximize their retention of information in a tiny amount of time
• How to create effective microlearning incorporating compelling visuals, engaging animation, and impactful multimedia
• How to use PowerPoint to create your dynamic, visual microlearning quickly and easily
• How to output to video or HTML5 for easy distribution

Audience:

Novice to intermediate designers, developers, and anyone who uses PowerPoint and wants to unveil its power.

Technology discussed in this session:

Microsoft PowerPoint, iSpring Converter, and iSpring Suite.

Are you looking for amazing ways to use your mobile device to create content? Learn how to use your device outside of your typical apps and email to discover new ways to create, brainstorm, and improve your learning development workflow.

In this session, you will learn how to use your phone or tablet to brainstorm, sketch, take notes, collaborate, create audio- and video-based media, and animate using several mind-blowing apps. You’ll leave the session feeling inspired, and you’ll have the practical information to apply one or more apps on your own. Get your notebook and camera ready to capture these great tools.

In this session, you will learn:

• About several programs to help you get creative
• About several free and inexpensive tools to help with brainstorming, being more productive, and creating content, all from your mobile device
• How to start using these tools today

Audience:

Novice to intermediate designers, developers, managers, and senior leaders (directors, VPs, CLOs, executives, etc.).

Technology discussed in this session:

Content creation apps including Explain Everything, Microsoft Office Lens, and AI-based tools; brainstorming and note-taking apps including OneNote, Notes, and Wink; and apps for mirroring to your laptop or monitor for presentations and demonstrations.

Highly customized learning platforms may sound like an inherently good thing. But what if those customizations are patching holes rather than tailoring the performance of your learning solution to your organization’s needs? These kinds of patches and workarounds can hinder a learning professional’s ability to innovate. In the rapidly evolving world of digital learning, the freedom to innovate is essential for a sustainable, scalable, and efficient learning program.

By leveraging open-source solutions, organizations can adapt a completely supported system to their evolving business needs. In this session, Totara partner Remote-Learner will detail how they helped the Pennsylvania Coalition Against Domestic Violence to reimagine what their nationally renowned training could be. Along the way, attendees will learn how to increase the likelihood of success, how to minimize the likelihood of confusion, how to organize the segmentation of learner audiences, and how to improve the efficiency of learning administration.

In this session, you will learn:

• How to increase the likelihood of success through strong project scoping
• How to minimize the likelihood of organizational turmoil through strong implementation practices
• How to organize the segmentation of learner audiences for efficient content delivery
• How to improve the efficiency of learning administration through sound system design

Audience:

Intermediate to advanced designers, managers, and senior leaders (VP, CLO, executive, etc.).

Technology discussed in this session:

Totara Learn (desktop view).

Articulate knows that eLearning developers face big challenges. You’re asked to create engaging courses for any device, develop gorgeous eLearning on a budget, and get projects approved on a tight schedule. And you may not have access to the budget, resources, and support you need to do your best work.

Articulate 360 is a simple subscription that includes everything you need for course development. In this session, you’ll learn how to speed up your workflow with the award-winning authoring apps in Articulate 360, Storyline 360 and Rise. You’ll see how you can develop engaging courses that work on every device—without any manual tweaking. You’ll learn how to save time by sourcing assets from Content Library, a library of over three million photos, templates, characters, videos, and more. Then you’ll see how you can simplify project reviews with Articulate Review, a web app where stakeholders can provide consolidated feedback.

In this session, you will learn:

• How to quickly and easily create custom, interactive eLearning with Storyline 360
• How easy it is to create polished, responsive eLearning with Rise, the web-based authoring app in Articulate 360
• How to easily find the assets you need for your projects in Content Library
• How to streamline project reviews with Articulate Review

Audience:

Novice to advanced designers, developers, managers, and senior leaders (VP, CLO, executive, etc.).

Technology discussed in this session:

Articulate 360 apps, including Storyline 360, Rise, Content Library, and Articulate Review.

From an organization-wide executive directive to become more data-driven, a retail corporate L&D team took an internal look at their own data practices. Realizing that they had an overwhelming lack of transparency into their learning initiatives and a great amount of data that had gone unused, the team developed a transformation vision to create a single system of record for learning to enable observability, granularity, and accountability for all team members. The team was committed to the vision of xAPI; however, the data and information they needed in order to make actionable change for their learners was locked away in non-interoperable formats, and they recognized the need to develop a data strategy and implementation plan.

In this case study session, you will see how the organization’s L&D team created an xAPI data roadmap to not only achieve early wins when it came to the executive business objectives, but also begin work on a scalable plan to build out a modern, flexible ecosystem that has the needs of learners at its center.

In this session, you will learn:

• About the data strategy development process
• How to connect an organizational goal to a department-level strategy
• What an xAPI implementation looks like from a planning and timeline perspective
• How data sources, integrations, and learning record stores work together
• What the results of a unified xAPI learning ecosystem can look like
• Best practices, look-fors, and gotchas in the xAPI implementation process

Audience:

Designers, managers, and senior leaders (directors, VPs, CLOs, executives, etc.).

Technology discussed in this session:

xAPI, learning analytics, data dashboards, learning record stores, LMSs, data integrations, HRISs, learning tools, and data sources.

Have you ever been offered unsolicited advice? If so, you know that advice received before you’re ready falls on deaf ears. The same thing happens at work when training is offered before the need is clear. The need for change is like a journey that your reluctant heroes face. Knowing the phases of this journey helps you plan for guidance at the right time. Everyone knows that the Hero’s Journey is a tool for writing good fiction stories, but what if it could be modified to accommodate common models of conflict resolution?

In this session, you’ll design a model for helping people navigate the difficult path of changing behavior. Heroes need a guide, but not until they’re ready. They need time to process a call to performance. Then they’ll need to know what they have to do and which tools will help them achieve that goal. This session offers you the (literal) map for the journey of conflict.

In this session, you will learn:

• A model for helping people adopt new behaviors
• How timing different phases of your project plays an important role in achieving your objectives
• How to balance two important factors in behavior modification: driving forces and restraining forces
• How to identify the best tools for achieving success, some of which are neither a tangible object nor a digital solution

Audience:

Designers, developers, managers, and senior leaders (directors, VP, CLO, executive, etc.).

You know that most media—including eLearning—is failing at representation. You see it every day. And not only is it leaving people out of the picture, it’s less effective as a result. Maybe you’ve tried to make your work more inclusive but haven’t been able to find great media, haven’t been able to convince your stakeholders, or simply aren’t confident in navigating how to respectfully represent different genders, ethnicities, orientations, and abilities.

In this session, you’ll explore how to make authentic representation happen in your work and in your organization for more inclusive and effective learning solutions. You’ll find out about methods for crafting authentic representation in your projects and discover sources for media that can enhance that representation even further. You’ll also discuss strategies for getting your team, partners, and/or clients on board with how making authentic representation a priority helps both your audience and the organization as a whole.

In this session, you will learn:

• Simple methods to incorporate better representation in your learning solutions
• Sources for media that reflect your focus on authentic, diverse, and dignified representation
• How to increase your own confidence and proficiency in respectfully presenting characters that speak to all learners
• How to promote the value of authentic representation in your organization

Audience:

Designers, developers, and managers.

Content curation is rapidly becoming an essential skill for learning professionals, but many have yet to take the step of putting it into practice. This session will arm you with an understanding of how curation helps both you and your organization, along with the tools and techniques you’ll need to craft your own personalized curation system. It’s time to make curation a central part of your digital learning toolkit.

In this session, you will learn how using curation helps you move beyond the traditional packaging and delivery of content to provide better, more effective and more efficient solutions for learners and stakeholders. You’ll also find out how to create a solid content curation strategy, and explore tools and techniques you can use to build a powerful, efficient curation workflow that is customized to your needs and preferences.

In this session, you will learn:

• How and where to discover the most valuable content efficiently
• About crafting a content strategy plan to guide your curation efforts
• Tools and techniques for building your own personalized content curation system
• Strategies for becoming a trusted guide in your organization and beyond

Audience:

Designers, developers, managers, and senior leaders (directors, VP, CLO, executive, etc.).

Technology discussed in this session:

Content curation tools—Twitter, Degreed, Refind, Nuzzle, Feedly, Buffer, Pocket, Diigo, Zeef, etc.

The world is gripped by accelerated change, and the need to learn and adapt is taking center stage; yet ironically, L&D professionals continue to struggle for relevance and impact. Instead of being sought-after business partners, practitioners are often marginalized as order-takers for narrow training solutions. The challenge is one of urgent relevance as L&D must quickly learn and adapt to better enable the future of work.

This session first identifies key trends in the future of work that will impact you and your organization. Next, it outlines strategies that you can prioritize to enable people amid those trends. Finally, it highlights emerging skill clusters that you and your team require to address these challenges and stay relevant. A must for L&D professionals wanting to boost their value by adopting emerging, in-demand skills, the session will highlight practical strategies to upskill and experiment in these domains. Topics include approaches to effectively contextualize, combine, and develop capability in design thinking, data literacy, marketing, systems design, and performance consulting.

In this session, you will learn:

• About four key trends influencing the future of work
• Priority L&D strategies to enable people in that future
• About the centrality of experience design, continuous learning, and data moving forward
• About priority skill clusters to develop in yourself and your team
• About the particular competitive edge of combining design thinking and data analytical mindsets
• Simple next steps to begin upskilling yourself and your team in various skill clusters

Audience:

Designers, managers, and senior leaders (directors, VP, CLO, executive, etc.).

Technology discussed in this session:

Blended learning, performance ecosystems, data, and xAPI.

You’ve signed the contract for your new LMS, but the hard work is only beginning. It’s time to think like a marketer. How can you get everyone at your company to adopt this new software? How can you help employees to think of learning as happening outside of the classroom?

In this session, you'll learn how to use an inbound mindset to drive adoption and engagement of your LMS. You’ll discover how to create a learner persona and get ideas for creating a multi-channel marketing campaign that meets your learners where they are. You’ll be inspired to create an exciting event out of your launch date and be ready to support and engage learners from that first moment they log in.

In this session, you will learn:

• How to research and create a learner persona for your LMS
• How to create the feeling of an event and get people excited on launch day
• How to develop a communication strategy around your LMS launch
• How you can prepare to support your learners on the launch date so they can focus on diving into the platform

Audience:

Designers, managers, and senior leaders (directors, VP, CLO, executive, etc.).

Technology discussed in this session:

Docebo LMS, Slack, Canva, Atlassian Confluence, and Microsoft PowerPoint.

For so long, learning has been one-sided. Everyone gets the same course and same content, no matter what they have already learned or experienced. xAPI gives you greater details and insights into what the learner does, but where do you go from there? How do you adjust and change content based on learners’ xAPI history?

This session will not only cover how you can use xAPI data to track learning activities, but also how you can pull that data into your course to create a personalized and adaptable course that changes to fit each learner’s needs. It gives the right content to the right person based on what you already know about the learner.

In this session, you will learn:

• xAPI basic structure
• How to send xAPI statements
• How to get data back from the LRS
• What you can do with that data

Audience:

Designers, developers, and managers.

Technology discussed in this session:

xAPI and JavaScript.

Gamification is the integration of game mechanics, or game dynamics, into a learning experience, while game-based training can be defined as a game designed for the purpose of solving a problem. However, these words are being used in parallel by the industry, and it can be quite confusing. This session will explain the key differences and definitions that can assist practitioners in ensuring they use the wording appropriately.

This session will focus on the clarification of gamification and game-based training. Using examples from the industry, this session will help to explain each of the learning experiences and discuss the best practices in their development. This will also include a breakdown of how to implement either of these aspects into your learning experiences.

In this session, you will learn:

• The differences between gamification and game-based learning
• How to determine if someone is learning from games
• When games are appropriate to use
• Why games are the future of learning
• Key aspects of gamification
• What makes up serious games
• How to implement gamification and serious games in the workplace

Audience:

Designers, developers, managers, and senior leaders (directors, VP, CLO, executive, etc.).

Technology discussed in this session:

Unity, VR, AR, and badging and rewards systems.

Searching for new ways to present content in eLearning is an ongoing challenge for most designers. Animation effects beyond the typical require deeper thought in design, and often involve additional storyboarding. Barriers to learning new animation software result in some designers not pursuing a more engaging approach than typical animation effects. With new smartphone cameras, available apps, and software, you can dramatically reduce those barriers to get started with stop-motion animation.

In this session, participants will create a stop-motion animation to demonstrate a simple approach and explore available tools and other techniques to get you started. You’ll find that this technique is easy to implement in eLearning and a great way to animate objects, such as rotating a product in 360 degrees; display the assembly of a process without human intervention; and many other creative applications.

In this session, you will learn:

• A basic understanding of stop-motion animation techniques
• Various approaches and styles of stop-motion animation for eLearning
• About multiple tools and software applications for creating stop-motion animation
• Best practices for designing stop-motion animation and when to use

Audience:

Designers and developers.

Technology discussed in this session:

A smartphone and iPad will be used to demonstrate simple techniques in creating a stop-motion animation.

Can you count how many times eLearning developers on your team have re-created the same button? That time really adds up. You want to create high-quality custom solutions, but they tend to take up lots of time. You’ve adopted templates, but they just don’t cut it for all of your users’ needs. What if you could create custom, cohesive, accessible, and high-quality learning experiences in half the time?

In this session, you’ll learn how design systems will help your team build faster custom solutions and still maintain high-quality work. You’ll get to see examples of design systems, and discuss what to add into your design system and what to leave out. Next you’ll discover how to build and maintain your team’s design system. Finally, you’ll learn how to ensure your design system’s components are accessible for all of your learning projects.

In this session, you will learn:

• What a design system is, with examples, and how you can apply one on your team
• How design systems help you create scalable, accessible, cohesive learning experiences
• What to include and not include in your design system
• How to build and manage your own design system
• How to test your design system components for accessibility

Audience:

Designers, developers, and managers.

Technology discussed in this session:

HTML frameworks (Jekyll, Hugo, Bootstrap) and Adobe Muse.

Technology has shaped much of the world of education and training for decades. Understanding the role technology plays in our work is critical as technology continues to advance and become even more embedded into our work. Being prepared for this emerging world won’t be easy and will require an understanding of where we’ve been, where we are, and where we are headed.

In this session, you will join in a discussion with many of those recognized as Guild Masters exploring the role technology plays in our work. You will discuss the various technologies that have shifted the landscape of organizational learning, and the common characteristics of emerging technologies that have the potential to disrupt organizational learning. We’ve invited all our Guild Masters to this discussion, making this super-sized panel a conversation you won’t want to miss.

In this session, you will learn:

• How technology can disrupt organizational learning
• Lessons from the past that inform how we approach the future
• The common characteristics shared by disruptive technologies
• Tips for staying ahead of changes in the learning technology landscape

Audience:

Designers, developers, and managers.

Choosing the right learning technology is a daunting task. A bad decision could cost an organization immeasurable time and money, not to mention the negative impact on talent development. Research shows that nearly half of organizations are looking to choose another technology provider. Whether the system is lacking features, is hard to use, or simply appears outdated, companies want a change.

Organizations are looking for modern, flexible systems that can adapt to the evolving needs of the business and its learners. Join this discussion exploring the evolving learning landscape and what it takes to select and implement a new platform that can deliver this environment.

In this session, you will learn:

• How to identify the right requirements for choosing a technology
• The steps to building impactful use cases
• Why you need to create an RFI
• A technology migration framework
• Practical steps to help you make a successful transition

Audience:

Intermediate to advanced managers, project managers, directors, and executives.

Technology discussed in this session:

Learning management systems.

Are your files weighing you down? Do your courses no longer fit on your mobile device? Are you embarrassed by unsightly buffering? It’s time to put your files on a diet, following tried-and-true best practices. In less time than a juice cleanse, you can have the course of your dreams.

As more and more courses are accessed remotely and via mobile devices, it is important that your files are designed with overall size in mind. Imagine being able to deliver robust, interactive training without sacrificing audio or video. In this session, you’ll discover programs such as Pavtube and PicShrink, and learn “weight-loss” secrets within familiar programs like Adobe Photoshop and Audition. You’ll also explore the best publishing options for a fulfilling eLearning program. Lose the megabytes, not the experience.

In this session, you will learn:

• Common compression practices for reducing overall file size
• Proper sizing of image, audio, and video files
• About free and premium compression programs for all file types
• The best publish settings for major authoring tools

Audience:

Designers and developers.

Technology discussed in this session:

Pavtube, PicShrink, Articulate Storyline, and Adobe Photoshop, Illustrator, After Effects, Audition, and Captivate.

It’s no secret the marketing industry is investing millions on emerging technology to change people’s behavior. What can L&D learn from their endeavors? How can you capitalize on their success and failures to design learning solutions that incorporate their best practices and are truly effective?

In this game-based session, you’ll explore the leading practices the world’s top marketers are using in artificial intelligence, chatbots, augmented reality, machine learning, and personalized learning. These practices are changing behavior, and you’ll examine how you can apply them in a learning program. You’ll see the success and mistakes that marketers have made, and you’ll apply best practices to create effective training solutions.

In this session, you will learn:

• How to apply effective marketing best practices in artificial intelligence and machine learning to a training program
• The successful augmented reality techniques that marketers have used to change behavior
• The best practices that marketers have refined to effectively use chatbots
• How to integrate proven marketing techniques into microlearning

Audience:

Designers and managers.

For years, eLearning tools have been based on a PowerPoint-slide paradigm. However, to be truly device independent, courses need to be responsive and use a webpage style. Articulate Rise provides an easy-to-implement solution that encourages microlearning. This session will discuss using Rise to implement a full, 35-module curriculum that is both responsive and delivered in microlearning-sized chunks. Challenges and solutions will be highlighted.

After completing this session, you will know the key advantages of using Rise for responsive, device-independent projects. You will know the power of using a webpage interface compared to a slide-based tool. You will explore the interactivity types used by Rise and how to complete a quiz that can be run through your LMS or LRS. You will be able to apply the key design considerations for microlearning with Rise. You will be able to transition seamlessly back and forth between Rise and the other tools used by your organization.

In this session, you will learn:

• The basics of Articulate Rise
• How to apply interactions in Rise
• How to customize a Rise template
• How to implement microlearning for online learning
• How to transition to a cloud-based eLearning development tool
• How to transition seamlessly back and forth between Rise and other tools

Audience:

Designers, developers, and managers.

Technology discussed in this session:

To some, variables may be an unknown function in Articulate Storyline. Many haven’t had the opportunity to use variables, or have been confused by variables and what they are capable of adding to the learning experience. Whatever the reason for pleading ignorance, this session has it covered!

In this session, you’ll learn the basics of using variables in Articulate Storyline and take your variable use to the next level by exploring how to create some powerful interactions. By the end of this session, you’ll be using variables as if you’d been using them your entire life. While this session focuses on Articulate Storyline 3 and 360, most elements discussed are also present in Storyline 2.

In this session, you will learn:

• About the variables available in Articulate Storyline
• About options available to you when using variables
• How to use variables to control navigation
• How to use variables to create a progress meter

Audience:

Designers, developers, and novice to intermediate Storyline users.

Technology discussed in this session:

Articulate Storyline 360 (but Storyline 3 and 2 are still relevant).

Technology required:

Laptop with Articulate Storyline 360, 3, or 2 installed (trial versions OK).

Unity and Unreal Engine create high-quality VR experiences, while AR learning usually requires building an app. A lightweight way to create VR and AR experiences is needed for quicker turnarounds and lower costs.

WebVR, and now WebXR, are HTML/JavaScript-based standards that allow surprisingly simple creation of high-quality VR/AR experiences that can be distributed via a URL. This session will introduce WebXR and walk through a simple project with follow-up resources.

In this session, you will learn:

• About the benefits of WebXR
• A workflow for how to create a WebXR project
• About integration of web-based VR into mobile and other systems
• How WebXR can help make VR projects part of a “normal” L&D workflow

Audience:

Designers and developers.

Technology discussed in this session:

WebXR, WebVR, HTML, mobile VR, and Samsung Odyssey (Windows Mixed Reality).

Technology required:

Laptop, smartphone, and Google Cardboard.

eLearning and instructor-led classroom training both have inherent strengths and weaknesses. Why not take advantage of the best of both worlds?

Join this session to explore a creative and flexible flipped classroom approach you can bring back to your organization. Explore ways to add interactivity and engagement to your learning using low-cost enhancements to your existing courses. See how blending in eLearning Brothers Customizable Courseware titles can help you build on the training you already have to create a rockstar learning curriculum.

In this session, you will learn:

• The flipped classroom methodology
• Instructional design strategies for a flipped classroom
• Easy, low-cost tips to increase engagement and impact
• How you can use Customizable Courseware in a flipped classroom approach

Audience:

Novice to advanced designers, developers, managers, and senior leaders (VP, CLO, executive, etc.).

Technology discussed in this session:

eLearning Brothers Customizable Courseware, Adobe Captivate, Lectora Publisher, and Articulate Storyline.

Did they learn it? Do they know it? Can they do it? Most organizations use assessments as part of talent development initiatives, promotions, compliance, onboarding, or recruitment. The stakes are substantial: Decisions made based on the results can impact both the reputation and financial well-being of the organization, as well as the lives of its employees.

Well-crafted assessments (tests, quizzes, and exams) provide valuable data for evaluating and documenting the impact of your learning programs. Assessment results you can trust enable you to make powerful, informed, defensible business decisions. Join this session for a deep dive into all things assessment to ensure your programs are having the most impact. You will learn strategies for developing assessments that are both valid (they measure the right knowledge, skills, or competencies) and reliable (they are consistent in the measurement) to provide stakeholders with actionable, defensible results for informed decision-making.

In this session, you will learn:

• How to distinguish between different types and uses of assessments
• About reliability and validity
• How to analyze and interpret results
• How to improve the effectiveness of questions and assessments
• How to use assessments for improved learning outcomes

Audience:

Novice to advanced managers and senior leaders (VP, CLO, executive, etc.).

Technology discussed in this session:

Questionmark OnDemand.

With more than one million new crew members hired every year in the US alone, it is imperative for McDonald’s to onboard new hires efficiently and effectively. However, new hires were spending  more than twelve hours studying processes and procedures in back rooms with printed binders that could double as doorstops before learning in the restaurant with peers and managers. McDonald’s recognized the need for a new approach to their training program.

In this session, you will learn how McDonald’s modernized their global onboarding and operations by adopting a smart content system. You’ll hear how moving onboarding out of back rooms and into kitchens with shoulder-to-shoulder training on mobile devices took McDonald’s crew member training to the next level. You’ll find out how these interactive, searchable reference guides help deliver a consistent customer experience worldwide while saving time and increasing productivity. You’ll discover how McDonald’s saves $30 million in labor costs annually by shaving off three hours of crew member training time.

In this session, you will learn:

• How providing digital training materials on mobile devices decreases onboarding time and increases training effectiveness by enabling shoulder-to-shoulder training
• How smart content systems drive super field execution through consistent access to a single version of accurate content with real-time updates
• Why transitioning to digital operational content empowers managers and employees with easy search and discovery of information, which increases employee engagement and job satisfaction
• How significant time savings, cost reductions, and quality of service improvements can be achieved by going digital and ditching the printing and shipping of onboarding and training materials

Audience:

Novice to advanced designers, developers, managers, and senior leaders (directors, VPs, CLOs, executives, etc.).

Technology discussed in this session:

Inkling.

In a world of perpetually shifting priorities and uncertain outlooks, it’s important to prove the value of your work to your clients and stakeholders. We rarely have the resources we need to do effective analysis before and after training, which leads many in management to view training as just an expendable expense rather than an investment. How can we, as learning professionals, change that reality?

In this session, you will learn how you can address this issue by using expectations and practical, on-the-spot analytics to change perceptions about training. Your clients, stakeholders, and learners may forget what you said, but they will never forget how you made them feel. Show them the value that you, your team, and your training bring to the table by giving them what they need to believe.

In this session, you will learn:

• The importance of perceived value
• Multiple practical methods to quantify the value of your training, including satisfaction, impact, and more
• How to use return on expectations (ROE) in place of and alongside return on investment (ROI)
• Strategies for communicating with clients and stakeholders on the value and effectiveness of your training programs

Audience:

Novice to advanced designers, developers, managers, and senior leaders (directors, VPs, CLOs, executives, etc.).

Technology discussed in this session:

Articulate Storyline, Adobe Creative Cloud, TechSmith Camtasia, Salesforce, G Suite, Google Analytics, Microsoft Office Suite.

One of the most challenging issues for organizations is how to undertake digital transformation successfully. Adopting new technology to address content and learning challenges can be high on internal agendas, and therefore it is imperative that the enabling technology is able to deliver successful outcomes to an organization. It is essential to anticipate the challenges that might lie ahead, in order to optimize potential efficiencies and measurable benefits. This session will provide a guide for those who might consider embarking on such an internal transformation—and you will be given the background on how Merck progressed on its innovation journey.

In this session, introduced by eXact learning solutions, you will discover the considerations and challenges the Merck team was trying to address at the outset. While understanding their goals, you will be provided with some useful dos and don’ts from a Fortune 50 company having undertaken the initiative. Find out how Merck enhanced its ability to tailor its content to the needs of its audience and efficiently delivered engaging information successfully. The session will discuss some of the challenges around delivering content “chunks,” and how Merck and eXact worked together to meet the needs of the Merck internal audience. Discover how eXact’s consulting process really focused on understanding internal needs. The session will aim to provide practical solutions that will be applicable to other organizational learning scenarios.

In this session, you will learn:

• About some of the complexities of implementing a new system internally
• Dos and don’ts, and pitfalls for other practitioners to anticipate
• How Merck overcame the challenges of implementing a personalized experience for all internal users
• Some of the key takeaways for Merck’s innovative learning team from delivering a successful internal program

Audience:

Novice to advanced designers, developers, managers, and senior leaders (VP, CLO, executive, etc.).

Technology discussed in this session:

The eXact learning solutions digital transformation solution (or LCMS).