Too many times, training struggles to show its impact on a business; the metrics used to measure training are unrelated to the bottom line results of a firm. Training departments often have difficulty showing their impact on sales and revenue goals. Thus training is viewed as a support function or engaged only when necessary.

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

Sound learning theory underpins much of traditional instructional design (ID) and can greatly improve user experience, but the advent of a need-to-know-now culture is proving the art of innovation can and must work alongside the science of design. The challenge is to balance the needs of your users and the concerns of established IDs against harnessing the originality of developers who may lack a traditional background.

Creating learning objects is a time-consuming process. Most learning objects have content that could be used across different courses and departments. However, many learning objects, such as videos, tutorials, instructional documentation, and online courses are created with identifying details that make them difficult to repurpose or share with other members of the organization.

“Blended learning” was one of the hottest buzzwords at the dawn of the new millennium. At its worst, it was giving the learner the choice of attending the formal class in person or online. In its best and most cutting-edge application, it was a design construct focusing on combining or blending the best elements of face-to-face classes with eLearning courses to increase retention and/or reduce costs. It was a cutting-edge approach at the time, and for many organizations, this is where they currently are with applying blended learning. But the blend has changed.

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

An eLearning template is not a set of PowerPoint master slides. A true eLearning template is so much more, and has many elements and components. While a set of master backgrounds is a great start, there are often overlooked aspects of a template that are never considered. Designers and developers often begin with raw content and begin a project in their chosen authoring environment, rather than thinking through the overall user experience. For those projects that involve multiple modules where it’s important to keep a consistent look and feel, a template approach helps keep all assets organized across modules.

There is pressure on everyone in learning and development to stay ahead of the curve when it comes to new technology. Knowing the right questions to ask and getting clear information on how to educate clients enables you to switch gears from a reactive order-taker to a consultative partner. Instructional designers and managers need to be grounded in the fundamentals of mobile learning strategies.

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

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

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

Everyone sees the power of gamification—a trending concept in the learning and development industry—in the workplace, but is either too expensive or no one knows how to implement it. Learning professionals are being asked to do more with less every day. So if you have already created a catalog of eLearning courses for your organization in Articulate Storyline, how can you make these more engaging? How can you save thousands of dollars by adding basic gamification elements to your existing and new courseware?

Research proves students learn best when doing; information strengthens schemas leading to long-term retention. Yet instructors often feel bound by the constraints of an online classroom. Since they do not meet face-to-face, it can be hard to find ways to encourage active application of information and combat the student fear of failure.

As the Spectrum Health University adapted to an ever-evolving health care landscape, the programs and offerings from the organization needed to change as well. Through an analysis of brand, audience and offerings, and a desire to more closely align with the organization’s new strategy, a sizable challenge was undertaken to reimagine the corporate university with the use of social collaborative platforms and the deployment of micro-learning resources.

The performance ecosystem is about more than just helping people do what is known that they need to do. In this era of continual change, the only sustainable differentiator will be the ability to adapt, deal with ambiguity, and innovate. This comes from a rich ecosystem, but it takes more. Where the culture doesn’t support sharing, where it’s not safe to contribute, the ecosystem can’t flourish, and organizations can miss out on the opportunity.

Today’s market requires faster onboarding; often there is overlap or confusion between process and training. Staff are overwhelmed by information in the initial stages of their performance and often forget or don’t have the opportunity to apply the why and the how of what they have learned in an appropriate timeframe.