How did Samsung Australia prepare for a shift from live, in-person training and product launch services to sales teams at 24-plus wireless carriers and big box retailers across Australia and New Zealand? What is required to train more than 20,000 external retail staff on an end-to-end platform—spanning registration, content delivery, and tracking—and provide support for each carrier through a privately branded experience?

With the dazzle of technology and tools, it’s easy to get distracted from the basic question: “What will the learner be able to do after the experience that they can’t do now?” Return to the days of accelerated learning and rediscover the nuggets needed to design learning that drives retention and fun by honoring the unique needs of each participant.

SCORM, the xAPI, cmi5, and a host of other learning data standards exist and have widespread acceptance in the learning community. How can these standards extend beyond the learning world into the realm of enterprise technology? What the industry needs now is a distinct and real conversation on how to align learning technology with the technology used by the rest of the enterprise.

A badge is a symbol or indicator of an accomplishment, skill, competency, or interest. Badges provide evidence of learning that happens in and beyond formal learning settings. Unlike transcripts or resumes, badges give prospective employers, schools, collaborators, and other learners a more complete picture of knowledge, skills, and abilities of the badgeholder. As with degrees, certificates, and credentials, a comprehensive ecosystem surrounds and supports badges.

Animation is a powerful tool for creating engaging eLearning experiences. Sadly, most animations are used without purpose as a design embellishment. When this happens, the use of animation distracts the learner from the content, rather than helping to elevate the content.

The classic eLearning lesson forces participants to read slide after slide of textual content and take an evaluation when completed. Employees retain just enough to pass the test, so they can check off yet another mandatory course. As a rule, employees dread this kind of learning but consider it a necessary evil.

Whether it is educating the public about a hobby, product, or public service, informal learning is becoming an increasingly important channel. The options for distributing video-based informal learning content have grown. YouTube, Apple TV, Amazon Fire TV, Roku, and other devices all provide important pathways to reach consumers and learners. Despite the number of channels now available, not all channels are appropriate to reach all audiences.

Virtual classroom technologies are not new. In fact, you may already be hosting web-based meetings and training sessions. But are your preparation, delivery, engagement, and evaluation skills good enough to pass CompTIA’s trainer certification tests (CTT+)? Great virtual instructor-led training requires much more than logging in, turning on your microphone, and reading bulleted slides or demonstrating software features. You need to shift your approach to make the very best use of the resources available in WebEx, Adobe Connect, or GoTo webinar and engage learners in meaningful ways.

A number of myths persist about the alleged, ever-shortening attention spans of people, but what does the science say? Neuroscience, behavioral economics, and consumer psychology all offer insights into how attention is managed and allocated. Additionally, the ability to manage attention and focus seems to be related to the abilities that allocate willpower and influence how decisions are made.

Most eLearning developers want to be efficient and productive, and want to please their customers. Clients or supervisors, however, often do not understand why it takes so long to develop eLearning. Captivate developers require an extensive set of tools and techniques in their arsenal in order to utilize the intricacies of the full environment effectively.

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

With the advent of the xAPI, a new learning technology product has come into being: the learning record store (LRS). It is a requirement for using the xAPI to track learner behavior, serving as a repository for data generated by the xAPI statements. Stakeholders need to know the basics of how LRSs work and the range of features available in them in order to make intelligent acquisition, ecosystem design, and implementation decisions. In order to use the xAPI, you must have an LRS.

Every workplace has a culture. However, the real culture within an organization often doesn’t resemble the mission statement and core values posted in the hallways and on the company’s website. And, if eLearning or knowledge is included in the company’s values, this tends to refer to limited, formal training events, or tuition reimbursement. Learning professionals must understand the foundational impact their efforts can have on the organization and its culture—everything from the way work is done to how employees relate to customers.

A multinational industrial manufacturing company recognized that it had excessively high inventory costs. The executive vice president of quality systems engaged a L&D organization to see whether they could help. L&D conducted a thorough needs analysis, harvested knowledge from experts, and developed a solution using five ecosystem components: performance support, knowledge management, access to experts, social networking and collaboration, and structured learning.  

Many eLearning professionals are attempting to use gamification and serious games to spark employee engagement and drive learning retention; it seems everyone is working to make the best serious game that will enhance learning objectives and retention. The biggest setbacks for some have been little-to-no planning, tough-to-pinpoint metrics, little-to-no implementation strategy, and insufficient or nonexistent post-deployment support.

A complete software system overhaul is a challenge for any organization. The Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory completely re-engineered its 17-year-old system from the ground up, requiring training on the new systems and related processes for each of its employees. Creating a learning program, which includes 189 different processes for 4,300 employees across 21 role groups with a core team of two in less than eight months, makes for overwhelming odds against success.

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

As learning solutions reach increasingly diverse audiences, it is not only appropriate to ensure that courses are accessible, but it’s also the law. Remaining in compliance helps you and/or your organization avoid costly legal issues. Avoid being forced to return to old content to fix current and potential issues. Start with the end in mind, and learn to build online courses and presentations right from the start.

Clients come to eLearning developers with many questions and preconceived ideas about generally what's possible and specifically what's feasible. Maybe all they've ever seen are poorly developed read-and-click courses or maybe they want rapid eLearning, but don't know exactly what that means. As a developer, you know there are many factors to consider including focus, timeline, design, scope, and content development. How can you and your client have an informed, common understanding when you have your initial discussion?

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

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

Performance support is typically designed and developed separately from other training solutions. As such, it becomes a solution that may not be used as it was intended, if at all. When part of a complete solution, performance support better serves to enhance and reinforce formal learning initiatives for a more effective solution.

As the financial and operational benefits of big data become more apparent to business leaders, the demand for accountable and impactful learning is growing. Learning portals, MOOCs, the xAPI, social media, and collaboration tools provide new channels for learning delivery, yet most learning departments are stuck measuring the traditional four levels.

Traditional approaches to learning and development are no longer responsive enough to continuously build and refresh the capabilities and skills that organizations and employees need. So workers and business leaders are increasingly looking beyond what their L&D departments have to offer. And those learners are choosing to learn and develop in different ways from a much more diverse range of sources. Meanwhile, most L&D infrastructure is still geared for the same old thing: creating, managing, and delivering formal training.

Organizational learning’s transformation is being driven by two forces: technology and the need for business agility. In the industrial era of the last century, training was the default for organizations, as information was not easily accessible and many work tasks were repeatable. Today the opposite is true; information is plentiful and easily accessed and routine work is being automated, creating a greater need for creativity and problem-solving skills. With employees being increasingly comfortable with job movement, social connection must be the new centerpiece.