Working with different subject matter experts (SMEs)—each with their own working style, personality, and expertise—can be a challenge. And that challenge can be amplified further when you need to work with multiple SMEs at the same time. How do you, as an instructional designer, know how to get the content you need from your SMEs to create effective and engaging learning experiences?

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, L&D professionals will have the data they need to tailor the learning process to individual needs at the same time that they can draw more useful conclusions about the learning as a whole across a wider population.

The eLearning development requests keep rolling in, and everyone wants their projects completed as of yesterday. Working on a busy team can get tough when you’re managing various SMEs, reviewers, demos, feedback, and LMS configurations. This is especially true when you have multiple projects and you play many roles—or every role—on each of them. How do you keep your creative flame burning from project to project without being bogged down by all the project management work that goes along with each one?

Do you ever worry about hiring independent contractors to support your learning projects? Are you realizing that the typical interview process needs to change a bit to ensure you make great selections quickly? Are you considering how you can market yourself as an independent contractor and increase your chances of being hired? Learn some insider tips on how to identify great learning support contractors or become one yourself.

Demonstrating the value of training and eLearning is a common challenge for instructional designers and eLearning developers. ROIs and cost-benefit analyses are almost never done, and KPIs often aren’t used to measure performance changes. However, using data to understand the results of your projects and approaches and then share them with others can do a lot to help others see what benefits come from your team’s work.

Every day you interact with various websites and mobile apps. Each is designed to deliver a certain experience, set the stage for what’s to come, engage you as a user, and keep you returning. They’re also created to surprise you with their flashy colors, interaction, and ease of use. If you want to go beyond simple next/back buttons in your course designs, finding inspiration within these cleverly created user interface (UI) and user experience (UX) interactions is a great place to start.

There is a lot of subjectivity when it comes to interpreting 508 compliance for eLearning. Although the law, originally amended to the Rehabilitation Act of 1973, was enacted in 1998, the interpretation and implementation varies widely across organizations. This can cause much confusion and distress among developers and project managers as they zigzag across what can be an accessibility landmine hoping to come out whole on the other side.  

The conversation around 70:20:10 has been growing in popularity in recent years—with good reason. People are learning and getting support in a host of different ways, and 70:20:10 helps us see our work through a lens much broader than just traditional training methods. But in order to really be impactful, 70:20:10 needs to be more than just an idea. How do organizations put the concept of 70:20:10 into action?

Do you experience skepticism from stakeholders about the validity of the L&D function? Do you miss out on opportunities to demonstrate your value as a business advisor because you’re left out of the conversation from the start? And does this cynicism in the field lead to self-doubt and impact your career mobility? Many people can relate to this uphill climb and even experience impostor syndrome: the self-belief that you are not as skilled as people think you are and that you’ll be called out as a fraud. Because L&D is so often ill-defined and misunderstood, it provides fertile ground for impostor syndrome. So how does an L&D professional demonstrate value despite constant roadblocks or when impostor syndrome hits?

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.

Gamification is an important and powerful strategy for influencing and motivating people. Unfortunately, many people think that gamification means just adding a game to their learning program or making a computer or video game. Because of this confusion, combined with a lack of real-life case studies of gamification successfully applied to learning programs, most L&D professionals do not understand how to deconstruct games to effectively drive the learning and behavior they want or need.

A company’s learning management system contract was coming to an end. After thoroughly reviewing its effectiveness, the L&D organization concluded it was no longer meeting their needs and decided to replace it in order to improve the end-user and administrative experiences, offer better mobile capabilities, enhance reporting and data visualization, and better integrate with internal systems. Ultimately, they also wanted to accomplish this without increasing spending.

The most expensive instruction is that which doesn’t work. This discussion will look at the actions and behaviors that have been scientifically proven to affect learning. You will explore the ways in which instructional design requires more than content delivery and common sense. You will look at robust, evidence-based principles of learning to discover new ways to build the kind of training that is genuinely effective at creating performance change and helping organizations achieve their objectives.

Alexa is one of the most widely used smart devices in the US today. It’s a disruptive game­changer in the learning and development space, but its integration into the learning ecosystem is drastically low. The number-one barrier today for learning professionals in using Alexa for learning and performance support is fear of the technology. The second barrier, and the one that’s easier to solve, is understanding how to even start developing learning content in this new platform. You cannot leverage what you do not understand, but it may be easier than you assume to learn to create experiences for Alexa.

Quarter after quarter, year after year, designers and developers are challenged with creating new and exciting courses. Too often, though, courses are outsourced or made into dull, linear experiences where content is clicked through and glossed over. Imagine creating a memorable course that submerges your learners into a personalized, engaging experience—but how?