eLearning
15 articles on eLearning.
E-learning for salespeople cuts down the levels of product complexity
An interview with Jeff Philips, Donnelly Financial Solutions
How can e-learning platforms use Certainty Based Marking?
As an alternative to traditional multiple-choice assessment, Certainty Based Marking (CBM) helps employees to learn in a more confident, considered and comprehensive way. The reasons for this – outlined in our blog post Certainty Based Marking and how it improves employee training – are that it requires learners to indicate the certainty of their answers and uses a scoring scale that encourages honesty in doing so.
The need for digital skills in the boardroom
Here in the world of eLearning, we talk of the rise in the workforce of Millennials and how they react and interact with technology. We discuss the increasing demands of our new digital workforce for communication. With the workplace becoming our learning space, a digitally connected world of work is what we seek, what we’ve come to expect, and increasingly, what we need. Companies bring in eLearning providers, encouraging this digital workplace culture. We embrace it, and celebrate its many benefits. The Millennial workforce enjoys engaging and interacting in this way. They would. It is after all, their world. They are the digital natives. What about the boardroom? Can the same enthusiasm be expected from CEOs and other members of the management structure? Do they share our passion? Our experience? Do they even share our knowledge of the digital age? Or is it a world they fear, absolutely necessary but at the same time totally unfathomable? It may be time to reboot the boss. There is certainly a gap in digital skills at senior management level, and for a variety of reasons. The point about the Millennials isn’t a joke. Those who were born after the mid 80s are the
Let’s stay together – keeping learning social
The modern world of work has become a learning space; the workplace is our classroom. The workplace learning we engage with is no longer a single event with a sole focus. Life is the lesson, and our learning is ongoing, holistic and social. It all started with a caveman’s drawing on a cave wall. Ever since, our natural human instinct has been to connect, share and discuss our experiences. From birth, we learn from our surroundings; from our relationships, by collaborating with others and by seeking advice. We observe, we think and we enact. By sharing information and ideas in debate and in discussion, we learn and develop. We’re all familiar with the concept of social learning. The 70/20/10 model shows clearly how it is fundamental to our growth, both personally and professionally. In terms of Learning and Development, we could be forgiven for thinking that social learning is a contemporary idea or a recently developed buzzword. Nothing could be further from the truth. The theories of psychologists (such as Albert Bandura), detailing the social nature of our learning, actually date back to the late 60s. Before the digital age, the standardised way in which organisations operated left little room
Tin Can API or SCORM : Which is best?
Organisations wishing to embrace eLearning face something of a dilemma when it comes to deciding between the two standards SCORM and Tin Can API. Some organisations already using SCORM to deliver courses may wonder if a move to Tin Can is worth the time and monetary investment. Weighing one against the other, however, may be a false comparison in many ways. The two are different beasts, and bring differing pros and cons to the eLearning table. Its all about strengths and weaknesses, and ultimately, it would also all depend on the type of courses organisations wish to deliver. It can seem like negotiating a minefield, but it doesn’t necessarily have to be that way. The first step here, is for businesses and organisations to understand exactly what they want for their staff, from any eLearning protocol. Once that becomes clear, then the decision should be fairly easy, but they are two individual journeys to a final destination, in effect. Two separate methods of realising similar results. In the world of eLearning, SCORM has been around for some time now, and while it still delivers results, its powers are limited. Tin Can API is the new kid on the block, the
E-learning: This time it’s personal
As learning and development technologies develop, companies, organisations and educational establishments are increasingly recognising the value in personalised online and e-learning programmes. Although a relatively recent development, it is believed that organisations implementing personalised learning structures will bring many benefits. By harnessing technology, e-Learning can become more integrated, more specific, target led, and personal. Learning and Development providers recognise that advancement in e-Learning technologies and adaptive teaching methods enable organisations to support learners on their individual learning pathways. Personalised learning recognises the fact that we all operate differently, we learn differently, at differing pace, and therefore, we have different learning needs. By personalising the training, we can maximise its impact on the business or organisation. This is, after all, personal development. It’s about the person, and this time, it’s personal. Several techniques come into play when personalising learning plans, starting at the beginning of the pathway with assessments of the student/learner’s prior learning and achievements, going right through the process with integrated planning and access to real time data analysis for feedback and advice purposes. By aligning these processes, and allowing the student to select the right technologies, the right tools, the learning becomes more personalised and reactive. Personalised learning
Can e-learning provide the bricks to build the bridge across the UK’s productivity gap?
Productivity in the UK is a notoriously slow moving beast, particularly in recent years. According to the Office for National Statistics, productivity growth has remained at a standstill for seven years since the financial crisis. A report by The Independent from July 2015 also highlighted that productivity in Britain is second weakest of the G7 nations. There can be fewer things more crucial to a business than the productivity of its workforce. Productivity produces profitability, we know. It would be reasonable to assume that low productivity is linked to low employee engagement. However, it doesn’t automatically follow that low enthusiasm levels are entirely the fault of the workforce. The gap in productivity, that low workforce enthusiasm could just as easily be a result of ineffective or ill-focussed support in Learning and Development. Productivity is also often seen as the return on an organisation’s investment in its people, so it is imperative that every effort is made to bridge that gap. In an ever changing world, companies and organisations need to look at new frameworks for the provision of training. Investing in people, and strengthening their engagement, not only through providing them with skills, but more importantly, the right skills, will
Maximize Learning Potential: Integrating Training with Work
Picture this, if you will.The ‘good’ old days, when staff training was delivered in bland and soulless conference suites, with less than perfect coffee and an over reliance on flip charts. The days when employee engagement in their own professional development revolved more around the biscuit selection of a particular venue, or the time of the buffet, than anything else. The learning day had an agenda and crucially, a timetable. At the bottom of the day’s timetable, was the word that learners engaged with the most. FINISH. Excited but hushed discussions would break out across the room, as people wondered whether the finish time would actually be at the time predicted, or whether they might get to leave a little early. Elbows would be nudged, comments whispered under breath “don’t ask any questions, they’ll keep us here all day”. The next day, our intrepid learners would return to work, with valuable feedback for managers and colleagues on the important issues they discussed at the training day. “Well, the coffee was awful, and I didn’t like the look of the buffet much, so only had a couple of sandwiches, but they had Hob-Nobs, and we were out of there by 4
Elearning Market on the Rise: Projected 5% Growth Ahead
As more and more organisations embrace e-learning as a valuable tool for growth, the market size shows no signs of slowing down. It could easily be said there’s a training and development revolution happening, and consistently, we see more brands and organisations seeking to be involved. Ease of accessibility, technological developments, increased user demand, and the low cost of delivery will all play a part. In Western Europe and North America, we see a growth in the amount of smartphone and tablet users entering the workplace, and an increase in the demand for, and engagement with e-learning. In regions such as Latin America, Asia, China and Australasia, with large and widespread populations, will also see an increase in demand for distance learning. E-learning produces results across the board, from SMEs to large universities and governmental programmes. Research shows that factors such as learning flexibility, ease of access and engagement, and low cost look to be driving an increase from $165 billion in 2015, to more than $240 billion by 2023. Other than cost and flexibility, however, there are several factors fuelling this growth drive globally, leading to this increase in involvement. Key areas such as the US, and Asia-Pacific regions are
What benefits could e-learning bring to emergency training?
Plans have been announced for an extra one million workers based in crowded city centre areas, and sports and entertainment venues to receive training in how to effectively react and respond in the event of a terrorist attack. Project Griffin, a scheme jointly designed and developed by the City Of London and Metropolitan Police forces is to be extended from the 100,000 military and emergency service staff who already receive training predominantly in the capital. Historically, such instruction has been primarily classroom based, and delivered to small groups at centres such as The Cabinet Office’s Emergency Planning College in Easingwold, North Yorkshire. Across so many emergency service staff, this process, clearly, can take years. The difficulty of the times demands a new, fresher approach, more appropriate, more accessible, and faster. The training Project Griffin requires is structured in such a way that individuals who complete levels are subsequently equipped to train their colleagues. Project Griffin is now also pursuing involvement from those working in the retail, hospitality, entertainment and travel sectors to help ripple out the training. The Association of British Travel Agents is just one organisation to have signed up to be involved in the expansion, in the light of
Top 10 considerations when selecting e-learning
Classroom-based training may well feel familiar to most employees while also providing members of staff with a chance to network and have a day away from the office, but it is beginning to fall out of favour for a number of reasons. First and foremost, trainees no longer respond well to passively accepting the instructions of a teacher. Even though it worked at school, we now live in a world where the Internet fuels the acquisition of new information and knowledge, which is a very interactive and engaging activity. Secondly, businesses are under increasing pressure to reduce the cost of training, which can spiral out of control when you factor in things like accommodation and transport. Last but not least, traditional training is incredibly inflexible. The whole class must keep pace with the teacher and consume exactly the same learning materials as everybody else, even though they could well miss vital information or not understand key concepts. Thankfully, due to the rapid rate in which new technologies have developed, e-learning is now a viable and cost-effective option for organisations wanting to adopt a new training approach. However, that doesn’t mean to say it comes in a one-size-fits-all package, as there
Join us at Learning Technologies 2016!
3-4 February Olympia, London We are exhibiting! Come visit us at stand O2 Wranx at Learning Technologies 2016 Learning Technologies is the perfect opportunity to showcase how we are helping global brands to implement great learning strategies. With users across 466 cities, it is has been a fantastic 12 months for Wranx! Our team will be on hand over the two days to provide live demonstrations of our learning technology and how the spaced repetition method works. We will also have an interactive giant itab so you will have the opportunity to try out Wranx for yourself! You’re welcome to pop by Stand O2 and say hello at any time, but if you have any questions for our team, you might want to book a meeting in advance, which you can do by emailing info@wranx.com We look forward to seeing you there! Seminar : Enterprise Scale Gamification Phillip Price – Virtual Academy Operations for PSA Peugeot Citroen 10.15am -10.45am 4th February Theatre 8 Olympia London We are also excited to announce that Phillip Price will be hosting a seminar at the event on behalf of Wranx on enterprise scale gamification! The seminar will include real examples of gamification in action and demonstrate how it can
Reading about it is the easy part
See what daily retrieval practice looks like running on your own training content.