If you are new to Guild events or the Learning Solutions Conference, take time on Tuesday from 5:30p – 6:00p pm for an orientation and introduction to help you get the most from the conference program, expo, and other event activities.

“Social learning” and “informal learning” are among the training industry's hottest phrases these days. But there's so much confusion over what they mean, and what they mean to those of us in the business. In this session, participants will review the basics of social learning, including theory-based perspectives. These basics include items such as: Social learning isn't new; Social learning isn't necessarily “managed,” “launched,” “controlled,” or “measured;” People in the workplace are learning all the time – without us; Those people likely don't think of what they're doing as “learning.”
 
In this session, you will spend some time looking at real examples of social and informal learning as it happens in workplaces – all the time, every day. During the session you will work together to generate ideas for locating, supporting, and facilitating social learning opportunities toward the greater goal of enhancing organizational performance.

In this session, you will learn:

• The differences between social learning, informal learning, and social media for learning
• The ways learning occurs naturally in day-to-day work
• Tactics for supporting and nurturing social learning and communities
• Strategies for embedding learning into the workflow rather than interrupting it

Audience: Novice. This session is designed for anyone with an interest in social and informal learning.

Prudential has a long history of supporting Service Members and Veterans. The company is proud of its history of support, and wanted to do more to provide awareness of the need to reintegrate our Veterans into the civilian work environment. Prudential’s CEO is leading an initiative that includes an eLearning component targeted to Prudential managers and employees, which could also be leveraged by other corporations and academic institutions. The focus of the program is on issues that relate to Veterans and their transition to civilian life.

In this case-study session, you will explore the process Prudential’s learning organization went through to create the manager’s eLearning program. Through a highly collaborative effort, they addressed the requirements of stakeholders throughout the organization: from the CEO to HR functions, corporate law compliance, and business ethics. You’ll learn some of the challenges faced along the way, discuss the marketing and rollout tactics, and look at the Flash-built final program.

In this session, you will learn:

• The challenges and strategies needed when creating an eLearning program at a large corporation
• How Prudential approached the design and development process
• How internal corporate teams and a vendor shared responsibilities
• How to market and roll out an eLearning program
• Why supporting Veterans is the right thing to do, and the right thing for your business

Audience: Novice to Intermediate participants. This program has no prerequisites – just an interest in gaining more insight and understanding into creating eLearning at a large organization.

Innovation and growth in social media, mobile devices, cloud computing, and other technologies is resulting in the Learning Explosion — the perpetual creation and global distribution of ideas, innovation, and learning. Accessing and applying this knowledge without becoming overwhelmed is essential to personal learning and development. You and your colleagues need to become “Mutant Learners” — rapidly adapting, evolving, and changing to effectively harness today's Learning Explosion.

In this session you will learn how to create a Personal Learning Lab™ — a controlled learning environment where you continuously discover new knowledge, experiment with it, apply it, and organize it into salient concepts that you can easily access on your chosen devices.

In this session, you will learn:

• How you can effectively evolve into a Mutant Learner. (Someone able to thrive in these ever-changing times.)
• The necessary steps to build a Personal Learning Lab
• Tools, tips, and tricks on how to utilize social media and other technology for ongoing learning
• How to organize knowledge into salient concepts that you can easily access on your chosen devices

Audience: This session is for participants at all knowledge and skill levels; however, those who want to harness and effectively apply the onslaught of information now available will be most interested.

Are you just starting your organization’s learning program or trying to revamp your learning and development approach? This session will address the issue of how to implement a hybrid solution within an organization from on-boarding to succession management. The session will examine how to blend your approach to implementing and delivering learning activities to ensure you are achieving the desired results.

Participants in this case-study session will learn how the DoD set up their program. You will walk through the analysis, customization, assessment, planning, development, and finally the measuring of effects via feedback loops. You’ll examine the decisions made to use either an online or an offline solution. You will hear how they set up a LMS and determined the delivery method for each learning item. You will get practical advice on what the DoD organization views as being best administered in the online environment and what is best left in the physical world.

In this session, you will learn:

• How to set up learning solutions to organizational needs
• How to make the LMS work for your learning solutions
• Which activities are best online and which you should keep offline
• How to provide a personal touch to newcomers to your organization

Audience: Novice to Intermediate level participants. This session is of interest to those who are either just starting their organization’s learning programs or are revamping their learning and development approach.  Knowledge of ISD, ADDIE, and overall talent management would be a plus, but is not required.

The numbers run business … literally – it’s the bottom line. Yet many learning professionals do not “speak business numbers” and therefore cannot justify their initiatives to those who approve funding. The stakes are even higher if the program is of strategic importance, highly visible, and/or costly. This session will share why measuring critical programs like leadership development, sales training, and onboarding are vital to program managers.

Session participants will learn the major elements of a measurement plan to successfully and comprehensively generate quantitative and qualitative metrics in a timely and practical manner using limited resources. You’ll get examples of tools such as a key performance indicator matrix, a communication plan, and smart-sheet evaluations, and you’ll see sample reports, including dashboards.

In this session, you will learn:

• The importance of measuring strategic, visible, and costly programs
• How to discuss the measurement plan to gather timely, credible data
• How to showcase sample reports, statements, dashboards, and scorecards
• How to apply this type of data to your unique needs

Audience: Those participants who need to learn how to understand qualitative and quantitative metrics to justify their learning initiatives.

eLearning professionals often have questions surrounding design strategies for learning materials. Many find themselves “guessing” about layout, composition, and typography. Yet better-designed eLearning courses yield stronger communication and focused visuals. Following the basic principles of design helps dictate communication to the audience.

Participants in this session will learn about good design by focusing on composition, the grid, images/video/animation, and type font. You’ll be able to see and comment on design examples as well as learn about design principles.

In this session, you will learn:

• Basic design principles for better screen designs
• Simple rubrics to use to evaluate your designs
• Layout and composition concepts
• How to better use type, images, and multimedia components

Audience: Those participants who want to improve the visual design of their courses.

Do you choose your tools based on your instructional design needs, or do you force your instructional design to accommodate the tool you have? Many tools to develop eLearning exist, and your instructional design should take advantage of the strengths of the best tools available.

Participants in this case-study session will learn several scenarios of instructional design approaches. For each approach you will discuss which tools are best used to develop each approach. You will also address some problem areas and learn why compromises are sometimes necessary. You’ll be able to present your own instructional design approach ideas, and together we will discuss the tools to use for your own design approaches.

In this session, you will learn:

• How to decide on a design approach that works
• How to determine which tools will best serve your needs
• How to determine when more than one tool might be necessary
• How to cut through the hype!

Audience: Those needing to make knowledgeable decisions about which tools to use to meet their design needs. Participants should have a basic understanding of eLearning design principles.

The same issue faces every training organization: a requirement for a large training initiative related to a software deployment or upgrade that requires training a diverse set of users. The timeline between the delivery of the final product and the start of training is usually short (if it exists at all), and the training staff needs to find ways to make things work. In 2010, Northrop Grumman (NG) upgraded its Learning Management System (LMS). The training team’s task was to deploy different types of learning to different groups of users, the largest of which was about 100,000 people. The expected timeline between the deliverable product and the start of training was short, and they needed to find ways to make things work with limited resources of people, time, and money.

Participants in this case-study session will look at the Northrop Grumman training project for deployment of the upgrade to their LMS. You will focus on the team’s planning, the development and deployment strategies put into place, and the results of the training.

In this session, you will learn:

• How to identify the training audiences
• How to make instructional-delivery-type decisions
• How to market your training effort
• How to evaluate your results

Audience: Intermediate-level participants. This session will support individuals who are preparing for an initial deployment or upgrade to a LMS or other large-scale software tool to identify, develop, and deploy training to ensure success.

This session addresses approaches for designing online courses for global learners. How do you design for multiple cultures? How do you translate content? How do you address bandwidth and technical issues? How do you engage students and create global learning communities? Participants will see examples of courses The Nature Conservancy has developed for international audiences such as: Reef Resilience, Protected Area Management, Geographic Information Systems for Conservation, and Climate Change.

Session participants will learn best practices for addressing globalizing content for all cultures, producing content in multiple languages, using Moodle to develop course rooms, addressing bandwidth and connectivity constraints, and utilizing informal learning techniques (forums, user-generated content) to build learning communities for localizing knowledge to regional areas.

In this session, you will learn:

• How to globalize and translate online training for an international audience
• How to design interactive, engaging training
• How to use Moodle to deliver courses to an international audience
• How to incorporate informal learning to build learning communities

Audience: Those interested in designing courses for a global audience.

Let’s face it — training videos can come across as having low production quality, poor acting when relying on internal talent, and be downright boring when trying to convey a process, such as overcoming objections in a sales meeting. And, the resulting video can seem staged or contrived. Reality-TV-style training videos make skills or knowledge training fun! The format breaks down the challenge into clear steps. For the viewer, the medium provides a hook — whether an emotional response to a situation, identification with a represented social archetype, or a visual cue to be accessed later on during a task. For the challengers themselves, it provides an “intense” learning experience, far more real than a role play, as it involves preparation for and delivery of a sales call to an actual customer (when possible).

This session will break reality-TV production down into easy-to-follow steps that result in fabulous videos. Participants will learn video production concepts and see scenes from actual training videos, professionally produced reality-TV-style videos used for sales training, valuable behind-the-scenes footage, and interviews with SMEs.

In this session, you will learn:

• How to manage your project from concept, to scripting, to production
• How to manage your SMEs as stars
• How to decide on a video production level and hire the right video production crew
• How to create a recognizable brand for your training to instill credibility

Audience: No video knowledge required. Participants should have a learning objective in mind that they want to turn into a video.

As the trend toward mobile learning and support grows, it's difficult to know where to begin. Instructional designers must play an important role in the development process, but the design considerations are difficult to sort out. Designers need information on how people actually use mobile phones and how to design for user habits. They also need to understand (at a high level) the technical considerations.

This session will sort through the disparate information on designing mobile performance support apps and explain the varied design issues the instructional designer will need to know about. You’ll get important resources, such as where to find pre-made icons for mobile apps, or which wireframe tools are available for creating mock-ups. Post-session participants should be able to know how to start designing an app, the design tools they can use, and the high-level technical considerations they'll need to address in discussions with programmers.

In this session, you will learn:

• The important role that the instructional designer can play
• How people really use their smartphones
• What to consider when designing a mobile performance support app
• How to write use-case scenarios for your app
• How to wireframe your app
• Where to find important resources for app design

Audience: Intermediate to advanced participants. No specific skills are required, but those who are experienced in designing eLearning will gain the most. (Note: This session will not teach how to program an app.)

Whether you are part of a design team or working by yourself, keeping track of course information is vital. Time is wasted if course information or files are not organized. How can you manage a team or your time, if you don’t know the status of the courses, or provide an accurate measure of the time spent developing courses?

This session will discuss what information it is helpful to track, how to use Microsoft Access or Excel to track information, and suggest ways to use this information to stay organized. The information it is important to track to stay organized includes SMEs, date required, course status, etc. Discover how you can use this information to determine what is being and what was developed. Utilize the information as benchmarks, or to tell leadership the time spent on course development.

In this session, you will learn:

• How to identify the information that is helpful to track
• Examples of how to track this information by utilizing Microsoft Access or Excel
• How to use the tracked information to analyze and determine individual and group workloads
• How to use the tracked information to establish routine course maintenance and reviews

Audience: Intermediate participants should have an understanding of Microsoft Excel and/or Access.

With the economy unstable, the job market is also still unstable. Companies continue to downsize, or at least, not add people. Staff increasingly feels held hostage by their company. The increased workload, long hours, and threat of future downsizing has created slave-workers. Leaders feel oppressed as well, so leadership of any kind has left the building. Leadership has been off the radar for at least three years. Employees didn't need to be engaged in their work – they were lucky to have a job. Or so it seemed. This temporary situation is wearing thin, and employees are either looking for ways out or “quitting in place.” Either way, leaders must reconnect their staff to the company or face future workload and quality issues.

In this session, hopeful leaders will relearn how to re-engage employees. Through activities designed to build employee commitment, participants will leave with new ways to begin to grow their teams into a community with accountability and trust.

In this session, you will learn:

• To identify the 10 competencies of a technical leader, and self-assess
• To assess their own current engagement, and mitigate the results
• To create a plan for re-engaging staff
• To create productive, accountable teams

Audience: Intermediate participants should have responsibility for leading in an organization, either informally (through projects) or formally (through position).

Over time, your LMS becomes cluttered, difficult to navigate, and full of dated, irrelevant content. The configuration decisions you made when you first installed the LMS may come back to haunt you. How can you avoid these nightmares and ensure that your LMS stays fresh and well-organized?

Participants in this session will discover the critical tasks that many organizations forget to address when implementing a new LMS or updating an existing system. You’ll go beyond the “what’s” and into the “how-to’s.” Participants who are considering a LMS, are currently implementing a LMS, or who have found themselves stuck with a problematic LMS will learn how to establish the standards, processes, taxonomies, and governance necessary to ensure your LMS operates effectively for years to come.

In this session, you will learn:

• How to establish standards for LMS content
• How to define and maintain effective taxonomies for catalogs and metadata
• How to manage advanced LMS features such as notifications and audiences, over time
• How to establish appropriate content management policies and governance
• How to manage content shelf life
• How to implement processes for handling requests and changes
• How to establish and maintain an effective working relationship with IT

Audience: Participants should be able to accurately define what a LMS does and have some experience participating in medium-to-large project implementations, ideally with projects that involve technology.

The Darwin Information Type Architecture (DITA) is an XML standard that defines an architecture for designing, authoring, publishing, and managing content. Its latest release specifically addresses the needs of the learning and training industry.

In this session, participants are introduced to the DITA standard. They will learn how DITA provides a common topic structure that enables them to piece together the same content in a variety of ways and output that content to a number of media and formats. They will see how DITA allows them to address the needs of multiple audiences or subtle differences in content within a single topic, eliminating repetition that leads to higher maintenance costs. They learn from real-world examples from organizations that have successfully used DITA to cut development costs and increase their overall productivity.

In this session, you will learn:

• The learning and training topic types supported by DITA —learning plan, introduction, summary, and assessment
• The XML-based assessments supported by DITA, including true/false, single and multiple select, match, hotspot
• How to build training topics into lessons and courses, using learning maps
• How to work with Learning and Training metadata, supporting full SCORM compliance
• To evaluate the applicability of the DITA standard to your organization

Audience: Those being called upon to deliver more for less – courses that can be easily reused and customized for each client, content appropriate for both print and electronic delivery, material that can remain current and relevant with minimal effort – all without increasing staff or extending deadlines.

The challenge for PETCO is training a global employee base, with a wide range of roles and responsibilities, to embrace a large process and cultural change combined with using a new industry-standard [merchandising and financial planning] system as it relates to their particular role. In sum, PETCO’s challenge involves how to embrace change and transform their daily workflows.

This session presents an approach to solving the training/change implementation dilemma through the exploration of key components of the emBark Initiative: creating a new common language among associates, developing role-based instruction, designing humorous yet effective application training, and refining processes in day-to-day work situations. Participants will leave this session inspired and armed with concrete solutions plus ready-made templates for system implementations and change training.

In this session, you will learn:

• Processes for creating an internal brand for the change/training implementation 
• Methods to develop role-based instruction for processes, systems, and business acumen
• How to identify repeatable patterns in your content development
• When and how to use learning agents, humor, online planners, and interactive PDFs
• About tools such as online planners and interactive communication and performance support PDFs

Audience: Intermediate participants interested in training rollouts on system implementations and/or corporate change management programs. You should be familiar with Adobe Flash and PDFs, instructional design, and eLearning development.

Effective leadership is vital to growth and expansion for all businesses. This has become especially true in the health care arena, where so much is continually changing. Affinity Health Systems (AHS) concluded that the strength of their leaders will determine the organization’s viability.

Participants in this case-study session will learn the process AHS used to determine the competencies leaders currently need to ensure success of the business. This session will assist other learning leaders by hearing how Affinity Health strengthened their leader competencies through a six-month project that used focus groups with senior leaders to develop a variety of success profiles for every level of organizational leadership.

In this session, you will learn:

• Why identifying key business drivers is critical
• The purpose of engaging senior leaders
• How to select and manage leader focus groups
• How to build four levels of leadership success profiles

Audience: Novice-to-intermediate participants who want to build an effective leadership program.

Many organizations use QR Codes when they market to their customers, but few are using them in learning. QR Codes are simple solutions implementable at little or no cost to an organization that work with devices that employees are already using.

Participants in this session will look at the lessons learned from marketing’s use of QR Codes to promote products, sales, and information. Now, learning professionals can create low-cost just-in-time learning solutions. During this session you will see more than 20 examples of where you can use QR Codes in “traditional” learning.

In this session, you will learn:

• What QR Codes are and how to generate them using free or low-cost websites
• How marketing is using QR Codes with customers
• What the appropriate content for QR Codes is
• The cultural considerations needed before implementing a solution using QR Codes
• The various learning solutions that use QR Codes
• How you can use QR Codes as performance-support resources

Audience: Novice participants who use a smartphone.

Davenport University's internal learning technology group deployed a social learning community to a significant portion of its employee base, spread amongst multiple campuses in Michigan. One department that embraced the learning community was the admissions department. Admissions reps—a university's equivalent of sales reps—swap tips and best practices using Bloomfire's built-in Q&A mechanism. Managers can also post helpful materials, giving admissions reps what they need for success straight into their pockets.

eLearning Guild members know what social learning is in theory, and those who are looking to implement it want to hear from people who have been there and done that. Participants in this case-study session will learn how Davenport University is implementing social learning. You’ll get real-life knowledge from Davenport trainers who have been there and done that. You’ll also be able to use what you learn to pitch your supervisors and get internal buy-in.

In this session, you will learn:

• How a real-life organization is doing social learning
• How you can apply social learning to employee training
• How to get organizational buy-in for social learning
• What the journey to social learning looks like

Audience: Basic familiarity with social learning will be sufficient.

Many are unfamiliar with the time and cost investments to create technology-enabled learning. Do you know how long it takes your organization to create different formats of learning, including instructor-led training (ILT), virtual classroom training (VILT), basic eLearning (Level 1), interactive eLearning (Level 2), and simulation-based eLearning (Level 3)? 

Session participants will discover the published benchmarking data to help your organization better plan and optimize learning development across multiple delivery types. You will discuss the results of the study and get tips, techniques, and lessons learned to improve your development practice. You’ll find out what’s typical and what is possible … and whether you might be developing content too fast. Please come prepared for a lively, interactive discussion.

In this session, you will learn:

• How long, and how much it costs (on average) to create different levels of learning
• How to create cost projections for future custom development projects
• How to set expectations with senior management and customers about development times and costs
• How to measure and correct your own development practices

Audience: Novice-to-intermediate participants. No prior background or experience necessary.

Leading technology critics, like Sheryl Turkle and David Brooks, suggest that the abundance of technologies, while offering great benefits, also forces people to imbed lots of knowledge and information but fails to process the information into useful and valuable knowledge to impact performance. You will be able to SPEED-UP by SLOWING IT DOWN – by allowing learners to stop, look, listen, and learn to contemplate how to apply the ideas.

In this session, you will see four case studies on how to add the contemplation process in the eLearning design.

In this session, you will learn:

• About a university graduate school project that requires critical processes as a key activity in the eLearning design
• About a large financial services company that requires “mapping and schema” presentations on how learners apply learning
• About a project management consulting initiative that includes “learner-to-learner” reflection moments for coaching
• About a global truck-engine manufacturer that requires “learning impacts reporting” to track applications
• About a large psychometrics company using collaborative systems to encourage reflection on case stories

Audience: Novice participants with basic knowledge in eLearning, social learning design, and implementation.

In the corporate atmosphere, there seems to be a general fear of the shift from traditional classroom training to eLearning. As training budgets are slashed, many traditional classroom trainers are increasingly fearful of losing their jobs with the shift. This session, coming from one who has made the shift, will give a real example to show it can be done.

Participants in this session will first learn the similarities in both processes: designing for classroom as well as eLearning. You’ll get examples showing that the shift is not an all-or-nothing approach, and that most companies are actually shifting to a blended program. Lastly, you’ll learn ways to gain practical skills to “fill in” possible gaps in your current skill sets to ease the transition from classroom to eLearning.

In this session, you will learn:

• The similarities in approaching classroom design and eLearning.
• The characteristics of Blended Learning and its advantages.
• How to embrace change and begin to think about blended learning as a friend!
• Practical and easily gained skills that will help the shift from classroom to eLearning to go easier.

Audience: Novice. All are welcome, but former classroom instructors, or anyone designing training for a classroom audience, is likely to get the most from this session.

Most industries have a segment of immigrant and international employees. They may also have hidden employees with learning disabilities and reading issues. In their audience analysis, corporate trainers and instructional designers may encounter English as a second language (ESL) and low-literacy learner groups for their training programs. Without a background and understanding of these specific issues, you may be creating programs and products that will not meet the learner’s need. Learning to think through the content to better match it to the audience will allow you to create more successful outcomes.

Participants in this session will go through an experiential exercise to better understand the struggles of ESL (or any other second language) and low-literacy learners. You’ll learn the barriers for them in learning, and discuss ways of assisting these learners in meeting the learning objectives of the course. You will also learn how to calculate the reading level of your course content.

In this session, you will learn:

• To recognize problematic content for second language and reading-challenged adults
• To create accessible content
• What barriers second language and reading challenged adults face in a working environment
• How to calculate reading levels of material

Audience: Those who need to provide technology-based learning for low-literacy learners and/or learners with special needs.

Mobile handsets and tablets are invading every aspect of just-in-time corporate communications, performance support, and training. This fact, plus the growing popularity of the “Bring Your Own Device/BYOD” movement, requires enterprise IT teams to rethink their approach to mobile learning access and content delivery. Because mobile devices are far more prone to loss or theft complicates every organization’s security requirements, especially when delivering proprietary information, courseware, and business intelligence. Organizations of all kinds — especially those in financial services, insurance, medical/pharma, government, and technology — are demanding that mobile devices be just as secure as desktop or classroom-training devices are. Because mobile learning adoption will expand in 2012 across almost every enterprise, finding appropriate and scalable ways to secure on-the-go training materials, job aides, and critical business communications is essential and is a key concern of training teams, IT departments, and management.

In this session, participants will learn how mobile security has greatly matured in recent months, so you can now provide all of the necessary assurances the information security professionals are demanding.

In this session, you will learn:

• Why mobile apps are more secure than mobile Web apps
• When to use a VPN versus public networks for content access and delivery
• How to deploy and remove content from mobile devices remotely
• Device-level options for associating learners' devices with their learning accounts
• How single sign-on authentication can restrict access to learning content and resources
• When time-based restrictions are appropriate and required

Audience: Those tasked with securing their mobile learning environments, from management to individual contributors.

The information our employees and customers require lies with our subject matter experts (SMEs), who may have little to no content creation or presentation skills, and who often lack the time, motivation, and confidence to share their knowledge. Learning professionals, with potentially dozens of topics, time constraints, and limited budgets, are hard-pressed to gather this information from the SMEs to develop effective content. Managing and updating content with the ever-increasing speed of product development also creates a challenge. By educating your SMEs, implementing easy-to-use tools, providing support, and explaining the benefits of participating in the learning development process, the learning professional can focus on managing and promoting the training content.

Participants in this session will see eLearning and video examples, along with related content management and promotional ideas. The real-world examples document the construction of a robust training offering of SME-generated content in a manner that is flexible, scalable, and cost-effective. You’ll learn the tools for turning your SMEs into content developers, including rapid eLearning development tools, Webinar tools, digital video capture with video conferencing equipment (Web cams, or even iPhones), and blogs and social media including Twitter and Yammer.

In this session, you will learn:

• How to motivate your SMEs by showing them “what's in it for them”
• The importance of teaching SMEs the basics of instructional design
• The range of tools for rapid content development and how to build a suite of appropriate tools 

Audience: Novice-to-intermediate participants who need to engage their SMEs in the learning development process.

It's always tough to get good photographs for your eLearning courses. Stock photography serves its purpose, up to a point, but after a while seems impersonal and out of context. Real photographs from the workplace, with real people in them, work wonders when it comes to creating a connection with your audience.

In this session, you will see how easy it is to take great pictures with your camera — big or small. You will look at digital single-lens reflexes (DSLRs) and point-and-shoot cameras and be guided through your buying decisions. You will learn simple compositional tricks and the best ways to get interesting effects right out of the camera, so you can avoid too much post-processing.

In this session, you will learn:

• How to save as much money as you like by avoiding stock photography
• How to select and invest in good photography equipment
• The technicalities of your existing camera gear
• Compositional tricks that'll make your photo pop
• Special effects and tricks for your camera

Audience: Novice participants. All you need is a digital camera — if you have an SLR, that's just awesome!

There has never been a better time to step into the world of performance support. Almost 80% of learning is done in the context of work at “the moment of apply” — a moment that most learning offerings don't target. Now, more than ever, employees require performance support and organizations are ready to provide it — whether they know it or not! This session will ground you in the fundamentals of performance support.

Participants in this session will look at what performance support is (and what is not). You’ll learn the five types of performance support, the vital roles they can play in your organization, and where to start introducing them. You will learn how performance support complements emerging trends and technologies like mobile learning and social networking.

In this session, you will learn:

• What performance support is (and what it is not)
• The five types of performance support, the vital role they can play in your organization, and where to start introducing them
• How performance support complements emerging trends and technologies like mobile learning and social networking

Audience: Those interested in performance support as an addition to their training strategy.

Northeastern collaborated with a Fortune 100 client to deliver a large-scale online training program that focuses on business opportunities for professionals who must understand the language and mindset of the business and C-Suite executives who control corporate IT budgets. This successful online program helped the participants think strategically about enterprise growth and improved productivity. The original ILT program was too costly and lacked the necessary scalability for a worldwide workforce. The new program was delivered entirely online using synchronous and asynchronous technologies. It provided a scalable, cost-efficient means to deliver high quality and effective training to large numbers of participants in over 30 countries. It supported the client's needs by teaching business-centric solutions for selling across industries, and it engaged participants in a just-in-time, highly accessible, and successful training fitting into the client's learning roadmaps.

Participants in this case-study session will learn how to successfully migrate costly and time-consuming face-to-face training to an online environment to improve access and flexibility and reduce costs.

In this session, you will learn:

• The advantages of delivering professional development in an online format
• The steps to migrate existing F2F training to an online delivery format
• Common tools and technologies used to deliver synchronous and asynchronous online professional development
• Considerations for delivering synchronous online professional development worldwide
• The survey data on the effectiveness of online delivery of professional development

Audience: Those interested in learning how to create a scalable program to replace ILT with online approaches.

Stakeholders often come to us asking for courses, but the courses are either overkill or aren’t what is needed. And sometimes they do need “courses,” but only to check off a box. But in either case, developing courses ties up resources (including learners’ time) that they could use for better purposes. When we are asked to build courses, we have a responsibility to challenge and validate that creating a course is the most effective and efficient approach.

This session provides participants with ways to think about being more efficient when allocating course development resources. You’ll learn what questions to ask to get at whether a course is really needed, and whether more efficient options such as Twitter, discussion forums, PDFs, or other lower-tech options would more efficiently (and more effectively) meet learners’ and stakeholders’ real needs. Participants in this session will learn how training is not always the best option for improving performance, and it introduces some other alternatives along with the scenarios that can be most successfully implemented.

In this session, you will learn:

• The questions that you should ask and answer before beginning any learning program
• How to determine if a higher- or lower-tech option is more appropriate
• When a course or non-course is more appropriate
• How to steer stakeholders to more “efficient” options

Audience: Novice-to-intermediate participants should have basic or foundational level of training experience and knowledge.

Organizations are looking for easy and inexpensive ways to drive informal learning and alert students to upcoming formal training opportunities. However, many organizations do not know where to start that process, or what it will cost. Blogs often make great informal learning sites. They are simple to use, flexible, and a free-to-low-cost solution. As they become more popular with learners, blogs become easy-to-use content management systems that allow non-technical people to post content online easily. Also, many free tools (plug-ins and themes) allow you to easily modify blogs.

Participants in this case-study session will hear how SunGard is using informal-learning sites to promote formal learning. You’ll get numerous ideas on how to create blogs, both as informal-learning sites and as drivers of more formal learning. You’ll learn the types of content to which students will respond; with the focus on usable, effective, and inexpensive-to-build blogs.

In this session, you will learn:

• How to set up a blog as an informal learning site
• How to internally promote an informal learning site
• How to promote formal learning from an informal platform
• How to use tracking to determine the value of an informal learning site
• How to avoid potential downfalls when setting up a blog as an informal learning site

Audience: Novice-to-intermediate participants. A basic understanding of the Internet, Web browsers, and informal learning would be beneficial, but is not required.

National continuing-medical-education societies (Accreditation Council for Continuing Medical Education (ACCME)) now mandate that education must result in performance improvement. However, one of the major challenges business medical professionals have is limited time for education. The adoption of mobile smart devices by research doctors and laboratory professionals in hospitals and labs is rapidly increasing. Therefore, there is growing interest and desire to craft a strategy to delivery education and performance support on mobile devices for these target audiences. There is also a strong interest in how mobile devices can impact learning and performance improvement.

Using a case-study approach, session participants will experience a step-by-step “best-practices” process in the design of non-profit mobile learning strategies. You will learn how ACCP developed a program to meet the limited time available for education, along with meeting performance improvement demands.

In this session, you will learn:

• How to design a comprehensive mobile solution to address member needs
• The unique challenges associated with learning and performance support on mobile devices
• How to create a mobile learning needs assessment
• Inclusion techniques for multiple stakeholders
• How to utilize a decision matrix to rank-order mobile learning solutions

Audience: Intermediate participants should understand basic principles of instructional design and know how to conduct a needs analysis.

Podcasting is a potentially powerful tool for business, allowing messages to quickly and easily disseminate to a large audience at an extremely low cost. While traditional Podcasts were audio files only, video Podcasts are on the rise and are increasing the possible uses for this technology. It is now possible to use Podcasts for more than communication — you can also use them for training and to support performance at the jobsite. Podcasts are fast and cheap to develop and can reach a large audience quickly using basic technology readily available in most companies. By understanding the strengths and weaknesses of this tool, participants can make informed decisions as to when, where, why, and how to use Podcasts to their greatest advantage as part of their learning and performance support tool kit.

In this session, participants will explore what Podcasts are and how people have typically used them to date, and discover ways that they might use audio or video Podcasts for more than communication.

In this session, you will learn:

• What Podcasts are
• The strengths and weaknesses of Podcasts
• The types of organizations that use Podcasts
• Whether you can use Podcasts for training (by themselves or as part of a training program)
• Whether you could use Podcasts for performance support

Audience: Those wanting to explore how to use video and audio Podcasts for training and performance support.

Don’t you wish you could add simple animation to objects in your Captivate project the way you can in PowerPoint? Now, with the release of Adobe Captivate 5 (and 5.5) you can! Effects in Captivate allow you to add all kinds of simple animations and other effects to Captivate objects such as pictures, text boxes, shapes, and you name it! Using effects can greatly enhance your project and make your content come to life for your end user … and it’s super easy!

Participants in this session will learn how to easily add effects and get some ideas on using them EFFECTIVELY in your Captivate projects.

In this session, you will learn:

• What “effects” are
• The variety of effects available in Captivate
• How to add effects to objects in your Captivate project
• How to use effects to enhance your online courses

Audience: Novice participants with basic knowledge of and/or experience with Adobe Captivate.

LMSs have a variety of capabilities, but often they are not used to their full potential. As organizations review their bottom lines and re-evaluate their investments, LMSs need to “prove their worth” for continued support and additional investments. Think of all the aspects related to providing education opportunities – classroom space, instructor time, workbooks, presentation materials, resources, course evaluations, networking environments, tracking instructor-led and online course offerings, reporting attendance or completion, assessing knowledge retention and corporate impact. Not all LMS systems can handle all of these functions, but knowing the possibilities may spark interest in investigating them.

Participants in this session will learn how to use a LMS to help learning departments and LMS administrators market the system to the organization. You’ll learn the various opportunities a LMS provides, ranging from the traditional tracking and assessing to the more cutting-edge learning support through auto-enrolled courses, synchronous chat rooms, asynchronous forums, and document or Internet site resources. There are many ways to present material for the learner, and you’ll discover how to coordinate the presentation.

In this session, you will learn:

• How to utilize social learning support such as chat rooms and forums
• How to illustrate compliance tracking with reports
• How to construct assessment tools with checklists and follow-up surveys
• How to present materials with both internally and externally created content
• How to create an online resource repository for learners and instructors

Audience: Novice-to-intermediate participants. You should be familiar with LMS functionality as well as various creation tools such as PowerPoint and Articulate.

Many instructors in the corporate and academic environment are realizing the need for synchronous elements in their online classrooms, and are seeking an inexpensive and effective environment for real-time communication and collaboration. This session will present ideas on how to use Skype’s functionality to achieve these goals.

Participants in this session will learn alternative and innovative ways to provide information to online learners in a synchronous environment using Skype functionality to address these needs. You’ll get a brief overview of the technical requirements and the Skype functionality most relevant to online learning, see demonstrations of the functionality, and learn best practices and steps for implementation.

In this session, you will learn:

• How synchronous elements can enhance online instruction
• The Skype functionality most relevant to online learning
• Technological requirements for using Skype
• Best practices and ideas for using Skype for learning
• Suggestions for implementation and the potential obstacles

Audience: This session is for individuals interested in learning about Skype functionality and how to use it in their online classrooms.

The workforce was not using the current work instructions to build a highly specialized product at Northrop Grumman because of inconsistencies, and an overwhelming amount of text, concepts, and the use of certain visual graphics. This led to confusion and misunderstanding … resulting in high rework and low yield. In order to determine the best design solution, Northrop Grumman conducted an extensive study of the problem. This study, and the resulting product, has streamlined not only the ease of use of their build instructions but also provided new tools for the engineers and support staff to help build a knowledge base. It provides better training opportunities by helping to identify gaps and to standardize OTJ training.

Participants in this case-study session will learn about the infrastructure and methodologies Northrop Grumman used to create new content design, address conceptual training, provide basic skills training, and use the new platform to gather knowledge-and-process techniques.

In this session, you will learn:

• How to use simple iconic representation for visual cues
• How to use a simple collaboration technique to capture knowledge using video and a wiki
• How to use reusable objects for conceptual training
• How to use 3-D modeling to aid in OJT training
• A simple method to capture tribal knowledge
• Ideas to help standardize training and make it available 24/7

Audience: Intermediate participants. Some knowledge of instructional design concepts may be helpful.

eLearning courses still use the book metaphor as a standard, and that is really beginning to hinder progress because eLearning is not linear like a book ... it demands a structure that allows for more dynamic interaction. We need to find a new metaphor for eLearning that is more flexible, more engaging, and less structured. One possible solution is Learning Maps: a geographical representation of eLearning content. The idea has been worked out in detail by the Fraunhofer Institute in Germany.

In this session, you will explore the possibilities of this metaphor, see the results so far, and discuss the application of this or possible other metaphors. Come learn about a possible next step in eLearning design.

In this session, you will learn:

• About learning maps, the possible new eLearning metaphor
• Why we need a new metaphor for structuring learning
• Other possibilities and directions for this new metaphor

Audience: This topic is for everybody with an interest in the future of eLearning. It will stay on a conceptual level, so no technical knowledge is needed.

A looming issue in eLearning is the training community’s need to effectively integrate and partner with project management in the corporate environment. Project managers tie together all the disciplines in a project. The difficulty is that trainers need to talk to the larger community, including project management, to get to the completion of a project. Six Sigma has become hugely important in the world of project management. It's a form of project management that incorporates a school of thought, a common language, and a toolkit widely applied in the corporate environment. It’s not possible to speak of contemporary Project Management without understanding the contribution of Six Sigma.

Participants in this case-study session will explore a situation about technology implementation to support changing business requirements. When eLearning professionals adopt a Project Management mentality and gain Project Management proficiency, they recognize that Project Management is a tremendous asset to shaping perceptions and collaborative identity for eLearning.

In this session, you will learn:

• Why Six Sigma makes a difference in managing projects to successful conclusions
• The common language of Six Sigma
• How to get to the heart of what training needs to accomplish by being part of the project management process
• Project management best practices in eLearning

Audience: Participants should have some idea of how project management works.

The challenge for all learning leaders and practitioners is how to create a solid, consistent, and precisely-targeted-to-the-need-at-hand RFP process. You are likely to work with your procurement or purchasing department, as well as folks in I.T., H.R., finance, legal, and other areas of the business. Developing a sound RFP is not rocket science, but it does require a systematic understanding of your problem, a clear articulation of your needs and requirements, and a well-defined set of steps that result in a document that clearly reflects your needs, assumptions, constraints, and criteria. It also requires a good business writing style and some internal political savvy.

In this session, participants will learn the basics of writing a strong RFP: what to include and what to leave out, what to do before writing the RFP and what to do once you send it out, how to decide which vendors should receive the RFP, and how to select the right vendor to win the work. You’ll learn RFP “dos” and “don’ts” (key mistakes), and see examples of RFP components.

In this session, you will learn:

• The difference between Requests for Information (RFI) and Requests for Proposal (RFP)
• The key components of a well-developed RFP
• The benefits of conducting a “requirements analysis” prior to creating the RFP
• How to avoid the key mistakes most often made in developing an RFP
• Ways to manage vendors during and after the RFP process

Audience: Managers, project managers, and those who have to write or review RFPs or RFIs.

Many organizations, especially in tight financial times, cut their training budget. More and more frequently, training departments need to implement eLearning with limited resources.

Participants in this case-study session will learn how one organization implemented a successful eLearning solution to address the needs of employees in 60 countries. You will discover how they created a LMS using open-source wares, and how they automated the enrollment, evaluation, feedback, and certificate issuance to minimize the time spent administrating the portal. You will also learn how they benefited from private partners to get free content (including the Global Giveback contest supported by The eLearning Guild).

In this session, you will learn:

• Which open source wares were used to create the LMS
• Best practices to lower your level of effort while administering the site
• How to promote your eLearning initiative
• How to maximize learning transfer

Audience: Novice to Intermediate. Familiarity with what an LMS does is not required, but is beneficial.

There are a number of reasons why training doesn’t work. A variety of factors affect job performance, and when you don’t take all of them into consideration, any solutions you create (such as training) are likely to have limited impact – at best. Too many eLearning professionals are unaware of the systems nature of training, and what impacts the reasons why training does or doesn't work. They're frustrated that it doesn't work and that they're held responsible that it doesn't.

In this session, you will explore the “performance system,” the constellation of factors that impact job performance, including how to analyze a given performance problem situation (such as, “Customer service reps too often give out the wrong information.”). This systems view of job performance goes beyond a one-size-fits-all approach (which is typically throw-training-at-it-and-see-if-sticks) to a more systematic process for assessing what you really need for the desired results.

In this session, you will learn:

• How to describe performance in terms of specific business needs
• How to analyze the factors that affect individual performance
• How to select data collection methods to understand job performance
• How to map problems with specific factors to needed interventions

Audience: Intermediate to advanced.

Many national or international organizations experience communication issues when they distribute key functions across departments, locations, shifts, and time zones. The Tim Hortons Supply Chain faced this issue — teams were working in silos, without a clear understanding of how their decisions and actions could affect other parts of the Supply Chain. Further, when problems arose, individuals were not always aware of who they could contact from other teams to resolve the issues.

This case-study session will describe how Tim Hortons Supply Chain has encouraged communication, collaboration, and teamwork through the Supply Chain Passport program. Launched in February 2010, this program brings together team members from different departments of the Supply Chain for a combination of classroom training, on-the-job experiences, and cross-functional projects. You’ll get a candid look at the process of designing and launching the Supply Chain Passport Program. You will also look at the results, and the ongoing work to improve the program.

In this session, you will learn:

• Techniques for engaging subject matter experts as facilitators
• Strategies for facilitating learning among cross-functional groups
• Sustainment strategies for continuous informal learning on the job
• The benefits of having a highly involved executive as project champion
• The importance of leveraging existing programs in the organization

Audience: Intermediate level. This session can apply to all levels, but participants will gain most value if they have experience in working with large organizations that need to encourage communication across teams.

The airline industry is always in a state of dynamic change with mergers, market conditions, new equipment, and serious pressure for continuous improvements. The human-in-the-loop scenario is real, and is a critical component. Currently, Pilots, Flight Attendants, and Maintenance Personal have compliance training requirements and a level-of-mastery check. Training ranges from self-paced (reading) to instructor-led to full-motion simulators, and often the content is complex and the performance requirements are set very high.

This session will detail the creation of a framework to move these  personnel toward a system that adapts relative to their work environment, specific job, level of mastery, and experience within their personal learning pathway. Participants will learn the importance and creation of a competency model, and the links within the model at the behavioral (task) level to training content. The learning objectives for this audience, based on the chosen competency model, provides a foundation for a high-level curriculum and course outline to which you can apply the accelerated learning framework to determine the optimal learning design and accelerate both the learning pathway and the learning process in the training.

In this session, you will learn:

• A process to move toward adaptive-learning content
• The Competency Development Methodology
• How to map Competency to Curriculum
• Business drivers for Adaptive Learning

Audience: Intermediate. To get the most out of this session the audience should understand their audiences, the differences between groups, and the environment where adapting content would be valuable. An understanding of competency models and strategic learning initiatives is helpful.

Team-based learning is a powerful instructional strategy, one that is central to graduate programs. If done properly, this technique transforms a randomly assigned “group” into a cohesive “team.” Strong bonds develop, and learning networks emerge, often with a life of their own that extends beyond the academic term. As educators, we must provide the right environment for these teams to develop. This is relatively straightforward in a traditional face-to-face setting: teams are assigned to breakout rooms, or to sit with one another during lunch, etc. But how can we provide similar opportunities in a blended or online environment? Without the myriad physical cues available in a face-to-face setting, would “virtual” team building be possible?

Paraticipants in this case-study session will learn how Rollins College was able to create a rich online environment for their student teams to collaborate and communicate with each other, using readily available technologies “in the cloud” and a flashy new invention called “the telephone.” The session will provide handy, practical tips that were born out of “real-world” necessity.

In this session, you will learn:

• Collaborative technologies and techniques using Google Docs
• Cloud storage and document sharing using such services as Windows Live and Dropbox
• Easy Web conferencing for team learning using Google+ Hangouts w/Extras
• How student teams used Prezi and YouTube to make their presentations stand out

Audience: Those wanting to discover some of the powerful learning technologies available for free in “the cloud.” Even those who are familiar with Google Docs and Windows Live may be surprised by some of the unique and powerful ways these free services can be used to foster learning.

This session offers case studies describing how Kaiser Permanente (KP) included social media in their learning strategy for two projects. In the first project, Articulate training, they were looking for a way to improve the content development and delivery for Articulate. KP saw a steady increase in the number of learners needing training, but having only one instructor who could deliver training and provide ongoing support was a constraint. In the second case study, they had project managers of all knowledge and skill levels, who did not have training or support for their professional development.

For each study, session participants will learn the situation, the challenges, what KP did as a solution, the results, and the lessons learned. You will see best practices and the strategies used to encourage adoption of Social Media into training programs.

In this session, you will learn:

• How Kaiser Permanente's Learning Solutions team uses social media
• Best practices for using social media in your learning strategy
• Strategies to encourage adoption
• How to start and effectively implement social media into your training programs

Audience: Participants should have a general knowledge of social media and its functions.

Many eLearning organizations utilize rapid development tools, but want to further brand the experience to meet the needs of their company, their clients, or their learners. Implementing a solution is not simple. Off-the-shelf rapid development tools, like Articulate, often allow little modification to their course player. If they do allow for a custom course player, implementation across a library of courses can be a technological and quality challenge.

Participants in this case-study session will examine the nature of this implementation problem and get a walk-through of the RAPS solution. You’ll also focus on some practical project-management tips for managing a project of this scope.

In this session, you will learn:

• Project management techniques for rolling out a large number of courses on a certain date
• How to manage a vendor relationship when outsourcing a custom-skin design
• How to manage the Quality Control process – from both technical and human-resource standpoints
• How to identify vendors to design your custom skin
• When to develop a custom skin yourself versus selecting a vendor

Audience: Intermediate-to-advanced participants should have basic knowledge of working with both a LMS and Rapid Design Tools. Participants who are just starting to develop asynchronous courses may find this material too advanced.

As organizations seek to reduce budgets and target process and performance efficiencies, expectations of employees' workloads seemingly increase while intellectual capital is lost as headcount reductions become the norm. This session provides a working example of multi-modal output of content via EPSS, ILT, vILT, eLearning, and Just-in-Time (JIT) content consumption. Using this type of approach allows training organizations and business information owners to keep up with the ever-changing business environment, and increasing business knowledge and data, with reduced headcounts.

Participants in this session will learn a new workflow for business information creation and maintenance for an EPSS. This workflow leverages metadata-driven content aggregation in a LCMS, dynamic delivery enabled by the AICC standard, and a seamless user experience using Single Sign-On (SSO). The metadata-driven technology delivers customized informal learning and formalized training, in multiple modalities, for different functional roles, the products they handle, and their physical location.

In this session, you will learn:

• How to design a knowledge repository to deliver personalized information
• How to structure knowledge to deploy multi-modal, multi-channel deliverables
• How to develop metadata schemas for personalized information delivery
• How to collaborate with Business Information Owners (BIOs) for information creation and maintenance

Audience: Intermediate to advanced participants. An understanding of training design and development methodologies, challenges, and EPSS is recommended.

The concept of “gamifying” our training is a hot topic when addressing learner engagement challenges. Unfortunately, developers often water down this powerful concept to simply giving away points or badges and adding a leaderboard. To successfully leverage gamification, we need to understand why the game mechanics work, how to leverage them to support our performance goals, get ideas on ways to create an experience that maximizes the impact on your learners, and get rid of the belief that gamification requires new and expensive development tools.

Participants in this session will get a “Gamification 101” overview, learn the key game mechanics being successfully applied in learning solutions, and discover how they influence our behavior by meeting certain universal human needs and desires. You’ll learn best practices through examples of how organizations are using and have benefited from applying game-based sensibilities to instruction development using a variety of techniques, mash-ups, and delivery methods. You’ll get the next steps to implementing gamification techniques within your learning strategy, including ways to leverage common tools (e-mail, text, etc.) in implementing your solution.

In this session, you will learn:

• How the growing trend of gamification impacts our daily behavior, and why it works
• Which game mechanics motivate learner’s behavior, and why they are effective
• Where to start when incorporating time-based activities, leaderboards, leveling-up, storytelling, and other techniques
• Ideas on how to leverage internal tools at your disposal today

Audience: Novice participants who want to understand how to apply gaming techniques into their eLearning designs.

There is strong interest in creating a social learning culture where employees are empowered to share the expertise they have acquired during their daily work, yet there is very little guidance on how to actually do it. You need to know where to start, the requirements for a successful launch, and best practices, but real hands-on, descriptive guidance is missing. In this session you will learn from someone who has a proven record and experience gained over the last four years running Microsoft’s Academy, a social-learning initiative consisting of a “YouTube of the Enterprise” with 100,000 downloads per month. It is where 70,000 employees generate more than 10,000 pieces of content per year to share with their peers. Microsoft’s average cost savings per year are $17 million, and this is growing year on year as the Academy becomes pervasive around Microsoft globally. The Academy is the largest social learning program in North America.

Participants in this session will learn how to incorporate social media for learning and knowledge dissemination within an organization, how to successfully launch an employee-based learning culture and program, and tips, tricks, and examples based on real experience.

In this session, you will learn:

• Practical guidance to initiate an employee-generated learning culture
• The steps needed for a successful launch
• The business case for creating an employee-generated learning culture
• The benefits, such as a more nimble organization, better connected workforce, and talent discovery

Audience: Intermediate participants should be generally familiar with traditional forms of learning and what social learning is.

The way people learn and work is becoming more dynamic. The world's mobile worker population has passed the 1 billion mark and will grow to nearly 1.2 billion people — more than a third of the world's workforce — by 2013, says a forecast from IDC. A recent survey commissioned by Cisco found that three of every five employees believe it is unnecessary to be in the office to be productive, and two of three employees worldwide say they prefer a job with less pay and more flexibility. Learners need more dynamic ways to consume content to fit today’s evolving business and educational environments. Learning@Cisco responded to evolving market demands by providing a tailored, customized education experience to help students secure certification as a pathway to rewarding careers in IT. Cisco developed mLearning to help students retain and enhance knowledge received from other sources, including Cisco Learning Partners and the Cisco Learning Network, while providing a new way to build and reinforce technical skills for a new type of learner.

Participants in this case-study session will learn how Cisco designed a mobile learning program that has become a key strategy and driver of success throughout its employee, customer, and partner base.

In this session, you will learn:

• The business rationale for mobile learning
• The ten best practices
• Three critical success factors
• Cisco’s vision for mobile learning

Audience: Novice participants who have a basic understanding of mLearning.

We all read. We all create training that has words. But we also all look at words and need to learn from them. We also are always looking at the type that the creator has decided to use in their learning. Type is a vitally important part of how people receive information. Good type selection can make eLearning more easily memorable, while bad type selection can make it difficult to remember the information presented, even if in story form. How can you be sure the type you use in all your projects is appropriate to your needs? How do you decide on a type font? How do type fonts affect what you learn from what you read? As a trainer, you probably don't think about type fonts very much, but you should. Since we all use type all the time, the correct selection of type for a project is vital to eLearning.

Session participants will see how the affordance of type selection makes a difference in how learners learn the information presented to them. By viewing information presented in different styles and fonts, you'll explore how different fonts, font weights, and font sizes work to enhance, and sometimes hurt, the learning experience.

In this session, you will learn:

• Why fonts make a difference in perception
• How to determine what fonts give the affordances you'll need for learning
• What type-fonts work and what type-fonts don't work
• When to use different fonts, font sizes, and weights

Audience: No specific skill set is required.

Without being explicitly told, learning professionals today are required to be business partners to the C-suite. While focusing on the development impact of their programs, they must also be able to quote hard numbers to justify training and to support the cause for expanding the training budget. You can get lost in this conversation if you aren't fluent in the language of finance.

In this session, participants will build a graphical representation of the accounting model, and, in the process, learn the language of accounting and finance. There are only five boxes – you’ll explore the common mistakes, including calling an asset an expense, and, as an added bonus, you'll learn how to calculate the return-on-training investments, which will give you a leg up in your next training expenditure.

In this session, you will learn:

• There are only five boxes!
• How to build a balance sheet and an income statement
• The most common financial foul-ups
• What questions to ask accountants or your number people

Audience: The less knowledge the better, but bring your misconceptions and misunderstandings around accounting.

There is still a belief out there in our training world that online learning is not as effective as classroom training. Online webinars are often seen as “less than” – less effective, less personal, less engaging. The bias towards in-person classroom training still exists, despite solid research that shows online learning can often be more effective. The debate over online learning has centered on the ways in which it is like or unlike classroom training.

This session will focus on the advantages of online learning from the perspective of Intimacy, Immediacy, and Inquiry. Participants will learn how online presentations are more intimate, fostering a one-to-one connection, instead of existing in a one-to-many environment. Online presentations are more immediate, allowing everyone to participate at the level where they are most comfortable, whether through Voice over IP, text chat, polling, or other method. While participants in a classroom may hesitate to ask questions, online learners are much more willing to do so. You’ll discover how the unique elements inherent in online learning allow instructors and participants to engage in learning with a new perspective.

In this session, you will learn:

• The advantages of online presentation
• The three principles of Intimacy, Immediacy, and Inquiry
• How to apply the three principles to your online webinars
• Instructional design methods to enhance your training webinars

Audience: Intermediate-to-advanced participants should have some experience in designing and delivering online presentations. Participants should be familiar with Instructional Design methods.

New leaders in eleven different states come to Almost Family with high levels of technical and clinical skills, however feedback from surveys and the leaders themselves identified the need to provide learning opportunities focused on leadership skills and business-specific acumen.

Session participants will be introduced to a hybrid model highlighting a 12-month program that integrates custom and off-the-shelf eLearning, Web-based synchronous learning, and face-to-face sessions all designed to provide support and employee success. You’ll get a visual model and process map that you and others can use.

In this session, you will learn:

• What a hybrid program could look like
• The rationale for building a 12-month leadership program
• The design process used to craft three tiers, from technical to executive
• How to integrate Web conferencing into this model

Audience: Intermediate participants should have a solid foundation in instructional design, with leadership development a plus.

This case study will review how Operation Lifesaver was able to create an engaging simulated experience for drivers of various types of trucks – from over-the-road semis to local delivery trucks. The end solution provided the experience for truck drivers to take three different trips and encounter various crossing types along the way. The end goal: making it safely to your destination, with the ultimate goal of getting into the “Haul of Fame.”

This case-study session addresses issues including creating engaging learning on a nonprofit budget, driving for behavior change, application vs. knowledge, and increased focus on great design principles and less focus on the tool or the budget. You’ll experience the course yourself, and you’ll learn how a non-profit was able to create such a great experiential learning program. It’s not about the investment or the tool used to create it – it’s about great design principles. Join us and spread the word – together we can help save lives.

In this session, you will learn:

• It doesn't take a huge budget to create an engaging simulation
• Some great design principles to drive performance outcomes
• The meaning of application vs. knowledge
• How to save lives at railway crossings

Audience: No previous knowledge needed.

Keeping position expectations current in the Learning Field is challenging, especially as positions require Instructional Designers to be specialists as well as jacks-of-all-trades. Complicating the challenge is a Human Resources hiring methodology based on a finite set of skills rather than position expectations. Once we find a candidate, there is a new challenge of keeping attitudes on your team positive and away from the old line, “that’s not my job.” Changing the mind-set of learning professionals to help them transition from an organization of skill-based positions to one that uses role-based thinking can be difficult.

Participants in this case-study session will learn how JetBlue University successfully transitioned their Learning Solutions team during 2010-2011 from skill-based to role-based positions to improve products, meet development requests, provide opportunities, and grow their offerings. You’ll review the data, process, and lessons learned to identify the roles relevant to your learning organization’s demands and industry standards, satisfy the skills-based recruiting proposed by human resources while meeting the needs of the work groups. You’ll discuss how to grow roles rather than just growing skills.

In this session, you will learn:

• Why role-based positions help position a team for growth
• How to brainstorm the roles needed within your organization as well as learning-industry roles
• How to compare traditional skill-based positions with role-based descriptions
• How to generate ideas as a group for ways to encourage role-based thinking within your existing team, without changing structure
• The lessons learned at JetBlue University

Audience: Those interested role-based work environments.

Most organizations have a wide variety of talent and people with a broad range of knowledge, but they rarely get the opportunity to speak openly with their colleagues from other departments or fields about instructional technologies and learning trends. This is because many organizations have a siloed approach to their workflow. Hearing from instructors, facilitators, engineers, IT professionals, project managers, 3-D artists, interactivity specialists, and videographers in one setting can unleash so many possibilities and ideas.

Participants in this case-study session will learn how to overcome closed-communication workplace environments by creating an atmosphere where people from cross-disciplines can come together and talk in an open forum. You will learn how Bellevue University hosts a monthly roundtable for faculty and staff that focuses on current instructional designs and learning trends in higher education. You will also learn why they chose a roundtable format, the challenges they faced, and how they overcame them. 

In this session, you will learn:

• Best practices for creating a discussion forum in your organization
• Why creating an open forum is important to your organization
• Why it is important to talk to people from cross-disciplines on a regular basis
• The benefits of hosting a regular discussion forum in your organization

Audience: Those interested in how to create an open forum where colleagues from cross-disciplines can exchange and discuss ideas and thoughts on the latest instructional technologies and learning trends.

Storyboards are not a new concept in media production. Using a database program to organize a media project is not unique. What is unique is applying the storyboard concept with a database. Rather than only the art department using storyboards, this system combines all of a project's elements through a single database in which you can organize a project's graphics, audio, video, locations, props, talent, and just about anything else you can think of.

Participants in this session will address the problem of managing the variety of communications disciplines required by any new media project. Using this method, the use of a single database-driven file, you can manage these aspects. Tying the variety of trails together into one conclusive weave allows managers of each discipline the ability to track their responsibilities within a project in the shared timelines. You’ll learn the advantages of this method of project development and management by using a sample project and the database software FileMaker.

In this session, you will learn:

• A different way to manage multimedia projects
• How to use FileMaker as production tool
• How communication between departments makes a better team and product

Audience: Intermediate participants who have some knowledge of the complexities of a multimedia project. No matter what their involvement in such a project is, the knowledge about how to streamline a project will be of benefit.

In small eLearning organizations, Flash development can be complicated and costly: the software is pricey, and learning to use it is expensive and time-consuming. On larger teams, where software and know-how aren't the issue, limited resources and greater priorities can delay even simple projects. If only a less complicated, less expensive alternative existed. Actually, a faster, cheaper alternative does exist. SWiSH Max is a very accessible tool for both small and large development teams. It's affordable and relatively easy to use, but other than some online tutorials and communities of practice, user support is lean.

Participants in this case-study session, based on a recently completed project, will walk through creating and testing a short Flash animation lesson using SWiSH Max. It will incorporate instructional design principles and showcase some of the software's capabilities.

In this session, you will learn:

• What SWiSH Max software and functionality is
• The SWiSH Max Interface orientation
• Rapid eLearning development principles in practice
• How to design and develop a lesson using SWiSH Max

Audience: Novice-to-Intermediate participants. This session targets non-developers, so it requires no specific knowledge of authoring software, but some experience designing eLearning will be very helpful.

Enthusiasm about the LMS has mostly died since its heyday decades ago. Yet, we still need systems to track employee learning. So what do learning professionals think about the LMS in 2011 … and what does the future hold for the LMS?

Session participants will examine the three major action steps that learning professionals should take to ready their LMS strategy for the future: accept the LMS for what it is and what it was designed to do, integrate the LMS with new systems to get the job done, and continue to track and measure. You will leave the session with ideas about what the next steps for your LMS strategy should be, or what may or will replace the LMS in the future.

In this session, you will learn:

• What technology will overpower the LMS
• Which new technology will be added to LMSs to overcome tracking challenges
• About LMS Self-Service Integration
• About LMS usability issues
• About LMS reporting issues

Audience: Intermediate participants should be familiar with a LMS, understand the basic functions, and want to update or entice learners back to the LMS — and not just think of it as a place that houses training.

There's lots of talk about how to build eLearning, but the reality is that many people still struggle with doing more than linear, click-and-read courses.

Session participants will learn the basic framework for building effective and interactive eLearning. You will learn to think about your courses in a different way and go from information dump to courses that engage the learners.

In this session, you will learn:

• There's not just one course type
• How to build courses for the adult learner
• What role visual and Ul design plays in the course
• How to develop instructional design strategies that speed up production

Audience: Novice to intermediate.

On-boarding of new employees is critical for both employer and employee, and can be a taxing operation for key staff of geographically dispersed employees. Collaborative tools such as blogs and micro-blogs can aid in increasing engagement with fellow employees, maintaining manager-level contact throughout a start-up period, leverage organizational expertise, and extend training and development initiatives.

In this session, participants will learn about the implementation of social media tools to quickly build community, create collaborative nurturing environments, and enable expert sharing. These tools help to reduce on-boarding and initial training durations, maintain morale through community development, improve the capture of formative evaluation data, and connect senior knowledge experts with novices.

In this session, you will learn:

• How to use SharePoint Blogs to encourage collaboration for geographically dispersed new hires
• How to create asynchronous training extension (knowledge checks)
• About the steps to implement a successful slow-growth strategy for implementing social media tools  in the organization
• How to use micro-blogging tools like Yammer to more quickly ramp up new employees

Audience: Novice-to-intermediate participants should be familiar with social media concepts and social learning foundations.

Mobile learning is more than just converting your existing content to a mobile App. The foundation of any learning is good instructional design. Just as there is poor eLearning, there can also be poor mLearning. Mobile learning can be a great platform for learning if approached correctly. Understanding how to shape content for mobile, and knowing the options of how to deliver it on a mobile device, are the keys to an engaging and effective learning experience.

Participants in this session will explore ways to shape your content using sound instructional design. You will learn the differences and advantages that delivering learning on a mobile device offers. You will see and talk about examples of both good and bad mobile learning. Finally, you will discuss some basic ground rules for creating a successful mobile learning strategy.

In this session, you will learn:

• The options available for delivering mobile learning
• How to shape content for mobile learning
• Why “less is more” strongly applies to mobile learning
• The basics for building a mobile learning strategy

Audience: Novice-to-intermediate participants should have a basic understanding of learning or instructional design.

SunGard Public Sector utilized the software scrum/agile process for a non-software development project. They used it to develop learning paths and learning materials, and it made working across departments more streamlined. It also allowed SunGard to streamline and organize course development for faster results.

Participants in this case-study session will learn what the Scrum/agile process is, and how you can utilize it outside of software development. You’ll learn how SunGard successfully utilized the process, and you’ll gain an understanding of the value of using this process.

In this session, you will learn:

• To define the scrum/agile process
• How to use this process to create leaning paths
• How to use this process to create learning materials
• How to define and use the Kanban process
• How to successfully integrate this process in your organization

Audience: Those looking for an alternate process for learning path and course material development that will streamline the process and help to better manage costs and budgets.

We have forgotten how to converse. We know how to SMS, we know how to use social media to chat, we revert to e-mail hundreds of times a week and we know how to listen. But we have lost the power of conversation as a learning tool. Learners are inudated with information … a veritable waterfall of data and content is dumped on them and eLearning is too often a lecture not a conversation. That is, it pushes the information to the learner, but the learner does not get to ask about what they have learned.

Participants in this session will learn a method to reintroduce the art of conversation to our existing learning tools. You’ll learn how to create a conversation with a known path and how to direct the conversation in order to introduce the learning outcomes. You’ll explore how to filter the content and present it to encourage conversational learning and you’ll learn how you can introduce these techniques to the classroom, eLearning, and mLearning.

In this session, you will learn:

• The power of conversational learning
• The four dimensions of conversation
• A practical method to create a conversation
• How to ask powerful questions
• How to direct a conversation to a known goal

Audience: Participants who want to learn how to listen and talk.

The project development and implementation process of a new delivery platform is always rife with the unexpected. Even with careful consideration, it is still a quest to think of absolutely everything that may not work as planned. The first internal mobile device solution JetBlue University implemented was an Interactive Map of their new Support Center. But just because you build training for mobile devices doesn't mean that people will use it.

Participants in this case-study session will get lessons-learned and best practices that you can apply to many mobile projects. You’ll see the interactive map application, learn who used it, how, and when, and learn the human-factors issues encountered and the challenges specific to this interactive map like economy of content and graphical information. Fitting an interactive map into a small cellphone screen has unique challenges because, although they are able to scroll, zoom, and pan, it is challenging to determine how users will orientate themselves in the space and then identify their destination relative to their location. You’ll learn how we decided what to include and what to omit.

In this session, you will learn:

• How to identify a good project to test on the mobile devices
• The importance of keeping the project simple and focused
• Best practices for QA and testing for multiple mobile browsers
• Ways of promoting and marketing the use of the reference tool
• What we wish we knew before we started

Audience: Novice participants with an interest in mLearning and mobile devices as a learning platform.

How do you train busy learners whose performance evaluation is not incumbent upon taking the training? The training must be fast, relevant, effective, and explicitly designed and delivered to generate income for the learner.

This case study session will allow for easy application to multiple situations in which you must design and deliver self-study training. Participants will learn how to analyze and specifically state the WIIFM (what’s in it for me?), which for sales professionals, is income-generation directly related to taking this training. Additionally, the issue of designing training that people will actually use is a key, and you’ll learn the tactical steps to take to obtain management buy-in to ensure that will happen. In a distraction-filled work environment, it’s easy to let training slip, and you’ll walk through the process for creating memorable training.

In this session, you will learn:

• How to define the learner audience and the WIIFM principle
• How to design training to meet the needs of participants who have a range of experience
• How to engage the learner as an active, decision-making participant
• How to assess the blended learning style that will teach the skills best
• How to test training for usability and effective design

Audience: Participants should be familiar with self-study training, have some familiarity with basic instructional design principles, and want to learn about scenario building and creating interactive online training.

Question: How do you improve Customer Service and increase sales when you have 60,000 products, a distributed and seasonal sales team of over 3,500 associates, and very little budget or time to execute an ever-changing list of learning outcomes and priorities? Answer: By empowering the SMEs with the FREE tools, paid services, and supplemental support that lets them create the material for you because they desire to get their information to your employees in order to fund distribution, tracking, and reporting (LMS) costs. So sales associates get unprecedented amounts of product training and information in an easily accessed, digested, and maintained fashion … when and where it is most convenient for them.

This case-study session will describe the opportunity West Marine and its vendors faced. You will learn the solutions and processes they established in order to address those opportunities, and the lessons learned – what worked better than expected and what didn't work.

In this session, you will learn:

• Ways to remove the barriers that may be preventing you from pursuing your eLearning opportunities
• How to leverage partners and other stakeholders to make your eLearning come together
• How to reduce the initial and ongoing costs of your eLearning
• How to improve sales and margins for retailers and/or franchises through eLearning
• How “Guerrilla eLearning” changes behaviors on the fly by not overcomplicating eLearning strategies or projects

Audience: Those who see a training opportunity in their organization and want to learn how they can distribute the load, costs, and complexities that they may be facing.

New demographics, global economic shifts, and emerging technologies have created a “borderless workplace” – an environment in which age, geography, gender, and organizational boundaries are vanishing. A global recession and a talent shortage have many organizations recognizing that competitive advantage relies on building strong learning cultures. L&D organizations are asking what’s required structurally to advance organizational learning, deep specialization, and talent mobility. Questions like, if you want to build a culture of learning, what learning models and technologies are most supportive of that outcome. How do you organize the learning function – do you centralize or decentralize your learning organization?

Participants in this session will see examples of high impact organizations, including Deloitte, IBM, Thomson Reuters Knowledge, and Vestas Wind, that are driving significant business improvements with innovative approaches to employee learning. You will also hear about new, research-based insights into how organizations can succeed by transcending geographies and generations with learning approaches that drive improved business results.

In this session, you will learn:

• Best practices for getting globally dispersed learning professionals to work together
• How to work with globally dispersed audiences most effectively, and how to address their needs
• How continuous informal learning will drive further adoption of internal and social networking across the enterprise
• How learning will play a critical role as companies increasingly need to reinvent themselves by restructuring and re-engaging
• About the drive to adopt new technologies that enable mobile learning to deliver just-in-time training on the job anywhere

Audience: Intermediate participants should have a basic understanding of the learning function.

Building a community of practice after a learning event is critical to the learning transfer and development of skills. Many learners are not familiar with personal learning networks, or PLNs, and consequently miss out on opportunities to further develop critical business and management skills such as coaching. Social media is a platform for the delivery of learning and developing of these communities of practice, but many instructional designers do not know how to engage the learner and encourage the development of the PLNs.

Participants in this case-study session will learn the needs analysis, design, development, and implementation of the coaching-development program, and you’ll review the key learnings from the program. This program addressed the need to incorporate activities into the design of the program to build a community of practice with remotely based coaches using social media. 

In this session, you will learn:

• The considerations when incorporating a social media platform into a program
• The activities that engage and encourage participants to use social media platforms
• The benefits of using social media
• The details of a blended learning case study where social media was a component

Audience: Novice participants.

The expression “content curation” is gaining in popularity among learning professionals who have very little knowledge or background about what this means or how it will impact their job. As the Web builds more context around content, and services move to cloud-based environments, the role of the instructional designer will begin to require strategies for curating content in an increasingly accessible pool of content.

Session participants will learn about the knowledge gap that exists within the eLearning profession around content curation and how the available technology will change our roles and responsibilities. You’ll get foundational knowledge on how Web technology is evolving to provide context around content. Through live demonstrations of “curation” technology, you’ll not only learn the definition of what content curation is, but you’ll also learn how to enable curation of content by the Web. You will learn the practical skills instructional designers need on how to “future proof” content so that the Web can understand it.

In this session, you will learn:

• What content curation means to a learning professional
• How Web technology is evolving to enable content curation
• The basic principles of the semantic Web
• Design techniques that enable content curation

Audience: Intermediate-level participants should have a basic understanding of “tagging” and be somewhat technology-focused in their work.

Ideally, designers and developers should incorporate learning into everyday work and not just use formal methods with a structured curriculum. As training professionals, we need to provide learners an environment where they feel empowered and can take control of their own learning.

Participants in this case-study session will learn how ERIE Insurance used different blended learning approaches for Leadership, District Sales Management, and Claims programs. Although each approach was different, based on the needs of the audience, they all increased interaction and created positive learning experiences. You’ll also learn how Erie Insurance will utilize this technology to manage documents, records, Web content, and rich media, and to house and archive content.

In this session, you will learn:

• How ERIE Insurance SharePoint sites have evolved from the first try to the redesign
• How to design a learning portal in SharePoint
• How to provide a blended learning approach using SharePoint
• How to plan for successful materials management using SharePoint

Audience: Novice participants should have basic Instructional Design and SharePoint Skills.

Currently, many organizations are transitioning training records and tracking mechanisms into a LMS, which can be very time consuming and scary for a training team. Anyone struggling with holding the interests of both the boomers and the younger generations, and creating buy-in with these groups on new programs and new forms of technology, will benefit from this learning experience.

This session will walk participants through how to effectively manage the implementation of a new Learning Management System and an interactive learning program. You’ll get some key pointers, and pitfalls to avoid. You’ll get a project plan outline that will guide you through all the elements of how to implement a LMS from start to finish. You’ll learn how to manage an uncommitted team and gain trust and commitment, how to push the project forward without coming across as “pushy,” and how to incorporate interactive eLearning and cutting edge adult learning tactics to a workforce that is used to instructor-led training or that is not technologically savvy.

In this session, you will learn:

• Key things to do or avoid in a Learning Management System implementation
• How to create buy-in for a new program
• How to effectively communicate change to an apprehensive workforce
• The benefits of moving to an interactive scenario-based online learning platform
• How to develop an interactive online program that employees will embrace

Audience: Anyone managing a system transition or incorporating eLearning into their organization, or those dealing with a workforce on the edge of retirement or with the learning transition between boomers and younger employees.

Training needs to happen across space and time, while using tools that embrace dialogue and discussion to enhance understanding. It also needs to be able to reach out to learners who live in different locations (sometimes across the globe) and at a low cost. A Massive Open Online Course, or MOOC, allows knowledge creation thanks to the expertise already resident in peers … and it gets expert views into the discussions as well. The format of a MOOC is an answer to making expertise already available in an organization transparent, and building upon it to strengthen your learner target group.

Participants in this session will focus on each distinct part of the MOOC development process and will link to variety of useful tools. You’ll also look at MOOC examples to get a more in-depth idea of the MOOC dynamics. Setting up a MOOC takes precise planning, but once you have identified your necessary learning affordances and relevant social media tools, a MOOC course will be up and running in no time.

In this session, you will learn:

• How to set up a low-cost learning environment
• How to select learning tools that enhance knowledge creation for your specific learning group
• How to stay on top of the information flow resulting from a MOOC
• Strategies to keep learners motivated
• How to define the different roles of people engaged in a MOOC

Audience: Intermediate participants should have some understanding of social media tools such as Google, Twitter, Wikis, etc.

According to systems experts, approximately 50% of systems implementations fail because of users’ resistance to change and inadequate training. A keystroke-based instructional approach to systems training – one that relies overmuch on tools to quickly document system processes – lacks business depth, on-the-job relevance, and sufficient learner engagement. Too often, such implementations result in low rates of system adoption, user frustration, and low productivity. For the business, this means increased operation costs due to reliance on helpdesk and IT staff, and a lack of quantifiable business results.

This session introduces a new model, one developed to support several enterprise systems implementations. This model takes a layered approach that integrates the best of both new and traditional training modalities to create a robust, context-sensitive instructional approach. This comprehensive model specifies a strategic function for WBT, V-ILT, performance support technologies, mobile technologies, assessment tools, social media, simulation, etc. Participants in this session will take away a strategy and a tactical model for integrated user development, one that guides system users from expertise to achievement.

• A layered model for improving systems training
• Applications for mobile technologies in systems training
• Applications for performance support in systems training
• Strategies for mixing new and traditional modalities

Audience: Intermediate participants should have a general awareness of systems-training strategies and familiarity with various eLearning modalities.

Instructional designers need to understand the role mobile content plays (or will play) in their training and development strategy. If they are already creating mobile content, they need to make sure they are fully leveraging best practices. If they are new to mobile training, they need to understand how best to harness it for their audience’s benefit. All designers have to understand the changing technical landscape and get a strategy in place to ensure their mobile training is accessible in the rapidly approaching post-Flash world.

This session will outline the most common mobile training scenarios, thus providing a framework for participants to understand their own project needs. You’ll learn best practices in mobile content design for each scenario, along with design options and guidelines. You’ll discuss development and delivery options, so you’ll understand the implications of the decisions you make during training development. You’ll explore how to make captivating and meaningful content for all mobile and desktop platforms, review tools and techniques, discuss do’s and don'ts in designing mobile content, and get a framework to guide you through the tool selection and content development process.

In this session, you will learn:

• The scenarios best suited for mobile training
• Current industry best practices in mobile training development
• What the death of Mobile Flash means to mobile training development
• The current and future technology landscape for mobile training

Audience: Any instructional designer who understands the role of training and development in their organization and who needs to leverage mobile training as part of their training mix.

A virtual workforce is the future. With large organizations (such as Accenture) creating “hubs” instead of offices, it is not only suggested or encouraged, but expected that people will work remotely. Creating, maintaining, and participating in entire and partial virtual teams are mandatory skills for the eLearning professional. The Accenture Academy is a completely virtual organization within the Learning and Collaboration group of Accenture. Starting with a North American content development team of three in 2008, they now have a full-time international team of 50 … all virtual.

Participants in this case-study session will walk through the steps Accenture Academy has taken to not only scale a successful virtual eLearning development team, but also build a strong community. You will hear about the tools, technologies, and strategies that they have implemented to make this happen.

In this session, you will learn:

• What the strongest collaborative technologies to support a virtual team are
• How to successfully manage a virtual team's performance
• How to build a virtual eLearning development team
• How to encourage and maintain a virtual eLearning community

Audience: Intermediate-level participants should have a good understanding of collaborative technologies and systems.

In order for someone to be successful in ANY field, they must be able to communicate their message in an effective, conscious, and memorable way. Speakers need one set of skills to create a great message, and then need a completely different set (and a healthy dose of confidence) to effectively deliver that message. Regardless of their role, nearly everyone must present at some point, whether it be to an internal team or an external audience. Developing presentation and speaking skills can help increase sales, buy-in, engagement, culture, and much, much more. The better we, as eLearning professionals, can be as presenters the more effective the rest of our work is.

In this session you’ll explore the ways in which you – as an eLearning professional – can effectively create and deliver your message to your key stakeholders. Whether at a conference, a big meeting, or in a sales call, how you deliver your message can be just as important, and perhaps more memorable, than your actual message.

In this session, you will learn:

• How to create an effective story
• How to use design to bring clarity to your message
• How to effectively show data in your presentation
• How people's perception of a speaker can impact the message that is received
• How to effectively use body language as part of your message

Audience: Those wanting to improve their ability to present their ideas clearly and effectively.

Creating change is always difficult, and to introduce a new way of learning and collaborating is not just about technology change, but also about behavior change. If you're planning to introduce social learning into your organization, you must grapple with issues of ROI, leadership support, audience involvement and uptake, system design, community management, and what not. You’ll learn from someone who has deployed three different generations of social learning platforms in his organization about the lessons he learned from them.

Session participants will walk through the simple steps to consider when introducing social learning in the enterprise. You’ll get a vision of how you can go about your own social learning implementation, and a checklist of items that you'll need to consider for your initiative. You will have some real ammunition to deal with the usual objections to social learning, and some answers to common questions.

In this session, you will learn:

• How to build a business case for social learning, and overcome common objections to it
• How to manage the change of moving to a new approach, and involve leadership in the initiative
• How to manage the community, and the investments you need to make for this
• How to make an effective technology choice – what to build and what to buy
• How to structure your learning ecosystem for maximum value and uptake

Audience: Novice-to-intermediate participants should have a basic understanding of social software and at least had some experience learning socially and setting up their personal knowledge management approach.

Certain fields require access to physical hardware or products to successfully train or assess qualified users. This type of training and assessment is expensive and does not scale well, which limits the learners’ access and scope of learning.

This session will introduce an augmented reality tool that allows users to configure a learning or assessment environment and then interact with this educational environment using the Microsoft Kinect. Also, by adding gamification techniques, you will see how this approach helps increase engagement, reinforces behavior, allows active participation, increases the emotional appeal of the learning, provides feedback, enables skills practice, and adds fun to learning. With technology similar to those you will see demonstrated, participants will be able to create their own augmented reality tool to save money and scale their training or assessments for efficiency.

In this session, you will learn:

• How you can use augmented reality to reduce costs of training and assessing learners
• How to use augmented reality to mirror real-world product training
• The game mechanics that augmented-reality training brings to education
• What worked and what didn't work using the Microsoft Kinect in education

Audience: Those who want to apply augmented reality tools and approaches to their learning courses.

Beforetheboycott.com hosts a civil rights eLearning developed by Best Buy on behalf of the National Civil Rights Museum. “Before the Boycott: Riding the Bus” allows learners to witness and report on the conditions on segregated Montgomery Alabama buses prior to the 1955-56 Bus Boycott. This session uses this course as a case study to illustrate practical solutions to building experiential eLearning on an extremely small budget.

Participants in this case-study session will learn numerous budget-saving techniques, including using the free version of Sketchup to build a three-dimensional bus environment. This bus model helped determine the eventual interface design through a series of early concept designs. You will also hear how The Library of Congress American Memory Website served as a rich source of pertinent historical and copyright-free images; how they used Adobe Photoshop to integrate the passengers into the bus interior photo, and how they embedded Google Analytics to gather visitor data. Virtually every training department needs to do more with less. The money-saving techniques uncovered during this project can be applied to almost any eLearning solution.

In this session, you will learn:

• How Google Sketchup can speed up prototyping topics that involve specific outdoor or indoor environments
• Ways to alter assets that you have into assets that you need
• How Google Analytics can provide insight into the effectiveness of your content
• “Old school” instructional techniques inspired by text-narrative programs like the Oregon Trail and Hammurabi

Audience: Intermediate participants. Some understanding of Adobe Creative Suite will help, but is not required.

For too long, old paradigms, like pushing knowledge to a global workforce through disparate learning events, i.e. courses, has dictated to corporate learning. Effective learning needs to happen as a process, not as a series of disconnected events strung together out of context. In a new, integrated model for corporate learning, technology should seamlessly deliver carefully selected, timely, role-appropriate learning opportunities at the right point in a person’s career development – learner needs must drive the LMS, not the other way around. The Integrated Learning Manifesto offers a new model for corporate learning that is not driven by delivery method or media. Today's corporate learners’ desire learning that is Social, Relevant, Self-directed, Integrated, Focused, and Timely.

Session participants will learn about the early pilots of onboarding and leadership of a large global corporation that are moving towards the Integrated Learning model. You’ll explore how the Microsoft SharePoint platform can help speed the move toward integrated learning that bridges multiple corporate systems, including the LMS, HRIS, document repositories, and learning portals.

In this session, you will learn:

• The six demands of today's corporate learners
• The Integrated Learning Manifesto vision for personalized integrated learning
• How the Microsoft SharePoint platform can enable integrated learning
• How to begin taking steps toward integrated learning in your organization

Audience: Intermediate-to-advanced participants should be familiar with the typical corporate learning environment, and various systems found in the corporate HR ecosystem such as the LMS, HRIS, document repositories, and learning portals. Familiarity with Microsoft SharePoint is helpful.

“The Cloud” has many forms and functions. One of these is the “cloud of applications” that can communicate through Web services. This cloud is enabling eLearning to be more dynamic, by using real-time data and embedding information gleaned from social networks. Another is the “cloud of content” that is becoming more abundant and more accessible. Information about content that helps contextualize it is becoming at least as valuable as the content itself. What does this mean for eLearning? For learners it means learning experiences that use information and communication technology in fundamentally different and more effective ways. For developers and designers it means learning new skills. For the content industry it means new legal and business challenges. And for technologists it means new tools, standards, and infrastructure.

Session participants will learn how the cloud is changing the way that you can put together eLearning experiences, what existing skills will be emphasized or de-emphasized, what new skills are needed, and what standards and infrastructure are developing to support eLearning in the cloud. You’ll see the principles demonstrated through examples and using publicly available data.

In this session, you will learn:

• How the Cloud is evolving, and what that means for eLearning
• Where “eLearning 3.0” is going, and how to prepare for it
• The skills and tools that are becoming more relevant
• What “paradata” is and why it is important

Audience Level: Intermediate to advanced participants experienced with today’s eLearning design and development processes and enthusiasm for understanding how technology works.

Nothing tells a story like video. Video is everywhere – literally. Many want it, but don't realize the potential they have to make it happen. Some will even outsource this work to freelance writers, shooters, and video editors, but this is expensive, and many times they won't even get their money's worth. In turn, many will just do without and don't utilize what's available to them. The reality is, it's all about being creative! Many of the tools you need are right under your fingertips.

Participants in this session will learn how to utilize the tools you have in your company to create that video you need to take your project to the next level. Many people also get stuck on the size of video files so they cannot properly embed them into their projects. You will see real-world examples of how you can create video without breaking your department's budget.

In this session, you will learn:

• How to tell the story with video Creative video techniques
• How to find the hidden talent
• The Do’s and Don’ts of video
• Various timesaving tricks and delivery techniques

Audience: Novice participants should have a basic knowledge of an eLearning platform like Captivate, Camtasia, or Articulate.

In the field of eLearning, rapid development holds the promise of getting quality eLearning presentations developed and delivered quickly, and typically focuses on a specific toolset to get the job done. Still, many instructional designers and SMEs find their rapid development is, at times, not rapid at all. While the tools available do significantly aid rapid development, they alone will not ensure success. Successful rapid development requires a workflow that is flexible, adaptable, and that supports rather than hinders the process.

Session participants will get tips and examples of how to help SMEs tackle the daunting task of pulling together their content, not by starting with technology but with their thoughts and a content map. The content map then serves as a guide for the production process. You’ll learn practical tips for producing content that include examples of production boards, design tips, and workflow management.

In this session, you will learn:

• How to keep your instruction looking polished and professional through standards, templates, and design
• How to maximize workflow to decrease production time and keep production rapid
• How to make decisions to ensure balance between complexity and effectiveness in eLearning content
• How to get your SME over the hump of generating content

Audience: Novice-to-intermediate participants who are new to rapid development, such as Instructional Designers and Project Managers who already have started rapid development and are frustrated, or who want to know more.

Hamilton Health Sciences (HHS) is a large, multi-site teaching academic health sciences center with over 10,000 staff and affiliates. In 2005/2006, the Clinical Practice and Education Service (CP&E) at HHS was responsible for the implementation of a LMS that would not only provide eLearning opportunities for staff, but would also track learning in both classroom and online formats by learner. The implementation team was challenged not only by the size of the organization, but by its complexity. The leadership of CP&E realized that a team of multidisciplinary educators would be an asset to the implementation, as selected team members could both develop curricula and become ambassadors for the LMS. Team members, in addition to their regular education role, were expected to focus on how to deliver education in an online format.

This case-study session will outline the curriculum-team leadership model successfully used to implement the LMS. You’ll learn the strategies used to mentor new team leaders in a decentralized curriculum development team approach.

In this session, you will learn:

• How a multi-site healthcare corporation developed and implemented eLearning across specialties
• The eLearning processes and protocols using a team-based approach
• How they established and mentored an eLearning team to support development
• How they established the prioritizing of eLearning course development

Audience: Novice-to-intermediate participants must understand both what a LMS is and eLearning development practices.

All organizations have some sort of required compliance education – in one form or another. And typical instructional designers often struggle with how to make this education both engaging and learner focused.
St. Vincent Indianapolis Hospital’s training team’s challenge was to repackage their Web-based training in a way that was different from anything they had previously offered their learners. More challenging yet, they had 15,000 learners working in very diverse areas ranging from their hospital, to business offices, to outpatient medical offices.

Participants in this session will discuss how to develop Web-based and simulation-based safety compliance training that meets the needs of multiple learner groups. It tells a story from start to finish through interactive quizzes, multimedia, and learner decision making, with all the consequences in between. Throughout the course, drama and humor combine with otherwise dry safety compliance information to present an engaging and educational experience for the learner. You will learn tips on scripting made simple, use of talent, and how inexpensive multimedia can enhance any program.

In this session, you will learn:

• How to integrate different methodologies and technologies in the design of eLearning
• How to customize education to meet the needs of different learner groups
• How you can use storytelling as a simulation tool to deliver training
• Why using in-house talent can be an effective and low-cost way to achieve learner buy-in to the training

Audience: Novice participants with a basic knowledge of instructional design.

Social learning is gaining widespread popularity, especially in the use of collaboration and communication technologies. American Bankers Association has developed an instructor-led online training program that effectively integrates asynchronous discussion groups as a key component of learning. This creates a tandem training experience with the convenience and efficiencies of self-paced online training, but not at the cost of relational learning.

This case-study session will give participants an overview of ABA’s highly rated multi-week online courses that give learners access to a fully integrated learning experience comprised of readings, assignments, and tests and keeps them actively engaged in their learning through vibrant class-discussion groups. You’ll learn guidelines that you can follow to create instructor-led online courses with the ability for learners to share ideas and ask questions of their instructor and peers across the country when it best suits their schedules.

In this session, you will learn:

• Why it is important to engage the learner in an online course
• How to effectively seed a discussion with a discussion-activity question
• What strategies you can use to encourage learner participation in class discussions with peers and the instructor
• How to prepare instructors to successfully moderate and manage vibrant online discussions surrounding online course activities

Audience: Intermediate designers, developers, and managers who possess basic instructional design skills.

Creating and successfully implementing a strategy for mobile learning is an opportunity for universities to embrace millennial learners and execute a new modality that reflects and responds to students’ evolving learning styles. With the influx of millennial students, and their desire to embrace ubiquitous technology in all aspects of life including learning, GHSU started a mobile learning initiative in 2009 becoming the first public academic health center to publish a suite of apps on iTunes. Since then they have developed a multi-faceted mobile learning strategy, building upon initial successes with “low-hanging fruit,” and expanding mobility into many aspects of academic technology.

Participants in this case-study session will learn the elements of a mobile strategy, including how to achieve quick wins and gain momentum. You’ll see authentic examples of mobile learning applications, including both commercially available and in-house apps created by GHSU’s educational designers and developers. These include convenience and reference apps, interactive eBooks, and an in-house-developed 3-D gaming app. This session addresses the question of “Why mobile?” and provides strategies on starting, or expanding, your mobile initiative.

In this session, you will learn:

• The learning desires of the millennial learner, focusing on mobility, ubiquity, and gaming
• The various elements of an inclusive mobile strategy for learning
• How to create and realize a mobile strategy, ranging from picking the “low-hanging fruit” to implementing a full-fledged mobile strategy
• Assessment mechanisms for a mobile program for learning

Audience: This session will be suitable for all audience members who have an interest in using mobile for learning.

Being competitive in the professional services marketplace is about being able to do things most efficiently without sacrificing quality. Many organizations have challenges with everything from leveraging 3rd party vendors to total outsourcing of the learning function. PricewaterhouseCoopers has completed an extensive effort to leverage offshore partners to more cost effectively develop eLearning and manage operational functions such as LMS data entry, activity monitoring and reporting, and compliance document management.

This case-study session will provide participants with best practices and lessons learned in PwCs journey into offshoring. You will learn their approach to blending onshore and offshore teams, effective workflow management, and global and cultural teaming, as well as get answers to any questions you may have about how they created their successful model.

In this session, you will learn:

• What to expect when starting the journey into offshoring
• Best practices for performing knowledge transfer and monitoring success
• Workflow management strategies to streamline and track your efficiency
• Effective strategies for leveraging your offshore business partner to scale for busy periods
• How to identify tasks that an offshore partner can most effectively do

Audience: Novice participants. No previous knowledge of offshoring is necessary. An understanding of eLearning development high-level process and/or LMS/Compliance processes is helpful but not necessary.

• What are the hidden problems with mLearning?
• Are social-media-based learning technologies an easy alternative to constructed tutorials?
• Is rapid eLearning development a rapid failure for learners?
• Is eLearning appropriate when the job requires experience and critical judgment?

We all face challenges that seem beyond our abilities. CSX recently faced an onboarding challenge to open a state-of-the-art intermodal rail terminal, and hire and train terminal management and labor to safely operate dangerous lift equipment, all within a six-month window. Sometimes the solution is elementary; the methodologies we first learned as trainers are often still the most effective — especially in situations where there is little flexibility and absolute fluidity is required. A blended team of trainers, continuous process improvement managers, regional safety managers, and terminal management not only opened the Terminal on time, but did it safely and effectively.

Participants in this case-study session will learn how to use the ADDIE model to quickly assess the gaps between what is and what should be, and rapidly create an effective successful blended-learning solution that is repeatable and sustainable for follow-on training evolutions.

In this session, you will learn:

• How to use the ADDIE model to create a training plan
• How to bridge the gap between what is and what should be
• How simple task analysis requires less revision along the way
• How to create a training team where one did not exist before
• How to create an effective yet flexible training plan
• How to survive the elements and keep your sanity in a challenging environment
• How to plan for the future while solving present challenges

Audience: It is helpful if participants are familiar with the ADDIE model, Bloom's Taxonomy, and Gagne's Nine Events of Instruction. This session is suitable for anyone faced with a training dilemma.

Courses and training programs call on a diverse collection of assets, including textbooks, training manuals, videos, PowerPoint presentations, and live speakers. Pulling all these assets into a coordinated learning platform presents opportunities and challenges. Are there cost-effective and scalable techniques to quickly assemble high-quality courseware from disparate content? A cost-effective and scalable eLearning solution is to add multimedia, interactivity, and assessment to a digital version of a textbook or training manual.

Participants in this session will learn about a collection of indispensable tools for writers and instructional designers in the digital domain. You’ll learn the top-five techniques required to produce engaging, effective, accessible, multimedia courseware usable in printed or digital format.

In this session, you will learn:

• How to assess the suitability of source text
• How to find solutions for non-optimal layouts
• How to plan digital assets
• How to deal with divergent print and digital editions
• How to keep learners on track regardless of format
• How to select tools for digital output

Audience: Novice to intermediate participants. Hands-on production of training materials is useful, but not required. This session is suitable for CLOs and training coordinators, as well as instructional designers.

Getting leadership to buy into the idea of using social media tools, or even beginning an online learning program can be challenging. They often believe the learner: 1) Doesn't have the technology, 2) does not know how to use the technology, or 3) is of a generation that doesn't like technology. Even though performance-based evaluations tell us that face-to-face training, in the traditional sense, doesn't “stick” and is expensive, leadership still gravitates to this familiar learning delivery system.

Participants in this session will get solutions to addressing this challenge. Connecting with leaders by using a blended-learning solution to business strategies and goals will help increase senior leadership buy-in. You’ll also learn how to use the survey data to engage leaders as business partners in order to gain support.

In this session, you will learn:

• How to create leadership buy-in of blended learning solutions
• How to engage leadership as business partners
• How to dispel the myths about front-line workers and their fear of technology
• Ways to implement blended solutions within the organization

Audience: Participants should have working knowledge of blended learning techniques and social media tools. They should come prepared to think creatively and differently about learning in the 20th century.

What worked five years ago isn’t necessarily working today. If you don’t change with the times, you run the risk of no longer being relevant to either your learners or your business partners. This is a challenge that most learning departments face today. This session will offer techniques for transforming learning, staying relevant, and improving relationships with key stakeholders.

Participants in this case-study session will learn how Canadian Tire’s Learning Solutions team is expanding their role to become strategic partners with their corporate clients. They are working to move their clients from saying “I need an eLearning lesson” to “I need your help in building a solution to support my business goals.” Looking at some pivotal projects from the past year, you will see demonstrations of how they are moving to provide a broader range of solutions, at a lower cost, and with shorter timelines. You’ll learn tips for enabling this transformation.

In this session, you will learn:

• How to partner with other solution providers to expand your offering
• The benefits to saying “yes” to opportunities outside your comfort zone
• Techniques for aligning training to business focus areas to stay current and relevant
• How to adapt processes to become streamlined and cost effective

Audience: Intermediate-level participants with internal stakeholders who are concerned about cost and efficiency.

Social Learning brings a lot of opportunity and challenge to the table when it comes to learning. Are your employees blocked from interacting on Facebook or LinkedIn due to a firewall and legal department? Is your learning content static and non-engaging? Does your organization nurture a true learning community? Are you interested in leveraging the knowledge of multiple subject matter experts, with minimal effort and cost? If you answered “yes” to any of these questions, this session is for you.

This session will show participants how to make eLearning accessible, encourage participation from various users, and provide an interactive platform. This is easy to do through the synergy between Microsoft SharePoint and Articulate Rapid eLearning. SharePoint extends the life of your learning courses by incorporating threaded discussion forums, Wikis, and document libraries, all tied to your eLearning module in real time. You’ll learn how to connect SharePoint Web services with Articulate training modules, thus creating a dynamic learning environment. Participants with SharePoint and Articulate skills will learn how to employ a tool they can use immediately at their workplace.

In this session, you will learn:

• How to incorporate outside Web services into Articulate courses
• How to apply different SharePoint Web parts to your particular training needs
• How to familiarize yourself with different options to make your training material more compelling
• How to create dynamic data sources
• How to maintain and administer the data sources you create

Audience: Intermediate to advanced participants with some Articulate presenter knowledge.

Color should be an integral part of your learning designs … but is often the last consideration. However color can change a person’s mood, open them to receive learning, and help them remember what they learn.

Participants in this session will learn why the poor use of color can result in lack of excitement and in lost retention. You will learn to use colors to enhance your courses and make them more effective.

In this session, you will learn:

• The meanings behind colors
• How to determine the best use of color in eLearning
• How to identify contrasting colors
• How to apply color creatively and effectively
• How to effectively use graphics to create color schemes

Audience: A basic knowledge of instructional design principals.

Online learning still has a bad reputation within many organizations due to the lack of interaction. Page-turners, or “Next” types of interaction, are not engaging and will not return the learning outcomes you most likely have set for your education programs. All instructional designers need to create education on a tight timeline, and most organizations end up with a lot of content online with little connection to actual learning.

Session participants will learn how to using Captivate 5's variables and layering interaction to achieve connecting content. You’ll learn to quickly and easily maximize learning outcomes using Adobe Captivate 5's easy variable developer and layering content.

In this session, you will learn:

• Adobe Captivate 5’s variable abilities
• The steps to creating a variable
• The steps to layering variables to create more in-depth interaction
• Accessible resources to assist with development

Audience: Novice-to-intermediate participants who want to learn tips for using Captivate to build interactivity into their courses.

In the 2010 eLearning Guild study, Getting Started with Learning Management Systems, only 62% of respondents said their LMS lives up to vendor promises, while 13% plan to abandon their current LMS. How do you switch to another LMS, ensure that you choose the right vendor, coordinate the migration to the new platform, and integrate with your existing systems? If you are migrating instructor-led content to online or revising legacy online content, how can you integrate effective Adult Learning theory with the latest technology to ensure a successful migration and a positive learning experience for your training community?  

Participants in this case-study session will learn how DMA migrated to a new LMS. You’ll see how they converted instructor-led learning experiences for online delivery, and get practical advice and a checklist for vendor selection and platform evaluation. You’ll discover the “tips and tricks” that ensure integration and user migration is handled effectively, and see demonstrations of the new DMA online learning platform and course samples.

In this session, you will learn:

• How to perform vendor selection and system evaluations
• How to switch from a existing LMS to a new platform with minimal user disruption and vendor cost
• How to avoid “settling for mediocrity” in online learning
• How to “convert” instructor-led current or legacy content into effective online learning experiences
• How to manage, launch, and deal with things that are out of original project scope

Audience: Novice-to-intermediate participants with a basic understanding of eLearning and learning management systems.

The use of text-on-PowerPoint is still far too pervasive in the eLearning environment. Most people still fall prey to using too much of this art form. If a picture is worth a thousand words, why do we insist on putting those thousand words on our slides? This session looks at a graphical approach that enhances the learner experience. The Pecha Kucha model allows a creative, meaningful way to harness learner knowledge through audio and graphics. Pecha Kucha does not allow any text – only graphics in twenty 20-second audio sound-bites for an eLearning environment. This graphical, short-duration-to- content delivery focuses the learners’ recall and enhances their retention contributing to higher levels of performance improvement.

Participants in this session will be creating a Pecha Kucha in a team environment! Come learn how to use this model for your eLearning.

In this session, you will learn:

• How to turn social knowledge into a meaningful learning experience
• How to create focused, powerful eLearning with simple resources
• How to create eLearning that grabs learner emotion for high recall on the job
• How to rapidly turn around eLearning content How to create interactive eLearning without a mouse
• How to inspire learners about eLearning beyond just completing a module
• How to develop eLearning as a team experience

Audience: Novice-to-intermediate participants should know how to use PowerPoint and Audacity, Articulate, or Captivate and how to record audio. While you’ll get a “library” of topics and graphics from the presenters, you may wish to come prepared with your own topics and graphics. Participants are encouraged to bring a laptop and mic/headphones to the session. 

By combining the effectiveness of complex branching simulations with the power and access of tablet devices, trainers now have an option to reach their targeted audiences wherever they may be. However, mobile is not a panacea. When designing learning solutions, developers and trainers must consider the overall experience they need to provide to their participants and incorporate mobile where it can best serve what they want to achieve and the needs of the audience.

This session will introduce participants to the Experience Design methodology, an approach that focuses on both the engaging student experience and the organizational experience that results from the blend of activities. Further, you’ll learn how to appropriately incorporate mobile simulations into the mix, and some strategies for efficient use. You’ll learn the concept of Micro Learning Simulations, shorter simulations that you can effectively deploy to tablets utilizing existing resources or assets without duplicating efforts. This approach provides a framework for thinking about Mobile as part of the overall learning portfolio, rather than as a solution in and of itself.

In this session, you will learn:

• The Experience Design methodology for considering both individual and organizational experience
• How to determine which modality is appropriate for what learning objectives
• How to design Micro Learning Simulations that are a good fit for tablets
• How to utilize existing assets to move to mobile; and how to go from mobile back to other modalities

Audience:
Intermediate to advanced designers and developers with some experience implementing or development training programs.

Tablets are the hot new platform to develop learning on … but there is little research or evaluation on how you can use these devices learning … especially when teaching languages.

Session participants will learn an approach for assessing whether the iPad is a supportive language-learning platform for reading, listening, speaking, and writing functions. You’ll learn about various study methods and different applications that are available for teaching languages.

In this session, you will learn:

• The advantages and disadvantages of using iPad by language learners.
• What language-learning students say about using iPads
• The iPad utility apps available for learning

Audience: Novice-to-intermediate participants. Previous use of iPad and apps would be helpful.

One of the most widely used instructional activities for online and blended learning environments is the asynchronous online discussion, however it is also one of the least understood components. People utilize online discussions more for lower-level thinking skills such as remembering and understanding than for higher-order skills such as analyzing, evaluating, and creating. To benefit from this course discussion component we must address a three-fold issue how do we develop discussion questions, as well as how do we design and deliver assessments of students’ responses.

This session will provide solutions to each of the issue areas. Participants will get a practical guide to developing questions that encourage higher-order thinking skills along with real-world examples. You’ll learn a framework for developing sound assessments of discussion questions, and get demonstrations of technological tools to aid in the delivery of these processes and their applications.

In this session, you will learn:

• How to design discussion questions that encourage higher-order thinking skills
• The technologies that support the question-design process
• The technologies that support the assessment design process
• When you should assess discussion questions in terms of both summative and formative measures
• How to design simple and effective assessment tools

Audience: Intermediate-level participants should have general knowledge regarding Bloom’s Taxonomy, the instructional design process, online course delivery and pedagogy, and LMS navigation.

Many training teams can provide services that improve workplace effectiveness and process improvement within their organizations. But stakeholders are often unaware of the services training team’s offer beyond developing and delivering training, so training is rarely called upon to help. Without effective marketing of training programs, learners tend to view training as being “dumped” on them and can become resentful, and/or are unaware of the existing training that will benefit them in their jobs.

The first session segment focuses on the necessity of marketing the training team and its products and services. Participants will see various innovative marketing solutions that you can take home to showcase your own team. The second segment focuses on how to market the training team’s deliverables to learners. You’ll see ADDIE process maps that highlight where you should conduct the marketing element, thus ensuring marketing is a component of training development. Participants will walk away from this session with tools (fresh, unique, and useable ideas) that can easily be implemented within a week of returning to work. Learning techniques for properly marketing their team’s skills and ability ensures that the team becomes an integral and necessary part of the organization.

In this session, you will learn:

• The importance of marketing your team as well as your deliverables
• How to place a marketing strategy in the training development process
• The key stakeholders to market your team and product
• Innovative marketing solutions to take home

Audience: Novice-to-intermediate participants should have a basic knowledge of training development.

PLNU is a private non-profit university with a traditional approach to teaching and learning. On this faculty-governed campus there was resistance and skepticism regarding online or hybrid courses – faculty felt classes in these types of formats would necessarily lack rigor and quality.

Participants in this case-study session will learn how PLNU implemented a faculty-development program called Technology Integrated Learning Environments (TILE) to help faculty understand what it means to bring instruction into an “online” environment. They offered a six-week faculty development program in a hybrid format to help faculty transition from lecture-based strategies to technology-rich and student-centered pedagogies that make use of online learning environments while maintaining a strong sense of community. This unique faculty-development opportunity focused on using technology to support learning outcomes and provided a high level of engagement for students. You will learn about delivery mechanisms, development timelines, deliverables, and lessons learned.

In this session, you will learn:

• The key elements of the TILE program that contributed to its success
• How to design a similar faculty development program as relevant to your university
• The steps for implementing a program like TILE at your own university.

Audience: Novice participants should be familiar with a “university culture” and understand the unique problems that come with helping faculty develop themselves as teachers.

Scenario-based assessments can be an effective form of evaluation since they represent job-related application of knowledge and skills that can span time, space, people, tools, and various job features. When carefully designed, they can also provide instructors, instructional designers, and other stakeholders with valid units of performance analysis.

This case-study session will show suggested methods and demonstrate the application of the techniques of a Web-based training program developed for the Florida Department of Transportation that utilizes micro-scenarios, interactive simulations of roadways, task-centered quizzes, and 3-D characters as virtual mentors to guide the learners.

In this session, you will learn:

• How to create assessment scenarios, beginning with a task analysis
• How to identify the performance claims to be made based on target knowledge and skills
• How to create the story and characters
• How to identify the sequence of events that provides sufficient guidance to users while increasing validity
• How to use basic tools to manage the process

Audience: Novice-to-intermediate participants.

Orientation and onboarding requirements can vary greatly, depending on your business. A hospital must provide caregivers with very specific education before they can care for patients. Orientation is a long process that can require weeks or months before the caregiver is fully comfortable in his or her role.

Participants in this case-study session will learn how dedicated online resources were set up to assist new clinical hires and existing staff in referencing the information needed for patient care and education. You’ll learn how the hospital set up a Nursing Portal SharePoint-site as a performance support and eLearning tool, as well as a comprehensive information and resource repository allowing the staff to learn and professionally develop at their own pace. Time spent in lecture was reduced, allowing more time to focus on the essentials.

In this session, you will learn:

• Why utilizing in-house resources provides a better, safer healthcare environment
• How to structure online resources so your new hires and staff can optimize them
• How utilizing an online environment in addition to live sessions provides a richer, more comprehensive orientation
• How you can use a portal as a tool for supporting orientation as well as a resource for experienced staff

Audience: Novice participants should have a basic knowledge of instructional design; a healthcare focus is helpful but not required.

The ability to think and act strategically is valued by mid- and senior-level leadership in organizations. The ability to create a strategic training plan can help raise awareness of the value to the organization and help you position your organization for success in obtaining necessary resources to achieve its goals. Creating strategic training plans takes time, but with a ready template and a moderate amount of business knowledge, most managers and non-managers can develop strategic training plans. Strategic planning is typically not a course taught as part of an instructional design degree, leaving training professionals without the skills needed to effectively communicate from a business perspective.

This session will provide participants an overview of the knowledge and skills needed to create a strategic training plan. Such plans will help the training organization increase its value by aligning the mission, objectives, and goals of the training organization to those of the overall organization.

In this session, you will learn:

• The purpose of strategic training plans
• How to align organizational goals with departmental goals
• The benefits of creating a strategic training plan
• How to develop a simple and moderately complex strategic training plan
• Who you need to involve in the development of a strategic training plan

Audience: Novice-to-intermediate participants should come to this session with examples of their organization’s mission statements, values statements, and organizational goals. Only share non-proprietary information during the session.

A growing number of courses, devices, applications, tasks, and responsibilities compete for learners' limited attention. ELearning and training programs don’t need to compete – they can leverage multiple media to reach learners anywhere, anytime. Transmedia is a cutting-edge approach that can help with remediation and knowledge reinforcement.

Participants in this session will learn the origin of transmedia, and discuss the theory behind the use of multiple media to increase learner retention and cognitive flexibility. You’ll get a description of the transmedia principles that are most efficient for eLearning, and you’ll see examples of uses of transmedia for government training, strategic communication, community outreach, and corporate training. Each example will focus on in-depth analyses of how eLearning and training programs can directly apply concepts and practices that are relevant across media, devices, and platforms. The session’s focus will be on providing you with tips and methods you can try in your training programs.

In this session, you will learn:

• The definition and origin of transmedia
• The theory behind why our brains are hard-wired for transmedia storytelling, and why it will work for your training
• A practical method and framework for designing transmedia storytelling for eLearning and training
• Examples of transmedia approaches for strategic communication, eLearning, and community outreach
• How to create story worlds
• How to take advantage of social media

Audience: Novice participants interested in the use of various media to engage learners in a cohesive training experience.

How can you create an Alternate Reality Game (ARG) that generates enthusiasm and engagement on a very small budget, using technologies readily available to anyone? In this session, you will see an ARG called Operation Ethics Infiltration used at the 18th National Government Ethics Conference. The main purpose of the game was to encourage engaged conference behavior by rewarding conference attendees for participating in sessions, asking questions, immediately applying knowledge learned, and networking with fellow attendees. You’ll learn about the game's framework, a zero-budget marketing plan, and a simple model that any organization can use to enhance conferences and similar events.

Participants in this case-study session will get a transferrable model for an ARG that you can use in your organizations to create high-impact engagement and enthusiasm using readily available technologies on a tiny budget (Google SMS, conference calls, cell phone video, basic HTML, etc.). You will walk through the game design process, game play considerations, technological options, marketing, how to manage audience limitations, and the lessons learned.

In this session, you will learn:

• That ARGs are an effective way to create high-impact engagement and enthusiasm
• That cost need not be prohibitive to running an effective ARG
• That you already have access to the tools and technologies to create a successful ARG
• How to market and manage an ARG for a large or small audience
• What you need to consider when designing an ARG

Audience: This session is for all potential game designers, regardless of skill level or familiarity with the subject matter.

ELearning professionals must come up with creative ways to reduce costs during lean times. Repurposing and reusing learning assets can be an effective approach to cost savings.
 
During this case-study session you will explore the ways that AKCEL (Akron Center for eLearning) at The University of Akron has reused existing learning objects in order to maintain quality and lower development costs during recent funding reductions. You will learn how they repurpose eLearning assets for reusablity, and how this has reduced the cost of developing an eLearning product, without sacrificing quality. You will see how a video repository that the organization developed for easy access and delivery of video learning objects reduced costs.

In this session, you will learn:

• The rationale for developing eLearning assets at a granular level
• How AKCEL learned to repurpose learning objects out of necessity
• How a programmer can render learning assets to form a learning object
• About the projects that AKCEL has repurposed: how, why, and what

Audience: Intermediate eLearning developers and eLearning managers.

The move to mobile, immersive, social, and intelligent eLearning on the Web requires a new approach to learning data. Failure to find a way to easily and securely exchange data among new eLearning products and installed systems could become a serious barrier to the adoption of innovative eLearning products and business models. There is no adequate system today for exchanging data of this nature among disparate learning systems. There are attempts to patch several current content-portability frameworks to do the job. The LETSI Foundation has made a fresh start – a modern approach to learner data in a fully distributed world – an open ecosystem for learning. In cooperation with leading eLearning standards organization, LETSI has pioneered some new thinking and some exploratory projects.

In this session, participants will learn the limitations of today’s data and metadata frameworks, along with the new data requirements of immersive, mobile, social, and intelligent eLearning courses. You’ll learn the current approaches that SCORM, AICC’s CMI-5, and the IEEE eLearning standards are taking. You’ll also be able to ask questions about your own data integration situation.

In this session, you will learn:

Audience: This session is appropriate for all participants and deals with the issues of systems interoperability in a non-technical way.

There are numerous challenges when trying to provide top-quality education to learners in a time of organizational restructuring. The session offers a case study detailing the challenges and successes of building a simulation environment for laboratory technology students performing the clinical portion of their training within an organization.

This case-study session will provide the do's and don'ts of setting up a simulation environment, and will detail challenges specific to clinical training scenarios. Participants will see details of the process and will get the lessons learned. You’ll learn about both the hardware portion (the developing of the space and purchase of equipment) of the project development and the software portion (gaining buy-in from the existing staff, hiring more staff, and developing instructional materials under the new structure).

In this session, you will learn:

• The nuts and bolts of building a training laboratory from scratch
• Things to consider when transitioning a learning program from one model to another
• The challenges involved in engaging staff and developing instructional materials that fit the new model

Audience: Intermediate participants should have knowledge of blended learning situations and the tools utilized for these scenarios.

As a result of developing good management systems for scale, MSH, with funding from the United States Agency for International Development, has successfully scaled-up virtual program offerings supporting 3,700 health professionals using six languages from more than 70 low-resource countries around the world. These offerings build participants' management and leadership capacity to achieve organizational results.     

Participants in this case-study session will learn how MSH set up a management system that successfully assured high-quality facilitation, Web development, content adaption, and management training for new managers and support staff in order to offer up to 12 programs (often concurrently) per year in multiple languages. You will learn how they updated manuals; created a team of support managers and staff; developed a systematized approach to content management, course adaption, and translation; captured program improvements; and created a database to track and prioritize lessons learned, suggested improvements, and upgrades for future offerings.

In this session, you will learn:

• The elements of a successful virtual program-management system enabling scale-up of MSH’s virtual program suite
• How MSH managed translations and the adapting of program content to the local context
• How MSH trained and supported multiple project management teams during concurrent course offerings
• The lessons learned from this experience

Audience: Novice to intermediate participants knowledgeable about eLearning project management. Other organizations facing similar management or scale-up challenges in eLearning will find this session interesting.

Traditionally, over the decades, Help cards, Quick Reference cards, or Job Aids were used to assist in learning new tasks, or as refreshers for infrequently performed tasks. The mobile platform is perfect for these performance support tools, but the question is … how do you convert them to mobile and ensure their legibility and functionality?

Participants in this session will learn answers to a number of issues: How to format Help-card and other information for mobile devices so that information is legible and usable. Specifically, how do you handle the fact that most of these documents are in a tabular format that may not work well on a small device?  How do you edit content to reduce the amount of text needed to convey the message. How do you make mobile performance support tools interactive without much (or any) programming.

In this session, you will learn:

• How to format Help-card and other information appropriately for the mobile platform
• How to edit content effectively to reduce the amount of text needed
• How to make mobile performance support tools interactive
• How to add technological bells and whistles to increase usability

Audience: Novice participants should have a basic knowledge of HTML and Microsoft Word.

The role of the instructional designer is changing. Instead of developing learning materials, learning specialists are guiding, coaching, and supporting teams of subject-matter experts through the instructional design process. Instead of working on one or two projects, the typical learning specialist is now able to manage several project teams. High levels of employee and SME comfort with cutting-edge computer and network technologies – such as mobile technology, cloud computing, geo-coded data like Google Earth, personalized websites such as Facebook and Linked-In, semantic-aware applications, smart objects, and Web 2.0 technologies — also affect the way we can develop and implement learning solutions.

In this session, participants will learn how to use these technologies, as well as the rapidly growing number of user-friendly authoring tools, to enable subject-matter experts to develop and deliver quality, effective learning solutions. You’ll also learn how the use of Web conferencing tools and information-mapping environments enable project teams to work well across geographical and time boundaries.

In this session, you will learn:

• The effect of today’s changing workforce on instructional design
• How the evolution of traditional instructional design practices evolved into SME-driven authoring
• The inter-dependence between instructional design and instructional technology
• The core competencies required for the development of quality, effective blended learning offerings

Audience: Intermediate-to-advanced participants with at least one year or more experience in developing learning materials.

The rapid pace of business often makes the traditional needs assessment impractical. Companies sometimes are unwilling, or unable, to spend excessive amounts of hours and resources on comprehensive needs studies as part of their change-management initiatives. Additionally, the size and scope of many training projects doesn’t necessitate the need for a traditional, drawn out needs analysis. Unfortunately, this dilemma has left the corporate learning landscape littered with ineffective, directionless training programs.

Session participants will learn about the ANSWER Analysis, a model for a needs assessment that can keep pace with both business demand and rapid development technologies by avoiding the time and cost hassles associated with traditional needs assessments. You’ll learn how, using ANSWER, learning professionals will be able to expeditiously analyze complex employee and business development situations and create targeted solutions.

In this session, you will learn:

• How to facilitate a rapid analysis of organizational needs
• How to customize an analysis methodology to suit your work context
• How to produce a summary report of the analysis
• How to introduce an analysis methodology to your organization (one that can easily go viral)
• How to leverage a mobile tool to accomplish a needs analysis and produce a blueprint for moving forward

Audience: Intermediate participants should be familiar with the ADDIE model for instructional design and understand the basic concepts of traditional needs analysis, including job/task analysis and performance analysis.