Wednesday, March 24, 2010 04:00 PM

Steve Villachica and Donald Stepich, Boise State University

Learning skills and knowledge in training that don’t specifically conform to what the job requires often reduces the impact of training. For knowledge workers, problem-based learning (PBL) can improve this situation. PBL helps by asking learners to solve the kind of problems that they encounter in the workplace as they perform their job tasks. In the process, learners build critical knowledge, problem-solving skills, and self-directed learning strategies. Owing to the match between training and the job, learners tend to pay attention to their training, feel it is relevant to their jobs, feel confident they can perform their jobs, and tend to feel satisfied with their training.

Participants in this session will learn how to write objectives for job transfer, and instructional and job-focused objectives. These objectives should describe the on-the-job conditions under which the task (the performance) occurs, the on-the-job performance itself, and the criteria that the on-the-job performance should meet. You’ll learn how well-crafted objectives guide the creation of training.

In this session, you will learn:

• The conditions that govern transfer of learned performance
• A set of “first principles” for problem-based learning
• How to write training objectives that transfer to the job
• How well-crafted objectives guide the creation of training

Audience: Novice designers and developers. Familiarity with the ADDIE instructional systems design process would be helpful, but isn't required.

Wednesday, March 24, 2010, 04:00 PM

Linda Tromanhauser, Automatic Data Processing

In the current economic climate, your learners do not have time or money to travel for instructor-led training. Your company frequently uses e-Learning for shorter offerings, but now you've been asked to take a 2- or 3-day course and convert it to e-Learning. This session will give participants an overview of what's involved and how to get started, creative ideas for using tools, and a few things to avoid. Having this information will make the task of converting ILT to e-Learning less intimidating and a lot more fun!

In this session, participants will get real examples of how to handle the issues of reorganizing ILT content for e-Learning – what to keep, what to toss, and what to adapt. How to plan interesting and effective activities, handle varying levels of complexity, keep learners engaged and on track, and use printed material effectively. You’ll learn best practices, see examples of how to take ILT and reorganize it as e-Learning using characters and role-play, interactive games, and simulated client interactions, and get suggestions for job aids and print material.

In this session, you will learn:

• How to re-organize content for self-paced e-Learning
• How to select engaging activities (and avoid boring ones!)
• How to get the most out of the tools you already have
• How to enhance your e-Learning with printed material

Audience: Novice and intermediate designers and developers who are familiar with at least one e-Learning development tool.

Wednesday, March 24, 2010, 04:00 PM

Steve Foreman, InfoMedia Designs, Inc.

Traditional training, including e-Learning courses, can be an effective method for building foundational skills, especially for onboarding and reskilling. But more experienced professionals often learn in other ways, via tools, mentoring, coaching, teamwork, information, and work experiences. An advanced e-Learning technology architecture must support all the various ways people learn, from new hires and novices to the most experienced professionals and managers in your organization.

Participants in this session will discover the underlying technologies that you must assemble to create an online environment where working and learning happen concurrently and continuously. You’ll discuss key challenges and ways in which learning and IT organizations must work together collaboratively to create the advanced environment.

In this session, you will learn:

• The six major learning methods supported by an advanced e-Learning architecture
• The twelve underlying technologies that support an advanced e-Learning architecture
• Integration opportunities and strategies to leverage the e-Learning architecture within the context of the larger IT enterprise architecture
• To differentiate and contrast the worldviews of learning and IT professionals, and how these differences can stifle innovation
• Eight steps to take to enable the learning and IT functions to build mutual trust and collaborate successfully to get results
• To differentiate and contrast the metrics you can use to measure the impact of basic e-Learning versus the impact of an advanced e-Learning architecture

Audience: Advanced learning and IT professionals who have an operational LMS already in place in their organization. Experience deploying interactive e-Learning courses and/or enterprise systems is helpful.

Wednesday, March 24, 2010 04:00 PM

Tridib Roy Chowdhury, Adobe Systems, Inc.

Collaboration in learning will be driving the need to address the needs of the new socially networked employees, who learn through social interactions and sharing of knowledge. And, as boomers leave the workplace, there is a need to capture their knowledge through capturing of social interactions.

In this session, participants will learn how improvement of collaboration through the cloud in the ID/SME workflow will drive these initiatives of learning, knowledge capture, and authoring productivity. You’ll learn how to foster collaborative learning within the organization using simple techniques.

In this session, you will learn:

• How to use Twitter to keep your learning content fresh and up-to-date
• How to integrate your content with Twitter to engage your learners in active discussions around the subject
• How users can collaboratively author learning content
• About options outside the traditional LMS set-up for delivering and tracking e-Learning

Audience: Intermediate designers, developers, and others who are currently involved in authoring basic e-Learning content.

Wednesday, March 24, 2010 04:00 PM

Brandon Andrews, NexLearn

Are you ready for your training to have an impact on your ROI? It’s never too late to include immersive learning simulations in your training library. The best thing is, developing immersive learning simulations is not as hard as you might think.

Participants in this session will learn how to develop immersive learning simulations, including determining the learning objectives and storyline. Utilizing existing media, you will discover the ease of creating an effective layout and interface design. You will learn a simple process for developing simulations and new ways to think about modular learning.

In this session, you will learn:

• How to develop immersive learning simulations
• How to determine learning objectives and storyline
• How to create an effective layout and interface design with stock media
• New ways to think about modular learning

Audience: Designers, developers, and others interested in immersive learning simulations.

Wednesday, March 24, 2010 04:00 PM

Josh Little, Bloomfire

Though you may know him best from his spellbinding junior-high performance in “You’re a Good Man Charlie Brown,” Josh Little has done other things too. Armed with a degree in education, he affected corporate America at SBC, Pfizer, and Stryker in sales, marketing, and training roles. In an effort to make a larger impact, Josh has since founded three unique companies: Maestro eLearning, Wellness Works, and Bloomfire. Each of these companies solves real problems and turbocharges organizational learning. Daily, thousands of people all over the world are able to interact with a revolutionary learning experience from one of these companies.

Information moves too fast, and organizations can’t keep up. In order to remain competitive in the workforce of today, companies will need to leverage the power of the crowd. Today’s learners aren’t interested in the methods of yesterday; they need powerful tools that enable them to engage in creating a dynamic and self-sustaining collaborative learning community.

This session will dive into the learning challenges facing organizations today and into the future. Participants will explore the principles of collaborative learning and discover how to apply them to our daily lives as trainers, managers, and leaders. A focus of this impactful session will be devising deployment strategies and overcoming objections.

In this session, you will learn:

• The challenges of today’s organizational learners
• The major principles of collaborative learning
• The benefits of creating a collaborative learning community within your organization
• How to overcome common organizational objections and gain buy-in

Audience: Novice designers and developers.

Wednesday, March 24, 2010 04:00 PM

Robert Penn and Leif Cederblom, Suddenly Smart

Most e-Learning professionals appreciate the need to incorporate meaningful interactivity in their materials to improve e-Learning efficacy. However, many people are at loss as to how to design and build truly effective e-Learning, which leads many to settle for ineffective, one-size-fits-all templates, or text-intensive page-turners.

Participants in this session will learn design techniques that take you beyond typical templates, thus making your e-Learning more relevant and effective. You’ll see how to implement your designs efficiently, what constitutes effective e-Learning, a method for designing e-Learning that is more effective and efficient than other models, and how to create robust e-Learning lessons without having to know ActionScript.

In this session, you will learn:

• The six design elements that are crucial for effective e-Learning
• What effective e-Learning looks like, through examples of courseware that incorporate these principles
• Why you should create functional prototypes, rather than static storyboards
• A methodology for creating e-Learning that is more effective and efficient than the traditional ADDIE model

Audience: Intermediate and advanced designers and developers.

Wednesday, March 24, 2010 04:00 PM

Jeff Seevers, Root Learning

Organizations and functions need to become more purposeful when developing learning and training and linking it to business strategy. Technology has increased our appetite for “courses.” These courses fill our LMS libraries, but they’re not organized in a fashion that provides a clear vision for how the learner will impact the business. What inevitably occurs is “shopping at the e-Learning buffet.” We grab a little of this and a little of that, and when we place the contents in front of the learner, there’s certainly variety, but is there any consistency and context? Do employees know why these initiatives are important and do they understand how they are all connected? Do they see their relevance to the strategy? Do they understand how they can bring it all to life every day?

In this session, participants will learn how Root Learning views these and other connection challenges, as well as how other organizations have managed to connect learners to their strategies in holistic ways. You’ll study customer examples and learn how engagement goes beyond an interactive course — it connects people in meaningful ways.

In this session, you will learn:

• The challenge of today’s training (on-the-job training, learning chunks, courseware, etc.)
• The challenge of business strategy
• How to link learning to strategy
• Ways to make learning relevant to the learner

Audience:Novice and intermediate designers and developers who are involved in developing strategic learning initiatives or e-Learning courses.

Wednesday, March 24, 2010 04:00 PM

Judy Brown, ADL

Mobile learning has moved into the mainstream, with lots of activity happening. As we become a mobile society, and are connected everywhere and all the time, how can we address the opportunities for learning? What is happening in this space, and how do I get started?

Participants will look at current and future mobile trends, implementation examples of mobile learning, and performance support using mobile devices. You’ll learn about the tools available, and the lessons learned from early adopters. Mobile offers you the opportunity to meet your learners’ needs everywhere and whenever they need learning or reinforcement.

In this session, you will learn:

• The trends in mobile connectivity and usage
• About some existing examples, and some lessons learned from them
• Some trends for the future of mobile learning
• How to get started, and where to find lots of resources for additional information

Audience: Anyone interested in the future of mobile learning.

Wednesday, March 24, 2010 04:00 PM

Erin Sappington, Vivid Learning Systems

Are you faced with the challenge of providing e-Learning for a multigenerational workplace? With employee ages often spanning as much as forty years, e-Learning designers and developers face a new challenge: designing and delivering training for a workplace with tremendously diverse learning needs and preferences. 

Participants in this session will explore the specific training needs of the three most prominent generations in today’s workforce – Boomers, Gen Xs, and Millennials – and the implications these differing needs have for e-Learning. This highly interactive, hands-on session capitalizes on the shared knowledge of all participants! You will learn to analyze your e-Learning programs for multigenerational appeal and effectiveness, and create e-Learning programs that appeal to a broader audience.

In this session, you will learn:

• Characteristics of the three prominent generations in the workplace
• The specific training needs of Boomers, Gen Xs, and Millennials
• How to analyze your e-Learning programs for multigenerational appeal and effectiveness
• How to create e-Learning programs that appeal to a multigenerational audience

Wednesday, March 24, 2010 04:00 PM

Sally Hovis, Skillsoft

How do learners link the knowledge and skills gained as part of learning events and activities to current and future applications in the real world? Teaching for transfer is seldom specified, but it is a highly important instructional goal in most formal learning activities.

In this interactive session, participants will learn what transfer of learning is, why it's important, what the research says about what works and what doesn't, and how you can translate those results into effective instructional strategies in formal training and instruction. You’ll see examples, and you’ll be encouraged to actively share your own successes and failures. You’ll get take-aways to support "transfer" of the knowledge and techniques to on-the-job application.

In this session, you will learn:

• What transfer of learning is and why it's important
• Concepts and models related to transfer of learning
• The key to understanding what makes transfer of learning work
• The conditions under which transfer occurs
• Tools, techniques, and strategies for achieving transfer in e-Learning activities

Audience: Intermediate to advanced instructional and learning designers and developers looking for ways to increase on-the-job application of skills and knowledge acquired via formal and informal e Learning methods.

Wednesday, March 24, 2010 04:00 PM

Ethan Edwards , Allen Interactions

Providing feedback within the interactions in an e-Learning application is the primary tool for teaching and correcting learner performance. Yet, in most e-Learning designs, there is virtually no effort put into taking advantage of this key opportunity to captivate the learner’s attention. Instead, most e-Learning feedback is limited to trivial judgments (“No. Try again”) or irrelevant and ineffective reinforcers (“Great job!”) that are easily – and often appropriately – ignored.

Participants in this session will learn a set of rules and principles that will guide you in crafting the most engaging and effective feedback structures. You’ll discover that different learning outcomes require different feedback models, and you’ll learn how to vary the degree of user control, pacing, repetition, media, evaluation, and coaching. Excerpts from real-life e-Learning applications taken from the field will illustrate all design principles.

• The critical teaching function (as opposed to assessment function) carried out by the feedback presented during an e-Learning lesson
• To shift design focus away from the initial presentation of content to the careful inclusion of critical content in feedback structures
• How to insert coaching feedback, scorecards, risk, follow-up activities, and cumulative performance scales to increase learner engagement

Audience: Anyone interested in improving instructional feedback.

Wednesday, March 24, 2010 04:00 PM

Steven Teal, Steven Teal and Associates

The Learning and Development career field is going through a fundamental transformation that will require learning professionals to take a more comprehensive view of employee development.

Session participants will be introduced to Talent Management and why you should care as a learning professional. We will focus how this emerging area is fundamentally impacting what we do including strategy, processes, metrics, technologies, and our career choices.

In this session, you will learn:

• Why companies are moving toward Talent Management
• What the fundamental components of Talent Management are
• How this will personally impact your future career choices

Audience: Novice designers developers and others interested in understanding how to thrive in a period of change.