Many developers want to add meaningful interaction to their online courses to improve learners’ engagement and learning outcomes, but aren’t sure how to use Captivate’s Advanced Actions. This session will use Captivate 6, though the concepts will apply to versions 4 and 5 as well.

Session participants will learn how to create the ability for learners to explore on their own versus taking a direct path. You’ll watch the creation of a summary screen that links to specific lessons by using variables and Advanced Actions to create purposeful interaction. You will observe as an interactive course is created from beginning to the end, starting with sketching the navigation flow, determining the necessary variables, and creating the required advanced actions using Captivate’s Advanced Actions. You’ll learn how to add increased learner activity by taking a technical view of the design process.

In this session, you will learn:

• How to recognize the importance of mapping the course flow prior to creating Advanced Actions
• How to differentiate between the two types of variables in Adobe Captivate
• How to identify the variables needed to create a course
• How to outline steps to create an Advanced Action
• Tips and tricks for naming objects, variables, and Advanced Actions

 Audience:
Novice and intermediate designers and developers. Participants will get more out of the session if they have basic Captivate skills, along with knowledge of eLearning instructional design and development, though anyone looking at Captivate as a tool will benefit to see what they can do using variables and Advanced Actions.

Brandishing a fancy name, cloud-based technologies are more misunderstood and frightening than new and risky. In a recent study, only 18 percent of respondents could describe cloud-based services with even a small approximation of accuracy. But because of their conveniences, many organizations have already moved to cloud-based services for tracking accounts, sales, distributing documents, and financial services. The advantages are strong, and leading authoring tools, LMS, and courseware distribution services are moving to the cloud at a rapid pace.

This session is designed to clarify, with minimal techno-speak, what cloud-based technologies are, address myths, talk specifically about what organizations have to do to use the cloud, and enumerate the many advantages the cloud has for learning. Participants will see some powerful examples of cloud-based computing for learning.

In this session, you will learn:

• What cloud-based learning technology really is
• Seven common myths that have clouded the reality of the cloud
• The major advantages of using the cloud for developing and delivering eLearning
• How to talk with your IT department about making cloud-based services available to your organization

Audience:
This session is especially suitable for people lacking familiarity with the cloud, whether with or without a technical background. Managers, instructional designers, developers, and all those responsible for or involved with the delivery of eLearning should find this session valuable, including those in IT who need to appreciate the needs of the learning community.

If you are a content developer, LMS administrator, content creation tool vendor you might have heard the term AICC.  If you are a major eLearning geek, you might also know that AICC is often used to describe a way for learning content to communication with an LMS. But you probably don’t what AICC actually stands for—Aviation Industry Computer-Based Training Committee—and how this organization has affected the world of eLearning well beyond aviation.

Participants in this session will learn what the AICC is and how its specifications affect the broader eLearning industry. You also will learn the AICC’s relationship to other learning technology specifications, like SCORM, and what new activities the AICC is working on.

In this session, you will learn:

• About the AICC’s membership
• Why the AICC was formed and how it relates to you
• About the AICC’s relationship to other learning technology organizations
• Current AICC activities

Audience:
Consumers of LMS systems, authoring tools, and course content. Developers of learning content, learning content authoring tools, and LMS systems.

Integritas, a provider of healthcare services to seniors, needed to increase performance and reduce costs to continue to provide the best care possible. Typically, individual healthcare organizations do not have the money, time, technology, or capability to create cutting-edge training programs.

Participants in this session will focus on the development of a technology platform, coupled with game-based learning scenarios, that significantly reduces the time a healthcare worker spends in training while increasing engagement and retention. You’ll learn about far-reaching and visionary tools for senior populations and those who support those populations through InnovateLTC’s experience center for research. You’ll get a comprehensive look at the problem of training individuals within the context of eldercare environments and the data used to create systems of learning.

• How to create a data stream that flows into a training system
• The need to think strategically rather than reactively when facing major problems
• A place to start when in a tumultuous environment
• How to move beyond course, lesson, and topic training
• How to leverage the mandate of compliance training to create powerful learning

Learning games—everyone’s talking about them. You’ve read the research. You know the work, and maybe even played them yourself. You would love to try and build one … but you’re hesitant, since you’ve never done it before. How do you get started? Is this even something you can do yourself?

Participants in this session will learn the answers to those questions and more as you look at a process for designing and building learning games using Articulate Storyline. Starting with a simple definition, you’ll add some key elements and end up with a roadmap for designing your own learning games. Along the way we’ll take an “under the hood” look at three learning games built using Articulate Storyline. Using the process and techniques learned in this session, you will be able to design and build your own learning games. Each participant will walk away with the source files used to build each of the three learning games reviewed in this session.

In this session, you will learn:

• The definition of learning games, and be able to identify their key elements
• A process for designing an effective learning game
• How to use states, layers, triggers, and variables to build learning games using Articulate Storyline
• How to leverage the power of question banks across multiple learning games
• How to deploy your learning games across multiple platforms, including iPads

Audience:
Intermediate designers, developers, managers, and directors with a basic understanding of Articulate Storyline.

Unless you’ve been living under rock, you have likely heard of Tin Can. If you are really up on things, you may have heard something about how Tin Can is supposed to change eLearning in a big way, kill the LMS, and allow for radical new models for eLearning. If you are one of those people, you are probably wondering how you can use it with all your existing stuff; this session can offer you some help. The AICC is developing a new specification called CMI-5. CMI-5 will establish of set of rules of how to map Tin Can to your current world.

Participants in this session will learn how the AICC’s CMI-5 specification, currently in development, will use Tin Can (a.k.a. the Experience API) to map to the current LMS model of content use. This session will also cover the benefits to this approach over the existing AICC/SCORM standards and the exciting new possibilities it will allow.

In this session, you will learn:

• What CMI-5 is and how it will improve the current learning content/ LMS model
• How CMI-5 will use the Experience API (a.k.a. Tin Can or XAPI) to do this
• The current status of the AICC’s CMI-5 effort

Audience:
Consumers of LMS systems, authoring tools, and course content. Developers of learning content, learning content authoring tools, and LMS systems.

The emergence and popularity of new social media tools has brought an increased awareness of and interest in social learning in the workplace. But overhyped news-headline cries about productivity, security, privacy, and misuse often cloud conversations about real workplace benefits that social learning can bring, and have brought since workplace learning first existed.

 Participants in this session will examine popular myths about social learning in the workplace and learn the counterpoint “truths,” including a conceptual framework for assessing the value of social interactions. Participants will get a clearer view of the reality of social learning and identify ways the organization can measure and support it. You’ll see examples showing use of several social media tools for social learning.

In this session, you will learn:

• To recognize the many forms social learning can take
• To assess value not only of actual engagement, but of potential gains
• To quantify value of specific outcomes
• To survey ways of examining the social learning currently occurring in the workplace
• Strategies for encouraging development of employee mindfulness of social learning

Audience:
Novice and intermediate designers, managers, directors, and executives with a basic understanding of traditional approaches to workplace learning.

Traditionally, training and development people are outside the main operations of businesses unless there is a specific need to fulfill, such as getting a sales force up to speed on a new product. eLearning has further separated those that work in this field from their organizations by building separate toolsets and technologies that are inconsistent with the technologies that exist for marketing and technical documentation. eLearning professionals need to better align their work with the heartbeat of their organizations or continue a descent into irrelevancy.

Session participants will discover what we can learn from innovation outside eLearning and what learning could look like in just a few years. If we adopt the technologies that facilitate content on demand, and plug into the technology that is driving businesses today, eLearning professionals will be perfectly situated to become involved with the performance of individuals. You’ll walk away with concrete evidence that can indeed automate context-laden, personalized, and customized content through computers, and you’ll learn how to do it.

In this session, you will learn:

• What’s broken with existing tools and technologies for delivering instructional content
• How web technologies outside eLearning are servicing the media’s need to deliver content on demand
• The role of analytics in a content-on-demand world
• How content architecture facilitates context for machines
• How existing web technologies work together in a content-on-demand world
• How you can use existing technologies to service learning on demand

 Audience:
Intermediate and advanced professionals who are familiar with industry-standard best practices for design and development.

Engagement, continuity, and accountability are difficult to design and deliver in a blended solution.

Participants in this case-study session will learn about a blended solution consisting of online pre-work followed by classroom training and partner accountability that one company created. You’ll explore the solution, which uses the Adobe eLearning suite (primarily Captivate) to capture variables, overlay video, and use quizzes, slidelets, widgets, effects, external PDFs, and a printable compilation of user data. This online module matches the company’s PowerPoints, participant workbook, and other instructor-led materials. You will see how the resulting consistent flow and theme benefit learner and company both.

In this session, you will learn:

• How to motivate and engage your learner online using simple Captivate features
• How image consistency can help memory and retention flow from online into the classroom
• How simple tricks make eLearning feel more approachable and human
• A strategy to keep the gold in the classroom

Audience:
Novice-to-advanced designers, developers, project managers, and managers.

Will Adobe Edge be the tool that will replace Flash in the future? Edge is the new Adobe software that outputs animation in HTML, CSS, and JavaScript. It includes features for creating interactivity such as looping, hyperlinks, and animation control. Adobe designed and tested Edge to work reliably on iOS (iPhone and iPad) and most Android devices as well as popular desktop browsers like Firefox, Chrome, Safari, and Internet Explorer 9.

Participants in this session will learn how to to take a module built in Flash, including animation, voice-over, and button interaction, and redo it in Edge. The session will conclude with a discussion on how to decide which tools to learn when technology keeps changing so quickly.

In this session, you will learn:

• How Adobe Edge compares to Flash
• How to use Adobe Edge Animation
• How to create Button “actions” in Edge
• How to add audio to Edge
• Strategies to recognize tools and trends that will keep you on the cutting edge of eLearning

Audience:
Intermediate developers with some understanding of Flash.

Are synchronous and/or virtual classroom training sessions worthwhile? If they aren't engaging, attendees tend to zone out. Synchronous eLearning, which involves learners attending live learning events at the same time from different places, is one of the ways of providing learning flexibility as well as access to needed training. A 2010 survey of 3,327 eLearning Guild members showed that when synchronous eLearning is well designed it can be as compelling as, or even more than, classroom training. The survey also showed that synchronous eLearning is used by approximately 66 percent of Guild members who answered the survey.

Participants in this lively and interactive session will discuss what eLearning Guild and academic research says it takes to make synchronous eLearning valuable to learners.

In this session, you will learn:

• How to use academic research to your benefit
• How different traits and preferences impact what learners want (how should that impact what you do?)
• That asynchronous seems to work better for some types of content and synchronous seems to works better for others
• How design and interaction impacts synchronous outcomes
• Ways to apply recent research to your synchronous courses for better results!

Audience:
No specific prerequisite knowledge needed, but the concepts will make more sense if you have attended, facilitated, or designed synchronous eLearning yourself.

If you are a content developer, LMS administrator, content creation tool vendor you might have heard the term AICC.  If you are a major eLearning geek, you might also know that AICC is often used to describe a way for learning content to communication with an LMS. But you probably don’t what AICC actually stands for—Aviation Industry Computer-Based Training Committee—and how this organization has affected the world of eLearning well beyond aviation.

Participants in this session will learn what the AICC is and how its specifications affect the broader eLearning industry. You also will learn the AICC’s relationship to other learning technology specifications, like SCORM, and what new activities the AICC is working on.

In this session, you will learn:

• About the AICC’s membership
• Why the AICC was formed and how it relates to you
• About the AICC’s relationship to other learning technology organizations
• Current AICC activities

Audience:
Consumers of LMS systems, authoring tools, and course content. Developers of learning content, learning content authoring tools, and LMS systems.

Tin Can has hit the community with a massive force; there is confusion about what it is and how it impacts instructional designers who are seeing Tin Can appear in the technologies they are using without a strong knowledge of what they can do with it. They need to know how to leverage the technology to remain on top of their field.

Participants in this session will look into how SCORM has impacted instructional design over time. You’ll learn about Tin Can at a high level, in a non-technical way, and discover the new possibilities that Tin Can opens up in designing for learning beyond courseware. You’ll see examples of ways that Tin Can helps match learning activities and objectives to real-world performance using tools that instructional designers actually use.

In this session, you will learn:

• What Tin Can is
• How it’s different from SCORM
• Where it opens new possibilities for tracking learning experiences
• Some easy ways to start using Tin Can for data collection

Audience:
Novice-to-advanced designers, project managers, managers, and directors. This session will assume some level of knowledge about SCORM, but those without SCORM knowledge will still find value in it.

Unless you’ve been living under rock, you have likely heard of Tin Can. If you are really up on things, you may have heard something about how Tin Can is supposed to change eLearning in a big way, kill the LMS, and allow for radical new models for eLearning. If you are one of those people, you are probably wondering how you can use it with all your existing stuff; this session can offer you some help. The AICC is developing a new specification called CMI-5. CMI-5 will establish of set of rules of how to map Tin Can to your current world.

Participants in this session will learn how the AICC’s CMI-5 specification, currently in development, will use Tin Can (a.k.a. the Experience API) to map to the current LMS model of content use. This session will also cover the benefits to this approach over the existing AICC/SCORM standards and the exciting new possibilities it will allow.

In this session, you will learn:

• What CMI-5 is and how it will improve the current learning content/ LMS model
• How CMI-5 will use the Experience API (a.k.a. Tin Can or XAPI) to do this
• The current status of the AICC’s CMI-5 effort

Audience:
Consumers of LMS systems, authoring tools, and course content. Developers of learning content, learning content authoring tools, and LMS systems.

Face-to-face case study simulations are the ultimate in learning experiences. Participants are not behind a screen, but actually engaged with mock customers and realistic situations. While there has been a shift to transition these experiences into eLearning for efficiency, there is still merit in delivering a live simulation. In a face-to-face environment, objectives can be stretched as learners are challenged to think on their feet and interact with a team.

In this session, participants will learn about the many aspects of a face-to-face case study simulation that is currently running at HP Enterprise Security. You will examine program objectives and goals, pre-work, assessment strategies, the use of video for capturing the event, and how they modified the event over time to provide a more streamlined experience. You’ll receive first-hand knowledge of how to develop a live face-to-face case study simulation event and learn how to incorporate pre-work, video, and assessment strategies.

In this session, you will learn:

• How to design a face-to-face case study simulation
• How to develop an assessment strategy using online tools
• How to effectively use video at the event
• Tips and techniques on designing teams and coaching facilitators

Audience:
Intermediate and advanced professionals who are interested in designing case study or role-playing learning programs will benefit if they are interested in using video, Brainshark, and/or Survey Monkey in combination with face-to-face learning experiences.

Keeping learners attentive and engaged is a challenge for all facilitators—and an even greater struggle for virtual facilitators whose learners may be tempted to drift off or multi-task. When learners split their attention, some information is going to be lost … and it could be your training. Even when you have your learners’ undivided attention, new information may not make its way to their long-term memory. If the learners don’t immediately practice the learning, they may never form new mental models. And if learners can’t see how new information is applicable in their life, a critical tenet of adult learning theory, they won’t view the training as necessary.

Participants in this session will learn how to use take virtual-platform tools to the next level of facilitation and interactivity. You’ll examine several webinar tools, common to most virtual platforms, and explore the many ways you can incorporate them into training to achieve performance-based learning objectives. You’ll have available detailed training aids with suggestions for usage during the presentation, as well as for download after the session to support learning transfer to the workplace.

In this session, you will learn:

• How to construct interactive learning activities using webinar tools common to most platforms
• How to maximize participation with large or small webinar audiences
• How to improve facilitation by incorporating innovative techniques
• How to improve learner retention by allowing opportunities to apply and practice new information

Audience:
Novice-to-advanced designers, developers, project managers, and managers. Familiarity with virtual learning platforms such as Adobe Connect is helpful.

You’ve purchased the tools and have trained your staff, and perhaps you’ve even created and successfully published a few eLearning modules. But now comes the hard part: how do you scale up this process to make effective eLearning pervasive throughout your entire organization? That would be hundreds of modules to design, create, publish, and maintain. How many Articulate licenses would you need? Who would develop the content and how? And most importantly, how do you ensure consistent quality?

Participants in this session will learn about a proven, large-scale eLearning development process designed at Oracle University, an organization with over 50 instructional designers and subject matter experts, who have to distribute new content monthly to thousands of learners. You will explore a template-driven approach to help enforce quality standards and to share best practices.

In this session, you will learn:

• About several challenges that can limit the scalability of eLearning
• How to identify different eLearning roles and skills
• How to implement a collaborative eLearning development process
• How to create and share reusable templates for tools like Articulate
• How to use team software to share procedures and templates

Audience:
Novice professionals. A fundamental understanding of Articulate would be beneficial.

While the benefits of virtual classroom training using tools such as WebEx, Adobe Connect, and GoToTraining may be obvious to you and your learners, your managers aren’t sold. They feel face-to-face training is the only way to control the learning experience and that the transition to online learning will be too difficult. They’ve seen too many boring webinars where participants multi-task throughout, and they believe that an attempt to move training online will be a waste of time and resources.

In 2010, 88 percent of The eLearning Guild’s survey respondents agreed that, when set up and used properly, online training was as effective as good face-to-face training.  This session will address the realities behind setting up and using virtual sessions and focus on ways to prove to stakeholders that these technologies can be effective.

In this session, you will learn:

• ?  What it takes to set up and use virtual classroom tools properly
• ?  Ways to maximize the advantages and overcome the objections of virtual classroom delivery
• ?  How to identify key considerations for decision-makers
• ?  How to plan what you’ll do and say to make your case for moving your training online

Tin Can (a.k.a. the Experience API) is a generalized and flexible means for you to record and share data during learning activities. This promises to allow many new and different learning experiences outside of the LMS model. But what about the existing LMS model? How do you take advantage of Tin Can in the traditional paradigm? To address this need, the AICC is developing a new specification called CMI-5. CMI-5 will establish a set of rules of how to map Tin Can to the existing LMS/content model.

Participants in this session will be given an opportunity to meet with the AICC CMI-5 working group and participate in the current CMI-5 specification process. 

In this session, you will learn:

• The latest information on the CMI-5 specification
• Detailed information about how CMI-5 will map to Tin Can
• Who is involved in CMI-5 spec design
• How the specification process works

Audience:
Consumers of LMS systems, authoring tools, and course content. Developers of learning content, learning content authoring tools, and LMS systems.

Most authoring tool vendors are updating products to HTML5 standards, since modern platforms will no longer support Flash and eLearning developed using Flash and other add-on based technologies will soon be obsolete. Developers and designers need to learn to use the new versions, and, sometimes, the new tools. In this time of changes you might consider a different approach to development, one using several tools. Instead of using an authoring tool to build eLearning, use a standards-based approach to create a mash-up-like module consisting of several components, SCOs, learning units, or simply widgets that consolidate your content.

Participants in this case-study session will learn about mobile learning development for the IDEXX Laboratories sales team. By taking a best of breed approach when selecting of tools, and integrating the content on a standards-based framework, IDEXX delivered compelling eLearning material. You will learn a workflow for building eLearning content using various existing authoring tools, how to integrate those tools using standards, how to publish an eLearning module without using a specific authoring tool, and how to use best practices and standards when it comes to creating an eLearning material series.

In this session, you will learn:

• How to identify the best authoring tool for the specific task
• How to establish a workflow to create independent blocks of content and publish them using existing tools
• How to integrate independently created content without depending on a specific authoring tool
• How to assure consistency when developing an eLearning material series

Audience:
Intermediate developers, project managers, and managers.