Selecting a vendor to help you design eLearning content, or redesign an existing eLearning website, can be an overwhelming task—especially if you don’t have extensive knowledge of current practices and skill sets. To help you establish a framework for comparing and evaluating vendor strengths and weaknesses, we’ve compiled a list of essential questions to ask during the selection process.
Social learning—the use of social media tools to enhance and extend learning experiences—holds great promise. The challenges have been around organization acceptance and implementation of the technologies. Are we ready to make 2010 the year that social learning goes mainstream?
As of this writing, “Web 2.0” delivers 273 million results on Google and has already been the subject of two annual conferences in San Francisco. If asked though, most web users couldn’t define what Web 2.0 is, even if they’ve heard or seen the term before. No surprise—its a slippery concept obscured by a certain amount of hype.
Fredrickson’s John Wooden summarizes and comments on the findings of John Hagel, John Seely Brown, and Lang Davison and their research into what they call “The Big Shift”. They make a compelling case for the idea that the forces of change and technology have combined so that an economic return-to-normal is now “mission impossible”.
Many companies and public-sector organizations are considering the benefits of collaboration tools like the wiki. Wikis and other collaboration tools may be a roaring success on the wild, wild web, but in the tamer confines of the business or government organization, implementing them effectively requires planning and thought. As the first of a two-part series about online collaboration, Josh Welsh offers some do’s and don’ts for the organizational use of the wiki.
Over the past two years, there has been a constant conversation about how leaders of learning organizations should plan for, and respond to, the ever-deepening recession. Yet now that we’re on the verge of a recovery, there’s been little, if any, discussion about planning for happier days to be here again. J. Hruby makes the case for getting started now with your learning organization’s plan for recovery.
Focusing a training effort to achieve business results is the most important thing any training group can do to provide value to its organization. Asking one simple question combined with tapping into the power of acceptance can make a huge contribution to the success of any initiative.
Articulate Studio is a popular and feature-rich rapid eLearning development tool. Rapid development tools are a popular choice for those who want to create solid eLearning courses without intensive programming. Fredrickson’s Tony Tao offers some advice to help the new Articulate user produce better eLearning courses.
Much of the focus on LMS’s tends to revolve around how they function from the perspective of the LMS manager or training administrator. There’s another view of the LMS—one that’s not nearly so talked about: the learner’s view of the LMS. A little usability testing of your LMS can help you gain a lot of insight into how your LMS performs for the learner.
One of the biggest ongoing challenges that comes with owning an LMS is integrating new and existing courseware. This article provides some essential advice for dealing with new courseware and for better managing your LMS.
This article guides the eLearning developer through the potential pitfalls of new eLearning technologies overshadowing the needs of the learner.
The July 16, 2009 Learning Leadership Summit brought together a large group of learning leaders from all over the Twin Cities. J. Hruby offers his observations on the discussion of learning’s role in the recovery.
This article shows how you can ensure that your training dollar is well spent by going over the ways that you can evaluate your training. It gives examples of technical and soft training skills and how you can use each to their best advantage.
Conducting reviews is an essential part of the eLearning development process. It also can be expensive, time consuming, and frustratingly ineffective if not managed properly. Robin Lucas has managed hundreds of review cycles in her role as Fredrickson’s Director of Project Management. Here are her thoughts on managing the review process toward a more efficient, effective, and pain-free conclusion.
There are plenty of examples of how online collaboration works (and doesn’t work) on the broader web, but what about using these tools and techniques within an organization? Josh Welsh has some thoughts on building effective collaboration inside the firewall.