Illumen and the Chicago eLearning & Technology Showcase

Illumen Group is proud to announce our sponsorship of the Chicago eLearning & Technology Showcase this year. This event, with more than 30 contributing speakers is setting the bar for eLearning based events.

This year, the Showcase celebrates the evolution of adult learning and performance, with an emphasis on the role of new media and interactive methods in business and institutional training. The Showcase provides a full day of educational sessions for all levels of experience. More than 30 speakers will explore all aspects of elearning—instructional design, development tools, media resources, virtual classrooms, social and interactive applications, mobile learning, rapid elearning, and more. Attendees will have an opportunity to create their own schedules from a variety of topics or follow one of four Showcase Tracks, including Simulations & Social Media, eLearning Tools & LMS, Online Design, and Management of eLearning.

More information about the event and registration can be found at the Chicago eLearning & Technology Website.

Illumen will be at the event showcasing our eLearning applications and offering information on the process and development of technology and learning based solutions. We hope to see you all there.

Register Now for Learning 2009

Illumen had a great time at Learning 2008 last year. Registration is now open for Learning 2009. Keynoters include Capt. Sullenberger, Laura Fitton - On Enterprise Twitter and Malcolm Gladwell.

Learn, Benchmark, Collaborate, Compare and Plan at Learning 2009!  - Elliott Masie

Learning 2009 (www.learning2009.com)  ::  November 8 - 11, 2009  ::  Orlando, Florida

6 Ways to Extend User Experiences Through Mobile Devices

More people are using mobile devices to handle their everyday computer tasks. Given three minutes and my iPhone, I can check my work and personal emails, my schedule, the news, the weather, and sometimes even get in a game of Tetris. It, like so many mobile devices, is usable, engaging, efficient, informative, and scalable. This mobile convenience should carry through training and marketing solutions as well. Unfortunately, often due to certain limitations of each mobile device and their short shelf life, there is often not a credible mobile counterpart to most training applications. To bridge the gaps, here are 6 ways to extend the user experience of your web or CD-ROM based app through mobile devices.

1. Limit Your Limitations
   It is often said that the difficulty in developing mobile experiences is that there are too many custom devices, all with unique technologies that need unique solutions, and therefore too many limitations to justify the development price. In reality, you can often find that two or three devices, or types of devices, make up a majority of what your audience uses. This may not always be the case, but survey your audience, you may find out that that most use iPhones and Blackberries, or maybe they tend to use more generalized cell phones. There is nothing wrong with developing towards a couple specific types of devices if it makes sense. By understanding what devices are typically used by your audience, you can limit the limitations, save time and money.
   


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6 Elements of Great Usability

Usability is a word that is often heard, yet is not often understood. What is usability? Why spend so much time on usability? How is it measured? When done right, usability can increase user productivity, provide a higher retention of information, and raise user satisfaction by creating and providing a stronger experience. Understanding what makes something usable or intuitive is never clearly defined. There are many factors that should go into the design of a usable solution. Usability is a component of user centered design, and is based on the goals, objectives, and even the limitations of you and your audience. Usability can be broken down into six elements that overlap each other to provide one cohesive experience. These six elemental groups are defined as: goal solving, intuitive, efficient, functional, satisfying, and memorable.

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TED - Do Schools Kill Creativity?

A well presented look at creativity in the classroom by creativity expert Sir Ken Robinson:

The New Illumen - Illumen Group

All of our business analysts and consultants said “focus on one thing and do it better than anyone else.” Normally we would have taken their advice, but the reality was that Illumen Studios often found itself part of a three-legged stool with at least one of the other two legs weak and frequently missing.

The problem? We were designing and producing tactical learning programs (leg 2) that had limited strategic foundations (leg 1) and almost never an effective measurement and analysis component (leg 3).

The solution? Become a really good stool maker, not just a really good stool leg maker. We added some of the sharpest strategic minds in learning, to help develop sound, successful learning strategies; and, some of the most analytic minds in Web analytics to help measure program and participant performance.

Under our new name, Illumen Group, we partner with corporate and academic entities involved in knowledge transfer through learning, training and marketing initiatives, by providing services along three core and contiguous channels:

Illumen Consulting - provides CPLP certified and experienced, strategic planning, instructional design and creative system design to help client’s optimize their use of technology in learning and information transfer.

Illumen Studios - brings award winning and comprehensive content, design and production talent to the creation and implementation of interactive digital and print platforms.

Illumen Analytics - provides the means and the metrics required to accurately assess the performance of a Program and/or a Program’s Participants and to visualize the analysis.

It’s a complete approach to learning that helps clients find stability while building a solid foundation from which ultimately efficient learning systems can grow.

Can we still provide just one leg if that’s all that’s needed? Sure, and with our custom approach to projects, that leg should look and feel just like the other two. In the end though, we think our clients’ lives will be simpler and their businesses stronger if they can find a really good stool, not just a really good leg, to stand on.