Making the Move to eLearning

As a company starts to grow and expand, it requires an increasingly greater investment to bring instructors and learners together; whether they are your own employees, distributors, or clients.

Consider the task of on boarding. Companies want just-in-time training, yet it makes no sense to fly in a trainer to instruct one new employee in a timely basis. Even legacy employees have training needs which include skill improvement, systems, and product updates and compliance certification.

These challenges are all addressed through eLearning:

  • The divide between physical location and time disappears.
  • The learner experiences consistent, convenient, and enjoyable training.
  • You have the ability to instruct anyone, on any topic, at any time.
  • With an LMS, you can track training records and assess real performance and results.

So now that you’ve decided to make the move, what are the steps you should consider? Here are a few tips that will help you make an effective transition.

An Expert for a Partner

You can always bring your resources in-house once you know you have a training system that works. However, depending on the vendor you choose, you may find the flexibility that outside consultants and designers offer will provide the ongoing return on investment you need. Whether you partner with an expert or go it alone, the remaining tips are important to keep in mind.

Training Objectives

Why did you create your traditional training materials? What should learners be doing differently once they complete the training? These are important questions to consider.

Instructional Design

There are various models and theories to choose from. What approach best addresses the learner population, the content, and your culture? For example, if you design online training courses based on the cognitive load theory, you will create smaller eLearning modules that are […]

Making the Move to eLearning2020-02-18T14:17:15+00:00

Marketing Your eLearning Course

Okay, so you’ve designed and produced an eLearning course that you know is a winner! Now what? It’s one thing to create it and another thing let your organization know it’s both available and necessary for their jobs. To “build the buzz” and make your project a success, here are a few techniques eLearning professionals utilize to spread the word about their eLearning courses and get them onto the screens of their targeted audiences.

Offer a Preview

All learners want a glimpse of what the eLearning course involves before they invest their time. Marketers offer teasers, or “free looks,” because everyone wants to try before they commit. Especially if it’s a manager or owner who’s committing the time of their team.  A teaser should show just enough information that it spikes interest, but not enough that their time becomes wasted. Leave the audience with a “that looks like something that I should know!” moment and always lead them to how they can take the course or when it will become available.

Give Them a “What If” That Peaks Their Interest

Picture a heading that reads “Suppose you could keep your organization from incurring $1,000,000 in warehouse damages? What could that do to your performance review?” Follow that up with a link to a course covering how meaningful it is to follow proper procedures and practices in the warehouse. That “What if” is much more engaging and powerful than a course description that states how safety saves time, effort and money for the organization.

Get the Training Endorsed

Learners will sign up if they know the course will deliver on its promise. Ask pilot learners and early adopters to write an endorsement or testimonial that you can post on your site. It […]

Marketing Your eLearning Course2018-06-07T13:45:09+00:00

eLearning: Accelerating Speed to Proficiency

Most eLearning uses an approach where skills are acquired, practiced, then hopefully applied on the job. This process can be labor intensive and often arduous for the learner. Recent research has shown that strong positive emotions such as exhilaration can cause our memory filters to switch on. What we learn in these moments has the greatest opportunity of being retained.

To that end, Accelerated eLearning turns the learning approach on its head, essentially asking the learner to immediately attempt application, without any prior knowledge acquisition or practice. This is accomplished through “what would you do” scenarios (a learning technique that incorporates the learner into the action) combined with gamified quizzing and a knowledge base option.

For example, if you were using this approach to teach a learner how to drive, you might pose a multiple choice question such as “What’s the first thing you do when you enter your car”? The learner’s brain is already becoming exhilarated by the idea of answering a question before any information has been shared! When an incorrect answer (such as “Start the ignition with your key”) is chosen, the learner is given immediate feedback about why the answer is incorrect and the option to select the “Knowledge” button.

Selecting “Knowledge” takes the learner to the specific section in the data base where they find the correct answer, while their brain is still in a heightened state (Note that in a typical eLearning experience, this knowledge base info is contained in the first “intro” module, often the most uninteresting module for the learner). If the learner chooses the correct answer (“Buckle your seat belt”), they are given immediate feedback explaining why this is the appropriate selection.

It doesn’t matter how many times the learner […]

eLearning: Accelerating Speed to Proficiency2018-06-07T13:45:11+00:00

Scribe Animation – ASA Blueprint for Success

Illumen teamed back up with ASA (American Supply Association Educational Foundation) to create a short animation that explain their new program. This scribe based animation ties audio with key visuals to clearly explain ASA’s new message.

Scribe Animation – ASA Blueprint for Success2018-06-07T13:45:15+00:00

Illumen and the Chicago eLearning & Technology Showcase 2013

cltsIllumen 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.

Illumen and the Chicago eLearning & Technology Showcase 20132018-06-07T13:45:16+00:00

Examples of eLearning

We are often asked, “Can you give us a few examples of eLearning and eMarketing projects?”. The terms ‘eLearning’ and ‘eMarketing’ cover a wide variety of types of projects. We have many people who need our services, and they all search for us in different ways. We often see:

  • Computer-Based Training (CBT)
  • Interactive Training
  • Mulitmedia Training or Multimedia Presentation
  • Virtual Product
  • Marketing Showcase
  • Online Training Program
  • Course, Class, Curriculum
  • Electronically Supported Learning and Teaching
  • CME Modules
  • Classroom 2.0
  • Learning Content
  • Learning Management System (LMS)

Not only are there many ways to say it, there are many more types of projects. Below are a series of examples of eLearning and eMarketing projects:

New and existing warehouse employees required training and refresher courses for all aspects of their day-to-day job tasks. These tasks included using a RF scanner and its software to properly catalog incoming products, locate and shelve products, comprehend new orders, locate and box products, prepare inventory reports, and prepare products for shipping. Employees also had to learn the process for handling exceptions to their general processes, such as incorrect inventory, products too high or large to gather for packaging, and damaged products or boxes.

Illumen developed a custom LMS and seven training modules for certification within each role.
With a high turnover in employees, and thus, an increasing amount of time, energy, and cost was being spent on training live in store with a manager.

Illumen developed a plan focused on building the level of experience both in making drinks and food by providing preparatory steps […]

Examples of eLearning2018-06-07T13:45:18+00:00

Learning from Marketing: 6 Steps to Developing Successful eLearning Programs and Courses

Only about one out of every 1,000 new products introduced to supermarkets survives for more than one year. Nearly all are highly thought out concepts their designers and developers were sure filled a need in the market. So what do the successful 0.1% have in common? Along the way some aspect of the product (price, place, or promotion) was modified or adjusted to increase consumer acceptance and/or work around obstacles.

ui_measuringWhat’s the link to learning? How many eLearning developers do you know who regard their learners as customers? How many adjust their content or delivery to make it more desirable for their audience? Maybe a few, maybe a little. For-profit educators like University of Phoenix and Kaplan, are learning the hard way that learners behave like consumers. But where consumers vote with their wallets, learners vote with their minds: choosing to open them for good products and close them for bad ones.

How would a marketer approach eLearning development? Here are six steps they would follow:

  1. Commit to the concept: All of those who are part of the learning development process need to adopt a learner-centric approach. It starts by assessing and understanding the learner’s strengths, weaknesses and learning preferences, and incorporating them into the design phase. You’ll get a better idea of the full extent of the commitment, as you read through the remaining five development steps. Marketers know they don’t have a product until the market tells them they do, and they know that taking a customer-centric approach is the only way their product is going to survive.
    […]
Learning from Marketing: 6 Steps to Developing Successful eLearning Programs and Courses2018-06-07T13:45:19+00:00

20 Common Terms and Definitions Found in E-Learning – Part I

When dealing with training, education, and marketing solutions, it doesn’t take long before we start hearing words we may not know. Below is a list of 20 common terms and definitions.

  1. Analytics
    Refers to the analysis and derivation of data into usable information or statistics. Analytics are often presented visually or numerically and are used to understand your audience, where they are succeeding, where they are failing, your site’s use, and any other number of variables.
  2. Animation
    Animation can be broken into two areas. First, it can be presented as 2d or 3d, and in a realistic or stylized representation of objects, people, and places. They take place over time and are often used to visually describe a story, a     theory, an idea, a process, a feature, or a benefit. Second, animation can be used within a user interface to lead the user’s eye to focus on something specific or guide them to the next section within a course. The iPhone is a good example of this.
  3. Avatar
    A virtual representation of a user. Avatars take on many styles such as cartoons, real photos, and even an image of a favorite sport, hobby, pet, or event. Avatars can help users customize their experience and interact with others.

    4. […]

20 Common Terms and Definitions Found in E-Learning – Part I2018-06-07T13:45:25+00:00

6 Ways to Extend User Experiences Through Mobile Devices

medicaldeviceMore 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.

    2. […]

6 Ways to Extend User Experiences Through Mobile Devices2018-06-07T13:45:26+00:00
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