LEARNERS One of our courses recently hit the 250,000 learner mark and so we took a look at the common browsers being used through an LMS report. It is worth a note that most of these learners are in the corporate space and most are going to be within the United States.

Internet Explorer wins a piece of candy, with 92,139 learners. IE 11 is the most used with 76,000.

Chrome is not far off with 88,437 learners.

Safari and Firefox both have around 26,500 learners.

Edge, Microsoft’s newer browser to replace IE in Windows 10 has 14,013 learners. We assume this will go up-and-up quickly.

There are a number of other browsers used but only around 1,100 learners got their training on with them.  They include, Opera, Mathon, SeaMonkey, BlackBerry, Iron, and we are very happy to see Playstation 3 being recognized.

Less Steps is More Learning
We always liked Einstein’s quote, “Everything should be made as simple as possible, but not simpler”. When educating a learner on something they need to apply, the less you present to them, while still covering what is necessary, the better the learner performance. Let’s take, for instance, a learning module where we need to train an employee at a warehouse on how find and take packages off the shelf. There may be four specific steps an employee will need to take, including reading and moving to the location listed on a hand scanner, then scanning the location bar code, scanning the package bar code, and checking and listing the quantity still on the shelf if less then five. There may ten exceptions to this process. The products may be too high on the shelf, too heavy, missing, broken, mislabeled, etc. As you can see, the more steps and exceptions, the more time it takes to learn and the less the employee will be able to remember. Create a spreadsheet of these steps and exceptions and define what is necessary and common and what is less important or less common. You can teach the four steps and two of the most common exceptions and then teach the employee where to find information on how to handle additional exceptions.

Every time we start a new eLearning project, there are plenty of question we ask. Most are are pretty obvious but here is a short list of questions to consider when starting your next project:

1. What is the end goal of your project and how would you recognize the project as being a success?
2. Who are the audiences that will interact with this project? Remember to include facilitators, administrators, and future content editors.
3. What is the engagement level for this project? How interactive should this project be? What should be the audiences reaction to using this project?
4. What type of training is this? Examples are new hire training, compliance training, sales and marketing training, medical device showcasing, management/leadership training, safety training, CME and CE accreditation, and process training.
5. What delivery method would your audiences use? This includes PC, Mac, iPads, Android based tablets, phones, etc.
6. What technologies are preferred? Examples include a custom Flash or HTML5 project, Adobe Captivate, Articulate Storyline, Articulate Presenter, Lectora, a video based project, or a custom app.
7. What is the estimated seat time? This is the general length of time a learner should spend going through the material.
8. What compliance is required, if any. Does the LMS require SCORM (1.2/2.4) , AICC, TIN CAN API, or a custom method?
9. What requirements would test the learner’s understanding and ability to perform after using this project? This might include multiple choice questions, knowledge checks, simulations, interactive decision trees, etc.
10. What is the culture and brand of the company or product and how can that be integrated into the project?
11. How would audio narration, videos, animations, and interactives better express the material to the learner?
12. How often does the content change? This may factor into how the project is built so that it is easy to edit and manage.
13. What […]
    

When starting an eLearning module, it is helpful to get your ideas out of your head and onto something you can show others. Don’t worry, this doesn’t take a saw or hammer…it takes a pen and paper, PowerPoint, or Photoshop. Rapid eLearning development starts conveniently at the beginning of the process, when you are planning and determining what is going to make your learning module memorable and engaging. Perhaps you want a simulation or maybe an info graphic. The key is to quickly turn a perhaps and a maybe into something visual that you can look at and that you can show others.

Use what you feel comfortable with. Sometimes we draw out our ideas on paper or use Photoshop to detail the idea. Photoshop and PowerPoint are used often to layout the elements on screen quickly and position images to tell the story or explain the simulation.

Draw a rectangle and start filling it in. The mind is a wonderful thing but it can make you think you have a more polished idea than you do. Drawing it up will help you realize the gaps. Try a few iterations. Remember the word rapid. Set time limits and if you get stuck, try looking back at your old mockups and ideas or search the internet for examples.

Before you know it, you will have checked off a key part of the development process and developed an initial framework for your content.

Here are 6 cost effective ways to build learning simulations:

Live on-site training is still a very important, and often a very required element of training, even within a digital age. Flights, cars, hotels, facilitator costs, training rooms, materials, and food per person, per day, can begin to add up financially and cause your learners and facilitators unneeded headaches. So how can spending time and money on online training modules and tools create a return on your investment? By delivering your courses online, your audience has more efficient and convenient access to your unlimited digital materials. These materials can be designed to increase learner performance by creating a virtual environment for your learner to interact through knowledge checks and simulations… all while sending valuable course use and user data back to you. But what about when live training is a must? Leverage blended learning by adding an online training counterpart to aid your live training events. This will reduce the number of live training days by providing courses aimed at developing the learner’s understanding of the fundamentals and initial level of experience within your subjects. Illumen online courses have saved our clients over $3,500,000 in live training costs in the last two years.

Illumen developed an online training course for a new Johnson & Johnson medical device that took four days of live training courses down to two days. Not only was the learner entering the live training with a greater understanding of the device’s base level operations, but our training program kept track of where the learner had problems within knowledge checks and assessments, so the facilitators could focus some of their time on direct issues to assure the learners had a much more balanced level of […]

A Learning Management System (LMS) can be just as important to course Administrators and Trainers as the content is to the learner. An LMS is usually a website-based system for Course Administrators and Trainers to manage users, performance, and content. It is often said that content is a key component, but in reality, there are many other considerations that need to be turned in sync for a learning solution to function for the benefit of all parties. An LMS focuses on education and training. The navigation directs a learner to available learning modules and it groups those modules into a curriculum. User management is structured for learners: who they are, their level of course/lesson access, their assessment scores, and number of times the course has been accessed. There are many more aspects to the features, benefits, and functionality of an LMS that we will cover in future posts, but let’s take a look at two common questions we receive.

Before moving forward, we recommend sitting down with your team and drawing out what your training needs are. Pretend you are a learner, pretend you are the administrator, and discuss how you plan to manage courses and users. You might not have all the answers, but it will certainly provide a direction and a warehouse full of questions.

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The Technology Innovation Center (TIC) celebrated their 26th anniversary celebration on Thursday. Illumen, who started at the TIC seven years ago, was proud to have been asked to showcase our portfolio and be represented as a TIC graduate.

It was great talking to our many Evanston and Chicago friends and meeting many new friends.

The Illumen team has been working hard to develop over 265 learning modules over the last several months. The team did an excellent job of completing them (and on time)! These modules will be used by the Federal Bureau of Prisons to teach Math, English, Science, and History to prisoners. 265+ modules is not a small feat. The team worked very hard, determining the best methods to make storyboards come alive on screen while still being produced (very) quickly. This is rapid eLearning. Nice job team!