Keynote Session
Cammy Bean, VP of Learning Design, Kineo | Bio
Careers in eLearning: Moving from Accident to Intention
As a kid, did you dream of working in the e-learning field when you grew up? Chances are, it wasn’t even on your radar. (For most of us, the term didn’t even exist, so why would we have aspired to that?). So here you are, completely by accident, and yet passionate about what you do and excited to take your practice to the next level. So what can you do to move beyond your sweet spot and become a more well-rounded practitioner? We’ll talk about pie and other exciting food metaphors, while keeping in mind that e-learning isn’t about the technology—but all about the people, man.
Educational Breakout Sessions
Design
Jon Aleckson, CEO, Web Courseworks | Bio
Andy Hicken, eLearning Instructional Designer, Web Courseworks | Bio
Using a Design Manifesto & SME Collaboration to Create Engaging eLearning
The C.O.M.P.A.S.S. Design Manifesto was developed to guide distributed teams of sponsors, designers, developers, and subject matter experts on large-scale projects. C.O.M.P.A.S.S. provides design pointers for creating successful performance-based e-learning: the design must be concise, outcome-oriented, metrics-driven, precise, appealing, significant, and social. The mnemonic is intended to be a management tool that gives team members a shared language and common instructional goals. The intention is to keep team members from falling into old habits like didactic dumps, PowerPoint-style presentation, and passive learning. In this session, you’ll learn about the philosophy behind C.O.M.P.A.S.S. and receive strategic direction and tactical steps to propagate a design philosophy across distributed teams.
At the end of this session, participants will be able to
- Apply management techniques for inculcating a performance-based learning philosophy in large, distributed teams
- Identify five tools to maintain design-quality standards in large e-learning projects
- Describe the role of the quality advocate in distributed e-learning development teams
Tim Buteyn, President, ThinkingKap Learning Solutions | Bio
Stephania Buteyn, Co-Founder, ThinkingKap Learning Solutions | Bio
Choose Your Own Adventure: Teaching Global Business Skills Using Scenarios
This session covers creating complex scenarios with multiple branches and various feedback levels. We’ll discuss a client case, examining how scenarios can simulate the subtlety of human reactions to real-life behavioral choices. We’ll also discuss the writing phase and demonstrate how Twine is used to script the scenarios, organize content within the various branching paths, and expedite the review process by allowing a quick and easy way to “publish” the content into an interactive format for review by SMEs. We’ll also discuss Articulate Storyline, the tool that was used to create the course and accommodate the branching and contextual feedback.
At the end of this session, participants will be able to
- Create good scenarios and engage learners
- Use appropriate tools and techniques for writing scripts and managing content branches
- Describe how performance-based learning maps to tangible behavioral outcomes
- List the benefits of scenarios in learning and the impact they have on learning outcomes
- Incorporate a branched scripting process into your own training initiatives
Dennis Glenn, President, Discourse LLC | Bio
Mastery Learning Using Game Theory
Much has disrupted the traditional face-to-face process of building and sustaining learning relationships. Technology is providing alternative methods. The interface between cognitive science and the process of applying game thinking (gamification) in the service of social learning—of improving social interactions across a range of personal and professional settings—is gaining tremendous traction in corporate settings. Tools and technologies to enhance interpersonal effectiveness are being created and implemented by more corporate learning programs. With advances in information technology, Benjamin Bloom’s work on mastery learning, which in 1968 was too expensive and time consuming to implement, is now a technological reality.
At the end of this session, participants will be able to
- Connect Benjamin Bloom’s mastery learning to 21st-century technology
- Use the role of reflection as a powerful mechanism behind learning
- Explore multiple gamification tools to enhance your learning assets
- Advance your knowledge of adding an immediate feedback loop to learning
- Integrate these open-source tools into your learning program
Dana M. Peters, CEO, Mondo Learning Solutions | Bio
Virtual Classroom Design Victories
Converting a face-to-face classroom course to the virtual classroom is more complicated than it appears. At first glance, it seems quite simple. The learning objectives are defined, the course has been developed, the PowerPoint is done, and the facilitators could deliver the session in their sleep. Transfer all this to the online classroom and you’re set, right? If only it were that simple. One important element to delivering engaging virtual instructor-led training (VILT) is the instructional design component. This session offers an insider’s view of two real-world examples of face-to-face classroom content snippets that have been transitioned to VILT.
At the end of this session, participants will be able to
- Compare the design elements of the face-to-face classroom examples with the design of virtual classroom counterparts
- Discuss design decisions that were made with these examples in the transition from face-to-face to virtual
- Share other design ideas that could be applied to these examples
- Consider how elements from these examples could be applied to the courses you design on the job
Sheri South, Senior Functional Training Manager, Astellas | Bio
Sue Deisinger, Strategic Account Executive, CARA | Bio
Olympic Protocol to Course Design & Service Levels
No customer wants her e-learning course to be considered as having low production value and low quality. When there are unspoken expectations, gaining mutual understanding about a course’s look, feel, and interactivity level and visualizing the outcome is challenging. Astellas’s Global Medical Development training team faces this challenge in designing and developing e-learning courses in an accelerated timeframe. Come learn how the team created a design protocol to describe production value levels using the Olympic medal system of gold, silver, and bronze, and see project examples, developed with an external partner, that put design ideas into practical use with internal customers.
At the end of this session, participants will be able to
- Describe why the Olympic protocol was developed
- Apply the protocol to determine if an e-learning course should have gold, silver, or bronze quality and production values
Jackie Zahn, Senior Instructional Designer, I Want to eLearn | Bio
How Asynchronous Face-to-Face Communication (AF2F) Can Improve SME Relationships
There are 100s of books on how to work with difficult SMEs. And now there’s AF2F. Your project is past due, your budget is drained, and team members are frustrated. Calls aren’t being returned, meetings are re-scheduled, and SMEs are completely disengaged. What happens when a conversation is needed and schedules can’t be aligned? Can we keep the robustness of a F2F conversation while allowing recipients to view messages at their convenience? This session will explain how to create an environment of understanding and dialogue and allow for “real time on your own time.”
At the end of this session, participants will be able to
- Use technology to remove communication barriers and improve SME response time
- Use video to gather and confirm content
- Explain the benefits of treating training teams like learners
- Determine ways to use AF2F videos to achieve business objectives
Development
David Charney, Owner, Illumen Group | Bio
Matthew Cummins, Director, Business Development, Illumen Group | Bio
Getting to Wow! with Interactive eLearning Elements
Nothing is more fulfilling to an e-learning developer than getting an exceptional response (a wow! moment) from a learner or client taking one of his or her courses. In this session, we’ll look at several courses that use different types of interactive elements, such as graphics, interactivity, video, and animation, to access, captivate, educate, simulate, and assess information and knowledge. We’ll also look at the processes used, from brainstorming through development, and show examples of how we build elements with commonly used e-learning tools.
At the end of this session, participants will be able to
- Understand how elements, such as graphics, interactivity, video, and motion, can be used to engage the learner
- Understand the development process involved in designing the right elements from the initial brainstorm through final development
- Understand the art of going beyond “drag and drop” and how simulating simulations can decrease development time and costs while increasing engagement
Apryl Cox Jackson, Independent technical communicator | Bio
Jennifer De Vries, CPT, President, BlueStreak Learning, LLC | Bio
Free & Cheap eLearning Tools
Getting into e-learning can require a significant upfront technology investment. Learning management systems (LMS) and authoring tools can cost hundreds to tens of thousands of dollars. These costs make it difficult for smaller organizations to offer e-learning options. However, with the right scope and free or cheap tools, you can develop and deploy an e-learning course with little or no IT and software investments. During this session, you’ll see demos of a free LMS and a free learning content management system (LCMS). And you’ll receive a free e-learning tools resource list.
At the end of this session, participants will be able to
- Define key learning technology terms
- Name and describe several free and cheap e-learning development and delivery tools
- Identify resources for free stock media to use in e-learning courses
- Use the handout to access and install free and cheap e-learning tools on their own computers
Peter Hybert, Owner, PRH Consulting Inc. | Bio
Ian Hybert, PRH Consulting Inc. | Bio
Tips for Effective & Legal Graphics in eLearning
Learners (and project sponsors) expect online training to have stunning graphics (on a shoestring budget) like those nifty YouTube videos and animations within easy reach of a Google search. But whose intellectual property are those programs? Will investing in building them translate to sufficiently improved learner performance to justify the investment? Keeping the client happy, staying legal, and making learners capable means being strategic in your investment of time and effort. You have to know the rules and what is effective, along with having techniques and tools available for building effective graphics. This session will provide background, ideas, and trade-offs.
At the end of this session, participants will be able to
- Determine whether a given use of a graphic is legal or allowed
- Select the appropriate type of graphic for use in different situations (both for learning and technical reasons)
- Find the steps to create a .gif, whiteboard animation, and infographic
Ingrid Hubbard Reidy, Director, Technology & Projects, ISMIE Mutual Insurance Company | Bio
Reduce Development Time & Costs with Interactive Wireframes
Redesign and rework are an essential part of any e-learning development process, but failing to effectively communicate with SMEs, project stakeholders, and clients can result in costly change requests late in the development process. By using interactive wireframes in place of traditional storyboards, post-storyboard changes can be greatly reduced—saving both time and money.
At the end of this session, participants will be able to
- Differentiate between a traditional storyboard and an interactive wireframe
- Articulate the benefits of using interactive wireframes
- Select a wireframing tool that suits your needs
- Apply best practices to creating interactive wireframes
Becky Lucas, Owner, Training Partners Plus, Inc. | Bio
Tim Buteyn, President, ThinkingKap Learning Solutions | Bio
Evaluation Cocktails for Storyline Learning Apps
Do you know what Storyline, Google Analytics, Survey Monkey, Facebook, and Twitter have in common? When blended together, they add up to an innovative evaluation cocktail for Storyline training delivered on the internet without a learning management system. This concoction puts a new twist on evaluation by integrating Google Analytics code into Storyline to track progress and completion rates. With the quantitative data out of the way, add a little Survey Monkey to measure a Net Promoter Score and serve it up with social media links to Facebook and Twitter to monitor user reactions and create an evaluation buzz.
At the end of this session, participants will be able to
- Use Google Analytics code to track progress through a Storyline course
- Use Survey Monkey to track Net Promoter Scores
- Use social media to data mine satisfaction and improvement data
Liesl Mahnke, Creative Designer, Reflection Software | Bio
Kris Adzia, Project Manager, Robert Crown Center for Health Education | Bio
R.J. McMahon, CEO, Robert Crown Center for Health Education | Bio
How Interactive Storytelling™ Reached Our Audience & They Loved It!
Discover how Reflection Software and the Robert Crown Center for Health Education partnered to create a blended, interactive, learning solution in response to the deadly heroin crisis in the Chicago area. Based on research of what would impact youth, the organizations created an engaging, non-linear, believable “game” piloted in Chicago-area schools.
At the end of this session, participants will be able to
- See how interactive e-learning can be part of a blended solution for almost any content or demographic
- Determine if/when content should be applied in a mobile manner
- Understand the impact that e-learning and interactive storytelling can have
Edward Roach, Program Manager, Ellegro Learning Solutions | Bio
Gary Bersh, Business Development Director, Ellegro Learning Solutions | Bio
Curb Appeal: Connecting Strategy & Engagement Through the User Experience
When selling a house or a car, curb appeal matters. First impressions determine whether a potential buyer will decide to look a little closer. Well-designed e-earning can attract attention and motivate the learner to actively engage. Poor design or an awkward user experience (UX) can cause your learners to drive right by without stopping. This session will focus on learner engagement through design and user experience. We’ll explore design elements using examples from within and outside the field of learning and identify commonalities. We’ll share tips on how to build a case for proper investment in design and UX that will help you gain support from your organization’s leadership.
At the end of this session, participants will be able to
- Correlate design, user experience, engagement, and performance
- Incorporate user experience into your organization’s performance improvement strategy
- Leverage knowledge of your organization to identify which design and user experience elements will engage your learners
- Sell your business partners and organizational leaders on making the investment in design
Mobile Learning
Matt Kurtin, Lead Programmer and Learning Technology Consultant, Innovative Learning Group | Bio
Making the Most of mLearning Tools, Templates, Models, & Patterns
This session will draw on a mixture of practical mobile learning development experience and widely accepted computer science principles to uncover the pros and cons of various mobile learning authoring tools, templates, models, and patterns. You will learn about authoring tool selection concepts that are relevant for all e-learning and mobile learning programmers. Once an authoring tool is chosen, productivity can be enhanced by understanding reusable functions, separation of content and functionality, and debugging functionality. You will see real-world examples from actual mobile learning courses and tools, including how templates, models, and patterns can enhance the authoring tool chosen.
At the end of this session, participants will be able to
- Identify strengths and weaknesses of tools, templates, models, and patterns
- Identify the pros and cons of various authoring tools
- Communicate tips for improving mobile learning programming efficiency using authoring tool composition
- Communicate tips for efficient mobile learning programming in a variety of authoring tools
Dannette Nicastro, Director, L&T, DAdvanced Group | Bio
Adrianne Claybrooks, Manager, Crowe Horwath LLP | Bio
Onboarding & Beyond: Using a Mobile App to Engage the New Employee from the Moment of Accept...& More!
Imagine that you have just accepted a position with a new organization. You’d probably wonder, Where do I go the first day? What do I wear? Who will I be meeting with? An email can contain a lot of information, but what if you wanted to send others at your new company a pre-work assignment or list of tasks? Now, imagine you received a welcome email with a link or QR code directing you to a website or mobile application that answers all your questions. If you are looking for a user-friendly technology that allows you to easily create an event mobile application with no development or coding knowledge, this session is for you!
At the end of this session, participants will be able to
- Explain the value of extending the onboarding process, beginning with pre-boarding
- Describe a technology solution available to provide a mobile app experience for new employees
- Experience a mobile app used for a static event within an organization
Marty Rosenheck, Ph.D., CEO, Cognitive Advisors | Bio
Using Mobile Technology to Make On-the-Job Learning & Coaching Practical
The development of workplace skills happens primarily beyond the traditional e-learning course, through on-the-job experience and reflection. A key to the success of on-the-job learning is the quality of coaching by managers. The problem is that most managers don’t have the time, skills, or knowledge to provide effective coaching and feedback when it is needed. In this session, you’ll see how to take advantage of mobile learning powered by the Experience API (Tin Can) to manage, capture, and track learning experiences on the job and to support the coaching process. You’ll see how an organization used mobile devices to enable short, frequent, asynchronous, targeted coaching interactions—or nano-coaching.
At the end of this session, participants will be able to
- Select mobile technologies to support on-the-job learning and the coaching process
- Apply guidelines for building a practical on-the-job learning process
- Design effective mobile nano-coaching interactions
Larry Straining, CPLP, Owner, Larry's Training, LLC | Bio
B.Y.O.D.: Engaging Participants with Their Own Mobile Devices
In a meeting or class or at a conference, you’re likely to see people paying more attention to their mobile phones than to the topic at hand. So how do we keep our face-to-face audiences engaged while competing with a myriad of mobile devices? The solution is to leverage the devices themselves. In this session, participants will learn ways to use mobile devices to enhance face-to-face learning experiences. Explore ways gamification, social media, and more can be used to keep learners engaged in face-to-face learning. Discuss and share a number of different activities that enhance learning using learners’ own mobile devices.
At the end of this session, participants will be able to
- Focus participants’ attention on your materials using their mobile devices
- Incorporate participants’ mobile devices into your events
- Create activities that enhance your events while engaging your participants with their mobile devices
- Evaluate the effectiveness of using mobile devices in your activities
Strategy
Jennifer De Vries, CPT, President, BlueStreak Learning | Bio
eLearning Strategy: A Framework for Success
Research and experience proves that organizations that develop and implement a comprehensive e-learning strategy are much more likely to succeed with their e-learning programs than those that have only a partial strategy or none at all. eLearning strategy is critical to meet business goals and drive sustainable growth. Although nearly 90% of training professionals consider their e-learning strategy very important or critical to their success, only about 30% have a complete strategy. A comprehensive strategy can help ensure your e-learning program is successful and stays within budget. This session provides a framework for formulating your e-learning strategy. The framework includes 6 elements that you should research and analyze to make data-driven, strategic decisions.
At the end of this session, participants will be able to
- Explain why it is important to have an organizational e-learning strategy
- List and describe the 6 elements of an e-learning strategy
- Complete an RFP template that provides e-learning vendors with critical scoping information
Kathleen Fortney, Learning Strategist, Berkeley Training, a Judge Company | Bio
Rob Van Hyfte, Senior Instructional Designer/Project Manager, Berkeley Training, a Judge Company | Bio
How Are We Going to Get This All Done? A Pragmatic Approach to Successfully Managing eLearning Projects
Instructional design and project management models are often too generalized to provide the guidance needed to deal with complex multi-media e-learning projects. In this project management session, you’ll gain insights into the challenges of dealing with the various types of sponsors, subject matter experts, and project resources you encounter in complex projects. You’ll also learn techniques that you can use to improve project success.
At the end of this session, participants will be able to
- Create realistic e-learning project plans to ensure project success
- Recognize sources of conflict in e-learning project teams
- Manage cross-functional project teams to optimize performance
Caitlin A. Frano, M.A.Ed., Director, Distance Education, Northwestern University | Bio
Faculty Portal: Centralization of Decentralized Items
Are your faculty engaging in online teaching? Do they know the latest tools available and how to use them? Do they know how to integrate technology into their classrooms? How can an organization support faculty with limited resources? This presentation focuses on how to create a faculty support portal that serves as a one-stop-shop for faculty questions, issues, and development. The solution for each organization will be different to meet the faculty’s needs. This presentation provides a framework for rapid development, implementation, and maintenance of a "living" faculty portal that meets (and hopefully exceeds) faculty needs.
At the end of this session, participants will be able to
- Identify the various resources that faculty need to be successful
- Select social media and other tools to encourage faculty (especially adjunct) engagement
- Integrate social media outputs/inputs into a single faculty portal
- Create, launch, and maintain a successful faculty portal
Judith Hale, Ph.D., Consultant, Institute for Performance Improvement | Bio
How to Prove the Value of Your Learning Technology Solutions
During this session, you’ll see 3 examples of what organizations are doing to prove the value gained from their investment in and use of technologies. The case examples include 1) reducing the time and cost required to engage subject matter experts across the world while increasing the fidelity of content, 2) integration of on-the-job performance supports in the training to shorten the time to proficiency, and 3) correlating the solution with pre-tax profit and other key business metrics.
At the end of this session, participants will be able to
- Apply a decision tree to measure the gains achieved by learning technology
- Determine what must be done at the front end of a project to demonstrate value
- Determine how much your learning solution impacted cycle time, resource use, and costs
Jennie Hartman, IT Training & Staff Development Manager, Grant Thornton | Bio
Dana Lyons, IT Training & Staff Development Associate, Grant Thornton | Bio
Deploying Technology Solutions on a Large Scale with Minimal Resources
The Grant Thornton (GT) IT Department deploys technology learning to all of its internal users and client-facing team members. GT has over 56 offices in the United States with limited IT support at each location. Learning must be focused on the audience’s needs, deployed in a variety of ways and provide value. Time is money! We go through an extensive process to make sure that we plan, budget, and track our training initiatives for technology deployments. Learn about how we create, deploy, and track learning to each audience by using e-learning tools that offer a blended format of learning opportunities.
At the end of this session, participants will be able to
- Help execute a process for deploying technology solutions on a large scale
- Create a technology deployment learning plan
- Use your current resources to market learning materials during a deployment
- Improve user acceptance of new technology solutions
Molly Heilmann, Vice President, Custom Learning Solutions, Berkeley Training | Bio
Eileen Mrowka, Training Manager, AbbVie | Bio
Chuck Pyne, Vice President of Sales, Kryon Systems | Bio
360 Degrees to Performance Support
Although the idea of performance support (PS) is not new, there are only a few successful large-scale implementations from which leading organizations can learn. In this session, you’ll learn about the 360° to PS model and the must-have characteristics from the selected PS tool. You’ll review examples of specific PS implementations. You’ll get a fresh and unique viewpoint on PS, how it changes according to the employee experience and years on the job, and how an effective PS project helped cut training days by more than half while maintaining—and even improving—employee performance.
At the end of this session, participants will be able to
- Use a practical, working tool to design an effective PS solution using the 360° methodology
- Use PS for learning
- Identify the characteristics that any PS solution must have
Jordan Kanter, IT Coordinator, The Center: Resources for Teaching and Learning | Bio
Cindy Berrey, Resource Specialist, STARNET Region II | Bio
Wordpress as an LMS: A Novel Use Case for Open-Source Mixed Learning
In this session, we describe a novel case study in which we use the highly popular blogging tool Wordpress (http://www.wordpress.org) as a learning management system (LMS). The system allows for a cheap, flexible, learner-centric approach that’s not available via other systems. This approach is ideal for small to mid-size organizations that want to set up highly engaging learning environments.
At the end of this session, participants will be able to
- Identify the use cases for and why one might need an e-learning management system
- Identify the options available for online e-learning (e.g., Desire2Learn, Blackboard, Moodle) and how to evaluate online LMS options
- Explain characteristics that make Wordpress a good platform choice: financial, time to startup, modularity, open-source, public/private content mixing
- Identify the tools and steps required to implement a similar solution in your environment
Chris Osborn, VP of Marketing, BizLibrary | Bio
A Competency Model for Today's Learning Professional
The world of employee learning is changing, and millennials are right in the middle of many of these disruptive changes. As learning professionals, we can complain and do nothing, or we can adapt. Adapting is the only real option. But how do we adapt? What do we need to do to teach, train, and educate today’s workforce? In this session, you’ll see what learning professionals might do to reach today’s workforce more effectively. We must adapt our learning strategies and our own approach to the delivery and facilitation of learning to the technology tools our employees are using every day.
At the end of this session, participants will be able to
- Explain the emerging role of learning professionals in new learning organizations
- Facilitate employee learning rather than simply deliver it
- Identify a 6-stage competency model for next-generation learning professionals