Hacking Informal Learning (video)

A presentation given by Andrea Cole, independent instructional design consultant, to the Austin Chapter of Association for Talent Development (ATD) on June 20, 2014. Since 90% of work-place learning is unstructured, self-directed activity, how can instructional designers incorporate it through incentives and monitoring? She reviews the challenges, solutions, training development changes, and ways to measure success. Duration: 45 minutes. Video production by Clay Leben.

Hacking Informal Learning Opportunities into Formal Processes

Building Learning Paths: Connecting the Dots (video)

Usually we focus on course development, but what if courses were part of a larger set of learning activities or pathways. The value of learning paths is that they can be linked to career paths or certifications that can reduce overall learning time and costs for employers. Scott Schaffer with Caveo Learning explains how learning paths can be aligned with performance improvement and talent management. Recorded May 16, 2014 in Austin at Austin ATD. Duration: 38:12. Video production by Clay Leben.

ID Geek Meets Video Chic (video)

Organizations are turning more to video in today’s YouTube culture. So how should you create effective training videos? Shauna Herman, CPLP, and Miles Durkee, CPLP, explain how they use ADDIE as a guide and offer video production tips along the way. Recorded at ASTD Austin, April 14, 2014. Duration 30 minutes. Video production by Clay Leben.

The People Side of Change (audio recording)

Why Do Change Initiatives Fail?

According to research cited by Beverly Moore, approximately 70% of all change initiatives fail. It’s a sobering statistic.

On the other hand, proponents of Organizational Change Management say using its principles will increase the probability of success up to 90%!  Organization change management (OCM) is a structured approach to enhance the speed, adoption, and sustainment of a business transformation. As an internal OCM consultant at Dell, Moore has over 25 years of experience designing and executing large corporate organizational development strategies. Her Dell responsibilities can involve change efforts with thousands of people and a stakeholder group of over 150 employees in several countries. 

Moore’s presentation to the Austin ASTD chapter ID SIG on March 22, 2012 introduced managing the “people side” of change, the common reasons transformation efforts fail, and how to improve the chances of success.

Use Famous Films As Inspiration For Training Activities

Elyse Eriksson loves interactive presentations. She hates boring training. And to prove it, she asked her audience at Austin ASTD‘s January 2012 meeting to stand up and chant “I’m mad about boring training and I’m not going to take it any more!” just like in that famous movie.

Using Hollywood film scenes is one of her favorite ways to spice up technical training, she says. For example, to teach international import/export rules, which is her special area of expertise, she asked participants to classify James Bond spy gadgets using the US import categories they had just learned. She also brings props like hats and wigs so attendees can play roles in movie scenes using her adapted scripts that reinforce training content.

Enspire Learning’s Recipe for Blended Learning

Bjorn Billhardt, CEO Enspire Learning

Bjorn Billhardt, CEO, founded Enspire Learning Inc. in 2001 so he knows that instructional designers have been guilty of creating boring e-learning programs for a long time. Authors today still fail to use audio-visual features of multimedia-capable PCs, mobile smart phones, and Web 2.0 tools to create interactive personalized learning. In fact, he says its tough dealing with reactions of fellow airline passengers when he introduces himself as an e-learning developer because corporate online training has such a boring reputation. But, he and Enspire Learning have tried from the beginning to change that popular perception with engaging e-learning games and simulations.

Enspire Learning believes the recipe for successful online e-learning consists of three ingredients: Stories, Simulations, and Social Learning. Bjorn explained why these ingredients are effective to Austin ASTD members on November 19, 2010 and with his kind permission I recorded his talk so you may listen to it too.

Video: Web 2.0 in Learning Environments

Web 2.0 is a rapidly growing part of university teaching.  Faculty are more frequently asking students to build learner eportfolios, create multimedia presentations, participate in authentic group projects, and reach out with social networking to new audiences. But what evidence has been collected thus far in the research journal literature?

Debby Kalk, Gregg Orr, and Lance Kinney, U. of Texas at Austin doctoral students, recently completed a literature survey of 148 journal articles (76 theoretical and 72 research) that reported on the use of blogs, wikis, virtual worlds, podcasts, and social networking in university teaching. They summarized their conclusions to an interested audience of ASTD Austin Chapter members.

Recorded July 16, 2010 in Austin, Texas. Length: 47 minutes

Watch My Video

ASTD Austin – Web 2.0 Tools in University Classes from learningman on Vimeo.

Needs Assessment from a HPI Perspective

ASTD Austin Chapter members listened to Lannette Bailey, CPT, explain how she approached assessment of learning from a Human Performance perspective.

Click on the link for the audio recording – 49 minutes duration.

Lannette Baily – ASTD presentation recording

Captivate 4 Text-to-Speech and Captions

Adobe’s Captivate 4 software easy text-to-speech feature makes it possible to add spoken captions for ADA compliance to e-learning course content. Members of Austin ASTD Instructional Design SIG are shown how this can be done by guest speaker Hiram Kuykendall, MicroAssist CTO. How lifelike are the voices? Can you save time and money over recording human voice talent? Hiram demonstrates the software and summarizes the pros & cons of his rapid development strategy.

By the way, Hiram is also involved with organizing the May 26, 2010 E-Learning Symposium in Austin.

Watch my video on Vimeo. Duration: 36:00.

Is Captivate Speaking to Me? from learningman on Vimeo.

Improve Lectures with Interactive Learning Experiences

Jane “Star” Fisher presented to the Austin ASTD ID SIG how adding interaction to training improves attention, retention, and overall learning impact. Despite their effectiveness, why do trainers not use games more often? Why do they persist in boring, death-by-powerpoint slide shows? How can trainers improve their teaching presentations? Star guided the ID SIG members through “Reverse Brainstorming” and “Envelopes” group activities that allowed us to discover our own answers to these questions.