Sunday, March 29, 2015

My #COLF L1 Assignment

As mentioned in a previous post, myself and the L&D team in which I work are undertaking the COLF programme.

Upon completion of each of the 9 lessons/workshops there is an assignment to undertake as well as some additional reading (I’m making some assumptions here as we’ve only just completed the first session).

When the assignment was originally discussed it was indicated that it should be submitted via a Word document, however when I enquired as to whether the submission could be made using any media format (as long as it was accessible by the facilitator), I was pleased to hear that that would be perfectly acceptable (I also suspect that this may become an overt option in the future for participants).

Here’s my first assignment

Additional resources:

What stinks about webinars? – Alison Rossett

Image source


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Saturday, March 28, 2015

What happened in Vegas, won’t stay in Vegas – thanks to #Devlearn

I’ve spent the best part of last week in Las Vegas attending DevLearn 2012, so as is customary, I thought I’d provide you with a run-down of the sessions I attended but more importantly, the actions and key points of each session that stuck in my head that I feel are of benefit to the work I am doing now and anticipate being involved in in the future.

Day 1

Morning Buzz session – Content Strategy – Clark Quinn

When I asked Clarke what common pitfalls he sees organisations fall into when devising their L&D content strategies, he informed us all that centering on ‘courses’ was the biggest pitfall he observes. This was a timely response for me as I am about to get involved in writing my Organisations L&D strategy. It had certainly never been my intention to centre on ‘courses’ within the strategy, however I’m sure that having the advice of Clarke on my side will come in very useful, should we hit any ‘problems’ during it’s creation.

My action: Take extreme care when developing my Organisation’s L&D strategy to steer clear of making any suggestions that ‘courses’ will be the default learning solution.

Keynote – Braving a New World: Innovation in Avatar and What Lies Ahead – John Landau

John informed us James Cameron never writes a script with ‘what’s technically possible‘ in mind, with that ringing in our ears he suggested that we write our business plans with that mantra in mind. Oh, and I won a signed DVD from him…

A copy of Titanic signed by John Landau

My action: This “don’t write for what is possible ‘today’” concept is something that I intend to weave into my Organisations L&D strategy.

Evidence-based Training: No Yellow Brick Road – Ruth Clarke

An interesting piece of research was discussed during Ruth’s session in which it was shown that a ‘simple’ piece of learning content faired better in terms of achieving the learning outcomes than a ‘complicated’ piece of content. This may seem like an obvious answer to many readers, however Ruth then revealed that when the learners involved in the research were asked to reveal which of the two activities they preferred, the more ‘complicated’ piece of content faired better. I believe this should act as a reminder to us to balance achieving the learning outcomes with delivering what the learner ‘likes’ (and the whole issue of ‘learner engagement’ that comes with that)

Ruth Clarke discussing research into many common myths and questions

My action: Continue with my mantra (which is echoed by Clark Quinn) of “what’s the least I can do for you“

Taking Video to the Next Level – Mark Locke

This session was waaaay to advanced for the likes of me with my Flipcam and iPhone with a great many references to high end cameras, specialist lighting and editing software. There were some good tips on how Mark had developed characters for his series of videos and his use of humour as well as the mantra ‘tell a story…. always tell a story‘!

My action: Review my organisations usage of video in the coming months and determine whether the small hand-held ‘Flip-cam-esque’ cameras are suitable for our needs or whether an upgrade to a DSLR would be advisable.

Building mLearning for iPads using HTML5 and iBooks Author – Jason Baker

I’ve been tinkering around with iBooks Author for a little while writing a book and had been able to get to grips with almost all it’s functionality, however the ‘HTML 5' widget has had me stumped!

Fortunately, Jason had been working with iBooks for some time and had discovered a tool called Hype (Mac only) which seemed to provide a very simple and intuitive way of creating HTML 5 animations that allowed direct exporting to iBooks. On a few occasions a few technical minded attendees asked some quite technical questions, which to his credit, he swiftly answered but reminded people that this was an intro to Hype and iBooks and quickly got back to the focus of the session.

The opening slide from Jason’s session

My action: Purchase Hype to allow my exploration of iBooks to continue, with a view to offering some organisational resources via iTunes U. Look into gaining access to an area of my Organisations server so as to trial pushing mobile web content to iPads.

Day 2

Morning Buzz session – Compliancy, How Can We Do this to Our Advantage? – Neil Lasher

As ‘good-an-idea’ as the Morning Buzz (0715-0815) sessions are, I guess they are always going to have to do battle with the desire to have a lie-in, add to the equation that this was the morning after an almighty Las Vegas Halloween party and that probably explains why there were only a small number of attendees at this session.

The session took the form of an informal conversation with each of us swapping compliance war stories. Neil suggested that we reaaaaaallllly do some digging with our external regulators to fully understand ‘The Rules’, as opposed to guessing what is expected of us or taking our compliance department’s word for it. He also provided a novel insight into a piece of work he had been asked to undertake around ‘anti-money laundering’. Neil took an antagonists approach to this subject and developed a resource more aligned with ‘How To Launder Money’. This approach initially proved controversial, however Neil assured us that over time it began to have the desired behavioural impact.

My action: Set up a meeting with our designated external regulator to discuss ‘The Rules’. Consider taking the antagonists approach, the next time I produce any material(s).

Super-charging Google Sales Readiness with Gamification and Social Media – Erika Grouell & Patrick Williams (no, not ‘that’ Patrick Williams)

Google talked to us about their SalesPro+ platform and how they have moved away from what we might call ‘traditional click next’ elearning to a collaborative, games-based approach. This approach resonated with me as I have been mulling over ‘free text’ assessments for a little while now as part of a project I am involved in. I had been worried about taking this approach as I was concerned about the time it would take to assess and provide feedback to free text submissions compared to multiple-guess assessments being marked by SCORM / LMS (this ain’t gonna happen!)

Fortunately Google were able to put my mind at rest as they had been taking approx 2 hours a week to review, assess and feed back on the free text assessments for an audience of approx 700 people.

Google SalesPro+ reflective essay slide

My action: Step up my plans to include free text assessments should they work out being the best form of assessment for my upcoming project.

Straight Talk on New Tech – Koreen Olbrish, Cammie Bean, Jane Bozarth, Janet Clarey & Jeanette Campos

A great dynamic session here involving a ‘panel discussion’ with several members of the panel being physically there in person, 1 Skyping in and one participating via Twitter all answering questions relating to the emergence and usage of ‘new’ Tech. There were a number of pre-prepared questions along with the opportunity for people to ‘Tweet in’ relevant questions as well as traditonal ‘questions from the floor.

The Godesses of elearning in action both in person and online

My action: Discuss this option with a colleague of mine in our Internal Comms team as a way of bringing more people into the regular Q&A sessions with our MD.

Implementing Gamification with Media – Alicia Sanchez

I love watching Alicia speak as she has a great way of combining her vast knowledge in this area with great facilitation skills and a sharp sense of humour. Whilst I’m not a fan of the word ‘Gamification’ it was still very worthwhile attending to gain a perspective on how others have been using gaming mechanics to increase engagement and ‘stickiness’ of resources.

Alicia facilitating her session

My action: Identify examples of where gaming mechanics have been used for L&D activities that are NOT enclosed within self-paced, click next tutorials. Consider a games-based learning session for the Lunch and Learn sessions that I facilitate.

Developing a Multi-year Learning and Development Technology Strategy – Allison Anderson & Sarah Johnson

I had been looking forward to attending this session however after about 10 minutes one of the speakers suggested conducting an organisation-wide Learning Styles survey…. I took this as my cue to leave and move to….

Ignite! Six Provocative Perspectives on the eLearning Industry - Jane Bozarth, Kris Rockwel, Megan Bowe, Judy Unrein, Robert Gadd, Chad Udell

A series of Ignite presentations across a range of topical subjects. I found myself wanting to hear more from some of the participants, so was naturally frustrated at the 5 minute air time that Ignite rules provides them. In particular Jane Bozarth encouraged us to ‘Show Your Work’ a subject that I’d be keen to hear more from Jane about…… who knows…. perhaps she’s planning to tell us more…..

My action: Include Ignite into a future Lunch and Learn session I am planning on ‘Getting Beyond Bullet Points’

Day 3

Morning Buzz session – One-person eLearning Departments – Lisa Goldstein

I hadn’t planned to attend Lisa’s session, however once I saw that it was directly next to the room that I was due to be facilitating my session in 1 hour later (and was currently in use) I decided to pop in, join in the conversation and say “Hi” to Lisa, who I have been having conversations with on Twitter for some time, but have never had the good fortune to meet. Lisa was facilitating a (large) group conversation around the challenges of being a 1-person L&D team. Some great pieces of advice were passed around, but for me the piece that really hit home (even though I’m not in a 1-person L&D team), was the reminder that we can only do 1 thing at a time, that sometimes work needs to be pushed back, that sometimes we need to learn/remember to say “No“.

My action: Feel comfortable with saying “No”. Promote the Twitter hashtag – #1PDept – to ensure that the small group that formed during that morning session can grow in size and can benefit from a wider audience. 1-person teams can be tough enough, so if you feel that you can offer some insights or even of you fall into that category, why not search them out on Twitter?

Getting Started with Mobile Learning – Me!

My session served as a timely reminder that people / organisations are at different points in their journey of understanding / adopting mobile technologies. The audience were fantastic and very forthcoming in asking questions, providing responses and generally getting stuck in!

What did surprise me, was the fact that approximately 30 minutes into the session I announced the practical element of the session and informed people that they were to break down into groups and use a mobile device to create a piece of content, push it to Twitter using the event # and then we could all consume the content via our mobile devices – at this stage approx 5 people stood up and walked out of the session?!?! To this day I have no idea why, however I do know that many people commented on how much they enjoyed the practical element of the session and saw it as a refreshing change to some of the other ‘info only’ sessions that they had attended.

My action(s): Send slides to the eLearning Guild for publication on the event resources page. Upload slides to Slideshare. Create Slidecast on Slideshare, so verbal context is not lost.

Measuring the Impact of Social Learning – Jane Bozarth

All to frequently hear the cry “but how do we know Social Media adds value, blah, blah, blah” so I was keen to see and hear what Jane had to say. Jane ran a wonderful session which from my perspective, centered around a story in which Jane had used Twitter to crowdsource an answer to question. Jane has blogged about this example in detail and I would encourage you to take a look at it, in particular the ‘Value Creation’ table shown in Figure 1.

Jane Bozarth discussing measuring the value of social learning.

My action: Re-read the article that I referred you to above. Discuss with my boss as to whether the Value Creation table could be applied as an evaluation method to all our L&D activities and not just those that center around ‘communities’.

Overall conference observations / take aways

Good to see the conference and exhibition being co-located avoiding the ‘upstairs, downstairs‘ that has been mentioned before. It also makes life a damn site easier for attendees.The mobile app was extremely useful and became my real ‘workhorse’ during the conference and indeed before it actually started. I would have liked to have seen the inbuilt Twitter function with a greater degree of functionality i.e. RTs, DMs, attaching images, following people etc – however having said that the fact the app overall was very impressive and I’d like to see something of this standard at UK conferences. (if any UK conference organisers want my app login details to fully explore it, then please get in touch)The Conference staff all wore eLearning Guild branded sky-blue(ish) shirts/tops which massively helped attendees in terms of being able to know who to ask for help.I went to some trouble to ensure that the phrases, stories and examples that I used were ‘non-UK’ specific and were therefore more likely to be understood by an International audience. Unfortunately not every speaker went to this trouble, resulting on a number of occasions with me spending valuable time trying to Google/understand the context that they were talking about – time that would have been better spent listening to / watching the facilitator. Perhaps the eLearning Guild could be more explicit about asking future Devlearn facilitators to consider this?The conference badge holders were actually little ‘around the neck’ bags (see first image in this post) that not only allowed you to display your conference badge, but also had a small zipped section to store business cards, a pen, some money. A simple little thing, but one that made a difference.The morning buzz sessions are 0715-0815 sessions designed for the early riser (or like me, the jet-lagged). The sessions that I attended were very informal, had a small number of attendees and were very much geared towards having conversations with like-minded people around a given subject. I thought it was a great way of maximising the time of the conference and an idea that I’d certainly buy into, should they ever make an appearance at UK conferences.The conference was much less formal than others I have attended, which in my opinion, provided a much more ‘friendly’ and welcoming atmosphere. You had to look hard to spot somebody NOT in jeans/casual dress! I don’t believe that this dress code effected anybody’s morale or motivation….. ;-)

Devlearn backchannel

Dave Kelly has curated an ever growing list of Devlearn related resources.

Devlearn utilised a great curating platform know as Hashcaster

If any of the overviews that I’ve provided above make you curious for more info, why not check out the backchannel or drop me a below?


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Book Review: The Checklist Manifesto

A few weeks ago I was reading this excellent post from Clark Quinn, when I noticed that he referenced the book ‘The Checklist Manifesto’ by Atul Gawande.

This was a book that I purchased (in paper format) and read 2-3 years ago, but must admit to it being ‘ahead of my time’ at the time in my career I read it. I did a bit of digging around to try and find it again, but was unable to do so, so repurchased it as a Kindle version.

What was immediately of interest to me was just how differently the book resonated with me in comparison with the first time I read it (I think the lesson here is to go back and revisit ‘things’, even ‘things’ that didn’t make sense/seem relevant/etc at the time). Concepts and examples that were lost on me a couple of years ago, all of a sudden started to make sense, to take shape, to add value! The book hadn’t changed – I had!

I could offer a lengthy review of the book, however that would seem like a waste of the functionality that the Kindle platform provides, so instead, here are my Kindle Highlights from the book, along with some additional notes that mirrored my thinking at the time of reading. (it appears that Amazon won’t allow you to see ‘just’ the notes for a specific book, so here’s a screenshot showing you where to click to see ‘some’ of  my notes (not sure why you can’t see them all?))

Screenshot showing my Amazon Kindle public notes

What I will say is that of you’re in an L&D role, this is a book that you need to read.

Maybe you’re new to the world of Performance support?

Perhaps you’re familiar with, maybe even practicing the concept?

It could be that you know it’s what you should be doing, but you need something to back that up, perhaps some evidence to convince others?

Whatever you’re doing, at whatever level – this book will have something in there for you.

So stop reading this and order this

Or if like like many, cash is tight at the moment, why not try tracking it down via your local library.

If you’d like to hear from Atul Gawande himself, with particular reference to ‘checklists’, then check this video out

He’s also published some fine examples of  checklists on this site.

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Road Trip USA – Vegas & Richmond

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Some of the B Online Learning team have spent the last few weeks in the USA.

We like to travel every few years to keep up to date with industry happenings and more importantly to see what’s on the horizon. What was obvious this trip is how far Australia have progressed in the last few years that we are getting closer to even ground.

Articulate Las Vegas – DevLearn

The adventure started in Las Vegas at the DevLearn 14 Conference.

In a nutshell here are the sessions that inspired me and some screenshots:

Building an Online Community Tom Kuhlmann Building an Online Community Tom Kuhlmann

Articulate stand and DemoFest Articulate stand and DemoFest

How to design great navigation by Nicole Legault and the Quote of the Conference How to design great navigation by Nicole Legault and the Quote of the Conference

Ian Hucklebee on ways the xAPI can improve elearning design and an example of gamification Ian Hucklebee ways the xAPI can improve elearning design and an example of gamification

Michael Allen‘s presentation about the eLearning manifesto explored the differences between traditional eLearning and serious eLearning, which is available here and well worth a look. It was great to see how similar our Master eLearning Course, now in its 5th year, is to his suggested best practice delivery model.

Memorable quotes from Michael’s session:

Put people at risk – active eLearning – people start thinking about the consequences of what may happen, which is the prerequisite to learning. They start making decisions on likely outcomes.Fun gaming provides a playful and therefore memorable learning experience.Performance strength comes from meeting challenges that are not too hard or too easy.Spaced practice – Time between short practice sessions should increase to maximise retention.People use there brains more if its not immediately presented – a trick to increase effectiveness, is to delay the measure of learning.Optimal use of learning is to provide a sense of overlearning.

It was great to catch up with Tom and David from Articulate and hopefully will see you guys in 2015.

Articulate Training Partner Summit – Las Vegas

Articulate Training SummitNext we had the inaugural Articulate training partner Summit.  Articulate global footprint has expanded, much to the translation capability of Articulate Storyline 2 and to this end, the partner network has expanded from UK and Australia to China, France, Malaysia with other locations about to be added.

The goal of the network is to ensure consistency and a quality delivery approach, the program is endorsed by Articulate and regularly updated to meet their standards. The Summit was a thinking pot of ideas with improvements for the training and learning what others are doing and how we can build on the synergies between clients around the world, to ultimately provide a better experience for all.

I have to mention, before I move on to our next destination, for future travellers to Vegas the Premium Outlet North is a must for top brand bargain shopping. And there was time for fun at the tables and restaurants and casinos and shows and . . . . well what happens in Vegas . . .!

Articulate Storyline 2 Training – Richmond, Virginia

RichmondWe are already developing in Articulate Storyline 2 for clients, and used it during the Beta testing, so we have had experience with the new features and functionality.  But we had the opportunity to attend the first Articulate Storyline 2 Certified Training Session in Richmond, and to catch up with our friends and partners Yukon Learning.

It was timely too since the new Articulate Storyline 2 Certified Training Program starts in Sydney in December. Find dates for 2015 in other capital cities here.

The program has not only been updated to include the new features but also structured to accommodate people that are upgrading from Storyline 1. Day 3 provides the perfect day. It introduces new features with some excellent activities that build on the skills you already know.

Similar to our training in Australia, the group was diverse – varied industries (eg airlines, health, education, business, community organisations) and skill level – from eLearning beginners to people that have been designing for years.

I’ve watched the training quite a few times but it never ceases to amaze me how I always learn something new and pick up tips to speed up the development process. Participants enthusiasm as the features are explored is also inspiring.  They learn from the expert facilitator but also from sharing each others experiences.

Special thanks to the Yukon Learning team for their hospitality – Chris, Ron, Charles, John, Brooke, Stefanie, Kim, Raye – to name just a few. It was great to meet their talented development team and see some of the great work they have done.

It’s been a busy 2 weeks and the motivation level is at an all time high. The connections we have and the new ones formed place us in an enviable position.

Next stop New York for the Articulate Sales Partner Summit.

Beck Verity About Beck Verity
Beck is the Creative Director at B Online Learning and project manages our Articulate content development projects. Beck is also a designer and developer and has built numerous projects using Articulate and other authoring tools. Stay up to date with eLearning and follow Beck's tweets! https://twitter.com/bonlinelearning

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Leadership and Talent Manager

Leadership and Talent Manager London

Summary

Working with colleagues in the L&D function, the Leadership and Talent Manager will work with senior colleagues to shape, influence and deliver the talent management and leadership strategy.

Client Details

My client are a leading high street retailer looking for a Leadership and Talent Manager to join their Human Resources and Personnel team in their London office.

Description

The Leadership and Talent Manager will:



Shape and influence the talent management and leadership development strategy
Develop talented colleagues through a variety of means
Design, launch and manage leadership development programmes
Work with senior stakeholders to effectively support the development of leaders within the company
Undertake designated project management where required

Profile

The successful candidate will have the following attributes:



Level A and B BPS qualification
Experience of conducting senior leadership assessments
Experience of running talent management processes in a blue chip organisation
Leadership and management development experience
Project and stakeholder management expertise - up to senior management
Experience of working in a consumer-led environment
Experience of working with external partners

Job Offer

£55000-£65000

25 days holiday

Pension

Employee discount

LocationLondonSalary£55000 - £65000 per annumDuration12 monthsReference13424113/001Contact NameTara Davis

Summary

Working with colleagues in the L&D function, the Leadership and Talent Manager will work with senior colleagues to shape, influence and deliver the talent management and leadership strategy.

Client Details

My client are a leading high street retailer looking for a Leadership and Talent Manager to join their Human Resources and Personnel team in their London office.

Description

The Leadership and Talent Manager will:



Shape and influence the talent management and leadership development strategy
Develop talented colleagues through a variety of means
Design, launch and manage leadership development programmes
Work with senior stakeholders to effectively support the development of leaders within the company
Undertake designated project management where required

Profile

The successful candidate will have the following attributes:



Level A and B BPS qualification
Experience of conducting senior leadership assessments
Experience of running talent management processes in a blue chip organisation
Leadership and management development experience
Project and stakeholder management expertise - up to senior management
Experience of working in a consumer-led environment
Experience of working with external partners

Job Offer

£55000-£65000

25 days holiday

Pension

Employee discount

Apply now


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To Storyboard or not to Storyboard?

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One of the fundamental things drummed into people who have embarked down the path of the eLearning developer is the need to start your development project with a detailed and well planned storyboard. From this document/PowerPoint/flowchart/drawing, your content can be planned, screens can be devised, interactions envisaged and source material can be sculpted so as to reduce cognitive load and therefore improve knowledge transfer and/or application.

The development of a Storyboard is seen as a fundamental task which takes time to get right and can make or break the content for the audience and the designer.

eLearning has certainly followed through with this belief in the compulsory nature of the Storyboard, making it a standard line item on any build estimate.

Lion StoryboardHowever I question this logic. Is a Storyboard required for all content development? Especially in the light of today’s amazing content development tools, such as Articulate Studio or Storyline 2, do we really need to build a complete static plan for the content under development, or can we just go straight to building direct from the source materials?

To me this approach makes perfect sense for a number of reasons:

It cuts down on the overall project time. If you storyboard content into PowerPoint, you still have to develop all of the content slides, mock up the interactions and re-engineer the text and audio to work for an online audience. Then once you have sign off you have to rebuild all of the same screens again. (A bit like double handling).It lets the client see a living and breathing version of the content at the first review.With a storyboard, you may have 2 or more review cycles prior to commencing a build and even once it is signed off and the first actual content version is delivered things can still be lost in translation, where reviewers are unable to imagine interactivities until they actually see them working.Source materials are often highly dynamic in their actual content, most due to normal business pressures when policies, wording, branding and even SME subjectivity can change on a week by week basis. In such an environment a project may spend weeks or months in a constant revolving feedback loop before it can even be signed off.Screen design can be signed off much more efficiently. By showing a client a branded set of indicative content slides, built from their own source materials and including intended interactions allows the client reviewers to judge the content and interactive design based on a tangible output.It saves the client money. Bottom line is that it is faster to develop initially and much quicker and easier to review and these factors together mean that the client still gets the same great output at up to half the cost.

Now before eLearning designers and developers light their flaming brands, take up their pitchforks and form a ravening mob out for justice, please let me say that Storyboarding is a fundamental tool for the development of eLearning and there are times when it is not just beneficial but also crucial.

Getting a quality eLearning outcome with any of the following would be either very difficult to near impossible without a storyboard:

When building a complex branching scenario when user decisions can lead them through a complex path in the content and when decision feedback and consequences can be felt at any stage of the content journeyWhen there are custom design elements that require several iterationsWhen the source material provided is provided in such a technical format that time needs to be spent with the SME to de-code it then to reconstruct it in eLearning appropriate format. Mostly so that the SME can see how the information flows and links.Where the navigational elements of the course allow the learners to select multiple paths through the content to reach a common goal.

The above is not an exhaustive list but there are certain times when a storyboard is an absolute must. Lion Co required an extensive branched scenario using a comic style design theme to show their team how to have successful challenging conversations. The solution was to storyboard in Microsoft Powerpoint (see image above), which allowed for a fast and effective client review of the content (they made changes to the conversation transcript themselves and text) and then we simply imported the file into Articulate Storyline to build the course.  But, how often really are courses like this developed? We estimate around three projects in every ten.

The rest of the time, the eLearning development tool themselves, such as Articulate Studio or Storyline 2 give us the ability to design and build a living breathing functioning storyboard from the outset.

B Online Learning develops all of our client’s content to their exact specifications, where that includes storyboard development or not. What we always do when commencing a development project is to give the client an honest appraisal of what is actually required.  For us it’s all about what is the best possible solution, not just ticking the boxes and racking up the invoice line items.

Ben Saunders About Ben Saunders
For the past 10 years Ben has been immersed in the world of learning and communication (and training and development), from planning and design to build and implementation, from both the client and vendor perspectives. His experience bridges the gaps between business expectation, technology and learning theory, importantly this allows Ben to translate and articulate business needs into defined learner outcomes. He has experience with various LMS implementations including Moodle, Docebo, Plateau, SABA, DOTS as well as bespoke solutions. Ben is an Articulate Trainer/Developer with B Online Learning.


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Operational Trainer - Bath and Cornwall

Anchor has an exciting opportunity for an experienced Operational Trainer to join their team. Their main role will to be deliver effective learning & development interventions that drives and supports a competent and capable workforce.

The successful candidate will be expected to manage the regional training centre, to ensure events are planned, in line with demand, to maximum occupancy and that drives or maintains statutory and mandatory training targets.

Location: Bath and Cornwall

Key Responsibilities:

• Training delivery
• Daily running of the regional training centre
• Planning interventions based on demand identified in the regional / national plans
• Adapting training materials or techniques to meet the needs of the audience
• Revision of training materials based on feedback and evaluation

Required Knowledge & Experience:

Qualifications

• Certificate in training practice, NVQ or equivalent experience
• Part of fully qualified membership of CIPD
• PTTLLS or working towards PTTLLS
• Specific care or health & safety qualifications, would be advantageous


Experience Required:

• Experience of the full learning cycle (training needs analysis, design, delivery and evaluation)
Having worked in a person centred/customer focused environment.
• Experience of training delivery to a diverse and multi skilled workforce
• Proven track record in implementing blended learning techniques

Required Skills:

• Up to date knowledge of industry best practice and standards as well as developments in the L&D arena
• Blended learning techniques
• Appropriate development interventions, suitable for learners in a customer facing environment

Closing Date: 02/03/2015

Apply now


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Friday, March 27, 2015

European Health & Saf..Zzzzzzzzzzzz

….Don’t fall asleep on me; for a change this is going to be something H&S related that was fun, engaging and memorable. (you heard it here first folks)

My organisation is understandably H&S focussed and always strives to support initiatives such as the recent European Health & Safety week, despite maintaining a keen focus on H&S, regardless of any external initiative. However this year my boss suggested to our Compliance Department that perhaps we should do something ‘different’, alongside the more traditional email/intranet/poster etc campaigns in relation to the importance of maintaining equipment.

This is what he came up with…

Whilst the video clip doesn’t show it too well, each of the tricks had an underlying safety related theme such as:

Not undertaking tasks you aren’t trained to do (a cash in an envelope trick)Checking equipment thoroughly (using a piece of PPE that went from being serviceable to unserviceable… whilst an audience member was wearing it! along with the guillotine trick that you can see in this clip)Following instructions clearly (a simple hand grasping trick, which didn’t provide the desired (safe) outcome)

The feedback from the multiple shows that took place around site (to fit in with working patterns/geography) was very positive with comments such as

“refreshing” “memorable” “fun“

being in great abundance with the most obvious sign of approval being that people were arriving ahead of the performance times and were even phoning us to ask why the magician hadn’t been yet….. can you honestly say that your learners have ever had that response to a Health & Safety event?

This whole approach fits in with a ‘one liner’ that @larshyland mentioned at the last eLN event “think campaign, not course”

Think about it..

Many thanks to Constantia Artiste Management for allowing this footage to be used in this blog.


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2012 – a year of learning technology failures

It’s that time of year when all the movers and shakers attempt to predict what will be big in 2013. Well there are no such predictions here. However, they do say you can predict the future by learning lessons from the past, so I’m going look back over the past year instead and ask: what was crap about 2012? (I should reiterate that these views are, of course, entirely my own…)

The elearning content industry awoke from its long sleep and FINALLY embraced mobile. The mobile is now the main way of accessing the internet yet many elearning content producers were caught napping. Figures released by the ITU back in 2011 showed there were a staggering 6 billion mobile subscriptions worldwide for a population of 7 billion people, putting mobile penetration at 87% globally. Did e-learning vendors think that mobile learning wasn’t going to catch on or something? Early adopters like Epic and Line moved in on mobile 18-24 months ago, striking while the iron was hot. Most other vendors have followed on since then and the remaining laggards emerged in 2012 with their own offerings and a whole lot of ground to make up. Overall, the industry showed a disappointingly sluggish response to a game changing technology.The amount of LMS vendors who still don’t do mobile is shocking. I was involved in an LMS selection project for a customer recently which involved trawling through over 200 products. Mobile was a critical feature for getting short listed and about 75% of products failed on that alone. The industry is looking backwards by developing for desktop first. Google adopted a “mobile first” approach to web and application design way back in 2010. People EXPECT mobile compatibility now. The LMS world needs to wake up to this.Elearning content vendors are putting ENTIRE elearning courses on smartphones and calling it mobile learning. These vendors are completely missing the point.The research is piling up about what people do on their smartphones and tablets, see The New Multi-Screen World by Google and this great infographic from Online Degrees. Full courses on tablets work fine. But use smartphones to enhance and embellish your course, not replicate it. Learners just won’t use a smartphone for that long. Do us a favour: buy Clark Quinns book, then try again.A number of authoring tool vendors STILL produce Flash-only output. Change or die, people. Flash Player has never been supported on iOS and is no longer support on Android either. You’ve got to design for mobile first, so for Flash-only vendors the game is up. Will the last Flash e-learning developer to leave please turn out the lights?Some content providers remain stuck in the dark ages and STILL develop elearning that requires the Java Runtime Environment to run! It simply defies belief that at least one major e-learning vendor remains firmly stuck in the 1990’s. Fortunately the market is wisening up to this, and 2012 saw an increasing number of customers issuing Requests for Proposals with the words ‘must not require plugins’, which was music to my ears.Established LMS vendors have done little to solve their long-standing usability problems. This one has been around for years, yet time and again the market research lists user interface design as a major problem with LMS products. Did the old-timers do anything to rectify that this year? Of course not. LMS vendors have gone after feature bloat instead and are building out talent management features to make a play for the HR market. This has left the door wide open for a new generation of LMS vendors differentiating themselves with modern design, highly focused features and instant provisioning. One such player, Docebo Cloud, has signed up 5,000 organisations in three months!Talking of cloud: lots of people still don’t get it. Usage of the word ‘cloud’ has become so watered down by marketing departments over the last few years that it has almost become pointless trying to educate people. If an LMS vendor says they do cloud, ask them a few simple questions. Does it do instant sign up and metered usage? Good. If it requires manual setup and a delay of days or even weeks to setup, then that’s good old fashioned hosting. Let’s not pretend hosted app = cloud, please?LMS vendors stuck a bar chart on their reports and called it Learning Analytics. This is one of the buzzwords of 2012 but it’s a highly specialized academic field with its roots in Educational Data Mining. The objective – and this is VERY simplified – is to use learner activity logs to predict performance and thus adapt their learning path appropriately to give them the best chance of achieving a successful learning outcome. Reporting is the other big area that LMS products regularly fail on in the market research reports. Improve your reports by all means, but please don’t call it learning analytics if it clearly is not.Blackboard shocked the Moodle world by acquiring the biggest Moodle vendors in Australia and North America. I’m not sure that this really belongs in this list, however it upset a LOT of people in the Moodle community so warrants a mention. There’s a lot of distrust of BB within the Moodle world, and the wider LMS world following BB’s patent lawsuit against Desire2Learn a few years back. Having said that, we are 9 months in and there have been no further shockwaves following the acquisitions so it all seems to be panning out ok so far. Time will tell.And talking of patents: software patents continued to suck the life blood from technical innovation. This isn’t specifically related to learning technologies as such, however it certainly impacts us. It’s a wonder anyone brings any software innovations to market these days. Apple, Samsung and Google are engaged in a mobile technology cold war and it’s giving the whole tech business a bad name. Even the New York Times ran a front page story on the dysfunctional patent system. Redhat’s legal expert Rob Tiller blogged that Apple and Google both spent more last year on patent litigation and patent purchases than on research and development. We live in sad times indeed, however the case for obolishing software patents is thankfully growing.

So that’s my roundup of 2012. Will we learn from any of this? I certainly hope so. The industry as a whole is in good health despite the recession, so it’s onwards and upwards towards 2013. Happy New Year, folks!


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Designing #mlearning Book Review – Chapter 4

As I mentioned in a previous blog post, I intend to provide a brief synopsis of each chapter of ‘Designing mlearning‘, but more importantly I intend to answer the questions that Clark poses at the end of each chapter and then pose those same questions back to you ‘Dear Reader‘

Chapter 4 – The technology it’s not about

We start this chapter with a nod to the fact that the iPad (1) was announced during the writing of this book. Given that this is still considered a ‘recent’ book, this shows very clearly how dynamic this market is.

From looking forward we take a look back at a brief history of mobile devices commencing at the Palm Pilot, skipping ahead to mobile phones, through media players to smartphones. From there we review the advent of handheld games, tablets and recording devices, before acknowledging that by the time many readers pick up this book some of the descriptions will already be out of date.

We then take a look at a trend that gives a fairly clear indication of how things are going at the moment – “convergence”. More and more devices are providing a 1-stop shop for much (if not all) of the functionality that we used to associate with multiple devices.

Towards the end of the chapter we are reminded just how quickly this field is developing as Clark suggests that we may even be moving towards wearing glasses with a Heads Up Display - imagine that!

We finish off the chapter with these questions being posed (along with my responses):

How can you take advantage of any of the dedicated devices (media player, camera, PDA, phone)?I’m not sure that we really need to go out of our way to take advantage of the plethora of dedicated devices, after all our learners are already using them within their day-to-day lives to take pictures, record video, access the web, read novels etc. Given that dedicated devices are in my opinion “High Street” what I think we need to do is to tap into learner’s familiarity with them and start to drip-feed examples of how they can use them within a workplace environment. Why not model some good examples using dedicated devices? Often when I facilitate face-to-face activities, I make a point of recording audio feedback, video voxpops and photographs of interactivity using dedicated devices in order to model good practice for the attendees to (hopefully) follow.How can you capitalize the increasing ubiquity of the converged devices?Let’s be honest most organisations (even now) are not providing converged devices (read phones and tablets) to support learning programmes or ‘overtly’ to maximise performance. I believe they are providing them so that you have little or no excuse for not responding to emails! But let’s not let this worry us, instead let’s leverage the growing distribution of mobile devices for our own ends and start to offer resources, assets etc that can benefit from the functionality of the converged device.Have you considered the tradeoffs of providing (devices) versus supporting devices ?I guess the provision of devices ensures (to a certain degree) greater control and in turn ‘peace of mind’ (wrongly in my opinion) to organisations, but hey, if it  increases the chances of mobile uptake then maybe it’s worth it? Of course, this approach no doubt brings significant expense with it in terms of providing the devices, however I’ve no doubt that it is easier to support 1 x device type as opposed to trying to support learners own devices. Of course allowing learners to use their own device means that they will be familiar with it and therefore more likely to use it and quite possibly less likely to need support, although the cost and logistics involved in trying to support multiple device types cannot be ignored.So folks, why not take a look at the questions above and provide your own responses in the comments below?

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Moodling around in Edinburgh

It was great to be at the UK MoodleMoot in Edinburgh this week. It has become an annual highlight for me as a place to meet old and new friends alike, to share some of the things we’ve been working on and to learn from the vast experiences of the Moodle community around the UK and wider afield. The event ran over four days but myself and Andrew Downes went up for the two conference days, along with a whopping 400 delegates from 29 countries.

Epic sponsors the Moot for the first time

epic-stand-mootuk14

After presenting for the past two years, Epic was a sponsor of the Moot for the first time this year. As a Silver sponsor this meant we paid a fee which went towards the running of the event, in return for a stand in the exhibition area and exposure in the event publicity material and banners. MoodleMoot is an important fixture in the UK learning technologies calendar and we have gained so much in the past from the knowledge sharing and networking, so it was a great opportunity to give something back financially, rather than just limiting our involvement to one or two presentations, important as that is. Andrew and I tried to balance a mix of stand duties during breaks and lunch with attending as many sessions as possible, so if you chanced upon an empty stand at some point then apologies, but judging by the number of business cards taken away we are sure to be speaking to many of you soon!

Talking about mobile learning with Moodle

I submitted two presentations ahead of the event and both were accepted. The Moot Gods were kind to me and scheduled both sessions for the morning of Day 1, which meant I didn’t have to spend valuable Moot time worrying or preparing, or have to present with a thumping hangover on day two (which has been known).

My first presentation was Using mobiles to support active learning with Moodle. Active learning was one of the conference themes, and I focused on using native mobile device features like taking photos, audio and video and submitting or sharing these into Moodle using assignment, forum and database activities.

Epic_Slidepack1
Click the image to open the presentation on Slideshare.

I extended this theme further with my next presentation, 20 ideas for mobile learning in Moodle. This was a “pecha kucha” presentation, comprising twenty slides of twenty seconds each. The slides auto-continue, so the pressure is high to keep on track and on time! Spectacular failures in this quick-fire format are commonplace, so I was glad to get through it unscatched.

Epic_Slidepack2
Click the image to open the presentation on Slideshare.

Later in the day I also sat on a mobile learning panel with Moodle founder Martin Dougiamas and Bootstrap theme developer Bas Brands. We had a one hour discussion session which went remarkably quickly and fielded a range of questions from developer to practitioner topics. Not being a developer myself, I had to defer to Bas and Martin on the techie stuff, but was hopefully able to add some useful insights from the practitioner angle. The most interesting discussion points were around how to improve the Moodle navigation experience on mobiles (in particular, what should we do with blocks), which Epic has experimented with quite a lot, and how Moodle can support mobile users in developing countries. Epic opened an office in Brazil in 2011 and our customers are mobile crazy over there, skipping the legacy desktop infrastructure that we have to contend with in the developed world and delivering elearning straight to mobile instead. The idea of text-only Moodle was discussed for less developed parts of the world, opening up vital education opportunities where feature-phone use dominates. An interesting session and some good conversations afterwards.

More mobile goodness

Mobile Moodle was a common topic of the conference, with Moodle creating a great mobile experience since version 2.5 when the Bootstrap theme plugin made it into the standard Moodle release under the guise of the Clean theme.

Stuart Lamour and Paolo Oprandi from Sussex University did an insightful session on mobile learning for students and tutors using a live demo of their Moodle site. This site still runs on 1.9 but has been very influential as a testing ground for many of the responsive ideas that made it into the Bootstrap and Clean themes through Stuart’s ongoing involvement in those projects. I like how they do presentations as Moodle courses too, but unfortunately this means there is no Slideshare afterwards!

Part of the attraction of the Moot is the networking and sharing, and I had two really nice moments of sharing after my presentations. One delegate shared a very nifty tip with me, involving exporting Book activities into epub format using a tool called Lucidor, which includes all embedded images and video as well. Once in epub format the publication can be downloaded to Kindle devices and ereaders. It’s a really neat tool and a great way to convert activities for mobile usage.

Another delegate was interested in the Google research that I had quoted, the New Multi Screen World. Google had measured average user time per device and established rules of thumb that smartphone users interact for 15m and tablet users for 30 mins during a single device session, and I had suggested that this should inform our learning design for mobile devices. He posed the question as to how device mirroring will change this, so if a smartphone was mirrored onto a larger tablet, or even a TV, would the interaction time go up accordingly? Sounds like one to watch.

Interestingly, there wasn’t much usage among the delegates of the native mobile app. We did a show of hands in the mobile panel session and while many delegates were using the mobile themes, hardly any were using the mobile app itself. This may be because it doesn’t support enough use cases yet. It does capture of photos and video, for example, and will synch these into Moodle once connected, but won’t download course resources, which I think is what many people are waiting for. The project needs more developers, so if this stuff floats your boat, please get involved.

Improving Moodle’s user experience

The other big theme of the Moot this year was around improving user experience. A standout session was by Alex Walker from Glasgow City College about Timeline: our Moodle integrated social network. Glasgow City College have reworked their My Moodle page into a Facebook-like ‘timeline’ experience Alex presented last year on the user experience improvements they were doing back then, and clearly their site has gone from strength to strength in the intervening twelve months. The new design made for a greatly improved user experience with a lot of thought going into what is being presented on the My Moodle page and using activity streams to surface recent actions. It was all about putting the learning experience first.

Glasgow_Timeline
Click the image to open the presentation on Slideshare.

Alex did a second presentation on the course format that they have developed at City College too. Again, a lot of thought has gone into make life easy for the learner and the result is a great looking course page.

Glasgow_Course
Click the image to open the presentation on Slideshare.

Stuart Lamour gave a good demonstration of his recent work at Moodlerooms in making the Moodle forums accessible. They engaged with the RNIB for user testing and the resulting experience was not only accessible but a huge improvement to the user experience all-round. Stuart also featured in a panel discussion alongside Martin Dougiamas and Paolo Oprandi from Sussex University, discussing usability in Moodle. This was a really interesting session with good audience participation.

User experience seemed to be on everyone’s lips this year. Great progress has been made in this area though recent Moodle releases and it really seems to be building up a head of steam now. Continued community engagement around this topic will really help drive it forward for future releases too.

Other standout sessions

There was a great pecha kucha by Rebecca Barrington about the Checklist plugin and some debate over the pros and cons of this versus the Progress Bar plugin. Checklist certainly looks very versatile and is one I’ll be giving a closer look. Anne Jamie from Edinburgh Napier gave a really interesting session on using the Book module. They were using it as an individual reflective log through some clever use of permissions and groups. It was a really creative use of an activity normally just used for presentational purposes, and it served as a great example of just how you can make things work in so many ways through activity configuration. Well done Napier!

Another standout session came from the RAF. They are currently going through a major Moodle upgrade cycle and increasing their audience from 50,000 to 300,000 users. It was interesting hearing about the trials and tribulations of using Moodle in defence, and great to have the forces represented at the Moot. I went to an MOD Moodle symposium a few years back at HMS Sultan in Gosport, which was to a closed audience of forces and suppliers, and it was evident then that Moodle was in widespread use across the Army, Navy and RAF in the UK. So it was really good to see the RAF out and about, engaging with the wider Moodle community. Hopefully this more open engagement is a sign of things to come.

The keynote from Martin Dougiamas (@moodler) on Day One was about the future of Moodle. This future clearly revolves around teachers – Martin was keen to point out that by ‘teachers’ he was referring to anyone using Moodle to educate people,  be they from schools, universities or the corporate world. In his words, Moodle will not be lining up to join the new generation of automated learning tools. Moodle has always been a tool that allows teachers to support their learners, and the future of Moodle will works towards making it even better in this respect.

The other standout “session”, of course, was the gala dinner.  Thanks to Elearn Design for sponsoring the dinner and to Gavin and the team for the food and wine selection. It was absolutely gorgeous and the venue (and backdrop) was just amazing.

galadinner-1

Parting thoughts

This was my third MoodleMoot and the best yet. The Corn Exchange venue was not as good as the Dublin hotel used the past two years as some conference rooms were a bit tricky to get to, but it was still a good venue and the staff were just great. The organisation from Gavin Henrick and his team was once again faultless and Gavin was a brilliant event host, facilitator and connector. Edinburgh is a superb location and it was a pleasure to visit the city again after a break of about ten years for me.

The community aspect is one of the reasons I enjoy working with Moodle so much, and the 400 delegates were friendly and welcoming to all involved. One of the key takeaways on the community side was the amount of women at the conference, both as delegates and speakers. Many open source and technical communities are criticised for their lack of, or treatment of, women but the Moodle community is one that can be held up as an example of how to do it right. By my reckoning about 40% of the conference sessions were led by women, and when you look at some of the open source speaker stats on the Geek Feminism wiki, you can see how far the Moodle community is ahead of the rest of the open source world.

Finally, MoodleMoot has renewed my drive and enthusiasm for all things Moodle. I attended the event with my colleague Andrew Downes. Immediately after the event, Andrew’s desire to get more involved in the Moodle community was evident as he was enthusing about how he might contribute more. This was really great to see coming from someone else, because that’s exactly what the Moot does for me too. You come away from this event with a renewed drive and more enthusiasm than ever to get even more involved. Moot is just a short, physical manifestation of the amazing thing that is the Moodle Community. Seeing the community come together, for a few days to share knowledge, generate ideas and form new connections is just awe inspiring. It’s what makes Moodle –  and open source – great. Long may it continue.


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Training & Competence Specialist

Training & Competence Specialist City of London

A leading, city based financial services firm has a new, urgent, requirement for a Training & Competence Consultant with experience of rolling out Senior Manager Regime training to join them on a long term contract basis. Reporting into the Head of Training, the role will focus on the following:


- Work with key stakeholders to ensure that the bank implements the FCA's new regulatory regime to a consistent standard including: Senior Manager's Regime, Certification Regime and Conduct Rules

- To assist the bank in implementing the new FCA Regulatory framework for Individuals in accordance with regulations.

- To help embed T&C procedures and establish appropriate training for relevant staff and in supervisory roles.


This is a 12 month contract, paying up to £70,000 with an immediate start. Candidates must have experience rolling out FCA competence training previously and ideally have experience specifically with Senior Manager's Regime, Certification Regime and Conduct Rules. To be considered, please apply with an updated CV as soon as possible.

SR Group is acting as an Employment Business in relation to this vacancy.

LocationCity of LondonSalary£60000 - £70000 per annumDuration12 monthsReferenceKA/6070TCContact NameKunaal Arora

A leading, city based financial services firm has a new, urgent, requirement for a Training & Competence Consultant with experience of rolling out Senior Manager Regime training to join them on a long term contract basis. Reporting into the Head of Training, the role will focus on the following:


- Work with key stakeholders to ensure that the bank implements the FCA's new regulatory regime to a consistent standard including: Senior Manager's Regime, Certification Regime and Conduct Rules

- To assist the bank in implementing the new FCA Regulatory framework for Individuals in accordance with regulations.

- To help embed T&C procedures and establish appropriate training for relevant staff and in supervisory roles.


This is a 12 month contract, paying up to £70,000 with an immediate start. Candidates must have experience rolling out FCA competence training previously and ideally have experience specifically with Senior Manager's Regime, Certification Regime and Conduct Rules. To be considered, please apply with an updated CV as soon as possible.

SR Group is acting as an Employment Business in relation to this vacancy.

Apply now


View the original article here

E-Learning Manager

E-Learning Manager Dartford

Laing O'Rourke is a leading international engineering enterprise with world class capabilities. With revenues of £4.4bn, a forward order book of £8.2bn and over 15,000 employees their focus on continuous improvement coupled with a cultural philosophy framed around 'Excellence Plus', every aspect of client partnering, innovation, safety and investing in people is given the focus it truly deserves. With a track record of delivering many complex high profile UK and international construction and engineering projects, such as the Olympic Park, Laing O'Rourke continuously demonstrates just how agile and collaborative it is.

Laing O'Rourke holds the reputation of being the company most committed to people development within its sector. To continue to lead the field in the complex engineering sector, new challenges constantly appear and new capabilities need to be built and enhanced. A critical area of focus in delivering competitive advantage is in building technical capability. To that end Laing O'Rourke are building an L&D Academy that across some 15 functions will ensure each employee will have robust, accessible Career Toolkits in which competency frameworks and career corridors are housed. The Technical Capability function will build and fine tune a development program curricula aligned to the needs the Toolkits highlight. These will be industry leading blended solutions, either e-learning accessible through a learning portal or classroom based. Laing O'Rourke now wish to make the key appointment of e-Learning Manager to work closely with the Head of Technical Capability and Talent in driving towards this goal of an accessible, branded, technical learning offering of consistently high quality.

The e-Learning Manager will work across a range of key functions to identify and work with key technical stakeholders to understand ongoing and future technical capability needs. Then using their knowledge of how adults learn, build effective learning solutions. These will be created using both in-house and external resources, so a good knowledge of instructional design would be a distinct advantage as would be knowledge of on line training content development tools such as Articulate or Moodle. As Laing O'Rourke rapidly increase the numbers of entry level technical talent they are hiring, the e-Learning Manager will also play a key role in building the technical development aspects of their structured programs and will play a support role in how Laing O'Rourke attracts that sought after talent to join them.

You will need genuine energy and passion to make a difference and the credibility to develop a network with Subject Matter Experts across the business to enable your work. You might be an e-learning manager or instructional designer currently or a Learning and Development Business Partner with a potential interest in a broad technical e-Learning development role. Either way there is real scope to create a legacy within this role for both yourself and Laing O'Rourke, and with a well structured Learning and Talent function Laing O'Rourke presents significant opportunity for personal career growth. Whilst the role will be based in Dartford, there will be some need for travel across Laing O'Rourke's operations and some scope for remote working.

To apply, please e-mail your CV and covering letter, detailing your current remuneration package to our retained recruitment partners Paul Tanton & Michelle Lawton, Directors at Consult HR by clicking the "Apply Now" button below. All direct and third party CV's will be forwarded onto Consult.


LocationDartfordSalary£45000 - £55000 per annum + car and excellent benefits packageReferencePTML5944Contact NamePaul Tanton

Laing O'Rourke is a leading international engineering enterprise with world class capabilities. With revenues of £4.4bn, a forward order book of £8.2bn and over 15,000 employees their focus on continuous improvement coupled with a cultural philosophy framed around 'Excellence Plus', every aspect of client partnering, innovation, safety and investing in people is given the focus it truly deserves. With a track record of delivering many complex high profile UK and international construction and engineering projects, such as the Olympic Park, Laing O'Rourke continuously demonstrates just how agile and collaborative it is.

Laing O'Rourke holds the reputation of being the company most committed to people development within its sector. To continue to lead the field in the complex engineering sector, new challenges constantly appear and new capabilities need to be built and enhanced. A critical area of focus in delivering competitive advantage is in building technical capability. To that end Laing O'Rourke are building an L&D Academy that across some 15 functions will ensure each employee will have robust, accessible Career Toolkits in which competency frameworks and career corridors are housed. The Technical Capability function will build and fine tune a development program curricula aligned to the needs the Toolkits highlight. These will be industry leading blended solutions, either e-learning accessible through a learning portal or classroom based. Laing O'Rourke now wish to make the key appointment of e-Learning Manager to work closely with the Head of Technical Capability and Talent in driving towards this goal of an accessible, branded, technical learning offering of consistently high quality.

The e-Learning Manager will work across a range of key functions to identify and work with key technical stakeholders to understand ongoing and future technical capability needs. Then using their knowledge of how adults learn, build effective learning solutions. These will be created using both in-house and external resources, so a good knowledge of instructional design would be a distinct advantage as would be knowledge of on line training content development tools such as Articulate or Moodle. As Laing O'Rourke rapidly increase the numbers of entry level technical talent they are hiring, the e-Learning Manager will also play a key role in building the technical development aspects of their structured programs and will play a support role in how Laing O'Rourke attracts that sought after talent to join them.

You will need genuine energy and passion to make a difference and the credibility to develop a network with Subject Matter Experts across the business to enable your work. You might be an e-learning manager or instructional designer currently or a Learning and Development Business Partner with a potential interest in a broad technical e-Learning development role. Either way there is real scope to create a legacy within this role for both yourself and Laing O'Rourke, and with a well structured Learning and Talent function Laing O'Rourke presents significant opportunity for personal career growth. Whilst the role will be based in Dartford, there will be some need for travel across Laing O'Rourke's operations and some scope for remote working.

To apply, please e-mail your CV and covering letter, detailing your current remuneration package to our retained recruitment partners Paul Tanton & Michelle Lawton, Directors at Consult HR by clicking the "Apply Now" button below. All direct and third party CV's will be forwarded onto Consult.

Apply now


View the original article here

Thursday, March 26, 2015

What’s in a name? – Your Help Needed!

I’m looking for (don’t laugh) a name for an LMS that I am in the process of delivering for the organisation I am contracting with.

Early suggestions have all revolved around suggesting that the LMS is the ‘centre’ or ‘hub’ of the organisations or individuals ‘learning’ – anybody who knows me will know that I’m keen to steer away from creating this perception around the LMS.

Early thoughts are:

Hal (suggested by Mark Aberdour, with the modification that it sings ‘Daisy, Daisy’ when you log out of it.The Training Portal (my idea – does what it says in the tin!)Novus - suggested by David Hopkins

So over to you folks… can you think of any (serious) names that I could propose for their new LMS?


View the original article here

Trainer

Trainer Hampshire Trainer
Hampshire
Permanent - £30,000 - £35,000

My client is a fast paced, commercial business which is expanding and evolving. Due to this continued growth they are looking to strengthen the existing Learning and Development team with an experienced Trainer.

Reporting to the Learning and Development Manager and working as part of a national team your responsibilities will be interesting and varied. Initially focusing on the delivery of their existing training programmes such as induction and sales training. As the role develops you will also be responsible for reviewing and improving these programmes, carrying out training needs analysis, design and implementation. You will take the lead on ad-hoc projects and will build relationships with a varied stakeholder group scoping out needs and developing creative solutions.

As a Trainer you will have extensive delivery experience within a corporate and professional environment. Are a strong communicator, with confidence working with senior stakeholders. You will be keen to develop your skills within a growing business and will be committed to your own personal development. Please send your CV or for further information contact Lauren Jones-Barrett on 0207 886 7225.

Advantage Resourcing is a service driven recruitment consultancy.

LocationHampshireSalary£30000 - £35000 per annumReference15215564/003Contact NameAdvantage ResourcingTrainer
Hampshire
Permanent - £30,000 - £35,000

My client is a fast paced, commercial business which is expanding and evolving. Due to this continued growth they are looking to strengthen the existing Learning and Development team with an experienced Trainer.

Reporting to the Learning and Development Manager and working as part of a national team your responsibilities will be interesting and varied. Initially focusing on the delivery of their existing training programmes such as induction and sales training. As the role develops you will also be responsible for reviewing and improving these programmes, carrying out training needs analysis, design and implementation. You will take the lead on ad-hoc projects and will build relationships with a varied stakeholder group scoping out needs and developing creative solutions.

As a Trainer you will have extensive delivery experience within a corporate and professional environment. Are a strong communicator, with confidence working with senior stakeholders. You will be keen to develop your skills within a growing business and will be committed to your own personal development. Please send your CV or for further information contact Lauren Jones-Barrett on 0207 886 7225.

Advantage Resourcing is a service driven recruitment consultancy.

Apply now


View the original article here

I’m guilty, but I am trying….

… to vanquish the ‘old-school’ information dumps and click-next type of elearning that are the bain of many of our lives.

I must admit that this critical insight into best practice Instructional Design has only come about since we moved to a self-authoring tool, meaning that some of my previous attempts have ‘ahem‘ been very….. traditional ;-)

I was still quite proud of my previous attempts as it was the first time that I had ever created such a piece of content, however the screencast below shows my very first piece of elearning concerning the use of Display Screen Equipment and highlights some of the retrospective ‘niggles’ that have grated on me since I started looking into ID in greater detail.

Having now researched ID in greater detail, I followed up the above module with Version 2 which can be seen in the screencast below. In the screencast I outline some of the changes that I have made since my original attempt.

The inspiration for this approach was provided my @tomkuhlmann and @catmoore. Tom for the idea of creating the ‘look and feel’ of the module in PowerPoint before importing it into our rapid elearning tool and Cathy for her ideas on ‘dumping the drone’ and her Action Mapping process.


View the original article here

Operational Trainer - Bath and Cornwall

Anchor has an exciting opportunity for an experienced Operational Trainer to join their team. Their main role will to be deliver effective learning & development interventions that drives and supports a competent and capable workforce.

The successful candidate will be expected to manage the regional training centre, to ensure events are planned, in line with demand, to maximum occupancy and that drives or maintains statutory and mandatory training targets.

Location: Bath and Cornwall

Key Responsibilities:

• Training delivery
• Daily running of the regional training centre
• Planning interventions based on demand identified in the regional / national plans
• Adapting training materials or techniques to meet the needs of the audience
• Revision of training materials based on feedback and evaluation

Required Knowledge & Experience:

Qualifications

• Certificate in training practice, NVQ or equivalent experience
• Part of fully qualified membership of CIPD
• PTTLLS or working towards PTTLLS
• Specific care or health & safety qualifications, would be advantageous


Experience Required:

• Experience of the full learning cycle (training needs analysis, design, delivery and evaluation)
Having worked in a person centred/customer focused environment.
• Experience of training delivery to a diverse and multi skilled workforce
• Proven track record in implementing blended learning techniques

Required Skills:

• Up to date knowledge of industry best practice and standards as well as developments in the L&D arena
• Blended learning techniques
• Appropriate development interventions, suitable for learners in a customer facing environment

Closing Date: 02/03/2015

Apply now


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How to Become an Industry Pro

Published on June 6, 2014, 9:07 am Written by AdministratorShare

In this video, Tom Kuhlmann, VP of Articulate Community talks about how to become an industry pro. The presentation was the closing keynote at iDESIGNX in Sydney 2014.

With the internet it seems anyone’s a pro. Why not you?

How to build your online portfolio through communityTips & tricks on establishing your expertise.About Administrator:
B Online Learning offers Certified Articulate training workshops (http://bonlinelearning.com.au/articulate-training) around Australia and custom on site Articulate training. Browse our website for more information on all our training and solutions that enable clients and students to build better eLearning.

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Wednesday, March 25, 2015

Go Mobile MindMapping (try saying that 5 times, quickly)!

Yesterday saw me attend an Epic hosted event with 125 other people which centered around Epic’s new Go Mobile publishing platform GoMo. There were a number of sessions taking place, but my main reason for attending was to look at the GoMo platform itself.

I normally take traditional ‘list style’ notes in something like Evernote or Notes, but on this occasion I thought I’d try out the MindMeister mindmapping app on my new iPad. I’ve have used MindMeister before from a laptop and on my Nexus S but those instances have always been in ‘ideal conditions’ i.e. sat in the quiet coach of a train or on the loo. They have never been in a ‘live environment’…. until yesterday….

Here is the mindmap I created, the nodes relating to iTune app have links within them, so why not take a look at the apps in question?

I have to admit that as I was new to the User Interface (UI) on the iPad I stumbled quite often and perhaps missed a little of the GoMo session itself, but overall I feel that I captured the salient points from the session. Clarke Quinn seems to be something of a master at this as he regularly produces very rich, informative mind maps during live sessions – I must remember to ask him how he does it!

I’ll try and spend more time practicing on the app before I attend my next session as this should hopefully lead to more fluent use in the session and ultimately result in more information being captured.

Do you take notes during live sessions and if so how?

If you mindmap, what are your ‘top tips’?


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Management Consultants - Culture and Leadership

Management Consultants within GE Healthcare Finnamore actively develop their consultancy skills whilst building upon their own experience in OD, HR and line management within the NHS.   They take responsibility for designing and delivering complex and sensitive programmes that meet or exceed the expectations of both internal and external clients.

As part of our team, the role of Consultant will play to your strengths in:

•Working as part of (or managing) a team to deliver complex and sometimes sensitive assignments, which achieve or surpass client expectations.

•Striving to be the best you can be whilst sharing learning and training colleagues to build skills across the company.

•Driving assignment success by delivering valued content and insights.

•Actively growing your market knowledge to help develop and continuously improve our client offerings.

•Forging and maintaining outstanding client relationships and networks.

•Identifying opportunities and contributing to bids.

Desired Skills and Experience

You have gained experience and skills in a wide range of assessment and development techniques, through a career in consulting, health care, social care and public services.

You confidently exhibit and demonstrate a high level of competence in:

•Employee engagement

•Performance management

•Talent management and succession planning

•Coaching

•Working with organisations to effect culture change

•Board development

•Line management

•Team effectiveness diagnostics (e.g. MTBI)

•Project management 

Even if you consider yourself to have more to learn, you exhibit confidently the experience of someone who has worked closely with senior management in a health and social care setting.

You have personally had a strong impact on culture change, and are regarded as someone who gets matters organised and makes things happen.  

Your clients are assured by your skills in OD, HR, coaching and use of diagnostic tools and interventions, and the way in which you apply your skills and experience to any assignment.

In addition, the way in which you have contributed innovatively and creatively to the presentation and handover of work you have undertaken has ensured the effective and sustainable transfer of skills to your clients.

It is highly likely that you have gained qualifications to degree level in, for example and not limited to psychology, science or management.  You may have also gained further qualifications in OD, HR or Health.

About this company

GE Healthcare Finnamore is a leading specialist health and social care consultancy dedicated to improving people's health and wellbeing through the clients that we serve.  We formed following the acquisition of Finnamore Ltd by GE Healthcare in January 2014, bringing us together with GEHC Performance  Solutions UK (part of the global GEHC Partners business).  Our team of over seventy health and social care specialists combines the agility, independent-thinking and responsiveness of Finnamore, a consultancy of 21 years' standing, with GE's scale, world class leadership, and technology base and the health transformation track record of GEHC Performance Solutions UK.  We do the hard stuff, from strategy to implementation, getting alongside our clients to deliver lasting outcomes together.  We are committed to achieving change and transferring skills for the long term and our results speak for themselves.

Substantial contract wins during 2014 have created opportunities for suitably qualified candidates to apply to join the GE Healthcare Finnamore team.  Interested candidates should submit their CVs to The Shilston Partnership by Monday 2 June 2014. All shortlisted candidates will be invited to complete a numerical and verbal reasoning test as well as attending an assessment centre on 23 June 2014 in London.

Apply now


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Training Officer

Training Officer Cheshire

We are looking for candidates who can support the full learning cycle from design through to delivery and evaluation.

Your role will be to provide comprehensive training and support to the business enabling managers to focus on Performance Management across their teams and deliver and facilitate engaging and output-focused training courses.

You will have:

· Experience of rolling out a Management Programme, focused on developing first line managers on performance management across their teams

· Experience of the design and delivery of training around performance, absence and behaviour

Some travel will be required to company sites.

If you are interested in this HR role please apply by clicking on the link below or contact Ashley Kate HR for further details.

Ashley Kate HR specialise exclusively in HR recruitment, nationwide for temporary, contract and permanent HR roles. We give equal priority to our candidate and client relationships and ensure we deliver a highly professional HR consultancy service at all times.

To find out more about us please visit our website at http://www.ashleykatehr.com/
Join the Ashley Kate HR LinkedIn group at http://linkd.in/HRProfessionalsNetworkUK
And follow us on Twitter at http://www.twitter.com/AshleyKateHR

Ashley Kate HR operates as a Recruitment Agency for the provision of permanent candidates and as a Recruitment Business for the provision of temporary candidates.

LocationCheshireSalaryUp to £32,000DurationPermanentReference13171 JKCCBContact NameRecruiters

We are looking for candidates who can support the full learning cycle from design through to delivery and evaluation.

Your role will be to provide comprehensive training and support to the business enabling managers to focus on Performance Management across their teams and deliver and facilitate engaging and output-focused training courses.

You will have:

· Experience of rolling out a Management Programme, focused on developing first line managers on performance management across their teams

· Experience of the design and delivery of training around performance, absence and behaviour

Some travel will be required to company sites.

If you are interested in this HR role please apply by clicking on the link below or contact Ashley Kate HR for further details.

Ashley Kate HR specialise exclusively in HR recruitment, nationwide for temporary, contract and permanent HR roles. We give equal priority to our candidate and client relationships and ensure we deliver a highly professional HR consultancy service at all times.

To find out more about us please visit our website at http://www.ashleykatehr.com/
Join the Ashley Kate HR LinkedIn group at http://linkd.in/HRProfessionalsNetworkUK
And follow us on Twitter at http://www.twitter.com/AshleyKateHR

Ashley Kate HR operates as a Recruitment Agency for the provision of permanent candidates and as a Recruitment Business for the provision of temporary candidates.

Apply now


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There’s More to Support than Technology

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“Football is football and talent is talent. But the mindset of your team makes all the difference.” Robert Griffin III

This is a great quote and it can transcend the world of sport, finding application in most any team situation. But since I am writing from the world of education based on eLearning, especially from the service side of the equation, how does this quote apply. Off the top of my head I would say the single most important aspect of the team you work with, that team that exists beyond your office and its firewalls, is the support they provide behind their products and services.

Support is all about the mindset of the supporter, the information they provide, the ease of access to that information and willingness to share information. It’s also the people providing the support that make that support both seamless and beneficial. Now let’s get a little more specific and talk about software support and break this up between LMS and authoring tools.

ITCROWD

Learning Management Systems

A Learning Management System is basically a large database that has two faces:

The public face that serves out learning interventions, in a user friendly website setting, based on the parameters set by the administrators and L&D professionalsThe other side, the actual LMS coal face where the truth is held and the data is mined to provide reporting, continuous improvement, gap analysis and training pathways

Supporting a system with such potential for variation at both ends of the spectrum from users to administrators requires some very specific skill sets amongst the support staff themselves. Primarily because it is virtually impossible to publish supporting documentation that covers all potential system configurations and or customisations that make the LMS work for any given set of business requirements (And for LMS’s every set of business requirements is unique).

The people supporting systems such as this need to have a specific skill profile, which should look a little like this and is also what we model our own LearnFlex LMS support team on:

Approachable – Given that you will be building a relationship with these people over time, the fact that they are approachable and amiable cannot be discounted.Knowledgeable – They should know what they are talking about and be able to provide advice on the spot, even if that advice is “I cannot tell what the issue is without testing but I will get back to you when I do know and that will take X minutes/hours”Honest – In an attempt to sound knowledgeable, I find that support staff will often just go with a scripted response (The most common in my experiences is “The problem is with your content not the LMS”) Quite often by asking some simple questions the actual problem can be found and remedied. How does this relate to honesty? The support person should be honest enough to admit the issue might be with their system or their level of knowledgeDetailed – When an issue is found and fixed the details of the fix should be provided along with the how why when where of the original problem. All of this should also be recorded in the records of the provider and shared across all of the users of the software if issue and fix were universalAccessible – Finally it’s no good having great support staff if you have to wait up till midnight to call or message them. If the provider doesn’t have support in the local timezone you should think long and hard before signing upAccountable – All great support is underpinned by a solid and realistic service level agreement. This agreement should not only outline solution timelines but also guidelines for continuous information sharing and initial contact times as well

Authoring Tools

So if that is software support for an LMS, at least from a support provider’s role description point of vArticulateiew, what should the support of a content authoring tool look like?

In short it should be more about the sharing of expertise and resources than the solving of problems. Even though bugs do appear in software applications, so long as you have access to a global community of users, the answer is usually only a forum post away. (Even though not all forums are created equal as seen in this forum post shared by Tom Kuhlmann).

Articulate certainly took this a step further with the creation of their own user community to provide this type of support, however the Articulate model took the community much further. Articulate also provides:

Training – From a global team of partners delivering a Certified program through multiple channels (face to face, client onsite or virtually ) to tutorials (blog posts and video ) on most of the application functions.Feedback – From both the articulate support team and the wider communityResources – Free templates, icons, images and most importantly ideasCommunity – It might sound strange to say that a community provides support but that is exactly what eLearning Heros does, everyone involved in the community is indoctrinated in the wider community values of sharing, support and applauding the ideas and creative energy of other community members through a range of functions such the monthly eLearning challenge (Check out this month’s challenge here )Experts – Articulate formed a global team of leading expert eLearning developers and designers to contribute to the community. They are all over social media which makes them accessible to all and run community events in cities around the world. Here are a few you can find on twitter – Tom Kuhlmann, David Anderson,  Trina Rimmer, Nicole Legault, Alison LaMotte, Nicola Appel. We have our own eLearning Hero at B Online Learning – Matt Guyan.

So not all support is created equal, and it really is your call as to what your expectations are around support. But once you have truly experienced the superior level you will never want to go back.

Ben Saunders About Ben Saunders
For the past 10 years Ben has been immersed in the world of learning and communication (and training and development), from planning and design to build and implementation, from both the client and vendor perspectives. His experience bridges the gaps between business expectation, technology and learning theory, importantly this allows Ben to translate and articulate business needs into defined learner outcomes. He has experience with various LMS implementations including Moodle, Docebo, Plateau, SABA, DOTS as well as bespoke solutions. Ben is an Articulate Trainer/Developer with B Online Learning.


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