eLearning

eLearning articles and tips.

Best Practices for Moving Instructor-Led Training to Webinars and Virtual Classrooms (Live Online Learning)

Jeffrey Dalto Leave a comment

Because of COVID-19, lots of companies are rushing to get at least some of their instructor-led training materials into an online format.

Our friend Michelle Ockers has called in an impressive team of learning experts to discuss issues like this in her Learning Uncut Disruption series of podcasts. We enjoyed the series so much, we’ve asked Michelle and the contributors if they’d mind if we include highlights and transcripts here to broaden the reach of the podcast series. And they all said yes, which we are grateful for. Thanks for that!

In an earlier blog post, we highlighted some of the key points from a discussion Michelle had with Connie Malamed about making elelarning courses quickly.

In this article, we’re focusing on a discussion Michelle had with Shannon Tipton, owner of Learning Rebels, and Jo Cook, owner of Lightbulb Moment, on live online training, which includes both webinars and virtual classrooms.

Here’s how Michelle introduces this conversation at her podcast webpage:

This episode is part of the Learning Uncut Disruption series.  This pop-up daily series aims to equip learning professionals with practical guidance and tips to get started or scale up with practices needed as part of their organisational response to the global COVID-19 pandemic.

Shannon Tipton and Jo Cook provide guidance on designing and facilitating live online sessions in lieu of face to face instruction led training.  Discussion covers:

    • How are live online sessions similar to and different from face to face?
    • Common traps for people new to designing and facilitating live online sessions – and what to do instead
    • Planning and communicating sessions
    • Technology – how to pick your platform
    • Techniques to make your live online sessions engaging
    • What to do after your session

We’ve included a link to the full podcast immediately below. Below that, we’ve summarized some of the high points and included the full transcript.

Listen to this episode of the podcast series here, 

Read on to learn more about live online learning.

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Best Practices for Creating eLearning Courses Quickly During the COVID-19 Pandemic

Jeffrey Dalto Leave a comment

In a recent article, we gave an introduction to putting instructor-led training, classroom-style training online–primarily in the of a blended learning solution of virtual classrooms, elearning courses, and additional materials that can be distributed online.

In addition to that article, we’ve created more focused, detail articles about that dig deeper into creating virtual classrooms and elearning courses. This article is about elearning courses; stay tuned for the one on virtual classrooms.

In the “credit-where-credit-is-due” department, this article is based on one podcast discussion from a series of recorded podcast discussions by Australian L&D professional Michelle Ockers–you may remember her from our recorded discussion about learning organizations a while ago.

Michelle pulled together a star-studded, who’s-who-from-L&D collection of experts to share their tips on getting some training online in these difficult circumstances.

I’ve reached out to Michelle and she’s given me the OK to publish a link to the talks, summarize the talks, and she was even so kind as to send me transcript of the different talks. So, in order, below you’ll find:

  • A link to the talks (go check ’em out and be sure to follow Michelle and the others on social media)
  • A link to the specific talk with Connie Malamed about creating elearning courses, which is the focus on this article
  • A bulleted list of key points from the talk
  • A transcript of the talk

Here’s the link to all of the discussions; do give them a listen:  The Learning Uncut “Disruption Series” by Michelle Ockers. Michelle is working with other professionals to add more even as I’m typing this article today.

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What Is “Online Learning” And How to Do It Quickly and Easily During the COVID-19 Pandemic

Jeffrey Dalto Leave a comment

With the COVID-19 pandemic forcing many people to work from home and reducing or entirely ending meetings for classroom-style, instructor-led training, there’s an understandable move to put instructor-led training online.

In this article, we’re going to give you some general guidelines for transitioning your instructor-led training (ILT) online, give you a better idea of what online training is, and also link you to some additional articles we’ve created that will help you develop the different types of online learning we’ll explain in this article.

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Training to Create Career Paths for Maintenance Technicians

Jeffrey Dalto Leave a comment

A well-trained, productive, efficient, and proactive maintenance department is essential for success at many organizations. In recent articles, we’ve given real-life examples based on the experiences of real customers of how having a maintenance training program makes it easier for employers to hire new maintenance techs and how having a maintenance training program improves the retention of maintenance techs, especially those new hires.

In this article, we’re going to continue our focus on maintenance training by discussing the value of having training to help maintenance techs work their way through an well-developed career path.

So check out the story below and ask us if you have any questions about the facilities maintenance training at your organization. Plus, check out our recorded webinar on maintenance, maintainability, organizational learning, and continuous improvement.

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Developing a Training Program That Assists Hiring of Maintenance Techs

Jeffrey Dalto Leave a comment
Hiring Maintenance Techs Image

Recently a commercial real estate maintenance company came to us looking for help putting together a comprehensive maintenance technician training program to meet the needs of not only their new hires but of their maintenance techs throughout their careers with the company.

Although this company had many reasons to want to improve their training program, one was that it was becoming difficult in a tight labor market to hire without being able to offer that benefit to their job candidates. Given that people in the labor force may have multiple job possibilities, letting job candidates know the company offered a training program, and letting the candidates see that program and understands how it works, was a significant competitive advantage in hiring.

Of course, the company benefitted in other ways from designing and creating a maintenance technician training program for their maintenance techs, but if you can’t hire employees, your continuous improvement, growth, and learning business goals are stopped before you start. So we’ll focus by explaining the program’s influence on hiring new employees, but stay tuned for additional articles that discuss equally important benefits of the new training program, such as employee retention, overall employee morale, maintenance skill development within the employee population, and better customer satisfaction from the company’s customers.

To learn more about this, please read the article below and let us know if you have any questions about putting together your own facilities maintenance training program at work. Plus, check out our recorded webinar on maintenance, maintainability, organizational learning, and continuous improvement.
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Free Guide to Selecting Online Manufacturing Training

Jeffrey Dalto Leave a comment

So you’d like to add online training to your current manufacturing training program, but you want to take your time and make sure you’ll implement the solutions that are the best fit for your organizational training and learning needs? Are we right?

If so, we congratulate you, because there really is no single solution or implementation that is a perfect fit for every company, and even if there were, you’d still need to consider how you’d add online training to the rest of the L&D programs at your manufacturing facility.

To help you make the right choice, we’ve got a free GUIDE TO SELECTING ONLINE MANUFACTURING TRAINING for you  below.  It will help you consider big-picture things, like how online training fits into your L&D programs; what online training “mainly” means now and what it will probably include in the future; criteria for selecting online courses, learning management systems, and providers; and some tips for using online training wisely once you have implemented it.

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What to Look for in a Learning Management System (LMS) for Manufacturing Training

Jeffrey Dalto Leave a comment
Manufacturing LMS Image

A learning management system, or LMS, is web-based software application organizations can use to manage and administer their employee training programs–that includes training that occurs online, naturally, but also training that occurs face-to-face, such as instructor-led training, field-based training, and so on.

There are many different LMSs on the market. In many cases, they provide similar features and functionality, but of course, they’re all unique as well. Some are bigger and more powerful. Some and smaller with fewer features. Some are really part of even larger software management programs geared around an organization’s hire-to-fire, talent-management efforts. Others are specially designed to help organizations in specific industries or even departments in specific organizations.

There’s no one learning management system that’s the best fit for all organizations. In fact, two organizations that are similar in many ways may STILL find their best suited to different learning management systems.

In this article, we’re going to give you some features to consider if you’re a manufacturer and you’re looking for a learning management system for your workplace. Read this article, and if you find it interesting, you may also want to check out our articles on Selecting Online Manufacturing Training and Things to Look for in Online Manufacturing Training Courses.

You might also want to check out our free, recorded webinar titled Online Manufacturing Training that Works–How to Select Online Manufacturing Training for Your Organization. 

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What to Look for In Online Manufacturing Training Courses

Jeffrey Dalto Leave a comment
Online Manufacturing Training Courses

If you’re looking to add some online manufacturing training at work, you’re going to need to take a few things into account. You’ll want to consider how they fit into your learning strategy and learning ecosystem, of course. And you’ll need to think of a series of issues specifically related to online manufacturing training. But when the rubber meets the road, one of the most important things is going to be the actual online manufacturing training courses themselves.

That’s what this article is intended to help with, by giving you some things to consider when you’re evaluating online manufacturing training courses themselves.

You might also want to check out our free, recorded webinar titled Online Manufacturing Training that Works–How to Select Online Manufacturing Training for Your Organization. 

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How to Select Online Manufacturing Training That’s Right for Your Company

Jeffrey Dalto Leave a comment
Online Manufacturing Training Image

If you’re looking to add some online manufacturing training to your current training program at work, you’ve found the right article. We’re preparing to lead a webinar in February on the topic (more on that below), and so we thought we’d write up the material in this form as well. We’ll cover a lot of what you need to know about selecting online manufacturing training that’s right for your workplace in this article, plus we invite you to register for the upcoming webinar or just to reach out to us with comments or questions at anytime.

You might also want to check out our free, recorded webinar titled Online Manufacturing Training that Works–How to Select Online Manufacturing Training for Your Organization. 

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7 Things to Look for in Online Safety Training

Jeffrey Dalto Leave a comment
Online Safety Training Image

If you’re thinking of adding online safety training to your current safety training programs at work, it helps to get some tips about what to look for. We’ve  written a lengthy blog article on How to Select Online Safety Training Solutions for you, and we even have an Online Safety Training Buyer’s Guide Checklist you can download for free.

In this article, though, we’re going to give you a few things to look for in your online safety training solution. We hope this helps and we invite you to drop us a line and ask us any questions you may have.

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