Recently I made a presentation at IDCI about the basic differences between simulations and games, meant predominantly for beginner learning designers. At the end of the presentation I spoke about five ways to bring more gaminess into the learning interactions being designed by the IDs. One point I made was about the use of ‘narrative’ or ‘stories’. (I use them interchangeably, as they mean pretty much the same to me, perhaps wrongly.) While I ran out of time there, a nice discussion with great points about stories and storytelling being made. I wanted to quickly recap some important concepts I uncovered during my research about the use of narratives in learning.
A recent post on our blog poked fun at Learning management systems and underlined the disconnect that is possibly present in organizations that use an LMS to create, deliver and manage learning. In this post I attempt to illustrate how, by adopting some simple methods, you could use the LMS better and also get some aid in Learning measurement.
Learning measurement, it looks like, is not an easy term to define. I couldn’t find it on Wikipedia and Google didn’t help much either.
Last month Amit Gautam questioned if recession was a bad thing for effective eLearning.
As one of the comments there suggested training is seen as a cost-center in most organizations it is only natural to look for something cheapest.
I don’t intend to mean that you can’t find effective eLearning solutions that are cheaper than others, but yes if the focus is to find the cheapest solution, chances are you overlook some other (and I must say) more important parameters.
When eLearning came into being through its early predecessors in the form of CBT and then WBT one of the primary reasons and its drivers was increasing acceptance of its potential to save costs due to the inherent advantages in centralizing (more with WBT) content, the reduction in logistics costs, persistent storage and to an extent uniformity in content delivery. It soon caught on as a medium which is now used as a part of learning strategy (in context of workplace learning) and not only helped companies save costs on a recurring basis but it evolved as a ‘learning’ delivery medium.
Ambient Insight has last month released a report on how the global market for self-paced eLearning products and services will grow through till 2014. It estimates the market had reached US $ 27.1 billion in 2009. The demand is growing at a 5 year compound annual growth rate of 12.8% and will take the world market to US $ 49.6 billion by 2014.
In my last post on eLearning Outsourcing, I mentioned the various advantages of eLearning outsourcing. Most people get the benefits part pretty easily however, identifying whom to outsource to is not as easy. When meeting prospects, I often face this objection – “We have tried outsourcing in the past but have had a real bad experience and (hence) we are not willing to take the risk again“. What they fail to understand is that, in most of the cases, the problem lies much beneath – improper vendor selection.
Some months back I had posted (based on a research report by ValueNotes) about eLearning outsourcing to India doing well and looking to grow handsomely in next 3-4 years. With over 100 clients in 12 countries, Upside Learning has been offering offshore based eLearning outsourcing development services and solutions for 6 years. Last year we were recognized as an emerging leader in training outsourcing. There are many benefits that eLearning outsourcing offers and we feel in this business environment it is important that your firm considers outsourcing as an option – especially if it has never done so. In this and next few posts I intend to cover why to outsource; how to find a vendor; some best practices etc.
Learning Technologies 2010 was a great learning experience. Listening to some good speakers and sharing thoughts & ideas with some equally brilliant attendees was delightful. Earlier I posted my recap of the event (day 1, day 2) mentioning the strong and definite trend towards social, informal, and collaborative learning. While the event is over, the discussions and learning continues in the blogosphere.
Sushil Kokate | February 18th, 2010
On Feb 15, 2010, at Mobile World Congress 2010, Adobe announced Adobe AIR for mobile devices, a consistent runtime for standalone applications which is an outcome of Adobe initiated Open-Screen project. As quoted by Adobe, the Open-Screen project has grown to around 70 ecosystem partners world-wide, which means many devices would be made capable of supporting the outcomes of this Adobe initiative. To begin with it will be available on Android in 2010. Adobe also unveiled Flash player 10.1 beta to developers and content providers at the same event.
After having a great first day at the Learning Technologies 2010 I was looking forward to an exciting second day. 
Apart from the sessions at the conference that I recap below, there was an opportunity to interact with practitioners from the domain. Discussing their current concerns around learning and development gives us a glimpse into their world and that’s valuable.
Here’s a summary of the sessions I attended on Day 2:
