Right now, the state of the world demands a transition to virtual classrooms and remote work. Whether or not your organization started 2020 prepared for the rapid modernization of teams and training, the time has come to make the change.
Facilitators, instructional designers, managers, and learners all have to adapt to a new normal – a stressful process under standard change management conditions and a seemingly insurmountable task given today’s pressures.
Topics: Virtual Teams, Virtual Classroom - Production, Instructional Design, Modern Workplace, Modern Classroom, Virtual Training, Implement, Virtual Facilitation
Have you heard? Our workplaces face radical, exciting, and innovative change with the emergence of powerful and game-changing technologies. But as Jennifer Hofmann recently highlighted, the purchase of new tools does not sufficiently prepare our organizations to integrate them in day-to-day work.
Adoption requires effort – a purposeful plan, a visionary team, and a strategic goal. Most importantly, stakeholders must consider the employees impacted by the technology change. How will their professional lives change? How arduous will the transition to the new technology be?
Topics: Virtual Classroom, EdTech, Change Management, Modern Workplace, Virtual Training
Designing and delivering an engaging learning experience is an effective way of keeping people in the virtual learning experience once they've started, but getting people to enroll and attend in the first place is a matter of motivation.
Motivation is an entirely different animal than engagement, and as learning professionals, it's our responsibility to "set the stage" such that learners show up ready to engage.
Topics: Facilitation, Virtual Classroom - Facilitation, Engagement, Motivation, Learner Experience, Virtual Training
Very often you will read or hear about “learner-centric” learning methods. These articles stress techniques that accommodate the learner’s needs and address expectations of the learner in the learning experience. One commentator I heard recently likened this to “putting yourself in the shoes of the learner in the learning experience.”
Fair enough as a start – certainly we need to understand how the learning experience is perceived by the learner, but I would argue that in lieu of trying to put yourself in the shoes of the learner you should instead provide a learning experience where everyone’s shoes already fit.
Topics: Facilitation, Virtual Classroom - Facilitation, Engagement, Learner Experience, Virtual Training
Okay. Not really. Leading a global training project takes more than being an instructional designer or a trainer or even a project manager. I've identified three critical steps to leading a successful global training project:
Topics: Blended learning, Virtual Classroom, Global Virtual Classroom, Learning Experience Architect, Personal Learning Networks, Blended Learning Campaigns, Virtual Training
A global training implementation is much more complex than a blended learning solution designed for one country or for one region. Managing learner schedules, understanding the impact of regionalization, and getting content out in the most appropriate way are just some of the considerations the learning architect needs to consider.
A global program will probably be a blend. However, the old metaphor of a blended learning solution being a recipe, where you need to combine the right ingredients to get the right results, is not powerful enough to support the needs of modern organizations. Modern blended learning is more accurately described as a formula: combining the right elements in different ways to achieve a balance that meets the needs of all the stakeholders within the organization.
It’s really about chemistry.
Topics: Blended learning, Virtual Classroom, Global Virtual Classroom, Virtual Training
