Recently, my wife and I rented a minivan for a family trip to Taos, NM. The dashboard computer for the vehicle supplied a mind-boggling number of metrics, including arrival time at destination, trip mileage, miles to empty, average miles per gallon, instantaneous miles per gallon, etc. On the ten-hour drive through the monotonous scenery of West Texas, I got a bit bored and started trying to optimize some of the
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Mischief Managed: What “Harry Potter” Can Teach You About Managing Elearning Projects
Kelly Rossi has been project manager at Microassist since November 2007. She maintains the scope, budgets, and timelines of client projects. Kelly earned her bachelor’s degree in psychology from The University of Texas at Austin and worked as a project manager for four years before joining Microassist. Other content by Kelly includes her 2016 post, “The Client’s Critical Role in Custom Elearning Development. Mischief Managed: What “Harry Potter” Can Teach
READ MORE about Mischief Managed: What “Harry Potter” Can Teach You About Managing Elearning ProjectsControversy over Objectives – How to Communicate Objectives to your Learners
We all know that objectives provide the foundation for training design and performance improvement. A challenge in the training industry is how to communicate this information to our target audience without creating a mind-numbingly dull introduction. Novices in the training world frequently think the only legitimate way to start a lesson is with the list of learning or performance objectives we used as the framework to design the training. My
READ MORE about Controversy over Objectives – How to Communicate Objectives to your LearnersUnderstanding Critical Path via Ikea
Whenever I’m asked to explain project management concepts, I’m always eager to do it. Not only do I enjoy sharing the knowledge, but I also enjoy doing it in a way that ties in to what’s going on in my life. What’s going on right now you may ask? A new house—and it needs furniture, so these days I practically live at Ikea. It’s burned in my brain. So when
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Dr. BJ Fogg, director of Stanford’s Persuasive Tech Lab, presented a compelling keynote at mLearnCon 2012 centered around a fascinating question: Can computers be designed to change people’s beliefs and behaviors? The Stanford Persuasive Technology Lab creates insight into how computing products—from websites to mobile phone software—can be designed to change what people believe and what they do. Unlike a lot of pop culture behavior gurus, Dr. Fogg takes a
READ MORE about mLearnCon 2012 – BJ Fogg A Methodology for Designing Behavior ChangeAre Learning Differences between Generations A Myth?
Generational Learning Differences: Myth or Reality? Compared to differences between generations there are probably few questions in learning and development where people have expressed so many different opinions. Where does that leave learning and development professionals when it comes to figuring out what matters in designing workplace training? Estimated reading time: 7 minutes Generations in the Workforce Talking about generational differences is difficult because while there is vague agreement on
READ MORE about Are Learning Differences between Generations A Myth?Elearning Team Roles: Critical Skills for Learning Projects
Have you just been assigned an elearning project? Ready to start planning the project. An essential component of planning an elearning project is figuring out the skill sets needed on your elearning team to complete the project. Ready to pull together your team? What skills do you need on your team to create quality elearning? How many people? Most large E-learning projects are carried out by multiple people. At Microassist we divide our
READ MORE about Elearning Team Roles: Critical Skills for Learning ProjectsElearning Book Review – The New Virtual Classroom by Ruth Colvin Clark and Ann Kwinn
The New Virtual Classroom is a terrific resource for designing and delivering effective webinar training. One of the biggest differences between this book and others is that it focuses primarily on strong instructional design strategy while many other resources tend to focus on more superficial “gimmicky” interactions. The authors remind us there is no need to start from scratch when designing training for the virtual classroom. Best practices are offered
READ MORE about Elearning Book Review – The New Virtual Classroom by Ruth Colvin Clark and Ann KwinnTraining ROI: Use of Return on Investment for Training Programs
Return on Investment (ROI) is a metric commonly used in business and financial circles to compare competing investments. The use of Training ROI as a way to measure the return on training investment on training initiatives is growing in the training industry. Recently, the focus on Training ROI has become controversial; industry thought leader, Jane Bozarth recently said ROI is “evaluation by autopsy.” Leading Elearning blogger David Kelly states in
READ MORE about Training ROI: Use of Return on Investment for Training ProgramsIsn’t It Always about Control?
Have you ever used an educational website and been blown away by how interesting and engaging it is? I encounter these types of sites when I’m pursuing informal learning. Part of the attractiveness in the learning is that it’s what interests me. Another factor is the site gives me control. These informal learning sites/tools shed insight on how powerful learning can be when we give learners control over what they
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