The training industry is going through a shift from eLearning to mLearning to take advantage of the capabilities of mobile technology. Many organizations are in need of transforming their training content and materials for learning on different devices such as smartphones, tablets, and laptop computers. The challenge is doing this cost effectively, rapidly, and with flexible solutions.

In this session you will learn some of the considerations in preparing content and designing the new look and feel of that content using interactive templates. You will learn the process steps to efficiently transform content through real-life examples highlighted during the session. Finally, you will be introduced to the platforms and architecture useful in efficiently transforming content for multi-device learning.

In this session, you will learn:

• The platforms and architecture you can use to efficiently transform content
• The process steps for designing and transforming existing print and digital content for multiple devices
• How to prepare the existing content for transformation
• What to consider when designing the activities for use with the interactive templates

Audience:
Novice designers, developers, project managers, and managers.

Technology discussed in this session:
XML, HTML5, JSON, and macros.

Simulations are an important component of training in many healthcare verticals. Mannequins, simulation labs, and computer-based simulations are well-established parts of many healthcare professionals’ education. They are however also expensive and difficult to deliver online. What’s needed is a solution that combines the low-cost, distributed model of eLearning with the power of simulation.

In this session you will explore examples of low-cost, easy-to-deliver simulations used in areas such as nursing, pharmacy technicians, and occupational therapy. Each have been used to improve skills in several healthcare verticals while satisfying the newest accreditation requirements. You will see how using nothing more than a smartphone or tablet, online video-based exercises offer learners more frequent and convenient opportunities to practice skills, including “soft skills” like critical thinking and communication.

In this session, you will learn:

• How to create low-cost simulation exercises for teaching soft skills
• How to create low-cost simulation exercises for teaching technical skills
• How to use simulations as the centerpiece for a competency-based training program for healthcare professionals
• How you can use video-based simulations to satisfy industry accreditation requirements

Audience:
Novice to advanced designers, developers, project managers, and managers.

Technology discussed in this session:
ApprenNet.

Learner engagement can be elusive. It is difficult to grab and hold a learner’s attention with so many smartphone distractions at their desk or at their fingertips. But engagement is possible through specific techniques that command attention and engage the learner.

In this session you will learn how to engage learners and how to present content using gamification techniques such as storytelling, feedback, and competition. During this session you will simultaneously learn about engagement techniques and experience them. These techniques will help you to create more engaging instruction within your own organizations or for your clients. You’ll be able to apply these simple techniques to your learning design almost immediately.

In this session, you will learn:

• How to apply storytelling to engage learners
• Three techniques for eliciting audience responses and summarizing content during a session (webinar or classroom)
• How you can expand gamification beyond points, badges, and leaderboards
• How to create an immersive learning experience with simple tools

Audience:
Intermediate designers.

Technology discussed in this session:
PollEverywhere, PowerPoint.

Participant technology requirements:
N/A

Can the challenge of conducting annual onboarding for 700 volunteer leaders be met in a cost effective and engaging way? Leaders are located across time zones, supported by different technology platforms, and do not have common availability for a centrally-located training meeting. However, networking and sharing ideas are key learning requirements of the group. In addition, budgetary constraints mean that only half the population can be trained per year, leaving the other half with very little support from national headquarters. This uneven approach has led to inconsistent results in terms of membership retention, chapter programming, and volunteer engagement.

In this case-study session you will see how a blended learning approach, using social learning as a critical ingredient, met the challenge of onboarding a large, geographically-dispersed audience to prepare them as volunteer leaders. You will learn how 70 local facilitators were identified as orientation trainers and invited to an event focused on developing presentation skills and providing support tools. You will gain insight into using blended learning, and specifically social learning, to successfully match performance objectives to the most appropriate, and cost effective, delivery medium.

In this session, you will learn:

• How to assess your organization’s readiness for implementing a social learning platform
• Three best practices for integrating social learning into an existing training
• The advantages of using a social media platform to facilitate collaboration among virtual learners
• How to apply a blended learning model within your organization, using social learning as a key ingredient

Audience:
Novice to advanced designers, developers, project managers, and managers.

Technology discussed in this session:
Blackboard Collaborate, and Yammer.

Authoring tools natively lack sophistication of handling variables. Rapid authorware developers feel limited, and many fear tackling more advanced functionality such as JavaScript.

In this session will you will learn some basic yet very cool examples of JavaScript-enhanced rapid development possibilities. You will also learn how to break down the core components by integrating JavaScript within common rapid authoring tools. You will learn an effective planning process by walking through a dice game (Yahtzee-esque) built in Articulate Storyline. The session provides encouragement for individuals with little to no JavaScript experience to use their existing skill sets to begin leveraging JavaScript.

In this session, you will learn:

• How JavaScript can enhance development
• The core components integrating JavaScript into common rapid authoring tools
• A planning process to assist in building solutions
• What to do when things go wrong

Audience:
Novice designers and developers.

Technology discussed in this session:
Articulate Storyline, Sublime 2 text editor, Lectora JavaScript, search engines, and online communities.

Adding performance support to the learning ecosystem of an organization provides the opportunity to enhance the performance of workers in a powerful way. To take the best advantage of this new paradigm, the instructional design process and the content of online learning need to change.

In this session, you will learn about the advantages and challenges of implementing a new learning paradigm that includes performance support. You will learn what performance support is, a step-by-step plan for integrating performance support and learning with a focus on eLearning, and see how St. Vincent Hospital has implemented this. You will leave with both an understanding of how this planning process has worked and templates that will enable you to re-create this process in your organization.

In this session, you will learn:

• How performance support can enhance the outcome in an organization
• The essential components of a performance learning plan
• A new approach to developing eLearning as part of a performance learning plan
• How authoring tools have been used to build performance support tools

Audience:
Intermediate and advanced designers, developers, project managers, and managers.

Technology discussed in this session:
Ontuitive Learning Guide Manager, Articulate Storyline, Adobe Flash, and Microsoft Office.

Given the choice, many learners will choose mobile abstracts over books, YouTube DIY over lecture, single-point lessons over ILT, and JIT mobile reinforcement over day-long training. This is a very real challenge most T&D departments are facing. While they all have legacy training courses that are traditionally a day longer or more, learners today do not enjoy or benefit by these long-form training methodologies.

In this session you will learn about the innate problems with traditional long-form training, as well as the necessary micro-learning skillset to start making improvements. You’ll learn the three elements of transforming your existing training content into engaging bite-sized chunks. The first element is “shock treatment,” where you will learn how bite-sized principles, reinforced by brain science, is the future of learning. The next element is “first aid,” where you will learn how to apply micro-learning principles to your existing ILT courses. The final element is “group massage,” where group discussion will assist you in troubleshooting your traditional training challenges.

In this session, you will learn:

• Why we need to commit to breaking up our training into smaller pieces
• From brain science, how bite-sized learning is the future
• How to apply micro-learning principles to your existing ILT courses and other forms of traditional training
• How to troubleshoot your traditional training challenges and come up with bite-sized solutions

Audience:
Novice and intermediate designers, developers, project managers, and managers.

Accelerated change, moving technologies, globally diverse audiences, increasing demand. We’ve been talking about these and other pressures that senior L&D leaders face for decades. The trouble is that the pressures are not going away. Today’s L&D leaders must align learning to needs, move quickly to improve performance, and add value. They are increasingly looking to technology to help.

In this highly interactive session, you will learn what actually works and what doesn’t. Our research reaches out to over 45 nations for 10 years, but this will be the first time any of the practical findings have been presented in the United States. You will take a fresh look at the hard evidence from over 17,000 learners and 3,500 international L&D leaders. You will learn the strategies of the top-performing L&D teams around the globe and see how they are improving productivity, increasing engagement, enhancing agility, AND improving efficiency.

In this session, you will learn:

• The critical importance of having an evidence-driven rather than a technology-driven learning strategy
• About evidence of bottom-line business impacts that will blow the minds of your senior stakeholders
• Direct insights from learners that will change your thinking forever
• How your strategy really compares with your top-performing peers in the rest of the world

Audience:
Intermediate and advanced designers and managers.

Technology discussed in this session:
N/A

Free tools like Google Analytics can reveal important characteristics about online learner behavior, and help instructors and course developers make confident design and technology decisions. With a thoughtful analytics implementation derived from course learning goals, instructors can better understand what aspects of their course were successful and communicate this story to their businesses and institutions.

In this session, you will learn how the Google Analytics Edu team used Google Analytics to make more informed instructional design and technology decisions based on learner behavior in their Analytics Academy courses. You will learn how the team set up their Google Analytics instance, the importance of creating a measurement plan, how to use personas to help segment behavior data, create goals to understand the course value, how to set up tracking for specific behavioral events, and how to use all this data to engage learners and tell a compelling story about your course effectiveness.

In this session, you will learn:

• How to use Google Analytics to promote online learner course engagement
• How users navigate your online course, where they drop off, and how to re-engage them
• How to track specific course events like video completions or clicking interactive graphics
• How to design learner registration fields used to segment behavior data for analysis
• How to create a measurement plan that maps back to course learning objectives
• How to create Google Analytics goals to determine your online course return on investment (ROI)
• How to better understand the demographics and geographic locations of your learners

Audience:
Novice and intermediate designers, developers, project managers, and managers.

Technology discussed in this session:
Google Analytics and the Google Analytics Academy CourseBuilder MOOC.

Instructional designers and eLearning developers are not typically trained in how to design a visual experience for their learners, yet a cluttered presentation of information interferes with learner cognition and retention. Often, the effort to transform unappealing, text-heavy content can seem overwhelming, but there are simple approaches that you can master to create a visually appealing experience.

This session offers you techniques that can drastically transform even the most boring content into a visual presentation that improves cognition and retention. You will learn how to simplify your content for maximum impact and structure it with visual cues. See how to turn your initial text into engaging visuals that help your learners retain what is important. You will review real-life examples that demonstrate how these simple techniques create raving fans and effectively enhance your content.

In this session, you will learn:

• How to simplify your content for maximum impact
• How to structure your content with simple visual cues
• How to turn text into visuals
• How to use imagery to effectively enhance your content

Audience:
Novice and intermediate designers, developers, and managers.

Technology discussed in this session:
N/A

As trainers, we work hard to create great training. As a result, we are disappointed when our employees fail to learn or don’t transfer learning back to their workplace. We may be tempted to blame our students, but the truth is that we often fail because we don’t understand the mind of the learner. As a result, we build training modules that are not consistent with the brain’s natural means of acquisition. Teaching should be more effective, and it can be more effective once we understand how the learner’s mind operates.

In this session, you will learn seven essential principles that will help you understand how the brain controls learning and memory. Through the presented demonstrations, you will gain an exciting new understanding of the mind, which you can immediately apply to create eLearning that will effectively engage the brain and maximize learning and recall. Come prepared to have fun ... and learn.

In this session, you will learn:

• To design training and change management solutions that are compatible with the brain’s natural way of learning
• To create social learning communities that are based on psychological principles of observational learning
• To use authoring tools more effectively by understanding how the brain encodes metaphor and emotion
• To develop incentive systems that reinforce desired behaviors and that are based on established principles of conditioning.

Audience:
Designers, developers, senior developers, and managers.

Technology discussed in this session:
N/A

Writing is an underdiscussed aspect of instructional design. In fact, many people get into the field without realizing that writing is a significant part of a learning designer’s job. It is difficult to do it well. Learning designers may be required to write in at least ten different forms that involve unique styles. Yet there is no single source of instruction for writing in all of these styles.

In this session, you will gain a deeper awareness of the different writing styles learning designers need to produce on the job. You will learn the different formats and techniques one can use to make each style effective. During the session, you will be able to compare examples of successful and less successful writing. You will leave this session being able to differentiate between the requirements and styles of writing microcopy, video scripts, test questions, and expositions, which is a basic skill that designers need to have.

In this session, you will learn:

• How to meet the needs of varied writing requirements used in instructional design
• How to inject creativity into the driest of topics
• How to use journalistic techniques in your writing
• How to use marketing techniques in your writing

Audience:
Novice and intermediate designers and project managers.

Technology discussed in this session:
N/A

While universities continue to explore the new possibilities of massive open online courses (MOOCs) in establishing global brand, learning research, and innovation, corporate training has begun a deeper look into using MOOCs for their own purposes. How would a landscape of higher ed–produced MOOCs being used by corporate training benefit both types of organizations?

In this session, you will learn the emerging trends in which global corporations are seeking to partner with MOOC providers for various types of offerings. You will learn how universities are using MOOCs as spaces to experiment with and research innovative online teaching practices and how these discoveries may lead to new opportunities for application in corporate training. By seeing how universities are approaching MOOCs, you will learn about an emerging framework for extending partnerships with higher ed for more cost-effective access to the subject matter expertise and learning practices that universities provide.

In this session, you will learn:

• What MOOCs are and their current status in the higher ed market
• Why universities decide to develop and deliver MOOCs
• How using courses from MOOC providers may benefit corporate training functions
• What emerging trends in MOOCs are pulling corporate interests and higher ed closer together

Audience:
Novice and intermediate designers, developers, project managers, and managers with a working knowledge of how to design, deliver, or manage training or educational offerings, including online, blended, or classroom.

Technology discussed in this session:
MOOCs.

Back by popular demand, Hyperdrive returns to DevLearn this fall. This year’s Hyperdrive competition focuses on innovation, showcasing projects that are using technology and solutions to create new and exciting opportunities for learning and performance support.

In this session you will learn from the three winning entries from DevLearn Hyperdrive, the competition that took place before DevLearn began. You will learn from individuals and organizations that are pushing the boundaries of what learning and performance support looks like and explore examples of technology being harnessed in ways that most others have yet to consider.

In this session, you will learn:

• From cutting-edge examples of innovative learning
• How the projects provide business value
• Why a design decision was made
• The technologies used in innovative projects

Audience:
Novice to advanced designers, developers, project managers, and managers.

Technology discussed in this session:
Various.

Are you a Storyline 2 user? Maybe you were self-taught or used Storyline 1 and are now using Storyline 2? Storyline 2 offers expanded capabilities that are often underutilized, which if applied can create more engaging learning experiences. 

In this hands-on session, you will explore features that will make working on your courses easier and faster. Learn how to build interactivity with the new sliders feature, make your content dance with motion paths and slide transitions, and disable your Next button to better ensure learners have explored all the content they need to learn. 

In this session, you will learn:

• How to navigate through some of the new features in Storyline 2
• How to build a simple slider to create an interactive learning environment
• How to add creative motion paths to your slides
• How to restrict navigation until your learner has met certain expectations 

Audience:
Intermediate designers and developers who are familiar with Storyline and eLearning concepts.

Technology discussed in this session:
Storyline 2.

The power of games for learning is well documented, yet the thought of undertaking the design and development building of a game seems overwhelming due to the perceived cost and hours to learn how to do it. The time and the energy just seem too large of a barrier.

In this session, you will learn how to get started with designing and building your first mobile game and understand game design principles. You’ll learn about the tools and environment, and you will use GameSalad to create dynamic, drag-and-drop game-based content that you can test and play within your own browser or on a mobile device.

In this session, you will learn:

• How to design and build your first game
• How to understand the app and environment and how to create a game using drag-and-drop programming techniques
• What is required to create an app for a mobile environment
• How to build a game and leave with the core knowledge to get started and demonstrate to your team and organization

Audience:
Novice and intermediate designers, developers, project managers, and managers.

Technology discussed in this session:
GameSalad, Photoshop, PowerPoint, HTML5.

Participant technology requirements:
Mac or Windows laptop. Download free GameSalad.com app to participate.

Learning professionals commonly build online content, using both off-the-shelf and custom tools. These tools may create web content, be destination sites, or be content repositories of some sort, like an LMS or CMS. What do you know about the security vulnerabilities of these tools? One of the core principles of security is that you can never be 100 percent guaranteed safe from attackers. However, if you know and understand the potential vulnerabilities of your toolset, you can work proactively to reduce the risk that your work becomes the vector for a breach.

In this session you will learn about the workflow and toolset that you may use in your role as designer, developer, or training manager to identify potential vulnerabilities. You will also learn about mitigation strategies you can use today that can reduce your vulnerabilities.

In this session, you will learn:

• About the potential vulnerabilities that you have in your workflow
• What those vulnerabilities can mean for you and your organization
• What you can do to mitigate potential vulnerabilities
• The questions to ask of your vendors to ensure that your organization is protected and not the next big news headline

Audience:
Intermediate and advanced designers, developers, project managers, managers, and directors.

Technology discussed in this session:
N/A

High-impact organizations invest in people. While some skills are prerequisites to employment, others can be acquired on the job, preparing people for more complex tasks, even future leadership roles. That is the promise and possibility of building a progressive credentialing system using competency-based digital badges as “curricular building blocks.”

In this session you will learn about several possible models for building such a system, how it can be used to address the changing demands in the workplace, and how it might help address critical skills gaps in organizations.

In this session, you will learn:

• How the changing face of work, organizations, and credentialing is propelling the need for new competency models
• Various models for competency-based digital badge systems
• How digital badge systems can be used to address organizational and industry skills gaps

Audience:
Intermediate and advanced designers, developers, project managers, managers, and directors.

Some eLearning developers have it easy. Food, wine, travel, sports? These are interesting topics and lend themselves to creating stimulating learning experiences. What about when a topic is not so stimulating? Learn how to spice up your learning using four key tools: Adobe Photoshop, Captivate, Premiere, and After Effects. Using case studies from previous learning projects, see how incorporating these tools into the development workflow transformed the learning experience into a multimedia adventure.

Examine the challenges inherent in designing and delivering a flipped classroom approach and how the continuing medical education product teams at the American Academy of Family Physicians have struggled with them. Learn from case studies of the three flipped classroom designs, and learn why it is important to overcome the challenges and the strategies exist to do so.

Social technology is ubiquitous in everyday life. Meanwhile, many organizations remain hindered in their attempts to leverage social tools to improve the employee experience in the workplace. L&D teams often try to lead the charge under the guise of “social learning,” but are often unable to achieve meaningful levels of user engagement. In this session, you will explore the cultural foundation of the evolving social workplace using practical examples. While you will discuss specific technologies, the main focus will be on the employee and organizational behaviors necessary to facilitate meaningful, relevant continued collaboration and knowledge sharing.

Learning professionals are experts in learning, but are we as adept in analysis and evaluation? These are the pillars of effective design and calculation of ROI, but often we are rushed to design and development before critical analyses can be completed. When “A” and “E” are left out of the instructional design process, we can end up delivering the wrong solution and be unable to calculate ROI through appropriate evaluation. This session will focus on how to conduct an in-depth organizational analysis to determine the root cause of the problem you are trying to solve. 

Moving from classroom to online delivery can be a time-consuming and confusing process. Learn ways to leverage technology to streamline the process and improve the end product. Learn how to use current content and transform it into an eLearning product, how to select the appropriate methodologies for replacing face-to-face activities, and how to select from the different tools available today.