Momenta Learning No. 5 News on Elearning and Online Learning

Welcome to the No. 5 Issue of Momenta Learning News on Elearning and Online Learning.

New Glasgow e-learning company Velsoft has 10,000 customers in 164 countries

In small town Nova Scotia, you don't get much attention unless you're a "come from away." So when Jim Fitt started his e-learning company in a spare room in his Stellarton home in the early 1990s, he knew he wouldn't get noticed in the local marketplace unless his products found customers well beyond Canada's borders.

How technology's helping schools adopt smart learning

Technology has had a tremendous impact on our daily lives, especially in the workplace. We are now able to store and access information and various programmes over the Internet instead of going through a computer hard drive.

Learning Tools For Microsoft OneNote May Be One Of The Most Disruptive Education Technologies Yet

Last week, Microsoft quietly released a public preview of "Learning Tools for OneNote." This Microsoft hackathon winner is an add-in for OneNote designed to improve the reading and writing experience for students. When Jeff Petty, the accessibility lead for Windows for education, showed me the tools, I was blown away.

Myers-Briggs, Leadership Training and EdTech | Technology and Learning

How many leadership seminars, professional development opportunities, and conferences have you attended where the Myers-Briggs test (MBTI) has been featured? In my edtech world, support and utilization of Myers-Briggs appears to be pervasive. Myers-Briggs is particularly popular in leadership development seminars and workshops.

How Big Brands Are Boosting Customer Loyalty Through Gamification

The eLearning market isn't the only industry that has understood and The marketing world has long embraced the use of games and gaming elements for advertising, inspiring customer loyalty, and even replacing customer education. From keeping corporate learners engaged to mobilizing customers and creating communities, let's take a look at how these marketing teams are utilizing gamification to up their game.

Free online resources increasingly popular as classroom supplements

One Tennessee district has created its own free online educational resources - namely, digital math and social studies textbooks accessible from various devices. The digital texts were made using free online curriculum resources exclusively, according to District Administration.

How to Tell When You're Doing Poorly in College

By Online Learning Tips Staff Typically the warning signs of failure in school are obvious. Your grades are teetering over a C, you're constantly asking for extensions, getting incompletes on assignments, or you simply don't understand anything going on in the class. What's worse is that some people don't realize they're failing until the final grade is posted.

Momenta Learning No. 4 News on Elearning and Online Learning

Welcome to the No. 4 Issue of Momenta Learning News on Elearning and Online Learning

OPM adds new cyber education program for feds and families -- FCW

Human resources The federal government is trying to shore up its cybersecurity workforce with a new program that offers discount training to current feds and their families. The Office of Personnel Management is teaming with Champlain College Online to create a new online Master of Science in Information Security Operations program, and the college's truED alliance is offering a 50 percent discount for federal employees and their families.

The advantages of eLearning for corporate training

The newest trend in corporate training is the move toward eLearning solutions to replace more traditional classes and other materials. According to a report from Roland Berger, 77 percent of companies in the United States use some form of eLearning to train their employees.

Developing the Coaching Skills of Your Managers and Leaders

CHESTERFIELD, Mo. - January 21, 2016 BizLibrary sponsors webinar hosted by HR.com and presented by Chris Osborn. This complimentary webinar will be held on Thursday, Jan. 28 at 1 pm CT / 2 pm ET.

New online hunter education course puts people in the field

Posted: Sunday, January 24, 2016 12:13 pm | Thank you for reading 20 free articles on our site. You can come back at the end of your 30-day period for another 20 free articles, or you can purchase a subscription and continue to enjoy valuable local news and information.

UGA professor contributes to new science education guidelines

Kristen Morales University of Georgia A new report released this week will give lawmakers, school officials and others specific direction when it comes to supporting and strengthening science teacher learning, says a University of Georgia professor who contributed to the effort.

Earning online degrees takes motivation

Malia Fledderman decided to go back to school to get an MBA "to just get a job in general. I had a very hard time after graduation just finding a full-time job because I was a 'damn millennial' and didn't have any experience."

Tin Can API: evaluate e-learning performance

Published on 01.21.16 in Elearning Strategy After SCORM, companies are adopting the Tin Can standard (also known as xAPI) to measure the effectiveness of their e-learning courses. There's almost no need to convince companies about the importance of training their teams and partners.

Education for everyone

ONLINE education via Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) in the country has continued to grow within the past year, due to the efforts of the Higher Education Ministry in enhancing quality and accessibility, and making tertiary education affordable. It promotes student autonomy and fosters a community which engages and motivates each other, which is critical to better outcomes.

Momenta Learning No. 3 News on Elearning and Online Learning

Welcome to the No. 3 Issue of Momenta Learning News on Elearning and Online Learning

The 7 Best Free Online Courses From MIT

There isn't much that you can't learn for free on the internet, but it's not just YouTube tutorials - if you know where to look you can actually get something approximating a world-class education without leaving your bedroom. The Massachusetts Institute of Technology is a global leader on open-access education.

3 Ways to Succeed When Giving a Lecture

3 Ways to Succeed When Giving a Lecture Those of us in learning and development hardly ever use the term "lecture." It's a pariah, equated with boredom, dull delivery and death by PowerPoint. So when it's our time to deliver a substantial amount of information to learners, the first thing is to call it something else, a "briefing" or an "upfront."

Edwiser Bridge Review: WordPress And Moodle LMS

Before going ahead with Edwiser Bridge Review, if you are not familiar with Moodle, it is a free Open Source Course Management System (CMS) or Learning Management System (LMS). It is designed to help educators create effective online courses.

Going The Distance: Part-Time Online Learning Lacking

At Powell High School, students can blend their classroom learning with an online course or two. "They could be taking a foreign language such as German that we don't offer," says Park County Superintendent Kevin Mitchell. "They could be taking science classes that we don't offer."

Google Is Offering A Free Online Class About Deep Learning

Techies who have some background in machine learning may want to tune into Google's new course on deep learning. Available through Udacity-home to a host of open online courses-the class is expected to run about three months, assuming people put in about six hours of work per week.

3 Ways Your Online Classmates Might Surprise You

Students in an online class can learn not only from course materials but also from classmates of different cultures. It was the first week of my online course, and we had to introduce ourselves to the class. I discovered that I was the only student who lived in Nebraska.

Is Your Online Learning Environment Engaging Enough

The digital learning environment revolutionizes the way individuals learn - from higher education to corporate training. Online learning provides numerous benefits, including worldwide accessibility and the ability for each to learn at his or her unique pace. However, the digital learning environment also presents some unique challenges for educators.

15 Surprising Things Productive People Do Differently

By Kevin Kruse Forbes I recently interviewed over 200 ultra-productive people including seven billionaires, 13 Olympians, 20 straight-A students and over 200 successful entrepreneurs. I asked a simple, open-ended question, "What is your number one secret to productivity?" After analyzing all of their responses, I coded their answers into 15 unique ideas.

​What Employers Think of Badges, Nanodegrees from Online Programs

The concept of nanodegrees and microcredentials in online education has gained momentum more quickly in technology-related fields than in others, experts say. A degree or certificate may tell an employer about your education, but it won't necessarily highlight your specific skills.

Education expert who will also work with business entrepreneurs is next KU Foundation Distinguished Professor

An education expert whose work crosses over into multiple disciplines will be Kansas University's 11th Foundation Distinguished Professor, KU announced Friday. Yong Zhao currently is the presidential chair and a professor in the Department of Educational Measurement, Policy, and Leadership at the University of Oregon.

Momenta Learning No. 2 News on Elearning and Online Learning

Welcome to the No. 2 Issue of Momenta Learning News on Elearning and Online Learning

Cheaper mass online courses cheapen students' education

On Friday the Board of Regents will hear a presentation about the top issues facing the Nevada System of Higher Education. Not surprisingly, funding and student success will take center stage, yet one proposed solution should raise some eyebrows. It would make teaching cheaper by replacing faculty-taught online classes with ...

Why Does Match.com Own an Education Company? -- The Motley Fool

There's more to ( Match Group NASDAQ:MTCH) than Internet dating. Sam Mattera has no position in any stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. Try any of our Foolish newsletter services free for 30 days.

Creating a global learning commons for development knowledge: the Open Learning Campus

We have just launched the Open Learning Campus (OLC) with an event that blew my own expectations out of the water. As I reflect on the journey that brought us here I am impressed and inspired by the collaboration and partnerships we created along the way.

What is the current state and future potential of L&D?

The hangout hosted by e-learning company Sponge UK, included: Laura Overton, Managing Director of Towards Maturity, Don Taylor, Chairman of the Learning & Skills Group and John Curran, Chairman of the Elearning Network.

Big Data Can Create Big Learning

Learning leaders tend to look at skills requirements from either a business needs perspective or in response to demand generated from line managers. Yet in the age of big data, this approach does not go far enough.

How to Sell Online Courses with WooCommerce ~ LifterLMS WordPress LMS Plugin - LifterLMS

Today we are excited to announce to you the release of LifterLMS 1.5.0. The majority of this update relates to enhancements to the built-in LifterLMS integration with WooCommerce. Many LifterLMS users don't use the WooCommerce integration and simply sell their online courses with the native LifterLMS PayPal integration or they accept credit cards directly in...

Seminal Books on Online Learning

Monty Jones at VCU emailed several of us today with an interesting thought query from Brianne Adams: What are the seminal texts in online education? Given how fast the field has evolved, are there any?

Breaking Barriers with Online Education - INSiGHT

Technology is changing the way we live, work, and now, also how we learn. Distances previously measured in thousands of kilometers are transformed into milliseconds, enabling new kinds of education that bridge national and cultural barriers.

State award a virtual reality for Carolina Forest online teacher

Denise Wright, the VirtualSC 2015 teacher of the year, taught in traditional classrooms for 12 years until she became a virtual teacher four years ago. The Waterford Plantation resident made the switch, she said, because she "wanted to have a greater impact across the state."

4,000 jobs being cut by education giant Pearson

Around 4,000 jobs are being axed at education giant Pearson under a group-wide overhaul to slash costs after it warned over profits for the second time in three months. The FTSE 100 listed firm, which recently sold the Financial Times newspaper and its stake in the Economist magazine group to focus solely on the education market, said the jobs cull represents around 10% of its 40,000 global workforce.

Momenta Learning News on Elearning and Online Learning No. 1

Welcome to the No. 1 Issue of Momenta Learning News on Elearning and Online Learning

IHRDC Announces Major New E-Learning Releases In Upstream Petroleum Technology

Published: Thursday, 21 January 2016 Author: Daily News BOSTON, Mass. -- IHRDC has announced that its e-Learning production team today released four new topics and 14 learning subtopic courses as part of IPIMS, its award-winning knowledge and learning system covering all major areas of upstream petroleum technology.

How eLearning Is Maximizing Office Productivity

If your employees seem a little sluggish, it's not your imagination nor your impatience. According to a 2014 Salary.com survey, a whopping 89 percent of workers admitted to wasting time during the course of their workday, with 62 percent copping to at least 30 minutes of lost time.

CPL Online launches 'Next Generation' of e-learning courses

The company has completely overhauled their e-learning courses, to not only provide users with a superior experience, but to also incorporate invaluable new features and benefits. These features will assist learners in successfully completing the courses, and can provide businesses with significant cost savings.

Technavio Identifies Top Four Emerging Trends for Global E-learning Market Through 2020

Technavio's latest global E-learning market report highlights the top four emerging trends that are expected to drive the market's growth through 2020.Technavio defines an emerging trend as something that has potential for significant impact on the market and contributes to its growth or decline.

Mobile device management ensures safe digital learning

It is evident that when pupils leave school without having been exposed to the extensive use of digital devices for an extended period during their school career; they may find it difficult to cope with digital learning at tertiary level. This will have a significant impact on their progress when they enter the work environment.

eLearning outsourcing to meet internal demands

It has been our experience that key to the success of successfully outsourcing your eLearning requirements is having an open communications and having the right collaborate environment in which to foster great relationships with all project stakeholders. We invite you to take a look and review a course we created for a client last year, please click on the below link to view.

SUNY-ESF receives $190,000 grant to fund online learning program

SUNY-ESF recently received a SUNY Investment Fund award in support of its development of online programs, furthering the university's dedication to distance learning. State University of New York Chancellor Nancy Zimpher announced on Jan. 11 during her annual State of the University Address that the State University of New York College of Environmental Science and Forestry would receive $190,000 to fund the ESF Open Academy.

EdTech: Mooc Platforms Force B-Schools To Embrace Blended Online/Campus Learning

Digital disruptor: Lynda.com In biz ed, the New Year brings fresh obstacles for the decades' old institutions trying to stay relevant in a hyper-connected educational landscape. Further disruption beckons for even the world's top business schools, who face a cocktail of threats from online challengers like Lynda.com, whose whizzy tech platforms are snatching students away from traditional degree programs. The rise of online learning has b-school bosses vexed and excited in equal measure.

Chuck Bauer Presents the Online Learning Center Course Marketing Yourself Shamelessly

( Newswire.net -- January 19, 2016) Addison, Texas -- Marketing is one of the biggest challenges faced by salespeople and businesses alike. Every day, thousands of salespeople and business owners waste time and money with old-school ideas that leave their shelves filled with dusty marketing materials and their inboxes empty of closed sales.

Tips for Increasing Engagement in Online Learning by David James : Learning Solutions Magazine

On Monday, our feature article addressed the frustrations employees feel as they struggle to keep up with advances in knowledge and practice, and offered general advice about strategy. In this article you will find additional tips that will help you direct your efforts in focused approaches that will lead to results.

What Is Really Chunking?

I have seen many posts on the “so and so numbers of things that instructional designers or elearning professionals must do”, and many include the “chunking of information”. But what do they really mean by that? Displaying on the course lesson page a maximum number of words out of the total? Displaying a whole section? Making short videos? Short audio bites? Or just as many word as you can pack on the page? It can get confusing (at least to me) as to what really chunking means.

It has been proven for a long time that we can retain in working memory a number of “items”, which really mean concepts. In order to learn a new concept, it is important to first see the big picture of what we are learning (top-down), and not to worry about the details at that point. Then we can learn the interconnected concepts (the chunks) that serve as the foundation for what we want to learn so that, at the end of our study session, we are able to put the pieces together for the big-picture chunk of information (bottom-up). The point where these small chunks meet with the big picture idea is called the context where we are learning. Every time we need to remember that particular concept, we will recall this whole chunk of information, including the details, so that we would not have to use rote memory to remember all this information.

In terms of content for elearning, the above explanation applies to both text and media. A long video erodes attention the same way a long page with text does. We can only concentrate (focus our attention) for a few number of minutes (it varies but it could be between 15 - 25 min), then it becomes difficult to maintain concentration on the content. And this is the way I conduct my course design: presenting one idea as a chunk belonging to a bigger picture in the form of one lesson, section, page or whatever you want to call it, then as the learner move across the course where more chunks are being covered, this learner will arrive to the point where the context is presented and the learning of this new concept then takes place.

My favorite example is an online class in statics (because I am an engineer) where you want to cover the big picture subject of static equilibrium. Of course, the large picture is statics, the mechanics of bodies at rest or in constant velocity, but the subject of interest is static equilibrium. Within this subject you need to cover the static equilibrium of particles, then of rigid bodies, and within these two subjects there are a multitude of other subjects that need to be covered in order to understand how to analyze bodies in static equilibrium. The course must provide the context where all these chunks meet so that the learner can understand when to analyze a body as a rigid body or as a particle, when to use a vector approach or when to use a graphical approach to solve for forces acting on a body, and son.

The important point is this: don’t present your learners with two different concepts that they need to understand, present those concepts gradually so that they can master one before moving on to the next one. Also, I would recommend immediate assessment after they have covered the subject so that reinforcement occurs, and add a walk-through example so that they can understand how this concept is applied. In order to provide this context, another walk-through example (or case scenario) can be pertinent and a little more assessment to finally reinforce the material learned.

Blended Learning for Associations

It is true, and has been said over and over, that not all subjects can be integrated for elearning delivery. This is mostly related to the nature of the subject and not limitations on technology or resources (although sometimes, it is). When you manage an elearning program for an association, you need to consider the nature of the training or education being offered.

Most associations currently have a heavy load of onsite courses for training of their members for CEUs or other types of certification. This means that a lot of logistics go into the organization of these training courses. Many have content that is related to hands-on or equipment training, which forces the course to be offered as onsite only. In other cases, the subject matter expert (SME) has taught this course for such a long time that there is some resistance at the idea of making their course elearning available.

Another situation is that the manager just doesn’t know how to conduct an onsite to elearning conversion. It is often the case that elearning managers for associations were placed in that position just because of their managerial skills and not so much for their elearning or instructional design expertise.

The above cases are very good candidates for blended learning implementation. The concept of blended learning has been around for quite some time and has been mostly used in K-12 and higher education settings. The idea is to have learners undertake series of activities, assessments, and content review using both onsite and online tools (not necessarily in equal proportions). For associations, the best solution is the use of online tools to deliver assessments and activities as well as some content in the form of video, audio, or text and images. Then learners take on other parts of the course in a designated site. Hands-on training, equipment features and functionality can be set up in this way. If the certification assessment requires proctoring, then the learner can take this final step at a designated testing site. The same goes for certification that requires the learner to show the mastering of some skill in front of an expert that is grading the performance.

Striking the balance, between what goes online and what is being implemented on site, is the issue with blended learning. As the saying goes, you don’t want to use a lot of either one, but 50-50 is not the answer either. And it is not only due to pedagogical issues what decides what part of the course goes online, it might be economical ones that finally decide that some part of the program is offered on site. For example, creating demonstration videos of equipment, or technical procedures depicted using animations require a large initial investment. Of course, once this investment is made, you will probably have two years worth of content, at which point you will probably need to reshoot the whole thing. If the investment is recovered before the end of the shelf life of that course, then you might want to consider making this investment, otherwise you will be better off making this an onsite requirement.

Ultimately, the analysis of what content to put online and which one goes onsite is one that you cannot make alone. You do need to consult your SMEs, other parties interested, and maybe you could conduct a survey to test membership preferences. What is definitely important is that you consider designing some of your courses in a blended mode, this will not only reduce costs but will make sure the course becomes more affordable to members, since it is the usual case that onsite courses run at a larger tag price than fully online courses or blended courses.