As part of Learning Design Live – taking place at the World of Learning Conference & Exhibition this month – renowned experts will tackle the latest trends and techniques for learning technology design.
At the new conference, held on 29 & 30 September at Birmingham’s NEC, eLearning professionals will receive in-depth advice on a variety of topics including design goals, diagnostic assessments, action mapping and gamifying content.
We caught up with two of the speakers – Lucy Hodge and Richard Law – to hear their views on what their conference sessions will offer e-learning professionals:
Lucy Hodge, Instructional Design Consultant at Walkgrove, is delivering a seminar on Diagnostic Assessment, detailing how pre-assessment can create a targeted, effective approach to eLearning. Walkgrove has experience developing engaging e-learning programmes across the public, private and third sector.
Lucy explains: “Currently underused as a form of evaluation, diagnostic assessment is a powerful way to deliver a tailored approach and help the user identify learning areas to focus on.
“Some e-learning adopts a one size fits all approach with people of different levels and expertise taking the same learning. Learning requirements will, of course, vary depending on many factors such as age, skill, how long employees have been in their role and so on.
“Diagnostic assessment helps to pinpoint what the learner already knows and, in doing so, identify areas for improvement, creating a tailored learning experience. Also, equipping individuals with an awareness of their strengths and weaknesses is empowering and engages them further in the leaning process.
“For some organisations, pre-assessment forms part of a wider evaluation of their learning programme, comparing the process from beginning through to end and helping to determine that all important ROI.”
Storyboarding as a quality process – not just a document will be explored by Richard Law, Head of Learning Solutions at Cuerden Consulting.
The company undertakes a broad range of training and project management related tasks within the public and private sectors across industries including defence, transport and maritime.
Richard, who has over 15 years’ experience in e-learning, explains Cuerden’s work and its client-focused approach: “It’s important to incorporate video into e-learning. People “switch on” when viewing a film. This type of content can be placed at selected points in the learning programme, to highlight a particularly important aspect or break up a lengthy section. One golden rule, however, is not to have too much of the same format – if e-learning falls into a pattern of repeating one type of content, then users will disengage.
“By far the best approach in developing storyboarding with clients is to work closely with them and update at regular intervals. Bearing in mind many of our contacts may be time poor, we take care to select the right stage in the process to share with them and often focus on one aspect, such as the audio for example. This provides the client with a concise and relatively short snapshot to review instead of a traditional storyboard preview which can be up to 250 pages!
“Close client work is essential to ensure expectations are met — the very nature of developing something creative means it is often open to interpretation. Close client work is also essential to ensure engagement – we often invite our clients into the studio during filming and it’s a useful, enjoyable way to build on the relationship.”
The eLearning Network (eLN) sponsors learning design live.
• To register for free entry to learning design live visit https://www.learnevents.com/book-now.php
• For more information on all aspects of the event please visit www.learnevents.com
And for the latest news and updates about the World of Learning 2015, read the World of Learning Blog, follow the exhibition on Twitter at #WOL15 and www.twitter.com/Learn_EventsUK, and join the World of Learning Conference & Exhibition group on LinkedIn.
