Organizational Clarity: “PowerPoint Add-ins – Develop E-learning Courses Rapidly” article

The CommlabIndia community is another group decided to easy, cheap solutions to meet an organizational needs within the various aspects of Organizational Development whether it is training sessions or meeting presentations.

In this article: “PowerPoint Add-ins – Develop E-learning Courses Rapidly” is an article that discusses E-Learning options using Powerpoint as the base and various add-ons which compliment it. Since online training is becoming even increasing more pivotal to increasing the employees’ professional development,  organizations must come up with viable ways to create training programs linked to software which even novice computer users know how to use..

These are the three Add-ins programs for Microsoft Powerpoint:

1. Articulate Presenter
2. Office Mix
3. iSpring Suite

For your organization's training program there is a brief discussion, about each Add-on and what formats they are best used for when publishing the Powerpoint presentation. Each Add-on leads to a different way to present the training information to the organization's employees and possibly reaching different learning styles at the same time. Using audio narratives or video opens up the ability of the trainer to reach a broader audience and as well as being more effective in presenting one’s message.

If you want to know more just click the link here:
http://blog.commlabindia.com/elearning-development/powerpoint-add-ins-elearning-courses

Organizational Clarity: “Is Google Translate the Wrong Choice for Course Translations?” article

The CommlabIndia community is another group decided to easy, cheap solutions to meet an organizational need within the various aspects of Organizational Development whether it is training sessions or meeting presentations. In this article: “Is Google Translate the Wrong Choice for Course Translations?” which lists five important points why not to use Google Translate, if you have used Google Translate before you know it is not exactly accurate. When Google Translate incorrectly translates text, it can lead to further confusion, misunderstandings and possibly insulting potential international employees and clients.

These are the five reasons why not to rely on Google Translate for your organization's main translation device for documentation used on a global scale:

1. Google Translate is not 100% accurate

2. Google Translate relies on educated guesswork

3. Google Translate makes several iterations

4. Google Translate cannot accurately decipher complex grammar

5. Google Translate cannot find an exact match for idioms

Whether your organization is using Google Translate for translating the text for a training program, an online Private message, or even important company documentation any errors can waste time. Money and other resources that are considered valuable to the organization and its clients. In a world with rapid responses thanks to email, instant messages and texting there is a lot of room to make mistakes and misinterpret messages that are in our native language but that level of failure in communication heightens with languages and cultures different from our own.

Add the fact most of us use Google for everything from emails to translation of basic text our interdependence of this technology can be our undoing, and this article briefly discusses five reasons why not to put our full trust in such technology.

If you want to know more just click the link here:
http://blog.commlabindia.com/elearning-translations/google-translate-for-course-translations

Organizational Clarity:"Instructional Design Best Practices – A Comprehensive Guide" article

From the CommlabIndia community is an article from easy, cheap solutions to meet organizational needs. In an email, I received was a link to: “Instructional Design Best Practices – A Comprehensive Guide” by Gitika Nagra.

These are the eight great points for Instructional Design when it comes to E-Learning projects listed in the article: 

1. Set clear learning objectives
2. Make navigation simple and easy
3. Make the course interesting and engaging
4. Include effective audio
5. Include scenarios
6. Include challenging quizzes
7. Provide quick and explanatory feedback
8. Provide rewards

When you want to create a successful program to present to a client or for your organization, following these steps or even adding a couple of these steps to your programming will help give it structure. While keeping everything, flexible and engaging, interaction is the clue here, and these helpful tips keep your learners on point. By adding a little extra here and there, the learning process becomes that much easier and interesting for your trainees and clients.

If you want to know more just click the link here:

http://blog.commlabindia.com/elearning-design/instructional-design-best-practices-guide

Organizational Clarity:"HTML5 in E-learning – Signaling the End of the Flash Player" article

From the CommlabIndia community is an article from easy, cheap solutions to meet organizational needs. In an email, I received was a link to: “HTML5 in E-learning – Signaling the End of the Flash Player” by Phani Madhav. This article talks about how the Flash player is going obsolete from Adobe to Apple almost every platform or company is trying to get away from using Flash. So, it can create major headaches when as an OD Professional or as an organization you are trying to create training programs for your employees to use at home or on various mobile devices.

While the HTML5 the latest version of tech language for the Web increases multimedia functions, Offline usage and storage, while increasing the performance and integration of various programs. Thereby becoming the all-around better option to help creating your training programs this article is a great heads up the next time anyone means “Flash” in the same sentence as “new training program”.

Here is the original article briefly discussing the Flash player going the way of the dinosaur: http://blog.commlabindia.com/elearning-development/flash-player-limitations-in-elearning

Here is an additional website that discusses HTML5 and all the new nifty options and improvements this version brings: https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/Guide/HTML/HTML5

Organizational Clarity: “Choosing the Right LMS: 6 Essential Aspects You Can’t Ignore” article

I was reading an article about online learning to make any programs I may develop in the future become more user-friendly and inviting to the trainees I want to reach. This article called: “Choosing the Right LMS: 6 Essential Aspects You Can’t Ignore” by Heera Edwin is purchasing the right learning management system for your organization in order to have effective e-learning sessions while meets the organization’s goals and training needs.

When it comes to replacing an existing Learning Management System, or if the training was being transferred to an online application process, this article briefly explains how to choose the best LMS for your organization. When more and more organizations are choosing to deliver training online, being able to determine the best type of LMS being selected and used, is often critical. Oh and do not forget cost too, many organizations hardly think of these and a few other factors that could determine what the best choice for them is.

Please click on the link for more information:

http://blog.commlabindia.com/elearning-development/choosing-right-lms-6-essential-aspects

Organizational Clarity: “Sound Effects in E-learning: Top 8 Sample Music Sites” article

From the CommlabIndia community is an article from easy, cheap solutions to meet organizational needs. In an email I received was a link to: “Sound Effects in E-learning: Top 8 Sample Music Sites” by Gitika Nagra. With experienced and novice instructional designers constructing E-learning lessons for their organizations on a budget (we all have them) this article presents eight websites where you can find the music you need to up the level of your E-Learning training sessions.

Realistically, we have all sit in presentations in which a voice just drones on and on talking about the information presented adding music can actually help in keeping the learner's attention. With a little music, even boring subjects can be made to come alive so I would recommend using some of these sites for your E-Learning productions today.

But before you move ahead please take note of the “free” sites, free is always good whether you are working for an organization or self-employed, or even if you are a student creating a project for class, take the free option, FIRST.

These are the eight music websites listed in the article that will allow you to download music from creating your E-Learning training sessions:  

1. freesound.org
2. Free Music Archive (FMA)
3. Audionautix.
4. ibeat.org.
5. PacDV.
6. ccMixter
7. Partners In Rhyme 
8. Audio Archive

If you want to know more just click the link here:

http://blog.commlabindia.com/elearning-design/sound-effects-in-elearning-music-sites

Organizational Clarity: “6 Factors to Consider When Outsourcing Your Online Training” article

From the CommlabIndia community is an article from easy, cheap solutions to meet organizational needs. In an email, I received a link to: “6 Factors to Consider When Outsourcing Your Online Training” By Ashok Kumar K.  Sometimes organizations are able to afford to outsource parts of the training and development activities to third parties so that the main core training programs can be focused upon and developed further.

It has been my experience that usually, this is due to either budget constraints or even staffing issues in the training and development department. But before committing to a third party for outsourcing even one activity to an external company there are six factors that this author believes should be considered.

The six factors to consider when outsourcing for eLearning are:

1.       Decide the Scope of Outsourcing

2.       Measure the Outcomes

3.       Research Training Vendors Thoroughly

4.       Take Small Steps

5.       Take a Call on Control

6.       Build a Relationship

If you want to know more just click the link here:

http://blog.commlabindia.com/elearning-design/outsource-online-training-factors

Organizational Clarity: “Why are Organizations Migrating From Classroom Training to E-learning?” article

From the CommlabIndia community is an article from easy, cheap solutions to meet organizational needs. In an email I received was a link to: “Why are Organizations Migrating From Classroom Training to E-learning?” by Aruna Vayuvegula. Creating a LMS for an organization that has international or a global reach is a challenge, to keep costs down the basic tenet is to stop training or allow in-house training by managers.

However, this is not always effective, so getting the organization’s training department around the world or at two or more sites simultaneously an organization must think outside the box. This is one of the reasons that organizations choose E-learning as a usable option to meet these challenges as an extensive global organization.

E-learning is a great option to reach employees no matter where they are and assist in their professional growth in and out of the organizational span.

These are the five reasons why organizations move from Classroom Training to E-Learning:

1.       Need to update skills to match growing business needs

2.       Compulsion to keep training costs low while not compromising on training hours

3.       Need to train a large and dispersed workforce

4.       Demand for flexibility in knowledge transfer

5.       Need to track training completions and effectiveness

After reading these five reasons you can understand the desire for many organizations to move from one theater to another. Meeting the employees halfway on these training courses by allowing them to complete sessions on their own time, goes a long way to achieving the cooperation and involvement of employees in the learning process (for the organization). If you want to know more just click the link here:

http://blog.commlabindia.com/elearning-design/migrating-from-classroom-training-to-elearning

Organizational Clarity: “Vitalize Your Online Training Programs with Videos”article

In an article called “Vitalize Your Online Training Programs with Videos” by Sushmitha Kolagani, the author discusses why on-demand videos should be used in Online Training Programs. The basic tenant is that it is much cheaper than sending a trainer to various locations for annual events and presentations. 

When it comes videos reusability, training uses or increased retention are great reasons to use videos in addition to e-learning programs or with performance support tools. The more of the material that a learner learns has access to the better, also the adaptability of on-demand videos to either be used to increase or boost morale or even giving quick techniques for representatives to do certain tasks in half the time. The idea of introducing on-demand videos into your training repertoire is one that should be made into reality.

If you see the same thing happening in your organization I urge you to click on the hyperlink below and read the article about E-Learning to educate yourself and your organization’s E-Learning dissenters

Here is the hyperlink to “Vitalize Your Online Training Programs with Videos” by Sushmitha Kolagani: 

http://blog.commlabindia.com/elearning-design/5-things-to-know-about-elearning

Organizational Clarity: “5 Tips to Set Flawless Learning Objectives for eLearning Courses” article

From the CommlabIndia community is an article from easy, cheap solutions to meet organizational needs. In an email I received was a link to: “5 Tips to Set Flawless Learning Objectives for eLearning Courses” By Ashok Kumar K.  Learning objectives are always tough to create especially for the eLearning arena.

Most organizations do not have the resources to commit to E-Learning courses so when the practitioner has the chance, they have to do it right! Stating to the learners and one’s sponsors what one will learn from this presentation of material is crucial to maintain support and fan the learner’s desire to engage.  

The five tips to setting flawless learning objectives for eLearning Courses are:

• Keep learning objectives specific
• Keep learning objectives simple and concise
• Say NO to ambiguity
• Specify expected performance
• Align assessments & activities with learning objectives

If you want to know more just click the link here:

http://blog.commlabindia.com/elearning-design/5-tips-to-set-elearning-learning-objectives

Organizational Clarity: “4 Easy Steps to Translate Online Courses into Multiple Languages” article

From the CommlabIndia community is an article from easy, cheap solutions to meet organizational needs. In an email I received was a link to: “4 Easy Steps to Translate Online Courses into Multiple Languages” By Phani Madhav.  

When creating training courses online you usually do not think globally only locally, therefore creating an online training in different languages is not something that comes to a designer. But if your organization is starting or already has a global reach then this quick little article will give you four quick tips to increasing your international reach. The five steps to translate Online Courses into Multiple Languages are:

Step 1: Translate learning content into the desired languages

Step 2: Get the content reviewed

Step 3: Complete the audio recording and develop the translated courses

Step 4: Send the courses to the stakeholder for final review and deliver them

If you want to know more just click the link here:

http://blog.commlabindia.com/elearning-translations/translate-online-courses-multiple-languages

Organizational Clarity: Free E-book (download)“Determining the Learning Outcomes for an E-learning”

This is another free E-book from CommlabIndia in pdf format from the 7 books series called “Determining the Learning Outcomes for an E-learning” this short e-book discusses why it is important to set outcomes or guidelines for the learning process. With clear learning objectives we are able to set expectations and goals from a certain level of performance that the learner must produce as a result of their training. This also helps determine how the learning process is delivered, assessed and the content covered with the training sessions itself.

The E-book also covers briefly pitfalls to avoid and tips to make sure that the learning outcomes are achievable most of these you may think are common sense but a refresher is always good to have. Plus if you are working in or with a team, not everyone has the same knowledge base as you might have, so this e-book will get everyone on the same page without the need for extended explanations or details.

After reviewing the E-book and you see that the information is useful for your purposes go ahead and download. Just click on the link here for your free download:

https://www.commlabindia.com/elearning-components/ebook/7ebooks-2-determining-the-learning-outcomes-for-an-elearning-commlab.pdf

Organizational Clarity: Free E-book (download) “Translation & Localization of E-learning Courses”

This is another free E-book from CommlabIndia in pdf format from the 7 books series called “Translation & Localization of E-learning Courses” this short e-book discusses why when designing global e-learning courses your organization needs to have the right translation process and include the right elements of localization into the organization’s e-learning processes. This way the organization overcomes any language or cultural barriers that may exist and also sidestep all the mistakes that deter the learning process.

Five Strategies to Design Effective Global Courses

• Use a Universally Accepted Version of the Language
• Start with a Culture-neutral Course
• Plan for Translation-friendly Courses
• Use Rapid Authoring Tools for Quick Translations
• Assign Specialists in E-learning to do Translation and Localization

This E-book also cover a 6-Step E-learning Course Translation Process:

• Analyze source content and prepare it for translation
• Have a streamlined translation process
• Proofread the translated content
• Schedule professional voice talent for audio narration
• Integrate translated elements into the course
• Deliver course on to the LMS

After reviewing the E-book and you see that the information is useful for your purposes go ahead and download. Just click on the link here for your free download:

https://www.commlabindia.com/elearning-components/ebook/7ebooks-6-translation-and-localization-of-elearning-courses-commlab.pdf

Organizational Clarity: Free E-book (download) "Calculate the Effectiveness of E-learning Calculate ROI"

This is another free download from CommlabIndia which is great for students Organizational Development Professionals and Organizations alike in this is a free e-book in pdf format from the 7 books series called “Calculate the Effectiveness of E-learning Calculate ROI”. This short e-book talks about calculating the Return of Investment (ROI) of e-learning and the values of evaluating training programs, talks about Donald Kirkpatrick’s Four-Level Training Evaluation Model and the four step of applying the formula of ROI.

I would even recommend using it as an academic resource for the occasional quick paper you have to write for class regarding ROI if you needed the extra resource!

After reviewing the E-book and you see that the information is useful for your purposes in figuring out the ROI for your organization’s training programs and download. Just click on the link here for your free download:

https://www.commlabindia.com/elearning-components/ebook/7ebooks-4-calculate-the-effectiveness-of-elearning-calculate-roi-commlab.pdf

Please note there is a misspelling in the title but do not let that deter you!