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: “Creating Device Mockup Templates and Placeholders for E-Learning #161” article

From the Articulate community dedicated to increasing a professional’s knowledge of E-Learning, giving out free tips and free resources on how to implement E-Learning in the workplace or how to easily find cheap solutions to organizational needs. In this article: “Creating Device Mockup Templates and Placeholders for E-Learning #161” is an article that discusses how to use the custom mockups you created for your various presentations and E-Learning documentation. In the article, it lists resources on how to make:

• Mobile phones
• iPads and tablets
• Laptops
• Monitors and iMacs

Learning how to make your (own) graphics can streamline the creation process plus save your organization money on paying for costly images to use online or on the organization's web service. Although this may save a couple of dollars at first it will save a lot of money in the long run, through repeat usage of the mockups that you made as a result.
Just click on the link here to learn more:
https://community.articulate.com/articles/device-mockup-templates-elearning

Organizational Clarity: “Powerpoint: Branched Scenario Template” free download

From the Articulate community dedicated to increasing a professional’s knowledge of E-Learning, giving out free tips and free resources on how to implement E-Learning in the workplace or how to easily find cheap solutions to organizational needs.

In this article: “Powerpoint: Branched Scenario Template” is a free download easily customized template with graphics and fonts already added to the PowerPoint template. Just change around a couple of things such as the text and you can have your own Powerpoint quiz ready for during or after your training session.

Just click on the link here to learn more:
https://community.articulate.com/download/powerpoint-branched-scenario-template

Click here for the font:
https://www.fontsquirrel.com/fonts/bebas

Organizational Clarity: “PowerPoint '13: 5 Things to Know Template" free download

From the Articulate community dedicated to increasing a professional’s knowledge of E-Learning, giving out free tips and free resources on how to implement E-Learning in the workplace or how to easily find cheap solutions to organizational needs. In this article: “PowerPoint '13: 5 Things to Know Template” is a free download easily customized template with graphics and fonts already added to the PowerPoint template.

It is simply a great way to illustrate your projects and presentations with that extra zip that will garner your learner’s attention and help keep them focused and alert during a lengthy or even short training session.

Just click on the link here to learn more:

https://community.articulate.com/download/powerpoint-13-5-things-to-know-template

Click here for the fonts:

https://fonts.google.com/specimen/Lato
http://www.1001freefonts.com/bebas_neue.font

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: "Custom E-Learning Graphics Using Free Font Icons #165" article

From the Articulate community dedicated to increasing a professional’s knowledge of E-Learning, giving out free tips and free resources on how to implement E-Learning in the workplace or how to easily find cheap solutions to organizational needs. In this article: "Custom E-Learning Graphics Using Free Font Icons #165” is about using fonts to bring more emphasis to other visuals used in your presentations and documents.

Whether you use PowerPoint, Storyline 360, Illustrator, or Word font usage is very important to give your visuals extra details and clearly discuss the points you are trying to present in the document or presentation. If the font is too “out there” the learner’s attention can be diverted and lessen the impact of your training program or E-learning document.

Knowing what font to use seems to be a textbook thing or even an exercise in common sense, but sometimes when creating a document or presentation for training purposes we can get over anxious. Picking the wrong font, as a result, can cause future issues as I have aforementioned but this article touches on the subject and can help you stay on the right path to creating the best presentation or E-Learning document possible.

Just click on the link here to learn more:
https://community.articulate.com/articles/custom-elearning-graphics-using-free-font-icons
Click here for the fonts:
https://blogs.articulate.com/rapid-elearning/dozens-free-dingbat-fonts-commercial-use/

Organizational Clarity: “PowerPoint: Flashcards Template” free download

From the Articulate community dedicated to increasing a professional’s knowledge of E-Learning, giving out free tips and free resources on how to implement E-Learning in the workplace or how to easily find cheap solutions to organizational needs.

In this article: “Powerpoint: Flashcards Template” is a free download in that if you want to get more visual with your presentation. It can be a great way to illustrate your projects and presentations with that extra zip that will garner your learner’s attention and help keep them focused and alert during a lengthy or even short training session.

Just click on the link here to learn more:

https://community.articulate.com/download/powerpoint-flashcards-template

https://www.fontsquirrel.com/fonts/bree-serif

Organizational Clarity: “PowerPoint: 4 Customizable People Illustrations” free download

From the Articulate community dedicated to increasing a professional’s knowledge of E-Learning, giving out free tips and free resources on how to implement E-Learning in the workplace or how to easily find cheap solutions to organizational needs.  In this posting upon the site is “PowerPoint: 4 Customizable People Illustrations” by Ashi Tandon.

This is Professional at Articulate has posted a free download for presentation usage in Microsoft PowerPoint, you can change the look of these “people” as you desire but it’s another free tool for those of you on a budget (students, non-profits, etc.) to utilize for own heart’s desire.

Just click on the link here, and download! à https://community.articulate.com/download/powerpoint-customizable-people-illustrations

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: “16 Creative Multiple Choice Quiz Designs in E-Learning” article/download

From the Articulate community dedicated to increasing a professional’s knowledge of E-Learning, giving out free tips and free resources on how to implement E-Learning in the workplace or how to easily find cheap solutions to organizational needs. In this week’s email I received a link to: “16 Creative Multiple Choice Quiz Designs in E-Learning” this is article talks the usage of multiple choice questions in creative ways to make training sessions and the training program more engaging overall.

The article is just linked to sixteen designer examples, some you can download other you can just view the project to get a general idea of what to do in your training program. I, of course, love the ones you can download because this means you can use these projects for your usage and thereby have a template for future programs all that is needed is some adjustments.

Just click on the link here to learn more: https://community.articulate.com/articles/multiple-choice-quiz-examples

Organizational Clarity: “How to Bust 3 Common Training Myths” article

From the Articulate community dedicated to increasing a professional’s knowledge of E-Learning, giving out free tips and free resources on how to implement E-Learning in the workplace or how to easily find cheap solutions to organizational needs. In this week’s email I received a link to: “How to Bust 3 Common Training Myths” this is article talks about training and how to overcome some of the misconceptions that as trainers we may have when it comes to analyzing the success of a training program.

These are the three myths that the article discusses:

Myth #1: More Clicking Means More Engagement

Myth #2: The More Reviewers, the Better the Training

Myth #3: People Only Learn Through Formal Training

The way basically to overcome these myths is to have a “highly interactive” course and engage all the stakeholders involved with the training program. Understanding how people learn can allow you as the trainer to develop solutions that enrich their experience as a learner, makes your job easier and helps the organization increase it Return on Investment from the program.

Just click on the link here to learn more: https://community.articulate.com/articles/how-to-bust-3-common-training-myths

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: "Can Organizations Benefit from Mobile 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: “Can Organizations Benefit from Mobile Learning?” By Darshan Dudhagundi. Mobile learning has become an increasingly better option for organizations because of the options it brings in regards to accessibility and mobility.

An employee can access an organization’s E-Learning materials anytime, any place although I believe it is a hard sell only because most employees defend their time away from work, or when they are off the clock as sacred. Therefore, getting employees to use mobile learning is a 50/50 gamble, however, I think with added incentives employees would readily use mobile learning than spend a day in a classroom or in a larger arena for an all-day training event.

These are the five organizational benefits gained by using mobile learning:

1.       Improved consistency in training

2.       Improved completion rates and information retention

3.       Improved on-the-job support

4.       Improved productivity with better retention of information

5.       Reduced investment in infrastructure

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

http://blog.commlabindia.com/elearning-development/mobile-learning-benefits-to-organizations

Organizational Clarity: "A Step by Step Guide to Convert PowerPoint Presentations 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: “A Step by Step Guide to Convert PowerPoint Presentations to E-learning” By Darshan Dudhagundi. Need a quick guide to create some E-Learning courses quick and cheap but you only know how to make Microsoft PowerPoint presentations? This article is a step-by-step guide to make that possible, create an E-learning course from a Microsoft PowerPoint presentation before you do so there are six steps to complete before uploading the file to a Learning Management System.

The six steps to complete before uploading:

1.       Gather and Organize the Content in a Logical Flow

2.       Set Measurable Learning Objectives

3.       Fill Gaps in the Content

4.       Formulate Instructional, Visual, and Audio Strategies and Decide the Interaction Level

5.       Choose the Right Rapid Authoring Tool

6.       Convert the Presentation to an E-learning Course Using the Tool and Thoroughly Test the Output

This article mentions Rapid Authoring Tools you can use, along with links to other articles discussing the right Rapid Authoring Tool for you and your organization, that can be used to convert your PowerPoints to an e-learning course for future use.

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

http://blog.commlabindia.com/elearning-design/guide-to-convert-ppt-into-elearning

Organizational Clarity: “3 Best Practices of Training Customers through 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: “3 Best Practices of Training Customers through E-learning” by Gitika Nagra.

To get customers informed or on board with the products and/or services that your organization provides E-training them upon the benefits of purchasing or using what your organization offers. To do this effectively E-Learning as briefly stated in this article provides three methodologies for training.  Although it is more of informing than training, and I would make sure that is expressed because the last thing a customer wants to feel is that they are being “trained” when they want to purchase or use a service. 

The accessibility of these three options allows the customer to further research products and services before use to see how they “fit” for the customer’s needs and wants. Having them as tools to express the benefits of the being a customer of the organization, not only benefits the customer but the organization. These are the three practices listed in the article that will allow you to help train your customers through E-Learning:  

1.       Video-based Learning

2.       Microlearning

3.       Simulation-based Learning

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

http://blog.commlabindia.com/elearning-design/customers-training-through-elearning-best-practices

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: “PowerPoint: Business Icons” free download

From the Articulate community dedicated to increasing a professional’s knowledge of E-Learning, giving out free tips and free resources on how to implement E-Learning in the workplace or how to easily find cheap solutions to organizational needs. 

In this week’s email I received a link to: “PowerPoint: Business Icons” this is a great download that you can use for free when creating PowerPoint slide deck for training purposes. You can also use these business-themed icons for your own personal use as well, have fun creating!

Just click on the link here: https://community.articulate.com/download/powerpoint-business-icons

 Please note: I suggest trying the software first and then figuring out how you can use the templates listed as downloads in the articles above with PowerPoint, later on, to give you the “look’ for the training purposes that meets your organization’s needs

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) "Get Your Course Development On Track Choose the Right Authoring Tool"

I have found another free download from CommlabIndia which is great for us cash strapped professionals and organizations!  This is a free e-book in pdf format from the 7 books series called “Get Your Course Development On Track Choose the Right Authoring Tool” this short e-book talks about choosing the right authoring tool (of course) to get your organization’s e-learning processes up to speed, started or even updated.

The article starts with the five major influences to your decision in picking the right tool for the job:

• Training requirement
• Nature of content
• Multilingual requirements
• Publishing options
• User-accessibility features

After listing these major factors the e-book looks at nine authoring tools which are:

1. Articulate Storyline 2
2. Articulate 360
3. Adobe Captivate 9
4. Adobe Presenter 11
5. Lectora Inspire 16
6. Lectora Online 3
7. iSpring Suite
8. Claro
9. Gomo Learning Suite

Then the article goes on to listing the five major challenges businesses face and then links up the program that will be the best solution (tool) for that challenge. The E-book also has a comparison chart that that is great for additional comparison if necessary so that when you choose the right authoring tool you will be able to explain why the decision or recommendation was made.

Here are the challenges that are listed in the E-Book:

Challenge 1: Rapid Conversions

Challenge 2: Interactive E-learning

Challenge 3: Quick Translations

Challenge 4: Responsive E-learning

Challenge 5: Ease of Online Review

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

https://www.commlabindia.com/elearning-components/ebook/7ebooks-5-get-your-course-development-on-track-choose-the-right-authoring-tool-commlab.pdf