If you’re working in the eLearning industry, you’re no doubt familiar with the term SCORM. You probably know that SCORM stands for ‘Sharable Content Object Reference Model’ and that certain systems can be ‘SCORM compliant’.

But do you really understand the way in which the SCORM model works? And how it impacts the potential of your company’s learning and development program?

Today we’ll look closer at SCORM – why it was developed, how SCORM files make online course development easier and why this technical standard is so important for eLearning.

SCORM was first released in early 2000, 16 years ago, and according to Des V. Anderson, CTO at LearnUpon, is “the most commonly used content standard in eLearning… [working] to standardize learning content between the industry’s many developers and vendors.”

What does this mean? Essentially, the SCORM model determines how online learning content and Learning Management Systems communicate with each other. It simplifies how online learning content works with different platforms and tools.

When departments work autonomously, developing their own eLearning courses and delivering them via the LMS of their choice, it can lead to problems with content duplication and information all over the place. With SCORM, a set of technical standards was developed to improve interoperability between eLearning products.

How Does SCORM Make Online Course Development Easier?

Before the development of the SCORM standard, life was much harder for anyone wanting to creating eLearning content. After all, there was no way of knowing whether the content you developed for one platform or LMS would be understood by another.

As Anderson says, that made it very “difficult for trainers and content developers to collaborate, use multiple tools, and migrate course content from one system to another.”

With SCORM, course content can be created that can be run on multiple devices and systems. Let’s say you design eLearning content through a tool like Captivate – with SCORM, you can upload that content into a Learning Management System of your choice.

As we’ve said, SCORM helps you create content in an eLearning authoring tool, which can then be published to an LMS in a SCORM conformant way.

With this, many eLearning platforms, online courses and training tools advertise themselves as ‘SCORM compliant’. This means they’ve been developed to fit SCORM's technical specifications and should work with all compliant technologies and content.

Basically, this means that the files have been packaged up in line with SCORM standards, ready to be uploaded into a SCORM compliant system. SCORM files look just like a zip file and will contain all of the files needed to make the eLearning content run.

We all know that quality content is the backbone of any Learning Management System. If an LMS can’t read your learning content, your online course is already doomed. So it’s vital that your eLearning materials are SCORM compliant.

By using SCORM files and compliancy, you’ll have peace of mind that technology platforms will be able to run your course materials, well into the future.

For more insights, subscribe to the Go1 newsletter to stay on top of all the latest L&D trends. Or, you can book a demo today to find out how Go1 can help with your team’s learning needs.

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We look at SCORM – why it was developed, how SCORM files make online course development easier and why this technical standard is important for eLearning

What you need to know about SCORM for eLearning

We look at SCORM – why it was developed, how SCORM files make online course development easier and why this technical standard is important for eLearning.

We hear a lot of talk about content these days – particularly in terms of the popular saying that “content is king.” But is content more than a passing buzzword? It certainly is. In fact, these days it’s wise to include content curation as part of your organization’s learning and development strategy, to help create a more effective learning culture within your organization.

In doing this, you can use content curation to support corporate training – rather than replacing it – while bringing a number of benefits to your employees and your business.

Asha Pandey, Chief Learning Strategist at EI Design, agrees that companies should be using content curation to support their corporate training. Pandey defines content curation as “an exercise to continually find, filter (group, organize), and share the most relevant content on specific topics and offer it to learners as an online tool or through a portal or platform.”

Finding the best content from multiple sources, either from your existing knowledge base or external sources

Filtering, so only the most relevant content makes it through

Sharing it with the right audiences, at the right time, through the right platform

Adding value to that content with commentary, context or organization

In this way, as Pandey says, content curation “gathers and organizes all online and offline resources available in your network and allows learners to access them all on a single platform.”

The benefits of content curation for employees

In today’s workforce, employees have significantly higher expectations of corporate training programs. They want information that is relevant, up-to-date, engaging and easy to access. Taking a proactive approach to content curation will help you in consistently delivering this kind of content to your staff.

With content curation, your chosen platform will collate content for your staff. Meaning there’s no need for trawling through separate intranets, web portals and discussion boards – everything they need to know will be all in one place. This helps individuals feel empowered with the content, as they can choose which information they want to be engaged with.

As your content will be carefully filtered, you know that you’ll be delivering focused information that applies directly to your audience’s learning needs. Employees have the opportunity to share content, as well as contribute to the platform, meaning there’s potential for continual sharing and value enhancement.

The benefits of content curation for your organization

Over time, this approach to content curation will help create a more positive and effective learning culture within your organization.

You’ll be offering staff a more engaging and responsive platform, which will help improve collaboration, knowledge sharing and innovation across teams. As employees share content, it also helps to establish strong connections and working relationships between subject matter experts and learners.

Using the one single platform for your content means that all information will be safely housed for long-term use, as well as easily accessible to staff at any time. Content curation can save workers significant time, helping to improve company productivity and results.

As you can see, taking a proactive approach to content curation and incorporating it into your learning strategy will result in many benefits for your staff and the business overall. Using it alongside your regular staff training mechanisms can create positive and long-lasting changes to your organization's learning culture. So what are you waiting for?

Why content curation is important for staff training

You use knowledge and skills every day. When you’re watering the garden, when you’re driving a car, when you’re writing an email. Knowledge and skills are fundamental to human achievement. As the saying goes, knowledge is power. And if that’s true, then skills aren’t far behind. 

As the global skills gap widens and knowledge becomes more specialised and in-demand, knowledge and skills are valuable commodities. To remain future-ready, it is vital to keep your knowledge and skills up to date. Therefore, understanding the difference between knowledge and skills is an excellent first step. 

With this in mind, we’ll explain the difference between knowledge and skills, detailing everything you need to know to improve your knowledge and skills in the workplace. 

Knowledge and skills are similar but separate terms that express two vital elements of success in a situation. Many people use these terms interchangeably despite their different meanings. So, what does each term actually mean?

Here are the Oxford Dictionary definitions:

Knowledge: “facts, information, and skills acquired by a person through experience or education; the theoretical or practical understanding of a subject”, or, “awareness or familiarity gained by experience of a fact or situation.”

Skills: “the ability to do something well; expertise”, or, “a particular ability.”

eLearning industry takes these definitions a step further, explaining that knowledge is “information acquired through sensory input: Reading, watching, listening, touching, etc. The concept of knowledge refers to familiarity with factual information and theoretical concepts. Knowledge can be transferred from one person to another or it can be self-acquired through observation and study.”

In contrast, skills “refer to the ability to apply knowledge to specific situations. Skills are developed through practice, through a combination of sensory input and output. As an example, social skills are developed through interaction with people by observing, listening, and speaking with them. Trial and error is probably the best way to achieve skills mastery.”

Or, in other words, knowledge is theoretical, whereas skills are practical. 

Both knowledge and skills are necessary to achieve a goal. A teacher may have a certificate showing the requisite knowledge to educate young people, but, without engagement skills, they will struggle to transfer their knowledge. In simple terms, it’s the difference between knowing something and putting it into practice.

A teacher must be able to interest students, motivate, and nurture fascination. Likewise, the best performing salesperson in a team may not have received higher education in the finer points of sales. They may not have attended seminars on communicating with clients. Nevertheless, their skills give them a knack for quickly building a rapport with clients, thereby making them an exceptional salesperson.

Many employers are concerned about the skills gap, and rightly so. The skills gap is the gap between what employers need their workers to do and what their workers are capable of doing. For example, a team leader may want an image edited in Photoshop. However, no one in their team has the skills to complete this task, as they are unfamiliar with the software. In recent years, this gap has widened. 

A recent survey by McKinsey found that nine in ten executives say their organisations either face skill gaps already or expect skill gaps to develop in the next five years. 

Additionally, 1 in 5 workers say their professional skills are not up to date, with a further 85% of employees saying they wish their company had offered more new skills training last year. Further, Skillsoft’s Mind the Gap report finds that 48% of L&D employees believe their team is underskilled to deliver what is needed for their business.

As a result, 62% of L&D professionals say that ‘closing the skills gap’ is their number one priority. 

While there are many nuanced explanations for the global skills gap, one theory is the over-emphasis on attending university for young people. While these soon-to-be employees may have gained an exceptional education during their time at university (knowledge), their lack of exposure to the practical demands of the workplace (skills) can make it hard to hit the ground running in a new job. 

In other words, they have the knowledge but do not possess the skills. This example does not mean that university isn’t worthwhile. Rather, it means that universities should encourage students to apply their knowledge in real-life situations more frequently.

For further insights on the skills gap, be sure to read our articles on how to identify your skill gaps and closing the L&D skills gap. 

To help close the skills gap, organisations can use a number of strategies to develop an employee’s skills. 

Offer team-building exercises: Corporate team-building exercises and holidays are becoming more popular every year. Yet, not every organisation uses them. Teamwork is a necessary skill for anyone who works within an organisation. Further, teamwork can improve the efficiency and performance of a business.

Improve communication skills: Online resources like eLearning courses offer a speedy way to improve staff communication skills. Digital learning courses that require engagement with other learners are ideal as this will allow learners to practice their new skills. Companies that offer these courses can also tailor them to the needs of an individual learner.

Constant feedback: Employees can track their performance via ongoing feedback from a manager. It is a good idea to set goals and offer incentives and encouragement to help develop an employee’s skills. 

Invest in L&D: Most importantly, companies who wish to develop employees’ skills should invest in L&D. Companies with robust L&D programs have a significant advantage in closing the skills gap. According to a report by RMIT, 52% of people value a learning culture over a fun culture at work. Similarly, The Transformation Journey report found that high-performing learning organisations are 3x more likely to “possess the right skills to exploit learning technologies for business advantage.” These figures show that learners crave consistent L&D opportunities to help close the skills gap. 

While companies should invest in their employees’ skills, this is not always the case. Unfortunately, 59% of employees have received no formal workplace training. Instead, most of their skills were self-taught. Likewise, 42% of employees have pursued training on their own. As such, many employees are forced to develop their skills independently. 

If this sounds familiar, here are a few essential tips for developing your skills. 

Public speaking: Any good public speaker knows how to tell a story. By honing your skills on PowerPoint and Keynote, you’re more likely to produce an engaging speech. Being familiar with these programs won’t be the silver bullet, but they will give you the confidence to perform with aplomb.

Empathy: There’s no single course you can complete to learn how to empathise with others. However, by practising your listening skills, you can be more aware of other people's needs. This trait is always attractive to employers — no one wants a hardheaded colleague who is never willing to co-operate.

Doing, not speaking: Being decisive and doing what is required shouldn't be a skill that needs to be taught. Yet, employers frequently complain that they have to spoon-feed employees. Work on doing rather than speaking, action rather than inaction and indecision, and employers will value you further.

Additionally, a recent report by SkillSoft identified the skills training that would best help employees adapt to the transformation of their role. These were: Microsoft Office training (59%) video-based microlearning (50%), collaboration training (48%), Social for Business training (37%), G Suite training (35%), and Adobe Creative Cloud training (34%). As such, workers may also want to focus on developing these skills.

Ultimately, knowledge can only get you so far. The practical application of this knowledge (i.e. skills) is what sets outstanding candidates apart. With the skills gap continuing to widen, ensure that your knowledge is up to date and your skill gaps are closed as tightly as possible.

Need some support developing your skills? Go1 can help. Start your free trial today to access dedicated courses on Identifying your skill gaps, Knowing your skills and gaps, and many more.

For more insights, be sure to subscribe to the Go1 newsletter to stay on top of all the latest L&D trends. Or, you can book a demo today to find out how Go1 can help with your team’s learning needs.

We’ll explain the difference between knowledge and skills, detailing everything you need to know to improve your knowledge and skills in the workplace.

The difference between knowledge and skills

We’ll explain the difference between knowledge and skills, detailing everything you need to know to improve your knowledge and skills in the workplace. 

Looking for high quality stock photos for your eLearning course? Putting together an online course can be a lot of fun, especially if you’ve followed our handy design checklist for your eLearning materials. As we said in that article, the design process plays a major role in how effective and successful your course will be, with factors such as graphics, multimedia and accessibility all playing a part.

The images you use in your eLearning course are a key component in this design process, and will have a direct impact on how popular and successful your online course is with learners. Because in the competitive world of online learning, looks are important – users are far more likely to choose something that’s visually appealing over an online course that looks poorly put together or jarring on the eyes.

But what if you don’t have budget for fancy professional photos? With so many photo stock websites offering high quality images for free, you don’t need to worry about the money side of things! You just need to know where to look.

And while you might think that stock photo sites are all smiling women laughing at salad and generic white men in suits, these days there are some high quality free stock photography websites offering much more than the usual bland images. Today, we’re going to share some of these hidden gems with you, so read on for our top 5 free stock photo websites.

Picjumbo is an easy-to-use stock photo site, offering a huge collection of high quality, slick photos available for free. You can easily search by Categories such as ‘Business’, ‘Nature’ or ‘Technology’ to find the perfect image for your eLearning course. The site is updated regularly, so you can even search by Latest, to find the most recent images added to the collection.

Also super easy-to-use, the Pexels site can be navigated through Popular Searches, where you’ll then find simple keyword search categories like ‘Smile’, ‘Night’ and ‘Computer.’ This way, you can easily get your hands on exactly the kind of image you have in mind. Pexels photos are lovely and clean, with beautiful filters for a fun, fresh look that will suit any kind of online course materials.

Even the most discerning critic of stock photos will be guaranteed to find something cool on Unsplash. It’s the perfect stock photography site for anyone looking for stunning high-res landscape photos or interior design images. You’re likely to find something a little different on Unsplash, rather than the same old stock images you see floating around on content around the internet. The website isn’t as easy to navigate as those mentioned above, but sometimes it’s worth digging a little deeper for top photos.

Pixabay can be described as the master website of other free stock photo sites, with almost a million free images available to users. This means there can be a lot of generic, old school stock photos but with so many to choose from you’re sure to find good high quality images. A really handy feature is the option to search images by colour, size and orientation – narrowing the selection down considerably.

With Negative Space, you can easily jump straight to Categories to filter your search, as you browse through the website’s collection of cool, clean images. What makes this stock photo site stand out from the others is its additional Typography category, offering fans of typography amazing photos of signage, graffiti and lettering from all over the world.

Find the best stock photos for your eLearning course

In today’s workforce, it’s important to know how to handle complaints. You may think this is only relevant to people working in the hospitality or retail industries. But the truth is, customers can be internal, as well as external. No matter what position you hold, or industry you work in, you need to have the skills to effectively handle complaints.

Unfortunately, when it comes to handling complaints, it’s easy to be overwhelmed by the emotions involved. Often the customer will be prepared before making their complaint – giving them the upper hand in the situation. When dealing with an unexpected scene, particularly when the customer is very angry or emotional, it’s easy to shut down and not know how to react.

However, with a little help, you can learn how to feel more confident and clear-headed when faced with complaints.

The most important thing to understand about these situations is that your actions and attitude towards complaint handling will have a direct impact on your organization or employer.

Did you know that 95% of customers will give you a second chance if you handle their complaint successfully? With every negative customer experience there is an opportunity to create a positive outcome. Employees who can handle complaints in this way, finding positive solutions to negative situations, are incredibly valuable to any company.

For managers and employers, teaching staff how to handle complaints effectively will help build brand loyalty and grow a successful business. While also making team members feel more comfortable in their jobs.

Learn how to use the LAST complaints handling plan

So how do you go about it? How can you teach your employees to handle complaints in a positive way?

 A structured approach to complaint handling is vital. If you try to handle complaints without a proper plan, you’re making a big mistake. With a system in place, your staff will have better control of the situation and greater ability to turn the outcome around.

The LAST Complaints Handling plan does just that, and is easy to apply to any kind of workplace or industry. Let’s take a closer look at LAST.

The first thing you need to do when faced with a customer complaint is listen! Make sure you don’t interrupt and give the person reassuring visual or verbal cues that let them know you’re paying attention. This shows that you are making the effort to empathize with their situation and understand their point of view.

The next important step in effective complaints handling is to apologize. Regardless of the situation, your customer will be looking for someone to take responsibility and offer an apology on behalf of the company. You will calm down your customer and go a long way in resolving the situation with the simple words ‘I’m sorry.’

When handling complaints, your aim is to offer the customer a solution to their problem. You can do this in a way that achieves a positive outcome for both the customer and your company, making it a win-win situation.

One of the best ways to do this is to simply ask the customer for suggestions of what they believe would be a good solution. Ask them what they would like you to do, to put the situation right and make them happy?

After apologizing, offering a solution, and resolving the complaint, you can thank the customer for bringing the problem to your attention.

This final step may sound a little strange at first, but saying ‘thank you’ to your unhappy customer helps reassure them that you appreciate their feedback – even when that feedback is negative.

Their feedback and experience will allow your company to make positive changes to the businesses, in an effort to prevent this from happening again.

Use eLearning to learn more about handling complaints

Keen to learn more about the LAST Complaints Handling system?

The 20-minute Complaints Handling eLearning course has been developed to give you the knowledge, skills and confidence you need to handle complaints at work. For managers and employers, getting your staff enrolled in this course is a great way to introduce them to the LAST system, and will give them more confidence in their own complaints handling skills.

Handling complaints at work is one of the most difficult things to do. However, if you know what to expect, it won't be as hard as you think.

How to handle complaints at work

You’ve just finished putting together a great new course and want to test out the knowledge of your learner to see how much of the content they have retained, but you don’t know where to start…

Don’t worry, the Go1 Quiz builder is here to help you!

One of the latest features we've added to the Go1 platform since the launch of Go1 2017 is our custom quiz builder. You can now quickly and easily create your own quiz in a matter of minutes, with our drag and drop tools that take the pain out of creating and managing assessments.

Navigate to the course you would like modify and select ‘Edit Course’ and module that you would like to add your quiz to, and then click the ‘Add an Item’ button.

From here select the ‘Create a Quiz’ option. Enter the name of your Quiz and add a description, then click ‘Create’.

Quiz Builder Part 1 GIF - Find & Share on GIPHY

Select the assessment types that you want to include in your quiz by dragging the question types from the left to the right hand side. You can also edit your quiz name and description while the quiz editor is open.

Quiz Builder Part 2 GIF - Find & Share on GIPHY

For each question type, move your cursor towards the three dots on the right hand side of the question block and click ‘Edit’, this will then open up the individual question editor. Fill out your assessment details following the instructions on left hand side, and if desired, you can toggle the response settings on the right hand side.

Quiz Builder Part 3 GIF - Find & Share on GIPHY

Above your question setup, you will see two toggles - ‘Build’ and ‘Configuration’. The above step has completed the build portion of quiz setup, however by clicking on the configuration text you can further customize the way in which your user will experience your quiz. This includes allowing for skipping questions, repeating incorrect answers, making the answer order randomised and more.

Once you have set up your configuration, click ‘Save & Exit’ in the top right corner of the screen to return to the user view.

Click the big start button at the bottom of the quiz page to start your quiz and experience the same assessment process as your learners.

Quiz Builder Part 5 GIF - Find & Share on GIPHY

Your quiz is now complete and ready to share with your learners! Start enrolling users into your course, and see how much of your learning material they have been able to retain.

If you have any questions about creating quizzes, please let us know so we can help you!

Don’t have a Go1 portal yet? Sign up for FREE!

Assessments made easy with the Go1 quiz builder

Humans tend to be social creatures. In general, we like to form connections, share ideas and interact with other people – particularly in the workplace. These forms of social interaction inevitably play a large role in the way we learn, resulting in the methodology known as social learning.

If you’re involved in staff training and development, it’s wise to consider incorporating social learning into your strategic plan. Through effective social learning, you can encourage greater connection and collaboration between employees, while helping to improve their individual engagement levels and knowledge retention.

Keen to encourage social learning in your organization? Follow these guidelines and you’ll be on your way towards building a successful social learning program in your workplace.

Before you can start incorporating these social learning steps into your training program, make sure you understand exactly what is meant by ‘social learning.’

Put simply, social learning is about learning by watching, then doing. Social learning theory says that we learn through observation – by watching someone physically demonstrating a skill or task, or describing it verbally.

With social learning, students are encouraged to master the skill or task through observation and instruction. The learning process occurs in a social environment, where “learners can carefully examine and evaluate the actions of others… a behavior or idea is typically modeled for the learner, and then they are asked to imitate or perform this behavior on their own.”

Social networks, such as Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Pinterest, Google+

Programs such as Google Docs and PowerPoint, where staff can create content and collaborate

Online courses, or eLearning courses, that encourage employees to connect through discussion boards

Brainstorming sessions, workshops and conversations between team members

Don’t confuse social learning for social media

However, while social networks and platforms are great for helping staff to connect, they can also be a huge distraction in the workplace. You’ll also need to have a solid social media policy in place, to help staff know the difference between what’s appropriate and not appropriate to discuss on social media.

So is there a better way to encourage social learning in your workplace?

The answer is yes. You just need to invest in the right tools. And eLearning provides you with the tools you need for effective social learning.

Although online courses may seem geared towards the individual, they actually provide learners with plenty of opportunities to participate in social learning. When using online courses for staff training, make sure employees are able to connect and collaborate with one another.

Encourage staff to share content, videos and resources with one another through the eLearning platform, to promote a truly social learning environment. Sharing comments and feedback with one another helps all parties to learn, improving engagement and knowledge retention.

While it’s essential to have these kinds of open channels for feedback and collaboration, some learners may also want the option of communicating with other learners privately – away from group discussion boards or social media platforms.

Instant Messaging (IM) allows individuals to share their knowledge and experience with other employees, while also helping to build a culture of collaboration within the organization. IM can feel less formal than email, encouraging team members to chat in ‘real’ time and real tones. So make sure your eLearning course has the option of instant or private messaging.

By following these steps, you’ll be providing employees with a number of different learning environments, as well as the right tools, for social learning. As a result, you can expect to see more skilled, productive and connected employees, helping your organization to achieve its business goals.


How to encourage social learning through eLearning

eLearning courses cannot be pieced together over night. They should be drafted, re-drafted, crafted and planned if they’re to be successful and engaging for students and learners. Nobody wants to be bored while they’re studying – learning should always be fun and inspiring!

With that in mind, we’ve put together a list of tips that will help you draw-up an eLearning course that will secure maximum engagement from your students. This will help both you and them; they’ll learn more and you’ll be successful in your goal of teaching. Success leads to more success, so getting it right is important.

Here are some tips on how to structure a course that will bring about maximum student engagement.

In reality, the planning of a course is the foundation of its success. Without a solid foundation, your eCourse will flounder.

Content you include should be appropriate to the topic you are teaching with a clear structure. A clear structure is particularly necessary for courses of an online nature. eLearning is student-centered, as opposed to the traditional teacher-led approach of the face-to-face class, and this places the onus heavily on the student to find meaning to their course. As students cannot interact so easily as a traditional classroom, explanations cannot be sought so easily. However, if you plan well then this purpose should be overwhelmingly obvious.

Plan, plan and plan again. Iron out confusion. Make things easy. Unlike a high school, eLearners often aren’t always required to be in the class. With poor planning you will guarantee that they are not.

Make sure there is a reason for everything students learn

Every stage of the students’ journey should be sign-posted along the way. For learners, this creates confidence, enthusiasm and engagement. Each lesson carries from the next and covers the key points of any topic. Resources are offered to make clear the necessity of learning this key point. If a student doesn’t understand why they’re learning about, for example, compliance regulations in the insurance industry, then they simply won’t engage. Nor will they learn.

The relevance of topics to the overall intention of the course is vital.

Like building with Lego, each single brick – or each class – should fit perfectly with the previous one until they reach the desired teaching objectives. As a teacher, your goal is to communicate the desired learning objectives of the overall course, so each class should be structured to add-up to this end point.

Allow students to put skills they have learned into practice 

Engagement follows successful learning, and the successfully learned skills or knowledge of your students can be exhibited through exercises where the skills they have learned can be practiced.

After each successfully learned segment of the course, allow students to show both themselves and yourself the use of their new knowledge. Affirming student learning will promote their engagement with the course.

One way to do this is with the use of interactive demonstrations, quizzes and short tests, which should reflect what has been taught. Tests like these, though they don’t need to be overly formal, can be used as a method of measuring the success of the students in meeting their learning goals.

Collaboration can also be used to demonstrate their learning. Learners can work together to produce work to show the class. Projects that require co-operation between two or more students are ideal ways for learners to practice the methods of the classroom.

It is the duty of the teacher of an eLearning course to make themselves available to be contacted as easily as possible. The lack of support for eLearning causes quick drop offs in engagement when the going gets tough. Students who cannot find support will suffer.

Learner-to-learner access points such as online forums are ideal. Questions can be asked and answered, answers can be sought between students, and teachers can log-in to ensure full comprehension if needed.

Learner-to-teacher access is always a big help. Email is frequently the easiest and most manageable route to achieve good communication.  As the teacher, you can use email to send out additional resources or class notes. Actions such as these keep students engaged in the course and receptive to instruction. With online courses, student drop-out rates are higher than face-to-face classes but with continued communication to promote a sense of involvement and intention in their learning, students can become fully engaged with their course.

So there we have it. Though we cannot tell you exactly how to go about planning your online course, these steps should help you to tailor a course in a way that will maximize the engagement of pupils. This will help students to learn and enjoy the process more completely, and bring increased success to your teaching.

How to get maximum engagement out of your eLearning course

Technology is pervasive. Whether we’re checking our phones, or getting our updates from TV news, we’re constantly connected. It’s incredible to think that even radio is a relatively recent technology, having become mainstream in just the last 100 years!

This lust for technology can be used to motivate more workplace learning but you have to be careful. Meaningless tech gimmicks quickly fizzle, and bad implementation of technology in learning can be truly off-putting

Unfortunately, the history of people trying to leverage technology to educate has often fallen into one of these extremes. Compliance training was transformed from workplace stand-up meetings to checklist-driven death-by-PowerPoint sessions. Gamification was meant to motivate legions of staff, but in many cases superficial ‘badges’ were found to be patronising by the very people they were designed to engage.

It doesn’t need to be all doom and gloom. We just need to think through the detail of the implementation and understand the reasons behind any use of technology.

One of the major opportunities is fairly obvious: our mobile devices now allow us to engage on the go. But we should pause and think what is going to work best for the medium.

I’ve often seen mobile learning feature un-optimised SCORM files or videos with captions that are nearly impossible to read. When people are engaging via a mobile device, the content, experience and purpose of the training must be designed with mobile in mind.

For instance, it’s particularly suited to bite-sized, on-demand training. Allowing people to quickly look up material or engage with short snippets is much more likely to be effective.

It’s also possible to make mobile learning location aware, intelligently surfacing site inductions or training for specific locations based on where the user is.

Another opportunity for tech-driven workplace learning is to take the “work” out of it. I have a personal mantra that you shouldn’t need to learn how to learn. There are great ways technology can make learning anybody’s habit.

Developing a chatbot for your staff is a great way to deliver learning and training options into your internal communication tools (it can work on Slack, HipChat and Skype). Staff can ask the chatbot to look up certain information or to find guides or courses on specific topics.

(There’s a learning chatbot Walmart wishes it’s staff hadn’t heard of: read our article.)

Making learning content easy to access is beneficial, but making this happen in a communication and collaboration tool is even better. Most of the skills and information we acquire at work comes from informal learning, and chat systems are fantastic tools that mirror this style.

As systems understand more about the capabilities of each staff member, learning can be delivered at the right level to help plug gaps and extend skills. This is already a common feature for many education apps geared towards the school market, and I don’t think it will be long before it’s common in workplace training.

Personalised learning, chatbots and mobile-optimized bite-sized-learning may all sound futuristic, but the reality of what works in education is largely the same with and without technology. Understanding that is the key to making learning tech truly engaging.

This article was originally published by HR Magazine

Tap into technology to motivate more workplace learning

Considering the fact that the average customer loyalty rate is only 5%, it takes little imagination to see the incredible benefits to a business if it is able to give that number a significant raise.

Indeed, customer loyalty, it’s fair to say, is one of the most important aspects in the success of a business; returning customers are the bread and butter of an organization, regardless of its size.

Consider some companies with fierce customer loyalty. Apple, for example, still has one of the most devout customer bases and they have, in effect, a generation of customers who have grown up with Apple products. Customers know the product inside out and considering a change of brand is almost unthinkable.

Though Apple is a company in a million and in many ways unique, there are many ways to carve out a loyal base of customers. The benefits are simple, but here is a small selection:

Steady Cash Flow – With a loyal customer base businesses can be more certain of a steady cash flow due to returning clients. Expansion, growth and a secure financial future are the dividends.

Referrals – Loyal clients send others your way. Simply put, clients are loyal because they think the product or service you provide is of a high standard and a fair price. Happy customers spread the word so that others march right to your door. This type of brand advocacy is worth far more valuable than even the best marketing.

Predictability – Customer behavior is far more predictable when a company has customer loyalty. Planning inventory and stock is less risky as sales forecasts are based less on possibility and more on past experience.

The customer loyalty course is designed to explain how to build a loyal fan base. To do this, the course breaks down a fair complicated process into easily comprehended stages:

Introduction – The course begins outlining the case for making customer loyalty a priority for your business. It explains how prosperity in many countries has provided many more options for consumers, and consequently, customer loyalty is on the decline.

Consumers are happy to leave one company for the benefits that new customers are offered at many others and this has created a focus on gaining new customers, but all too frequently, at the cost of losing those who are loyal.

Why is Customer Loyalty Important? – The course then goes on to explain why a focus on bringing in new customers should not be at the cost of customer loyalty. This message is underscored by revelations such as; gaining a new customer costs five times that of retaining a current one. But the reasons for a customer to stay loyal to you are not the same as those that attract new clients.

So then, what are the best methods to ensure loyalty in your customers?

Turn Customers into Loyal Fans – This section explains what does and does not work in creating a loyal fan base. For example, do most consumers treat reward cards as a way to express their brand loyalty or as a way to save money? It’s likely the latter reason. Rather than discounts or freebies, superb customer service is the best way to retain customers.

This section is also broken into three smaller parts to instruct users on the methods to improve their customer service:

Power of Surprise – Leverage the enjoyment of surprises by offering little thank you gifts, or spending time actually searching out your client to say hello.

Appreciation is Key – Acknowledge your appreciation by simply saying thank you. Touches like these stay with people and aren’t common. Stand out from the crowd.

Acknowledge Mistakes – When you provide a service that doesn’t meet customer expectation, listen and improve. Offer a small gesture of apology and they’ll likely return.

Final Summary – This section quickly ties together the threads of the course and asks how you can implement them into the business where you work.

This course covers many aspects of customer loyalty, and to do this it includes a variety of resources for the learner.

The videos act as the engine of the course to drive the learner to further appreciation of why customer loyalty is so important and how to create it. Other resources sure-up the message, but the videos are the main player. Use these to drive your understanding.

The four-page customer loyalty fact sheet feature the foundations of the course message. Without the researched facts that are provided in these pages the course would be only conjecture. All the hard details can be found right here; everything’s spelled out in black and white.