There are numerous advantages to holding an online discussion similar to a face-to-face setting. Through interactive interaction with their peers and the instructor, employees can extend their learning outside the classroom. An online discussion is similar to a face-to-face conversation in that it requires instructor moderating and active management, preparatory time, and summation of the concepts presented.

Online discussion forums: A brief introduction

All you could do in the past was post some e learning management system online and hope that your learners would find it. It wasn’t the best answer, but it was all the technology-enabled us to accomplish at the time. You can thank your lucky stars that educational technology has continued to advance.

We now have the applications we need to support any training program we can think of. The main issue is that technological advancements have occurred so swiftly that humans have had little opportunity to acclimatize. Maybe you’re afraid to take a chance and try something new. Perhaps you are unaware of the possibilities accessible to you. Whatever the case may be, now is the moment to embark on a journey into the future of training.

The Upsides of Online Discussion Forums

High-quality work

Given that employees have time to ponder their discussion contributions before posting, they can offer more resources and fascinating facts than they might in a face-to-face conversation on the same topic if the instructor makes the goals and requirements clear.

Preparation

Employees may or may not have prepared or read the material in face-to-face training. Still, they get enough time to look up the information and study the item before posting a response about it in an online discussion, especially for learners who may need extra time to prepare for meetings.

Netiquette

In the new millennium, we are all being forced to master a whole new set of social communication skills: properly debate subjects in an online format. The instructor plays a critical role in assisting trainees in developing their digital footprint via voices and personas in a polite and socially acceptable manner. This fosters a welcoming learning community for all. This is a skill that employees will apply in their personal and professional lives as technology for communication expands.

Writing abilities

Employees will have the opportunity to enhance their writing abilities if the instructor has high standards for the quality of the work that learners submit.

How to incorporate online discussion forums in corporate training?

Not all training managers are entirely out of touch with what’s going on in the industry. Some people have recognized that discussion groups can help them get more out of their training. Here are a few examples of how chat groups can be used. It’s possible that your training program already contains a group discussion that you’re unaware of.

Keeping learners in the forefront

It’s possible that the learners’ objective was not to form their discussion groups in the first place. Perhaps someone sends a WhatsApp message to a colleague, inviting another expert to join the group. They may also roll it out on LinkedIn or Facebook as more people are added. Before you realize what’s occurred, they’ve created a community of people passionate about the same thing.

Familiarizing with the discussion board

Employees will need some time to get used to the discussion board, especially if they are new to online courses or the learning management system (LMS) you are using. Introduce an LMS with a user-friendly discussion board. Provide advice on submitting posts and replies if yours is extremely clumsy. Even if you think your learners are tech-savvy, they may have little experience with this type of asynchronous, semiformal communication.

Searching for SMEs

Training managers can also use discussion groups to figure out who is the go-to person for any business-related information. Once again, gamification comes to the rescue! You can identify who has the most to say on any topic by adding a ‘top contributors’ leaderboard to each group. This simplifies the L&D department‘s job, and it also allows otherwise unnoticed people to be recognized for their competence.

Conclusion

Collaboration is exactly what your training program needs. You may add a social element to your training with relatively little effort. If your LMS already allows for group conversations, make sure you’re taking advantage of them. If not, you can start with an existing social app. That should tide you over until you can find the funds to invest in a feature-rich LMS like PlayAblo!

There are numerous advantages to holding an online discussion similar to a face-to-face setting. Through interactive interaction with their peers and the instructor, employees can extend their learning outside the classroom. An online discussion is similar to a face-to-face conversation in that it requires instructor moderating and active management, preparatory time, and summation of the concepts presented.

Online discussion forums: A brief introduction

All you could do in the past was post some e learning management system online and hope that your learners would find it. It wasn’t the best answer, but it was all the technology-enabled us to accomplish at the time. You can thank your lucky stars that educational technology has continued to advance.

We now have the applications we need to support any training program we can think of. The main issue is that technological advancements have occurred so swiftly that humans have had little opportunity to acclimatize. Maybe you’re afraid to take a chance and try something new. Perhaps you are unaware of the possibilities accessible to you. Whatever the case may be, now is the moment to embark on a journey into the future of training.

The Upsides of Online Discussion Forums

High-quality work

Given that employees have time to ponder their discussion contributions before posting, they can offer more resources and fascinating facts than they might in a face-to-face conversation on the same topic if the instructor makes the goals and requirements clear.

Preparation

Employees may or may not have prepared or read the material in face-to-face training. Still, they get enough time to look up the information and study the item before posting a response about it in an online discussion, especially for learners who may need extra time to prepare for meetings.

Netiquette

In the new millennium, we are all being forced to master a whole new set of social communication skills: properly debate subjects in an online format. The instructor plays a critical role in assisting trainees in developing their digital footprint via voices and personas in a polite and socially acceptable manner. This fosters a welcoming learning community for all. This is a skill that employees will apply in their personal and professional lives as technology for communication expands.

Writing abilities

Employees will have the opportunity to enhance their writing abilities if the instructor has high standards for the quality of the work that learners submit.

How to incorporate online discussion forums in corporate training?

Not all training managers are entirely out of touch with what’s going on in the industry. Some people have recognized that discussion groups can help them get more out of their training. Here are a few examples of how chat groups can be used. It’s possible that your training program already contains a group discussion that you’re unaware of.

Keeping learners in the forefront

It’s possible that the learners’ objective was not to form their discussion groups in the first place. Perhaps someone sends a WhatsApp message to a colleague, inviting another expert to join the group. They may also roll it out on LinkedIn or Facebook as more people are added. Before you realize what’s occurred, they’ve created a community of people passionate about the same thing.

Familiarizing with the discussion board

Employees will need some time to get used to the discussion board, especially if they are new to online courses or the learning management system (LMS) you are using. Introduce an LMS with a user-friendly discussion board. Provide advice on submitting posts and replies if yours is extremely clumsy. Even if you think your learners are tech-savvy, they may have little experience with this type of asynchronous, semiformal communication.

Searching for SMEs

Training managers can also use discussion groups to figure out who is the go-to person for any business-related information. Once again, gamification comes to the rescue! You can identify who has the most to say on any topic by adding a ‘top contributors’ leaderboard to each group. This simplifies the L&D department‘s job, and it also allows otherwise unnoticed people to be recognized for their competence.

Conclusion

Collaboration is exactly what your training program needs. You may add a social element to your training with relatively little effort. If your LMS already allows for group conversations, make sure you’re taking advantage of them. If not, you can start with an existing social app. That should tide you over until you can find the funds to invest in a feature-rich LMS like PlayAblo!

The term ‘eLearning’ first came into the limelight in 1999 in Los Angeles, amid a seminar on Computer Based Training (CBT). Even with limited Internet access to the general public at the time, training course developers (primarily programmers and IT experts) managed to create eLearning courseware accessible through the intranet, CD-ROM, and – to a lesser extent – a few websites. However, next-gen eLearning is primed to take off, with rapid communication available to the public and cloud-based learning on the rise. We’ll discuss what it takes to produce next-generation eLearning in this article.

What Are the Elements of Next-gen eLearning?

The next-gen eLearning will take a holistic approach to learning rather than focusing on singular ideas like learning outcomes or course completion. As a result, the guiding principles for a future-focused eLearning environment will be more eclectic and derived from a cross-pollination of diverse educational perspectives, such as cognitive constructivism, behaviorism, and socio-constructivism.

Dynamic and Concise

This implies that your classes must be responsive to your students’ changing demands and schedules. Learners may expect assignment submissions via social media postings or text messaging to be accepted in the future. Also, the modern employee faces time crunches, which means you’ll have to create brief courses that are to the point.

No Stereotypes

The contemporary learner will want their eLearning to be more than the text-heavy, cluttered approach that most courses now take. Instead, you’ll need to create courses that can be tailored to the needs of individual students.

On-the-go Learning

This implies mobile, on-demand, anytime, anywhere courses that work across various platforms (desktops, cellphones, tablets, and TVs) and feature seamless transitions — for example, starting a session on a smartphone, continuing on the office laptop, and finishing on a tablet at home.

Significant Trends that Will Shape the Next-gen eLearning Framework

In the coming years, eLearning as we know it will alter dramatically. That’s because as technology advances, so will changes in social behavior, which will influence how learners consume training content.

When building next-generation eLearning courses, keep the following trends and ideas in mind:

Micro-learning

Time will be one of the major constraints for the next generation of learners. As a result, eLearning will have to be lean and light, with content ingested in small chunks.

Social Learning

For the information, videos, news feeds, and live streaming events used in social learning, the respective eLearning courseware will need to be far more diverse. Your eLearning content will need to be available on various social media sites.

Multiple Platforms

Instead of only intranet or private cloud-based corporate infrastructure, the content will need to be built for sharing across public and open forums.

Measurable Learning

Core information in next-gen eLearning will need to be more measurable than available through Learning Management System capabilities. Course creators will need to integrate their content with advanced learning tracking and management tools such as predictive analytics.

How to Deploy Next-gen eLearning in Your Firm?

Instead of waiting until the next-gen eLearning becomes mainstream and more clarity emerges about where it is headed, instructional designers and eLearning developers can begin planning for the future of corporate training platform now.

• Assess the current state of the organization’s eLearning skills and strengths.
• Take a comprehensive inventory of all existing eLearning assets, including content, infrastructure, and personnel.
• Brainstorm, ideally with the support of Subject Matter Experts (SMEs), where the organization needs to be in terms of eLearning skills in the next decade.
• Create a detailed road map for preparing the firm to achieve its aim of being ready for next-generation eLearning.
• Determine all strategic, program-specific, platform-centric, and infrastructure-related adjustments that you will require to support the roadmap. Budget allocation, sourcing, and timing will all be critical decisions.
• Examine current corporate eLearning assets such as lesson plans, curriculum, video, audio, exercises, exams, and assessments, to see which ones need to be re-engineered or updated to match the company’s next-generation eLearning roadmap.
• Create short-term plans to design or update appropriate e learning courses to complement the company’s overall next-generation eLearning strategy.

Conclusion

It’s vital to remember that, just as eLearning has grown from its beginnings in 1999 to what it is now, next-gen eLearning will continue to evolve. As a result, when businesses begin preparing for next-generation eLearning, their strategies must be flexible. Roadmaps, action and project plans, and learning programs will need to alter to keep up with learners’ technological and social behavioral changes.

You’ve been assigned to create your first training course, and the deadline is approaching quickly. So, what’s next? That’s a bit abrupt beginning sentence for an article, but that’s how it can seem when you get your first e learning content production project. Where do you begin? What kind of final output is needed? What is even possible within the project’s schedule and budget constraints? There are numerous issues to be answered, but one of the most important is, “what type of material will you choose from the various eLearning content types?”

You might ask if there is a perfect roadmap for creating relevant and exciting eLearning content. Still, given the unique circumstances of each project, it’s impossible to cover

everything in one strategy.

The following are some of the various factors:

• The size of your group
• Quantity of content
• The topic at hand
• The appropriate form of content distribution
• The knowledge of the audience
• Your company’s objectives

Let’s look at the various eLearning content types to decide which ones best suit your eLearning project.

What Are the Most Popular eLearning Content Types?

Slide-based Content

When most people hear the term eLearning, they immediately think of slide-based courses. They entail the user participating in a self-paced course in which they examine slides with interactive units and the narration and other multimedia features. These courses frequently resemble PowerPoint presentations in appearance and feel.

In a myriad of scenarios, this type of information may be advantageous. Consider using it

if you’re looking for a way to: You may already have online learning resources in the form of presentations, documents, PDFs, or other formats that you can quickly convert into an online course.

• You need to convert some offline training to an online version quickly.
• You want to put onboarding new employees on autopilot.
• You need to obtain some fast refresher training on a new product or service.

Quizzes

Quizzes, exams, assessments, or knowledge checks – whatever you choose to call them – are an essential part of nearly any eLearning course. Why? Quizzes help you to keep track of your learners’ knowledge and guarantee that you meet your training’s learning objectives. They’re also a fun and interactive method to break up the content in your training modules and provide a natural breakpoint between important subjects that helps learners feel like they’re progressing through the course.

Videos

Video content is now viral, and for a good reason: it’s always more interesting than just text or photographs. You can incorporate video content in your eLearning in a variety of ways:

Videos that can be used in silos: You can only use video as a form of content. You

could, for example, make a series of films on a soft skill like conversations during a meeting.

Embedded videos: In your eLearning course, you can include videos. The video could feature original content, public domain footage, or stock footage. This methodology has the advantage of allowing you to use video for specific sections while also incorporating more interactive aspects within the course.

Interactive Videos

Learner apathy or lack of involvement can disadvantage traditional training films, especially in lengthier formats. This is where interactive videos come in handy. We can now deliver video interactions such as hotspots and quizzes thanks to advances in technology. This is the perfect choice when you want to provide consumers the ability to interact with the video’s content by allowing them to click, drag, scroll, hover, gesture, and perform other digital actions.

Samsung designed an interactive film that takes users through the camera’s various capabilities and navigation buttons. An interactive menu allows viewers to select whatever topics they wish to learn more about and instruct them on how.

VR and AR

Virtual and augmented reality are two new and successful techniques to give students real-world experience. Virtual reality is ideal for learning both human relationships and practical skills in real-world circumstances. Simulations allow you to practice reenacting real-life incidents and choose the best course of action.

Conclusion

As instructional designers or training developers, you strive to create corporate learning solutions that will assist your learners to improve their knowledge using the most effective approaches. It is critical to provide content that is simple for the learner to comprehend and remember. We hope that our blog has offered some valuable insights on how to develop your eLearning content.

In the current business scenario, workplace learning teams must be made up of the right people armed with the correct information. The roles of the concerned teams are shifting in tandem with the evolution of learning and development. To take on these increased duties, leaders must have the necessary skills and competencies. To comprehend how modern L&D teams should be constituted, you must first gauge what employers seek in new workers. Additionally, you must try to understand what the L&D function means to experts. While some L&D specialists want their employees to be familiar with the organization and the environment, others wish their team has an innate drive to learn. Digital proficiency, on the other hand, is a must-have. Let's now explore these points in further detail.

What Does the Learning Team Structure Look Like in a Contemporary Organisation?

If you consider the L&D job market, one aspect is crystal clear. Most of the recruiters are searching for the correct mentality and soft skills in their candidates. Some of these qualities include proactivity and innovation. On the other hand, L&D professionals should not hesitate in giving quantitative numbers to their influence and contribution. In the hard skills domain, the most critical elements are project management and analytics. Hiring requirements include several aspects. And L&D professionals must both be pros in playing a leading role in coming up with initiatives and reporting on their progress using data-driven analysis. Moreover, several companies opt to recruit people with an HR background for their L&D function.

The Evolving L&D Structure and Changing Expectations

Previously, it was widely assumed that content developers and program administrators alone should make up corporate learning teams. However, they are nowthe architects of a learning ecosystem. The L&D teams play a vital role in workforce development to keep the ecosystem going. The result?They must always be ready to become change drivers. They must also be proactive in putting in a lot of effort regarding accountability and responsibility. Traditional L&D competencies have been transformed because of these changes in the role. Hence, workplaces should pay close attention to the skilling of their L&D team structures.

A Successful Workplace Learning Team's Three Pillars

In L&D teams, one of the critical aspects is to have a diverse set of profiles. Now, what's the ideal recipe for a successful learning and development department? A mix of professionals possessing skills in data analysis or UX development. We should also have individuals with a keen understanding of psychology and behavior. Finally, we must include people from the business itself.

Business Profiles

Individuals with expertise in business and customer service possess a sound understanding of the needs of the company. They are in a better position to convert their knowledge into L&D policies more efficiently and have a clear idea of communicating with leaders, deciphering technical jargon, and understanding the organizational culture.

Data Analysts and Software Developers

The profiles mentioned above enable you to reap the multiple benefits of data analysis. You can take the help of the right analytics to aid in ensuring accountability of the organization's workplace learning team. How? Number crunching and analysis are used to assess the effectiveness and impact of training programs. User Experience, aka UE, and user-friendly platforms are other segments where UX and software engineers come in handy. As a result, they can nowdevelop new ideas and approaches to improve the learner's experience (LX). "An L&D function with outstanding standards on EX (employee experience) is scarce on the market, even if it is an essential component of its impacts," says David Hindley, former HRD for Danone and Disney. It is pretty necessary.

Psychologists

Profiles of psychologists or those with a social science background thoroughly understand human behavior and learning processes personally. Such experts can swiftly assess what triggers can be used to accelerate people's learning curves and knowledge acquisition. To better understand the organization's culture, mindset, and behaviors, you can provide them coaching sessions and assist them with learning frameworks and co-development processes. Psychologists also guarantee that the content created by their L&D team is pedagogically sound and reliable. They are the ones who will support people's development and help bridge the gaps in a workplace learning team framework.

An Exploration of the New Roles in a Workplace Learning Team

Aside from the changing responsibilities in today's environment, L&D competencies will also alter shortly. Companies are currently focusing on an employee's experience in a learning setting, for example. They do, however, seek employees with a UX development background. This combination could lead to the formation of the following profile:

Employee Learning Experience Designer 

These experts turn the knowledge that needs to be learned into better learning experiences. They are well-versed in the many learning methods and platforms (digital and offline) that may be used to optimize learning, and they have even designed some of them.

Data Analyst + Performance Consultant

This position will have a significant impact on the L&D department. Dual abilities are required for such a profile. The first is to examine data from business intelligence and learning and development. The figures should then be combined to report the effects of the workplace learning team's activities on business executives.

In short, the builders of a system that encourages the learning attitude make up the modern workplace learning team structure. So, what does this mean? The management must become involved to ensure the long-term viability of the structure. Keeping this in mind that the Community Engagement Manager's role will ensure that L&D teams take responsibility for ensuring the learning community's long-term viability. Second, content, communications, and fresh learning experiences must be updated regularly,so the employees remain interested.

Rounding it Up 

The new L&D organizational structure does not imply that established responsibilities will be eliminated. However, it indicates that in-demand skill sets will change. Organizations should commit to creating and acquiring the L&D attitude, as mentioned above, to meet these evolutionary needs. In a nutshell, the primary aspects of a successful L&D team will include expertise in organizational growth, change management, systemic thinking, and digital upskilling. Do you want to learn more? At PlayAblo, you can speak with one of our professionals. We're only a phone call away! Read more: e learning platform