E-Learning Content Archive - Page 2 of 4

Falk Hegewald is confident that the upcoming big changes are here to stay – well beyond 2022. Many major corporations are driving the development of virtual reality and metaverse. Nike recently acquired a design studio that “produces” NFTs and virtual running shoes.

“The key driver for metaverse is to create a world where you can play. However, that world will also feature workspaces. We are already entering that world with virtual meeting rooms,” Hegewald explains. “At imc, we are taking that as an incentive to develop the 3D aspects of our content to gain a head start in the creation of such digital worlds and environments.”

This year will also see a strong focus on more engaging content that both motivates and captivates the learner. Not everything needs to be a game, Falk Hegewald claims: “You can also use novel engaging activities and formats. There is already demand for inspiring training, as companies have realised that they need to get more buy-in from their employees. As a premium content provider, we can deliver that.”

Adaptive learning will also be very relevant for content in the year ahead. In the past, the focus was on learning management systems featuring intelligent interfaces that facilitate appropriate distribution of training courses. Now, we are moving towards skill management through content. Falk Hegewald is confident that adaptive e-learning content will be in demand this year. “You rarely need everyone to learn everything. Employees with different levels of knowledge attend the same training course. Testing prior knowledge and leveraging suitable tools to assign content becomes a whole lot easier if the content is adaptive, too.”

Last year, Falk Hegewald was particularly excited about the "Cyber Crime Time"awareness game, which deals with IT security issues by letting the learner take on the role of a hacker. Step by step, they learn the most common cyber-attacks first hand. “This goes well beyond your typical off-the-shelf content, be that from us or from our competitors. We wanted to create something that gets the employees’ attention.”

Yet, that was only the first step: This year, Cyber Crime Time will be expanded to include additional training courses and learning nuggets – smaller learning units. “Our aim is to create an entire training world for IT security so Cyber Crime Time remains exciting for our customers,” Hegewald explains.

Falk Hegewald’s department also had their hands full designing custom content for corporate clients throughout 2021: They created a wide range of complex learning content, as well as complete digital learning journeys – covering everything from onboarding through corporate strategy to exciting sales training for customers like Jägermeister. “Generally speaking, many of our customers were more daring in their content design and presentation this past year. We love that trend and believe there is room for even bolder creative moves in the stories and the design,” says Hegewald.

Companies are forever looking to attract talents and retain them long-term. The right onboarding and employee development are playing an ever-greater role in this quest.

To feed into that ambition, it is important that professional development content is up-to-date and dynamic. Falk Hegewald explains: “Young talents joining the job market are used to a different pace, they use media in a totally different way. It can become very challenging for a company to keep them engaged.”

That is why a key aspect will be to make onboarding and professional development courses accessible on all devices, enabling the latest generation of employees to learn anytime and anywhere.

As Head of the Division, Falk Hegewald always gets excited when new colleagues bring fresh and interesting ideas, as is often the case when they join straight out of university. “This type of inspiration is vital. As a content department, we always need to keep an open mind for new ideas.”

Mobile data, free internet access and remote work make us flexible – and a target for attacks. Cyber criminality is on the rise. Gone are the days where only a handful of hackers tried to obtain our data and – sadly – our money.

To protect themselves, companies must establish effective IT security management. Simply implementing technical measures is no longer enough. The human factor – each company employee – is the most crucial component for successful IT security. Awareness training can be leveraged to sensitise employees to the dangers of cyber-attacks: Knowing about potential dangers helps to stave off criminal hackers.

A hacker need not have programming skills. Social hacking, for example, involves the perpetrator calling selected persons, asking them for their password for ostensible reasons. If the victim actually reveals their password, psychological and linguistic tricks are employed. The technical skills one would typically connect with the term “hacking” are not used.

This makes it even more important to sensitise staff to such threats – they are dealing with a vast array of them. Few people know offhand what malware, ransomware, identity fraud, phishing or social engineering is all about.

But wait a minute! Not only big enterprises and publicly listed corporations are potential victims, Roman Muth, Security Officer for Cloud Solution and Architecture at imc AG shares: “Recently, SMEs have often been targeted by cyber criminality, since large corporations tend to be better protected these days. However, the tactics are similar. The masterminds first approach employees to identify vulnerabilities and obtain information they can use to damage the company, and maybe even blackmail it and extort money.”

To create a lasting impact, employee training needs to start with sensitising employees and creating awareness.

No matter how abstract the subject, training needs to do two things to be fully absorbed and understood by the participants: It must capture their attention and show how it is relevant for their day-to-day work. Theoretical constructs that seem foreign to employees and have little to do with their reality at work are forgotten before they even click the final tab.

That is why imc developed an awareness game: to help learners grasp the issue while motivating them to dive deeper into IT security.

Different companies have different requirements for their onboarding process. They might want to use modular and future-proof concepts, achieve cost and time savings compared to current approaches, or enable employees to start working sooner. Moreover, the pandemic has accelerated the need for digital onboarding as face-to-face training has not been possible. Despite the pandemic introducing more relaxed, remote working arrangements, hybrid work arrangements will become the norm; hence digital onboarding will become the tool to deliver a great first experience to new employees.

Yet, companies are not the only stakeholders – Employees have their own expectations of the onboarding process. This is why many HR managers are deciding on learner-centric onboarding that revolves around the needs of new employees:

“I want to know what makes my company tick,” – “I want to feel like I’m becoming part of the community,” – “I want to improve my skills.”

To achieve that, your onboarding needs a framework that provides guidance and an emotional connection while assessing the current state of knowledge and developing expertise.

This article explains how to design an exciting and creative digital onboarding process with new and existing e-learning content, even without a learning management system (LMS).

Our experts are always developing concepts suitable for a wide range of requirements. Get a head start with our “best of” compilation. Let’s imagine this situation: You want to digitise five days of basic training that has always been conducted on site. You are looking at a very diverse group of participants. The target group for this training extends beyond new colleagues, and also includes “old hands,” as well as some external service providers. They each have a different level of prior knowledge, different hardware, and different levels of access to a learning management system (LMS). Some might not have any access at all.

How do you satisfy them all? The solution is to design a structured framework for digital onboarding. Our experts recommend getting a head start with these 6 modules:

The virtual kick-off at the beginning of each training day serves to agree and discuss the agenda and objectives for the day together with the trainers. The focus should be on social onboarding, on promoting interaction between the participants. Our experts recommend a playful warm-up with surveys, icebreakers, or activation games aka energisers. Why not play a round of “I packed my bag” to get started? It is helpful to establish a meeting netiquette, specifying that cameras and microphones must be switched on.

In the self-learning phase, each learning format achieves a specific objective. For example, digital performance cards help employees gain knowledge with a certain focus, and then apply it in simulations as part of web-based training. Virtual scavenger hunts help them familiarise themselves with the company or the intranet. Companies can also integrate existing training courses or offer individually tailored or branded content. Variation between different e-learning formats has proven particularly effective.

Finally, the learner makes their personal entry in the learning diary. An easy way to integrate the diary is to design a page in the intranet, a document in the cloud or a form that mirrors the central starting point, and which each participant completes for themselves. This serves to summarise the core messages from the workshops or formulate the questions and tasks for the self-learning phase, as well as compiling key insights from the training courses. The personal learning diary thus becomes an individual reference resource participants can look things up in long after their onboarding.

Digital onboarding works. This approach can absolutely be appropriate while also saving resources. Nevertheless, some onboarding processes are easier to realise in a hybrid format. Of course, that does require new employees to travel to the location.

One example for a good hybrid solution would be to communicate theoretical content through online self-study, and then bring participants on site to carry out specific actions, such as operating machinery. The face-to-face part of the training can then be utilised for practical exercises and to clarify questions.

Similarly, a dual approach helps with understanding the corporate culture. For instance, companies might invite new employees for an intro day before their first day of work. Make the most of this day by asking colleagues to talk about how they realise the values, objectives, and mission of the company in their daily work. This meeting can also be leveraged to establish an emotional connection with new recruits and build enthusiasm for the company.

In our experts’ experience, it is not as clear-cut as one approach being universally better. Rather, it is about selecting suitable formats and linking them in a helpful way based on the new employees’ needs and the learning objectives.

The effective observation and research to successfully capture the human-centred approach are quite simple. Designers would need to consult and collaborate with the end-user. They would need to immerse themselves in the world of an employee, engage with them, ask them questions, get to know their work environment, watch them work to gain an accurate understanding of what it is like to be in their shoes.

For human-centred design to work well, it requires a holistic “hands-on approach” to understand how employees approach their work and why they do things the way they do.

After consulting with the employees to understand their specific needs, a designer would draft a ‘finished enough to test’ plan of the e-learning course.

The next stage would be to hold a video conference with users and walk them through the plan, taking in any feedback they may have. Once feedback has been incorporated, the building of the e-learning course will take place. After this, designers would need to have the users test it again.

Basically, these last few steps would be repeated until the e-learning content is refined enough that it is ready for publication!

The imc team utilised the human-centred design approach to find a solution for the onboarding of new staff to the Victorian Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS). With collaborations and workshops, we worked closely with the client and their subject matter experts to understand what separates DHHS and makes them a leading workplace for new employees.

The main aim of this module was to make new starters feel connected to the organisation, their role and how they are part of the bigger picture for DHHS.

For us to really understand and empathise with our learners, we need to be talking directly to our target audience as best we can.

Too often, e-learning can make the mistake of focusing on the training itself rather than the target audience.

By going out into the field and meeting with our learners, the human-centred design provides the best way possible to build up an accurate representation of the people we are hoping to inform and educate. This, in turn, leads to e-learning content that is both engaging and practical.

... and suddenly, the training had to be scrapped. Many companies made that experience in lockdown number one. Employees needed to be trained, but the training was postponed due to Corona. Again. And again. However, most types of training simply cannot be endlessly postponed or even be cancelled altogether.

A pragmatic and swift solution is needed – training needs go where the employees are: their home office. For many companies, that means digitising learning content, and doing so quickly. They need rapid content development. This trend was already apparent before Corona, but the pandemic greatly increased the demand for the technologies that facilitate rapid content development.

This article explores what qualifies as rapid content development, what type of learning content is suitable for rapid digitisation, and what risks a strong focus on speed entails.

We want things now: fast food, coffee to go, messenger services, online shopping … we no longer have time. Companies have also clocked onto this trend, and want to stay up to date with their training courses. An ever-increasing amount of knowledge is expected to be available almost instantly on various media while maintaining a high quality standard and staying within budget.

The solution: rapid content development. But wait a minute! No matter how fast you go, the quality of the overall learning solution must not be compromised. That’s why learning experts like Eva Lettenbauer always look at the big picture.

Especially at the beginning of the pandemic, many companies were facing the challenge of having to digitalise their face-to-face training in a short space of time. However, directly transitioning classroom-based training courses to a virtual classroom or web session is not always effective, and it’s most certainly not efficient.

That is why we always examine the specific issues and objectives. This allows us to digitise specific learning content in a way that drives outcomes and boosts performance.

Since requirements differ as widely as the type of knowledge to be conveyed, digital solutions vary enormously. We start by analysing the sharable knowledge and the desired outcome. We also examine if the integration of certain existing learning solutions or curated content would add value, and examine the suitability of different learning infrastructures. Finding the right formats for the content at hand has to be a priority, as this then allows new content to be created quickly and systematically.

LivePerson’s Consumer Preferences for Conversational Commerce survey found two-thirds of consumers would like to message with brands. Again, this reflects a preference for consumers to do business with companies that answer questions immediately.

Australian consumers are among the highest levels of chatbot users worldwide. Consumers particularly in younger age brackets, are interested in the convenience and ease that chatbot interaction can offer, but they can still be sceptical of bots and prefer human interaction.

However, when developed effectively, chatbots are extremely valuable and can offer a very unique way to forge a connection and develop valuable insights

Chatbot learning has evolved because we are now in an age where education has become more accessible than ever. We are constantly in pursuit of better, faster, and deeper ways to learn.

Adult learners are busy and rarely a priority to make time to learn, but utilising chatbot can change this tendency with spikes in productivity because of personable and knowledgeable training assistance.

Additionally, it can offer a welcome change to employees, with interactive training elements to engage them with high knowledge retention and put them in control of their own learning journeys.

Some of the advantages of incorporating chatbot learning include:

Real-time analytics dashboards, these measure the most commonly asked questions, track active and engaged learners versus learners who are not engaged, view the interactions that happen during off-hours, and evaluate learners’ skill development.
They will encourage employees to be more productive and better placed to learn at their own pace when they need support.
They can push out personalised information to learners.
They can review and access all learner created questions and responses.
They reduce the workload of trainers.

An example of a conversational learning chatbot approach developed by imc Australia was deployed in the New South Wales Environment Protection Authority (EPA). The chatbot complemented the Compost Facility Management Training by teaching learners some of the basics of the main concepts in the e-learning program, such as Odour, Pasteurisation, Contamination and the Composting Process. It was also operating as a driver to motivate participants to want to learn more by going on to complete the Compost Facility Management course.

imc Australia used engaging design (Chatbot framework) and a conversational learning approach to teach participants about technical concepts involved in composting, using an informal and fun approach to gain their interest and inspire them to complete further study on the subject. You can register on the EPA’s learning management system here.

Moreover, imc created a chatbot that uses more informal language and uses GIFs as well as emojis to make it a more interactive experience for learners.

We have implemented GIFs within our chatbot learning because they can make learning more vivid and entertaining.

Here are some of the benefits of using GIFs in e-learning:

They visually represent ideas and information in a few seconds
They are easier to follow than a series of still images
They usually run in a loop and are also perceived out of the corner of the eye
They are much easier to create than higher-end video content
They can play automatically on almost any system
They trigger emotions. The stronger the emotion, the better the memory

When it comes to the concept of play, we usually think about the interactions of children. A child’s imagination is not the limit of play. This is demonstrated by the Latin term “homo ludens” which means “the people playing”. Our play instinct is very pronounced, regardless of how old we are. This is because games offer us a world of fun and creativity. We mostly play in a digital context in the modern world, and institutions and companies alike can take advantage of this through gamified learning.

Usually, the younger the age bracket, the more games are played. According to a report entitled Digital Australia, 84% of Australians between the ages of 15-24 play video games of some kind. However, in the age bracket of 35-44, 76% of the population still actively play. The most common household device, by 2015, was the PC, closely followed by smartphones¹. Regardless of the device or how they are played, people are still clearly engaged by games. Often this level of engagement goes one step further, where players lapse into what is known as a “flow”. This is where you are intensely concentrating on a game whilst it becomes effortless at the same time.

Scientists estimate that if we watched children for a whole day, we would see them play at least seven hours a day. There’s a good reason for that: Children learn from games. Playing improves their motor and cognitive skills and can boost their confidence and self-awareness.

This positive impact is not limited to children. Playing even enables adults to fully exploit their potentials. The brain is revved up to the max during a game.

Many large companies utilise this very fact in the professional development and qualification of their employees. We took a closer look at the most popular types of games, and summarised practical examples for potential applications.

Learning adventures:

A great tool for changing perspectives, helping to convey emotional content and sensitise participants for specific topics.

Learning adventures are based on the genre of point-&-click adventures. They focus on explorative learning and discovery, integrating storytelling – content is linked with an exciting story. imc applied this principle in the adventure game City of Goods created for Linde Materials Handling. During a virtual visit to the warehouse, participants need to discover, document and collect potential optimisations.

Simulation games:

A strong contender for learning practical skills. Knowledge is primarily transferred through interdependencies and the cause-effect principle. Simulations present a simplified picture of reality, which can be changed through the parameters or algorithms in the game code. This type of learning is particularly helpful for movement flows, dangerous actions or machine handling with high cost risks. Flight simulators used in pilot training [LINK to Lufthansa case study] are a well-known example.

I already knew early on that I wanted to do something creative. That has guided me throughout my life. Even as a child, I was always drawing. But I also had a knack for technology and took web design courses while at school.

Studying something in that field was therefore an obvious choice. So, I did my degree in screen and web design in Freiburg and specialised in game design. That was very exciting, as it also gave me the opportunity to partake in the programming of several mobile phone games and development of PC games.

During my studies, I took several courses with Falk Hegewald, the Head of our content department, and that’s how I ended up at imc.

Once an order is confirmed, the project managers and instructional designers clarify directly with the customer what they need and what they have in mind. The colleagues already develop a rough concept at this point, which they then hand over to us.

Next, design comes into it. You could say we are contributing visual creativity. We make suggestions on style, colours, font, as well as the atmosphere in a training course. We often also utilise mood boards where we sketch our proposals to help the customer picture it better. Then comes the base design.

Especially at the start of a project, close coordination is crucial, as it helps us understand what the customer has in mind and prevent us developing something in conflict with that vision. Books make for a good analogy here: Every reader pictures the described figures differently. That’s why screen adaptations are so difficult to create and often lead to disappointment. Obviously, we want to avoid that.

We recently had a very cool project with a large customer. The topic itself couldn’t sound less exciting: data protection and data appreciation. We took this topic and turned it into a 3D world called “Dataland”. Here, the user can chat to the data, look at different levels, and explore this world bit by bit. Each file, each bit of data has its own story. For example, data can be sad when it’s not taken care of properly.

This all looks incredible, and the creation process was great fun. Back then, our whole team spent hours drawing and writing together to determine which file might experience what story, and how we can best illustrate that. That was an incredibly creative process and just brilliant teamwork.

But the fraud prevention training we created for Audi was also very special. For that, we developed an entire comic-style world based on Sin City. I figured out where sound effects could be integrated or when it would start raining. Details like these were decisive for the mood of the training course.

I’m a little torn. Of course, I spend a lot of time in front of the computer in my job, and there are many positive aspects – especially in these times. We must be thankful that we can already do so many things online, from shopping to video conferences. However, it’s still not the same as meeting someone in person.
For example, in the project I described earlier, it was such a beautiful feeling to work together – to draw on a whiteboard together, make corrections, redesign, discuss as a team. The thought and work processes are different in the digital sphere. I don’t think you can reproduce or replace it.

The science fiction epic "Avatar" from 2009 is still considered the most successful 3D film of all time. "Titanic" director James Cameron immerses the viewer in a strange, magnificent world full of beauty and, at the same time, grave danger. While cinema-goers still had to wear 3D glasses for Avatar, it is now possible to get the same effect without them. Professional development content can also benefit from spatially compelling images. That's why the imc 3D Map content format is currently so popular with imc clients. What is 3D Map? We've taken a look at it.

Exploratory learning with 3D Map – it might look something like this in James Cameron's world: The learner opens a spatially dynamic map of Pandora's Earth-like yet alien lunar landscape. He can go to different regions of Pandora and zoom in to get acquainted with the life and culture of the natives. He meets the beautiful Nav'vi woman Neytiri, chats with her and supports her in the battle that will decide the fate of the planet and its inhabitants. What makes this learning scenario so special – apart from lots of fiction?

First of all, learning in this visually engaging environment is interactive. The learner can interact with objects and beings, such as the Nav'vi woman Neytiri, in the 3D world. As a guide or a kind of personal assistant, Neytiri assists the learner with tips and tricks. Moreover, learning becomes an exploratory process. In other words, there is very little that is pre-structured. The learner is free to decide where to navigate next. While actively exploring the virtual space, learners have to independently work out a solution to the problem to the extent possible – in this case, to save the planet. And they experience the consequences of their plan: Salvation or Pandora's downfall? Drama, baby, Drama!

Another concrete example for the use of the imc 3D Map is a virtual world called "Moto City".

This year’s e-learning content trends

Interview with Falk Hegewald, Director E-Learning at imc

INFO

Now, we’re really getting started: 3D, VR and Metaverse

INFO

Engaging content and adaptive learning

Premium off-the-shelf content will be big next year

The war for talents goes into the next round

As Content Director, what are you looking forward to this year?

Gamification takes corporate learning to a new level

Awareness trainings are the key to success in the prevention of cyber attacks

Contact person

Awareness training: The key to success in preventing cyber attacks

There are two types of companies: those which have already been hacked, and those that will be hacked in the future.

Cybercrime comes in many forms

Creating awareness through gamified learning

GOOD TO KNOW

Gamification takes corporate learning to a new level

Computer Games in Professional Development

Contact Person

Six vital modules for every digital onboarding concept

A blueprint for efficient onboarding with lasting impact

An illustration of the key building blocks

My Digital Onboarding Kit – The modules in detail

GOOD TO KNOW

Digital vs hybrid onboarding

We linked a special treat for anyone interested in hybrid onboarding:

Digital Learning Journey

LMS Hot Topics: Science fiction or near future?

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Design thinking with a human perspective

When done well, human-centred design can resonate deeply with its audience. We're looking into the importance of using this technique in e-learning and how it can look like in a practical example from Australia.

Imagining human-centred design

How effective is this?

What do human-centred design observation and research look like?

The steps of human-centred design

A practical example: State of Victoria meets imc

A human-centred solution

Focus on the learner, please!

Rapid Content Development

Conversational Chatbot Learning

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Rapid Content Development: Creating E-Learning Trainings Quickly

Why fast creating digital trainings is possible but risky

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Speedy please – but without quality loss

Hi Eva, thanks for “quickly” making time for us. How did you experience the rapid content development hype last year?

How do you handle requests for “rapid” content?

What risks does rapid content development involve, and how do you avoid them?

When would you recommend slowing down?

GOOD TO KNOW

What are the limits for content creation with authoring tools?

What would a worst-case scenario look like? How “not to” do it?

How about a quick summary? Happy to be at your service:

Digital Learning Journey

User-generated elearning content meets artificial intelligence

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Learning with chatbots

Chatbots have advanced so far that it can sometimes be harder to distinguish between robots and humans. Learn more about how chatbots can be incorporated into corporate training to develop engaged employees.

Connecting with the consumers using a chatbot

Chatbots can become a robot teacher

What are the benefits of chatbot learning for organisations?

How can chatbots be used in corporate e-learning?

Let’s Chat Compost

Chatbot learning utilises interactive elements

What do chatbots mean for your e-learning

Gamified Learning to Drive Learner Motivation

Villeroy & Boch Chatbot Learning

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I just want to play!

Why gamified learning increases employee motivation

Our play instinct

It’s time to get serious

Drill and practice games

Quiz games

Point and click adventure games

The "City of Goods"

Learning through experience

The psychological benefit of gamified learning

Intrinsic