Weekly Review - Sept 15-19 - Apple, TED-Ed, LitmosAuthor, TwitterChats

Apple, Apple, Joy, Joy... continues

The big news this week is still the new Apple product announcements.  I wrote a followup blog post about the impressive focus Apple puts on it's events and perhaps we should put the same amount of effort into our training events. While event-based learning is still belittled by some, I am firm believer in the important of training events...even classroom style events.

Did you download the new iOS8? Did you pre-order an iPhone 6 or 6 Plus? I'm in for a 6 Plus, and as nervous as I am excited about it. Will I hate the size? Will battery life stink? Will it fit in my pocket? What kind of accessories should I get to go along with it? Keyboard with stand?

Do You Like TED-Ed?

I also found another great video on TED-Ed and felt the need to ask if we should be using TED-Ed as a model for corporate training.  It's a simple tool, with customization features that give anyone the ability to create a lesson based on these very impressive videos. If you haven't checked it out, you should.

LitmosAuthor FTW!

And if you didn't know about the LitmosAuthor tool, the Product Manager wrote a great post about the impressive cost savings being seen with it's use.  You can check that post out here. I know a developer that's been a fan for a long time, and I didn't find out he was until I started working for Litmos. There are a lot of authoring tools to choose from, but LitmosAuthor has a couple aces you can't beat with other tools.  Check it out.

New CallidusCloud Acquisition

This week brought some fun news for the CallidusCloud team.  For those of you that may not know, CallidusCloud is the parent company of Litmos. Anyways... they acquired Clicktools this week.  You can read the press release here.

More Twitter Chat Fun

Another Fireside #lrnchat LIVE is in the can. Thanks to Will Constantine for joining me so I didn't have to do it alone. It's an hour long and so you probably don't want to just sit and watch.  At this point it's still an experiment.  I'm changing things weekly and just learning as I go.  At some point I think I'll edit these down to just the good parts and save you all from the long moments of silence.  It is, after all, based on a twitter chat. And so at times we're just following the Q&A stream.



Today begins another Twitter chat for L&D professionals called #Guildchat. And so that really gets me thinking about these Hangouts on Air. I'm really enjoying them and it's a great way to enhance a twitter chat.  So instead of coming up with a new name for each one, I think I will start doing this for all the twitter chats I attend and just brand the experience HangChats. What do you think?

Hope you all had a great week! Enjoy your weekend!

My Weekly Review - eLearning Tools, Iterative Development, Pedagogy, and more

I started the Week in Review posts on July 11th...yea...I've missed a few weeks...Sorry.

Here is my review for this week August 4-8.

eLearning Content Creation tools

Okay, so they aren't specifically tools just for eLearning. They are general content creation tools, but WOW! They are pretty darn cool! I suppose we have HTML5 to thank for giving browsers the ability to do this kind of content editing. Check out my posts at the Litmos blog to get my reaction to Adobe's Voice App for iPad, and 2 browser based tools: Canva.com and Placeit.net.

Iterative eLearning Development

My Litmos blog posts on tools distracted me from my series on iterative elearning development. But I will be getting back to it. Honestly, I was beginning to think that my thoughts on 21st Century Corporate Training Development were perhaps a little too radical...perhaps before its time. But then this morning I saw a post on G+ from my UK eLearning friend, Clive Shepherd. His post is "Why eLearning Should be in Perpetual Beta". He is such a great writer, and has SO much industry experience that perhaps you will better understand the process I'm attempting to define by reading his posts on the topic as well. Here's a small piece...

"I once asked the CEO of a major e-learning company how much of their work was maintenance of existing content, thinking that this would be a substantial revenue earner. I was surprised to find that hardly anyone maintains their content. They just wait four or five years for the content to become obsolete, then they start all over again."

I believe, no matter what we call it, corporate training development and support as an ongoing service is where 21st century learning development is headed. The days of a 1-off product launch are numbered:  Still necessary in some situations, but not the norm.

My Hangups with Pedagogy

I published a post recently titled Mobile Learning - No Pedagogy Required! It sparked quite a conversation which I enjoyed immensely. I like to think out loud...publicly if necessary. Go to the post and catch up on the comments if you would like to engage.  But as a review I wanted to comment on the conversation.  Everyone was kind and rational in stating their views, thoughts, and opinions. Even the disagreements were cordial and I just wanted to say thanks to everyone who spent so much time on thoughtful responses.  

Seeking clarity and understanding is not always easy. Asking questions on the internet often leads to putting people on the defensive and the conversations spiral downward out of control. But conversations like this remind me why I love the social nature of the internet.

Random Stuff...

The Litmos team has started weekly webinars focused on different aspects of LitmosLMS. This week's webinar tutorial was a big success! If you're a Litmos user be sure to put it on your calendar...or watch the recordings. Madeline (@mghonig) Does a fantastic job!

#lrnchat was fun this week. I was distracted by...SQUIRREL...#dadchat though. Lots of fun with those folks as well. But the best part was finding this...Thanks daddydazed.com.

And with that I'll leave you to your weekend! Cheers!

Brent Schlenker Joins the Litmos Team

Today I announced on the Litmos blog that I am now the Chief Learning Strategist for Litmos.  This is an amazing opportunity that I've been looking forward too for quite a while.  You can read the post here.
I've been less active on social media over the last couple years, with a couple attempts to jump back into the game only to fizzle out shortly after (re)starting. But now I can say with certainty that you will be seeing a lot more of me on the internet and at industry events. And, of course, with my new friend Lenny.

Lenny! 

And I'm certain some of you are scratching your heads and wondering "why Litmos"? Well...read the post on the Litmos blog first.
But the REAL reason is that any company willing to let me bring a magician/entertainer (the amazing +Brian Brushwood ) to their booth and drive a nail through his nose...well...those are fun people I want to work with. :)

Brian Brushwood and the amazing nail-in-the-nose trick!

I look forward to meeting the Litmos customers and continuing to help the industry move forward in new and exciting ways.