ls10 110 christopher-a

March 24 – 26, 2010 Orlando, FL

Page 1Session 110 – Making the Most of Polls in Web Conferences – Darlene Christopher, International Finance Corporation

Making the Most of Polls in Web Conferences

Copyright 2010 Darlene Christopher. All rights reserved

Darlene ChristopherWorld Bank Group

1



Online help covers the mechanics of polling…

2



3



Agenda

• Why Use Polls?• Poll Examples• Designing Polls• Polling in a Live Session

Copyright 2010 Darlene Christopher. All rights reserved 4



Why Use Polls?

5



Scavenger Hunt Example

Copyright 2010 Darlene Christopher. Copyright 2010 Darlene Christopher. All rights reservedAll rights reserved 11



Quiz Before Revealing Content

Which of the following synchronous learning systems has the largest market share?

oAdobe Connect oWebExoMicrosoft LiveMeeting




Quiz Before Revealing Content

The top three synchronous learning systems by market share are:

WebEx 43%Microsoft LiveMeeting 29%Adobe Connect 25%




Agenda

Why Use Polls?Poll ExamplesDesigning PollsPolling in a Live Session




Polls = Mini Surveys




Learning Objectives Drive Poll Development

16Copyright 2010 Darlene Christopher.

All rights reserved



Poll = Question + Answer Choices


Is this the first eLearning Guild Conference you have attended?

o Yeso No

17



Formulating Questions




Keep it Short

If given the choice of taking a self-directed course or an instructor led-course on corporate governance, which would you prefer?

o Self-directed courseo Instructor-led course




Avoid Double-Barreled Questions

Have you used Microsoft Excel to create pivot tables and macros?

o Yeso No




Avoid Acronyms and Unclear Language

Do you know the name of your department’s DISCO representative?

o Yeso No




Avoid Leading, Biased Questions

Why do you prefer training via web conference over traditional classroom training?

Overall ConvenienceTime savingsInteractivityOther




Formulating Responses




Mutually Exclusive Responses

Where are you right now?

o At worko At homeo At hotel




Can You Improve This Poll?

How long have you worked at your current position?o 0-1 yearso 2-4 yearso 3-10 yearso 12-20 years




Can You Improve This Poll?

Have you rebalanced your 401(k) since the economic downturn?o Yeso No




Formulating Responses

• Use plain language• Use mutually exclusive responses• Use number increments in equal amounts• Include options for outliers• Include a “don’t know” option when

appropriate




Agenda

• Why Use Polls?• Designing Polls• Poll Examples• Polling in a Live Session




Polling Challenges




Polling in a Live Session


PROBLEMSTechnology Poor timing

Broadcasting results too earlyLow response rate

Facilitator ignores poll

SOLUTIONS

30



Tips for Polling

• Don’t overuse• Don’t underuse• Keep survey best practices in mind• Script and rehearse




Want to Join Me in the Web Conferencing Discussion?

32

At the Conference

• Speaker ClinicWednesday 4:00 – 5:00 PM

• Breakfast Byte: Challenges and Solutions for GlobalWeb Conferencing Thursday 7:15 - 8:15 AM

Online

• Twitter: @darlenec

• Delicious: darlenechristopher

• Web Conferencing ZoneWebconferencingzone.blogspot.com

October 6, 2008

Effective use of polls during

synchronous e-Learning

events can increase partici-

pant engagement, help

facilitator performance,

and raise learning levels.

This week’s article provides

a quick primer of best

polling practices that will

reward the effort you put

into designing and using

these quick surveys!

Best Practices for Polling inWeb ConferencesBy Darlene Christopher

Ahigh level of interactivity and audience engage-

ment is vital for successful Web conferencing

sessions. Most Web conferencing platforms

offer a simple but effective interactivity feature: the poll.

Well-designed polls can enhance your sessions and

give a boost to your audience engagement. Poorly de-

signed polls can frustrate your audience and have the

opposite effect. To avoid such pitfalls, one should think of polls as “mini-surveys.” We can apply survey best practices to maximize theresults of polling during live online training events.

In this article, I will explore the keys to designing effective polls and deliveringthem during a synchronous learning session. Instructional designers who set upand support Web conferencing events, and those who facilitate these events,will find practical tips to improve the effectiveness of polling. While this articlefocuses specifically on polls for training events, the techniques discussed applyto other types of Web conferencing events, including marketing events, onlinefocus groups, and more.

What is polling and why use it?Polling allows the facilitator to post questions to participants and display poll

results in real time. It’s one of the easiest ways to interact with the audience in aWeb conference, and it is fast, fun, and scalable. Typically, a facilitator posts apoll and participants begin responding immediately. Both facilitators and partici-pants watch as the poll results keep changing in real time until all responses arecollected. An audience new to polling will find it especially fun to see responsesand immediate feedback in real time. Participants can know whether others res-

A publication of

THIS WEEK: Design Techniques

The eLearning Guild’s

Practical Applications of Technology for Learning

SM

Extra InsightsPage 8

Design Techniques

2LEARNING SOLUTIONS | October 6, 2008

should be loaded with polling questions. Never do pol-ling for the sake of polling – do it with a specific pur-pose in mind. For example, the purpose of a poll maybe to elicit information about the audience, to quiz par-ticipants, to allow participants to self-reflect, or to evalu-ate the session in real-time.

In the rest of this article, I will describe best practicesfor designing and implementing first-rate polls for Webconferences. Keep in mind that writing polls, and deter-mining how to integrate them into your live online teach-ing, is an iterative process. As you start to develop yoursession outline, you may see places where a poll willnaturally fit into the flow of the session. If you are devel-oping a PowerPoint presentation, use a placeholderslide to “bookmark” the spot where you think the pollwill work. Continue with the development of the contentof your session, since at this point you don’t need tofully develop the poll. As you start to finalize the contentof the session, you can begin writing the polls. By work-ing in this order you prevent the misstep of polling forpolling’s sake.

Designing pollsOne way to think about polls in a synchronous learn-

ing session is to reframe them as mini-surveys. Thinkabout a recent survey that you took, or perhaps design-

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ponded as they did to an opinion question, if they sel-ected the right answer to a quiz question, and more. It’san easy way to engage participants, especially those newto Web conferencing. These participants may be reluc-tant to speak, or to type in the chat box, but will oftenjump right in and respond to a poll. Additionally, pollingis scalable: whether you have an audience of five or fivehundred, a live Web poll instantly tallies responses fromas many participants as your platform accommodates.

This real-time questioning and answering providesthe facilitator and the participants alike with immediatefeedback on topics relevant to the conference. Pollingcan reveal interesting information about the audience’sbackground, their knowledge level, opinions on the top-ics of your session, and a range of other data. Guildmembers also believe that using features such as pollshelps produce effective learning, according to the June2008 360º Report on Synchronous Learning Sys-tems. (See Figure 1 on page 3.) According to thisresearch, 74.5% of respondents who strongly agreethat synchronous learning can be as effective as class-room instruction use polling. By contrast, only 61.1% ofres-pondents who are not strong believers in synchro-nous learning use polling.

However, just because it’s easy and interesting topoll the audience doesn’t mean that a Web conference

While this articlefocuses specifically onpolls for trainingevents, the techniquesdiscussed apply toother types of Webconferencing events,including marketingevents, online focusgroups, and more.

you prefer for further training on project management?”eliminates the bias of the question.

Formulating responses

Best practices for formulating responses include:Use plain language. As with the polling question,

use plain and simple language when writing a list ofres-ponses. Keeping the responses short and to the

ed. It most likely included a few multiple-choice ques-tions, and the purpose of the questions was to gainfeedback from an audience. Sounds a bit like a poll,right? Since surveys and polls share many similarities, it makes sense to review best practices for surveys andkeep them in mind when writing your polls.

Let’s begin by breaking down a generic poll item intotwo parts: (1) the question or comment line, and (2) theresponses. The question or comment line is the state-ment that your participant will respond to. Responsesare the list of answers your participants choose from.(See Figure 2 on page 4.)

Formulating questions

Best practices for formulating questions include:Keep it short. The question should be clear and

concise, and written in plain language. Review eachword of your question statement to make sure it’s nec-essary, simplifying any unclear language. An example ofa wordy question is, “If given a choice of taking a self-directed course or an instructor-led course to learnabout corporate governance, which would you select?”You can reword and shorten this question, while main-taining the essence of it: “To learn about corporate gov-ernance, would you prefer a self-directed program, oran instructor-led course?”

Avoid double-barreled questions. A double-bar-reled question contains two issues or ideas presentedas a single question. For example “How often do yousearch for and enroll in classes using the learning man-agement system?” A person who searches for classeson a regular basis but never enrolls would have difficul-ty answering this question. If they did answer the ques-tion, the validity of the poll results would be question-able. Making this two questions solves the problem.The first question is, “How often do you search forclasses using the learning management system?” Thesecond question then is, “How often do you enroll inclasses using the learning management system?”

Eliminate acronyms or unclear language. If yourorganization is anything like mine you speak an alpha-bet soup of acronyms, that tend to creep into our writ-ing. Avoid acronyms, or spell them out in the question.For example, “How often do you use the new LMS?”Don’t assume that your participants know what LMSstands for – spell it out. Thus a clearer way to write thisquestion is, “How often do you use the new learningmanagement system?”

Avoid leading or biased questions. A leadingquestion prompts the participants to respond in a par-ticular way. For example, “Why do you prefer a coursedelivered via the Web or in a classroom for further train-ing on project management?” assumes that the res-pondent prefers Web-based training. Rewording thisquestion to “Which of the following delivery modes do


Design Techniques

Figure 1 Guild memberswho strongly agree thatsynchronous learning canbe as effective as class-room instruction use pollingmore often than those whodon’t.

î

Introductory, main content, & final pollsThe type of polls you utilize will vary depending on

the learning objectives of your Web conference, andother factors. However, all sessions have a beginning,middle, and an end. If we divide a session into thesethree parts we can think about polls to use at the be-ginning of a session, during the main content of thesession, and at the conclusion of a session.

Let’s begin by thinking about opening or introductorypolls. Ask yourself what would be good to know aboutthe audience, or for the audience to know about eachother, prior to the main content of the session. Introduc-tory polls serve the dual purpose of warming up theaudience, and getting them used to the polling feature.For this reason, opening polls should always be invitingand non-threatening. After all, this may be the first timeyou are meeting some or all of your participants, andit’s best to welcome and engage them, not intimidatewith a difficult or intrusive question. For example, anopening poll could be, “Where are you located?” or,“How many years have you worked for X company?”Also, given that your audience may potentially consistof participants from around the globe, you may alsoconsider questions such as, “Is English (Spanish, Arabic,etc.) your first language?” Responses to these types ofpolls give the facilitator essential information about thebackground of the audience to help guide the session.

Once your Web conference is underway, you canmove on to different types of polls that relate directly tothe learning objectives and content of the session. Youmay want to lead off each section of content with a pollto gauge the audience’s knowledge level of the topic.For example, “How many years of work experience doyou have doing data analysis?” If you plan to share sta-tistics or data, an interesting way to stimulate the audi-ence is to pose questions about the data prior to reveal-ing the data. For example, a sample poll covering adata point would be, “What percent of accredited uni-versities in the U.S. offer online degrees?” After theaudience has a chance to respond, display the pollresults, juxtaposed against the actual data. For exam-

point allows the audience to quickly scan the list andlocate their choice. Using plain language prevents thelist of poll responses from becoming a speed bump inthe flow of the conference.

Limit answer choices. Limit the number of possi-ble responses to prevent overwhelming the audiencewith choices. The aim of polls is to quickly obtain infor-mation from participants, and they should not be solong or difficult to answer that they become a hin-drance to the flow of the session.

Use mutually exclusive responses. For a multi-ple-choice question the list of responses needs to bemutually exclusive. For example, if we ask the partici-pants where they are located right now, and the list ofresponses is, “At work, At home, At a hotel,” how wouldsomeone who is working in a home office respond?Also, carefully review your responses containing num-ber ranges to make sure that the ranges don’t over-lap. If a person had been at an organization for threemonths, he or she would have a difficult time choosingfrom these responses: “0-3 months, 3-6 months.” Inboth of these examples, eliminate the overlap betweenthe responses.

Use number increments in equal amounts.Check for balance in your responses with numberranges. For example if you ask participants how muchtime they would devote to an e-Learning course on cor-porate governance, the responses could be in 20-minute increments: “Less than 20 minutes, 21-40 min-utes, 41-60 minutes, More than 60 minutes.”

Include options for outliers. The range of res-ponses needs to include an option for anyone who maybe an “outlier.” An outlier is someone whose responsevaries greatly from the rest of the group. Review yourrespon-ses, and make sure that you have offered answerchoic-es for everyone, not just for the most commoncases. Common outlier responses include “Other,” “Not applicable,” or “None of the above.”

Include a “Don’t Know” option if appropriate.Include a “don’t know” option for those questionswhere the participant may not understand what you areasking, or may not be able to respond to the question.Offering a “don’t know” option allows the entire audi-ence to respond to the poll. If you are monitoring thenumber of poll responses, you need to include a “don’tknow” option when appropriate, so that there is ananswer choice for everyone. If you have 20 participants,you want to see 20 responses, or close to it. Remem-ber, you do not want the user to feel boxed in at anypoint during the Web conference, and think that thepoll doesn’t apply to him or her. This can quickly turn an engaged user into a disengaged user.

Design Techniques


The question shouldbe clear and concise,and written in plainlanguage. Review eachword of your questionstatement to makesure it’s necessary,simplifying any un-clear language.

Figure 2 A poll item hastwo parts: A question, andsome choices.

î


Design Techniques

ple, if most participants selected “20%,” reveal thoseresults to the audience against the actual statisticalresults. Integrating polls into the main content of thesession using these techniques will maintain the atten-tion and interest of the audience. Furthermore, pollsthat address the main content of a session help breakup the one-way nature of a presentation by engagingthe audience.

As your session concludes, you may post polls toquiz the audience on what was covered, and to gatherfeedback on the session. Using quiz questions at theend of the session is a good way to highlight key pointsyou want your participants to remember from the train-ing. An evaluation poll at the end of a session providesreal-time feedback about a session, and this informationmay be especially useful if you are going to repeat thesession in the near future.

Preparing to poll in a live sessionNow that you have designed a set of well-written

polls, the final step is to implement them in the live ses-sion. Most Web conferencing tools allow you to pre-build your polls, and I highly recommend doing so. Pre-paring as much as possible prior to the actual deliveryof your session will help ensure that the polling goessmoothly.

Rehearsing

When rehearsing for a live session, make sure thatyou include your polls as you practice. Decide who willbe in charge of posting the polls, and decide exactlywhen to post them. The Notes section of PowerPoint isan easy way to make sure that everyone is on the samepage regarding the timing of the poll.

Practice how you will introduce the poll, and com-ment on poll responses. Make sure that you have some-thing to say about the poll results. Have you ever partic-ipated in a Web conference where they posted a polland collected responses, but then the session contin-ued with no comment from the speakers about the pollresults? I refer to this as pointless polling. This situa-tion can be very frustrating for participants, who maywonder why they should bother answering a poll if thefacilitator ignores it after collecting responses. After tak-

ing the time to post a poll and collect responses, theonus is on the facilitator to comment on the poll results.

To prevent pointless polling in your session, makesure the facilitator practices commenting on the pollresponses during the rehearsal. Since you may not haveactual responses on the screen when you rehearse, itwill be a good time to practice commenting on pollresponses with various results. If the audience respondscompletely opposite to what was expected, what willthe facilitator say?

It’s always best to be prepared for any poll results,even the unexpected results. Adding comments in thenotes section will help prepare the facilitator for a rangeof results.

Anonymous polling

Check to see if your Web conferencing platform of-fers the option of anonymous polling. Anonymous pol-ling allows you to engage more openly with your audi-ence, and I prefer this technique. Be sure to tell youraudience, at the beginning of your session, whetherpoll responses are anonymous. You may want to re-mind participants again early in the session about theanonymity of the polls, in case some people joined late.

Broadcasting poll results

Many synchronous learning systems offer flexibilitywhen displaying poll results. Generally, there are twooptions for displaying poll results. The facilitator maybroadcast results instantly, as the participants respond.Alternatively, the facilitator may choose to broadcast theresults after a delay. Figure 3 shows a “before and after”view of what the participant sees, when you choose todelay the broadcasting of the results.

How you use the broadcast feature will depend onthe purpose of your poll. In an opening poll it makessense to display results instantly so that participantscan see their interaction with the platform in real time.With knowledge check and opinion polls, I prefer todelay the broadcasting of results to get a more “hon-est” answer from participants. The downside to immedi-ate broadcasting of results for this type of poll, is thatthe first responses that appear on the screen will havea tendency to influence the participants who have not

Introductory pollsserve the dual purposeof warming up theaudience, and gettingthem used to the poll-ing feature. For thisreason, opening pollsshould always be invit-ing and non-threaten-ing.

Figure 3 Before and afterviews of a delayed pollresult broadcast.

î

yet responded. Delaying the broadcast gives the learn-er more time for reflection on the question. Whichevertechnique you choose, be sure to include instructionsin the Notes section of your PowerPoint, or other pro-duction notes, for the session facilitators to indicatehow and when you will broadcast results.

Final thoughtsIn summary, putting some extra time and thought into

your polling questions, and into how you will utilize themduring a session, will help you maximize the polling fea-ture. Remember, polling is just one of the many toolsfacilitators have at their disposal to engage the audi-ence. The rule of thumb for Web conferencing learningevents is to engage with your audience approximatelyevery three minutes. This means that a one-hour ses-sion needs about 20 interactive moments. If one-thirdof the interactive moments were polls, that would trans-late to approximately seven polls per hour. Of course,the objectives and content of your session will drive thefinal number of polls you use. Just be sure not to over-use the polling feature, tiring your audience or makingpolling a nuisance. On the other hand, don’t underusethis rich and interactive tool which can greatly enhanceyour participants’ learning experience. Over time, asyou gain experience in using polls, you will get a betterfeel for how often to poll, and for how to best use thepolling features of your Web-conferencing platform.Keep in mind the tried and true techniques from sur-veys when writing polls and you will be on your way tocreating first-class polls for your learners.

Design Techniques


Author ContactDarlene Christopher is a Learning Specialist for the

International Finance Corporation (IFC), a member ofthe World Bank Group in Washington DC, where shedesigns Web conferences for diverse global audiences.Darlene produces e-Learning events for synchronousand asynchronous environments. She has facilitatedlive Web events and threaded discussion boards forover eight years in corporate and university settings.Darlene’s training experience builds upon a diversetechnology background, including Web product man-agement positions in Silicon Valley at Infoseek, DisneyInternet Group, and 3Com. Darlene holds a Master’sdegree in International Management from the MontereyInstitute of International Studies, and a Bachelor’sdegree in Spanish from the University of California,Davis.

Contact Darlene by e-Mail to [email protected],or by phone at 202-473-6651 (day) or 703-339-0515(evening).

Register Today!www.eLearningGuild.com

Discuss these articles in the “Talk Back to the Authors”Forum of Community Connections (http: // www.elearning-guild. com/community_connections/forum/categories.cfm? catid= 17&entercat =y). You can address your com-ments to the author(s) of each week’s article, or you canmake a general comment to other readers.

Additional information on the topics covered in these arti-cles is also listed in the Guild Resource Directory.

Once your Web confer-ence is underway, youcan move on to differ-ent types of polls thatrelate directly to thelearning objectives andcontent of the session.You may want to leadoff each section ofcontent with a poll togauge the audience’sknowledge level of thetopic.

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Design Techniques


In the Archives

This is the first article by Darlene Christopherfor The eLearning Guild. The eLearning Guild haspreviously published articles whose topics relateto this week’s. These are available to Guild mem-bers in the Learning Solutions Archive online.Members must log in to download them. Here arethe authors, the article topics, and the publicationdates. Not a Guild Member? Join today forimmediate access to all 271 articles in theArchive!

Seven related articles

Jason Shaeffer, “Making the Grade: Synchronouse-Learning Tools Support Multiple Functions”(June 2, 2008)

Jacqueline Beck, “Product Review: AdobeAcrobat Connect Professional” (December 3,2007)

Marc Gamble, “Five Interactive Ways to ImproveSynchronous e-Learning Delivery” (March 12,2007)

Marc Gamble, “Using Radio Production Techni-ques to Improve Synchronous Communication”(November 27, 2006)

Scott Wachter, “Webinar Strategies That Maxi-mize Learning” (November 6, 2006)

Karen Hyder, “Behind the Screens: A Look at TheeLearning Guild's Online Forum Series” (July12, 2004)

Karen Hyder, “Teach in Your Pajamas: Becoming aSynchronous e-Trainer” (November 25, 2002)

Best of the Blogs

Getting Smart With Facebook, Part 1: Theory andProof Points: http://socialtnt.com/2008/09/30/getting-smart-to-facebook-part-1-theories-and-proof-points/ (September 30, 2008)

Social Media Tools Are Like Phones: http://www.chrisbrogan.com/social-media-tools-are-like-phones/ (September 30, 2008)

Synchronous e-Learning myths #1: An hour'senough for anyone: http://clive-shepherd.blogspot.com/2008/09/synchronous-e-learning-myths-1-hour.html (September 29, 2008)

Quick PodCamp Starter Kit: http://www.chrisbrogan.com/quick-podcamp-starter-kit/(September 27, 2008)

Who re-uses learning objects?: http://clive-shep-herd.blogspot.com/2008/09/who-re-uses-learn-ing-objects.html (September 26, 2008).

8

EXTRA INSIGHTS: M i c h a e l S u n n a r b o r g

LEARNING SOLUTIONS | October 6, 2008

“Time marches on, and sooner or later you realize itis marching across your face.” Dolly Parton’s cyn-

ical remark from the 1989 movie, Steel Magnolias,speaks a mouthful about aging … and, unfortunately,about Instructor-Led Training (ILT).

Can you handle the truth?The simple truth is that ILT is getting old; in fact, it’s

been attempting to undergo somewhat of a “face lift”for several years. But I’m afraid I’ve got some bad news— you might want to sit down. ILT is no longer youngand beautiful, and it’s time to operate. Prognosis? Grim,without significant changes. Suggested cure? I’m goingto recommend major reconstruction and rehab withblended learning. Why blended learning, you ask? Let’sconsult the lab results.

Technology is here to stay — leap or beleft behind!

Blended learning has the potential to leverage thenewest technology, making it not only appealing, butuseful and stylish. Stylish, you say? Sure, why not!Since when can’t learning be fun and engaging? Re-member back in high school when learning was easilyequated with a boring classroom experience? Well, nolonger. With the introduction of laptops, iPods, kioskPCs, and mobile phones, technology is luring our learn-ers out of the traditional classroom and into the virtualtraining and learning environment.

Don’t forget — we are the educational thought lead-ers. We need to stay in tune with technology trendsand remain creative. We can choose to focus on lever-aging all of the tools available to us as Learning andDevelopment professionals, just as we have alwaysdone through the years. It’s just that our tools havechanged. We have migrated from wax tablets to chalkboards to white boards and overhead projection sys-tems. So what’s next? Who knows? In fact, I have noidea what’s coming, but I can’t wait!

Adults learn best through experience.While self-directed learning leverages the learner’s

experiences to work in tandem with the informationbeing presented, truly making a connection requires thelearner to apply said information (Remember, use it orlose it!). Blended learning provides this opportunity.

Think of it this way — if you do something for some-one, as opposed to having them do it themselves, theydon’t truly learn how to navigate through the process.When it comes to learning, support your learners with

the knowledge (via e-Learning) and follow it up with aworkshop, discussion group, open lab, or other oppor-tunity to apply the information. Allow your learners todiscover their connections independently, but in a set-ting which encourages application and discovery. Byproviding this environment, we create the opportunity to ask probing questions, challenge assumptions, andsolicit experiences. Make it real!

Tips for creating blended solutionsPurchase “Transition to e-Learning” Develop-

ment Tools. Software tools such as Articulate Pre-senter or Adobe Breeze Presenter allow you to transi-tion your current PowerPoint slides into a streamlinedmultimedia e-Learning module complete with narration,interactive quizzes, and Flash-based output compres-sion. You will still need to create good streamlined con-tent, but simple e-Learning development tools will helpmake the transition from ILT to blended learning asmoother one.

Blend “Content-Heavy” Courses. A basic coursewhich exceeds four hours in duration is generally toolong to keep the attention of a typical learner in today’sfast-paced world. Take what the learners need to knowand put that content in a self-directed e-Learning mod-ule. Then give the learners the opportunity to practicewhat they need to do in a face-to-face coaching envi-ronment by creating a companion workshop. Give yourlearners a well-deserved break from all that content —they’re full!

Know Your Learners’ Needs. As trainers, we of-ten think we know our learners’ needs; however, needscan be tricky. Take the time to conduct a needs analy-sis. Find the “true” needs of your learners. Where’s theirpain? What’s working? And more importantly, what’snot working? For example, problems with workplacesecurity may not require training the whole organizationon the security policy, but rather coaching a small groupof employees how to properly set door alarms at theend of the day. Discover the real problem before youjump to the solution!

Don’t Throw Out the Baby with the Books.There is value in books, manuals, and written referencematerials included in training activities, but don’t usewords to replace examples, images, and experience.Create custom written materials by integrating only theportions of the written materials that pertain to yourtraining topic. Learn to be more specific, and custom-ize your materials for precisely the right support!

Professionally, Michael

Sunnarborg's background

includes extensive experi-

ence in both the traditional

education and corporate

training environments. He

describes himself as a

"diehard educator and

techie," who seeks to bal-

ance the world of people

and technology. Michael has

lived and worked in a variety

of global training environ-

ments, and has worked

closely in partnership with

several learning leaders. He

has authored a variety of

articles, presentations, and

Podcasts on the topic of

blended learning. Michael is

currently an expatriate work-

ing for Target Corporation in

Bangalore, India. Contact

him by e-Mail to Michael.

[email protected].

From ILT to Blended Learning: Results Are InInstructor-led training (ILT) has been around for thousands of years – and it’s showingits age. Fortunately, new modalities and the blending process offer designers a newrange of flexibility and options that will keep learners engaged. Here are four tips togive ILT a real shot in the arm!

Check it Out! Visit www.eLearningGuild.com or call 707.566.8990

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How YOU Can Make a Difference...

The eLearning Guild is a global membership organization like no other...

A singular focus on the art, science, techno-

logy, and business of e-Learning — and the

collective knowledge of more than 31,500

members worldwide — are what sets The

eLearning Guild apart...

“Attending The eLearning Guild’s Annual

Gathering helped me realize the Guild’s honesty

and commitment to what e-Learning is all about —

improving performance. Great conference, but

even more — great Community of Practice!”

DAVID BRAUN, TRAINING & PERFORMANCE SUPPORT SUPERVISOR, SASKPOWER

The eLearning Guild is dedicated to meeting the needs ofanyone involved in the management, design, and develop-ment of e-Learning. It’s a member-driven Community ofPractice and online information center that will equip you with everything you need to ensure that your organization’s e-Learning efforts are successful.

The Guild offers four levels of individual and group member-ship. Starting at the FREE Associate level, the benefits youcan gain from membership will enhance your professionalexperience. At the higher levels, you’ll discover the Guild canbe the core of your entire professional development program.

Join Today!

n Every Issue of LearningSolutions e-Magazine

n Annual Salary &Compensation Report

n Online Discussion Boardn The Guild Job Boardn Resource Directoryn Conference Proceedingsn Online Buyers Guide,

e-Books, and Case Studies

Everything Associatesreceive, and...

n Comprehensive GuildResearch 360˚ Reports

n 20% Event Discountsn Enhanced Job Board

Access

Everything Members receive, and...

n Online Forum Participation (more than 100 live sessionseach year)

n Online Events Archive (more than 450 sessionrecordings in all)

Everything Members Plusreceive, and...

n One Full ConferenceRegistration (TheeLearning Guild AnnualGathering or DevLearnConference & Expo)

n One Pre-conferenceWorkshop

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