Free training webinars

On February 20^th, 2010, Training Magazine announced that it would be closing its doors.  It had been one of the most well respected publications in the training industry.  I remember even in the early days of my career eagerly awaiting the next edition of my subscription to Training Magazine.  But the good news is that Training Magazine is back and their online site is up and running again at www.trainingmagnetwork.com.

Glad to see them back, I was checking out their online site and found a number of free webinars being offered.  If you’re not already a member, all you need to do is sign up at http://www.trainingmagnetwork.com.  Once you're signed in, click on the Events/Resources tab for the list of free webinars.  The site also includes links to archived webinars as a bonus!

One of my personal favorite presenters is Thiagi (Sivasailam Thiagarajan, Ph.D.). He offers a free monthly webinar on the Training Magazine site. Many years ago I sat in a two-day simulation gaming workshop and have been a fan of his ever since.  He has a wonderful sense of humor and a wealth of knowledge to share!  Don't miss him.  His next free webinar is called “Jolt Participants into Awareness and Action” on June 15^th.  Check it out here http://www.trainingmagnetwork.com/profile/show/1984



One company's move to a blended learning solution

Everywhere I turn now, I see articles, blog posts, threaded discussions, tweets, seminars and much more about using social media. More and more learning professionals are now looking at new or more impactful ways of incorporating social media in learning. 

Stephanie and I recently came across an interesting TELUS case study that highlights the process they used to pilot a new approach to learning that integrates social and informal components, including webcasts, videos, blogs, microblogs and wikis. The interesting part of this approach is that they used Microsoft Sharepoint Server 2010. Dan Pontefract, Senior Director of Learning for TELUS said “the social networking elements drew us to SharePoint Server 2010” and that “the company’s three-year plan is to move to a situation in which formal learning accounts for just 50 percent of its total learning budget”.

As the popularity of social media takes hold in the learning community, Stephanie and I are seeing more companies with traditional learning offerings like face-to-face training become interested in adopting a more balanced blended learning solution that includes eLearning and social media. In fact, we are currently working with a company that has asked us to recommend a more blended learning solution for their 30,000+ employees.

Interested in reading the TELUS case study? Check it out here.

Break your presentations out of the box

How many times have you sat through a page-turner presentation that almost put you to sleep?

How many times have you been guilty of delivering something along these lines yourself?

As much as we may want to liven things up when we're conducting face to face training or sharing information with colleagues, ditching the presentation slides is not really an option - there is value to having something displayed on a screen to guide participants along. The unfortunate thing is, most of the software we use to create presentations follow this same page-turning slide format that can become monotonous after a while, despite our best efforts. 

I recently came across a tool that takes a totally different approach to presentations that impressed me quite a bit. Prezi frees us from the 'slides' metaphor for displaying content. Instead imagine adding all of your content to a large canvas, where your presentation view allows you to move around the canvas, zoom in and out and rotate the perspective. You can easily show the big picture, zoom in on details and make connections between different elements in an eye-catching way. It's really something best grasped by checking out some of the presentations people have shared on the Prezi website. The bonus is it's free to use under the public license, and pretty reasonable for the other license options, too.

Take a look and see what you think - maybe Prezi can help you liven up your next presentation!