Agenda

Organiser:

Mike Alcock

Mike has worked in the IT industry for over 20 years. After spending over 10 years working in elearning, he founded Atlantic Link Limited, where he is responsible for software development, sales and marketing, company direction, and strategy. He is a committee member of the eLearning Network in the UK. Mike has recently guided Atlantic Link to the following awards: Brandon Hall shootouts 2007 – Gold and Silver awards; E-Learning Age award for outstanding achievement – 2007.

Speakers:

Strange bed-fellows: rapid tools and creative approaches to e-learning
Patrick Dunn, Networked learning

Rapid tools emerged as a response to pressures to reduce time and cost of elearning production: a classic software response to a pressing real-world problem. But their rapid adoption has broken the mould, not just of elearning production, but of elearning thinking, and it is at times like this that creativity and innovation can prosper…as long as we adopt appropriate mindsets and approaches, and cultivate appropriate skills. This presentation will challenge the view that rapid tools inevitably lead to poor quality learning, and present a challenging view that, on the contrary, rapid tools will help to move e-learning development onto a more creative trajectory.

Patrick Dunn has been designing, producing and thinking about various forms of learning technology for nearly 20 years. He has an MBA from Warwick Business School, an MSc in Networked Learning, and a music degree from Oxford University. He has worked for leading e-learning companies in the US and UK, including DigitalThink and Line Communications, and for major consultancies including PricewaterhouseCoopers. His specialism has always been in looking for creative approaches to help people learn more effectively. Although his background is in training and education, he has worked with world-leading creative agencies such as Landor Associates, major branding agencies such as Sterling Brands, and on UK government projects such Creativity Incubator.

Rapid elearning at the BBC
Nick Shackleton-Jones

Nick is Manager, Online & Informal Learning for the BBC and a true elearning pioneer. He will showing examples of the rapid elearning content they have been producing for the past three years at the BBC, sharing their key learning points and explaining about the rapid processes that they have established.

Rapid skills for rapid elearning designers
Clive Shepherd, Independent elearning consultant

Rapid e-learning tools and processes empower subject experts and generalist trainers to participate in the development of e-learning content and respond to training requirements where deadlines are tight, audiences small or shelf-life short. But even rapid e-learning has to be fit for purpose, to be ‘good enough’. So, given limited time to train these new designers, what skills would you regard as essential, and what can be left to the professionals? In this session, Clive explores the role that rapid e-learning can play and explains what you can do to develop non-specialist e-learning designers in your organisation.

Clive is a consultant specialising in e-learning, blended learning and communications. He was formerly Director, Training and Creative Services for American Express in EMEA and co-founder of Epic, the UK’s major producer of custom e-learning. He is widely acknowledged as one of the UK’s foremost experts in e-learning, with more than one hundred published articles and four books/e-books to his name. He speaks regularly at major international conferences and contributes regularly to his blog, Clive on Learning.

Transforming the business with rapid elearning
Karen Hancox-Barringer, Bowie Castlebank

Two years ago BCG were losing 13.4 million per annum due to the unprecedented speed at which the photo processing market changed from analogue to digital.
In order to survive in the business BCG had to rethink not only their business strategy but their people strategy too.  In hard times many companies cut their training budget, seeing it as an expendable cost. BCG took a different approach and decided to invest in training and to use this as their platform for future success.

Their plan was to ensure all staff were equipped with the skills and knowledge required, on the front line, to turn the business around.
In 2 years they are now running at a loss of 1.4 million which is still a loss but is a considerable change from situation they found themselves in two years ago.  Recruitment costs have been reduced by 43%, due to a fall in attrition in the last 6 months, feedback suggests this can be directly related to the introduction of e-learning.

Mystery shop results have also shown an increase since the introduction of elearning, with September figures showing that their total score hasn’t dropped below 60%, compared to an average score of 56% in 2006, so things are definitely heading in the right direction. The last two studies have identified them to be top of the class against their competitors.

The training strategy has been revolutionised to ensure all staff in all areas of the country receive generic training that meets the needs of the 3 year business plan. Historically learning and development carried a cost of £500,000 annually this has been reduced to £165,000.

The latest set of reports show a take up of 81% of staff completing all their elearning modules with anecdotal feedback from the field suggesting that motivation has not been so high in 5 years!

Modules are designed quickly by non IT professionals, using in house staff to meet the needs of an ever changing industry.  Elearning has played a significant role in transforming BCG and placing them in the strongest position they have been in for a number of years.

Session title tbc
Caroline O'Reilly, PricewaterhouseCoopers

Caroline is a manager at PwC within Shared Services Learning and Development. She works cross line of service, specialising in consulting and project managing the delivery of UK and global learning solutions which use technology. She came into the industry in 2000 after having taught in higher education for six years. Prior to joining PwC in 2004 she worked for Maxim Training and KnowledgePool.

Caroline’s primary interest is ensuring clients get the best out of the tools, vendors and staff they are using on their projects. She is currently working on developing a set of guidelines for developing elearning interfaces within PwC.

Session title tbc
Derek Chatting, Waste Recycling Group

WRG is a waste management company which provides a range of cost and environmentally effective processing, recycling, disposal and energy recovery services for local authority and private commercial customers. Derek will be explaining how WRG are using rapid elearning modules to deliver health and safety awareness training to over 160 sites and how they are using a low-cost hosted LMS to track results centrally. The company has undergone a significant cultural transformation in delivering training this way and a number of obstacles have had to be overcome.

The debate:
Rapid elearning dumbing down or gearing up?

A first for the eLN, you get to hear both sides of the argument and then make your decision.

Arguing for formal elearning and the ADDIE process:

Phil Green
Richard Naish

Arguing for rapid elearning and streamlined processes:

Steve Rayson
Mike Alcock