Learning Management Systems

I thought I’d share a (non-exhaustive) list of requirements that can be used as a starting point or inspiration when buying an LMS. Unfortunately, just copy-pasting this list to your project won’t work as you’ll need to respect the unique needs of your organisation. That said, these requirements are very concrete and probably a big help on the way to see if you’re missing something.

Note: This is part 2 of 3 on how to buy an LMS. …

Learning Management Systems

There are tons and tons of LMS-providers on the market. How can you make sure to select the right one for your organisation? I’ve been approached several times to help contacts source an LMS and want to share my tips and lessons learned with a wider audience. This will be a three-part article where I’ll help you through the corresponding stages in buying an LMS:

1. Defining and understanding your needs
2. Compiling requirements
3. Comparing and selecting vendors

While the tips in these articles are useful for anyone buying an LMS, I’m keeping a corporate perspective for an organisation with a few…

Learners

Did you ever encounter a situation where you were training but one of the participants stubbornly refused to learn, criticised you or in general disturbed the training? Every now and then you as trainer will encounter “difficult” learners. By difficult I don’t mean that they have a hard time learning, but that they through their actions become a difficult participant. Want to know how to deal with such situations? Read on!

Difficult learner?

One training I held had a person who from the onset had a look of disapproval on his face. It turned out to be more than just a look…

Leadership

Focus on individuality

I prefer not to use to standardised training, but to let every trainer’s own personality shine through. This is appreciated by the learner and trainer alike. Make sure that all trainings have a certain level of standard through guidelines and template material but don’t be afraid to let your team excel in the way they do it best. One of my most enlightening moments was working with a trainer who prepared training in a totally different way than how I usually did it. …

Cultural awareness

Intercultural trainings will always have an added layer of difficulty compared to training in your home culture. For those of us that aren’t Indian, training for an Indian audience does have a special flavour (as does training for Australians, Argentinians or Danes). I’ve held many on-site trainings in India and even more remotely and thought I’d share some tested tips on what to remember when training Indians. Many of these tips are applicable to just working with Indians as well. Of course your experience may not be exactly the same, depending on what area of India you are in and…

Presenting

Using interactivity is a great way to learn. Contrary to what you first might think, interactivity does not have to be between the learner and another source, it might just as well be between third parties alone. This kind of passive interactivity is not as effective as normal learner interactions, but it does provide an extra dimension to passive listening.

Why?

As an example, assume you are eavesdropping on a phone conversation between two people. When do you think you will remember the most of what was said: when you can hear only one of the people or when you can…

Training feedback

There are some common mistakes I often see in training feedback questionnaires (as well as in any type of questionnaire I’m asked to complete). They are annoying and they make me answer less accurately, leading to less useful resuts. To help you create better questionnaires I’ve compiled the top 5 mistakes in my experience. Adhering to all of the points below will get you a much fairer result as well making your respondents happier overall. Have a read through and try to remember when creating your next feedback form!

1. Include the middle ground

When working with Likert-scales you have the option to have either…