‘Bend It Like Beckham’ to help you with blended learning.
Ger’s Learning notes #13
Blend it like Beckham
The major highlight of this summer in The Netherlands was the UEFA Women’s Euro Football Tournament. The Dutch team won the championship, creating real hype around women’s football. It reminded me of the pleasant movie ‘Bend It Like Beckham’. The movie is about a daughter who rebels against her parents’ traditionalism and joins a football team (according to some reviews on the Internet Movie Database, even people who are anti-football will enjoy this film).
It’s a small step to this edition of the learning notes, which contains many tips to design Blended Learning, and so, the title ‘Blend It Like Beckham’ emerged. I hope these practical tips will inspire you and really help you to create effective blended learning. But be aware, blended learning is not a goal in itself. It’s a mean to an end. It’s the art of designing the ‘ultimate’ blend that best supports professionals getting their jobs done.
Explore the notes to find out how the virtual classroom, social learning, performance support or ‘awesome apps’ might help you in designing the ultimate blend.
Cheers – Ger
(1) Five ways to make virtual training as effective as face-to-face training
What’s it about?
This e-book explores how to get virtual training as effective as (good) face-to-face training with a focus on five concrete steps.
Why read it?
- Learning will continue to be delivered ‘online’, so be transferred to the virtual world. Many people think this can’t be as effective as face-to-face training.
- It’s not a technology issue—it’s a design issue; and with proper design, virtual classes can be as good as face-to-face training (or even better).
- This e-book give five concrete steps to follow for effective virtual classes.
- My personal experience: It’s very refreshing to design virtual learning. You’ll be challenged to be very careful and explicit in the design choices you’ll make.
Where to find it?
Five ways to make virtual training as effective as face-to-face training [E-book]
(2) How to use infographics, videos, web stories and more to support your training program
What’s it about?
Dan Jones gives a great overview of different apps that are very useful and valuable for learning and development (L&D) professionals.
Why read it?
- First of all: This post is a great recap of the ‘full house’ and highly valued session that Dan Jones delivered at the ATD conference in Atlanta in May 2017.
- It describes many practical apps in brief and categorises them related to their specific functionality.
- Don’t we all like to include ‘awesome apps’ in our learning design to surprise and engage the learners we want to serve?
Where to find it?
How to use infographics, videos, web stories and more to support your training program
(3) Ten tips for designing effective social learning
What’s it about?
‘The Master’ of social learning, Julian Stodd, shares his best insights and experience around social learning.
Why read / watch it?
- Social learning can be a very effective building block in a blended learning approach for the modern learner – so it’s one to consider to be part of the blend.
- This post shows the combination of elements and their interconnection to design and facilitates social learning that works.
- My favorites: The elements of scaffolding and facilitation. They make the difference between a ‘nice experiment’ and a successful learning solution.
Where to find it?
Ten tips for designing effective social learning
(4) Science of Learning 101: When to build performance support, part 1
by @Patti Shank
What’s it about?
This post clarifies some important distinctions between performance support and training, and defines when to use what.
Why read it?
- This post starts with the right clarifying questions to include the objective and the context before deciding to go for training or performance support (or both!).
- In my opinion, there is a world to win for L&D professionals when they take performance support more often into consideration as part of their blended learning solution.
- First, understand the distinctions between training and performance support, and then, integrate them in a smart way in your blended learning design for the best results.Where to find it?
Science of Learning 101: When to build performance support, part 1
Ger Driesen
Loves to connect people, ideas and inspiration in the global learning community.
On the wish-list to learn: Forging (yes, as forging steel)
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