Insights from ASTD’s 2009 BEST Award Winners

Last year I reviewed some of the Brandon Hall award winning entries. In a four part series on her aLearning blog, Ellen Behrens shares 14 things we can learn from the ASTD’s 2009 BEST Award winners.

Read her insights in Part 1, Part 2, Part 3 and Part 4.

Examples of Award Winning Entries: Best Use of Games in Learning

As Brandon Hall calls for entries for 2009 awards, it lists examples of last year's winners of their site. You can view the examples on their site. In this post I review the best use of games in learning.

Best use of games for learning

With all the talk games in elearning (my homophily syndrome), I initially read the category has Best Use of Games in eLearning. On reading the write-up about the entry I realized that the entry was titled Best Use of Games in Learning. Of course, how stupid of me, I thought.

The best use of games for learning category has an example from Accenture. This entry is an example of Accenture basically using games in instructor led scenario. The participants form teams to run a business unit as a simulation. The teams were formed with participants from different functional areas. There is a fair bit of technology solution involved. Accenture has created a computer-based planning tool to assist each team's decision making process. The data in this tool matches closely the data that the participants will deal with on the job.

I remember playing such games in some of our training programs. These are always fun to play and really enhance learning and retention of concepts. I think Accenture's use of a computer-based tool that has data that matches real life data closely is a great idea. And the fact that they make teams of participants from different functional areas also enhances the learning that the participants experience just by interacting with each other. The 10 page case study document is definitely worth a read.

Related posts:

Review of Best Custom Content

Review of Best Innovation in Learning Technology

Examples of Award Winning Entries: Best Innovation in Learning Technology

As Brandon Hall calls for entries for 2009 awards, it lists examples of last year's winners of their site. You can view all examples on their site. In this post I review the best innovation in learning technology.

Best innovation in learning technology

This example presents an interesting authoring tool. I have seen and worked on similar tools, including those in my organizations. What I really liked was the simplicity of the interface of RapidIntake's Unison tool. Some cool features are automatic conversion of media formats into Internet friendly format (mp3, Flash video, jpg etc.), tags for media assets, chat with others who might be working on the same course. They have clever SaaS pricing models too. For example you get source files for your course only if you are a Pro member.

Of course, there is more to building an elearning course, especially if you are a vendor for custom content. The customer will always want something else and there is much work to be done in building assets outside a tool like this one. Notwithstanding this, I really like this product.

Note to self: Thought innovation in learning technology category was about LMS or something like that. Need to volunteer to be a judge in this category too.

Related posts:

Review of Best Custom Content

Examples of Award Winning Entries: Best Custom Content

As Brandon Hall calls for entries for 2009 awards, it lists examples of last year's winners of their site. You can view all examples on their site. Over the next few posts I will post my comments on the award winning entries. I start with Best Custom Content.

Best Custom Content

Watch approx 4 minute video of the award winning custom content. I like the introduction to the course, very emotional. Rest of the course is however just a regular elearning course with next and previous buttons and the regular suspects of controls, nothing that you haven't seen before if you've been in this industry long enough. The central portion of the screen presents the content in a series of narrated animation. The media presentation is, well, ordinary and standard. Nothing new in the interactivities either. So if you're expecting something new and brilliant, either in instructional design, strategy or just slick presentation, you'll be disappointed.

Creating Animations Easily, well almost...

I earlier wrote about using comics in elearning and how easy it can be to create comics. Well, here a new site that allows you to create animations. GoAnimate provides you with tools to create animations easily. I am not sure if we can actually use this tool to create animations that you can embed in your elearning courses, but the idea is fantastic. Like I mentioned the last time, the hardest part is the creativity required in the storyline and script. It is worth trying your hand at both these tools to create comics and animations.