HOW TO CREATE

DIGITAL LEARNING
THAT WORKS
leolearning.com
Part of Learning Technologies Group plc
HOW TO CREATE DIGITAL LEARNING THAT WORKS 01

Introduction It’s very easy to get distracted by the latest trends and buzzwords in the
digital learning world. But that can be pretty risky if your goal is to create
effective, engaging learning. How can you cut through the hype to
ensure you create digital learning that works? Read on to find out.

Contents:
1. Introduction: Cutting Through the Hype

2. Our Design Imperatives: Your Guide to Digital Learning That Works

3. Give People Their Own Learning Journey

4. Connect Learners so They Can Learn Together

5. Captivate and Challenge Learners

6. Realize Value and Use Measurement to Improve Outcomes

7. Conclusion

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HOW TO CREATE DIGITAL LEARNING THAT WORKS
Cutting Through the Hype
At LEO Learning, our vision is to
lead your learning revolution.
What revolution?
We see it as the rise of revolutionary new
technologies and approaches that we
can harness to help our clients deliver
transformational learning.
We understand that the learning revolution is
different for everyone. For some organizations,
it might be moving to more technology-
enabled learning, while for others it may be a
large-scale transformation program. This is why
we refer to it as your learning revolution.
The learning revolution brings along with
it a whole host of new trends, tools, and
technologies—and at LEO Learning we’re
used to talking about the latest ‘big thing’ at
conferences all around the world.
But what we often see is that these new trends
and tools can become over-hyped; they
become buzzwords. The latest trends can
become the main focus or priority, and some
L&D professionals may even feel pressure to
adopt them in their learning programs.
We know that people generally have good
intentions when wanting to latch on to the
latest big thing. But ultimately, as learning
02
professionals, we need to remember that our
goal is to create learning that works. The end
result and the impact of our learning has to be
our priority.
So how do you make sense of all the new
trends and tools at your disposal? How can
you ensure you use them for the right reasons
and to get the best results?
It’s all about going back to
the foundations of good
instructional design...
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HOW TO CREATE DIGITAL LEARNING THAT WORKS 03

Our Design Imperatives:

Your Guide to Digital Learning That Works

Successful digital learning
comes down to sound
instructional design principles.
This is how we cut through the hype at LEO
Learning, with a set of design imperatives that
guide the development of our solutions.
Here are the four imperatives we focus on to
ƒƒ Deliver learning that is personalized, that
gives learners what they need right now
to do their jobs effectively and achieve
positive change.

These principles will help you
understand what’s really going
to work for your particular
eLearning project.
drive digital learning that works:
1) Give people their own learning journeys
This has two facets:
ƒƒ Design effective blended learning
journeys that give learners the flexibility to
create their own learning paths.

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HOW TO CREATE DIGITAL LEARNING THAT WORKS
2) Connect learners with each other so they
can learn together
Learning together is one of the foundations
of how we learn. We all learn from others in
everyday life, so learning programs should
leverage this tendency wherever possible. The
way people connect digitally makes this a
strategy we can use with real effect.
3) Captivate and challenge learners
We all know that learning can’t happen if
we can’t engage learners and command
their attention, so our designers must
continue to consider effective ways to
increase learner engagement.
4) Realize value and use measurement to
improve the journey and the outcomes
This is all about learning measurement that
matters. Our goal is to measure the business
impact and effectiveness of learning programs
to give organizations valuable insights that
will shape their future learning and create a
culture of continuous improvement.
We use these imperatives to interrogate our
design work. The decision to use a hype-worthy
approach or new tool always comes back to
whether it will deliver on these imperatives and
will result in successful learning outcomes.
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Essentially, they help us use the right things for
the right reasons. The latest tools and trends
will always be valuable to learning teams; it’s
just a case of understanding the best way to
harness them.
Each of these imperatives has its own
associated tools, trends, buzzwords and
myths. In the rest of this ebook, we’ll
look at each one and show you how to
cut through the hype to find out what
will really work.
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HOW TO CREATE DIGITAL LEARNING THAT WORKS 05

Give People Their Own

Learning Journey

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HOW TO CREATE DIGITAL LEARNING THAT WORKS
Give People Their
Own Learning
Journey
As mentioned above, this
imperative is all about delivering
personalized learning that is
tailored to a learner’s needs,
but also about empowering self-
directed learning.
WHAT’S THE HYPE?
Here’s what we tend to hear about personalized
learning:
“Personalized learning isn’t even possible yet!”
“Personalized learning is adding a role filter so
learners only get what they need”
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“Personalized learning means my team will only
create the minimum required”
Some also think that delivering personalized
learning is enabled by another big buzzword,
microlearning.
Microlearning has long been touted as a solution
to today’s attention-depleted learners:
“Let’s make everything smaller, then our learners
will like it more”
“Let’s condense a 90-minute course into 15
minutes. That will make it more engaging”
Personalized learning can often be misconstrued
as delivering the bare minimum that learners
need in as short a time as possible. But this is likely
to deliver less than ideal results.
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HOW TO CREATE DIGITAL LEARNING THAT WORKS 07

Give People Their HOW TO MAKE IT WORK So what should you be thinking about to deliver
truly personalized learning journeys?
Own Learning To deliver personalized learning that really works,
go back to the original intention. Personalized First, reframe the idea of personalization

Journey learning has to be about giving learners their

own learning journey in a meaningful, thoughtful
away from being purely role-based. True
personalization could consider a learner’s:
way. It’s not about squeezing learning time down
or increasing efficiency (although that may be a ƒƒ Competencies
bonus side-effect!).
ƒƒ Needs

ƒƒ Confidence levels

ƒƒ Attitude

This is possible, but it takes a thoughtful approach

to design upfront, and potentially a little smart use
of data.

Second, think about microlearning as discrete

components. Learning that is meaningful, not just
small. Microlearning is effective when it delivers
the right type of learning for the right context.
That might be an array of different components
packaged in a way that empowers your learners
to choose what they need.

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HOW TO CREATE DIGITAL LEARNING THAT WORKS
Give People Their
Own Learning
Journey
EXAMPLES
Here are three short examples that demonstrate
a considered approach to giving learners their
own learning journeys.
1) Diagnostics
Use a simple diagnostic to deliver a tailored
learning program by asking learners to complete a
series of Likert scale questions on their confidence
levels, attitudes and working practices.
Based on the answers they submit, learners then
receive a tailored ‘menu’ of learning made up of
a variety of different components. This can display
learning by subject area, or even by priority,
depending on how a learner has answered the
diagnostic.
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2) Microlearning components
The diagram on the next page shows the vast
array of different learning components we
created for one learning program. This was a
large-scale, long-running program, so don’t
be put off by the sheer volume and variety
outlined here.
Some of these components formed a core
element of the program, while others supported
it. Part of the design of the program was to ‘pull’
learners in and empower them to learn in their
own way, asynchronously. The sheer variety
of different formats and channels made this
possible, with learners given access to what they
required in any given moment.
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HOW TO CREATE DIGITAL LEARNING THAT WORKS
This is a good example of how to empower learners to define their own learning journeys by delivering an
array of discrete components, designed to support self-directed learning.
E-LEARNING FORMATS
ƒƒ Teasers
ƒƒ Micro eLearning
ƒƒ eLearning courses
ƒƒ Psychometric assessments
ƒƒ Quizzes
ƒƒ Scenarios
ƒƒ Simulations
ƒƒ Bibliographies
ƒƒ Glossaries
COLLABORATIVE
ONLINE LEARNING
ƒƒ Action learning sets
ƒƒ Discussion forums
ƒƒ Tutorial discussion forums
ƒƒ Seminar discussion forums
ƒƒ Cohort discussion forums
ƒƒ Online live tutorials
ƒƒ Webinars
ƒƒ One-to-one tutorials
MEDIA ACCESSIBLE CONTENT
ƒƒ Video interviews
ƒƒ Drama
ƒƒ Recorded tutorials
ƒƒ Documentary formats
ƒƒ Audio
ƒƒ Broadcast program links
ƒƒ Webcasts
ƒƒ News – expert blogs
USER-GENERATED LIVE LEARNING
CONTENT & FEEDBACK
ƒƒ Learner journals
ƒƒ E-portfolios
ƒƒ Portfolio assignments
ƒƒ Work-based evidence
ƒƒ Learner-generated media
ƒƒ Research proposals
ƒƒ Dissertations
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PLATFORM DELIVERED RESOURCES
ƒƒ Transcripts & downloads ƒƒ Topic summaries ƒƒ Links to diagnostic tools
ƒƒ Accessible versions of ƒƒ Synopses ƒƒ How-to guides
eLearning and media
ƒƒ Memory joggers ƒƒ Surveys
ƒƒ E-books
ƒƒ Assignments ƒƒ Workbooks
ƒƒ E-journals
ƒƒ Set Books ƒƒ E-library links
ƒƒ Academic E-libraries
ƒƒ Reference documents ƒƒ Learner Handbooks
ƒƒ PDFs ƒƒ Facilitator Handbooks
ƒƒ Web links
APPS REFRESHER
& SUPPORT
ƒƒ Live workshops ƒƒ News RESOURCES
ƒƒ Welcome/Induction events ƒƒ Updates
Mobile support resources:
ƒƒ Residential events ƒƒ Culture building
ƒƒ Action learning sets ƒƒ Stories ƒƒ Checklists
ƒƒ Group tutorials ƒƒ Processes
ƒƒ Group seminars ƒƒ Flowcharts
ƒƒ Graduation events ƒƒ Infographics
ƒƒ Articles
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Give People Their 3) Information design This includes understanding what learning is
already out there in the business that can be
Underpinning the example above is strong
Own Learning information design. When you’re considering
leveraged and then supplementing that material
with pieces of new content. Then think about how
giving learners the freedom to define their own
Journey learning journeys, conduct a discovery phase
to present and curate that information in a way
that makes it easy for learners to search and find
that enables you to understand what it is that
that content.
people need and the best way to deliver that
content to them.

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HOW TO CREATE DIGITAL LEARNING THAT WORKS 11

Connect Learners so They

Can Learn Together
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Connect Learners As humans, we’re pretty much

programmed to connect
so They Can
with each other. And at work,
Learn Together often without realizing it, we’re
constantly collaborating and
sharing information. Great
learning programs help bring
learners together to share insights
and expertise.
Connecting learners can increase the
effectiveness of your learning program by:

ƒƒ Encouraging a sense of ownership in and

engagement with the learning story

ƒƒ Increasing comprehension through shared

sense-making

ƒƒ Providing valuable support, especially for

dispersed learners

ƒƒ Aiding understanding of the real-life context

of learning and its practical application

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HOW TO CREATE DIGITAL LEARNING THAT WORKS
Connect Learners WHAT’S THE HYPE?
so They Can The buzzword on everyone’s lips is social learning.
It’s seen as something new (despite the fact it’s
Learn Together something that’s happened since the dawn of
time!). But what we hear about most often is how
the latest tools are necessary to enable social
learning to happen:
“Our organization needs to buy a platform
dedicated to social learning, otherwise it won’t
happen”
The other myth we often hear about social
learning is the need for moderation. There’s often
a real fear about what might happen if people
are allowed to share their views with freedom.
“We have to moderate. Who knows what our
learners might say!”
HOW TO MAKE IT WORK
In reality, you don’t need a dedicated platform
to bring your learners together. It’s a thing people
already do: it’s WhatsApp, Skype chat or Google
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Hangouts. It’s email or that quick chat over a
coffee. As long as they’re connecting, it’s social
learning.
In practice, we’ve seen that generally learners
can and do self-moderate, especially in smaller
cohorts where learners are going through a
program together. But even if something is said
that is potentially critical or disruptive, it’s better
it’s said in a forum where there’s potential to
explore and solve the problem, rather than it
going unheard and unaddressed.
If moderators are in place, they need to steer,
not stifle conversation. Learners can often feel a
sense of group paralysis when it comes to starting
those initial conversations, so a moderator’s role
should be to encourage and instigate discussion.
It’s this scaffolding and support of social learning
that is critical to success. Regardless of whether
you’re bringing your learners together online or
face-to-face, careful consideration of how to
foster discussion is vital to building up a strong
community.
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HOW TO CREATE DIGITAL LEARNING THAT WORKS
Connect Learners
so They Can
Learn Together
EXAMPLES
One way we instigated discussion in a large-scale
learning program for a healthcare organization
was to post really thought-provoking content
learners could react to.
We submitted a poem, describing a patient’s
experience of treatment. What happened next
was something we didn’t anticipate. A learner
found and posted a poem in response, from the
perspective of a physician. This then triggered a
whole stream of discussion.
In other projects, we’ve adopted a wide range
of ways to bring learners together. While it’s easy
to think that online forums are the main tool for
social learning, we’ve found that other methods
can be really effective at fostering discussion too.
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For example, we’ve enabled learners to run
their own webinars. While these kinds of semi-
structured meetings could also happen face
to face, the webinar medium is more flexible
and can accommodate a varied and global
workforce. The other benefits are that comments
do not interrupt the discussion (but can be seen
by all in the discussion panel) and that they
can be recorded and still accessed, even if the
learner didn’t attend.
If you’re thinking about empowering your learners
to try something like this, create guidelines and
‘how-to’s’ to ensure your learners feel confident.
Providing opportunities to practice are also
invaluable.
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Captivate and
Challenge Learners
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HOW TO CREATE DIGITAL LEARNING THAT WORKS
Captivate and We all know that good digital
learning must challenge
Challenge and captivate learners to be
Learners successful, but it’s how to do that
effectively that’s important.
The problem is that with so many shiny new and
innovative tools and innovations at our disposal,
it’s very easy to get seduced into using something
that might not deliver the results we’re after.
WHAT’S THE HYPE?
There are three trends that tend to immediately
get mentioned when targeting learner
engagement:
Gamification
“Adding points will make the learning fun”
Gamification has been a massive trend in recent
years, but the issue is that it’s often applied to
a course as a blanket solution to engagement,
while missing opportunities for genuinely effective
learning through gaming.
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Scenarios
“If we add stories then our training will be more
effective”
We love scenarios at LEO Learning and truly
feel they’re a powerful way of achieving real
behavior change. But they’re not a panacea.
Inappropriately used, they can actually have the
opposite effect, frustrating and disengaging your
audience.
Virtual Reality (VR) and Augmented
Reality (AR)
“Our learners will think it’s cool, so let’s use it”
“Let’s ‘VR’ our health and safety training”
These ground-breaking technologies continue to
be used in a range of innovative ways outside the
learning sphere, particularly in the medical and
gaming industries. And while there are valid use
cases for using VR and AR in learning, we do see
them being touted as a shortcut to engagement,
simply because they’re new.
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HOW TO CREATE DIGITAL LEARNING THAT WORKS
Captivate and HOW TO MAKE IT WORK
With all of these trends, the key, once again,
Challenge is to take your thinking back the principles of
good design. Think about the imperative here:
Learners ‘Captivate and challenge learners’—that has to
be your guiding thought when evaluating each
of these approaches.
To understand whether something is truly going
to engage consider your audience, your learning
objectives and the context in which your learning
will take place.
Gamification
Rather than adding points, scoreboards and
badges as an arbitrary layer on top of your
eLearning course, think about ways to make
them truly meaningful.
The result would be a more fully-gamified
experience, which bears more resemblance
to a game than an eLearning course. This
approach, where the gaming mechanics are
tied to the learning objectives, will make applying
gamification techniques far more engaging (and
meaningful) for your learners.
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Scenarios
Scenarios work when they’re truly challenging
and compelling experiences. Storytelling is an
immensely powerful way to tap into emotion and
help learners derive meaning from learning.
But scenarios where the decisions are obvious,
or where the story itself just doesn’t land with the
audience, will only serve to disengage learners.
To do scenario-based learning well, invest
the effort into really delving into the ‘wicked
problems’, the grey areas where it’s difficult to
make the right decision. It’s these types of issues
that make scenarios a genuinely challenging and
engaging experience for learners.
Think also about what you can demonstrate
through a story or scenario. Your goal should
be to present the real-life impact of decisions
to drive behavior change. Stories and scenarios
provide you with the opportunity to show different
perspectives and contexts your learners may
have never considered, and it’s seeing the
impact of their decisions from these new angles
that really drives effective learning.
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We created an award-winning learning game focused on customer service and experience in the life
insurance business.

CASE STUDY: LOMA’s Blended Learning Game

The key to the success of this solution was a combination of powerful branching scenarios supported with careful application of gamification techniques.

In the game, learners must use sound judgment skills and empathy to respond to customer needs and make decisions that ensure the best possible
customer experience (CX) across the entire customer journey.

Instead of being awarded points for progress, learners are awarded points based on the accuracy of their decision-making. Poor decisions have
consequences and learners see the impact of those consequences both within the scenarios and on their score. Alongside this, badges are awarded for
performance and achievement in key areas.

This type of approach is how we see gamification and scenarios working effectively. The decisions learners face are genuinely difficult to tackle and the
gamification serves to enhance the learning experience in a meaningful way, instead of being tacked on as an afterthought.

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Captivate and AR
At LEO Learning, our prediction is that AR will one
Challenge day become more widely adopted in learning
than VR.
Learners Why? Because AR can enable a new way for
learners to process and explore information.
In traditional eLearning, we’re used to thinking
about how best to logically chunk and present
VR information in a 2D space. But AR gives us the
potential to take the presentation of learning
For VR to be effective in learning, it has to be
into a 3D space that can be interacted with and
used for the right reasons. VR is immensely
explored.
powerful for recreating experiences, situations
or tasks that can’t easily be accessed in real life.
For example, situations that are potentially highly
hazardous can be recreated in VR to provide a
safe way to practice (flight simulators are a good
example of this). Access to expensive equipment
is also often limited, so providing learners with a
virtual way to access and interact with them is
another valid use for VR.

VR also has massive potential to aid group

collaboration in cases where bringing learners
together in one place would normally be difficult.
Imagine, for example, a group of learners meeting
in a VR environment to tackle a series of tasks. This
brings a whole new dimension to social learning.

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Realize Value and

Use Measurement to
Improve Outcomes
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HOW TO CREATE DIGITAL LEARNING THAT WORKS 21

Realize Value WHAT’S THE HYPE?

Perhaps it’s less about hype in this particular
and Use instance, but more about a slightly negative
perception of what measurement really involves
Measurement and what it can achieve.

to Improve “Measurement is too hard. There are too many

factors at play to make it meaningful.”
Outcomes “Measurement is too expensive!”

“Passing a test means learning happened”

HOW TO MAKE IT WORK

To make measurement a really effective and
Learning doesn’t ‘work’ if it’s valuable part of your learning strategy, approach
not delivering value to your it with three goals in mind:

organization, if it’s not effective, ƒƒ Build your chain of evidence

and if it’s not creating change.
ƒƒ Link learning design to measurement
Implementing a learning measurement program
will enable you not only to understand the ƒƒ Aspire to use the data for evidenced-based
impact your learning is really having on your design and personalization strategies
organization, but will also provide valuable data-
based evidence that can inform the delivery and
design of future learning programs. Let’s look at each of these in more detail.

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Captivate and Build Your Chain of Evidence

This is the LEO Learning Chain of Evidence model.
Challenge
Knowledge, skills Performance
Learners Engagement
& attitudes Behaviors
Business Change

Has business
Has the Has learning Have the performance
performance
learning landed? taken place? behaviors changed?
improved?

1 2 3
LEARNING DELIVERY LEARNER CHANGE & PERFORMANCE BUSINESS IMPACT

It summarizes our approach to learning Effective measurement is an honest look at

measurement. Based on Kirkpatrick’s model, it
looks at measuring the impact of learning across
four levels:
ƒƒ Engagement: has the learning landed?
ƒƒ Learning: has the learning taken place?
ƒƒ Behaviors: have the required behaviors
been adopted?
whether you are actually achieving your goals
and outcomes across all four of these levels.
The point of the chain of evidence model is that
by measuring across these levels, you’ll naturally
move back and forwards to build the ‘story’ of
effectiveness. It’s often the linkages between
these levels that help you form a compelling story
of what’s working (and what’s not).

ƒƒ Results: has business performance

improved? Has change taken place?

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Captivate and Link Learning Design to Measurement

Challenge
LEARNING DESIGN

Learners Business goal

What do people
need to do?
What do people
need to learn?
What training
is required?

Was the Are people Have they Did they

goal achieved? doing that? learned it? complete it?

MEASURMENT

You can use the principles behind measurement
and the chain of evidence to define a learning
strategy or to check the design strategy and
learning design you have put in place.
At the outset of a project, identify what that
particular piece of learning needs to achieve
in terms of business change or to support
overarching business goals.
Then understand what learners need to be doing
to achieve that goal (their behaviors). Finally,
map out what learners need to know in order to
achieve those behaviors (skills, knowledge, etc.).
Once you’ve built up that picture, then you can
decide what training is required and what the
solution will look like.
To measure the impact of the resulting solution,
ask yourself:
ƒƒ Did learners complete the training?
ƒƒ Have they learned from it?
ƒƒ Are people ‘doing’ the behaviors we targeted?
ƒƒ Have we impacted or achieved the
business goal?

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Captivate and ASPIRE TO ZERO-WASTE LEARNING

Another goal of getting to grips with data and
Challenge measurement is ‘zero-waste learning’.

Learners By that, we mean the development and delivery

of learning that is truly personalized to the needs
of your learners and your organization.

With data-fuelled insights, you’ll be able to

understand how your learners are interacting with
your content at a highly-detailed level, as well
as which design approaches are proving most
effective at driving behavior change.

When you can build that complete story of

impact and change, you’ll be able to use those
insights to hone and refine your approach. This
continuous cycle of review and improvement will
lead to increased impact and efficiency across
all of your learning programs.

At LEO Learning, we believe all learning teams

should be aspiring to this way of working, where
evidence-based practice creates a culture of
continuous improvement.

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HOW TO CREATE DIGITAL LEARNING THAT WORKS
Conclusion
We hope you’re now feeling
confident about how to
evaluate the latest tools and
trends to ensure you create
digital learning that really works
for your organization and your
learners.
Above all else, designing great learning
always comes back to sound design principles.
It’s why we developed our design imperatives:
ƒƒ Give people their own learning journey
Empower your learners and give them
what they need.
ƒƒ Connect learners so they can learn
together
Keep it simple and find the best tools and
activities for your particular organization.
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ƒƒ Captivate and challenge learners
Find meaningful (not just cool!) ways to
engage your learners.
ƒƒ Realize value and use measurement to
improve outcomes
Measure impact and effectiveness to
help you make better learning in the
future.
Keep these principles in mind and you can be
confident you’re cutting through the hype—
whatever ‘next big thing’ lands in your inbox.
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MEET THE EXPERTS

Andrew Joly Rose Benedicks

Director of Strategic Design Strategic Consulting Lead

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About LEO Learning
LEO Learning believes that technology-enabled learning innovation has the power to deliver
truly transformational results. Our purpose is to help clients deploy learning technology to
deliver outcomes precisely aligned to their business goals. Backed by more than 30 years of
experience, we design engaging learning architectures that fit seamlessly into businesses and
improve performance throughout the entire organization.

As 2017 Learning Technologies UK Company of the Year (Gold), LEO Learning has the deep
understanding of learning design and technology, and pioneering creative approach,
necessary to drive the learning revolution.

LEO Learning’s expanding global customer base includes organizations such as the NHS,
Jaguar Land Rover, Volvo, Virgin Atlantic, Suncorp, Novartis, Godiva, Volkswagen, Roche
and Mars.

LEO Learning is part of Learning Technologies Group plc’s award-winning group of specialist
learning technology businesses.

Need help with your next digital learning project? Contact us today:

talktous@leolearning.com

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