Elevate Corporate Training with Interactive Microlearning

Kryssia Kipp: Good afternoon. My name is Kryssia Kipp, U.S. corporate country manager at Genially, and welcome to our second Genially Talk for the U.S. I'm so glad to present one of our wonderful ambassadors, Cynthia Berry, who will be hosting an amazing session today. Welcome, Cynthia, and thank you for being part of this project focusing on instructional design and training. Let's go.

Cynthia Berry: I'm good, thank you so much for having me. It's a pleasure. Do I need to share my screen again, or are we good? All right, awesome. Hello everyone, thank you for joining me for this Genially Talk. Today we're going to be diving into an L&D hot topic that's paired with an amazing and interactive platform. That's right: microlearning and Genially coming together and making magic.

So let's unpack some simple solutions to elevate corporate training with interactive microlearning. This is a topic that I love, because it's so relevant to learning styles. I know you already see me, but let me introduce myself again. My name is Cynthia, I'm a former teacher turned learning experience designer for ChenMed, and I've also been a mentoring coach for IDOL Courses Academy. I thought I would put in a fun fact about me: I like creating digital solutions for non-profit organizations, and I use Genially to do that.

I also like to identify and draw flowers, so if you like to do that too, please message me, because I am an aspiring herbalist and I absolutely love drawing flowers. Sorry, that's off topic, let's get back to Genially. So welcome to the exploration of how Genially can elevate your corporate learning solutions through microlearning.

My question to you is, and I'm not sure if you recognize this guy, but he's old school and that really dates me: why should we create content that is easily digestible for learners? I would love for you to add your responses in the chat, and let's see if we can come up with some themes. If anybody has anything, just go ahead and add it there, and we will get back to those responses in a moment. Microlearning and corporate learning go great hand in hand.

Before we answer that question, some of you might be wondering: microlearns, what are they good for? I don't really know a lot about microlearning. So I came up with a couple of things here to give you a high-level overview of microlearns and what they're good for. One, microlearns help reduce the high cognitive load to allow a learner time for processing. Not everybody learns the same, so a microlearn is a great way to chunk information.

Microlearns also offer a personalized learning approach that's less intimidating and overwhelming to the learner. How many of you have had to look at a PowerPoint deck that has a hundred plus slides, and you're like, I don't even know if I can tell you what I just learned? They can tell you what the training was called, but nothing else. So this is a less intimidating approach to deliver learning. Microlearns allow you to chunk content into bite-sized pieces for learners to chew, or process, and I will talk more about this verbiage in a moment.

With Genially you can also create quick interactive knowledge checks. So those are some really good high-level points of what a microlearn is good for in the corporate learning environment. Back to my earlier question: why should we create content that is easily digestible for learners? Did we get any responses, Kryssia, from anyone at all? Do we have any themes?

Kryssia Kipp: No, I will be posting the answers of the audience.

Cynthia Berry: OK, no worries at all, let's just keep going. Why should we create content that's easily digestible for learners? Well, microlearns increase efficiency and productivity. Learners get just-in-time learning with this great bite-sized approach, right when they need it, and it provides an on-demand training approach. So within your org you could push out your microlearns through your communications, and it's on-demand training that anyone can access at any time.

In this slide I have productivity cat, but microlearns also help in quickly filling knowledge gaps and applying newly acquired knowledge, resulting in higher KPIs, or key performance indicators. Microlearning content also offers targeted skill development. Microlearns can focus on targeted skill development by delivering content through targeted microlearning modules or pathways in a series, so that learning is spaced and paced. I really love how microlearning can be self-directed, and you can easily create microlearns through Genially.

You saw an incredible example yesterday with the other speaker on using it for pathways. They have branching scenarios, there are all kinds of things you can do with Genially to elevate your workflow, which I'll talk about. I don't want to get ahead of myself, but the amount of things that you can do with Genially is really amazing. Creating a microlearning pathway decreases that anxiety of having to do a long training, and it's interactive. This gives your learner time to internalize information, reflect on it and then apply it in real time, or the next day on the job, or even that day.

So microlearning is really the way to go when you're trying to close some skill gaps. In this slide I put that microlearns can also be used as smart chapters that address specific skill gaps and job-related challenges.

Kryssia Kipp: It's quite interesting what you said before, Cynthia, because I believe that it actually lets you interact with your learners or students and collect data in an interactive way, and maintain them engaged with the content that you are showing.

Cynthia Berry: Absolutely, I am going to address that in another couple of slides, how you can collect data. So yes, you can track learning targets through Genially, and we'll discuss that a couple more slides down the road, but thanks for mentioning it, that is a very good point. Better knowledge retention and application: microlearns are meant to be short and focused to promote knowledge retention by breaking down content for learners to internalize more effectively.

That might sound redundant, but effective redundancy never hurt anybody. Remember, not everyone learns the same, and offering chunked content allows the learner to chew. I'm going to go through that chunk and chew process in a moment. I personally appreciate high-level complex information broken down, so that it's more digestible for me to process. With microlearnings you're also accommodating learners' learning styles, so just keep that in mind when you are developing for target audiences.

Lastly, microlearns can encourage a culture of continuous learning, especially because they're not the traditional half-day trainings. Microlearns can be utilized at any time, and when a learner encounters new challenges, they can go quickly to a microlearn and upskill with some self-paced training. So in summary, leveraging microlearns in the corporate learning environment offers targeted, efficient and adaptable learning experiences, resulting in continuous improvement, and this is part of the learner's journey.

Microlearning is a big thing right now, and I think more organizations are starting to embrace it. So let's talk about why it's so awesome to have microlearning, and I want to go over my top five faves of microlearning with Genially. Now that you understand the why of microlearning, the first one is: no coding required. Virtual high five for that, because I only know how to code this much. Genially makes it easy for me as an instructional designer.

Coding is just not my language. It's like nailing Jell-O to a tree, it just cannot be done. I love that they have a library full of amazing ready-made templates for someone who is short on time. Genially is great for prototyping and rapid development as well: you can pick a template, you can take elements from one template and embed them in another template. They have a rich library of content: pictures, images, scenes, GIFs, all kinds of things.

The only thing that they do not have, and this is for you, Kryssia, because I was going to mention it, is a library of sounds. You all have all these neat sounds, and I'm looking at things on the Academy and I'm like, where do they have that, where can I get it? I'd have to fish around to find it. So I would encourage Genially to have a library of sounds, that would be the one other thing. Other than that, I think just having a little sound library would be wonderful.

So: ready-made templates for learning designers, great for prototyping and rapid development. You can SCORM, and if you know what SCORM means, it means you can track the data and integrate it into your LMS. Watch out, Storyline, Genially is coming. Now you can add your quizzes and your learning modules and track the data, which is amazing: you can SCORM those packages and upload them into your LMS. Last but not least, Genially is mobile friendly, and I'm going to share three mobile-friendly Genially examples with you today within this presentation.

Are we doing good? Any questions coming in from anyone? We're all good, perfect, moving right along. So how do I use Genially in my workflow in corporate learning? I developed something I call the three C's. These are ways that I leverage interactive microlearning for elevating corporate learning. The first one, I had mentioned this word before, is chunking the content. You want to chunk that complex information into microlearning paths or push out boost learnings, and I'm going to show you a boost learning. I've got the little asterisk there to note that we're going to see what a boost learning looks like.

The second point is allowing learners to chew. Chew means they get to process. As a former educator, still a teacher at heart and a learning practitioner, I know not everyone learns the same. Having various modalities to implement learning gives a personalized learning approach. Taking a PowerPoint presentation and breaking it down into those bite-sized pieces may actually work better for some people. Some people might want to stay and look at a PowerPoint, I don't, but this right here seems relevant and it gets me engaged.

The aesthetic, everything about the microlearning helps keep your learners engaged, because it's just a little bit of information dripped or spaced out for a learner to process, and I think that's important. Oh, this has a notification here, so I'm going to show you another activity. There's a total of three, and I'll show you the second one in just a moment. We want to offer learning extensions through spaced learning. In the corporate environment, sometimes you have new hire orientation or compliance training, and you need them to remember a policy, or you want to have continuous learning experiences.

So you can put out a 30-60-90 day plan where you push in your comms a microlearning that is just reviewing HIPAA guidelines, or reminding them that you go into Workday and do XYZ to find your benefits. Some people might forget, so you put in a little microlearning to help out. It's spaced learning to keep that knowledge in check, so it's always at the front and they're always reminded of these tasks that need to be completed.

For group activities, I would encourage lunch and learns. This can be a Friday lunch and learn: we all come together, we're on our mobile with a QR code or a link, we all sit together and go over the microlearning together. It could be a series of 12 microlearnings, so you're planning out, OK, on Fridays we're going to go through four of them together. It becomes something that creates culture, everyone's going in saying, yes, let's do this together, and it can be a more positive experience of learning. Sometimes it's not all positive, but we try.

The third one is interactive learning checks: presenting quick checks that can be tracked to measure the learner's progress. That's where we talk about data. We can SCORM packages, but with Genially you can actually turn on an option where it tracks statistics. It can track the names, how many times they went through the microlearning, where they got stuck on a question, how long. There are a lot of very neat metrics that Genially offers with tracking data, that probably sounds better.

And then presenting a mobile version for OTG, or on-the-go learning, I think is very relevant. So if you are still with me, I would encourage you to take out your mobile device, because I'm going to offer a unique way to give microlearning. Kryssia, you can go ahead and put the first link in the chat right away, thank you. So now you have two different modalities: you have the link to the microlearning in the chat, and if you have your phone, I'm going to give you an opportunity to scan the QR code.

I will go over that one in just a moment, I just want to give everybody an opportunity to check it. Actually, let me back up on mobile versions. One cool thing about a mobile version is that you'll open the training with the QR code, and maybe you don't get to finish it, but it's not going to leave your browser on your phone until you close out of it. With that, I also want to remind people about information classification. If you're providing a training, sometimes there's proprietary information, so you just have to make sure that everyone's aware of that risk.

Let me go ahead into my first example. This is a boost learning, I'm just going to put it in preview mode. This is what I call a boost learning, and it can be used as pre-work before training. If you want to have the music you can, but for the sake of not distracting anyone I'm going to turn it off. I decided to put this in as a slide view presentation. It was originally a video presentation for someone just to watch, but if you're accommodating learners and you're just creating a video, you really have to time it out, and some people may need extra time, so you want to be mindful of that.

You can push this out into your comms in a QR code or in a link, so you have two different ways of providing the microlearn. This is just a template that I took off of Genially, I didn't really change anything, and this is still just a sample. We just want to activate prior knowledge with the boost learning, and this one was designed for leadership training, about leadership conversations with direct reports and their challenges. Here you notice it says go to page eight of the participant guide, so this is already giving an action within the microlearn to go to another resource.

Don't forget to go to your participant guide and fill in this question: this is part of a reflective process. Here within the microlearn you're connecting the participant guide and the microlearn together. The microlearn is asking various questions, and you can see this doesn't have anything to do with leadership because there's Bitcoin, but it's OK, it's just making that connection between a resource for the training and the microlearn. I'll just go through quickly. It works perfectly on my phone, and I've tested these so many times. I love it, I love showing people, and I love the music, and that actually came pre-made in Genially.

I'm thinking, let's see, with the Master account you are able to manipulate things as SVGs and so on, I'm not even going to get into that.

Kryssia Kipp: What's interesting is that you can also record your voice as well if you're explaining a complex process, and it's even better, it's amazing.

Cynthia Berry: You're totally right, I can't believe I forgot to mention that, so thank you for putting in the plug. AI is a big thing right now, and I'm impressed with that. So that was just a glimpse of a boost learning. Let me go back, now I have another QR code for you too. There it goes. It's a learning bite within a training that is being put together for talent acquisition, so this is an adapted example. You can scan this QR code, and you still have the other one to look at again. This was a training on unconscious bias.

It was put into a VILT as an engagement activity and also into the digital resource guide. I'll give you just a moment to scan the QR code. This is designed to deliver targeted training content, and you'll notice a difference between the first one and this one. Hopefully everyone's been able to scan the QR code. If you don't mind, Kryssia, did you already put the second link? Perfect, you're able to view it on your web browser. This second learning bite looks a little different, because you can use the start button or you can just use the slide navigation.

For this one I have a little bit more content, because I really want to impress the topic of unconscious bias. Here you can click on images to enhance them, just to show examples. Here you have three types of unconscious bias, and then you have the plus signs that you can hover over in your web browser, or tap on your phone, to get the tooltip, and it just gives that extra information. I'm going to breeze through this, it's just a little bit more content. Also be aware of accessibility for colors, color tones and aesthetics when you're developing. But here we go: there is a built-in quiz, and if you get it right, you're able to move on. And it continues with the quiz, so you can try it again, get the correct answer and keep moving on.

Kryssia Kipp: Something that I like is that you can click on the image and it actually zooms in on your mobile, if this is something that you're interested in.

Cynthia Berry: Oh, that's a great point. As Kryssia is saying, if you want to expand an image or take a closer look, you can click on it, and that's great. So that one had a little more content for the learner, and then it had a knowledge check towards the end, and that definitely enhances learner engagement on a specific topic. Now I have one more, please stay with me here, because this is a fun one. This is a game I created with the math quiz mobile version. I totally had to take it apart and put it back together, but this is just to show that Genially is going to capture your stats.

It has the capability to analyze statistics and understand learner behavior, and this feature allows designers to improve content and how to communicate with their target audience. Hopefully everyone's been able to get the QR code. I'm going to go ahead to the version and show you. Honestly, this is really simple. I never overcomplicate things that I create, I guess that's just the way I'm wired. I just want to have as little distraction as possible in my aesthetic and get straight to what the learner needs. So you get to click on Go.

I see some people saying that the QR codes are good and the mobile versions are great. I agree, because it's there with you, you're not sitting at a screen, and it's relevant because we always have a phone. I can't say that a hundred percent of people have a phone on them, but it's a great way to incorporate some quick learning. Hopefully you will get the correct answers. I bolded the riddles, these are riddles, so if you're not exactly sure, just pay attention to the bold print and it should give you the answer. The first one is a giveaway.

I love that we can insert GIFs, because it's positive reinforcement in the microlearn, and I was like, oh, I got the happy raccoon, let's see what's next, I want to keep learning. Here I'm talking about LMSs, and as you can see, I don't have the slide navigation here: you actually have to answer the question to get to the next slide. So let's say I think, oh, it's JavaScript. Nope, and I really like this chicken, that's just me. So I'm going to go back, and it's going to give you another opportunity. Yay, happy raccoon. I'll let you continue with that.

Kryssia Kipp: I'm on question four already, I'm taking it.

Cynthia Berry: Hopefully it's not too hard. Hopefully this has added value to what you currently do for learning in the corporate environment. I just have two questions for you, and I would love to open it up for some discussion: how do you currently approach corporate learning in your organization, and how can you use Genially to elevate microlearning in that learning space? If anyone has anything they want to put in the chat, it would be great, so we can have some quick live discussion. I would love to answer some questions, and I'll leave that up for just a moment.

Kryssia Kipp: I see that a user says they're really impressed with the mobile versions of Genially. There are all kinds of versions, you can create anything in a mobile version. Actually, you can create a presentation in a mobile version as well: if you give the instruction to flip the phone, they can see the slides and still navigate from there.

Cynthia Berry: You're just providing a link or a code for them to open up on their mobile or a tablet, so you could use it in those different ways. Genially is not just K-12. I think there's probably some kind of stigma because the aesthetic is super cool, but you can do a lot with Genially. If I went to the panel, you would see so many templates, ranging from corporate to this, which would be just fun and engaging. There are a lot of colors, the color choices are balanced and it's accessible. And then you have some that are for education, but you can manipulate those into anything that you want. You can create a training that doesn't always have to look business style. You can make it something fun where your learners are actually going to engage in what you're providing.

Give me a second. I don't know if anyone answered the questions in the chat, but thank you so much for being here. I just saw something, so give me just a second, and please connect with me on LinkedIn, I would love to have you as a connection. Teresa asked if we can show the stats, so let me go to the panel. I know for sure I did it for the mobile riddle. If you went into the mobile riddle, you were supposed to add your name. Let's see, statistics. I went through that fast, let me go back. So, Teresa, I went to the one that I had created, went to the three dots here, clicked on that and went to statistics.

And here, goodness, 296 interactions, and now I've got a bit of a flow here with views per page. I didn't do a good job of labeling them, but you see 17 views for the wrong answer, so maybe I had some riddles that were a little too hard. We would have to go back and see how many got them correct versus how many got them wrong, and you would use the metrics there, your interactions, interactive clicks. So this gives you some metrics to work with.

Kryssia Kipp: And it is actually great, because in one of the templates, people needed to write their names in order to start playing, and it will show the answers of that specific person, so you can track the actual right or wrong answers of that person.

Cynthia Berry: Yes, here we go, exactly what Kryssia is saying. Let's see: number of views and viewing time, how long did they take on there. Let's say you're putting out an assessment and someone breezes through it in 2.5 seconds and gets it wrong every single time. Then you know they're breezing through the content and not really taking the time to view it. Right here you can download to CSV. That gives you a glimpse of how long they are taking, how long it took them to finish, or whether one of the questions was too hard and they took a long time on that particular question. I appreciate everybody giving it a go, and I guess it wasn't too bad.

Kryssia Kipp: Those are basic metrics that you're going to have, which are amazing if you're doing a dynamic assessment or a quick quiz. But if you want something very specific, you can download a SCORM format and upload it to your LMS, so you can have the best of both worlds.

Cynthia Berry: Right. I see a couple of questions in the chat. I just wanted to show turning on statistics: you go to statistics and it's just flipping a switch on to start that capture. I had a question: how do you suggest starting microlearning to explain a process, would you use interactive images? I think that's a great way to start, because you're creating context for the learning. With microlearning you can start with something micro, like an ant, and then base a story off of the ant and how microlearning can build up to this amount. That's off the top of my head, not a very good example, but use those pictures to create a story introducing microlearning. I think that's a great way to socialize microlearning in the corporate learning environment.

Which template did I use for the last quiz? Let me get back there for you. In Creations, it's going to be the cool quiz, it's called Cool Quiz, and I literally had to tear it apart and make it what I wanted. That's the one where there's no way you can move forward: you have to answer the question before it will allow you to move on to the next question. That's a great question.

Kryssia Kipp: One interesting thing is that if you're working in a company and creating corporate training material, you can add your brand kit with the premium account and have your own templates. This is something that helps maximize your time.

Cynthia Berry: Yes, absolutely, you can definitely do that: use a brand kit and create a template just for the enterprise and have everything ready. You can have one just for presentations, one just for microlearning, one for a mobile version. That's a great point, Kryssia, using the brand kit. Please make sure that you connect with me, I would love to connect with you. And scan that code there to become a corporate ambassador. I think it's a privilege to be able to do this and share knowledge about Genially and how fun it can be. You can create so many different things, it's amazing.

Kryssia Kipp: Thank you very much, Cynthia. Before finishing, we remind you that next week we will raffle our Genially Master plan, which includes all the premium features of our tool: password protection, downloading as JPG, video and HTML and more, as well as downloading SCORM files. We also remind you that our Genially Ambassador program is now open. Cynthia is one of our wonderful corporate ambassadors. She asked me why I asked her to be a speaker in Genially Talks, and I told her that I love the way she participates in discussions, discovers new tools and shares all her expertise and work. Thank you very much, Cynthia. You can become part of our great community, creating revolutionary training content together, and be part of this wonderful Genially community. I would like to thank you, Cynthia, for participating, and I hope you enjoyed this session.

Cynthia Berry: My pleasure, thank you everyone so much for having me. Have a great day or evening, depending on where you are.

Kryssia Kipp: Thank you very much, and connect with Cynthia on LinkedIn and with us. See you next time.

Cynthia Berry: Thank you, Kryssia, for having me. Have a good day everyone, bye.