Do you create elearning courses? Are you in charge of training at your company? Do you manage your company’s learning management system? If yes, or if you are just looking for a good reason to visit Portland, Oregon, then you should consider attending the LEAP Ahead eLearning Conference. To learn more, visit https://www.bluevolt.com/blog/trainers-and-ld-managers-get-ready-leap-ahead today.

1. Trainers and L&D Managers: Get Ready to LEAP Ahead
Do you create elearning courses? Are you in charge of training at
your company? Do you manage your company’s learning
management system? If yes, or if you are just looking for a good
reason to visit Portland, Oregon, then you should consider attending
the LEAP Ahead eLearning Conference.
The two-day event (June 24-25, 2015) is packed with hands-on
training, delivered by experts and leaders in the learning space. The
agenda has two tracks; one on Designing & Developing Training and the other has sessions on
Managing Training Programs.
Here are some of the sessions you can look forward to:
 Julie Dirksen is coming back to LEAP Ahead and is presenting twice. The first time is on
Agile Evaluation: Fixing the Broken Feedback Loop. You’ll take a look at what we can learn
from the field of software usability, and what practices you can add to that to ensure
successful e-learning design. You’ll learn to recognize when you have a broken feedback
loop and specific, immediately applicable, inexpensive, and fast methods for rectifying that
issue.
 The second session from Julie Dirksen is Storytelling: Narrative Techniques for Learning.
We know that storytelling is a powerful learning tool and that training professionals and
instructional designers are frequently called upon to create scenarios or stories to support
learning. Turning mundane topics into vivid and compelling narratives can be a difficult task.
Participants in this session will learn about concepts like the inciting incident, protagonist
versus antagonist conflict, three-act structure, and other narrative techniques that can help
bring simulations to life.
 We’re also excited to have Jane Bozarth returning to the conference. Her session is
Supporting Social Learning with Social Tools. The fact that you’re reading this blog post
shows how pervasive social media is today and Jane will explore the use of free
technologies like blogs, wikis, Facebook, Twitter, and online groups to help build
communication, increase participation, and enhance transfer of training to the job. You will

2. walk away with ideas for applying low-cost collaboration strategies to your own training
programs—both classroom and online!
 New to this year’s event, Anne Derryberry is presenting on Digital Badges: The New
Professional Credentials. The ―badges movement‖ is gaining momentum. In this session,
you will learn about the power of badges, the ecosystem in which they live, and the role they
will play for you and your organization. You will explore examples of badges that provide
value in job training, professional development, competency-based education programs,
and city-wide learning initiatives.
 Another fantastic presenter is Jeannie Sullivan. She is an instructional designer and is
leading two sessions on Creating a Compelling Learning Sequence, with the second
session being a lab where you’ll work with your specific content, audience group and
learning goal. You'll learn a simple 5-step process for creating a compelling learning
sequence around a subset of content. Whether that content is custom created for your
course or existing within your body of knowledge, wrapping it in context that is relevant and
specific to your learners will boost its effectiveness.
You can see the full agenda here, including sessions led by Professor Art Koh, Judy Katz,
Jennifer Dryden and Stacy Friedman.
BlueVolt’s customers can attend the User Group the day before the conference starts.
The event is held in downtown Portland, in the Hotel Monaco. This is a great location to spend a
couple days and is centrally located to all the wonders, activities, and attractions you’ll want to do
and visit while in town – breweries, Powell’s books, gardens, Voodoo Donuts – the things that
make Portland unique.
Read more at: https://www.bluevolt.com/blog/trainers-and-ld-managers-get-ready-leap-ahead