How do you lead digital learning teams?

Leading a digital learning team involves setting clear goals, of the direction of technology used to leverage pedagogy to create engaging, learner-centric experiences. As a leader, it is not enough just to inspire innovation. The leader must provide guidance, and continuously assess the effectiveness of the team's initiatives, ensuring they align with organizational objectives and adapt to evolving educational trends and technologies. Effective communication, mentorship, and a deep understanding of instructional design principles are essential to drive the team's success in delivering impactful digital learning solutions. And don't forget to have fun with the team in working out pedagogy-technological solutions.

Practice what you preach! If you want to learn how to manage and build experiences for baristas at Starbucks, become a barista for a day. If you want empathy for what it's like to be a teacher, sit in their classroom. If you want to understand how to integrate technology within a teaching and learning environment, find ways to use those tools in your daily life. Take an online course that integrates these tools. Build, test, experiment, and fail before trying to use a new digital tool in the classroom.

The same way you lead any skilled team. Hire the best folks you can, give them clear direction on deliverables and timelines, all the resources they need, and then get out of their way!

When leading a digital learning team you have to: - Be agile: In a technologically driven environment change is the only constant. Digital learning specialists will have to adapt to those changes quickly. - Innovate: Do things differently. That means not only bringing new technologies and methodologies but also questioning the status quo to be more efficient and engaging. - Be customer focus: Know your learners and put yourself in their shoes to understand if what you are offering them meets their needs. Create feedback loops to hear from them directly and tailor content to their needs. - Measure: Data is key to knowing the impact of the learning initiatives and making decisions that will help you improve in the future.

Without a clear vision the team will not be able to provide a good result...so it's important to be : Agile, pro active and open minded with your team members... let them understand what they should do and help them.

Keeping a good relationship with your team and achieving good results requires collaboration. In digital learning, collaboration is very important.

Selecting appropriate tools to facilitate meaningful collaboration is key to getting to best out of a team, especially in a remote environment. In my experience keeping track of comments and changes in Word documents is a nightmare and the added complexity of fonts, colours, and styles distracts from the creation of great content. I definitely prefer the simplicity of markdown type editors. Setting ground rules for communication expectations can help make the process smoother.

💯 To add, It would help to create guidelines on (a) which means of communication the team should use for a particular kind of engagement (e.g. when to use of a Teams site, a Teams group chat vs Viva, MS Forms/ Google Forms) and (b) where to store and find information. It is an absolute nightmare when the information needed is scattered everywhere. Lastly, make sure everyone is aligned on the guidelines.

I implement the following within my teams: • Making collaboration a Culture: Encourage collaboration among team members, as well as cross-functional collaboration with other departments, such as IT, curriculum development, and HR. For instance, a team working on an online course might use project management tools like Trello to assign tasks and share progress updates. Regular video meetings can simulate face-to-face interactions, promoting engagement and clarifying objectives. • Be Open to Your Team Members: Establish open lines of communication within your team and with stakeholders. To achieve this, maintaining clear documentation, such as style guides and communication protocols can help ensure consistency and minimize misunderstandings.

My experience in collaboration and communication has shown that acronyms can cause potential difficulty. Using acronyms assumes that your team knows what the term means. I have seen this exact example in a room full of professionals. GL Code was used; for the speaker, it meant General Ledger; for the large portion of the room, it meant Graphics Library. Speak clearly to your team and explain your descriptions of terms; do not fall into the trap of blasting your audience with a word salad, either. This theory applies to all forms of communication; try not to embed your thoughts into the minds of those you communicate with.

The most powerful thing you can do with digital learning teams is to always have something new in the pipeline. Technology changes not yearly or even monthly or weekly, but daily. Embrace that. Support your team to each be continuously exploring tools, demonstrating to other team members, and pushing the envelope. I say 'support', but in fact I mean expect. Make sure the people on your team know, understand, and embrace that. But, give them time to do this. Don't just stack it on everything else. Make sure they know they can innovate within the workday. Once you have that in place, the challenge here is to learn to recognize tools that are truly game-changer innovations vs. just cool to look at.

It is very important to encourage team members to share ideas openly and give kudos for inventive thinking. Make sure your goals highlight the importance of being creative, keep up with what's new in tech, and let your team members take the reins when it comes to coming up with cool solutions. This way, you'll have an atmosphere where everyone celebrates fresh ideas, goals align with creative thinking, tech is used to amp up learning, and team members are all about owning their projects, making digital learning even better.

Making the digital learning experience almost feel like a physical learning experience is key. Human-to-human connection is important for mimetic learning. If you can feel the peers and how they learn, it can help a lot in being alert. Action sprints, 3x appreciation, and rewards can make a lot of difference apart from robustly designed content. Each learner should feel like an active player in the game. Gamify it. Stimulate thinking. Have fun. Use music. A rock show is what people want in learning. Not a dull webinar.

The pace of business continues to accelerate, but I personally find blocking out (and protecting) at least a few hours a week (roughly 10% of your work week), to explore and experiment is a must when working in a digital role. 👨💻 As a leader I also try to empower my team to continuously improve, things like a retrospective at the end of a project to simply ask “what did you learn”, or “what would you have done if you had more time?”, can be a a great place start. 🚀

Um digitale Lernsystem mit Innovation und Kreativität zu verbinden, ist es wichtig auch viele verschiedene kreative Inhalte anzubieten, wie Videos im TikTok Style, Simulationen, Quizze oder über Anreize zu arbeiten. Beispielsweise Gameshows mit Punkten, verschiedenen Teams oder Auszeichnungen. Dies macht viel Spaß und motiviert zum Lernen. Zudem fördert dies die Kollobaration und es erhöht die Anzahl an Ideen und Innovationen. Gut ist es auch, wenn es Möglichkeiten gibt zu reflektieren und konstruktives Feedback zu geben. So können schnell Anpassungen für die Lernenden aufgenommen und umgesetzt werden. Besonders wichtig ist es darauf zu achten, Transferhebel einzubauen, um die Wirksamkeit der Learnings sicherzustellen.

The following can be used: 1. Coursera's data-driven insights can be used to analyze user interactions and performance metrics and, therefore, can identify areas of improvement in course content and design. 2. The Quality Matters (QM) framework can be used for evaluating online course quality. 3. edX's Peer Review Process can be used for course quality assurance. Course content, assessments, and overall design are reviewed by experts and peers, ensuring alignment with learning objectives and high standards. Some Massive Open Online Course (MOOC) platforms, like FutureLearn, also employ peer evaluation for assessing learner-submitted assignments, which helps improve the quality of the instructional material and evaluation.

It is important to consider that just because a concept appears within a digital learning asset doesn’t mean the user will digest it. How many of us have skimmed articles or skipped videos in a course? Using an evaluation tool or protocol such as Kirkpatrick’s that looks at multiple layers of learning is critical to evaluating a program.

Evaluating the impact of training is notoriously tricky, yet it's essential for most organisations in order to demonstrate the return on their investment. I agree that we need to use a multifaceted approach, ranging from quick 'warm' feedback post-training on the overall feeling towards the experience, to 'colder' evaluations of how learners have actually used the skills learned to do something better or perform in their role to a higher standard than before. While quantitative data is very useful, testimonials and case studies from past learners are even more powerful to prove the value the training has added.

Digital learning solutions meet high-quality standards and have a positive impact on learning outcomes and organizational goals. Regular evaluation and continuous improvement are key to staying aligned with the evolving needs of your organization and learners.

Impact is everything. Nothing else matters. You can use NASA level technology, but if it doesn't get results then ultimately it is pointless. Know your metrics and research both quantities and qualitative outcomes. Also bear in mind, each learner and indeed cohort is different, and what works for one, will not necessarily work for another. Its is a constant cycle of evaluation and adaptation to the needs of the learners.

Every "Boss with UUU Hat" (Unskillfulness, Unorganized work-style, and Unprofessionalism) may think that they are the leaders. But, they may not. Here are some great examples of L&M that can be used: My favorite one is the outcomes of the "Project Oxygen" (by Google). Google conducted "Project Oxygen" to identify key leadership behaviors. The key qualities are: being a good coach, empowering teams, and showing a genuine interest in employees' success. Leaders in nonprofit ed-tech organizations, like Khan Academy and edX, manage vast digital learning ecosystems. Their focus on scalability, accessibility, and collaboration demonstrates effective leadership and management practices in the education technology sector.

A couple of things to add to this. One is being able to learn from your team, as well. They bring a lot to the table and leaders can grow themselves as part of it. Two, as someone who lead a team of instructional designers, having a clear professional development plan in place will add to the team's motivation. Passion for the job is one part, but knowing there is a solid path to enhance skills and develop one's own leadership is very important to the team's organizational health.

Developing great digital learning requires a multi-skilled team. It requires finding and harnessing people's skills and passions, as well as managing them to work together so that everyone's excellent work comes together to form a product that meets organizational goals and target audience objectives. The skills required include research, analysis, design, planning, writing, editing, photography/videography, voiceover, learning technologies, evaluation/measurement, and project management. The key to success is to figure out the skills and talents that are needed for the project, bring in the right people, and manage and motivate them to develop the best possible solution.

Although the buck stops with you, it is important to remember it is a team effort. The team needs to be involved in every step, strategy, celebrate successes and analyze difficulties. Together.

As a digital learning leader, you must demonstrate strong leadership and management skills to guide your team and digital learning projects effectively. Your key responsibilities include setting clear and achievable goals, tracking progress, and providing coaching and recognition to your team members. Project management plays a crucial role in organizing and executing digital learning initiatives. Employ project management tools and methodologies to keep projects on track, manage resources efficiently, and mitigate potential risks. Delegation is essential to empower your team. Assign tasks based on individual strengths and expertise, allowing team members to take ownership Effective communication is vital.

Don't treat your digital team like you would a pure in-person team. Not only is the product you create digital, but the tools themselves will be digital. Your communication, collaboration, feedback, and work product will be technology-based. First, make sure your teams have what they need to work. That means basics like laptop, headphones, monitors, keyboards, and mouse---these things must be exceptional quality and as foundational as a chair and desk. But, don't stop there, what software and online tools enable digital work? Be careful here and do your research. There are literally tens of thousands of choices. Test, experiment, and explore before investing. Once you commit, it can be harder to change. This means everyone gets a vote.