The History of eLearning

A well-established concept today, the term eLearning has actually only been in existence since 1999. Short for ‘electronic learning’, eLearning usually involves using a computer, tablet or some other type of electronic device to deliver some sort of lesson or learning, either as a full course, or in conjunction with more traditional learning methods. In order to fully understand the history of eLearning, we need to first delve deep into its past, long before the Internet even existed. Some say that eLearning dates back to the 19^th century, although author, consultant and eLearning researcher Terry T. Kidd states: “It is important to note that there is no single evolutionary point of which the eLearning originated nor is there a single agreed definition of eLearning.”

As far back as the 1840s, Isaac Pitman was conducting distance classes where he taught pupils to write in shorthand via a series of correspondence mailed back and forth between himself and his students. Whilst the ‘electronic’ is missing from this type of learning, this is a method of remote learning that is synonymous with eLearning. In 1924, an intelligence testing machine was invented called the ‘Automatic Teacher’ to allow students to test themselves without the need for a teacher.  Exactly thirty years later, this was followed by the invention of the ‘Teaching Machine’ by Harvard Professor, B. F. Skinner. However, it wasn’t until the following decade in the '60s when the world’s very first computer based training program was created and this became known as PLATO (Programmed Logic for Automated Teaching Operation).

When they were first created, eLearning systems simply delivered information to students via a computer but, as time progressed, they became more complex and interactive, allowing students to communicate with the program rather than just reading information off a screen. In the UK, eLearning really came into its own when the Open University started using online systems to deliver courses to students. Previously, they had had to post course materials out to students and all interactions with tutors and teachers were carried out by mail too.

As it drew closer to the information age, the invention of the computer and the internet boosted the capabilities of eLearning. As computers were mass marketed and became more popular in homes and schools, eLearning allowed education and knowledge to be accessible to anyone with a computer, regardless of whether they could afford further education, where the lived or how much time they had. By the start of millennium, businesses also began to see the benefits of using eLearning for training employees.

Today, eLearning is as popular as it’s ever been and with the likes of YouTube, Skype, iTunes U and Massive Open Online Courses (MOOG), it’s never been easier or more fun to engage in eLearning. There’s no knowing where the technology will take us.

The History of eLearning
Year	Key Events
1924	The first intelligence testing machine – Automatic Teacher
1954	The first Teaching Machine
1960	CBT - PLATO
1966	Computer Aided Instruction in schools
1969	Precursor to the Internet created - ARPANET
1970	Computer mouse & GUI invented
1980	Computers begin to be mass marketed
1990	First digital natives born (i.e. people born with computer access)
2000	Businesses adopt eLearning
2010	Social websites boost online learning

 

By Laura Caldwell

Paperless is MORE!

Many people will likely be aware that companies up and down the country have been rolling out ‘paperless’ billing and documentation for some time now. Whether it’s your utility provider, your insurance carrier or even your employer, there are a number of reasons as to why you should consider removing the need for paper entirely from your education service or enterprise. After all, textbooks and guides could soon be a thing of the past! 

If you regularly provide educational resources to a customer base that is willing to broaden their knowledge, you could significantly cut down on their paper consumption as well as your own expenditure. Not only can cutting down paper usage benefit your budget but it may also impact positively upon the world around us – Sam Martin of Ecology estimates that around 35% of all felled trees are cut down for paper industries meaning that if only a few of us were to adopt a more environmentally-friendly approach, we could reduce dependency upon paper by a considerable margin.

Get rid of paper and save thousands!

The Paperless Project reveals that companies based in the US generally waste more than $120 billion on printed forms alone and this cost is only likely to increase as businesses grow and inflation rises. Over in the UK, it’s thought that small and medium enterprises will generally spend around £10,000 per year in printing costs. Going paperless, therefore, makes all the more sense for saving money – but are people more likely to respond to eLearning than to a paper textbook? The signs are very positive indeed!

Statistics suggest that companies and learners the world over are turning to online learning tools more. eLearning Industry advises that 2015 saw considerable growth in take-up of online platforms, and around 28.5% of in-house corporate training was delivered online or via PC. The source also advises that larger companies are more likely to invest in online educational platforms and modules, meaning that you may well get more attention if you choose to scrap paper altogether.

Switching to paperless learning needn’t be a hassle. Hexis Plus offers seamless integration for your existing educational resources via a conclusive and user-friendly platform. We believe that eLearning will eventually trump textbooks for good! We therefore invite you to take a closer look at how we can help your business engage with users and compete with rivals ahead of any technological revolutions yet to come.

 

By Graham Pierrepoint

Customer Care Made Easy

If you're in business, you have to be passionate about your work and the products and services you offer. As enthusiastic as you are about quality and service delivery, however, it is all but impossible for you to really understand the impact on your customers. While you are certain to invest a lot of time and energy in delivering a superior customer experience, you may not be as in touch with customer experience as you might think. Invest the time required to understand your consumers and you can take service delivery to a whole new level.

Customer service is an art form - even a scientific process - that can be measured for success. Esteban Kolsky is a world renowned Customer Strategy Consultant of thinkJar and according to him:

• Only 1 out of 26 displeased customers will take the time to let you know 
• 91% of dissatisfied customers will not return to your business 
• Customer acquisition is on average seven times more expensive than retaining a current customer 

If only 1 out of 26 displeased customers will take the time to let you know that they feel then your products or service is lacking, you must take a proactive approach to gathering timely customer feedback.

While your initial goal in generating feedback is to change the minds of dissatisfied customers, it also allows you to do much more than identify poor customer experience. The benefits of service inquiries are many and will also help you to:

1. Capitalize On Your Strengths — Sometimes you know your strengths but you probably have at least a few unique products or services whose value you underestimate. By identifying a larger range of desirable traits, you can build upon your strength with conviction.
2. Expand Your Product & Service Offerings — As you search for ways to improve, expanding and creating new products and services, your customer feedback should be a driving force behind development. In fact, this feedback is likely to serve as inspiration for at least a few new innovations.
3. Test New Products & Services — When launching or testing new innovations, consumer feedback will prove invaluable in optimising and improving what you have to offer.
   
4. Identify Trends — Consumer experience can be broken down in to multiple categories which will vary from one industry to the next. The service-related data you gather should be analysed and compared across time periods and on an annual basis if possible; maybe even by weekdays and weekends, daytime and evening hours. What you are searching for are trends that can help you address everything from staffing to throughput.

There are multiple means of gathering customer feedback: you can ask for it directly, you can provide handwritten surveys or you can devise a method of documenting volunteered feedback. However, each of these options is difficult to organise and track. An excellent way to track, manage and organise your consumer feedback is with a Hexis Plus app. Each of our surveys can be custom tailored to gather both general and in-depth service feedback. The app allows for anonymous feedback which is ideal for your non-confrontational consumers and the electronic completion provides a quick and convenient method of communication.

Exemplary service should be one of your main aims. If you really want to know what your customers think about your product, services and staff, satisfaction inquiries are a must and our surveys make this process easier than ever!

By Joanne S

Top 5 Quiz Apps

In the past decade, technology has revolutionalised education and transformed our relationship with learning both in and out of the classroom. The more that learners and teachers become reliant on this technology for all types of learning, the more rapidly the technology changes, causing it to be updated constantly in order to keep up with our demands.

Online quiz apps are the latest addition to a thriving and bustling educational technology scene. They serve all types of learners and are becoming increasingly important for improvement and success.

When it comes to online quizzes, researchers agree that one of the most effective learning strategies in the classroom is giving students short, regular tests to bolster memory retention. According to Daniel Schacter, Professor of Psychology at Harvard, asking students to complete short tests after online lectures decreased mind-wandering by half and, increased note-taking three-fold. Therefore, adding a virtual element to tests and lessons seems to help in keeping learners interested and alert.


A fun and interactive way to learn new information, here’s our run-down of the top 5 online learning quizzes to get you engaged and involved:

1. Kahoot!
The grandfather of online learning quizzes, Kahoot! has been around for two years now and is played by over 50 million people in 180 countries. The service is completely free and boasts a truly interactive experience. The questions are shown on a central screen, whilst players use their own device to answer the questions that appear. Extremely easy to use, and visually pleasing, this polished service will have you coming back for more.

2. Quizizz
Another great online learning website that ranks players against each other. This one’s ideal for the competitive amongst us. Tutors can create their own profiles, get assigned a virtual classroom and can then track their student’s progress along the way. You can even assign a quiz or two as a homework project, meaning you can keep on top of how your students are getting on.

3. Pear Deck
A totally interactive learning opportunity, Pear Deck lets you create presentations that your students can comment on, answer questions about, draw pictures on and generally interact with. There are also some powerful tools for anonymously displaying this information so you can comment on and enhance the learning experience without singling any one person out.

4. Quizlet Live
Build your team working skills with Quizlet Live, and experience a different type of online learning system. Students form teams and then sit together to race against each other answering questions correctly. This website has a definitive focus on accuracy rather than speed, so before, if you get a question wrong, you have to go back to the beginning of the quiz!

5. Socrative
Socrative is the most versatile of these online quiz selections, and this can be seen in its instant feedback, reports and compatibility with almost all devices and browsers imaginable. Students can even team up to participate in Space Races, where they can see who has learnt the most about a particular topic.



Breaking up traditional learning with online tests, games and quizzes is a proven way to engage students and track their progress throughout a lesson. When online learning quizzes are as easily and readily available as they are today, there’s no excuse not to participate.

By Laura Caldwell

Strengthen Sales Using Survey Apps

The age of the killer app is well and truly here and there’s nothing that people like more than to offer their opinions - so combine the two! Are you running a small to medium enterprise looking to learn more about your customers? In an effort to increase interest in your services, you can do no wrong in approaching your client base while they’re happily tapping and swiping away at their smartphones. According to data curated by Smart Insights, there has been a strong swing in the direction of app usage in the past year alone: 80% of internet users now own a smartphone! This means that now really is the time to take advantage of the trend.

Hexis Plus offers a versatile and user-friendly customer quiz and survey application platform that can be tailored to your branding and services. Ever wanted to easily capture a wide range of opinions on your brand and products? You can easily engage customers for future purchases. We understand that every customer counts and, with our software, you can capture end user engagement through a series of fun, simple questions easily downloaded via smartphones. We’ll give you all the tools you need to make aggregating and correlating results a simple task - saving you time on drawing up engagement and surveying reports.

There’s no denying it; the app is king! We think all businesses should be taking advantage of the superb, simple and fun interfaces that smartphone technology provide to the public. With Hexis Plus’s quiz and survey application technology, engaging your customers won’t just be quick, easy and painless for them - it’ll also offer you conclusive results and the impetus to boost your customer base in ways that would have been unthinkable even ten years ago. It is more important than ever before to truly understand your customers. Get app-happy today!

 By Graham Pierrepoint

Top 5 Learning Management Systems

Learning Management Systems (LMS) are specially designed learning or training programs that can be used by an individual or an employee often incorporating e-learning. There are a number of different courses that can be found including management courses, educational programs, and software training.

Normally, all the training is completed online and is meant to complement another source of learning whether through college or work, thus offering ‘blended learning’. Due to the advancements in technology, LMS’s are becoming extremely popular with the population as well as with businesses as they provide a cost-effective method of training. In truth, the benefits of using an LMS are numerous so it’s no wonder that a specific Google search returns nearly five million hits! Let’s take a look at the best LMS companies on the market for 2016!


Litmos - This is perhaps one of the biggest names because it is affordable and of a good quality; furthermore, administrators can customise courses so their employees receive the maximum benefit. After first targeting the mid-market at launch, Litmos very quickly attracted the big names and their client base now includes YouTube and Adidas. Shopify is also used to integrate the course fully and for this reason, and many others, Litmos has become the go-to LMS for many companies, big or small.

Absorb - Another popular option is Absorb, it has been praised for its user interface and its approach when using filters. Absorb offers fully-dedicated plans whether it is for training internally or externally and it also offers mobile support as well as a high-quality apps for all clients. Absorb is more expensive but offers some benefits with the main being its ease-of-use and regular weekly updates.

Grovo - Many companies erroneously believe that all LMS’s take a long time to set up but Grovo promises to have anyone set up and ready to go within five minutes. Allowing administrators to deliver, track, and report on their materials, Grovo has taken the approach of micro-lessons and less customisation which, again, is great if you want to be up and running as soon as possible.

Moodle - Boasting 60 million total users, the largest number recorded by an LMS, Moodle is mostly free as it relies on administration from the user. Furthermore, it includes peer assessment, real-time messaging, workshops, and more. Moodle has become popular in recent years and boasts a number of clients including the Open University, many government bodies, and even abroad in the likes of Spain and Columbia.

Hexis Plus LMS - We are a company that’s quickly gaining a positive reputation in the UK having worked with companies like Prospero Books and Herts Aid. We launched after noticing that only a quarter of all managers have the relevant qualifications and our aim is to change this. We now offer coaching sessions, leadership coaching, social marketing training, marketing tips and quizzes for educators. As we’re a start-up and keen to share our system with you, our basic package is completely free of charge and always will be. Find out more by clicking here to visit our website!


With the recent web application advancements, this is the age of Learning Management System and seems very promising for anyone who wants to create, manage or distribute learning material as effectively and efficiently as possible. Many LMS’s are expensive, though, so it’s worth choosing an appropriately priced LMS for your company.

By Rose Crack

Learning Management Systems Explained

Every business needs to train their employees and Hexis Plus provides an excellent Learning Management System (LMS).

What is an LMS?
An LMS is a framework in which a training process adheres to. In this technology driven era, the education and business sectors have invested heavily in making courses available digitally. This allows for continuous updates and greater exposure.

What does a LMS do?
An LMS reduces day to day training expenditure and helps to analyse return on investment per department. It also helps to maximise efficiency and cost effectiveness by reducing the need for paper wastage and printing costs as well as allowing users to learn in their own time rather than through a traditional classroom environment.
Training needs to be structured and monitored and the LMS does this perfectly. An LMS provides:

• adaptabilty so that the course content can be tailored to specific company or industry requirements.
• translation into multiple languages – great for global companies.
• instant distribution and redistribution from a central location.
• personal development
• structured and monitored training.
• advanced level functionality.
• management and delivery of content.
• progress checks and assessments.
• supervisory information.
• automatic course registration and analysis.
• security and reporting tools.
• administration for free.
• human error prevention.

What can LMS be used for?
Many companies already use LMS for corporate training and we here at Hexis Plus have made our LMS a simple, professional, convenient, adaptable and upgradeable and our clients agree.
An LMS can be used for:

• compliance training.
• student managed learning
• self service training.
• online learning.
• performance management.
• competency.
• collaborative learning.
• online assessments.
• resource management training.
• continual professional education.
• career path planning.

What are the benefits for employers?
Business goals and legislation can alter but an LMS has allowed for this change in the information that needs to be presented in the course. It is easy to update and amend courses instantaneously and remotely.
The employer’s workers have independent control of their skills, know their potential is being recognised which energises them. Christopher Papass, founder of The ‘eLearning Industry’s Network’, claims that ‘99% of [...] respondents, [say] that the use of LMS has a positive impact on eLearning content and online training efficiency’. This includes:

• aiding staff retention.
• Staff satisfaction increases.
• productivity being optimised.
• workload for Human Resources being reduced.
• less I.T. input.
• reduced overheads.
• staff contentment being evident to customers.
• no travel or hotel stays are required for training accommodation.
• cloud technology compatibility.
• studying taking place on a device at any time, anywhere.
• setting deadlines and reminding learners about them.

Our expert team at Hexis Plus know that the use of LMS’s is rapidly increasing in popularity, offering optimum management, decreasing overheads and delivering effective resources.There has never been a better time to make your training digital so be a step ahead of rivals by using a Hexis Plus Learning Management System.

By Joanne Hayle

Card Sorting

Find out more about other activities here!

Card sorting activities involve users putting information in a sequence or matching key words to their respective definitions. This is a really good method of determining the understanding of individuals and promoting an individual’s collaborative and interpretative skills.

Card sorts can also utilise images and molecular structures where learners can label images and name molecules. They are a great revision tool where understanding of a variety of topics can be consolidated. The versatility of card sorts is also admirable as they can be used for any topic from any subject.
 
There are two main types of card sorts:

• Closed card sorts: users sort items into predetermined locations. The answers are either right or wrong. This is great for AfL tasks and lesson plenaries.

• Open card sorts: users sort items into opinion based locations. This is an excellent method of generating discussion and promoting the justification and reasoning of opinions. It can be used throughout the lesson.

Traditionally, card sorts are done by hand but now interactive computer programs can be used where the learner uses the computer mouse to drag and drop information into the correct order/sequence.

Advantages	Disadvantages
Promotes learning conversations	Takes time to make the cards
Learners are engaged easily	May need laminating to prevent damage
Kinaesthetic learner friendly	Spare cards may be needed in case of damage or loss of cards
Enables whole class learning to be assessed
Easier AfL
Differentiation and lesson recycling made simple
Cross curricular