About the consultant
Resound Training and Development is a learning and development business specialising in drama based training and actor based forum theatre programmes. The company is based in London and works with clients in the UK and internationally.
The challenge
Run by Gill Brabner, Resound has always been very much a face-to-face business, but a couple of years ago she knew it was time for her to focus on upping her digital presence. “I really wanted to be able to deliver online as well as I was delivering face-to-face,” she says. Brabner wanted to develop the courses she was already offering, in particularly Institute of Leadership & Management courses.
That meant finding an online platform where learners could learn, communicate and interact with each other easily and effectively. However, as a small training provider, she also knew that she neither needed nor could afford any of the all singing, all dancing packages in the marketplace. But what else was out there?
“I went to the Learning Technologies show and spoke to various suppliers, but nothing was a fit. It was all large systems for big companies and too much for the size of my business. And all the options I had researched also seemed way too big for the size of my business and what I wanted to do. They would have all required some kind of technical support, that I would either have had to provide in-house or bought in, and I was really worried about the costs.”
At the same time as looking for an online platform for her company, Brabner was also trying to find one for a client who faced similar challenges.
Then came a piece of luck. In January 2015, Brabner enrolled on a MSc in digital education at Edinburgh University and was participating in a Twitter exercise in the first module when she noticed that a company called Noddlepod was following her. She checked Noddlepod out and realised that it might be the very company she was looking for.
“It was very serendipitous timing.” Brabner got in touch with Noddlepod and after discussing her needs, went on a three-month trial period, both for her and her client. That was almost two years ago and it has gone very well, for Brabner and her client.
Why Noddlepod?
“It’s a very simple, modern, clean looking online platform. It’s very intuitive to use and is just great for organising our programmes.” Part of the appeal for Brabner was that the courses could be organized in a very clear structure, but there is a lot of flexibility. She uses it to organise courses on a week to week basis.
It’s easy to upload video programmes and documents. In fact, Brabner thinks one of the really strong benefits of using Noddlepod is that it is so user friendly. “Online learning has to be user friendly, so clarity is of prime importance. It needs to be very obvious to learners how to use the system and I think that’s a real strength of Noddlepod. We want learners to focus on the content and materials, not on what they are doing and where they should be clicking. That’s off putting and would make some people switch off and others feel anxious.”
Brabner says it is 100% important that online interactions are manageable. The typical profile of one her online learners is someone who is working full time, so they could be logging onto Noddlepod for half an hour in their lunchtime, or coming into work early. So interactions have to be clear and easy.
Putting learners in control
One of the other big strengths of Noddlepod, according to Brabner, is the fact that the learning is asynchronous. Again, this suits learners who are fitting the learning in around work and other commitments. Learners can log on at a time that suits them and can read and add comments at their own convenience. And they can still see all the material that has been posted up when they were offline, unlike with synchronous learning. “The feedback from learners is that they love the fact that they can dip in and out when they like. They can find everything and catch up at a time that is convenient to them.” Even if a learner has missed a chunk of learning for whatever reason – they were too busy to attend for a few days or have been ill, for example – they can still go in, find out what has been going on and catch up with what they missed. “That is so important for training, particularly longer programmes and qualifications.”
Challenges
Brabner says there were some teething problems with a few learners, those that were very attached to face to face work. The more tech-savvy learners settled in with the platform more easily. One of the ways that Brabner knew it was working well was by monitoring how active people were on Noddlepod.
One learning point that she discovered is that it is important to get the numbers right – ideally groups of 25-30 people. “If you have enough active people in the group then each time they go into Noddlepod, there’s new posts and comments. They want something new to look at in order to stimulate learning, but if there’s too many people, it’s overwhelming.”
At the end of the day, Brabner says getting Noddlepod on board has enabled her and her team to get on with their area of expertise and to keep on building content, supporting people to learn and achieve. “I am so delighted that Noddlepod and I found each other. It has been a great asset to us.” You can’t say more than that.
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Read more about how Noddlepod is used for blended learning or check out our blog posts with tips and tricks on how to modernise leadership development.
Resound Training and Development is an accredited partner of Noddlepod and helps companies shift to a more flexible and distributed approach to training. Read more about how they can help you, here.