Free L&D webinars for October 2019


Wrong month? Check out our latest list of free L&D webinars.


“Carrot harvest” by woodleywonderworks is licensed under CC BY 2.0.

Carrot harvest” by woodleywonderworks is licensed under CC BY 2.0.

Is that the sound of the heat coming on? Chilly weather’s making an early appearance, it seems, and with that comes that sense of rushing toward the end of the year. Does it feel like things are organized? Or are you looking for tips to get on track before winter hits? Why not check out a free webinar? There are plenty on offer for October to boost your productivity. Happy viewing!

Tuesday, October 1, 2019, 9AM – 10AM PT: Demonstrating the ROI in Leadership Development
Organizations worldwide spend billions on leadership development; yet, for many organizations, little evidence exists that those investments are paying off. Join Patti Phillips, CEO of ROI Institute, and Katharine Aldana, Learning and Development Design Manager for Verizon, as they demonstrate how you can show the impact and ROI of your leadership development programs. Patti will present an overview of the ROI Methodology; Kat will present the application of the methodology to a leadership development program offered at Verizon. Together, they’ll describe how you can make ROI work for you.

Wednesday, October 2, 2019, 11AM – 12PM PT: Designing Learning Programs for Lasting Impact (Free for ATD members)
Business and learning leaders must navigate through confusion and clutter when designing corporate learning programs. Technology, methodologies, consultancy services and content design all have their places. But how can you design and execute agile learning programs in a way that can guarantees engagement, reinforcement, measurement and iteration for lasting performance outcomes? Rich Lanchantin, CEO at Qstream, will get practical during this webinar and share some success stories of innovative and outcome-driven approaches to learning program design and delivery.

Thursday, October 3, 2019, 4:30PM – 5:30PM PT: Speed Dating L&D Tech Tools (Free for members)
You don’t have to be geeky to jazz up your courses with some new and easy tech. Join Garima Gupta, CTDP, lead instructional designer and founder-director of Artha Learning Inc., as she introduces tools to help you engage the audience, create awesome materials, and save time doing it. If you’re tired of putting out the same kind of content and want to infuse some fun and tech in your work, start by attending this tips and tricks webinar. 

Monday, October 7, 2019, 11AM – 12PM PT: Transforming Experiences into Stories (Free for ATD members)
What you’ve learned from your experiences continues to shape your life and influence your decisions. By sharing what you’ve learned, others can learn, too, and may be more willing to share their own lessons. But how do you create a compelling story out of a few memories and anecdotes? In this webinar, Hadiya Nuriddin, Focus Learning Solutions, will apply theories from the book StoryTraining: Selecting and Shaping Stories That Connect to transform an experience into a lesson, then into a story that facilitates connections between the facilitator, the learners and the material. You’ll also gain templates and strategies for creating your own stories.

Tuesday, October 8, 2019, 9AM – 10AM PT: Using Chatbots to Engage, Support, and Inform Your Learning Audience
All over the world, people are using artificial intelligence to manage their bank accounts, book travel, and find great products, so why not use this same technology to help people learn new skills and advance their careers? In this session, you’ll develop ideas for realistic, engaging, two-way conversations in your next learning program. You’ll review examples of chatbots that introduce a course and deliver prework, give embedded performance feedback during the course, and share personalized tips after the course.  You’ll recognize how easy it is to integrate a chatbot with what you’re already using: Articulate Storyline, Adobe Captivate, Trivantis Lectora and Microsoft PowerPoint.

Tuesday, October 8, 2019, 11AM – 12PM PT: Developing a Successful Women’s Initiative in Your Organization (Free for ATD members)
With the rising need to create a workplace culture of diversity, inclusion and belonging, it’s vital to provide the tools, resources and space for women to prepare for advancement. Join Lauren McNally, Director of AMA’s Women’s Leadership Center, American Management Association, to discover how to identify the organizational business need for a program that fosters leadership skills and growth opportunities to make a lasting change on the participants and your company’s future.

Tuesday, October 8, 2019, 12PM – 1PM PT: Measure Training ROI Using Microlearning and Workflow Strategies
ROI of Training and Learning has been a contentious source of debate in the L&D industry. There are those who propose elaborate and expensive methods to capture measurements of training impacts while others are content with the smiley sheets to gauge the “happiness” of learners. The fundamental problem with both approaches is that the metrics are historical views and do not help workers impact work. The measurements are for administrators, and not for the workers and learners. Ray Jimenez, Ph.D., Architect of TrainingMagNetwork.com, Chief Learning Officer of Vignettes Learning, will show you three case studies that demonstrate how ROI in Training and Learning can be captured not only for results-tracking but also to help your employees how to best direct their efforts while doing work. 

Wednesday, October 9, 2019, 9AM – 10AM PT: Mindset Scaffolding: Training to Diverse Brains
Participants come with vast experiences and vast diversity in how their brains work. How do we tailor to each of them, deliver specifically designed content for how their brain learns? Join Leah Kyaio, author of Mindset Scaffolding and founder of With Respect, to find out how to make your training stick and not suck. In this webinar, you’ll receive:

  • What it means to work from common experience and common language.

  • How to progress through new paradigms and tools so the final result is a soft yes.

  • Where Mindset Scaffolding Blueprint begins and how to get there.

Wednesday, October 9, 2019, 9AM – 10AM PT: Using Technology to Make Learners Active Participants (Free for ATD members)
Many talent development professionals incorporate constructivism into their instructional design approach. Constructivism seeks to actively involve the learner in a process of meaning and knowledge construction. Learners are exposed to an environment and framework that allows them to derive meaning as opposed to passively receive information. Katrina Marie Baker, senior learning evangelist at Adobe, will provide you with insight about these points related to the topic:

  • Definitions of constructivism and some related terms, such as project-based, experiential and inquiry-based learning.

  • Benefits and limitations of constructivism.

  • Suggested reading and additional resources.

  • Applying constructivism to a training course or program.

  • Creating an effective learning environment using technology.

Friday, October 10, 2019, 9AM – 10AM PT: Five Reasons Your Training Videos Don’t Belong on YouTube
You wouldn’t trust YouTube with a video that held your personal credit card information, but every video your business creates needs to be stored somewhere.  Where you choose to share your recordings makes a big difference to what your team can do with those videos and how your business can take advantage of them in the future. Join Steve Rozillis, Head of Customer Evangelism, Panopto, in this webinar in examining five serious pitfalls that make YouTube a poor choice for hosting your company’s training videos, then look at the pros and cons of six alternatives to find smarter places for your business to keep its video safe.

Friday, October 11, 2019, 11AM – 12PM PT: Agile for Instructional Designers (Free for ATD members)
On time. Within budget. What they need (even if that changes). These are moving targets, yet you’re expected to deliver all three. The software development industry is embracing Agile project management to address these issues, and there’s much that L&D can learn from them. In this one-hour webinar drawing on her new book Agile for Instructional Design, author Megan Torrance, CEO, TorranceLearning, will share how these Agile techniques can be applied in an instructional design setting.

Wednesday, October 15, 2019, 10AM – 11AM PT: Flash Is Going Away. How to Find Opportunity in Chaos!
Adobe will sunset Flash in 2020, and organizations are now faced with a set of course content challenges they hadn’t planned for. Are we prepared for what will happen to our courses when Flash is retired? What do we do with all the legacy Flash content we are sitting on? What are some best practices we have learned so far for assessing existing courses and converting to HTML5? Join David Wentworth, Principal Analyst with Brandon Hall Group, and David Grant, Curriculum Leader at Raytheon, as they discuss content and curricula strategies in the “new normal” created in the absence of Flash.

Wednesday, October 16, 2019, 11AM – 12PM PT: Six Employee Development Best Practices: Beyond Learning to Deepening the Employee Experience (Free for ATD members)
98% of companies say they offer employee development tools, but only 26% of employees say they see these programs as effective. How do we better connect our learning and development programs to create the experiences employees seek? Join Todd Erickson, Director of Product, Instructure, to discover the latest insights into what employees are demanding, such as career planning, fulfillment through connections, belonging and goal attainment. You’ll then learn more about the best practices and tools needed to create effective employee development programs.

Wednesday, October 16, 2019, 12PM – 1PM PT: Product Demo: Five Features for Building a Learner-Centric Program
When building a learning program, we often see companies skip a crucial step—getting to know their learners. Understanding your learners on a more personal level goes beyond knowing their strengths, weaknesses and daily tasks. Learning professionals must understand their employees’ career goals, and align those goals to career paths with a learning platform that supports individual growth and long-term success. Join Katie Miller and Katie Koloj, from BizLibrary, as they demonstrate how BizLibrary’s learning platform is designed with the learner in mind. 

Thursday, October 17, 2019, 9AM – 10AM PT: How Artificial Intelligence Is Taking Over Your Training Program
We’ve heard stories about how artificial intelligence is taking over all kinds of industries, from legal to aerospace. Fear not, the Jetsons aren’t about to fly off with your training department, but there are some ways that AI can help you deliver a more customized, curated learning experience to your employees. Join Dr. Allen Partridge, Head of Evangelism, Adobe Digital Learning Solutions, to learn how Adobe Sensei’s AI powered algorithm are incorporated into Adobe’s learning management system, Captivate Prime.

Thursday, October 17, 2019, 11AM – 12PM PT: Addressing the Needs of All Learners (Free for ATD members)
Given the quick rate of change, leaders and individual contributors need leadership and business skills training to help their organizations operate in new ways. Ongoing learning for employees is essential for organizations to survive. So how can organizations boost learners’ engagement? Join this webinar as Benny Ramos, Director, Global Solution Practice, Skillsoft, discusses why it’s important to know learners’ expectations, what research says about learners and their environment, and what modern learners find compelling in content. 

Thursday, October 17, 2019, 12PM – 1PM PT: Transform Your Talent into Star Performers Using Training Games
Your employees are distracted, burnt out and overwhelmed, but you need to train them. Games are the solution. Gamified training engages learners, increases attention, improves confidence and ultimately drives success. The Game Agency has invited Harry Friedman, Emmy® Award-winning Executive Producer of Jeopardy!Ⓡ and Wheel of Fortune, to discuss how the Jeopardy! format is perfect for assessing knowledge. Christina Lorenzo of CHEST will demonstrate how she uses simulation games to train pulmonologists. 

Friday, October 18, 2019, 8AM – 9AM PT: A Step-by-Step Guide to Transferring Learning into Performance (Free for ATD members)
Workplace learning is rapidly changing to a 21st-century-style learning program delivery approach. Employees are seeking opportunities to grow their personal skill set, and companies are noticing the value of switching from a behaviour change model to a task optimization model. Learning transfer achieves that change of style and realizes the goal of designing for application.

Ian Townley, Director, Next Practices Ltd, and Jason Durkee, of Idea Development, will show you the basics of learning transfer, including evidence that it’s a necessary part of design. You’ll discover the application of learning in the workplace and discover through the analysis of a case study that there are categories of learning transfer problems that lead to actionable solutions.

Monday, October 21, 2019, 8AM – 9AM PT: Virtual Reality: How to Create Virtual Walkthroughs in Minutes Using Adobe Captivate (Free for ATD members)
Virtual reality training is an amazing way to provide realistic immersion for your learners, and now it’s incredibly easy to create this experience with Adobe Captivate (2019 release). This approach is perfect for orientation, simulations, location and product training. Join Debbie Richards, President, Creative Interactive Ideas, to learn how to create interactive virtual reality based training using Adobe Captivate. You’ll learn how to easily import 360-degree media assets and add trackable hotspots, quizzes and other interactive elements to engage your learners with near real-life scenarios.

Thursday, October 22, 2019, 10AM – 11AM PT: Using Immersive Learning for Engaging Onboarding in Complex Industries
Many organizations face the challenge of trying to increase both knowledge retention and employee engagement, while simultaneously trying to reduce “onboarding” periods for new joiners, to accelerate new joiners’ time to autonomy. One solution to this issue is the use of immersive learning platforms such as games, simulations and motion graphics. Used in conjunction with more formal programs, immersive tools can engage learners in the onboarding experience and help retain more of the information they’re given. In this webinar, David Wentworth, Principal Learning Analyst with Brandon Hall Group, and Dr. Shwetaleena Bidyadhar, SVP & Global Lead-Learning Design of MPS Interactive, will discuss the role of these instructional formats in the onboarding process and share one real-world example of an organization in such complex industries.

Thursday, October 22, 2019, 12PM – 1PM PT: Articulate Rise Follow-Up
Join Karin Rex in a webinar discussing Articulate Rise, the web-based version of Articulate Storyline, the award-winning authoring tool used to create elearning courses. Since 1989, Karin has owned Geeky Girl, LLC, a boutique learning organization based in southeastern Pennsylvania, where she devotes her time to writing, instructional design and teaching. Karin also works extensively with InSync Training and ATD as a certified synchronous facilitator and designer.  She’s a COTP (Certified Online Training Professional) and has a master’s degree in professional writing.

Thursday, October 23, 2019, 9AM – 10AM PT: Challenge, Immerse and Play: A Masterclass for Effective Learning
There’s now an amazing array of innovative learning technologies and media approaches available, but each comes with a different value set for our learners and organizations. Some seem exciting, most seem complex, and some just sound like hype. It’s important to understand the value of each approach and when you should seriously consider them in your future learning mix. In this session, LEO Learning experts Andrew Joly, Director of Strategic Design, and Rich Calcutt, Lead Learning Designer, will be joined by Preloaded’s Hattie Foster, Strategy Director, to explore what, why, when and how to deploy engaging, immersive, challenge- and game-based technologies for effective learning.

Thursday, October 23, 2019, 12PM – 1PM PT: Top Five PowerPoint Tips for Engaging Your Audience
People are fractured. Our audience must navigate competing, often real-time demands with fewer resources. Efficiency becomes critical. For this reason, participants lose interest and refocus on other problems if they aren’t engaged. That’s a big problem because no one learns if they aren’t engaged. Join Mike Parkinson, Author, Owner, Billion Dollar Graphics, and get the latest techniques to grab and hold your audience’s attention. Get real-world examples and new ideas that’ll make your job easier.

Thursday, October 24, 2019, 8AM – 9AM PT: Create Your First Elearning Course with Adobe Captivate
Are you just getting started with Adobe Captivate? Looking for some solid foundations to build your elearning content? Join Dr. Pooja Jaisingh, Senior Learning Evangelist, Adobe Inc., for this fun and easy introduction to Adobe Captivate for first time elearning developers. You’ll get a simple introduction to the software, aimed at helping you get started with creating elearning courses.

Thursday, October 25, 2019, 8AM – 9AM PT: Halloween Haunt: Building Fun into Your Webinars
Join Lou Russell, President and CEO, Russell Martin & Associates and L+EARN, and her friends for a different kind of webinar. Together, you’ll be having a party, playing games, building treats, celebrating ghosts and telling scary training stories. If you’d like to push the envelope on your webinars or if you just like holidays, you’ll love this haunted jaunt through new ideas for using technology.

Monday, October 28, 2019, 11:00AM – 11:30AM PT: DEMO: Meet Instilled. You Can Have It All. (Free for ATD members)
In this webinar with Jeff Fissel, VP Solutions, Instilled, you’ll see how Instilled helps the world’s largest companies solve learning and development challenges by providing technology to help employees find what they need, learn through short bursts and get back to work. Instilled lets learners, SMEs, and others upload and record video, automatically caption it and translate it, and deliver it to a global audience in seconds. What’s more is that it lets you mix and match elearning, video, PDFs, SCORM, and more in a unified and beautiful user experience aimed to satisfy the various ways people like to learn.

Wednesday, October 29, 2019, 9AM – 10AM PT: Photoshop Basics for Elearning Designers
Adobe Photoshop is the defacto standard when it comes to image editing and creation. This software has many features built-in that have made it the most popular tool for elearning professionals. However, it can be difficult to keep up with some of the newest features in all the releases. There are filters and features in Photoshop that a lot of elearning professionals don’t know about. Phil Cowcill, Senior Elearning Specialist, Department of National Defence, Canada, will show you some key examples that specifically benefit elearning professionals. The examples will not only show you how to save time and fix flaws but also how to create stunning 3D images within Adobe Photoshop.

Wednesday, October 29, 2019, 10AM – 11AM PT: Four Things That Keep CLOs Up at Night. Why a Learning Content Strategy Is Essential.
Today’s Chief Learning Officers (CLOs) need to balance many priorities and expectations, including linking training with performance, evaluating a multitude of learning technologies, and demonstrating a return on their organization’s learning investment. This webinar will examine four key areas of focus for CLOs and discuss why a learning content strategy is essential for L&D organizations. Join David Wentworth, Principal Learning Analyst with Brandon Hall Group, and Stephen Casbeer, Principal Consultant with Copyright Clearance Center (CCC)/Ixxus, as they discuss how a learning content strategy can provide the underpinnings to deliver results across each of these focus areas: learner experience, measurement, compliance and experimentation.

Wednesday, October 30, 2019, 9AM – 10AM PT: Five BIG Techniques for Memorable Training
What makes training stick? What makes any presentation transformational? How do you give attendees an experience, rather than just a training presentation? Learn five BIG ideas that you can incorporate into any training. In this webinar, led by Ellen Finkelstein, President, Ellen Finkelstein, Inc., you’ll learn a technique to:

  • Inspire learners.

  • Challenge learners.

  • Make them listen.

  • Evoke emotions.

  • Apply the learning.

Wednesday, October 30, 2019, 12PM – 1PM PT: Learning Like We Live: How Disruption, Purpose and Technology Will Change How the Workforce Learns
With quickly evolving technologies and a consumer-centric culture that can find, purchase and receive what they need within 24 hours, learning professionals need to keep pace. We can’t expect our workforce to learn how to repair a leaky pipe on YouTube within minutes at home and then come to work to view a 90-minute elearning module to find out about a software update. In this webinar with Jeff Fissel, VP of Solutions, Instilled, and Dawn Baron, Product Marketing Manager, Instilled, participants will gain a new perspective on the future of learning. Join this session to find out why and how learning isn’t only something you should do because it’s good for you but something that truly makes sense for you. 

Thursday, October 31, 2019, 9AM – 10AM PT: Conquering the Creatures of the Classroom
It’s almost Halloween. Let’s conjure up the training tricksters, presentation poltergeists and meeting monsters that spark terror in the hearts of most stalwart trainers, facilitators and team leaders: the creatures of the classroom. In this timely, humorous presentation, Lenn Millbower, The Mouse Man™, and a 25-year Walt Disney World training veteran, shares his list of the ghastliest ghouls we trainers, facilitators and team leaders must confront, and offers his Disney inspired strategies for preventing the mutilation of your message. These creature killing techniques include the following:

  • Identifying disruptive dementors waiting to pounce during presentations.

  • Staging environments of maximum positivity to extinguish evil thoughts.

  • Turning scary stories into happy endings that melt monster hearts.

  • Harnessing interactivity to draw ghosts from the shadows into the light.

Thursday, October 31, 2019, 11AM – 12PM PT: Becoming Leadership Fit: Techniques to Build Your Leadership Strength, Flexibility and Endurance (Free for ATD members)
Being leadership fit is about operating at your personal best—for you and those you lead. It requires a leadership mindset and commitment to continuous improvement. The challenge: today’s leaders are faced with ever-increasing demands on their time as well as a plethora of leadership development information. Many leaders are simply too busy to focus on their development or don’t know where to start. This webinar with Tim Tobin, Vice President, Franchisee Onboarding and Learning, Choice Hotels International, will help you navigate the crowded landscape, focus on the leadership development activities that will have the greatest impact, and learn how to incorporate them into your regular routine.