Easily Facilitate Course Discussions with Percolate LMS

Scottsdale, AZ, March 06, 2014 --(PR.com)-- Michaels & Associates announced news of the latest Percolate LMS™ version, now offering a Discussions feature that allows learners to communicate on any course or individual content material within a course. The expansion to include a more social learning experience allows course facilitators to provide greater learning opportunities and foster a stronger sense of community among learners during the training.

Percolate’s new Discussions feature benefits and supports learning by allowing course facilitators to:

· Break the ice: Encourage learners to upload an avatar and ask questions in the comments area that will help people get to know each other and foster relationships among the learners.
· Structure discussions: Distribute guidelines to learners that designate a minimum number of new discussion threads and replies per learner, suggest comments are proofread prior to their submittal and encourage learners to be considerate of others’ comments.
· Support critical thinking: Ask questions that reference learning objectives in the course and encourage learners to analyze, identify, describe, etc. the content further based on their own reflections or personal experience.
· Promote involvement of peers: Allow different learners to moderate discussions and invest themselves in meaningful interaction with their peers.
· Offer continued assistance: Create a separate discussion thread where learners can vent or request help, provide clarification for those who may be confused or unsure what to do and reach out to learners who are falling behind.

Learners in Percolate are able to personalize their participation using an avatar, start or reply to a discussion thread and automatically receive an email notification when someone replies to a conversation they have contributed to. Percolate administrators can adjust discussion settings based on their needs and participate in and monitor all conversations.

“We love interacting with our Percolate members and as a direct result of acting on their feedback, we have a brand new aspect of social learning to offer,” said Sherry Michaels, President of Michaels & Associates. “Through our practice as consultants, we’ve observed that discussion capability is a great way for organizations to build learner communities, further explore training topics, develop a strong knowledge base and take advantage of informal and peer-to-peer learning.”

About Percolate LMS™ ─ It’s Just that Simple
The Percolate LMS, ranked as one of the top 50 LMSs, is a cloud-based, easy-to-use learning management system with solid features and a clean, modern design. Percolate allows users to manage and take courses on any device. Accounts begin with a free 30-day trial and monthly subscription plans start at $99/month. With a flexible tagging system to organize people and courses, members can be set up and started in minutes not months.

For more on the Percolate LMS, visit www.percolatelms.com.

Percolate’s 90 second demo can be viewed here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0hQCyPYoykk.

About Michaels & Associates Docntrain, Ltd.
As a full-service custom training content development company, Michaels & Associates consultants have earned their stripes building e-learning for their clients' LMSs since 1998. Michaels & Associates believes in effective, instructionally sound training that improves employee performance. All projects are learner focused to ensure maximum learning retention and on the job performance. Working collaboratively with clients, Michaels & Associates ensures their training materials fit the time, budget and demands of business.

Specialties include: Online Training, Instructor-Led Training (ILT), Web-Based Training (WBT), Mobile Learning, E-learning, Learner Certainty Assessment (LCA), Blended Learning, Percolate Learning Management System (LMS), Online Help, Technical Writing

For more information, go to www.mnalearning.com.