Are These the Three E-Learning Books You Would Recommend?

Love these suggestions, I’ll certainly check them out.

I’d also recommend…..

Presentation Zen – Garr Reynolds (all round presentation guru!)
Great to help move towards “this is not a slide, this is a black space” type design

Brain Rules – John Medina – great and entertaining explanation of how the brain works

Slide:ology – Nancy Duarte, an expert on creating presentations which are visually interesting, lots of great ideas on thinking about and creating stimulating visuals

Thanks Tom, I think my tree books would be the Non-Designers Design Book, Presentation Zen and Slideology

I really enjoyed:

Design Elements: A Graphic Style Manual – Timothy Samara

Great reference for someone new to graphic design.

Great recommendations, as usual, Tom. The three books I would take are:
1. Mager: Analyzing Performance Problems (to remind me that training or elearning is not always the answer).
2. Mayer: Multimedia Learning
3. Clark/ Lyons: Graphics for Learning

Like Tom, I’d pack Better Than Bullet Points, then add Telling Ain’t Training and Michael Allen’s Guide to Elearning–or any of Mr. Allen’s series–they are all wonderful!

I like E-Learning by Design by William Horton. It has a lot of examples and sample screen shots, and is based on sound instructional design principles.

By far and above all other books, I would take:

“e-Learning and the Science of Instruction“, by Drs. Ruth Clark and Richard Mayer.

Even for those folks who feel they are in “e-Learning 101”, this one book will help them step off on the correct foot.

I’d also take Michael Allen’s “Guide to e-Learning“, my second favorite book on this topic.

I think that all of these books are helpful, but I’ve been looking for books that are specific to developing and teaching online courses in higher education and I can’t seem to find any that are just right. If anyone has some recommendations they would be greatly appreciated. I really want something specific to online development for higher education, rather than just the general learning theory or online development for corporate texts. Thanks!

Correction: MillI* Vanilli. 🙂

I would also vote for The World is Open by Bonk – it doesn’t have ‘e-learning’ in the title, but it’s still a great thought-provoker!

Great suggestions!

I second the recommendation for “e-Learning and the Science of Instruction.” I also suggest “The Non-Designer’s Design Book” by Robin Williams.

For design I would reccomend Garr Reynolds’ “Presentation Zen” and “Presentation Design“.

I also like William Horton’s “E-Learning by Design” and Nancy Duarte’s “Slide:ology“.

I know that’s 4 but I couldn’t choose 😀

Great suggestions from everyone! I would second Horton’s e-Learning by Design and add slide:ology (or Resonate) by Nancy Duarte as well as The Learning and Development Book by Tricia Emerson.

Before I even read your list, i was thinking of ‘Beyond Bullet Points.’ I’d also add ‘Don’t Make Me Think!‘–it’s about Web Pages and navigation, but it has helped me consider the USABILITY of my eLearning. Michael Allen’s book is my third; he’s a master at eLearning solutions.

I second Samantha’s suggestion of Presentation Zen – that book has totally transformed my sense of how to communicate information visually.

Three happy cheers for these wonderful book suggestions. From the online preview, “Design for How People Learn” seems much more accessible than some of the textbooks I’ve had the “pleasure” of slogging through. Another vote for the Non-Designer’s series by Robin Williams and Presentation Zen. I tend to be wordy (really!?). I appreciate all the help I can get to develop my graphical skills.

What a great discussion Tom! I loved Non-Designer’s Design Book by Robin Williams. It provides great design tips that are easy to understand and apply. I think Slide:ology by Nancy Duarte is wonderful for design and turning words (thoughts) into pictures / interactions. Made to Stick by Chip & Dan Heath is an easy read, listing out the 6 key qualities that make an idea (training) stick. Beyond Bullet Points, Presentation Zen, Telling Ain’t Training, are good reads also. I will be checking out e-Learning and the Science of Instruction.

I would add a new edition of E-learning by Design.

Awesome suggestions and a great way to get the conversation going!
I second “Don’t Make Me Think” by Steve Krug. 🙂

Another book that really changed the way I think about designing learning – making it learner centered – is “Creating Significant Learning Experiences” by L. Dee Fink. It does not talk about e-learning specifically, but how to make learning super relevant to the learner, which you can then transition into powerful elearning with the help of the great books that Tom recommended.

Take care!

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Hey Tom,

Thanks for the kind words! If anybody is interested in learning more about the “Design For How People Learn” book, there’s some additional information and free sample chapter here: http://www.designforhowpeoplelearn.com

So pleased you like it!

– Julie

Thanks for the suggestions! I’ve added them to my Amazon wishlist & will be picking them up over the next few weeks. I AM a newbie in this area and have found the following books to be fantastic guides:

Great Webinars: How to create interactive learning that is captivating, informative and fun by Cynthia Clay;
Gamestorming: A Playbook for Innovators, Rulebreakers, and Changemakers by Dave Gray, Sunni Brown & James Macanufo; and
The New Social Learning: A Guide to Transforming Organizations Through Social Media by Tony Bingham, Marcia Conner & Daniel H. Pink.

Another vote for e-Learning and the Science of Instruction by Clark and Mayer. Invaluable in presenting the evidence base for what to include (or not) and why. And very readable too as evidence-based textbooks go.
Also another vote for Robin William’s The Non-Designers Design Book but I’d suggest getting the deluxe version which also includes his Typesetting book – and is imaginatively titled The Non-Designers Design and Type Books Deluxe Edition.
Slide:ology by Duarte is also great but if I really was limited to only 3 books I suggest Flawless Consulting by Peter Block which also has an accompanying Fieldbook for more help in how to apply Block’s ideas. A bit of an outlier and not directly relevant to design but it is a fantastic book for helping you to manage the relationship with your clients /internal customers /sub-contractors. You might create the most fantastic eLearning materials known to man but if you’re trying to make a living from this, how well you can manage the relationship with those you work with and for can make a huge difference.

Nice article and comments! Just bookmarked it for deeper research on each recommendation.

My suggestion is:

Performance consulting: Moving beyond Training, from James and Dana Gaines.

Keep doing the good work.

=)

Great list! Classics among those noted, to be sure, and the titles listed cover theory and development, so I’d add “aLearning: A Trail Guide to Association eLearning” (available via http://www.lulu.com) which focuses on developing a strategy for an elearning curriculum. It’s widely read by consultants — especially those working with (or trying to make inroads with) nonprofits and associations, which operate differently than corporate clients. It’s written for people who aren’t elearning professionals but who — nonetheless — have to make some critical and expensive decisions about elearning.

Wow, what a lot of book choices everyone! Thanks. Here are my votes:

1. Read and study Michael Allen’s Guide to e-Learning. Absolutely. For me it is like the Bible of e-learning and provides solid ways to think about a course before committing a plan to paper.
2. Beyond Bullet Points. Shows you HOW to make your presentation interactive.
3. The Non-Designer’s Design Book. Clearly shows how to think about space on the slide with simple illustrations, compare and contrast activities, and solidly explained principles. So many books, so little time!

P.S. Tom it was great meeting you yesterday in Olympia!

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A great start to build your confidence in developing e-learning courses is the book “Making Sense of Online Learning: A Guide for Beginners and the Truly Skeptical” by Patti Shank and Amy Sitze. I loved the tongue-in-cheek converstational style.

This message is for Beth requesting relevant books for e-learning in Higher Ed. The first book addresses instructional design. I am not sure if you already know the following books, but I find them very helpful in relation to the teaching and learning component. I would recommend the following:
1. Vai, Marjorie and Kristen Sosulski.2011. Essentials of Online Course Design A Standards-Based Guide. New York: Routledge.
2. Ko, Susan and Steve Rossen. 2010. 3rd ed. Teaching Online A Practical Guide. New York: Routledge.
3. Boettcher, Judith and Rita-Marie Conrad. 2010. The Online Teaching Survival Guide. Simple and Practical Pedagogical Tips. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.

I just ordered the “Design for How People Learn” from Amazon. Thanks Tom for what I know will be a great book. I also love “The Presentation Secrets of Steve Jobs”. Love Steve or hate him he was great at getting his point across in simple, easy to understand ways. And while not a book on e-learning there are certainly a lot of tips that we can all apply to our Articulate courses.

[…] of good book recommendations from blog readers in the comments section of the recent post, Are These the Three E-Learning Books You’d Recommend.  Some of them I haven’t read […]

My thought was that it could be useful to list the top-vote-getting books recommended in this discussion. Here are those that received at least 3 votes.

1. Presentation Zen (6 votes)
2. Slide:ology (5 votes)
3. The Non-Designer’s Design Book” by Robin Williams. (5 votes)
4. Beyond Bullet Points (4 votes)
5. Michael Allen’s Guide to Elearning (4 votes)
6. e-Learning and the Science of Instruction (3 votes)

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