We can use the same words, yet they don’t always mean the same thing. They call that “complex equivalence.”

If we use the same words but don’t mean the same thing we’ll never have clear communication. This is very obvious in today’s culture, especially with our quick tweets and meme screaming where we pack so much inferred meaning into small bites of text. I suspect there’s a lot of miscommunication in between the grandstanding.

Think of it like an iceberg where the bulk of the iceberg is underwater. What’s on top, doesn’t fully communicate how big it really is.

Think of a concept like “online training.” It means all sorts of things. Without clarifying how we use the word, we may be saying one thing but our audience hears something else. And what they hear, they frame in their understanding of that concept.

This is also true for the learning experience we seek to craft in our courses.

Context Comes from Understanding the Learners

People aren’t monolithic where they all think the same and understand the world around them the same way. There’s a lot that goes into crafting who we are and how we think such as age, experience, ethnicity, and cultures. And all of that helps us construct a mental model of the way things work. And we generally, we wrap our experiences and the things we learn in our model.

This needs to be a consideration as we teach online where we don’t have the same type of back and forth communication as we’d have in a classroom.

It’s important that we don’t assume that our learners understand what we mean. Understand your learners and then build context around the content.

Context Comes from Clear Objectives

An e-learning course needs to be more than a bunch of information. A first step in the process is to have clear objectives. This helps the person know what expectations exist and what they should learn. Where are we at today? Where will we be at the end of the course?

Courses also need context. Where does this training fit in relationship to other things?

In many of my past training programs, we’d focus on the upstream and downstream relationships and workflow so that the learners understood where their work came from and how it impacted the work of others.

Regardless of the content, there’s usually some way to position the content in context to other things and then from there build measurable objectives.

With context, you create clarity. And with clarity, you eliminate misunderstanding.

What are things you do in your course design to build a contextual framework for the content?

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Before committing resources to your course, it’s important to understand what type of e-learning course you need to build.

E-learning courses tend to be one of two types: information or performance

• Information-based courses are more like explainer courses where the main objective is to share information or offer a linear explanation of the content. This is common for new initiatives where awareness is a key objective to the course. It’s also typical of a lot of compliance training that are less focused on changing behavior and more on awareness of key policies. I tend to think of these less as courses, and more like awareness marketing content.
• Performance-based courses focus on changing performance or some sort of behavior. They’re tied to performance metrics where you can measure before and after changes.

Types of E-learning Courses

Within that context, there are generally three types of courses:

• Information. These courses share information with no performance expectations or changes in behavior. They’re more about awareness such as a company’s policy around certain issues.

Performance-based courses tend to be of two types:

• Procedural. These courses are performance-based as they have a required sequence of events or procedures that need to be followed. This is typical of a lot of machine or software training. There’s not a lot of nuance to the training. There are ten steps and everyone follows them exactly the same.
• Principle. These courses are built around decisions that are more soft-skilled in nature. A procedural course has a clear critical path of steps. However, principle-based training is focused on general guidance or principles that are not always black and white. They’re nuanced where the application to each situation may be a bit unique.

Once you understand what type of course you need to build, you’ll be able to commit the appropriate resources. Information/awareness courses require fewer resources. Often, you’re just re-purposing existing content. Which begs the question why you’re building a course (but that’s a different blog post). Performance courses require more focus on measurable objectives, metrics to determine success, and a nuanced understanding of the content and real-world decisions the learner needs to make.

When I meet with clients, I always try to determine what type of “course” they want to build. I focus on the objectives and try to make sure they’re actionable. Information-based courses don’t always need to be built and performance-based courses usually take longer to build and require more resources. By determining which type of course to build you are better able to allocate and manage your resources.

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The end of summer usually serves as the beginning of the school year. In a sense, it also kind of serves as the beginning of the work year. It’s always good to come into a new year with a fresh perspective. Reading is one way to do that.

I’m always asked about good e-learning books from those just getting started who want to learn more.  Here are some new books I haven’t referenced in the past. I think they’re worth considering for your e-learning library. The links to Amazon books may produce a slight commission.

Microlearning Guide to Microlearning

Microlearning is all the rage. Although I think short courses have always existed, it’s just today they have a trendy name. I like to call them coursels (as in course morsels). But that hasn’t taken off despite my efforts over the past twenty years. I guess my legacy will rest on something else.

If you want to learn about microlearning then check out Carla Torgerson’s Microlearning Guide to Microlearning.

Here are a few things that stand out:

• The book presents each point as distinct micro ideas. There are 141 in the book. It may seem a bit gimmicky and some of the ideas are obvious, but for the most, part it works and the points are really good. Besides, the essence of microlearning is to distill ideas into smaller, single topic points. There’s nothing earth-shattering in the book, but it’s a fast read and has most of the core points you’d find in other books and articles on microlearning. Having them in a single resource is nice.
• I still like to read paper books and end up having to write a lot of notes and my thoughts on the back cover because there’s no room in the margins. Because she presents single micro ideas in the book, there’s lots of room to reflect and take notes.
• She offers the MILE model as a means to help guide the content development. Here’s the essence of the model: objectives, structure, resources, promote, and evaluate. There’s a lot more to it, but it’s a good model.

Overall, a good book and easy to get through.

Write and Organize for Deeper Learning

Many of you are probably familiar with Patti Shank. She’s a frequent speaker at industry conferences and has written a number of good books. And now she has a new one, Write and Organize for Deeper Learning. This is book one of the “Make It Learnable” series.

Here are a few key highlights:

• The book focuses on four key strategies built around the audience’s needs and ability to learn based on how the content is structured and presented.
• She offers lots of ideas and tactics to help make the book’s content learnable and something you can apply.
• I’m a simple person. I have plenty of big, thick books on instructional design and learning, but I like to fall back on thin, easy-to-digest books. This is a good one for beginners who are dipping their toes in the water and not sure where to start. It covers a lot of foundational content. And for those of us who are a bit more tenured it’s a fast read with lots of reminders.

Like Julie Dirksen’s Design for How People Learn, this is one of those books I’d recommend to someone just getting started.

Map It: The Hands-On Guide to Strategic Training Design

Cathy Moore’s done a great job taking course design concepts and making them easy-to-understand, especially for those just getting started. I always recommend her action mapping ideas to subject matter experts at the workshops and conferences I attend.

Now she has a book, Map It: The Hands-on Guide to Strategic Training Design, to go with everything else she shares.

Other Good E-Learning Books

Here’s a list of books I’ve recommended in the past and some from the community.

• Here Are 12 E-Learning Books to Read This Year
• Build Your Skills with These Online Training Books
• Are These the Three E-Learning Books You Would Recommend?
• Community curated list of e-learning books.

Do you have any good e-learning book recommendations?

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E-learning is a mostly visual medium which means a lot of what we communicate in our courses comes through how they’re structured visually. The challenge is that graphic design and visual communication are their own fields and it’s hard enough to be a good instructional designer let alone a good graphic artist.

I get the privilege of reviewing a lot of courses and understand that many people struggle with the visual part of the course. So in this post, we’ll review some common visual design mistakes that are easily fixed. They won’t make you into a graphic artist, but they should help make your course design a little tighter.

Visual Design Mistake 1: Images are Scrunched & Not Scaled

This is one of the most common mistakes and easily fixed. An image is inserted and then to make it fit or move it, it gets moved from the top or side anchors on the bounding box. This scrunches the image and makes it look a little off.

The fix is to drag it from the corner to scale it and preserve its aspect ratio. It most apps, you hold the SHIFT key and drag to keep it locked while you scale it up or down.

Visual Design Mistake 2: Not Sure Where to Focus

This is a general issue and I’ll address more specific fixes below. Essentially the eye moves across the screen in a pattern. Without a structured design, we tend to scan in a Z pattern. There are some things that disrupt the pattern like colors, size, whitespace, and an object’s relationship to another. That means we can help control eye movement. However, many times the course screens seem to just have a hodge-podge of things on it with lots of conflicting attempts to draw the eye’s attention.

Here are two good fixes:

• Learn more about basic design ideas like the CRAP (contrast, repetition, alignment, and proximity). I strongly recommend the book, The Non-Designer’s Design Book. It’s a must-have for the novice.
• Everything on the screen should be there for a reason. I call this intentional design. If doesn’t help meet your objective, it probably doesn’t need to be there.

Visual Design Mistake 3: Inconsistent Visual Style

Ever take a course where each slide or screen looks different than the other? This usually happens because the developer is building slide to slide. I see this all the time in workshops. What happens is that they make design decisions at the slide level as they work. This leads to spending too much time reviewing every font installed on the computer looking for just the right one. Or going a stock photo site and trying to come up with ideas.

Other elements of visual inconsistency are:

• Too many fonts with no rationale for switching from one to the other.
• Decorative images used to fill empty space rather than contributing to communication.
• Fitting all of the content on the screen so there’s no white space.
• NASCAR-like branding in the course.

Again, I’ll reference intentional design and the need to have a plan around what will and won’t be on the screen. One easy solution is to do some sort of design mapping like the one David Anderson shares. It helps you consider the visual elements of your courses and make design decisions before you start building. Once you’ve narrowed down your intent you should put together a simple style guide. You’ll save time and have visual consistency.

Visual Design Mistake 4: No Visual Hierarchy

This issue relates to the mistake above. If everything on the screen looks equal it’s hard to scan the content and even more difficult to figure out what fits where.

Having a visual hierarchy fixes this. It allows you to chunk content and makes it easier to discern context. The easiest thing is to create a simple style guide with headings, sub-headings, and body text.

Visual Design Mistake 5: Alignment Looks Sloppy & Out of Whack

There are some courses where the margins are all different widths and objects aren’t aligned properly. This makes the course look sloppy and a little out of balance or off kilter. It’s like walking into the room where the furniture doesn’t seem to be staged right and the pictures are crooked. You may not be a home decorator, but you definitely can tell when it doesn’t look right. The same goes with a visual design that is out of balance. It just doesn’t look right. And it may make it bit more challenging to understand the course content.

This is easy to fix:

• Have consistent margins.
• Align objects, left justified is the most common. If you switch the justification, have a reason why.
• Extra space between groups helps communicate that they’re grouped.
• A lot of people use a grid system to keep onscreen objects aligned.

Those are common design mistakes that easily fixed and they help you avoid the Curse of the Frankencourse. If you want to learn more check out the visual design tips in the e-learning community, download this free e-book, and join us at one of our Roadshow workshops.

What do you find to be common visual design mistakes?

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At a recent workshop, we reviewed some of the essentials of interactive e-learning. Here are some of the highlights from the presentation. They focus on what the course participant should DO and not what information they need to SEE.

Basic Course Design

We discussed this in the post on what every new instructional designer should know. When building courses there are three main considerations:

• What content needs to be in the course?
• What’s the right look and feel for the course?
• What will the users do in the course?

This last point is where we consider how the user interacts in the course. One of the challenges many e-learning developers have is that they don’t properly identify the performance objectives for the course and without that, they can’t build meaningful interactions.

The first thing is to understand the performance expectations and then from there build the interactions and activities that teach how to meet those expectations.

Objectives for Interactive E-Learning

It’s important to step away from info-centric design and step towards learner-centric design. A course focused on the learner frames the content so that it’s relevant to the learner’s needs and meaningful to the types of decisions they need to make in the real world.

• Identify who’s taking the course.
• In what situations would they need the course content?
• After the course, what should they be able to do?
• How do they prove they can do it during the course?

Use a Backward Design Strategy to Focus On Meaningful Interactions

Training specialists always fret over the return-on-investment (ROI) for e-learning. That’s usually the case when they’re not properly aligned to the organization’s goals and end up building a lot of information-based e-learning with very little focus on real performance improvement. It’s like they shoot a bunch of arrows during the year; then at the end of the year draw bull’s eyes around them to show the organization how well they’ve done.

• The real bull’s eye is identifying what the learner needs to do.
• Then determine how they can prove that they can do it.
• Training is built around how to prove their understanding.
• Focus on the activities. What do they need to do and what do they need to know to do it.

If you focus on the activities and not the information, you’ll most likely built more effective, engaging, and interactive e-learning.

Good books to learn more:

• Performance Consulting or The Performance Consultant’s Fieldbook to help learn more about meeting the organization’s performance requirements. These books teach how to assess and align training goals with real performance needs.
• Understanding By Design which provides a good framework for design focused on actionable understanding and not just information.
• Map It: Hands-on Guide to Strategic Training Design shares a good backwards design process that focuses on desired actions.

The links to Amazon books may produce a slight commission.

When it all comes down to it, effective interactive e-learning is built around meaningful activities that are relevant to the learner and aligned with the organization’s goals. The mistake a lot of course designers make is to not properly define the performance objectives and from there build meaningless or no interactivity.

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I hear a lot of people ask about gamifying their e-learning courses. And the examples they show are usually simple games modeled after shows like Jeopardy or Wheel of Fortune. Those are fine and have their places in e-learning, especially for quick knowledge checks. But they’re not the same as gamification.

In today’s post, I’ll share a few simple things to help get your brain muscles going.

What Do You Need to Know?

When it comes to building the courses in an authoring tool, you basically need to know how to use variables. Variables allow you to track and evaluate the user to provide relevant feedback, scoring, tokens, and all the other things that make up gamified e-learning courses. And once you know how to work with variables, you can build all sorts of things.

Here are some resources to learn more about variables:

• The Case for Variables in E-Learning
• Simplifying Variables for Better E-Learning
• Naming Variables for E-Learning
• Variables Tutorials

Learn More About Gamification

You can do a search and read all sorts about gamification especially now that it’s also a buzzword. Essentially you are taking game concepts and applying them to a non-game context. As you play games, ask what about the game is compelling and what similar element could work in your next e-learning course.

I think the greater challenge in building gamified courses is less in constructing the mechanics and more in building a narrative that integrates gaming psychology. Building things in the authoring tools is relatively easy compared to understanding what to build.

Here are three good books on gamification.

• Even Ninja Monkeys Like to Play: I found it to be one of the better and easier reads that covers the essentials.
• The Gamification of Learning & Instruction: gamification applied to our industry.
• Actionable Gamification: dig a little deeper.

The links to Amazon books may produce a slight commission.

What Can You Build in Your E-Learning Course?

When it comes to authoring the courses outside of a management system where you can track multiple users and build things like leaderboards, you’re confined to simple game elements such as:

• Timers
• Personalization
• Progress meters
• Tokens
• Rewards management
• Scoring
• Autonomous navigation

You can make some very compelling courses that instructive and engaging. However, there’s a lot more to gamification than these simple elements above. How do you motivate learners and create the right tension between boredom and failure? Make sure you invest the right resources and develop a good strategy. Otherwise, your gamified course will transform from game to gimmick.

If you’re not quite sure where to get started, check out some of the cool examples in the community. They’ll give an idea of some of what you can do with the authoring tools. Here are three nice examples:

Click here to view gamified e-learning course.

Click here to view gamified e-learning course.

Click here to view gamified e-learning course.

And there’s nothing wrong with starting simple. If all you need is a Jeopardy-style quiz, then download this free file. It’s a great way to work with a context you know. But make a commitment to learn more about variables and start to add some of those gaming elements above to your courses.

Have you built any gamified e-learning? If so, share a link in the comments.

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During a recent interview, someone asked about what I’ve learned over the years. It’s a question I get asked a lot by new designers. One point I always make is to not worry about what’s under the hood. Just worry about getting the output you need. All of the other stuff you’ll get as you gain experience and have to make edits.

However, here are a few key points I shared in the interview.

It’s Not Rocket Science

I know this statement irks some instructional designers, but come on, what we’re doing isn’t rocket science unless of course you’re working for NASA or some other space agency. Learning is innate to humans and while we may not all know how to build the best courses, we probably can do a decent enough job to get started. Besides, I’ve seen plenty of bad courses from people who have their fancy degrees (and some have even written books).

So take a chill pill. Don’t worry about knowing everything about instructional design. Get that first course built. Focus on meeting some tangible objectives and you’ll be on your way. Odds are it won’t be the worst course our industry’s ever seen.

• Do You Really Need an Instructional Design Degree?

A Course is a Course Unless it’s Not a Course

Not everything we call a course is a course. Sometimes, they’re just more like awareness campaigns, like learning about a new company policy. Some courses do have larger performance expectations but practicing the performance happens outside of the course. And then sometimes courses are heavily focused on performance where real-world decisions can be baked into the course design. The key is knowing what

The key is knowing what type of course you’re building. This way you can commit the appropriate resources. No need to build an elaborate scenario when you all you need is a few screens and perhaps a quick quiz. At the same time, you don’t want to build a click-and-read course when the person needs to learn how to make good decisions. That type of course probably requires some sort of decision-making challenge.

• Go Beyond Information Sharing – 5 Ways Your E-learning Courses Can Create Understanding

Looks Matter More Than Instruction

For all of our talk about building good courses, often the ones that get the most play are the ones that look good. And this makes sense because e-learning is a mostly visual medium. People are drawn to things that look good. It’s the initial stage of engagement. On top of that good visual design is a key part of communicating ideas.

In either case, you get more traction when courses look good and are visually connected to the context of the course. This is something to keep in mind, especially when building a portfolio.

• Make Sure Your E-Learning Course Looks the Way It’s Supposed To

Maintain a Portfolio

It’s important to maintain a project portfolio. This is always easier to say than to do because it does take time. It’s a record of what you’ve done and it’s a way to promote your expertise.

Here’s a common dilemma: a person gets laid off and needs to start applying for jobs. Lo and behold, all of the projects are locked behind a firewall and the person has nothing to show. On top of that, the person also doesn’t own the software to build new demos for a portfolio.

• The weekly challenges are a great way to build small modules to pad a portfolio. Here are some good examples of people in our industry who do that: Jackie Van Nice and Joanna Kurpiewska. Be sure to check out their websites.

Focus on the Action

Many of the courses I see are mostly information dumps. Step away from the information and focus on the action. What are they supposed to do? How do they demonstrate that they know how to do it in the real world? What activities can you build in your course that mimic those real-world decisions and actions?

What content do you need to support learning to make those decisions? Build your courses using a backward design approach. Focus on the measurable action and build towards the information that supports it. This is better than a linear information dump. The book, Understanding By Design, is a good place to start.

• The Guiding Principle for all Rapid E-Learners

Sometimes an Information Dump is All You Need

The reality is that a lot of courses are only awareness campaigns or they exist to meet some compliance requirement. In those cases, it makes sense to keep the course simple so that people can get what they need and then get back to work. When I meet with a client I always try to sort courses by their performance requirement. If there are no clear requirements, then it falls in the information bucket which means I spend less time building the course.

• How to Build Course Objectives That Matter

Five Meals a Day is Better Than One Big One

I’m not one to focus much on diet (unless it consists of donuts). However, I do see a lot of headlines that extol the virtue of smaller meals spread over time. The same can be said for e-learning. Building a big course takes time, requires more deliberation, and can’t easily be changed.

Often it’s better to build smaller modules and then space the content over time. The smaller modules are easier to build and deliver. They can also be modified much more quickly. And there’s a lot of good research that shows learning spaced over time is very effective.

• How Long Should My E-learning Course Be?

What Do You Wish You Knew?

I’m leaving this section blank and asking you what’s the one thing you wish you knew when first getting started. Share your thoughts in the comments section.

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I’ve been reviewing some of my older blog posts to fix links and update some of the examples. After ten years, most of the posts are still relevant but some are obsolete like using clip art in PowerPoint. Going through ten years of blog posts brings up some interesting observations. For example, some of the media companies I referenced no longer exist. It’s a good reminder for us to not always jump on what’s hot until it’s really proven its worth.  In addition, the industry has changed quite a bit when I first started blogging.

In 2007, when Flash was king, I stated that the e-learning tools would evolve and become easier to use. You’d no longer need to learn specialized skills like Flash and ActionScript. This wasn’t a prediction of Flash’s demise. The key point was that it didn’t matter what underlying technology drove the content, the next generation course designer could build e-elearning with no programming skills required. This would be empowering and disruptive to our industry. And I think it’s fair to say, that is the case today.

Catching the Rapid E-Learning Bug

About 14 years ago, I saw the light. I consulted for a company that serviced non-profits. They needed help figuring out “this e-learning thing” and how to get their training online. One of their Flash programmers built a player that could dynamically load content. It worked but it was not easy to use. I was looking for something a lot easier that anyone could use, something more like PowerPoint. I searched for “PowerPoint and e-learning” and stumbled upon this Articulate company and Articulate Presenter. And it changed my life forever and my perspective on the industry.

I couldn’t believe how easy it was to take what I built in PowerPoint and easily convert it to an e-learning course. Back then I even used a hidden notes panel to create a simple learning management system where a person searched their name and the courses they need to take showed up in the menu.

For me the big eye opener was that anyone could build courses. This was going to change the industry and take a lot of course construction away from programmers and put it in the hands of instructional designers. From that point on, anywhere I went I was touting this rapid e-learning stuff. Of course, most people immediately tuned out because they heard PowerPoint (which comes with its own baggage) or they were the Flash programmers (the equivalent to Swiss watch makers during the quartz revolution).

Eventually I prevailed and was able to bring the rapid e-elearning applications to a number of organizations. And at each, the teams that used those tools outperformed the Flash development teams.

Here’s one of my favorite stories. I won’t mention the e-learning company (because they’re really well known in our industry).

Shortly after getting hired at Articulate, I was at a big e-learning conference. Someone from one of the big well-known e-learning companies came by and asked if I knew someone who could take a bunch of courses off their hands. Some of their customers had PowerPoint slide decks and wanted to convert them into courses. Essentially she said that they built “real” e-learning and that this type of work was beneath them. None of their developers wanted to work on the courses.

I challenged her thinking and stated that the PowerPoint slides were just content and that any good course designer could convert the content into an effective and engaging course. Who cares how it’s built? And besides, this rapid e-elearning thing wasn’t a trend but the future of e-learning. She literally laughed at me and walked away. Today, they no longer employ Flash developers and the bulk of their courses are built using a rapid e-learning product.

How the E-Learning Industry Has Evolved

The industry is evolving and the tools are getting easier to use. And that’s not going to change. It started with simple PowerPoint-to-Flash conversions but today you can build some pretty complex interactions with no programming background. Here are a few things I see:

• Most companies have some sort of investment in rapid e-learning. In fact, Articulate is in over 60,000 companies and most of those have replaced their Flash teams with Storyline developers.
• Most of the Flash developers I know have shifted to Storyline. They do some customization using JavaScript and other hacks. But they’re still not doing a lot of custom programming because the software has made it easy to do.
• Most of the complainers of rapid e-learning are e-learning companies who charge a lot for custom development. It hurts them to see you empowered to build your own courses. You know who they are because all of their blog posts complain about what’s wrong with e-learning. I see them as the elephant companies that are big and slow. But the reality is that most companies are looking for cheetahs and not elephants. If you’re an elephant, you’ll have plenty of time to look at your gorgeous mechanical watch.
• There’s always a need for sound instructional design (which should be part of any course, rapid or not) and custom development. In fact, I think the advent of rapid e-learning has helped our industry grow which has created more opportunity for the custom developers and those who can help organizations build better e-learning and do more than push out bullet point screens.
• Today, rapid e-learning has progressed beyond simple PowerPoint conversions. Essentially you have a choice between tools like Storyline that allow for custom development or form-based tools like Rise, where you assemble content and drop it into specific forms. Both form and freeform authoring are viable options to meet different needs.

What You Need to Do in 2017

• Templates are powerful. They get dismissed, but you can build a template for anything and they don’t need to be those simple bullet point templates. They can include all sorts of pre-built interactivity. One of my favorite features in Storyline is to save any interaction as a template. Here’s an example of a simple interaction that could be a template for quick knowledge checks. It’s one slide and no layers. Adding a new card is just a matter of copying and pasting. Super easy to build and make into a template. And it’s a big time saver when you need this type of interaction. Make an investment to build a few interactive templates or download some of the free ones and then you always have a tool chest of interactive templates.
• Build the right course for the right project. Not every course requires elaborate decision-making interactions. And at the same time, instructional design is more than slapping some content on a screen. Figure out which requires what and then spend your resources wisely. And remember most learning doesn’t happen in the course. Here are a couple of posts to know if you’re building the right course and separating information from performance courses.
• Smaller courses are easier to consume (and create). There’s a trend towards microlearning as if it’s something new, but it’s not. It’s just that creating the content in smaller chunks is now more viable and the reality is people can only take in so much content. It’s easier to build smaller modules and then deliver them over spaced intervals. You’ll most likely see more impact and you’ll definitely be able to maintain and update the smaller modules more efficiently.
• Understand the tools. Generally you have a choice between form and freeform applications. Form-based tools allow you to copy and paste content into pre-determined forms; or you build your content in a freeform environment. Both are great options but they each have different requirements. If you use a form, you’re mostly constrained to the form. If you don’t want those constraints, then use a freeform application, but understand you need to determine how things will look and work as opposed to just adding them to forms.
• Focus on your development. Commit to a few e-learning challenges this year to build your skills and your professional network. Read some e-learning books and then apply what you learn to your courses. Build a portfolio to document your skills.
• Share what you know and do. I am a big proponent of community and I know that many course developers are either by themselves or on small teams. The community provides a place to interact with and learn from your peers. It’s also a place to trade files and show examples. If you need more help figuring this out, read Share Your Work.

What are your plans for the 2017? Do you have any e-learning goals? How has the industry changed for you? What are you looking forward to?

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Free E-Learning Resources

Want to learn more? Check out these articles and free resources in the community.	Here’s a great job board for e-learning, instructional design, and training jobs	Participate in the weekly e-learning challenges to sharpen your skills
Get your free PowerPoint templates and free graphics & stock images.	Lots of cool e-learning examples to check out and find inspiration.	Getting Started? This e-learning 101 series and the free e-books will help.

While I’ve covered audio recording tips and tricks in the past, one of the most frequent questions I’m still asked is about microphones. So today, I’ll show you the different mics I use and demo how they sound.

I’ll have to admit, I’m no audio pro and I’m also a bit less dogmatic about audio quality than some elearning developers. My main goal is to get decent sounding audio without a lot of post-production.

The reality is that most end users are hearing the audio through cheap headsets or small device speakers where everything sounds hollow. Also, if you record tutorial videos or do webinars, the audio compression mitigates some of the distinctions you hear in different qualities of audio.

With that said, here are a few thoughts and some recommendations based on the mics I use.

Simple Audio Recording Tips

Here are a few simple ground rules. You learn more by clicking on the links below.

• You want to record the best audio quality you can initially. There are some things you can do to clean up the audio, but you can’t make bad audio good. If you can only do one thing, get crisp audio.
• Try to eliminate background noise like air conditioners. Sometimes if I can’t get rid of the noise, I will play some music softly in the background–not Eminem, but something a little softer.
• Don’t worry about being perfect. You can spend a lot of time finagling your audio only to have you end user listen to it through cheap headphones or speakers where everything sounds muffled and tinny.
• You should learn a little about audio and some basic editing. You don’t need to be an audio engineer, but learning some recording techniques, how mics work, and how to do some post-editing will really come in handy.

Microphone Recommendations

There are a lot of good microphones out there and they’re not that expensive. I’d plan on spending from $100-$200 on a microphone. You should also invest in a pop screen, a stand, and perhaps some sort of barrier. Here are some of the microphones I use.

I created a quick demo in our new Rise application to show the different mics in use. You can view the link on your mobile devices and compare how they sound versus how they sound on a desktop. I noticed that my iPad which has one speaker masked the issues that I could hear on my desktop. I also noticed that with my iPhone, the ambient audio was more evident that elsewhere.

Click here to view the microphone demo.

Desktop Microphones

• Blue Yeti Pro. This is what I have in my home office. I like it because I can control the gain and the pickup pattern. This is a big plus. The pickup pattern helps eliminate unwanted sound entering the mic. The Pro costs about $230. But you can buy the Blue Yeti (which is also a good mic) for about $120 and it comes in a bunch of colors to placate the needs of easily distracted millennials.
• Blue Raspberry. I’ll be doing a lot more recording on the road so I wanted to upgrade my microphone. I just purchased this microphone and will do an update after a few road trips.
• Samson C03U and Samson C01U. I’ve used both of these mics and think they’re great a great value. Both mics are in the $80 range but for about $120, you get the microphone, a pop filter, and shock mount. Not a bad deal. I’d choose the C0U3 because it has better pick up patterns. I quit using the mics when I received the Blue Yeti Pro. If you’re on a budget the Samson mics are worth it.
• Samson Go Mic. I love this little mic. At $40, it’s a great price and sounds good. The build quality is really solid and I’ve gotten lots of use out of it over the past few years.

The links to Amazon microphones may produce a slight commission.

Headset Microphones

I’m not a fan of headset microphones for recording narration because they tend to pick up a lot of breath sounds. However, they are relatively inexpensive and decent enough in output. But because they’re headset microphones you don’t get a lot of control over the pickup.

I do like to use headset microphones for recording tutorials and doing webinars because it allows me to operate hands free and not worry about moving around and away from the microphone. I also prefer wireless headsets over wired ones.

ModMic: I haven’t used this mic but I really like the idea. You attached the microphone to your headphones. Many of the headphone mics are uncomfortable so you can use your own headphone and attach the ModMic with a magnet (which means you can remove it).

Here are the three headset microphones I currently use:

• Plantronics Audio 995. It’s wireless which gives me some range of motion. I don’t like having a bunch of cables running over my desk when I record. Having the wireless mic is nice if I have to record some audio narration from my subject matter experts.
• Plantronics 478. This is similar to the one above but it has a USB cord. Both of those microphones have noise canceling features. Usually that means there’s one mic that records your audio and another smaller one that records ambient sound and cancels it out.
• Logitech H800. I just got this one. I like it because it’s wireless and has a built in charger. I also like it’s portability for traveling.

One question you may ask is why I have so many microphones, especially headset mics. I travel a lot so I want good portable options and I like the choice of desktop and headset microphones. I do recommend getting a few extra headset mics, one for you and the others to share if you do recording with subject matter experts.

Previous Posts on Using Audio for Narration

• 4 Simple Tips for Recording High-Quality Audio
• Should You Add Background Audio to Your E-Learning Courses?
• 10 Free Audio Programs to Use for E-Learning
• Tips & Tricks for Recording Audio Narration
• 6 Free Audio Editors for Your E-Learning Courses
• Three Reasons Not to Use Audio Narration in Your Online Training
• Free Audio Sound Effects for E-Learning
• Free Audio Files for E-Learning
• When It Makes Sense to Pay for Professional Narration

Again, I’m not an audio pro and recording in a controlled recording environment. Instead I’m a one-man recording studio, in a home office, with a limited budget. I want good quality audio at an affordable price. From my experience most rapid elearning course authors are in the same boat.

Which microphones do you use and why? Feel free to share in the comments.

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Free E-Learning Resources

Want to learn more? Check out these articles and free resources in the community.	Here’s a great job board for e-learning, instructional design, and training jobs	Participate in the weekly e-learning challenges to sharpen your skills
Get your free PowerPoint templates and free graphics & stock images.	Lots of cool e-learning examples to check out and find inspiration.	Getting Started? This e-learning 101 series and the free e-books will help.

At a recent conference I was on a panel that asked about how to get better at building elearning courses. I reflected on a few things that I did when I first started and some of those things carry forward to today. I discussed this a bit in this post on how to build your elearning skills.

Learning is an Iterative Process

Essentially, we learn something new, apply what we learn, look at the results, and then make adjustments.

Your first project isn’t going to be your best. I look back at some of the stuff I did worked on earlier in my career and am surprised that I wasn’t tarred and feathered by those who had to take the courses.

I recall one where I taught people how to use this new thing called the Internet. Instead of having them open Netscape and doing searches for things that interested them, I spent a bunch of time explaining the interface features, and focused on a lot of unimportant information. What could have been a fun time searching for interesting things became the world’s most boring introduction to the Internet.  How lame was that?

If I were to build that course today, it would be much different.

How to Build Better Courses

• Focus on the learner. We tend to make our courses info-centric and because of this, we focus on how to structure and present content. We should focus on the learner and how they’ll use the content. Then build activities to help them practice doing that.
• Ask for honest feedback and try to apply what you learn to the next project. This suggestion is a bit challenging because it requires some vulnerability, but it also requires access to an expert who can provide relevant feedback. This is why being connected in the community helps.
• Keep an idea folder that you can review when starting new projects. I collect ideas from all sorts of sources. When I want some inspiration, I look over the ideas. I will add that it does help to make a note about what you found inspiring at the time you saved it. Often, I’ll review an idea from the folder and can’t recall why I liked it.
• Set some time aside to practice. I usually find one or two cool multimedia interactions online each week. I try replicate them in Storyline. I don’t worry about how they look. I just focus on wiring it all together to see if I can get the multimedia interaction to work. One of the things I really like about Storyline is that I can quickly prototype my ideas. The other thing I like is that when I do build something from the idea, I can save it as a template and it becomes a reusable interaction.
• Do one new thing. You’ve collected ideas and tried to prototype them. You’ve chatted with others and solicited feedback. Now it’s time to put it all into action. Take one idea and apply it to a real course. And every time you build a new course, try something new. I know that it’s not always easy to do that in the corporate environment so at a minimum participate in an occasional weekly challenge. At least then you can work on something real and try new things.
• Keep on learning. Watch tutorials, take informal courses, get a formal degree or read some books.

What are some things you’d share with the person who wants to learn how to build their skills to build better courses? Feel free to share them in the comments section.

Events

Free E-Learning Resources

Want to learn more? Check out these articles and free resources in the community.	Here’s a great job board for e-learning, instructional design, and training jobs	Participate in the weekly e-learning challenges to sharpen your skills
Get your free PowerPoint templates and free graphics & stock images.	Lots of cool e-learning examples to check out and find inspiration.	Getting Started? This e-learning 101 series and the free e-books will help.

One of my goals each year is to read one book a month that will help sharpen my course-building skills. I’m always asked for book recommendations. Some of the recommendations are for those getting started, even if you’re an experienced course designer it helps to review familiar course design concepts or expand to other fields like UX or graphic design.

If your goal is to read twelve books this year, here’s a list to help you get started. Even if you don’t read them all this year, some of these are good to have on hand in your elearning reference library.

Instructional Design Books

• Design for How People Learn (recently updated with 3 new chapters)
• ISD From the Ground Up: A No-Nonsense Approach to Instructional Design
• Understanding by Design
• E-Learning Fundamentals: A Practical Guide
• Michael Allen’s books. I recommend starting with one from his E-Learning Library series.

Gamification Books

Gamification is more than a buzz word and the principles that make games work can be applied to course design to create more engaging and effective elearning.

• Gamification of Learning and Instruction
• Even Ninja Monkeys Like to Play
• Actionable Gamification

Graphic & UX Design Books

Courses are more than content. The look and feel of the content is also important as well as the user experience. Here are some good books to help you learn more.

• Non-Designer’s Design Book (4th edition)
• About Face: The Essentials of Interaction Design
• Graphic Design for Non-Designers

Video Production

Video is viable for elearning now so it doesn’t hurt to learn more about using it in your courses. The challenge for many of us is how to do it on a budget. Here are two books that have been recommended to me. I haven’t read either yet. If you have, let me know what you think.

• Rapid Video Development for Trainers: How to Create Learning Videos Fast and Affordably
• Creating Video for Teachers and Trainers: Producing Professional Video with Amateur Equipment

The links to Amazon books may produce a slight commission.

12 Free eBooks

I’ve mentioned this before, but there’s a good list of free ebooks in the elearning community. If you don’t want to spend money, this is a good place to start. You have one free ebook for each month.

• E-Learning for Beginners

• The Insider’s Guide to Becoming a Rapid E-Learning Pro

• 5 Highly Effective Strategies for Creating Engaging E-Learning

• 9 Steps to Better E-Learning Project Management

• The Essential Guide to Working with Subject Matter Experts

• Building Compelling Interactions: What You Need to Know

• The Secret to Creating Great E-Learning Videos

• Essential Guide to Visual Design

• How to Use Typography to Improve Your E-Learning

• 6 Best Practices for Designing Accessible E-Learning

• Getting Started with Articulate Storyline

• Getting Started with Articulate Studio

My first book to read will be Even Ninja Monkeys Like to Play. What are you reading this year?

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Free E-Learning Resources

Want to learn more? Check out these articles and free resources in the community.	Here’s a great job board for e-learning, instructional design, and training jobs	Participate in the weekly e-learning challenges to sharpen your skills
Get your free PowerPoint templates and free graphics & stock images.	Lots of cool e-learning examples to check out and find inspiration.	Getting Started? This e-learning 101 series and the free e-books will help.

“How do I get started with elearning” is one of the most frequent questions I’m asked. It makes sense since the industry is still hot and growing and every day someone new joins it and needs help.

Most elearning developers I meet are transitioning from face-to-face training and usually start by converting their classroom content into elearning courses. The usual solution is to use software that turns the PowerPoint slides into elearning courses. The challenge is that effective elearning is more than converting existing classroom content.

Get Started by Learning More About E-Learning

There are all sorts of great resources online to help you learn more about elearning and building good courses. If you can only find one resource, I recommend the E-Learning Heroes because it’s a community of over 250,000 elearning practitioners. Here’s why I like the community:

• Free ebooks that cover everything you need to get started. What’s better than free?
• A structured getting starter series. This helps you get some of the basics.
• Tutorials to help you use the software. The more proficient you are with your elearning software, the better you’ll build your courses.
• Tons of free PowerPoint templates and other downloads. These free downloads will help save time and money. They’re also great to deconstruct to learn more about building courses.
• Hundreds of inspiring elearning examples. What new ideas? Then check out what others build.
• If you have a question, there’s always a quick answer and great discussions. For example, here’s a recent conversation about best practices for updating compliance training.

Get Started with E-Learning Through Practice

Many elearning courses are relatively simple click-and-read courses where it’s click, click, click, and quiz. One reason for this is that elearning developers who are just getting started have limited skills so they tend to build the courses that are easy to build and similar to what they usually see. And since so many courses are linear click-and-read courses, that’s what they build.

One way to get past that is to learn more about the tools you use. The more proficient you are using your software the more likely you are to go beyond the basics and build engaging and interactive elearning courses.

I prefer Articulate Storyline because it hits a sweet spot between ease of use and capability. You don’t need to know everything about elearning or the software to get started. But as your skills and experience expand, Storyline’s there to grow with you.

Start with the basic tutorials and practice applying what you learn from them. After that, the weekly elearning challenges are a great way to expand your skills. You’re not constrained by the pressures of a real course and can think about something new and stretch your creative juices a bit.

Learn About Learning to Get Started with E-Learning

Stay connected with elearning peeps using social media like Twitter and LinkedIn. I use Hootsuite to manage my social media streams. I focus less on specific people and follow keywords and hashtags. I will admit that sometimes it’s a bit overwhelming, but that’s OK. You don’t need to stay on top of everything. I only check the stream a few times during the week.

Read some books on elearning and course design. There are lots of good elearning and instructional design books, but here are a few of my favorites and why:

• Design for How People Learn. This is a great book about how people learn and will help you design better elearning. It’s also easy to read. I wish some of those instructional design books I read in college were written in the same style.
• E-Learning Fundamentals. Another easy-to-read book that goes through the basics from A to Z. It’s a must-have for the new elearning developer.
• E-Learning and the Science of Instruction. I like this book because it addresses a lot of common design issues. My only caveat is to not become too dogmatic about the points made.
• Instructional Design for E-Learning: What I like about this book is that it has short chapters that cover a broad range of topics. They’re almost like abstracts of a lot of the things you need to know. Good general overviews without going too deep.
• Designing Successful E-Learning and Creating Successful E-Learning are both good books in the elearning library series. They should help most beginners learn more about effective e-learning design.

The links to Amazon books may produce a slight commission.

The books above are good starting points. Once you have a handle on some of the basics, make it a habit to regularly read and apply more advanced topics like gamification and UX design.

It doesn’t really matter how much you read if you don’t apply what you read to your course design. That’s why I like the weekly challenges I mentioned above. They give you a platform to practice what you read in a safe environment. Odds are you won’t get that opportunity when building real courses in real time.

There’s a lot more to building elearning courses, but you have to start somewhere. I suggest catching up on some of the basics mentioned here and then practice, practice, and practice. Your first course may not be the best course, but with each course you’ll get better. And if you need any help, don’t hesitate to ask.

What tips do you have for the person just getting started?

Events

Free E-Learning Resources

Want to learn more? Check out these articles and free resources in the community.	Here’s a great job board for e-learning, instructional design, and training jobs	Participate in the weekly e-learning challenges to sharpen your skills
Get your free PowerPoint templates and free graphics & stock images.	Lots of cool e-learning examples to check out and find inspiration.	Getting Started? This e-learning 101 series and the free e-books will help.