In an earlier post I shared over 100 free callouts for you to use with your online training courses. Who doesn’t like free?

There are plenty of free callouts from which to choose. However sometimes the free ones just don’t work and you’ll need to create your own. So today I am going to show you how to create your own callouts.

How to Create Your Own Free Callouts in PowerPoint

One of my favorite features in PowerPoint 2010 is combining shapes. In fact, I have it as a tab in my PowerPoint ribbon so I always have quick access to that feature. Being able to create shapes in PowerPoint means I can create my own callouts. Here’s how:

• What is a callout? The callout is made of the body where we add text. And then it has the tail that points in the direction of the talking character. So it’s basically just two shapes. We’ll combine those in PowerPoint.

• Add a shape to the slide. I like rounded rectangles because they’re a bit more organic. Ovals are nice, too.
• Add a tail shape. I like to use the lightning bolt. Some people use the crescent or triangles. It really doesn’t matter as long as you can get the look you want.
• Position the callout so that it aligns with the speaker. This is where creating your own comes in handy. You can position the body and tail before creating the final shape.

• Combine shapes in PowerPoint to create a single shape.
• Edit points to create more customization. If you want to get fancy, use the Bezier curve. Right click on the shape and select edit points to access this feature.

Tutorial: How to Create Callouts in PowerPoint

Here’s a quick video to show how to create your own callouts using PowerPoint.

Click here to view the video.

Tutorial: How to Create a Callout Template

This tutorial shows you how to create a template for callouts that you can use to quickly change the shape of the callouts you create.

Click here to view the tutorial.

A Dozen Free Callouts

To help you out, I created a few callouts. But I encourage you to create your own.

Click here to download the free callout graphics.

Take advantage of the free downloads. But also learn to build your own callouts. That way you’ll always have what you need when you need it.

If you do create some and want to share them, send me an email and I’ll make them available to the rest of the community.

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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.

September is the start of a new school year. So it’s a good time to revisit the ongoing debate about whether or not you need an instructional design degree to build good elearning courses.

Here’s my take.

There’s a difference between teaching and informing.

Because we’re using e-learning applications like Storyline 360 or Rise 360 the assumption is that what we’re building is always e-learning or the objective is some sort of performance improvement.

Instructional design implies instruction. But much of what’s created with the e-learning applications is less about learning and more about sharing information. It’s really more interactive multimedia content than it is interactive instructional design.

Perhaps, the question should be, “Do you need a marketing degree?” since a lot of what is created falls more into that bucket than performance improvement.

Not all course builders are instructional designers.

In an ideal world, the person building the course is also involved in the design of it. But I’ve been in the industry long enough to know that’s often not the case. There are many course builders who have little say in the design of the course they build.

They’re hired to take content as it is designed by someone else and then build out the multimedia part of it. Having instructional design awareness is great and allows that person to offer constructive feedback, but if that’s not what the person is hired to do, then there’s a good chance the feedback goes nowhere.

If you’re hired to build courses, but not involved in the strategic design of them, then it may make sense to focus on multimedia design skills over instructional design. From my experience, a course developer with really good graphic and interaction design skills usually trumps a good instructional designer with limited visual design skills and multimedia experience.

College degrees may not build the skills you need in the real world.

There are lots of resources online and informal learning communities to help you learn more about instructional design. It doesn’t require a degree.

I have a master’s in educational technology, a degree in corporate media production, and a degree in organizational management that focused a lot on performance and training. Despite all of that education, most of what I know about e-learning came from the work world.

Quite a bit of what was covered in my academic education was not very relevant to the work I was doing and offered little practical application. On top of that many of my professors had limited experience in non-academic training environments and were so politically charged about education and learning that it made a lot of the academic experience a bit uncomfortable and completely incoherent to my needs in the corporate environment.

Learning about instructional design doesn’t necessarily require a formal program as much as the desire to learn and then apply what you learn to your course design.

An instructional design degree can help you get a job.

E-learning is hot and a great industry to be in. That hasn’t always been the case for training. In fact, when times are tough, it’s usually the training team that gets the boot. But for right now, e-learning is a growing industry with lots of opportunities.

I took a quick peek at 20 job listings, here’s what I found. All but one required at least a bachelor’s degree. Most preferred a Master’s. And many required a Master’s.

Is that fair? Probably not.

If I was the hiring manager I’d prefer looking at your portfolio and talking to you about how you design courses. However, in many cases the hiring manager isn’t involved in the initial screening of the job applicant. That’s done by an HR assistant who is using the minimum requirements to weed out applicants.

So you may be the most skilled instructional designer, but without a degree you probably won’t make it past the first round.

An instructional design degree can challenge your thinking.

Here’s where I find the most value in pursuing an instructional design degree. It forces you to look at and do things in a different way. It also helps build relationships and a network of peers that has lifelong value.

We tend to get stuck doing the same things the same way. In fact, many of you may have the experience of building courses, but you’ve basically built the same course a hundred times rather than a hundred different courses.

In a degree program, you get experiences and opportunities that may not exist at work where you have to operate at the speed of business. You learn new things and hopefully get to apply them to projects to see how they work.

You also get to interact with people who are in different fields, with different organizations, and who many not think the way you do. Being challenged in this way is good.

From a purely pragmatic perspective, you don’t need an instructional design degree to build e-learning courses. But a formal education does provide a map towards success. Most of us aren’t disciplined enough to map out the same things and experiences we’d acquire in school.

But Tom, do I need an instructional design degree to build e-learning courses?

I’m going to say “No, you don’t need a degree.”

I’ve talked to plenty of people who told me what they learned in school wasn’t relevant to what they have to do at work. And with the resources available to you, there’s no reason why you need to pay a ton of money to get a piece of paper to confirm the skills you already have.

But you do need to know how to build good instruction and that means if you don’t learn it via a formal degree program you’ll need to learn it elsewhere.

My advice is to keep reading about course design and practice building instructionally sound modules. Build good examples to add to your portfolio and stay connected to the e-learning community. That practical experience coupled with knowing someone can help you get past the HR filter when openings arise.

And if you can afford it, go to school because you’re at a competitive disadvantage when looking for work.

What do you think?

Do you need an instructional design degree? For those of you who don’t have a degree, what advice do you have for someone who wants to learn more?

And if you do have a degree, did it help you build good e-learning courses? Is it something you’d recommend to others?

I look forward to your 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.

The single largest visual element in your elearning course is the background. And the right background can set the stage and build expectations for your learners. A course that looks like a converted PowerPoint file isn’t as inviting as one that is aesthetically rich and looks more professionally designed.

Here are some quick examples. Look at the image below. It looks like a typical rapid elearning course screen. It’s not bad, just not very dynamic or rich.

Now look at the following makeovers. Just changing the background adds a more polished look. The background images match the course context and they offer a richer visual experience. This approach also doesn’t require advanced graphics skills or creativity to implement.

Start with a Good Background

In a previous post, we discussed tapping into the visual voice. It’s the process of crafting the course’s visual elements to meet the expectations of a given course subject or context.

For example, if you are going to build a course on operating room technology, what colors would you use? What would the people look like? What are they wearing? What fonts would you select for that course?

Capturing your visual voice helps identify the key design elements in your elearning course. However many of you aren’t graphic designers. So it can be a challenge to create a course that is visually rich and engaging.

Choosing the Right Image

If you can’t design everything on your own a good substitute is to at least start with the right background. The trick is to find the single image that best represents the elearning course or screen that you’re building. Here are some tips on selecting the right image:

• Brainstorm a few ideas. Think about the images that bets represent your course content. Write them down and use that list to look for the right image. If not, you’ll go to an image site and waste a lot of time searching. You’re better off having a list and using that to start. From them take note of the keywords used to describe the image. That will help you extend the search.
• Look for simple images that convey the essence of what you need but without too much detail. The images above suggest hiking but they don’t have a lot of extra information that may distract. Keep in mind that everything on the screen communicates something. The more you have on the screen, the more apt you are to miscommunicate. Thus you want to reduce the amount of information and detail on the background image. The image should provide visual context but not content.
• Find content holders. The background image is just that—a background. Because you’re putting content on top of the background find images that have some flexibility. I look for images with solid colors or blank areas that work for text or media elements like the two hiking images above. The people in the image suggest hiking, but the snow areas are perfect content holder. I try to stay away from really busy images because I don’t want the background content to conflict with the teaching content.
• Find more than one image. You’re not limited to a single background for the entire course. You can select different backgrounds per screen or section. As the context changes feel free to change to the appropriate background image.

Starting with a visually dynamic background that is contextual and matches the content can set positive expectations for the course and adds a lot of aesthetic appeal. It’s not going to replace good content, but it is a start to building an engaging course especially if you have limited resources.

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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.

I’ve been doing this PowerPoint stuff for so long that I often think the tips I share are common knowledge and everyone knows them. But every time I do a workshop, I’m reminded that what may be old to me is often new to others.

Over the years I’ve shared all sorts of PowerPoint tips and tricks. But with the blog approaching 100,000 subscribers that means there’s a lot of people who probably didn’t see many of the previous PowerPoint posts.

So in today’s post, I’ve included a list with every single PowerPoint tip shared in the blog up to this point. They include tips on creating custom graphics, assembly of interactive elearning, and getting more out PowerPoint’s features.

If you’re looking for a good resource on PowerPoint tips, this is a post worth bookmarking.

Tips on Creating Rapid E-Learning Courses in PowerPoint

Building an elearning course with PowerPoint is not the same as building a presentation. Many of the production techniques are different. This list of posts offers some good tips on building your rapid elearning courses in PowerPoint.

• How I Built that E-Learning Scenario
• What Everybody Ought To Know About Using PowerPoint for E-learning
• Here Are Some Time Saving Tips for Your Next Software Demo
• Build a Puzzle Animation in Just a Few Simple Steps
• How to Be More Productive When Using PowerPoint to Create E-Learning Courses
• How to Get the Most Out of Your Slide Notes
• Why Dissecting an E-Learning Course Will Improve Your Skills
• Build Branched E-Learning Scenarios in Three Simple Steps
• 5 Essential Rapid E-Learning Tips
• The Truth About Rapid E-Learning
• Here Are More Than 200 Free Rapid E-Learning Tutorials
• These 12 Tutorials Teach You How to Build an Interactive E-Learning Course
• Save Time with These 3 Rapid E-Learning Tips
• Four Essential Tips for the Rapid E-Learning Pro
• Three Time-Saving Rapid E-Learning Tips
• How to Build an E-Learning Template with No Money Down

Use PowerPoint for Graphic & Visual Design

PowerPoint is a versatile application that lets you build your own graphics and illustrations. This list of posts walks through all sorts of graphic design and illustration tips.

• Little Known Ways to Create Your Own Graphics Using PowerPoint
• See How Easily You Can Design a Consistent Look for Your E-Learning Courses
• Create Custom Characters for Your E-Learning Scenarios
• What You Need to Know When Working with Grouped Clip Art
• 3 Simple Steps to Create Background Images for Your Next E-Learning Scenario
• 3 Easy Ways to Create Silhouette Characters
• Are You Looking for an Easy Way to Make Your Courses Look Interesting?
• See How Easily You Can Create Graphics in PowerPoint
• 15 Interesting Clip Art Styles for Your E-Learning Courses
• 5 Ways to Use Silhouette Graphics in Your E-Learning Course
• Here’s How to Get Past a Screen Full of Bullet Points
• Get More Life Out of Your Clip Art with This Simple Trick
• 5 E-Learning Design Ideas I Got While Traveling
• 3 Tutorials to Help You Get More Out of PowerPoint’s Image Editing
• 3 Ways to Make Your E-Learning Course Look Like a Comic Book
• A Simple PowerPoint Technique to Make Your E-Learning Courses Look Good

Get More Out of PowerPoint Using These Tips

Most of us probably use a small fraction of PowerPoint’s features. However, it is a very capable application. And onc
e you understand what you can do with it, it’s like having a brand new tool. The following posts dig through various PowerPoint features so that you can build rapid elearning courses and get more out of PowerPoint’s capabilities.

• How Walt Disney Would Use PowerPoint to Create E-Learning Courses
• 5 Must-Know PowerPoint Tips That Will Save You Time
• The Hidden PowerPoint Shortcut Everyone Should Know
• 5 Easy Tips to Whip Your Slides Into Shape
• Here’s Why PowerPoint 2007 Helps You Build Better E-Learning
• Unleash Your E-Learning Graphics from PowerPoint 2007
• These PowerPoint Experts Can Make You a Star
• PowerPoint Animations Made Easy with This Free Tool
• How to Create Color Schemes in PowerPoint to Match Your Brand
• Here’s a Simple Way to Save Time When Working with Graphics in PowerPoint
• M-Learning 101: I’ll Take My Rapid E-Learning to Go
• Why You Need PowerPoint 2010 for Rapid E-Learning
• More Than 30 PowerPoint Tips from the PowerPoint Pros!
• How to Find Free PowerPoint E-Learning Templates
• Need Screenshots for Your E-Learning? Here Are 3 Tools That You Already Own.

Never-ending PowerPoint Tips

The elearning community is active in sharing tips and tricks. Many in the community create how-to tutorials in Screenr. We try to capture all of the PowerPoint tutorials we find in the community.

This link is updated every time we bookmark a new PowerPoint tutorial.

So there you have it, a career’s worth of PowerPoint tips and tricks. Of all of the PowerPoint tips I’ve shared, which is your favorite or is the most eye-opening? I’d love to know. Share it via the comments link.

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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.

In today’s post we’ll look at two free applications you can use to synchronize your files between your computer and a network drive or Dropbox folder.

Saving to a Network Drive

Many of you keep your elearning project files on a network drive. But working with multimedia projects from the network drive isn’t always ideal. That means you’re copying files from your network to the desktop. And ideally, you move them back over when you’re done.

It sure would be nice if there was an easy way to make sure that the files on your desktop are sync’d to your network drive.

Working with Dropbox

Dropbox is great for syncing folders between computers. I use it all the time. But you can only sync from a folder within your Dropbox folder. So that means your project folders have to be in your Dropbox folder.

I prefer to manage my files outside of Dropbox. But I do like using Dropbox to sync my files between computers. I also prefer working outside of Dropbox when I am editing my project files. I don’t want to run the risk that Dropbox’s active syncing interferes with my multimedia production.

It would be great to have a solution that lets me work on my projects outside of Dropbox and then automatically move them to Dropbox so I have access to them on my other computers.

The good news is that there’s an easy and inexpensive way to make sure to backup your network drive or a Dropbox folder. Here’s how.

Microsoft SyncToy

SyncToy is a free application from Microsoft. You select a “Left” and “Right” folder to sync. And then you determine how and when you want to sync them.

The left folder is what’s active on my desktop and I sync that folder to the right folder which would be either the network or Dropbox folder.

Here’s a tutorial that shows how to set up and sync two folders using Microsoft SyncToy.

• View the SyncToy tutorial [updated March 2022].
• Download SyncToy [Microsoft discontinued SyncToy, but the application is available to download here].

To sync the folders, open SyncToy and select “Run.” Of course, that requires you remembering to do so, but that’s where the next step comes in.

Task Scheduler

Your PC comes with a task scheduler. It’s in the Systems Tools folder. With Task Scheduler, you schedule tasks (funny how those names work) to run at specific times.

In this case, we want to create a task that opens and runs SyncToy so that the left and right folders are sync’d automatically. I schedule the task to run around 7:00 PM when I am mostly done with work and usually not at my desk.

You can learn more about Task Scheduler here. There are a lot more options, but for this post I kept it really simple.

• View the Task Scheduler tutorial [updated March 2022]
• Access Task Scheduler from windows: Start > Accessories folder > System Tools folder

Let’s review the process:

• Create a folder on your PC for elearning projects.
• Create a folder on your network (or Dropbox) that will sync with your PC folder.
• Use SyncToy to synchronize the two folders.
• Automate syncing the two folders using Task Scheduler to run SyncToy at a scheduled time.

That’s about it. It’s an easy process and great way to make sure that what you have on your PC is sync’d with your network files and Dropbox. It sure beats having to manually copy things back and forth.

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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.

Comic book layouts are pretty popular. And they work well for elearning courses. For one, they look different. It’s that type of contrast that can hook your learners who might be bored with the standard-looking corporate elearning.

On top of that a comic-like layout breaks the content into panels which allows you to control the pacing and flow of information as each panel progressively reveals more. It’s a great way to still have the simplicity of a linear course, but make it seem more engaging.

A while back I shared how to be inspired by others and included links to two comic-style elearning courses. Based on the feedback, the examples were a hit. I got quite a few emails asking how to build a similar type of course.

In today’s post I’m going to show three ways to build a comic-style layout for your courses. To keep it simple we’ll use PowerPoint, but the ideas should work regardless of the tool you use.

Choose a Layout

Layouts are the key distinguishing feature for the comic book look. Typically they follow some sort of grid. The good thing is that there’s really no right or wrong way to create the grid. Some comics use straight lines and even sized panels. And some use an assortment of panel sizes.

If you’re looking for layout ideas, the first place to look is at comic books. You could attend a comic book convention, but you’ll probably have to wear a goofy costume. A better solution is to go to one of those comic creation sites and see what types of layouts they offer. Here are a couple of good sites:

• Create Your Own Super Hero Comic
• Make Your Own Graphix.

You can also create your own layouts with existing clip art. Here’s an example I shared in this blog post on using Clip Art to create your elearning template. This also lets you build a layout that has that hand-drawn look.

For this demo, we’ll use a few simple layouts. I created them as shapes in PowerPoint. As you can see below, creating the layout’s pretty simple. Feel free to create as many layouts as you want.

Keep in mind that too many choices can be overwhelming. Instead of building 200 possible layouts, stick with 5-10 common layouts.

Another consideration with layouts is determining how you’ll present the content. Review the two elearning examples above and notice how the layouts follow a consistent pattern. For example, you may have one type of layout for information, another for decision-making, and another for feedback.

Deciding how to use the layouts will help you best determine which types of layouts you need.

One last point, the more panels you add to the layouts, the less space you get. If you have too many panels the content make look cluttered and seem confusing. I’d err on the side of fewer panels.

Option 1: Create Master Slide Panels & Layouts

Use PowerPoint’s master slides to create the layouts. You can have as many masters as you like so the best bet is to create all of the possible layouts that you’d use in a single file. And then when you’re ready to go, select a layout for the slide and add your content.

Two ways to work with the master layouts:

• Create the entire panel look on the slide master. Then apply it to a slide and add content within the panel.
• Create watermarked panels on the master slide and use them as guides to control placement of your content. The benefit to this is that you have the general layout mapped, but you’re not confined by the panels if your content doesn’t fit perfectly.

A few tips when working with these types of layouts:

• Use thick lines and determine how colorful you want the panels to be. Think loud and in your face.
• Not all of your content will fit perfectly in the panels. That’s OK. Build your content on the panel and get it to fit the best you can. Then copy and paste it as an image. Use the crop feature to perfectly crop it to the panel.
• Tutorial: this tutorial walks through the template and shows a few production tips.

Option 2: Create Custom-Sized Slides for Each Panel

Instead of building the layouts on the master template, build them on the slides. This gives you more control over the panels because you have direct access to them since they’re not buried in the masters.

Build a master PowerPoint file that has all of the layouts you’d use. Then start with that file when you want to build a comic-inspired course. Make sure to save it with a different name. Duplicate the layouts you want and then add your content.

How to add content to the panels:

• Instead of creating your panel shapes on the master slide, create them on the slide. This lets you manipulate the shape at the slide level. Add content on top of the panel shape.
• Create panel shapes with thick lines and no fill color. Then place them on top of the content. The thick lines will cover up anything that doesn’t fit perfectly.
• Fill the panel shapes with an image. I like this approach because the panels and content will always align perfectly. The only thing that changes is the fill image for the shape.

Bonus tips:

• PowerPoint lets you create slides of any size. Create template files where the slides have the same aspect ratio as the various panels. This way you always know that the inserted fill image fits perfectly inside the PowerPoint shape. You can download some examples in the file below.
• Tutorial: How to work with comic-panel#.ppt and create images to fill the comic panel shapes.

Option 3: Create a Master Panel Image

This is probably the easiest way to create a comic layout. Instead of messing with a bunch of images and trying to get everything laid out perfectly, just create a series of layout images that you place on top of your content.

Essentially, you have one image of the entire page. Then you cut a hole out of the page for each panel. All of the content sits underneath the page image and can only peak through the holes. This guarantees that everything is perfectly aligned inside the panel.

I like this approach because you can move each object in the panel and the overlaid master image masks any overflow to create the illusion of panels.

Extra tips:

• Add your page images to the master slides so that you have a layout. This will act as a general guide. Your slide for each layout you provide should consist of a master slide with the same page layout and the page layout image on the actual slide that acts as the cover.
• Be sure to use the selection pane in PowerPoint (starting with PowerPoint 2007). Hide the page image and add your content using the master as a guide. Then unhide the page layout on the slide when you’re ready to publish. Make sure the cover image is always on top in the selection pane.
• Tutorial: How to create layout mask images to use as panel covers.

To help you out, I created a starter PowerPoint template pack. You can download it in the elearning community. It includes folders for each type of template. You can use them as they are or build your own.

Comic strip layouts are popular and a nice way to make your courses look a bit different. The trick is to determine the type of layout you want and how to get the content into the panels with the least amount of work.

There are many ways to layout the comic panels. Once you decide the type of layout you want, then you need to determine how you will get the content into the panels.

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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.

Typically elearning courses start from existing content. And often that content dictates how the course is structured and how it looks. And that may not always be best.

The guiding principle for rapid elearning design is to be intentional. Everything you do while developing your course should be planned and exist for a reason. You don’t want existing content to dictate the design of your course. This seems obvious but often isn’t the case.

Getting to Intentional Design

Many elearning courses start as classroom content that needs to be converted and put online. Or subject matter experts hand you a bunch of PowerPoint slides that they want to turn into elearning courses.

This type of content already has some instructional consideration, albeit for a classroom. And it has some visual design that usually comes from a template with specific colors, schemes, and fonts.

Instead of being intentional about the instructional and visual design of the course we allow the existing content to determine how we build it. What we should do is take a step back, think about general course design, and then map our content to the design that’s appropriate to the course objectives.

As I’ve mentioned in the past, elearning courses have three essential elements. I like to frame them as questions.

• What will the course look like?
• What content needs to be in the course?
• What will the learner do with this content?

These three questions help to drive the intentionality of your course design.

Put Your Hands Up & Step Away from that PowerPoint File

Here’s a typical scenario. You’re handed a PowerPoint file and some other documents. The subject matter expert has been using that content for years in a successful classroom setting and now wants that converted to elearning.

Easy enough.

In this scenario, we typically open up the existing PowerPoint file and make decision on a slide-by-slide basis. We start on slide one, make some adjustments, and then move on to slide 2. Make a few more adjustments, and then move on to the next slide.

The challenge with this approach is that you’re letting the existing content and instructional structure drive how you build the course. That may work on some occasions but for the most part it’s not ideal.

Be Intentional about the Course Design

Even if the existing content looks right, don’t start there. Take a step back and start with a blank screen. Then determine how the course needs to be built and what content you need.

If the existing content you have works, great. If not, then you’re not letting it dictate your course design. In either case, you want to be intentional in how the course is designed. This will ensure that you’re moving in the right direction.

Let’s revisit the three essential questions.

What will the course look like?

The course is going to look like something. Even if you are in a hurry and decide to do nothing but a simple conversion, the course is still going to look like something.

Most likely the look that isn’t right for the course is the one that comes from the existing content. But, there is a look that is right for the course. It’s just a matter of finding it.

Be intentional about the visual design of your elearning course.

What content needs to be in the course?

Subject matter experts tend to think everything’s important. And it probably is in the proper context. But “important” content is not the same as the “right” content that is appropriate to the goals of the elearning course.

Not all of the information about a given topic needs to be in an elearning course. I prefer a backwards design approach. At the end of the course, what change should I expect from the learner? What does it look like if I see it? Then build the course so the learner can practice and demonstrate that desired change.

Be intentional about the aligning the course content to the course objectives.

What will the learner do with this content?

This question builds off of the second one. The content in the course is structured to meet specific objectives. As the learner goes through the course, what is she supposed to do? This question helps focus on the interactive component of the course.

Do you want her reading and reflecting on content? Is there a place for her to do something, to make some decisions? Once she’s exposed to the course content, what s she supposed to do?

Sometimes the course content is simple refresher material and doesn’t require a lot if interactivity. But often the content is new and is tied to some sort of performance expectation. What can you do to get the learner to practice using the information in a setting similar to what they’d do in the real world?

Be intentional about aligning the course’s interactivity to meeting the course’s objectives.

As I mentioned earlier, the capabilities of the authoring software has evolved. This has opened the doors to do more with elearning. But easy course creation is not going to replace being intentional about how you design your courses. It just makes it easier to build what you intend to build.

The trick is to intend to build the right type of course. It requires that you answer those three essential questions: What will the course look like? What content needs to be part of it? And what is the learner supposed to do with this course?

If you can answer those questions you’re on your way to building effective elearning.

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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.

I’ve been on the road quite a bit this year.  One of the most frequent questions I get is how to find an e-learning job.  While the rest of the economy seems to be stuck in mud, this seems to be a good time to consider a career in e-learning.  It’s still a relatively new industry and technology is making it easier than ever to get a foothold.

In a previous post I talked a bit on how to prepare for opportunities by getting experience and maintaining a portfolio.

• Here’s Why You Need an E-Learning Portfolio
• Do You Need An Instructional Design Degree?
• 5 Ways to Prepare & Be an E-Learning Winner

In this post, I’d like to expand that a bit.  I’d also like to mention that these tips work if you’re looking for a new job or if you’re trying to position yourself in your current organization.

You’re competing against others for the same position.

This is true if your opportunities exist inside or outside your organization.  Some people don’t like the notion of competition, but it’s real.  Usually, the person with the most experience and best qualifications gets the job.  While you can’t control the qualifications of others, you can control yours.

You’re not entitled to opportunity; you make it happen.  That means that it’s up to you to get the experience and qualifications you need.  Find out what you need to know and then proactively go out and get the experience so that you can compete for the job you want.

Get experience to build diverse skills.

Years ago, when I realized I wanted to be in the training industry, I did an assessment of my skills and figured out where I was lacking.  Then I looked for ways to build the skills I didn’t have.

Look over job postings that interest you.  Or talk to people in your organization about what you want to do and find out how you can get there.  Make a three-column document.  In one column list the job description and requirements.  In the other, write a sentence that describes your experience.  In the third, document proof of this.

If you don’t have the experience or proof to back it up, go out and get it.  I’d also add that you want diverse experience to show different skills.  There’s a difference between software training using screencasts and soft skills training that may be built around interactive scenarios.

Maintain a portfolio of your skills.

You don’t need a formal portfolio that’s always visible, but you should have a portfolio that documents the work you’ve done and the skills you have.  For some of you, the work you do is confidential.  In those cases, pull out key parts of the course that show off different skills and then remove all content that is proprietary.  Replace it with generic content.

If you can’t show the actual product, do a simple screen grab, and then document what you did.  I like a simple three-pronged approach:

• Project goals: what was the project about and what did it hope to accomplish
• What I did: explain what YOU did and why you did it
• The results: compare goals to results

No one wants to sit through a two-hour demo course and they don’t want to read a ten-page dissertation.  Keep it short, simple, and focused.

Practice, practice, practice.

Unfortunately, many organizations might have you build one hundred courses, but they’ll all be the same course built a hundred times.  In those cases, you don’t get to expand your skills.  You’d be better off building ten courses that are different than a hundred that are all the same.

In those cases, it’s up to you to practice.  Review other e-learning courses or multimedia.  Then try to implement some ideas in little practice modules.  You don’t need to build big courses, just mini modules.  Clean them up a bit and they’ll make a great addition to your portfolio.  Plus, they’ll give you skills to help make those hundred courses a bit different each time.

Connect with people in the industry.

There’s lots of power in the e-learning community of practice.  Most people loiter and lurk.  They collect information but they don’t really connect with others.  That’s fine.  No one expects you to sit on the couch, eating bonbons and surfing the community.

Only a handful in the community is actively engaged.  Engaging in the community is a great way to meet people who can help you build skills.  You can ask questions of experts and share what you’re doing.  Odds are that as positions open, you’ll have an inside advantage (especially if you’ve shared things from your portfolio).

I became an MVP in the Articulate community because I was there helping people.  As an MVP I got all sorts of opportunities for freelance work.  Eventually my role as an MVP created the opportunity to join Articulate full time to do what I’m doing now.

You don’t want to game the system and just pester people about opportunities.  But if you’re inclined to be involved and connected with others then odds are that you’ll develop your skills and find some opportunities.

Become an expert.

You don’t need to be a grizzled veteran of e-learning to be an expert.  In this world of social media expertise is transient.  I’d rather have someone with 5 years of experience share ten practical tips that I can use, than have to read some e-learning expert’s book who shares information I’m not sure how to apply.

Today it’s easier than ever to build your expertise.  Here are a few ways to do so:

• Help others.  Go to the e-learning community and make it your goal to answer three questions every day.  It’s not a major time commitment.  By the end of the year, you’ll have close to eight hundred posts.  In no time at all, you’ll be seen as an authority and expert.  You may even become an MVP.
• Document what you’re learning.  Start a blog and use it to show what you’re learning.  Combine that with your portfolio.  Build a simple module and then explain what you did and some of the decisions you made.
• Create some simple tutorials.  Do some screencast tutorials and show some production techniques.  You may not have years of experience, but your five-minute tutorial is helping somebody with less experience and that makes you an expert to them.

Anything you can do to help others is going to help you improve your skills and build a network of peers.  In addition, all that goodwill will come in handy when you start looking for opportunities.

Be a volunteer or intern.

A wonderful way to gain experience is by volunteering to build some e-learning courses.  There are usually opportunities in your community with NGOs, churches, or other groups where you can practice your skills and help them with their training needs.

Here’s a bonus tip.  A while back I tried to recruit some multimedia interns from a local technical college to help with the community.  None of them saw the value of working with the community and helping build demos.  The funny thing is that eventually I ended up hiring two full time community managers.  That could have been them if they weren’t so short-sighted.

The point is that you never know what opportunities exist.  Don’t be short-sighted.

Get educated and keep learning.

There’s some debate about the value of advanced degrees for e-learning.  Without considering a specific degree, there’s value in an ongoing education.  If you’re not in a formal program, at least continue your learning by following bloggers in the industry and reading books.

With that said when you do look for work, educational background is still one of those filters used by employers.  The person with a degree is usually in a better position than the one without.  So, make that investment if you can.  If not, build a portfolio of really solid skills.

• Here’s a list of some good books collected in the community. If you have other recommendations, add them to the comments and I’ll update the list.
• There’s also a list of different educational programs that are available.  They range from certification to Masters.  If you’ve attended one of these programs, feel free to add a comment to share your experience for those interested.

There’s a lot of opportunity in the e-learning industry.  Hopefully, these tips will help you out if you’re trying to break in.  They also work without leaving your current organization.  I know plenty of people who took upon themselves to build some simple training at their business and ended up becoming the training team.

If you’ve been building courses for a while, what tips would you offer to the person who wants to get into the e-learning industry?

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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.

Years ago when I did video production, it seemed that every one of my customers wanted the final video to be like an MTV music video—fast moving with quick cuts.  They didn’t seem to care much about whether or not that was the right approach; they just knew they wanted it to be like MTV. By the way, this was back when MTV actually showed music videos.

That was challenging enough because not every subject required an MTV-type video.  However, a bigger challenge was when they had those expectations for the product but never shared them with me.  I’d only find out later down the road that the project didn’t turn out the way they had envisioned it.

What’s in Your Client’s Head?

In today’s media-rich world, we’re exposed to all sorts of multimedia which helps inspire ideas for elearning course, but it also can create customer expectations.  This can be a challenge when working with customers because many of them have preconceived ideas of what they want, whether or not it’s appropriate to the course or you have the resources to deliver it.

Also because they’re exposed to so much multimedia, they may have a mental model of what they want, but they’re not quite sure how to explain it.  In those cases, they get more clarity by seeing things they DON’T want versus being able to identify what it is they DO want. Of course this can waste a lot of time if they’re waiting for you to design something before they tell you they don’t like it.

Get Them to Empty Their Cup

Before you invest too much time in prototyping some mock ups, get them to empty their cups, so to speak.  Have them share as much as possible.  Ask them to show you examples of what courses they like or have seen.  Odds are that if they have a strong idea about what they want to do, then most likely they’ll have examples to pull from.

It’s also important to get a sense of their expectations.  For example, if you’re working with a rapid elearning tool and they’re showing you something that has to be custom programmed in Flash, it’s good to know this before you invest too much time on the project.

Give Them Some Examples

Come prepared.  Have some prototypes and treatments ready to share.  After they share what they envision, pull out your demos.

I usually have three basic treatments that range from a nice-looking but simple course to something very interactive.  This lets them see the options and it gives me a way to discuss the time required to build the different types of courses.

Provide a list of diverse elearning examples where they can see different approaches to elearning.  Have them pick out the ones they like and the ones they don’t like and identify how they distinguished them.

It’s also a great way to identify different types of interactivity and approaches you can take with the course.

Brainstorm with Them

Build a real-time prototype while your client shares what they like. This is easy enough to do in a tool like PowerPoint.  With it you’re able to create virtually any look and it’s easy to quickly build simple interactions.  As they start to see their ideas come to life, they can offer more clarity about their expectations.

In the E-Learning Heroes community, David put together a simple visual design mind map activity.  It’s a great tool to help come up with the right look and feel for your courses.  It’s also a great tool to collaborate and brainstorm with your clients so that you can clarify their expectations and how they envision things to look.

Click here to view the tutorial.

For example, I’ve had plenty of projects where the client says, “This doesn’t look right,” or “We need more normal looking people.”  These all subjective statements and you can waste a lot of time trying to clarify what “normal” means.

Use the visual design activity above to quickly brainstorm with your client.  In the case of “normal looking” you can make a list of the types of people in the course and then copy and paste images from Google image searches and sites like istockphotos.  It won’t take long to fill a page with the types of people the client considers “normal looking.”

This type of activity doesn’t take up much time.  You’ll have the right images and you’ll also have a better understanding of what the client wants.  A side benefit is that your client will probably be more engaged in the development process.

I know someone who built a prototype course which took some time to do.  When the client saw it, he said that everything was “too American.”  So the developer had to go back and redo much of the prototype.  If she had done a brainstorm activity like the mind map above, she would have saved some time and started the project setting a different tone.

By helping your client clarify the mental model they have for the elearning course, you’ll build the course they desire and you’ll save lots of time during development.

What types of things do you do to get them to share their expectations on the look and feel of the course?

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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.

Just finished back-to-back conferences in San Jose and San Diego.  As always, it’s fun getting to meet the blog readers and Articulate customers.  Many of them are working with limited resources and it’s interesting to see how they approach their work.  I also get lots of good questions.

One of the most frequent questions asked is whether or not they need instructional design degrees.  I get this question quite a bit and it seems I’m getting it more frequently.

If I hire someone, I put less emphasis on the formal education they have and focus more on their tangible skills.  I’m interested in seeing a portfolio of work that represents their technical skills as well as their instructional design skills.  I don’t care if they acquired the skills in a formal or informal setting. I’m just concerned with them having the skills.

However, I do appreciate what it takes to get a degree in instructional design and know that what’s learned is valuable and can only enhance a person’s base of knowledge.  Because of this, I usually tell people “No, they don’t,” and “Yes, they do.”

You DON’T Need an Instructional Design Degree

You don’t need a formal degree to learn the skills required to build good elearning courses.  There are many books and resources available that will provide the same information you’d get in any formal program.  Combine that with the easy authoring tools and rich informal learning networks available today and you’re all set. Besides many people with degrees tell me they didn’t learn how to apply what they learned in their programs.

If you do want to forego a formal education, here are a few tips to help you get started:

• Read books and apply what you learn to your projects. If you can’t apply them to real projects, create little mini modules where you practice different techniques.  Add them to your portfolio with an explanation of what you did and why.
• Connect with others so you’re always exposed to new ideas and challenged in your thinking.  One of the great things about social media is the access you have to all sorts of expertise.  Be prepared to connect in a genuine way.  People will tune you out if all you do is take.
• Develop a portfolio that demonstrates your understanding of instructional design.  I also recommend combining your portfolio with a blog.  The portfolio could be the formal environment to display your work.  Whereas the blog is like the sandbox where you can flesh out ideas.

The key to success if you go this route is to continually practice your craft.  It’s not easy staying on top of your learning.  I recommend looking over the descriptions of some instructional design programs and then mapping out a plan of your own.  Expose yourself to the same books and topics and just do them at your own pace.

You DO Need an Instructional Design Degree

The reality is that many employers require an advance instructional design degree.  If all things are equal, the person with the degree will probably always be considered first.

Whether you like it or not, you’re competing in the marketplace with other qualified instructional designers.  So you want to make sure that your skills and qualifications are equitable.  That means if you don’t have a degree you might never be considered for different jobs.

Keep in mind, that many applications aren’t screened by the hiring managers.  There’s usually some HR assistant who quickly skims resumes and the one who doesn’t meet the minimum requirements goes to the bottom of the pile.

That’s the pragmatic reason for getting a degree.  Here are some other reasons:

• Broaden your horizon.  You’ll be exposed to resources you may never ever consider or bother reading.  It’s easy to say that you can read the book on your own, but HAVING to read and think through a book is completely different.  The degree programs will force you to think, write, and apply what you’re learning.
• Challenge your thinking.  You’ll connect with others who probably don’t think like you (and they may even be people you don’t like).  You may not agree with others but wrestling with their ideas and debating different instructional concepts will help solidify what you know and give you a broader perspective on things.  Besides, you may meet some lifelong friends through the program.  Either way, it’s important to test what you think you know.
• Do new things.  You can be an elearning developer with ten year’s experience who basically does the same type of course over and over again.  Or you can be an elearning developer with three years, who’s worked on 10 diverse projects.  Which one has the deeper understanding?  In a formal program you’ll get to work on diverse projects and you never know where they’ll take you.  One of the reasons for my employment with Articulate is because I was working on a communities of practice research project.  That forced me to be more intentional about my involvement with the Articulate community, and eventually led to my job.

Getting Started.

If you are asking this question about instructional design degrees here’s what I‘d do:

• Look at current job listings.  Go to industry job boards or sites like monster.com and look for instructional design positions.  What are they looking for?
• Make a line item list of skills and qualifications.  Next to each item, add details based on your current skills and experience.  Compare what’s desired and how well you meet those needs.  You’ll see where you have skills and where you have gaps.
• Make a plan to fill the gaps.  This can be a formal approach like an instructional design program or something informal.  Either way determines what you need to learn and work towards learning it.
• Connect with others.  Jump into an elearning user community and ask what others have done.  Find out what they’re reading.  Ask questions and exchange ideas.  Whether you choose a formal education or not, much of your future success depends on your network.

There are a lot more reasons why you may or may not need a formal instructional design degree.  Whatever you do, you have to continue to push your development to stay competitive and to continue building effective elearning courses.

I’d love to hear your thoughts.  Feel free to share them in the comments section.  If you do an instructional design degree or certificate, tell us where you went and what you see as the most valuable reason to do what you did.

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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.

Managing elearning projects requires good communication between the instructional designers and subject matter experts.  In most cases, this communication happens via email.  Thus, better email communication ultimately leads to better project management, which most likely means better elearning courses.

At a recent ASTD conference, I ran into Mike Song, the author of The Hamster Revolution.  It’s a book on how to effectively manage emails.  Mike gave me a free copy which I skimmed through on the plane flight home.

It’s a quick read and very practical, but I’ll have to admit, I kind of ignored it until I saw a funny video on Youtube a couple of weeks ago.  The video is of a presentation at Ignite Boise, one of those fun 5 minutes and 20 slide events.  The title is “You Don’t Know How to Email.”  Check it out.

Click here to view the video.

At about the 1:48 mark, Erik introduces his friend Dan and Dan’s emails.  It’s both funny and eye-opening.  After watching the video, I looked through my sent emails and sure enough, there were dozens that began with “Hey…”

I am Dan!  And perhaps you’re Dan, too.

Here’s the deal, if you’re swamped with emails, so are your co-workers, manager, and most important your clients and subject matter experts.  By following some of the tips from the Hamster book, you’ll communicate better, your subject matter experts will be happier, and you’ll do a better job managing your emails.

Use Descriptive Titles in Your Email Subject

In the book, Mike recommends that you use categories to provide context to the email subject line.  Look at the image below.  “Action” is one of his recommended categories.  It alerts the reader that there’s an action item associated to the email.

Outside of the Action category, you can also see that the there’s enough information in the subject line to let the reader know the email’s important and requires a response.  A descriptive subject line communicates clearly and is a lot easier to search, as well.

Just this tip alone will make your subject matters happy.  But wait, there’s more.

Email is Money

As Erik in the Youtube video said, “Time is money.  Email takes time.  So email is money.”  Everyone’s busy; so you need an easy way to clearly communicate and manage emails.  Below is an example of a typical email.

This email is kind of typical of the types of emails we get.  They can be a bit long-winded and pointless.  It’s hard to quickly pull out the important information.  And the action items (if any) are not clearly discerned.

Reviewing the email above, you’ll notice a few key issues:

• The subject line is not specific so you’re not quite sure if the email is critical or not
• The formatting of the email makes it hard to quickly scan
• It’s difficult to identify any action items
• The key points are not easily found
• Expectations and next steps are not clear

Break the Body of the Email into Three Sections

As I mentioned earlier, a good email starts with a specific subject line.  This helps the reader know the purpose of the email and what’s expected.  From there, you implement the A-B-C approach which is:

• Action summary: Think of this like the abstract of the email.  It’s a quick summary of what you expect the reader to do based on the email.
• Background: This is the body of your email.  Use bullet points or numbers to focus on key points.  It’s an email, not Salinger’s next great novel.
• Close: This is where you can add incidental notes that might distract at the beginning of the email.  And you can also highlight some expected next steps.

Now let’s compare the email below to the one above.  It’s essentially the same email, only by using the A-B-C approach you’re able to quickly get to the point, focus on what’s important, and identify any expectations or pending actions.

I think you’ll agree that the format of the second email makes communicating with your subject matter experts a lot easier.  Odds are that you’ll exchange a lot less email and that your projects will run much better.

So if you’re inbox is overrun with emails, there’s hope.  It just takes a little practice.  You’ll have less email stress and your subject matter experts will love you.  What tips do you have to make managing the emails for your elearning projects easier?

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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 the questions I’m asked the most is, “What font are you using?”  And it’s usually asked when I’ve used a handwritten font.  That’s because handwritten fonts really stand out from the font crowd.

Many of you are stuck with the default computer fonts.  So you end up with elearning courses that all use the same familiar fonts. When you do want a font that’s less formal, you’re kind of stuck with comic sans, and we all know how much people like comic sans.

Sure, you have the option of purchasing more fonts. But font packs can cost a lot; and many of the so-called “free” fonts are only available for non-commercial use.  That means you either buy them or you can’t use them.

Personally, I consider free to mean free, without a bunch of legal, small print gobbledygook.  So what I am doing today is giving you some 100% Grade A free handwritten fonts created by me…and my family.  Use them as you wish.

Create Your Own Handwritten Fonts

Check out the link below.  You complete a template, scan it, and send it to the site to download a handwritten font.  I haven’t used the site, so I can’t speak to the quality or the process, but it sounds interesting.

• YourFonts: $9.95 for custom fonts

Free Fonts: Handwritten

Free Fonts: Hand Drawn Arrows

Free Fonts: Hand Drawn Circles & Lines

Click here to download the handwritten free fonts.

Links to other “free” fonts.

You’ll need to check out the licensing agreement for some of the fonts because many seem to only be free for personal, non-commercial use.

• 70+ Seriously Useful Handwritten Fonts and Inspirational Showcases: also has some good info to go with the fonts.  That’s where I got the Barista web site.
• 50 Free Handwritten Fonts for Web Designers and Logo Artists: link courtesy of Matthew Bibby.
• 40 Pages of Handwritten Fonts. Lots of free fonts.  Make sure to read the license agreement.

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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.