Not all elearning courses are created equal. Some seek to share information and build awareness while others may focus on action or changing behaviors. When building elearning courses, I usually separate them into two buckets: information or performance.

The objective of an information-based course is performance support and not performance activity. Think of it more like multimedia text book. It doesn’t teach and assess performance. Instead it provides the context and awareness of important information.  It supports performance but it’s not designed to change performance.

Some people would say that those courses shouldn’t be built. Instead they should be job aids or offline documentation. In some situations that makes sense. But I don’t completely agree with that assertion mostly because building information as a “course” doesn’t take any more effort than building it as a job aid or offline resource. And the other benefit is that it is online and can be purposed in other ways as well.

Performance-based courses focus on action. There’s an activity or something that can be done to demonstrate understanding of the online training content. Those courses change behavior.  They teach concepts that have real-world application. And they allow the learner to practice and demonstrate the new learning.

Often the two types of courses can be combined. Or as some would suggest, the action oriented courses only focus on the action and any non-critical information is removed from the course and made available via job aids and other channels.  Either way works.

Ultimately your success building online training rests in identifying the type of course you’re building, its real objectives, and then allocating the right resources.

How to Build Learning Objectives for Compliance Policy Training

There’s a lot of training that is mandated by the organization but has no real performance goal. They’re usually training programs to build awareness around some of the organization’s policies. For example, one organization for which I worked had a strong focus on safety. So each year I had to take courses on lockout/tagout (LOTO) procedures. I didn’t work in a production environment and never had to do any of this in the real world. But the organization wanted everyone to take the training.

In that case, the training for people who didn’t work in a production environment was more about awareness of the organization’s policies and how they impacted the organization’s success. It probably doesn’t make a lot of sense to have them practice if they don’t ever apply it.

For this type of training the objective is to build awareness. Since the policies are not directly related to the person’s performance, I try to get them in and out of the training as quickly as I can. The goal is not to undermine the organization’s policies. So we want to make sure they get the information they need. But at the same time, we don’t want to lock them up in a course that will take a lot of extra time.

For this learner, I’d build a simple course where they get the information, they’re assessed with a simple quiz or activity, and they’re sent back to productive work.

How to Build Learning Objectives for Annual Policy & Procedure Training

There’s a lot of compliance training as described above, but there’s also a lot of compliance training that is critical to a job function. For example, assume I work in a production environment and LOTO is critical to my performance. Every year I have to take annual compliance training as a reminder of the LOTO policies and procedures. This is compliance training because I have to comply with the organization’s safety procedures and policies. But this is also performance-based training because the ultimate objective is to understand the policies and be able to demonstrate my understanding in my work environment.

Another assumption is that this type of training is not the initial training. Instead it’s refresher training. So it’s more like a certification process where the learner is reminded of the policies and can DEMONSTRATE the application of it. The training doesn’t teach them something new as much as it certifies what they already know.

How to Build Learning Objectives for Performance-Based Training

Performance-based training focuses on real performance goals. Typically there’s a gap. The learners are at point A and the goal is to get them point B. We determine the cause of the gap; and if training is the appropriate solution we build a course to close the gap.

The ultimate objective for these courses is that the learner is able to DO something after completion. Often our learning objectives will state that “at the end of this course they’ll learn or understand” but that doesn’t mean anything. How do you know they understand? How do you know they learned?

You have to create a way to measure their understanding. There needs to be an action where they can show you what they know.

Many elearning courses are structured like this: content, practice activity, assessment. This is OK if the assessment isn’t a quiz (which is limited in how it can measure understanding).  If you really want to determine understanding, then craft an assessment that lets them make decisions that are close to the types of decisions they’d make in the real world.

For example, if they need to demonstrate their understanding of LOTO procedures then have them identify where it needs to happen and then go through the process of doing it just like they would in the real world.

If we revisit the three types of elearning courses, we see in one the objective is to build awareness with no performance expectations. But the other two are tied to on-the-job performance. However one is more refresher or certification and the other is more in depth. The two performance course can be combined to create a single course. All you need is a mechanism to filter the learners.

For certification they go one way and for the in-depth training they go another. And during the certification process if they can’t demonstrate the appropriate level of understanding you can redirect them to a remedial path where they can get the information and practice activities they need to fill the gap.

As you can see the objectives of your elearning courses may not be the same. By sorting them the information and performance buckets you’ll be able to determine where to allocate your resources. Annual compliance training with no performance outcomes shouldn’t consume as much of your time and resources as the performance-based courses that will require more interactivity and development.

You’ll save time and money by building the training most appropriate to the objectives. You’ll also help th
e organization by sorting your learners. Those who need a simple course can get in and out and back to productive work; and those that need to demonstrate their understanding will have a course that is more than a simple quiz.

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.

Building an effective online training program requires packaging the right content with the right type of learning experience. However that often doesn’t happen because it’s easier to pull a lot of information together, create some slides, and then publish a course.

To top it off, many of these types of online courses are merely repacked content that already exists on the organization’s network. So instead of building a real learning experience, we’re just repurposing existing content.

Do You Need Online Training?

Do you you really need to build an online training program if all you’re doing is repurposing existing content? Is this adding real value? Most likely you don’t need the course (or at least not that type of course). But often those courses get built anyway and that wastes the person’s time and the organization’s money.

How to Avoid Wasting Time & Money for Online Training?

When I consult with a client I always try to determine if the training program has a direct link to the organization’s business goals. If so, then it’s easier to find the right training intervention (assuming it’s needed) and then aligning it to the correct measure. That’s how you get your return on investment, by the way.

Become a Performance Consultant

For those new to this, follow a simple performance consulting model where you can determine where things are currently, where they should be, and how to bridge the gap that exists. I always recommend the Performance Consulting book because it’s straightforward explanation of the process and easy to implement.

In an ideal world, you and your client come up with a solution that works. Unfortunately, often the client wants to build an online training course regardless of whether or not it’s linked to the organization’s goals.

The first step is to avoid building the wrong course (if any). That’s why you wear the hat of performance consultant. But sometimes you still have to build a course. Is so, what’s the best plan?

Three Ways to Save Time & Money with Online Training

Going back to the original scenario, you have to build training but the content already exists online. Here are a few viable options.

Create an abstract of the existing content and publish as a PDF. Don’t waste time building a “course” that’s merely content easily accessed in other places. In those cases, focus on simple job aids that can be used at work. This contents the content to the learner, but doesn’t overwhelm them with a bunch of information.

Another option is to create a summary or abstract of the key information. Then point them to the more detailed information online. This way they have a simple overview and access to more information if they need it. Of course, that’s easier said than done. Some clients will still want to create something and a PDF isn’t the solution for them.

Build a simple interactive multimedia module. When I have a customer who has to have “elearning” but was just repurposing the online content, I’d use something like the process or tabs interactions in Engage. They looked like a training course, but they really were more like multimedia documents.

Because they’re form-based they’re easy to build and maintain. In some ways, they’re even easier to build than a PDF because the software does all of the visual design and formatting. Another advantage is that they can easily be tracked in an LMS. So you get the benefit of a “course” but the speedy production.

Change the focus of the training. Since most of the training content is already online change the focus of the training. Instead of online training that covers the subject matter, do training on how to find and use the online resources.

This also gives you an opportunity to build a community of practice around that training content. You can combine training on using the resources with a peer community of others in the organization who use the same resources. A community lets you capture activity that may be valuable to future learners.

The truth is that a lot of online training wastes time because it’s just content that already exists. However, if you have to build online training like this, the tips above should help make it meaningful and more valuable to the organization.

How do you get around this type of training? Share your thoughts with the community.

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.

Here’s a common scenario. Someone emails and asks about an elearning tutorial I have on the blog. It’s not always easy to find the specific tutorial buried in a given post. In fact, there are many times I either forgot that I had created that tutorial or I can’t recall where it’s at either. I know. It’s part of getting older.

Today I am going to fix that. I have listed every blog post that has a video tutorial that shows how to create something related to online learning. So, if you’re just getting started with building online learning courses (or new to the blog), now you have a handy resource with links to all sorts of rapid elearning tutorials.

Free PowerPoint Templates

These tutorials show how to either create or use some of the free PowerPoint templates you’ll find on the blog. Even if you don’t use the free templates, they are a great way to learn some PowerPoint techniques that will help you build better elearning courses.

• How to build an interactive PowerPoint template
• Build your own tabs interaction template
• Create an elegant elearning template and assets to go with it
• Build a simple and clean elearning template
• How to build an office-themed PowerPoint template
• Find design inspiration to build your next elearning template
• Build an interactive tabbed notebook template
• Create modern split screen elearning template
• Build this template and learn PowerPoint design tips
• Create a comic-style elearning template
• Build an elearning template in 30 seconds

Learn How to Use PowerPoint for Online Learning

This section covers miscellaneous PowerPoint tips and production techniques. They’re not exclusive to rapid elearning or online training. So if you want to learn more about PowerPoint, then this is a good list of free tutorials.

• More than 100 free PowerPoint tutorials
• Different ways to build animations in PowerPoint
• Build an animated puzzle
• Get more out of PowerPoint’s clipboard
• Take advantage of PowerPoint features: formatting, layers, swap images
• Build an interactive replay button and add multiple videos to one slide
• The community shares tips on creating graphics and animated hands in PowerPoint
• Working with filled shapes to create custom graphics
• How to edit images in PowerPoint
• PowerPoint shortcuts that will save time

How to Build Rapid E-Learning Courses

Using PowerPoint for rapid elearning is different than using it for building presentations. These tutorials offer tips on getting the most out of PowerPoint to build effective and interactive rapid elearning courses.

• Why you need PowerPoint 2010 for rapid elearning
• How to build interactive branched scenarios in PowerPoint
• Essential tips for rapid elearning success
• More essential rapid elearning tips
• Three rapid elearning production tips
• Dissecting a course to learn rapid elearning production techniques
• Over 200 free rapid elearning tutorials that cover graphic design, PowerPoint, and production techniques
• Ideas on course navigation
• 50 practical how-to tutorials
• 3 time-saving rapid elearning tips: work with master slides, use two PowerPoint files, and manage the layers

Tips on Creating Interactive E-Learning

This series of tutorials cover some of the basics for creating interactive elearning and branched scenarios. You’ll learn more about simple ways to build interactive elearning as well as a few PowerPoint tutorials that show how to build them.

• Learn the 3C model for interactive scenarios and how to build them in PowerPoint
• How to create a branched elearning scenario
• Tips on creating an overhead office template & interactions
• 5 ways to think about interactive elearning
• How to create an interactive image
• Create an interactive video player for your software training

Free Software to Use When Building Online Training

These tutorials cover the basics of using some of the free software and applications I’ve mentioned in the blog.

• How to use 7-zip to get access to your PowerPoint assets
• Create your handwritten fonts and some free fonts
• Use ALT+D in Screenr to pause recording
• PowerPoint animation made easy with this free add-in
• Simple way to batch convert your images
• Create custom color schemes with the free PowerPoint add-in
• Use this free application to creating talking avatars
• Tutorials on using 5 free graphics editors
• How to use these 3 free screen clipping tools
• Keep your elearning files in sync with this free application

Visual & Graphic Design Ideas for Your E-Learning Courses

In these tutorials I cover some graphic design ideas. I show how to come up with templates designs and build your own graphics and artwork.

• How to find inspiration for template and course design
• Build your own graphics with clip art
• How to build an envelope graphic
• Find the clip art the works best for your elearning course
• Create an interactive TV monitor graphic
• Miscellaneous graphic design tips from the elearning community
• Create custom images in PowerPoint and a free template
• Build your own laptop graphic in PowerPoint
• How to create your own display graphics
• 7 graphic design tutorials
• A simple style guide to clean up your elearning courses
• Create an elearning template for free
• Make your elearning courses look more interesting with simple tip

Project Management tips When Creating Online Learning

These tutorials cover broad project management tips that range from managing files to working with customers.

• Get your customer to make good decisions using the Fuzzy Thumb technique
• How to organize and manage your elearning course folders & assets
• Manage your images with the Clip Organizer
• Tips on managing all of your files and assets for elearning

Bonus Tutorials

The other day I was looking through the tutorials created by the elearning community and found that we have over 2,000 free elearning tutorials. That’s a lot more than I thought were there. So take advantage of them and the tips and tricks you get from your peers in the community.

Collection of E-Learning Community Tutorials

• E-Learning How-To: good collection of elearning tutorials with some nice examples.
• Tutorials that we curate from the elearning community. Each link has an RSS feed so you can stay on top of the latest tutorials added by community members.

Articulate Product Tutorials & Free Software Training

• Learn to build elearning courses: tips on getting started with elearning
• Articulate Storyline tutorials
• Articulate Presenter tutorials
• Articulate Quizmaker tutorials
• Articulate Engage tutorials
• Articulate Video Encoder tutorials

I haven’t counted all of these rapid elearning tutorials, but my guess is that there are at least 3,000 tutorials in this list which is something like 250 hours of free training on building rapid elearning courses.

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.

At a recent elearning conference I ran into my mentor and elearning thought leader, Dr. Werner Oppelbaumer. He was showing off examples of elearning courses and offering tips on visual design for elearning.

While he was swamped as usual, I was able to steal a few minutes of his time and talk about his latest Werner Labs project and asked if he had any tips to share for the blog readers.

I really appreciate all you do to push the science of elearning research forward. It helps the blog readers and anyone who wants to learn how to build elearning courses.

As you know, one of the main issues people have is a lack of resources and time. Your conference presentation on building PowerPoint presentations and elearning courses seems to fill that need. Can you explain more to the blog readers who couldn’t attend?

Each day there are thousands of PowerPoint presentations and many of them are not very good. On top of that, most elearning courses created with PowerPoint are not very good. That’s not going to change any time soon. But what we can change is the time it takes to build bad PowerPoints.

So we created a system where anyone who creates a bad PowerPoint can upload it and share it with anyone else who needs to create a bad PowerPoint. On top of that you can mix and match your bad PowerPoints to create custom-designed bad PowerPoint files.

It’s our new Collaborative Resource Automating PowerPoint system. Bad content is going to be created anyway; we just make it easier to do so. That will be a big time saver for most organizations.

We’ve already signed on many large corporations and government agencies.

I’m interested in seeing where that goes in the future. Let’s switch topics. You gave a presentation on visual design for elearning. Afterwards, people were buzzing about what they learned. Can you share your tips for the blog readers, too?

Sure. The presentation covered three key areas of graphic design for elearning.

• How to build better elearning in your organization
• Get past low-value bullet point elearning courses
• Apply NEW research to your elearning courses

I’ve included my presentation below.

Presentation on How to Build E-Learning Courses

Click here to view the elearning presentation on visual design.

Thank you Dr. Werner. You always offer fresh insight and new perspectives on how to build elearning courses. I am sure that the blog readers really appreciate all you do for the industry.

Learn more about Dr. Werner Oppelbaumer:

• 5 Secret Tips from an E-Learning Pioneer
• Here’s What You Need to Know About Mobile Learning
• Three Practical Ideas for Using Twitter in E-Learning
• Here’s What You Need to Know About Informal Learning
• 3 Things You Can Only Learn from a Real E-Learning Expert

• Want E-Learning Success? Make Sure Your Learners Are Dressed For It!

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.

There are tons of free textures and background images online. Some good and some not so good. It can be a bit overwhelming looking for textures so I went through some of the free textures and included the ones I think work well for elearning courses.

To save you some time, I looked around and only added textures that are free to use for commercial projects. Of course, it is a good habit to give props to the source of the free file. If you can’t give them a link back, at least go to their site and let them know you appreciate the free help.

Which Textures Work Best for E-Learning?

Fortunately no one’s written a book on the science of using textures in elearning courses. So for right now, you’re free to use any texture you like. But that may change at a future elearning conference.

In either case, here are the main categories that I look for:

• Paper: These work well for office-theme courses.
• Wood: As Seinfeld says, “Wood is good.” Enough said!
• Spotlights: Spotlight effects can help pull the eye towards the content area.
• Organic Natural: Organic material like rocks, torn paper and vegetation works because they don’t have straight lines. It gives you some wiggle room in your composition.
• Organic Man-made: Includes organic textures like brick walls and wood planking. They combine the organic look with sectioning or straight lines that work well in screen composition.
• Blurs: Blurred textures suggest depth or context without pulling your focus. They also help the content on the screen standout.

As a bonus, while it’s not a texture, I do like the why-be-flat approach for screen backgrounds where we combine design elements to create depth and perspective.

Here are two demos from recent posts on simple background images and creating course objectives. They’re essentially the same. In one I used a film strip texture. And the other uses a grungy concrete. They may give you some ideas on how to use textures.

Film Strip Texture

Click here to view the film strip demo.

Grungy Concrete Texture

Click here to view the concrete demo.

Free Textures

Here are some free textures that may work for your elearning courses. I tried to only include the ones that allow commercial use. As always with these free resources, be sure to do your own research on terms of use prior to using them in a project.

Free Paper Textures

• 6 Paper Textures
• 6 Old Paper Textures
• 6 Office Paper Textures

Free Wood Textures

• 8 Wood Textures
• 80 Miscellaneous Wood Textures
• Spotlight Wood Texture

Free Spotlight Textures

• 4 Spotlight Room Textures
• Center Spotlight
• Blue Spotlight

Free Organic Textures

• 4 Grungy Concrete Textures
• 40 Miscellaneous Fabric Textures
• 20 Cardboard Textures
• 10 Grungy Wood Textures
• 3 Brick Textures
• 5 Rock & Stone Textures
• 11 Old & Grungy Film Textures

Free Blurred Image Textures

• 12 Blurred Backgrounds
• 10 Natural Events Blurred Backgrounds
• 7 Pastel Textures. Import into PowerPoint and apply the blur filter.

If you do a search online, you’ll find all sorts of free textures. So have at it. The key though is that not all free textures are free for commercial use. Based on my research, the ones I’ve included above are available for commercial use. So you should be able to use them in your elearning projects.

What are your favorite textures and do you have a place to go for commercially free textures? If so, please share the links with the rest of us.

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.

As a matter of habit I review design sites looking for inspiration and ideas that I can practice and incorporate into my elearning designs. Often I won’t even use the design ideas for real work, but I still like to practice building them.

This practice lets me develop better designs skills and helps me become more efficient using my elearning tools as I develop more production tips and procedures. In fact, over the years that’s how I learned most of my advanced PowerPoint skills.

When I find something I like, it gets added to a folder. Then when I get time or need some inspiration, I’ll run through the folder for ideas. Here’s something I ran into a couple of weeks ago that will come in handy for an elearning course. I’ve also included downloads for Storyline and PowerPoint below.

Pre-built Gate Screens

A common part of many elearning courses is the instruction or feedback screen. I like to call them “gate screens” because they serve as gates by stopping the flow of information until you’re ready to move on. I wrote more about them in this recent blog post on stopping the learners before they get started.

Introduction Gate

Feedback Gate

Because these gate screens are very common to elearning, a simple way to speed up production of your courses is to pre-build a few of them. And then when you need a gate screen, you’re ready to go.

Inspiring Ideas

One of my favorite design sites is Dribbble. It’s a community of designers who share ideas and feedback. As I was looking at some of their demos a few reminded me a bit of the gate screens I’d build for an elearning course. So I used some of those ideas as inspiration for a few simple gate screens.

Below is a demo of five gate screens. I show them as both introduction and feedback screens. The demo’s built in Storyline. But you can use them in Articulate Presenter and PowerPoint, as well. In fact, I used PowerPoint to build the all of the initial templates. Which allows me to reiterate something I stress all the time—PowerPoint is a great tool for basic illustrations and graphic design.

Click here to view the demo.

I’ve included some files for you to download and use if you’d like. Feel free to use them as you wish.

Free Downloads:

• Storyline: You’ll find two slides for each gate screen.
• PowerPoint: You’ll need to copy and paste the gate objects to a slide. Then set your hyperlinks to branch to the appropriate slides.

Here are links to the originals because I want to give props to the many designers who freely share their ideas and things they’re working on. They always give me some cool ideas to play with.

• Upload Modal via Daryl Ginn
• Modal Window & Simple Modal Window via Ionut Zamfir
• Are You Sure? via Orman Clark
• Send to a Friend via Matthew Smith

So there are two key lessons for today’s post:

• The first is to continually look for inspiration and apply the ideas. They’ll improve your design skills and help you be more fluent with your elearning tools.
• The other key idea is that you can pre-build certain parts of your elearning course. Then when you need them you’ll be able to speed up production and save time.

Have you found any cool ideas that would make great gate screens? If so, please share them with the rest of us.

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.

In my elearning workshops we discuss the parts of elearning courses that are common to most courses. One of the goals is to get participants to think through the common parts of a course and then determine how much of that can be prebuilt to save time.

For example, most likely the course will have welcome and exit screens. They may not look the same for each course, but odds are that both will exist. Why not build a template that has a screen reserved for the welcome and exit process of the course? At this point, you’re not assigning a look or feel; you’re just making a space for it.

Introducing the Gate Screen

Another common part of many courses is what I like to call the “gate screen.” It’s a screen that serves as a gate by stopping the flow of information until the learner is ready to move on. Generally, there are two types of gate screens: introduction and feedback.

Introduction Gate. This gate usually appears prior to the start of an interaction. It pauses the course to provide some introductory information and instructions. Then when the person is ready, she can advance.

Feedback Gate. The feedback gate does the same thing as the introduction gate—it pauses the flow and provides some information which is usually the result of a decision the learner’s made. This type of gate is very common as feedback in elearning quizzes. Make a choice and hit submit. Up pops the feedback screen. Read the feedback and then click the next button (or possibly go back to make a different choice).

Both of these gates are essentially the same because they stop the flow of information, let the person regroup or get oriented, and then move on.

As I stated earlier, these are fairly common in the construction of elearning courses. And since that’s the case, why not plan for them in your design before you get started?

• Create a placeholder for the gate screens in your initial design so you don’t forget to add them in during the production process.
• Plan the look so that it fits your course design. The last thing you want is a Frankencourse. I usually use the same design for both gates and then just change the buttons and placement of them for each screen.
• Determine the user experience. How will they work and will they seem intuitive to the flow of the course?

The two gate screens are essentially the same. They’re gates that stop what you’re doing; get you to focus on something; and when you’re ready let you advance (or go back). And odds are that they’ll be in your next elearning course. So why not save some time by putting them in the production queue before you get started?

Do you use gate screens in your elearning course? If so, share with us how you use them.

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.

Many rapid elearning courses look at lot like the stereo-typical PowerPoint slide. They’re flat and bland. In a recent email, someone wanted to know how to make their screens look more interesting without requiring advanced graphics skills.

In today’s post I’ll show a simple tip that we’ve been sharing in our workshops for a few years now.

Why Be Flat?

We call the following tip the floor-wall-baseboard (FWB) technique. However at a workshop a few years ago, one of the participants recommended we change the FWB to WBF (Why Be Flat). I like it.

Why be flat? That question addresses the essence of this technique. Why should your screen be flat? The world isn’t flat (maybe). It has dimension and perspective. So why not do the same for your elearning courses?

The trick is to break the screen into three pieces: floor, wall, and baseboard. That’s all you need to get started. To do this, create three core shapes. The shapes can be filled with solid colors, gradient effects, or images.

Essentially you’re adding a horizon line which creates a sense of perspective and the illusion of space. This allows you to convert a flat screen into one that is visually rich and offers a sense of perspective.

Here’s a quick example of the “Why Be Flat” technique.

The image above represents the typical slide. We have a character and we’re using the ever popular chalkboard. This screen isn’t bad, but the background is stark and there’s no depth.

First, we’ll add a different background. That’s our wall.

The wall already starts to make the screen look more interesting. The white’s gone and the screen has a softer and more elegant look. Next we add the floor.

The floor creates the horizon line which gives the image depth and is visually rich. But just like when remodeling your house, you want a baseboard on the floor to add that extra finish.

As you can see, the baseboard does a great job dressing up the image. It creates a clean line; and based on where it’s positioned, the baseboard adds perspective. The cool thing is that you’re not limited to be too literal. In the example below, the baseboard’s a ruler which ties into the visual theme of education.

The examples above are a literal floor, wall, and baseboard. But don’t limit yourself to what’s literal. The key point is to create a horizon line and then work from there. In fact, David Anderson, who presents with me at my workshops, has some really good tips on using the “Why Be Flat” technique for your elearning.

• Tutorial 1: Give your slides depth. Examples of how adding depth to the screen can really add some pizzazz. He also does a nice job showing that you don’t need a literal floor, wall, and baseboard.
• Tutorial 2: Quick way to create perspective with the floor image. This is a good tip especially if you’re limited to floor images.
• Tutorial 3: Create depth by layering images. Combines elements of the “Why Be Flat” technique by separating screen elements.
• Tutorial 4: How to create the floor, wall, and baseboard. Good overview of how to use PowerPoint’s shapes to create the elements. This would work in Storyline, too.

If you want to continue the conversation and learn more, follow this thread in the elearning community. It offers some additional tips and tricks as well as files to download.

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.

I review lots of elearning courses and demos. Since elearning is a mostly visual medium visual inconsistencies tend to stand out. They’re the types of things that cause the Frankencourse design.

I’ve been making a list of some of the more common issues that I find. So in today’s post I’ll highlight three that I see quite a bit and offer some feedback on how to avoid them.

Images are Skewed

Images on the screen are obviously not the right dimensions. They’re usually skewed or flattened. This is probably the number one issue I see and easily fixed. The most common reason an image is skewed is because it’s resized to fit a specific area or shape. To get it to fit, we use the anchors on the side or top and bottom to change the shape. What happens is that the shape is resized but doesn’t maintain its aspect ratio. So it looks off.

Here are a couple of quick fixes:

• Use the corner anchors. To scale or reposition the image without skewing it, hold the SHIFT key and drag from one of the corner anchors. That resizes and keeps it from skewing. This also goes for shapes, especially circles. I notice that a lot of circles become egg-shaped when resized without proper scaling.

• The cropping tool can change the image dimensions without skewing. The cropping tool in PowerPoint 2010 and Articulate Storyline lets you crop the image to a specific aspect ratio to meet the size requirement for the space available without losing the image quality. You can also move the image around inside the crop to get exactly what you need.

Font Confusion

Many courses tend to use too many fonts and without rhyme or reason. I usually tell people to limit the fonts they use to about seven. Just kidding! Often I’ll see all sorts of whacky fonts plastered on the screen. When I ask why they chose a certain font it’s usually because they wanted to make the course more interesting or engaging.

That’s a good goal. But an interesting font is not going to make your course interesting. And a poorly chosen font may even distract from it. Or just make it seem less polished.

As a general rule of thumb (especially for those just getting started) limit yourself to two or three fonts. Typically you need:

• Title

• Subtitle
• Body font
• Emphasis: this could be the body font bolded or recolored

Being deliberate about your font choice and user fewer in your courses is an easy way to add consistency and polish to your elearning course. Here’s a previous post on working with fonts which offers some ideas on which ones to select.

Text Alignment Issues

Text is the most common element on the screen. Obviously we use text to read and acquire information, but the text also is part of the course’s visual design. Because of this, alignment is important. Here are three common issues I see regarding text:

• Large blocks of text are centered. Centering works for titles or small chunks of descriptive text, but not for big chunks of text. A clean side margin looks good and makes it easier for the eye to track.

• Avoid widows. If you’re inclined to help the widows and orphans that’s good. But you don’t want any widows hanging around your elearning course. What’s a widow? They’re those single words that hang out at the end of a block of text. Fix them by resizing the text box.

• Margins in textboxes are inconsistent. This is fairly common. Sometimes text is scrunched to the side or top with no margins and sometimes the margins are too big; or they’re not applied consistently. This is easily fixed by modifying how the text appears in the box/shape. I like to create a separate text box over the shape. This gives more control to nudge the text inside the shape without being constrained by the shape’s text formatting.

You don’t need to be a graphic designer to know when something doesn’t look right. We may not always be able to explain why something doesn’t look right, but we do know it when we see it. And that’s the case with these little annoyances. If they don’t exist no one notices. But when they do, things just don’t look right.

The good thing is that they are easily fixed and doing so will help your course have more polish.

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.

Time and money are the resources most of us don’t have. So in today’s post I thought I’d share some free applications that you may find handy as you work on your elearning courses.

Find Everything

The app is called Everything by VoidTools. David Anderson shared this with me after a recent workshop. It’s a simple application that lets you quickly search your computer. I created a custom keyboard shortcut and use it throughout the day because it really is super-fast.

I’m addicted. I just start searching stuff because I can. Sometimes I get up in the middle of the night just to do random searches. Works like a charm. There are other tools like this out there. If you don’t use one, Everything is worth trying and the price is right.

WaveShop

In a previous post I shared some tips on recording narration and ten free audio programs that can be used for elearning. I’ll throw WaveShop in the mix of good free audio editors.

WaveShop is straightforward and has a lot more than basic editing functions. So if you only need to do something simple, you’re all set. But if you want to do more, then there are plenty of features to let you.

K-Lite Codec Pack

This isn’t really an application as much as a great resource. When working with multimedia you may run into issues playing audio or video files. Often these issues can be resolved by making sure the audio and video drivers are up to date for your computer’s hardware.

Another simple solution is to make sure you have updated audio and video codecs. They help encode and decode the various media formats. The K-Lite Codec Pack is a collection of all sorts of filters and codecs. Don’t confuse this pack with the Chi-Lites where you’re limited to soulful funk but no AV codecs.

Cool Job: Work with the Articulate Community

I mentioned this open position in last week’s post and had a few people email questions. You can learn more about the job and apply here.

What you’ll need:

• Writing examples
• Portfolio that shows your best skills

We won’t start to look at the applications until after the Learning Solutions conference so that should give you time to put together samples of your best work. Articulate’s a great company with some of the smartest people I know. And our elearning community is filled with some great people, too. So we’re looking for someone who’s going to fit right in. That could be you!

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.

Before elearning I did a lot of video production. Back then it was time intensive and costly. But in many ways that’s changed. Today you’re able to shoot decent video on your smart phones or inexpensive HD cameras. And then editing them is also relatively easy and inexpensive. In fact, most smart phones have access to video editing apps and there are plenty of free or low-cost video editors to use with your personal computers.

A few years ago you’d never consider adding video to a course because of the time and expense. But today adding video to an elearning course is easy especially if you keep the project relatively simple. You can create a decent elearning course that uses video in no time and at little cost.

The trick is finding ways to use video in your course and still maintain some form of rapid development. A great place to start is with your bullet points. Why not use video to make your bullet point information more interesting and engaging? In today’s post I’ll show one way to create interactive bullet points that when combined with the right type of video can make your elearning course more media rich and interactive while not adding too much to the production.

Example 1: Learn to Cook

Demonstrate the finer points of cooking. Watch the video and at any point where you want to learn more, click the information bullet.

Click here to view the demo via Mike Enders

Example 2: Change a Tire with Your Friend

Follow a step-by-step process of how to change a tire. This particular video demonstrates how to deal with the non-helpful observer.

Click here to view the demo

For this type of course to be effective, you need a topic that works with video. The most obvious is when you can show procedures like working on a machine or operating some equipment. It also works for role play scenarios. For example, record an interaction between a manager and co-worker. Then use the interactive buttons to point out key points during the interaction.

The key is to select a topic that is easy to record and that can be augmented with bullet point information. Here’s a quick demo I put together showing how to use the Keurig brewer.

Example 3: Using the Keurig Brewer

Following is what the information about the brewer may have looked like in a standard elearning screen. It includes four steps and corresponding information.

And here’s the same information using a video and interactive bullet points. The video allows the learner to see what’s happening. And then interactive bullet points appear along the timeline to add additional information. If the learner wants to acquire more info, she can click the button. If not, she can ignore it and continue watching the video.

Click here to view the elearning demo.

Here’s what I like about this approach:

• Video is easy to shoot and relatively simple to edit with today’s tools. So it lets you make an elearning course that doesn’t look like every other course. Even if it’s a simple procedure like the demo above, it’s more interesting than a screen full of bullet points.
• Today’s elearning software offers more capability. A few years ago even a simple project like this wouldn’t have been possible for someone without programming skills. However, that’s changed. Today’s tools make this type of project possible. For example, I shot the video and compiled the course in Storyline in about 30 minutes.
• Flexibility for the learner. This is a great way to address different learning needs. Experienced people can watch the videos only and those with less experience can click on the interactive buttons to collect more information.

Of course this type of approach won’t work with every course and it’s not always feasible to shoot video and make interactive buttons. But if you want to use video in your elearning courses, this is a good place to start because it’s straightforward and simple to produce. Give it a try.

Added later:
Here’s a link to the same demo built in Quizmaker ’13 (would work the same in ’09). The only difference is you lose the interactive part, but you can leverage layering info on the video timeline.

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.

I was digging through some files recently and found this template idea that I started a while back but never did anything with it. It’s built to feel a bit like a book. This could work for an information course or for performance support.

PowerPoint Template Demo

Below is a demo of the free PowerPoint elearning template. I added generic content with images and videos to give you some ideas on how the template could be used.

Click here to view the PowerPoint template demo.

Layouts

This PowerPoint template consists of eight core layouts. Of course you can always add more.

Look through the demo I put together to see how I used the layouts with different types of content. That should give you some ideas. The last slide of the template has the color scheming that I used. Use format painter to apply the format to your own shapes and text if you want to use the same formatting.

Click here to download the file. I also included the Pacifico font in the download. It comes via the Google Web Fonts site and the font was created by Vernon Adams.

If you use the template, send me a link. I’d love to see what you did.

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.