If you’re building elearning courses, then you should expect to have a graphics editing program as part of your tool chest.  In a previous post I mentioned a few free (or low cost) graphic editors if you don’t already have one.

• 5 Free Desktop Image Editors
• 5 Free Online Image Editors

There’s even a good discussion about graphics applications in the elearning community. Jump in and share a favorite of yours.

There’s a difference between having a graphics application and being a professional graphics artist. Many of us work alone and have to do our own graphics. I find that what I do for graphics doesn’t require overly sophisticated skills.

While we may be using different tools, there are some simple graphics editing we should all be able to do.  Let’s review a few of the common image editing tasks.

For my demos, I decided to stick with PowerPoint to show that if that’s all you have, then you still can do quite a bit. If you use a different tool, look over the list and see if you can do them with the application you use.

How to Remove Backgrounds

PowerPoint 2010 comes with a background removal feature which makes it really easy. Select your image and click on Remove Background. At that point you can mark areas to keep and areas to remove.

Older versions of PowerPoint have a simple feature that lets you make a single color transparent. To remove a background, create a colored shape that sits over the picture. Group the shape and picture. Then copy and paste it back in as an image using Paste Special (.png). At this point you can apply the transparency to the single color.

Click here to view a tutorial.

How to Use the Drawing Tools

No doubt you’ll have to create shapes and boxes. Most image editing applications allow that. Learn to create shapes and then embellish them with colors, shadows, and dimension.

In PowerPoint, add a shape to the slide. Right click on it and you’ll see the format shape option. This opens up a box that displays everything you can do with the shape. In PowerPoint 2010, you can combine shapes to create custom shapes.

Once you learn to use the drawing tools in your image editor you can create all sorts of custom graphics, even if all you have is PowerPoint.

Here are some tutorials that demonstrate how to create various objects in PowerPoint:

• Create a glassy marble.
• Create a push-pin image in PowerPoint.
• Create a rich looking interface.

• Create an LCD panel.

• Create a 3D room effect.

• Create a desktop surface.

• Create custom cue cards and memo pad.

You may never need the specific objects, but the more you do these things that much more you’ll be fluent working with PowerPoint.

How to Work with Layers

Creating a graphic with a single layer can be a challenge. Most graphics editing applications layer their images. This way you can isolate your editing to smaller pieces.

In the past working with layers in PowerPoint was a real pain. With PowerPoint 2007 that changed. Open the selection pane to see a layered view of the objects on the slide. From here you can change their order, title them, and make them visible or not.

Click here to view the tutorial.

How to Create Shadows

Drop shadows separate the objects from the screen. This adds depth and dimension to the image.

PowerPoint comes with some shadow features. Those are easy enough to use. Select your object and then apply the shadow to them. Starting with PowerPoint 2007, you have a lot more sophisticated shadows with which to work.

Click here to view the tutorial.

But what if you want to create your own shadows? That’s easy enough. Just add matching sized shape to create the shadow. Then do some basic edits like:

• Fill it with gray or black and set it behind the picture.
• Make it partially transparent to soften the color.
• Apply a soft edge (PowerPoint 2007+) to the shadow to make it seem more natural.
• Edit the points on the shape so that it’s a bit more organic and less straight.

How to Resize Images

Resizing images in PowerPoint is pretty simple. Select the image and then drag one of the anchors to size it. If you right click on the image, you’ll get access to the Format Picture window where you have a bit more control to fine-tune the sizing.

I see a lot of images that are skewed a bit because they get pulled from the middle anchors on the side or top. If you hold SHIFT and then click and drag from the corner, the image will scale up or down without changing its aspect ratio.

Click here to view the tutorial.

How to Crop Images

Cropping is one of the features I use most when editing my graphics. PowerPoint 2010 makes cropping that much easier because it acts more like an image mask
than just a cropping feature.

Click here to view the tutorial.

How to Export Images

Once you create an image you’ll need to save it. There are all sorts of image formats. This post explains the formats in a bit more detail. But here’s a basic run down.

Generally you have two types of images. One is a bitmap filled with pixels. The number of pixels never changes. When you scale it up, the pixels become larger and that’s where you start to lose image quality.

The other type of image is vector. All of the shapes and lines are built on a mathematical formula. So when you scale it up or down you don’t lose image quality. Most clip art is vector-based.

I typically save my images as .png files. What I like about the .png format is that I get a good spread of colors so the images look rich; and I can make parts of the image transparent.

When working in PowerPoint, you have a few options. Create your shapes or custom images. When finished right-click and save as an image.

Click here to view a tutorial.

Or you can treat your entire slide as your image. In that case, save the presentation as an image file. If you do this, keep in mind, you’re not limited to the default aspect ratio in PowerPoint (4:3). You can always change the slide size to whatever size you need. For example, if you want an image that looks more like a banner, change the slide properties to dimensions that are better suited for a banner image.

If you use PowerPoint to edit your graphics, then these tutorials should help. If you use something else you’ll need to look for some tutorials for your application of choice.

Obviously there are a lot more things you can do with your graphics editor. What are some of the more common features you use? Feel free to share them by clicking on the comments link.

Also, if you want to create a series of Screenr tutorials showing these steps in the graphics application you use, send me the links and I’ll add them to this post.

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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.

One of my favorite parts of going to elearning conferences is meeting so many of the industry’s thought leaders. During my recent trip to the Learning Solution Conference in Orlando I ran into one of my mentors and a real elearning pioneer, Dr. Werner Oppelbaumer.

I was able to get some time with him for a brief interview. We discussed the industry and where he sees things going. I also asked for a sneak peek at some of his innovative technology research.

Lots of elearning people are using Twitter. What do you think about Twitter and social media, in general?

Werner: I am a big fan of social media, especially in the work place. It’s a great way to keep lazy people busy. They used to distract others with their long water cooler conversations and endless barrage of help for every little thing. This impacted the bottom line because they consumed the time and resources of more productive people.

Now with Twitter they are able to sit at their desks and feel like they are making an important contribution to humanity as they share all the important information that busy people are missing because they are working.

Ok…let’s talk about opportunities. What are you excited about?

Werner: Even if times are tough there are always opportunities. We’ve seen lots of improvement in our industry with technology like rapid elearning tools.

But learning is much more than multimedia technology. For years we’ve focused on desktop technology and then we looked at mobile. But what have we missed?

Clothes! And it’s been there right in front of our eyes for years.

We hypothesized that most people wear clothes when participating in an elearning course. And our studies have proved us right. Based on our findings, 87% of elearners wear clothes while taking their courses. Surely there’s an opportunity there with this huge untapped market.

We did some digging and sure enough, there is ample opportunity. Our studies are showing a direct correlation between successful knowledge transfer and what people wear. There’s a lot to learn about the emotional connection between clothing and the learning experience.

We immediately began to prototype some ideas that we think will push our industry forward. Here’s a quick tour of what we are currently working on in our research labs.

Click here to view the research lab demo.

That’s fascinating. Thank you Dr. Werner for sharing your expertise and letting us take a sneak peek at the future of 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.

Infographics are the hot! They catch your attention because they look great and have strong visual hooks.

I like them because they remind me a little of I Spy where you get to explore a busy graphic and search for interesting nuggets of information. Of course, not everyone’s a big fan of infographics.

There are many parallels between infographics and elearning. They both share information in a visual medium. Those who design infographics start with lots of information and distill them to a few essential points. That’s very similar to what we do when our subject matter expert hands us a 300-slide PowerPoint file to be converted to an elearning course.

For the person who desires to learn more about visual design and processing lots of information, infographics are a great source of inspiration. Let’s look at what makes them so effective.

Keeping it Simple

If you think about it, infographics are not much more than vertical slide shows. That’s right. They’re really no different than PowerPoint slides. But instead of clicking forward horizontally, they’re stacked nice and neat in a vertical column.

Compare this cool infographic from Paycor to the same content laid out in PowerPoint slides.

Click to view the entire Paycor infographic.

As you can see, the content is broken into very specific sections that are stacked and separated by color headings. They’re not any different than what you normally see in a PowerPoint slide template.

What Does it Mean for Elearning?

The need to share Information drives a lot of elearning; and usually there’s way too much information. So we tend to over inform which makes it hard to focus on the critical information. On the flip side, infographics do a great job focusing on key points of information. Understanding more about them will help us build better elearning.

Fast Company featured a video that explains the case for infographics. As you watch the video, see if you can identify common graphic design concepts like contrast, use of color, and flow of information.

The Value of Data Visualization from Column Five on Vimeo.

What Makes an Infographic?

There are many parallels between infographic design and elearning. Making it a habit to view infographics is a great way to learn about visual communication. They may even inspire some template and layout ideas.

Here are two good sites if you want to regularly review nice infographics:

• Killer Infographics
• Cool Infographics

Here are some elements of infographic design that I find parallels what we do in elearning:

Focused information: It’s all about sharing information and making it memorable. Many elearning courses have too much data on single slides. Infographics do a great job weeding out irrelevant data. This keeps them focused.

How can you apply what you see in the infographics to your own courses? Instead of writing a title on the screen with a list of bullet points, write a single sentence that makes the point. Use that sentence to guide the visualization of the information.

Data visualization: Infographics have a visual hook. In some ways coming up with the visual hook is more art than anything else. So how do you learn to do a better job creating the right hooks? The key point is the data. Let the data tell the information. If you have to explain the data, then it’s wrong. The data should do the talking.

Let infographics inspire some ideas. I also recommend the visual design mind mapping exercise we do in our workshops. The output is very similar because you determine a visual theme with the right colors, design elements, and typography.

Color schemes: Most infographics have a visual hook and use bold colors and elements that really pop off the screen. These techniques also work with your elearning screens. In fact, I’d start by finding an infographic you like and then replicate the layout on the elearning course screen. That’ll give you some practice playing with layout ideas and colors.

You don’t want the colors to compete with the information. Limit colors to just a few. Most infographics have a background color and then some other colors to create visual breaks between the sections. These can be headers or simple changes in the background.

There are many sites that will help with color schemes. Here are a few:

• Kuler
• Color Combos
• Colour Lovers
• Color Schemer
• Color Scheme Designer

Bold fonts: Fonts are interesting because they display text that we read. But they’re also graphic elements that convey meaning and speak to your visual voice. We learned about this in an earlier post where we matched fonts to images.

Click here to view the demo.

You’ll notice that infographics are very deliberate in how they use fonts. You can learn to do this using the mind map activity. It helps know what fonts to use.

Once you know what type of font you need, go to a site like Dafont or Font Squirrel to search for the right font. If you need some good free fonts, check out this post where you learned how to get 150 free fonts from Google web fonts.

Icons & clip art. Infographics are also iconic. They find a visual hook, pair that with the right colors and fonts and end up with a visually intriguing and memorable graphic.

Most of us aren’t graphic designers and we don’t always have access to the graphic design resources we need to build elearning courses, let alone an infographic. But that’s OK.

There are all sorts of free icons and vector images that you can use to help in your course design. The key is to stick within a single style so that you don’t get that discordant Frankencourse look.

Even if all you have is clip art you can still find a single style and build your images from that. Check out this post where I used a single clip art style to build my elearning course template. You can do the same thing with your infographics.

Here are some resources to find free or low cost icons and vectors. Before using them make sure to check out the license agreements. Some lame companies entice you to free resources and then put all sorts of restrictions on how you can use them. In my book, free should be free!

Also, subscribe to sites like App Sumo and Might Deals. They usually offer some free or very low cost access to all sorts of graphics.

• Iconfinder
• Free Icons Web
• Vector Finder
• Dry Icons

Building an infographic is a great way to practice compressing information into essential points. It also takes you away from the elearning mindset which can help shape a fresh perspective on your content. Practice building an infographic. It can only help you later in your course design. I like what Nicole Legault did on her site:

• An Overview of the Principles of Adult Learning
• Understanding Kirkpatrick’s 4 Levels of Evaluation
• The ADDIE Model: A Visual Representation

As you can see, there are many similarities between infographic and elearning course design. Both require weeding through data and drawing attention to key points and essential information. And since they’re both visual mediums, they are similar in their design elements, fonts, and color schemes.

While you may never build an infographic, making it a habit to review them is a worthwhile pursuit that can inspire your own elearning course designs.

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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 a recent post, I shared my recent webinar with the E-Learning Guild and some of the conversation we had around rapid elearning.

In today’s post we’ll look at another part of the conversation where we discussed what skills are needed to succeed and how they can be nurtured.

Rapid E-Learning Developers Wear Many Hats

When I first started with elearning we’d have a team of people working on projects. Someone did the instructional design, someone else worked on graphics, and then we had a programmer who built the courses in Authorware or some other application.

That’s usually not the case today. Most of the people I talk with usually work by themselves and mostly responsible for all parts of the course development from content design to the graphics and then the conversion to elearning.

While today’s software has made the job easier, but it’s also made it more challenging for the person who has to develop and deliver elearning courses.

Success Requires Multiple Skills

Since so much of the development of the elearning course sits on the shoulders of just a few, it’s important to have multiple skills. Here are some of the skills that are critical to success:

• Project consulting. This combines project management and performance consulting so that the project is focused on the right things and moving in the right direction.
• Instructional design. It’s important to understand how people learn and how to build good elearning experiences.
• Visual design. Elearning is a mostly visual medium, so it makes sense to understand how to craft the visual experience that works best with the course content.
• Experience design. Learn to build a great user experience. This is a combination of user interface design and graphic design. It’s all about creating an environment that facilitates the best learning experience.
• Expertise with your authoring tool. Regardless of the authoring tool you use, you need to become an expert using it. The tools are getting easier, but unless you learn to really use them you probably won’t go past basic course design.
• Understand common elearning technologies. “Multi” is the key part of multimedia. There are many technologies that make up good elearning—audio, video, graphics, and web technologies. HTML5 and the iPad are ushering even more considerations. You don’t need to be an expert, but you should be familiar with the basics.

Acquiring Skills

One you understand the skills you need, the next step is figuring out how to acquire them. We’ll explore a few ways here, both formal and informal.

Formal education. The most common expectation is to acquire them through some sort of formal education. In a previous post we discussed whether or not you need an instructional design degree.

If you’re looking for formal education on instructional design, we started to compile a list of degree and certificate programs in the elearning community. There are also some good comments about the experience in the forum thread.

Informal education. I think getting a formal education is good and will open many doors. At a minimum, it lets you compete for jobs where having a degree is required. However, there’s a difference between a degree in instructional design (which can be broad) and gaining the skills to build good elearning courses.

You’ll definitely need to augment your formal education with informal activities.

Free tutorials. In this day and age there are all sorts of resources available to learn more. Want to learn PowerPoint? There are thousands of tutorials on sites like Youtube and Screenr. Here are two good posts that cover most of what you need to know about PowerPoint for elearning:

• More Than 30 PowerPoint Tips from the PowerPoint Pros!
• More Than 100 PowerPoint Tutorials & a Free Template

That’s just the tip of the iceberg. If you’re an Articulate user, the community offers hundreds of great how-to tutorials. There’s even a generic course on how to take a PowerPoint file and convert that to an elearning course. And those tips work regardless of the tools you use.

Of course, elearning isn’t limited to PowerPoint. The point is that if you want to learn then you’ll find a lot of free resources that help.

Read Books. There are many good books to help you get started. I’m sure everyone has a favorite. I started a list of books in the elearning community, but here are the most common that I usually recommend:

• Performance Consulting: help clients focus on the right goals and performance outcomes.
• Design for How People Learn: a good overview of how people learn—perfect for those who are just getting started.
• Beyond Bullet Points: combines cognitive science from Mayer with practical steps on creating a meaningful presentation.
• Non-Designer’s Design Book or Non-Designer’s Design & Type Books: good books on the basics of graphic design and use of font
  s.
• Understanding by Design: start with your objectives in mind and figure out how to teach to them and assess the learner’s understanding.
• E-Learning by Design & Michael Allen’s other stuff: classic information from one of the pioneers of elearning.

The links to Amazon books may produce a slight commission.

Real World Experience

A formal degree is only going to help you. But odds are you won’t learn enough to acquire all of the skills you need to get really good at this elearning thing. And you can only learn so much from reading and viewing tutorials.

At this point you have to get your feet wet and work on real projects. Most of the skills you need come from experience. And you only get the experience by working on projects and over time.

In an ideal world, you get to work on a variety of projects that will enhance your skills. But the reality for most people is that they work on the same types of projects over and over again. So they may have built 100 elearning courses, but basically they built one type of course a hundred times.

It’s up to you to get the diversity you need. Here are a few tips:

• Make it a habit to review good elearning courses and multimedia examples. Then document what you like and try to work some of those things into different projects. This is a great way to develop your skills and push the envelope a bit at work.
• Create before and after examples of good elearning. If you want to build more engaging courses at work, then convert one of the typical courses into something more engaging. Use that to show your organization the types of courses you should be building. People respond to good examples.
• Create a personal portfolio. Some organizations will stifle your development. If that’s the case, then build a portfolio to practice different things. They don’t need to be big courses. For example, create ten different ways to navigate without a next button. This lets you practice ideas on a small scale and document your skills.
• Volunteer. There are a number of opportunities to volunteer to build courses for others. LINGOs is always looking for help. And you may even get some recognition. Try local community groups like churches or the YMCA. I’m sure they’d love to put your skills to good use.

Stay Connected to the Industry

Years ago if you wanted to meet industry experts you had to go to trade conferences or workshops. And even then, did you really get to “meet” them?

Today, it’s so much easier. The online communities and social media tools make it easier than ever to connect with others. And here’s the thing about experts—we’re all experts, just at different levels. Even if you’re just getting started, your questions and fresh perspective help frame our understanding in new ways. You’re the fuel that keeps the community vital and growing.

In a practical sense, the online community is going to offer all sorts of help. It curates all of the latest news. It also shares expertise and offers free resources. Software vendors like Articulate make the tools to use, but it’s the community of users who develop the best practices and tricks to get the most out of them.

I see the community as an extension of your cubicle. Going forward your value to the organization is in large part going to be dictated by how well you’re connected to your industry peers. The person who is connected and knows where to find the help and resources is going to always have the advantage.

Like I stated earlier, the tools are getting easier to use, but that also places more pressure on you to have multiple skills. The opportunities to acquire them exist, even if you’re on a budget. You just have to be intentional about getting them.

How did you learn what you know? Did getting a degree help? Do you participate in a community or social media? We’d love to hear your thoughts. Share them by clicking on 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.

I read this interesting article the other day about how Google’s designers changed the look and feel of their products. It reminded me a lot of what we have to do when building elearning courses and it’s in line with many questions I get about elearning design during my workshops.

Here are some things that relate to what we do in the world of elearning.

Build Consistent Navigation

People generally expect that things work the way they expect them to. Navigation is one of those types of things. 

• Don’t deviate from what people expect. Navigation should be consistent. Generally people look over the screen using a Z or F pattern. It makes sense that the back and forward navigation is at the bottom right corner since it isn’t critical information and one of the last things we need to see on that screen.
• If you do deviate from expected norms, have a reason to do so. Don’t just haphazardly move things around the screen. I’ve seen buttons turned sideways and in different places just because there was no room on the slide or the designer wanted it to look different. This is a frustrating experience. When people start focusing on the navigation and not the instructional content, you’ve probably failed.

Use White Space in Graphic Design

White space is a just as much a design feature as any other graphic. However, I think some people aren’t comfortable with it on the screen. Empty space is like a vacuum that will keep sucking until it gets filled…kind of like my hallway closet or kitchen drawers. Typically we’ll move objects around to fill the space or add decorative graphics.

I worked on a project once where we had icons for six modules. The way they were designed they didn’t completely fill the top. So we had an empty corner (which was fine). But our client couldn’t handle the blank spot and didn’t want to change the icons. So she had us build an extra module just to fill the space.

Don’t be afraid of white space. It’s an ally when communicating visually. Here’s a good article on white space in graphics.

Change Isn’t Easy

It’s hard to institute change. That’s what Google ran into. While trying to persuade change can be frustrating there is something valuable in the process.

If change were easy we’d do it all the time and probably mess up more than we fix. The fact that we run into walls and roadblocks requires that we step back and assess the value of continuing versus the benefits of change.

How much effort are you really willing to put into the change? At one point is it not worth it. If it’s important you’ll find a way to get the change implemented. If not, then give up and spend your time and energy on things that will produce better value.

Compromise Can Make You Seem Indecisive

I’ve worked on projects where after a few meetings we ended up with three or four decent ideas instead of one good one. The team would split into different camps and support different ideas. Since they were all good enough ideas and we generally didn’t want to offend others (or seem overly aggressive pushing ours) we’d present all of the ideas to our clients and let them decide.

That’s probably what the Google designers did.

 

They presented then-CEO Eric Schmidt and other leaders with a set of four different concepts, with themes like making Google more like desktop clients, or differentiating products by color. It sounded like there were too many options and not enough conviction.

 

This is a lack of leadership. Instead, tell me which one is best and why?

Clients hire you for your expertise. They don’t want to make all of the decisions. In the Google example it looked like they presented too many choices and the lack of clarity made it seem no one was really convinced that one was better than the other.

• Options are good. You should present options to your clients. But there should be a reason why you’re presenting them. Perhaps each option addresses a slightly different strategic perspective. For example: choose A if you want to go this route. Choose B if you want to go the other. Don’t make both options an A.
• Present Multiple Treatments. Generally I present three treatments that range from least expensive (basic) to more expensive (most interactive and media intensive). Each choice is a little different and presents pros and cons for each approach. This gives the client some flexibility with a reason for doing so.

Before and After Examples Work

Instead of wasting your time trying to explain what you want to do, build some before and after examples to show your clients. Seeing the difference is better than hearing about it.

If you work in a large organization building the same boring click-and-read content and want to do more, then take that boring content and rework it to show what you want to do. Show them the difference between good and bad elearning.

They’ve taken enough bad courses to recognize the difference. Having some examples ready to go is a good way to convince them to make the change. And it also cements your authority as an expert and not just order taker.

Stay Connected with Your Peers

When the initial presentation didn’t work, the Google designers became more strategic by staying connected with each other. This is something you can do, too.

Many times the training and elearning people are spread throughout the organization and not usually connected to each other.  But there’s a lot of power in being connected. In Google’s example, they were able to coordinate some of their design ideas.

I presented to the Humana group in Kentucky. They’re connected and run an internal training conference every year. It’s about as good as any other conference I’ve been to (on a smaller scale). This lets them create a sense of community and ability to share all sorts of expertise. Another group I met with the Washington State government has started doing the same thing by connecting their elearning developers. They share best practices and resources.

If you work for a large organization, see what you can do to connect with your peers. If you need some ideas, let me know. If you don’t have access to others in your organization then join the elearning community and use that as your community of peers.

Here are a few examples that may give you some ideas. Recently someone wanted to do some benchmarking for healthcare organizations. From there, they created a monthly elearning healthcare chat about difference topics. Someone in higher education saw that and started something similar.

• E-learning in Healthcare
• Calling all folks who work in higher education

Doing some regular networking is good, but it doesn’t need to be that organized. Just jump into the community when you need some specific help with your elearning projects like how to streamline the content and create a great elearning course.

The article about the Google designer’s is a reminder that working on teams and trying to make change happen can be a challenge. It’s true for Google and it’s true for elearning.

Hopefully these ideas help you move in the right direction. Did you gain any other insights from reading the article about Google’s designers? If so, feel free to share them using 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.

Recently I participated in an interview-style webinar for the E-Learning Guild. I really liked the process they used. It was a hybrid webinar—part interview and part presentation. They sent some questions and then I made up slides to go with my answers. If you do webinars, it’s a technique worth exploring.

I’ve had a few people ask about the interview so I pulled together some of the questions and answers. I broke the interview questions into a few chunks. Today we’ll look at the rapid elearning questions.

What is Rapid E-Learning?

When I first started building courses it took a team to build them. This required a lot of coordination with back and forth meetings and conversations. The process took time and wasn’t always productive.

In fact, I became a fan of the rapid authoring tools because they let me do much of the work myself. They enabled me to prototype and deliver elearning courses much faster than when using our multimedia team. Sure, I gave up some of the capabilities that custom programming offered, but for the most part the instruction was similar and the delivery was much faster and definitely more cost-effective.

Years ago I read an article where the mainstream newspapers complained that they were losing revenue and market share because of all of the bloggers. They said that the bloggers had fragmented the market. I don’t think that was entirely true.

The market was already fragmented. Instead, the bloggers started serving the market in a way that the large media companies couldn’t (or either chose to ignore).

In a similar sense, many of the complaints of rapid elearning come from vendors who are losing business. Before rapid elearning, you either had to hire a vendor to build courses, or hire your own staff. Many organizations couldn’t afford that. So for them elearning was an all or nothing proposition.

Today it doesn’t take much to build and publish courses. So in one sense rapid elearning has democratized the market and empowered all sorts of organizations to build their own content and serve their own niche markets. It has also provided opportunities to small vendors and freelancers to compete with the big shops.

I’ll also add that the easy authoring has changed much of the industry’s conversation from technology and programming to instructional design and effectiveness. This is good.

Does Rapid E-Learning Cause Click & Read Courses?

Having been in this industry for a while I can tell you that click-and-read courses existed before rapid elearning. In fact, Michael Allen’s Guide to e-Learning addressed some of this long before rapid elearning was prominent. Bad elearning is less the result of the tool used to create it and more the result of poor instructional design.

While click-and-read courses are not usually the ideal solution, they are a viable solution in some cases. I’ve experienced plenty of interactive elearning courses that were as pointless as any click-and-reads. So I am less concerned with whether or not courses are linear click-and-read and more concerned with building the best solution.

Let’s review why there are so many click-and-read courses and explore possible solutions.

• People build the types of courses that they’re used to. Many of our formal learning experiences are based on passive observation where we hear lectures and view presentations. So why not do the same with elearning? Plus, since so many other elearning courses are linear, it seems to be a reasonable model.
• Many elearning developers are repurposing content from classroom learning. They typically start with PowerPoint slides and other assembled assets. So it tends to be easier to just do a simple conversion to Flash than to spend time thinking how to craft an experience better suited for elearning. We need to be more intentional when converting from one type of learning experience to another.
• Organizations get what they want. Many of those who complain about boring elearning assume that the organizations want something different. My guess is that a lot of elearning is built less because of learning requirements and more for other reasons like regulatory compliance. In that world, some organizations only want a record of completion. So the easier, the better. It may not be the best or right solution, but it is the solution that helps the organizations meet their goals.
• Elearning developers work with limited resources. From my experience this is the biggest reason for simple elearning courses. There’s a lot pressure to get things done quickly and with limited resources. Because of this, the elearning developers (who many times work by themselves without programmers and graphic designers) are forced to build the simplest courses possible.
• Rapid elearning tools make building courses easy. Because click-and-read courses are the easiest build, we tend to get a lot of them. The goal is to complement easy authoring with instructional design. As we noted above, people tend to build the types of courses they know or with the resources they have.

What Does Rapid Mean for Instructional Design?

I get a lot of email asking where the rapid part of rapid elearning is. This is a good question.  Like I mentioned earlier, it used to require a team to build courses. Today that’s not the case. So if you started a few years ago, then today’s tools are truly rapid. But if you’re just getting started, then the idea of rapid is a bit foreign.

Essentially you have tools that automate or speed up the production of the course. They remove the need to be a programmer. And the tools are only getting easier to use. I’ve been testing the beta version of Storyline. In the example I used a few weeks ago, I built the drag and drop video player in about 5 minutes. That was unheard of years ago.

However, easier authoring doesn’t mean you can skip instructional design. Good elearning is more than putting content online. Instructional design needs to be more intentional than that; and that’s probably an area of opportunity for most of us.

With that said, rapid elearning tools do offer some shortcuts and allow for reusable interactivity. So while you do need to focus on instructional design, there are many ways to pre-built instructionally sound interactions
that can be quickly repurposed for other courses.

What I like about the tools is that the doors are open for people to enter the industry and as they gain experience the good tools will grow with them.

How Do You Know You’re Building the Right Type of Course?

The easiest way to know if you’re building the right type of course is to determine if you’re still being paid. If you receive a paycheck you’re heading in the right direction.

When I meet with clients I try to determine what type of course they want to build. I often find that what they want is less elearning and more multimedia marketing. Determine if their course is about sharing information or changing behaviors. Is it a viewing or doing course?

If it’s a viewing course, then determine the best way to present the information. Elearning may not be the best option. If it’s a doing course, then determine what needs to be done and build your course to help people learn and practice doing it.

What Are Some Ways to Build Better E-Learning?

In a simple sense, elearning courses have three core elements that can be asked as questions. They help ensure that you cover the essential considerations.

• What will the course look like? It needs to look like something. How it looks can impact the effectiveness of the course. Even if you do nothing with the design, that’s still a design decision.
• What content needs to be in the course? Elearning courses don’t need to have the same content you’d have in other types of learning experiences. Determine what belongs in the course and what can be delivered in other ways.
• What will the learner do with the information? Presenting information is common. But what’s less common is getting the learner to use the information. How can you get them to use what you’re presenting and make decisions similar to those they’d make away from the course?

Switch from pushing information to helping the learner pull it. We have this tendency to push information out, which is the cause of many linear, click-and-read courses. Try to reframe the content. How can you get the learner to pull information in? Presenting quick simulations, scenarios, or questions is easy enough to do and allows the learned to engage the content in meaningful ways.

Sometimes rapid elearning isn’t the right solution. Rapid elearning tools are getting more sophisticated and easier to use. But that doesn’t mean they’re always the right solution. I have a simple hierarchy.

• Start with rapid elearning. From my experience, most elearning courses can be built with a rapid elearning approach. This lets you meet your goals and it’s less expensive than having a programmer on staff building the type of content rapid elearning tools can create. If you have Flash programmers on staff, this frees them up to fully utilize their Flash skills.
• Combine rapid elearning with custom content. Many organizations today are using multiple tools. So it’s common to see a course built using Articulate Presenter’s player structure combined with custom Flash interactions. Going to the first point, the Flash developer doesn’t need to build everything, just those things that require custom development.
• Create custom content and interactivity. Sometimes rapid elearning isn’t the right solution. By following a hierarchy like this one, you’re able to free your resources to work on those courses that require more than what the rapid tool will give you. The worst thing is to spend all of your time and money building custom content when a rapid tool suffices. And then when you need custom development the resources are no longer available.

There’s a lot to this world of elearning regardless of the tools you use. But the tools are getting easier to use and they’re offering a lot more capability. It won’t be long before you ask why you’re wasting time custom programming when you can use an authoring tool that does the work for you.

The easy and sophisticated authoring allows you to shift focus from the technology to good instruction which is the key to success. Being intentional about instructional quality will move you in the right direction and help you build much more effective elearning.

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During the year I conduct dozens of elearning workshops. I dedicate a large part of the workshop to graphic design because based on what I see, it’s an area that challenges many elearning developers.

Most of the people I meet have a training background. They may have some graphic design skills, but they usually find their roots in training. So they tend to be stronger in instructional design than graphic design.

Elearning courses are mostly a visual medium which means that graphic design is a key part of building effective elearning courses. In fact, it’s one of the three core considerations in the design of elearning courses:

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

Regardless of how you approach your course design, the course has to look like something. Even if you decide to do nothing but a white screen with black text, that’s a design decision.

In today’s post I want to offer a simple trick to help you get past the standard PowerPoint design or that template-screen look. It’s not going to make the instruction in the course better (you still need instructional design) but it can definitely make it a bit more visually engaging.

Change Your Background Image

It’s amazing what a nice background can do for the look of your screen. The right background can offer a visual richness that makes the content more inviting.

Many rapid elearning developers will use the application’s default background or a pre-built template. That’s a fast way to go, but it doesn’t always work with your content. Instead of a template, try adding a background images that matches the content of your course. It’s a step in the right direction and requires very little effort.

The image above shows a quiz using the default background and one that uses a richer one. That background is a simple stock image and makes a perfect way to show off the art work in a museum.

Find the Right Background

Determine to put the learner in a context that matches the content. For example, in our elearning workshop we walk through the Hoh Rainforest design makeover. The goal is to craft a visually immersive experience. What can we do to get the person into the rain forest? For us it starts with finding a rain forest background image and then we add other complementary elements.

Below is another example.  As you can see we took what’s a typical looking slide and converted it to one that has more visual appeal. Since the topic was how to change a tire we went with an automotive theme. Contextually it’s a better fit with the content than the template. 

The background is a bit more structured. It consists of a highway backdrop (grayed out stock image) and the content area is a license plate (another stock image). The content on both screens is the same, but which course looks more inviting?

The license plate theme was designed by David for a free starter course we offer in the elearning community. He walks through the process of creating it. But what if you don’t have the graphic design skills to create something like this?

One solution is to find inspiration from other sources. In the example below, the course topic is how an organization monitors Internet usage. Using the Internet to access Facebook at work is very common. So instead of the typical screen, we designed a screen that mimics the Facebook look by using similar colors and lines.

An even easier solution is to settle on a single image background. Think about your course content. What is the one design element that says “this is the topic?” In the Hoh Rainforest demo, we found a single rain forest background image that lets us “step into the rain forest.”

What is the one background image that you can use to bring people into your content? Here are some ideas that are simple and offer flexible layouts. In the corkboard example, the background is the corkboard image.

Corkboards typically have paper and notes tacked to them. I like that type of background because it helps build a single visual theme but gives a lot of freedom in how the content can be laid out. You can also do something similar with a desktop or whiteboard.

Below is another example. We’re asking questions about workplace ethics. Instead of the default background that comes with the application, we found a shirt that matches a corporate look. It’s just a simple background image. Nothing fancy. But it really adds some nice texture and interest to the screen.

As you can see, you don’t need to modify the image to create a rich-looking background. The quiz example below is just a picture of a shirt pocket.

The first step is to determine a single image that represents the essential theme of the content. Then do a search for an image using Microsoft’s site or a stock image site like istockphoto or fotolio.

Here are a couple of ideas for inspiration. I like to look for wallpaper images. They tend to be a little out there, but used the right way can add a nice touch to your courses.

Here’s a link to an idea that probably works better for you. They’re interior images. They’d make great backgrounds for all sorts of elearning courses. You don’t need to buy the expensive images either. I usually get the small versions which just cost a couple of dollars.

Going back to what I stated earlier, your course is going to look like something. You just have to decide what this is. We’re not all graphic designers but as you can see it doesn’t take much to move from the basic white screen or template to something that fits your content better and has a richer look.

Find the one image that represents the essence of your content and then build from there.

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A while back I shared an example of how to create more engaging course objectives. It’s a great way to get past the bullet list of learning objectives that we often see in courses. I then did a follow up post on how to quickly find images for your elearning courses. The tips in that post are good, but they set up an issue we commonly run into when building courses.

If you look at the images I recommended and the images I used in the course, you’ll see that I didn’t use the images I recommended. I’ll have to admit, I did that to set up this blog post. Let me explain. 

Many aren’t intentional when it comes to the visual design of their elearning courses. They usually start with a nice looking template and then as they build the course they’ll add images that represent the content on the screen.

If they have some design skills it’ll look good. But if not, then they end up with a discordant look where the graphics don’t quite match the content. And most likely the graphics won’t quite match the other graphics either.

That’s where my earlier tip to find an image pack really works. It lets you get a design for your course that is consistent and polished, and inexpensive.

No Plan Means You Waste Time

But here’s where you may run into some problems. You can waste a lot of time looking for just the right images. But worst of all, you end up letting the images you find drive the course design. That’s not ideal. And that’s kind of what happened to me with my demo.

My initial idea for the demo was beyond my resources, so I decided to look for photo frame pictures on istockphotos. This led me to the Polaroid idea, which then led to the image packs that I wrote about. The image packs worked great because for a few dollars I was able to build a series of rich looking screens for my elearning demo.

But, when I added more content to the demo I soon realized that the images (which were made up of burned filmstrips) just didn’t look right with the earthquake content. The look was rich but it didn’t match the earthquake content and seemed out of place.

How to Craft a Visually Immersive Experience

Elearning courses are mostly visual. When you build a course you have to have the right visual look to match your content. I like to think of it as creating a visually immersive experience where you’re trying to place the learner in the same space as the content.

For example, in our workshops we use this demo of the Hoh Rain Forest. The goal is to place the learner in the rain forest so we walk through the process of converting a simple PowerPoint slide to something more immersive.

Going back to the burned filmstrip images, they didn’t work for an earthquake course. When I think earthquake, I think more about damaged buildings. So what I did was swap the burned filmstrip background with a cracked cement image. It works better for the earthquake theme and content.

Visual Design Tips

Here are some quick tips to help build your next course.

• Find inspiration. Going through stock image and template sites is a good way to come up with design ideas. Perhaps you’ll discover a new way to layout your screen elements. Or maybe you’ll find a cool color scheme. Make time to find inspiration. I keep a notebook of links and ideas so when I need something I can look through it for ideas.
• Plan your visual design. Looking for inspiration is something you do outside of the course design. It’s an ongoing discipline. But when you start to build your elearning course, you need to be intentional about the design. It’s not something you do on the fly. Otherwise you waste time and probably won’t end up with the best looking course.
• Image packs from the same artist or style can save time and money. Just like I mentioned in the earlier post, finding image packs will help when it comes to the overall look of your course. But don’t let them drive the design process. Decide what you need before looking for images.
• Create an immersive visual design. Put the learner where the course will be. In the Hoh Rain Forest demo, the goal is to place them in the forest. If you’re building a course on operating room technology, how will that look compared to one on office policies? And how’s that different than teaching something about warehouse safety? Your visual voice speaks to you and forms a mental image consistent with the course topic. Learn to tap into that voice and you can build a look that matches your content.
• Keep it simple. Since most of us aren’t graphic designers it helps to have a few simple rules to keep us from creating a mess. At a minimum find the right type of background that lets you craft a visually immersive screen. Just changing a background can do wonders. Then limit yourself to two fonts. One for the titles and one for the body. Determine your color palette before you start building. You probably only need three or four. Determine how you’ll use them and then be consistent throughout the course. A few simple rules applied with intention go a long way.

There’s a lot more to the visual design process. We actually go into it quite a bit in the workshops I do. I have those listed below. The main point is that before looking for images, determine what you want to find. Otherwise you’ll end up wasting time or letting the pictures you find dictate your course design rather than the content doing that.

Do you have some simple graphic design tips you can share for the elearning developer who’s just getting started? Share them by clicking on the comments link.

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Many people are stuck in the world of linear, click-and-read content. Sometimes it’s because that’s all the organization wants. And sometimes it’s because we’re not quite sure how to make something more interactive. It’s probably the subject I’m asked about the most. One of the most frequent questions I get. The cool thing is that regardless of the tools you use, you can still build interactive content.

One of the best ways to learn to build better courses is to find some good examples, break them apart, and then try to build something similar. This way you get some hands-on practice, which is a lot more valuable than reading about interactive elearning.

So in today’s post, we’ll look at a popular example and talk through a few ideas on interactivity.

Get Them to Pull Information

In large part interactivity requires a shift away from pushing the content out (which is common) and instead creating an environment where the learner pulls content in. A good way to get them to pull information is creating a situation where they need to make an informed decision.

I usually recommend throwing people in the pool. Instead of dumping them with a pile of information, dunk them in a pool of opportunity. Let them deal with real-life situations and learn through their decision-making.

Put them in the types of situations where they need to make the decisions you want to them to make. That creates the opportunity for them to demonstrate their understanding and if they’re deficient in understanding they’re motivated to pull the information they need to make an informed decision.

Learn By Dissecting the Work of Others

When I learned to create videos, I’d record TV commercials and then break them down scene by scene. Commercials are great because they’re very effective in communicating essential ideas and they’re short. It’s a lot easier dissecting a 30 second commercial than a 2 hour movie.

After viewing the commercial I’d create storyboards for each scene. Then I’d analyze the scenes, how they were edited, and consider the motivation from one shot to the next. This process of dissecting the commercial slowed it down for me and helped me see what was happening better. The same can be done with elearning courses.

Today we’ll look at a popular example that Cathy Moore shared a while back. We’ll do a simple break down of the module. This is a good example because it’s interactive, engaging, and it’s short enough to go through it a few times.

Click here to review the module first.

Basic breakdown of the course:

• Introduction. The course starts with an introduction that sets the stage and expectations. You can consider it the establishing shot. We want to establish what the learner’s seeing so that they know where they’re at and what’s expected.
• Context. After the introduction, they begin to build some context. They’re putting the learner in a real situation and then offering some guidance on getting through it. You’ll notice instead of a bunch of screens of information about the culture and country, they provide two characters who will provide differing perspectives. What I like about that approach is there’s a bit of ambiguity in the way they share their perspectives. This is much more like real life where things aren’t always tidy or obvious. It brings a healthy tension to the scenario.

• Challenge. Once the scenario’s set up the learner’s offered a challenge which is the course objective—make a good impression and build a relationship with the Haji. The scenario presents a series of mini challenges that build on each other. The squad leaders offer advice that can help with the decision-making.

• Choices. After collecting the advice a decision needs to be made. The course provides a few choices. One thing you’ll notice is that the choices are all plausible and viable. The problem with many interactive elearning scenarios is that they are very obvious and don’t deal with the nuances we face in real life. If all of the choices are viable it puts more pressure on us to pay attention and collect the right information. We want them to learn and not guess their way through the situation.

• Consequences. Each choice produces a consequence, with some more positive than others. Sometimes progress I made in the relationship and sometimes it’s a step backwards. I like the quick feedback because in lieu of a real conversation, you need to read the body language of the Haji. It’s enough of a tip without being too much feedback. Another thing I like about this particular scenario is that the choices aren’t all do or die. You can make a poor choice and still recover if you’re paying attention to the information you collect. Often we provide immediate feedback and that’s it. In this scenario you may find the right outcome but realize it wasn’t the best. It kind of motivates you to go back and find out what was a better outcome.

Your Next Steps

As you can see, breaking down the scenario is a great way to come up with a formula that could work for your own scenario.

• Introduction. Set expectations. Let them know what to expect and how long it should take. It also helps if the course is visually engaging.
• Context. Put the learner in a real world environment where they make the types of decisions that impact their performance. Not sure what that is? What’s the goal and expected outcome after the course? How can they demonstrate that they’re able to meet the objectives?
• Challenge. Give them some good challenges that get them to think. You can even add a few distractors. Some people like to jump ahead and answer questions first and wait for feedback. But others will want a bit more information to make an informed decision. Give them the freedom to do so.
• Choices. What choices do they have to work through the scenario? Make them viable and real. If they’re obvious choices, then the interactivity is wasted. Sometimes I throw them for a loop by making all choices wrong or all of them correct. Not having an “all of the above” or “none of the above” option adds some healthy tension.
• Consequences. Each decision produces consequences. Sometimes the consequence is simple feedback and sometimes it can become another decision-making challenge. Do this to vary the pacing. You don’t always need to provide immediate feedback. Delay it. You’ll notice that in the scenario there’s some feedback from the Haji to give you a sense of what direction you’re moving, but it’s not “right” or “wrong” feedback. You just have to keep plodding forward and you’ll find out if you succeed at the end.

Without too much focus on the great visual design of the course, take note of how you can navigate through the module. There’s always a place to restart and also quickly advance through the modules. This gives the learner freedom and control. It also encourages going through the course a few times. My guess is that most people go through the module at least twice if not more. Would that be the case if every screen was locked like they are in many courses?

Action Items

Cathy discusses the scenario in more detail on her blog. But before you look at it, do this. As you go through the course try to map out the flow. How many individual screens are there? Go through it a few times. You’ll start to see a pattern and realize that the structure of the program is not that complicated and easy enough for you to do, regardless of your authoring tool.

The secret is taking the time to analyze the course and then creating a model that you can repeat with your own content.

Here’s another cool scenario-based module that’s been making the rounds. It’s a good one to dissect. Do the same thing; make some notes on what you like and how it flows. Try to create your own outline of the course. Then use that structure as a guideline for your own scenario.

Click here to view the interactive scenario.

If you want to look at other multimedia examples for inspiration, David does a great job collecting them at his elearning examples site. Most of them are smaller interactions so they’re perfect to break apart.

Perhaps you can take one of your linear courses and convert it to an interactive scenario using the same structure and outline as the soldier scenario. It’ll be good practice and I’m sure you’ll wow them at work.

If you do rework a course and make it more interactive, feel free to share the link. We’d love to see what you do.

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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.

In a previous post, we looked at five free desktop image editors.  Here are a couple of additional free desktop applications shared by some blog readers. They both look very capable.

• PhotoPlus SE
• PhotoFiltre

A challenge with free software is that sometimes your organization isn’t comfortable with you downloading and installing applications that aren’t approved. This is where the online graphics applications come in handy. Of course, you’ll need an internet connection and hope that your organization isn’t blocking its use.

If you do a search, you’ll find that there are a lot of online image editing products. The problem is that many are spammy or full of ads that they’re useless for real work.

In today’s post we’ll look at five very capable online image editors. I tried to stay clear of the ones that were too ad heavy or seemed kind of spammy. I only added the apps I’d be comfortable using for my own work. 

Aviary

Aviary has a few image editing tools and offers a pretty complete solution for most of what you need to do. They also have a very active user community which is a plus and lots of tutorials.

• Aviary Feather is a basic image editing tool. You can crop, adjust the image, add some text, and apply filters.
• Aviary Phoenix is a more robust application and close to something like Photoshop with the layering and more complex editing capabilities.
• Aviary Raven is a vector editor similar to the free Inkscape or Adobe Illustrator.

Pixlr

Pixlr has all of the standard features you’d need. I like some of the pencil drawing effects and it can output to Flickr and Picasa. I find it really easy to use and one of my favorites of the online tools. They also offer Pixlr Express, a streamlined editing tool.

Splashup

Splashup is an image editing tool and photo manager. I like that I can bring in images from sites like Flickr and Picasa, which I already use. It has all of the core features you’d expect in an image editing application. They also offer Splashup Light for download.

• Tour of features

Sumo Paint

Sumo Paint is a very capable tool and comes with all of the core editing features. They also offer a Pro upgrade that gives you a desktop version with additional features.

• User community
• Tutorials

Simpler Tools

The following tools are honorable mentions. They do a decent job with simple edits but don’t have all of the features of the applications above.

• Photoshop.com offers simple image editing, but not the layering that you get with its desktop cousins. 
• Picnik is already integrated into a number of sites. You’ll find it in Flickr and Picasa.  It’s easy to use and has a lot of filters. Of course, I just found out that Picnik is being shut down. I believe that it will make its way back in Google+.
• Dr.Pic seems to have all of the basic features. I like the framing feature. My guess is the Polaroid frame would work well with some elearning screens.

As you can see, there are plenty of options for free graphics editing. And you have a good choice between desktop applications like I mentioned in the previous post, or go with an online solution.

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In an earlier post we looked at how to combine elearning with an on-the-job mentoring program. I received a lot of questions about the learning journal. So in today’s post we’ll look at the basic structure of the learning journal and how you could use something like it to complement your elearning courses.

The Value of a Learning Journal

Before we look at how to set up the learning journal, let’s review where it adds value:

• Connects elearning to real world activities. The learning journal is used as a bridge between the learning that happens in the elearning course and what happens in the real work environment. Elearning courses let you compress a lot of the instruction and content which can save time during the training. It also has the benefit of complementing both the learner’s schedule and that of the peer coach.
• Guides the learner’s progress. By including a calendar of activities and objectives, the journal acts as a map for the learning process. It sets expectations for the training program with specific activities. It also ensures consistency.
• Captures key learning points. Often during the training time (especially with elearning courses) we only get one shot at the information. For the learner the journal can be used as a personal work manual that contains key information, personal notes, and other resources relevant to the job, even after the initial training period. In essence, it becomes a job manual.
• Tracks completion of training. For the organization, the journal acts as a record for the training program. I usually include a formal record of completion that can be forwarded to the manager or human resources department if needed.

Using a Learning Journal

Here’s a rough breakdown of how I’ve used the learning journals in the past:

• Chunks. The training program is broken into chunks or modules. The goal is to keep it flexible and manageable. You don’t want big long modules. Each module combines some elearning with hands-on instruction.
• Notes. The learner uses the journal to follow along with the elearning course. It can be used to take notes and jot down quick questions to ask later during the time with the peer coach.
• Review. Inside the journal you can ask some review questions. In addition, the peer coach has review questions to pose after the elearning is complete. This helps her assess the learner’s level of understanding prior to doing some hands-on activities. It’s a great way to find and fill gaps in understanding.
• Practice. The peer coach facilitates the hands-on instruction or practice activities that correspond with the elearning module. Use a calendar or schedule to list the practice activities. 
• Track. Upon completion of the training, the learner runs through a self-assessment. It can be as simple as a detailed task list that the learner can review and mark off when completed. This can serve as an informal training record. Or you can insert a formal training record in the learning journal that is completed and forwarded to whoever it is that tracks training.

Inside the Learning Journal

There are a number of ways to design a learning journal that bridges the course content with the real world activities. Here are a few of the main sections you can include. 

Introduction

• Explain the overall training objectives and expectations. Detail how the program works with the peer coaching, practice activities, and learning journal. Let them know that the learning journal is their personal training manual that they can always reference later if they need more help.

Calendar

• Determine how long the formal training should last. Then calendar the activities. For example, you have a two-week program with five modules. Each module consists of an elearning course and some real-world practice activities. You want to map out a series of tasks over the two-week period. This establishes an agenda and the expectations for the time in training.

Elearning Modules

• Create a note-taking section that corresponds with the elearning module. I like to add visual clues where it makes sense. For example, if I show parts of a machine, I’ll include that in the learning journal or give them an activity where they label the parts of the machine on the paper. I also like to include a few fill in the blank sections for critical information.

• The main point here is to create a note-taking section for them to use with the elearning modules. I try to capture the critical information and the type of stuff they may need to reference on the floor when they’re away from the elearning course.
• How you create the elearning modules and learning journal is up to you. Try to stay lean and as engaging as you can. The elearning module doesn’t have to include every piece of information because you have the learning journal and other resources to complement it.
• At the end of key learning points, add a few review questions. I also include a review at the end of the module. This isn’t a stump the learner activity or a graded review.  They should be questions that pertain to the essential objectives of the module and what they’ll need to know when they’re on the floor. These can also be used to facilitate some ongoing discussion with the peer coach.

Peer Coach Review

• Part of the training program is training peer coaches. For them it’s a great way to develop some supervisory skills. We train them on the program; how to give feedback and how to assess the new learner.
• You can create a peer coach guide to go with the learning journal. I usually just have a peer coach section in the learning journal that triggers some dialogue between the peer coach and the new learner. At this point the peer coach wants to get a feel for what the person has learned from the modules and their level of understanding before doing some real activities.
• It’s a good idea to do schedule some debrief activities with the peer coaches because they’ll help you build the best training program. They can share where people are getting stuck and some of the best practices they have. In addition, all training programs have some sense of bureaucracy. Working with the peer coaches is a great way to get rid of it.

Self-Assessment Checklist

• Create a list of all tasks that the new learner should be able to perform at the end of the training. Be specific. Stating that they meet safety requirements is vague. But stating that they know how to put on the safety gear and activate the alarm in case of an emergency is more specific.
• The learner can review the list and mark off those tasks that he feels confident in. If he has questions about tasks or needs some remedial assistance you’ll know what to focus on.

• The checklist is also a good guide for the peer coach. She can pull some random tasks and have the learner demonstrate that he can complete them.

Individual Training Record

• You can use the checklist as a proof of training or create a formal training record. When I create the training record I’ll list all of the tasks for that module and then have the learner and peer coach sign it. This gets forwarded to the appropriate department.

Additional Resources

• Since this learning journal acts as their personal training manual, I like to include additional resources—things like important contacts, sites on the intranet, or any other information they may need. This way they have a quick, single-source reference if they need help after the training is complete.

Pulling some training off the floor and into an elearning module ensures consistency and can compress the time to train. Having a peer coach assigned to a new learner helps in the training process and creates a social connection at work. Using a learning journal is an effective way to bridge the two.

I’d love to hear your thoughts. Feel free to share them by clicking on the comments link.

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’m always asked what skills a rapid elearning designer should have.  One of the most important skills is basic image editing.  You don’t need to be a professional graphics designer.  However, you should be able to do some basic editing.  Because of this, an image editing application should be in your tool chest.

Today we’ll look at five free desktop applications that you can use for basic image editing.  But before we explore the free tools, a good budget-friendly option is Photoshop Elements.  It’s relatively inexpensive and should be able to do what most people need for elearning.  Plus, it’s a great starting point for those who are interested in learning more about Photoshop which is still the main application for graphics.

If you still want to go the free route, here are some good choices for desktop tools.  They range from simple to a bit more high-end and sophisticated. 

Picasa

Picasa is a pretty simple solution, but one that may work for some of the basic tasks like cropping and image enhancement (especially if you take a lot of your own photos).  You don’t get layers and some of that type of editing, but you do get a lot of image enhancing features.

One of the features I do like about Picasa is that I can use it to tag and catalog the images on my computer or network drive.  It comes in really handy when looking for assets.

• Getting started guide.

PhotoScape

PhotoScape is a tool that I’ve liked for a while because it does quite a bit. However, I’ve been reluctant to recommend it in the past because the licensing agreement used to be for personal use only. However, now it looks like that’s no longer the case.

It’s a great product and does a lot more than some of the other tools.  You don’t have layers, so composing images isn’t possible; but there are a lot of nifty filters and other features that add value.

They also have a mole removal feature which could come in handy if you work in the espionage industry.

• Overview video
• Tutorials

Paint.net

Paint.net has really developed into a nice application.  It does most of what you expect from a graphics editor and is more than capable to handle all of your elearning needs.  It’s the one that I usually recommend first.

• Beginner tutorials
• Plugins to extend the application

PixBuilder Studio

PixBuilder is a pretty standard image editor with support for multiple formats and layers.  A couple of nice features are the low memory and portability.  That means you can load it on a USB drive and run it from there rather than install it on your desktop.

• Features
• Community

GIMP

GIMP is a powerful application and closer to Photoshop than the ones mentioned above.  It’s the perfect application for the person who wants more capability, but doesn’t want the expense of Photoshop.  It’s also got a very active user community.

• Tutorials
• Community

There you have it—five free desktop applications that range from simple editing to high-end capabilities.  If you need an image editing application and are working with limited resources, I’m sure you’ll find that at least one of these tools will meet your needs.

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.