E-Learning Resources & Examples for Success

I get a lot of questions about how to get started with building e-learning courses.  I’ve covered that a bit in previous posts on why you need to create a portfolio and simple ways to get started.  I’m also a big advocate of participating in your learning community to build relationships and improve your skills. However, in today’s post I want to introduce a simple framework to help develop your elearning skills.  It’s based on what I see as a common evolution in the skills ...

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The truth for a lot of people is that if it weren’t for Microsoft’s clip art library, you wouldn’t have any graphics to work with.  So the trick is learning to get the most out of your limited resources. In earlier posts, I’ve shared how to ungroup clip art to create your own images.  I also showed how you can use ...

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It’s hard to believe that we’re approaching the last quarter of 2010.  This year seems to have flown by. I’ve had fun with travel across the country and getting to meet so many blog readers at various conferences. This past week I dedicated a little bit of time trying to catch up on some reading.  As I looked over my feed reader, I realized just how much good stuff I missed.  If you’re like me, you’ve probably been busy, as well. Odds are that ...

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I was on the phone with someone who had problems with her elearning course.  It seemed that nothing was working right.  As I dug a little deeper, it turned out that she was deleting some of her files.  She told me she did so to keep her files organized.  Apparently the folders were looking a bit messy.  What she didn’t realize was that all of those files she was moving and deleting actually broke ...

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In the late ‘90s the company I worked for was installing a new network in anticipation of the Y2K bug.  I was responsible for training how to use the computers on the network. Back then most people didn’t have computers.  So before we could teach them how to use the computers, we had to teach simple things like using a mouse.  I recall a few people who actually waved the mouse in front of the monitor hoping ...

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In last week’s post, I offered some tips for building rapid elearning courses when you’re short on time and resources.  In today’s post, I’ll discuss some of the production techniques we used.  I especially got a lot of emails about how we used Engage, so I’ll cover that as well as discuss how to do a quick pilot test and rework your objectives list. Here’s a link to the original course, if you haven’t seen it yet.  Check it out and then read ...

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In December, LINGOs announced the first global giveback campaign, which paired elearning developers with humanitarian organizations that needed some elearning courses produced.  Like many of you, David Anderson and I took up the challenge and volunteered to create a course for Christian Aid. For this project, we had no budget with limited time and resources.  So I thought I’d share a little about how we built the course and ...

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Had a great time last week in Indianapolis presenting to the Central Indiana ASTD chapter.  David and I met some nice people and got to do some research to support a recent blog post.  we also discovered that Indianapolis has two airport terminals.  One is new and looks great.  The other one is shuttered with grass overtaking the parking lot.  Guess which one the PGS lead us to?  We felt like ...

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Many of you are either working alone or on very small teams with limited resources.  With some creativity, you can do quite a bit.  In fact, many of my tips and tricks came from working in a similar situation.  It’s amazing what can be done do with a computer and a little duct tape. With that said, working solo has some drawbacks.  One of the biggest is not having peers (or a more ...

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I get emails all the time from freelancers or elearning vendors asking how to get more work or exposure.  I also have quite a few managers ask for ways to get their staff up-to-speed building better elearning courses.  So, I’m going to take this opportunity to plug the Articulate Guru Awards and show how you can use the awards as a way to grow your business and rapid elearning ...

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Did you know that Portland, Oregon has more than 30 breweries?  That is the most breweries per capita in the US.  Being from the Pacific Northwest, I’m kind of partial to craft beers.  I might not like every beer that I taste, but I do enjoy the diversity in flavor. The thing with beer is that there’s not a right or wrong beer.  It would be foolish to argue that a stout is better than a pilsner.  They’re ...

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  I love all of the web apps and cool sites that pop up on the Internet.  Many of them are cool in a gadgety way but not always practical; but they are fun to play with.  And then there are some that are practical.  For example, I use the social bookmarking tool, Diigo, quite a bit.  At my last place, the internal network ...

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