Who’s Working on That E-Learning Course with You?
February 23rd, 2021
One challenge I see for those who are just getting started with e-learning is that while they have the authoring tools to build the courses, they tend to lack the other connections and resources to pull the courses together.
It's important to build a network of contributors and resources. And this starts with having the right people because they come with the right content, reviews, feedback, and approval.
Here are a few considerations:
- Client. Someone is commissioning the course. They provide objectives, scope, deadlines, and access to resources. They also sign-off on
"Help, I am just getting started with e-learning and don't know where to start!"
There's obviously a lot that goes into e-learning. And creating courses can be a bit daunting for those less experienced. So let's break it down a bit to help you get started.
People Don't Have Course Deficiencies
People don't sit around waiting to take e-learning courses. Those courses exist as a solution to something. The goal isn't to build the course. The goal is to meet some objective and the course is a means to getting there.
This seems obvious, ...
Here's a cool PowerPoint hack. I had an illustrated character and needed a font style that matched the illustration style. To get the effect I used PowerPoint to create a title font and changed the format. In this post, I'll show you how.
Free Illustrations for E-Learning
Instructional design isn't really that complicated. At its core, it's about teaching something to someone who acquires new skills and knowledge and can apply them to meet some objective.
The challenge with a lot of e-learning is that courses are designed to be presentations of content, but not focused enough on the teaching and application. Content is obviously a key component of learning. But learning is a process where the content is synthesized with experience, activities, and feedback to do something new or perhaps better. Just looking at content with no ...
Good news! It's easier than ever to "build" e-learning. And because of this, subject matter experts build a lot of e-learning courses. This makes sense for a lot of reasons.
Subject matter experts have experience and depth of knowledge. They're close to the subject and can keep things from becoming muddled by not involving a complicated production process or bringing on others who may confuse things. Training specialists (for all our good intentions) can complicate things and that's not always good for the speed of business.
However, subject matter ...
I was chatting with someone recently who was complaining that the organization’s e-learning courses weren't successful. After some conversation, it turns out that the courses were mostly information-based courses. The organization did a great job pulling content together, but outside of the content (and some nice looking slides) there wasn’t much to the courses.
We talked a bit more about what it takes for a training course to be successful.
Successful Training Defines Success
There are different reasons why organizations create e-learning courses. And with that, the measure of success various. Many courses have no ...
I see a lot of e-learning courses and to be honest many of them are not as good as they could be. They tend to be what we anticipate from corporate e-learning: screen after screen of content with lots of next buttons and then a final quiz. You have to work with what you have. Sometimes the training content isn't good (like the leads from Mitch and Murray) and you can't do much with it. But often, when it comes to the content, what could be interactive is ...
In recent posts, we discussed why you need a 
When people talk about effective e-learning it's usually around meeting performance objectives. Many take the position that any e-learning course that isn’t performance-based is wrong; and inevitably, you run into a lot of lamenting about the dangers of click-and-read e-learning.
First off, is a click-and-read course really "dangerous?"
I think swimming in shark-infested waters is dangerous. Clicking a series of next buttons is not the same level of danger (unless that next button was connected to the 108-minute countdown timer in Lost).
Granted there are some bad e-learning courses, but that's not ...
One frustration I've had when building e-learning courses is getting the client to understand what makes an effective course. People tend to ask for what they're used to seeing. And since many experience e-learning as click-and-read content they tend to ask for that type of course, which for an e-learning developer isn't exciting.
There are 
I like to add 
Background audio is not as common as it once was in e-learning. It is a little old school. And often it is distracting. Also, with mobile technology (and some limitations playing multiple audio tracks) it may create some problems playing the way you intend it.
However, there are times where background audio makes sense.
For instance, I like to use background audio to establish some context. It makes sense to have some ambient audio in decision-making scenarios, for example. You can set a tone or create a more immersive experience for the ...
0
comments