Archive for Instructional Design Tips

The Advantages of eLearning

Jan 05, 2010 1 Comment by

I came across this article and thought it listed some nice advantages of eLearning. Have a read! The Advantages of eLearning The Advantages of eLearning By Karen L. Jones Technology has revolutionized business; now it must revolutionize learning. In the 21st century, people have to learn more than ever before. Especially for global organizations, live [...]

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Course Tests Do We Even Need Them?

Jan 04, 2010 1 Comment by

“We test because we have to test.” (Comment by Gary Wise on one of my LinkedIn discussions, “What Should a Passing Score Be?”.) That got me thinking about why I’ve put tests in some of my courses and what functions they serve. Below are some questions that ran through my head. I’ve also put down [...]

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Training Prison! (Can we free them?)

Dec 22, 2009 No Comments by

The other morning I was sitting in the office and got a text message from a friend. Basically it said, “I’m in class right now…dieing of boredom.” (This was at about 8:45am) Another text later said, “It’s a tax class. Even worse there is someone from the IRS speaking.” This was mandatory training and he [...]

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Really…Were These the Best Images We Could Find?

Dec 17, 2009 1 Comment

JOIN THE CRUSADE…NO MORE CHEESY, ANIMATED CLIPART! How many times have you seen images like these? Images are an important part of online courses. The trick is that the images we use must enhance the instructional qualities of the content. The images must also look professional and give the learner confidence that the material is [...]

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Free eLearning Storyboards

Dec 15, 2009 No Comments

I ran across free storyboard templates on TheELearningCoach.com and thought that I share them with you. Connie has created a Storyboard Depot: “These storyboard templates have been donated by the eLearning community for you to download and use for projects. There are a variety of types so you can pull features from one and add [...]

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Is Classroom Training More Credible than Online Training?

Dec 09, 2009 7 Comments

Recently at a round-table discussion about eLearning in the Commercial Lending industry an interesting point surfaced periodically: “Why is classroom training perceived as being more credible than online training?” I think that this varies a bit by industry (and commercial banking is not known to be pioneers in the latest technology) but many people believe [...]

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Knowledge vs. Information Which is it?

Dec 08, 2009 11 Comments

Is there a difference between Knowledge and Information? As training professionals are we sharing information, teaching knowledge, or both? Last week I was discussing Commercial Lending training with various designers from financial institutions and someone mentioned how we aim to give knowledge not information. The comment made me start to think about how courses are [...]

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10 Design Standards to Create Better eLearning!

Nov 23, 2009 5 Comments

If you’re thinking about creating eLearning courses you’ve probably started to think about standards. eLearning content needs to follow standards just like classroom manuals and material. When content is standardized it makes it easier for the learner to understand and quickly process the content. They stop noticing inconsistencies and focus on what you’d really like [...]

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Which is Best Classroom vs Online Training?

Nov 18, 2009 7 Comments

eLearning is better than classroom training! Ok…I’m just being sarcastic. eLearning is actually just different than classroom training. They both have their pros and cons. I want to list a few areas that are positive “pros” for eLearning. Geography At times you need to train people that are dispersed geographically. They may be in various [...]

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Creating Flash Templates for eLearning

Nov 04, 2009 No Comments

We’ve been building a lot of eLearning Flash templates lately and I started to think what I’ve learned that I might be able to share. Lots of people like to use templates to start a project. It speeds up development time and can help new users build some great content without having to know how [...]

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Quick Scavenger Hunts in Articulate

Jul 15, 2009 No Comments

Let your learners find their own answers…send them on a scavenger hunt! You can use Articule to quickly do this or just do it in PowerPoint. Building this is not hard. Scavenger hunts are a good way to let a learner explore an internal or external site and while looking for specific information. I’ve used [...]

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SCORM LMS Headaches

Mar 25, 2009 6 Comments

Well, SCORM is basically the only way that vendor courses are communicating now-a-days. AICC seemed so simple and it always worked on our LMS. I know that those who are really into this “course communication method stuff” will have many reasons why SCORM is so much better. That’s fine and they are probably right. However [...]

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Graphics: Adding Reflections

Mar 23, 2009 1 Comment

A popular graphics effect used today is adding a reflection to a logo/graphic. This technique adds some depth to the image and ultimately, makes it more engaging. There are multiple techniques to create this…here is one way using Adobe Photoshop. Step 1 Make a copy of the object that you want to add a reflection [...]

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