I was reviewing an elearning course recently. About twenty screens into the course, I noticed that the developer changed the title font from a solid bold type to one that was curly and much more informal. There was so much contrast to the two titles that I asked why she changed fonts from bold to curly. She responded that the course seemed a little dull at that point, so she decided to add the ...

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It may come as a surprise to you, but there are many people who think that PowerPoint sucks. I know; I know. I was surprised, as well. The other day Mashable featured some Edward Tufte tweets where he blasted the slides from a secret government surveillance program. Of course, his criticism of the slides is spot on. In fact, many of the issues he raises in the tweets and in his books are similar to the issues ...

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A large part of your success hinges on the relationship you have with the course’s subject matter experts. They play a critical role by providing guidance, expertise, and context for much of your course’s content. However, the subject matter experts can also be a source of frustration. Many times they won’t budge when it comes to getting rid of extra information. Or they have their own ideas on how the course should be designed which conflicts with ...

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Here are some answers to questions I get from blog readers. Many of the ideas for my blog posts come from these questions. However, sometimes there are questions that don’t warrant a full post, but may be of interest. So today’s an FAQ post where we look at answers to a few common questions I’ve gotten recently. How to Create an Animated Puzzle in PowerPoint Apparently animated puzzles are the Justin Bieber of online ...

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Many of the blog’s readers are forced to work with limited resources especially when it comes to building the assets for their elearning courses. As many of you have discovered, when working with limited resources we have to MacGyver much of our production. In a recent post on how to create templates for online training, I used the image below. While the image is simple, it is a combination of three graphics ...

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Okay, if an elearning template’s going to rock your world you need to get out of your cubicle and go take a walk outside. Enjoy the life around you. Then come back and finish reading this blog post. I’ll be waiting. Ready? Now that things are in perspective let’s drop the hyperbole and look at what it takes to build the world’s best elearning template. Create a Starter Template Earlier we looked at how to create an ...

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At a recent workshop I was showing someone how I make some of the graphics I use for the blog. As I was showing her an idea, she said that while she already knew the basic steps what she really found valuable was watching me do it and then explain why I did what I did. I think she’s right. It is helpful to not only know how to do something, but to ...

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I get lots of questions about improving skills and becoming better at elearning. Usually people ask about good school programs and book recommendations. Going to school is an option and it may be a good one. However, it’s not always the best option if you really want to learn to build better courses. We debated whether or not you need an instructional design degree to be successful in elearning. Be sure to read through ...

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Templates are great because they provide some structure to the design of your online training. But many times templates become so rigid that instead of helping the training design, they inhibit it. In today’s post we’ll look at ways to build an elearning template that will guide the course design, but leave enough flexibility to create a course that best meets your needs. How are Books and E-Learning Courses Similar? Go ...

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Not all elearning courses are created equal. Some seek to share information and build awareness while others may focus on action or changing behaviors. When building elearning courses, I usually separate them into two buckets: information or performance. The objective of an information-based course is performance support and not performance activity. Think of it more like multimedia text book. It doesn’t teach and assess performance. Instead it provides the context and awareness of important information.  It supports performance ...

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Building an effective online training program requires packaging the right content with the right type of learning experience. However that often doesn’t happen because it’s easier to pull a lot of information together, create some slides, and then publish a course. To top it off, many of these types of online courses are merely repacked content that already exists on the organization’s network. So instead of building a real learning experience, we’re just repurposing existing content. ...

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

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