The Rapid Elearning Blog. Last week we looked at some of the issues with compliance-based elearning and how taking a different approach to its design can save your organization time and money. While there are many ways to design your elearning courses, today’s post features three simple strategies that will help you meet your certification needs and get your people back to work. You go to a book store and look through the pages of a good book on elearning. MORE

The Rapid Elearning Blog. They commission the elearning courses, pay the bills, and are the ultimate authority for their elearning projects. On the other hand, a demanding customer can negatively impact the elearning course by making demands that don’t fit sound instructional design. The challenge is figuring out how to balance satisfying the client, who can sometimes be misinformed, and getting a good elearning course built. The presentation is fun. MORE

Jesse saw a post where I pointed to slides from a recent presentation and he commented: A PPT slide deck is a horrible way to convey anything significant. How about a link to audio, or better yet something like an Articulate Presenter or Breeze presentation that combines the audio and the slide deck? I would very much be interested in what you had to say in your presentation, but a PDF of the slide deck doesn't do much for me. MORE

The Rapid Elearning Blog. The same principle holds true for elearning. Clear communication is critical when you design your elearning course because what you present isn’t always received by the learner the way you intend it. Here’s a simple illustration of what happens as learners go through an elearning course. The first image below represents a screen from an elearning course on auto maintenance. Social Web. del.icio.us. MORE

The Rapid Elearning Blog. Most PowerPoint templates are designed for standard bullet point presentations. They’re not really designed for elearning courses. This means that you’ll have to create your own templates that work better with the rapid elearning software. Take a look at the image that inspired it and then click the demo link to see my template applied to an elearning course. I usually make four screens for my elearning courses. MORE

The Rapid Elearning Blog. The same can be said for those people who already have existing skills and yet have to go through an "elearning course" before they can be tested. Here’s what his team did to create a more efficient elearning certification process. Of course, this approach doesn’t work for every industry or every elearning course. If you do a lot of regulatory training, now might be a good time to rethink your elearning strategy. MORE

The Rapid Elearning Blog. Almost daily I get emails asking how to get started with developing elearning. Here are five tips that will help you gain experience and develop the skills to build elearning courses that you can be proud of. To be a successful elearning designer means you have to know something about multimedia, graphic design, instructional psychology, and perhaps a little about Web and Flash technologies. The Horton book is one of the best for eLearning. MORE

The Rapid Elearning Blog. By avoiding unnecessary elearning projects, you free your resources to work on those that bring real value. I use a three-tiered approach for elearning design. Make rapid elearning the default approach unless you need more. Build custom elearning pieces that you can drop into your rapid elearning course. Rapid elearning software is very flexible and allows you to add custom content like Flash files or web objects. MORE

Josh Bersin ( @joshbesin ) gave this research-based presentation at LinkedIn’s Talent Connect Conference. Social Bookmarking: Your Favorites Really Want to be Free. Social bookmarking is a better way to save the websites and online resources you want to keep track of. MORE