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Helpful ideas. Squeaky value.
Helpful ideas. Squeaky value.
Everything about creating online training and courses, from the thinking behind good instruction to the tools and tricks used to build it.
Knowing something and being able to use it are different things. If your course needs learners to make better decisions, not just pass a quiz, the design has to go further than a content dump.
Pitching a new course design to a client is tough when they only know the click-and-read format. This post walks through a simple three-option demo that gets them to see, and choose, a better approach.
Most bad courses don't come from bad design. They come from skipping one question before you start building. This post walks through how to ask it, using a real case study about a monument and bird poop.
Most learning objectives end up as vague statements that look good on a slide but don't actually guide course design. There's an easier way to write them — one that keeps your course focused on what learners need to do, not just what they need to know.
Locked course navigation is one of the most common e-learning frustrations, and it usually comes from good intentions gone wrong. This post breaks down why courses get locked and offers three practical ways to give learners more control without sacrificing your objectives.
Reality TV competitions have more to teach you than you'd think. From taking criticism to giving better feedback, here are five lessons from shows like Top Chef and Project Runway that can make you a sharper e-learning designer.
Spending months on needs analysis before building a single thing is its own kind of failure. Here's how to find the right level of analysis for each project.
Look at the best-designed websites in any creative field. Many of them use handwritten fonts alongside clean typography because the combination feels personal. Here's how to bring that same approach into your e-learning courses.
You've probably worked with a subject matter expert who knew everything about a topic but couldn't explain it in a way a new learner could follow. That's not a knock on them. Teaching is a different skill from knowing, and most SMEs have never been trained to do it.
Every training request doesn't need to become a course. Here are three techniques for saving time and money while still delivering real value to your learners.
The ROI question comes up at every training conference. But the real challenge isn't calculating a number — it's knowing how to show that your work matters. Here are three approaches that actually work in practice.
The question I get asked often is "What font are you using?" It's almost always asked when I've used a handwritten font. That's not a coincidence.
Working with subject matter experts is one of the most challenging parts of building e-learning. The goal isn't to capture everything they know. It's to help them surface what learners actually need.
I asked a group of people to describe their training experiences. The same words kept appearing: boring, irrelevant, and a waste of time. That response is uncomfortable, but it's also a roadmap.
Your client wants 20 slides. Your SME insists on 50. But the learner never looks at the slide counter. The real question isn't how many screens a course has. It's whether those screens help learners do something they couldn't before.
