E-learning Books

[Azucena Jewels]

Asan eLearning professional it is vital to brush up on basic skills every now and then. That's why in SHIFT we are constantly looking for new books/ eBooks to read and famous classics we may have missed.

Has been called the ultimate resource to beat boring online training. Allen provides us with everything we need to design and develop powerful, engaging and effective courses, weaving real world examples throughout. He gives us practical tips on how-to and when to apply the different techniques. If you are really interested in learning more on what makes good eLearning, or are considering improving your eLearning courseware, we totally recommend it.

An essential read for every Instructional Designer. This book is the one place you can turn to find quick and truly effective design tips. This best seller author highlights the basic principles of good design and helps you take notice of how you can apply them to eLearning design. She provides a guide to creating more sophisticated, interesting and professional designs quickly.

Short and to the point with actionable tips on different topics: making learning stick, effective instructional design and development, managing project costs and time, demonstrating your value, documenting and managing your designs and standards, design for mobile, and personalizing learning. Also a collection of eLearning design-related tips from eLearning professionals with a variety of expertise. You will definitely enjoy reading these valuable nuggets of information!

Have you ever felt like your courses are packed with facts and figures, yet your learners just aren't retaining the information? Why do you think that is? Could it be that the way we're presenting information just isn't sticking?

Are you facing criticism for your company's eLearning courses not being engaging enough? In today's fast-paced work environment, where time is a precious commodity and information overload is a daily challenge, capturing and maintaining your team's attention can be a daunting task. The reality is stark: traditional training methods are no longer effective for a workforce that demands not only knowledge but also relevance and adaptability to fit into their busy schedules. Simply maintaining the 'status quo' in your training approach is no longer sufficient.

In today's landscape, training and development departments are tackling a range of challenges from technological upgrades to creating content that's accessible and engaging for a diverse workforce. This complex landscape is reflective of broader industry trends where the pace of change is not just fast, but accelerating. The Industry at a Glance: According to LinkedIn's 2022 Workplace Learning Report, 64% of learning and development professionals agree that their role has become more challenging compared to just two years ago. This is largely due to the rapid technological shifts and the increasing demand for digital upskilling. A recent Gartner survey highlights that 58% of the workforce needs new skill sets just to keep up with their current job demands, let alone future innovations. The same Gartner study points out that the shift to more remote and hybrid work models has necessitated a complete rethink of traditional training methods. This includes not only the mediums of delivery but also the content itself to ensure inclusivity and engagement across geographies and cultures.

Welcome to REB e-learning platform where a teacher can create a class, create lessons and enroll students to be able to read and do the formative assessments and get feedback automatically, this platform facilitates teachers to detect slow learners and talented learners and help them in their learning activities

I have a client who owns a website that offers very complex, detailed tests to graduate students. He wants to take that content and turn it into eLearnings or online lectures. He's just starting out with this idea so doesn't have much direction on where he wants to go, but this was his initial thought. After talking with him more and discussing the scope of his project, he's now learning this is a much larger project than he initially realized and made the content, "Well maybe I should just take the content and put it into a book."

I'm sure there are many many more. The main things I would be interested in knowing from him is what level of interaction is he looking for and is he interested in tracking/reporting abilities. If he's not, if he just wants a way to give out information, then maybe a book is the best route.

I spent my first 8 years in the business standing in front of students everyday. What I quickly learned is that different people learn in different ways. You can go even further to say that an individual will absorb different topics in different ways. It may seem like common sense, but it didn't really hit me how much weight this concept has until I was living it every day.

I'm able to learn by reading and since I'm that way I made the assumption that everyone was that way. So, I would stand in front of my students, spew forth a fountain of wisdom (I'm sure they would recant the experience a bit differently) and then say, "OK, go do it!", meaning go complete the exercise. They would sit there with blank stares as if they had little concept as to what I had just told them. This became a big source of frustration for me. How can you not know what to do when I just spent the last 30 minutes explaining it to you?

It wasn't until I realized that I was the weird one that I really was able to become a truly effective instructor. Most people don't learn from hearing, reading or even seeing...they learn by doing. Most people learn by the application of knowledge. It's my belief that most people can understand ideas, concepts and philosophies through the reading of texts, but they don't truly learn until they can apply the information.

So, I guess it comes down to what is the subject, who is the audience and what is the expectation? Do you want me to learn all about the philosophical teachings of Plato? I can probably get a good understanding of that by curling up with a book. Now, if you want me to apply those philosophies, then I would greatly benefit from some scenarios and contextual application exercises.

My husband is a programmer. He can read a manual and walk away able to do it. All I get from reading is a general comprehension. If I want to retain anything, I have to take it step by step and sit there and DO it, add the steps together and repeat. Then if I don't do it again the next day I lose it.

Plus when I read Christina's post and see "very complex and detailed" (and I'm guessing also "long"), I don't know how well that will translate into eLearning. There is always a way, but it does sound like a very large project scope. If the client is just looking for a way to transfer his knowledge to others, whether or not they get it enough to use it may not be the concern.

Christina, have your conversations with him given you any insight into what the end result is supposed to be? It may be easier to find resources/stats on a specific outcome. (ie ability to comprehend, ability to retain, apply, etc.)

I'm like Rich. I learn by reading, synthesizing and validating through texts and nuanced interactions with created context and exploration of tasks on my own. It baffles me that others don't learn the same way. But, yeah... folks like me ARE the weird ones. Learn by do and by application is the best way to clarify processes and concepts for most of the learners I've encountered. Small failures and accomplishments mean much more than text to most folks. These become the anchors as many folks have trouble visualizing performance of tasks they've never attempted. The first-timer's barrier is seriously distracting - there's nothing to scaffold up the experience.

That said, I think there's a good compromise that offers interaction opportunities across the progressive load scale (motor, sensory, cognitive, emotional) while providing a reasonable container for oodles of support content. Thinking of each topic as an element and breaking the element down into subelements on a single page you create opportunities and direction (top to bottom) in a text / article while still providing other interaction opportunities to share a story, explore an illustration or complete an activity.

I'm doing some work on a responsive framework that works similarly to the link above. It weaves in activities, videos, audio clips and other media to be presented inline and in context with article content. All on one page for one topic but filterable to the participant's liking and tuned based on the platform the learner is accessing the experience from. I'm calling it the ActiveTutorial framework. I think simple assemblies like this that suppress the fog of "next" while still providing control to those that want smaller doses is the way to go in more cases than the standard dogmatic e-learning presentation style.

I think studies show that only 10% of students learn from reading. That leaves 90% of your audience in the dark. Reading is not always engaging and of course not all eLearning courses are engaging. Design is critical to attain true engagement. I am not talking about clicking a button either, I mean inviting the learning to think for themselves. Depending on your audience (engineers, lawyers), reading may not cover the broad spectrum of learning styles. As suggested by others, well designed eLearning use blended mediums to engage the learner.

Christina - it may be useful to frame the discussion as "and" instead of "or". Does he have to choose? Is he open to thinking of a multi-faceted solution? Don't get too sucked into the effectiveness of one delivery model over another, I think it's a distraction. Instead, focus on goals and instructional strategy.

At Solutions Fest 2013, I demonstrated how to easily build a really cool showcase of e-learning examples with Articulate Storyline. I first created a bookshelf, and then I filled it with images of book covers linked to various e-learning courses.

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