5 Ways to Tell Stories in eLearning

Training professionals promote storytelling as a way to engage learners and relay tacit knowledge. Although storytelling is a skill that many inherently possess, instructional designers often struggle to incorporate stories into eLearning lessons. This article describes five approaches to designing a story into eLearning.

Read Full Post »

What Can eLearning Learn from “7 Ways Video Games Reward the Brain?”

Inspired by Tom Chatfield’s TED talk, this article recaps his ideas about how video games engage and motivate players. The piece offers specific ideas for applying these principles to the instructional design of eLearning.

Read Full Post »

Tips for Traveling with a Guide in Morocco

Traveling with a guide for part or all of a visit to Morocco offers observations that even the most adept travelers are unlikely to experience through independent exploration. This article lists tips (and advantages) for getting those most out of traveling with a guide.

Read Full Post »

Brainstorming for eLearning: Rules of Brainstorming

The ideas that emerge from a group brainstorming session can be startlingly clever. If you’re working to identify the optimal instructional approach for a lesson, gather a few peers together and spend an hour kicking around ideas. This article explains the benefits of brainstorming and lists a few basic rules that help ensure a productive and inspiring brainstorming session.

Read Full Post »

Develop Yourself in Addition to Training

Though instructional designers make a living by helping organizations develop their people, many may struggle to find opportunities to develop themselves. This article describes five sources of professional development opportunities, including specific examples and resources for getting started.

Read Full Post »

6 Techniques that Stimulate Recall in eLearning

Prompting learners to recall existing knowledge on a topic during training helps them to connect newly learned information to what they already know. This article explains the importance of this step and suggests six methods for accomplishing it.

Read Full Post »

Personal Post: Offline for Three Weeks to Explore Morocco

I’ve spent the past three weeks mostly unplugged and backpacking through Morocco with my husband for our honeymoon over our one-year wedding anniversary.

Our journey included imperial cities, rural valleys, Sahara Desert camping, laid-back coastal port towns, and dining in the homes of local families. And now that I’m back, I’m eager to share my experiences with curious readers.

More to come…

Read Full Post »

7 Habits of Highly Effective Instructional Designers

This article applies Stephen Covey’s seven habits of highly effective people to the craft of instructional design. It includes reflections on the profession’s best practices such as anticipating business needs, conducting cause analyses, closing performance gaps, and working with subject matter experts.

Read Full Post »

7 Techniques to Capture Attention in eLearning

Whether you’re a seasoned instructional designer or someone who passed a high school speech class once upon a time, you can probably appreciate the need to gain your audience’s attention before presenting information. Many theorists have written about the importance of gaining and maintaining learners’ attention, and this article describes seven strategies for doing just that.

Read Full Post »

Personal Post: Offline and Roadtripping for Two Weeks

Like many online networking addicts, I’m rarely offline for more than a couple of days at a time. If you’re in this club, you can probably imagine how disconnected (yet liberated) I feel after being offline for two weeks! I’ve just returned from roadtripping with my husband from Idaho to Wisconsin and back…camping, visiting friends [...]

Read Full Post »