So you're going to start a new eLearning program? Are you apprehensive about getting buy-in from the stakeholders, developing the team, communicating and leading the program? Then here are some time-tested tips to significantly reduce the time you get your project onboard, minimizing risky surprises, and successfully closing the project.

A sudden cut on eLearning budget can generate a panic storm for the project lead. It bars access to choices — tools, resources, the types of content that can be created, and the work that can be outsourced to speed up the process. And hence, the actual time available for completing it. If you are in such a pinch, then know this: IT IS POSSIBLE to create quality eLearning courses on a shoe-string budget.  It’s a matter of prioritizing your efforts, focusing the core learning objectives and deliverables, planning ahead, using toolkits, and reusing content. Here is a five-step process for delivering quality eLearning courses on a shoe-string budget.

The best eLearning designers are the ones that consistently hone their style and look to make their skills even tighter. Fortunately, this doesn’t require a drastic overhaul of your existing knowledge base nor does it mean taking time-consuming classes that reteach things you might already know. In this blog  post, we will show you some handy exercises to keep your eLearning course design skills sharp as a jungle cat’s reflexes. A jungle cat sitting at a computer desk anyway, but I digress. With these easy exercises, you will see your eLearning courses begin to improve quickly and continuously. Read on to find out how a single month of simple tasks can make you a better designer.

As an eLearning course designer, you will often encounter clients who don’t have the time or budget to do an assessment before beginning training. Some clients may simply feel they already know what their employees need.  However, like with many scenarios, a skipped step today ends up costing way more in the long run. Training without asking the right questions is prone to give too much training, too little or just completely wrong training.  While there is a variety of constraints pushing clients and you to rush the process, there are three much worse things that can happen when you skip the training needs analysis. 

Finding a tool that makes your job as an instructional designer even a little easier is kind of like finding fairy dust to sprinkle over your projects. Bibbity bobbity done! That’s how it feels, so why is it so hard to remember to save these tools for future use? I cannot count how many times I have found a great app only to draw a blank as to what was it called or how to found it when I need it again. Here I present to you some of our favorite bookmarked websites and tools to make our eLearning design job easier.  Save them all or just bookmark this article for all future eLearning design magic.

As eLearning designers, we have to understand adult learning psychology to create courses that appeal to them and make them want to learn what you want to teach. But there is a challenge. Most adult learners are anxious about being able to adapt to and perform in a virtual learning environment. They also harbor negative attitudes about eLearning (due to bad courses they’ve taken in the past).  We have to overcome these obstacles by giving the learner compelling reasons to take our courses. We have to get inside their minds and break the code: What motivates them to learn and what holds them back?  

You know something’s wrong with the eLearning courses that you are offering if: The reports are dripping in bad news. The results are screaming "drop-outs" and "low retention." Your employees are not showing significant improvement in the performance that was expected of them. Their morale is down.  The negative stats are congealing like clots in your revenue stream. It’s "Death by PowerPoint presentation" all over again. You know you have your scapegoats: Tight deadlines, the shoestring budgets, highly technical content that needed to be communicated, and even the bad managers who had not properly bought into the eLearning strategy and were forcing the employees to take up the courses. Buy you know that it was more than that.  Your course failed to engage the audience. Hence, they have gained a bad reputation.  In this post, we'll go over the main reasons that have given your eLearning courses a bad reputation. 

This article by Doug Howard in Training Industry Magazine aptly sums up the hot trends that have dominated the HR industry this year. We believe that some of these trends should also be picked up and implemented by learning and development professionals next year too. After all, we design for employees; it helps if we know what motivates them to perform better at the workplace and how we can keep them hooked to the courses that training managers and the C-suite commission spend thousands of dollars on to create. Here are 3 growing HR trends training managers and L&D professionals can't ignore next year. By following these, you are addressing these needs of the modern learner.

How often have you groaned at the thought of attending yet another training session that you didn’t need? How often have you wondered "Why am I here" while going through an eLearning course and struggling not to doze off? Trust that your employees are rational adults who know what is good for them. So if you are wondering whether they appreciate the training you make them go through, then make sure that you deliver it when your employees need it, NOT when you want them to take it. Below are six signs that your employees need training, now:

E-learning is gaining momentum. Over 40% of Fortune 500 companies use eLearning as a form of employee training. Nearly 50% of college students are enrolled in online courses. And eLearning is growing at an incredible rate. As of 2014, it was a $56.2 billion dollar industry with expectations of that amount to double by the end of this year. With so many courses out there and so much demand, what makes one eLearning course stand out from the rest? Writing an awesome course can bring in stellar reviews and earn you more students on your next round. But writing incredible eLearning content isn't just about having good writing skills. Creating realistic expectations for your students, setting goals, engaging participants with awesome multimedia content slides, giving them activities to practice their mastery, checking their retention often with knowledge checks and tying the content into real-life scenarios - all contribute to building a solid course. Here are seven things to get you started on your way to becoming an eLearning course developer: