Reading content on the Internet has changed the way people process information, and nowhere is this change more obvious than in fields where design must adapt to new technology such as in eLearning. eLearning course creators need to refine their content to suit learners’ behavior and accessibility to training. This is where chunking comes into play.

There is a simple way to design effective eLearning courses about any subject: brain-based learning. This instructional approach was defined by Hileman in 2006 and has since inspired many "brain compatible designers" — those who seek to understand the principle and reasoning behind their teaching.

eLearning is a valuable tool in education. Whether the goal is training or professional development, even complete college degrees, eLearning is here and here to stay. This begs the question, how can we ensure that we maximize the potential of those who are engaged in eLearning? Certainly, if there is content we expect people to learn, we want that content to "stick" in their minds and to be something they can recall later. Personalizing learning, which must include making the eLearning more human, is one important way to maximize the potential from eLearning.

eLearning professionals need to raise the bar and reset their expectations if their learners are to consider courses worthwhile. The following ten points are things we have found successful eLearning professionals do differently. We hope they can help developers change their mindsets to create the best courses possible.

Just 15 years ago, eLearning was an experimental way of teaching very technical subjects. Today, educators across all fields use online training to teach just about anything; it would be difficult to find a school or training department that does not incorporate eLearning into its programs in some way.

Let's make a memory exercise and remember biology class. What is a cell? The cell is the basic unit of every living being whether human, animal or plant. We could say that the cell is the beginning of life. 

Today it is almost more likely to find companies pursuing eLearning than it is the traditional course in education. This makes good designers of eLearning programs a necessity. As a designer, you want to be able to stand out from the crowd and become known not as simply a good designer, but as a great one. You want your students to be able to learn and to see that they are progressing and you want to be sought out for your knowledge and skill in designing.

Every eLearning project is different, and comes with a different set of demands. However, when it comes to slide design, there are some best practices that fit all or nearly all situations. Following these basic tips ensures a clear and effective lesson, while still leaving room to customize and add your own personal touch.

What to know before you start: Don't begin an eLearning course without a clear path in mind; like any other effort, planning is key. For that purpose, a storyboard can come in very handy. What's a storyboard?  The term "storyboard" comes from movie production, where creators sketch out a film in a series of still images. An eLearning storyboard is the blueprint of the course, like a lesson plan - except a storyboard doesn't describe just general content, but everything else as well, from graphics to video. Start reading these helpful articles: Storytelling Basics for eLearning by Jane Bozarth 8 Steps for an Awesome Storyboard [Infographic] Best Practices for Designing a Storyboard for eLearning Why do I need one?  Storyboards provide many benefits, of which these are just a few: Sequence instruction and show how different elements relate and fit together; Generate a clear plan for project management; Make sure you, clients, and team members are all on the same page; Document changes and previous ideas.

We’ve all met them. Ask about online courses they’ve taken, and they’ll roll their eyes. Current eLearners are bored and can’t wait for their courses to end. Whoever put together these courses - was it you? - didn’t have the right recipe for eLearner engagement. In the past, most professionals who designed, taught or coordinated eLearning courses needed to understand how learning occurs and a bit about brain-based learning tips resulting from neuroscience research. That’s no longer enough. You need to know the key ingredients required to effectively engage eLearners by engaging their brains.

Here’s a news flash: If you want to be really great at eLearning design, you need to know more than how to come up with an attractive look and content that gets attention. What’s the secret? Becoming savvy about psychology and behavior. Why? Psychology plays an important role in creating content because it’s all about your learner’s emotions and perception. Simply put, as designers, we have to build effective eLearning courses based on needs and emotions to instill feelings in eLearners. Knowing a bit about social patterns doesn’t hurt either. Design Based on Psychology The whole point of taking psychology into consideration is the end product: individuals who are happier and who will probably experience effective eLearning. Take a peek at some thoughts on the psychology of design: "Psychology is the science of behaviour and the mind. When design and behaviour match, the design will be superior." Simon Norris, NOMENSA.  "A great-looking design isn’t always a great working design and often design without psychology is a source of dangerously misapplied effort." Paul Davies  "Designers are actually psychologists who can draw." Paul Davies 

It’s time to enable the social learning mode! When it comes to successful eLearning design, everybody should agree that there’s no such thing as too much information about how the human brain operates. It’s wired for social learning. Our respective environments actually shape our brains and the rest of our bodies. An interesting three-minute video by Paul Burow discusses the application of neuroscience to organizational development. It covers six social learning needs we think can be applied to eLearning. Targeting these needs will result in more effective eLearning courses.

"Training doesn’t help one jot if people can’t remember it in the real world"  —Teresa Ewington Our biggest goal in training is to get students to remember the material. In order to do this more effectively, it helps to understand exactly what causes the mind to forget things. By understanding what makes a person forget, we can incorporate things into our programs that help counteract those causes.  Forgetting is an important function. It helps a human filter out trivial things that would clog the brain and override important information. Forgetting helps ease pain of tragedy and enables a person to continue living without constant sadness. There are times, however, when we not only need to remember, but need to do so at a time when the information is useful. Let's take a look at the five most common reasons your corporate learners forget your training.

You've worked hard and are creating your best eLearning course to date. But do you wonder if people will remember any of the content a few weeks down the road? Fostering effective eLearning requires understanding how memory works. Beyond that, we need to master crucial ways to help learners encode new principles in their brains. This requires a grasp of five premises.

It’s easy for an eLearner to "zone out" when faced with complex course content, especially with limited existing knowledge of a topic. The instructional design challenge is how to explain complex content easily. Start by considering some premises fundamental to eLearning design. A Simple Technique: Identifying Similarities and Differences The objective is creating content that enhances eLearners’ knowledge and ability to use it. Success is their mastery of complex content with a simple technique: using mental processes focused on identifying how items, concepts or ideas are alike and different. That’s important because identifying similarities and differences requires comparing information, compartmentalizing ideas into categories and forging a connection to prior knowledge. Research by educators Marzano et al. found that strategies requiring learners to use comparative thinking upped their achievement by an average percentile gain of 45 points. Plotting comparisons visually is particularly effective. Since the brain is always looking for connections between new concepts and prior knowledge, making comparisons creates more efficient learners.

As our world becomes more media-oriented, it grows increasingly clear that people show a preference for visual information over text. Graphs, diagrams, and other formats are more accessible than a block of text. However, poorly-presented data can do more harm than good. So, when using any of these visualization methods for eLearning, make sure they: are clear and coherent; aren't redundant; add value to learning; aid retention and recall; and, of course, are within the scope of your budget. To get started, here are four main types you can use.

Motivation in eLearning can best be described with a U-shaped curve: novelty and enthusiasm produce high drive at the beginning, but it drops off sharply thereafter, only increasing when the end of the course is in sight. It is up to you to boost and maintain your students' motivation throughout the course, so that they will get the most out of it. Unless they have the motivation to focus and sit through the entire course, they learn nothing at all. Though every student responds differently, here are some fundamental guidelines you can use to keep your learners motivation levels high from that first splash to the finish line.

Is it possible to find a murderer through the analysis of his writings? Imagine you are a detective who faces the search of the murder of a young woman. There are no traces of the crime, only a series of letters the prime suspect has sent to his mother but which does not contain any information that could lead to evidence of any kind. Where would you start looking for clues? This is the problem the protagonist of the film "The Secret in Their Eyes" faces. It took years for a person to analyze and identify that, within the letters, several names are mentioned, apparently unconnected, but referring to players of a famous football team; discovering that this was his passion, the detective then knew where to look.

No matter how good you content is, there are a few factors that can totally kill your eLearning courses. If you are looking to create an effective eLearning design, it is essential to eliminate the following four issues.

It is time to set up a new eLearning course. That sounds simple enough, at least in theory. Sit down, draw up objectives for what the course is expected to convey to students. Get curriculum prepared to meet those objectives. Prepare assessments to determine how effective you were in presenting information to those who participated in the eLearning course. It's not that simple. There is an old saying that "if it was easy to do, then everyone would do it," and the wisdom behind that saying is true for eLearning courses and for presenting information so people actually learn. Students are able to learn best when information is presented in one of several clear and effective instructional design choices. In fact, research has proved that the order and organization of learning activities affects the way information is processed and retained (Glynn & DiVesta, 1977; Lorch & Lorch, 1985; Van Patten, Chao, & Reigeluth, 1986).  Text-Organization EffectThe concept refers to the effects that the structural elements of the course have on the information learners encode and remember. This effect relies on the fact that learners’ comprehension is influenced by the text structure used to convey the information. Moreover, it assumes that our brains like the organization of information, which is why chapters, outlines and sections are highly recommended as an instructional method. To properly organize and sequence content, you’ll first need to consider:  How to use concept or mind-mapping for analyzing content (to determine which concepts build on others and should be presented first, and know how much to include and what to eliminate.) Get to know your learners And...Answer these 7 questions before choosing a structure

When it comes to eLearning content, boring means learners who aren’t engaged. The challenge in designing courses is how to avoid stumbling through a series of hints and still end up with boring content. Here are four tips for effective eLearning course design based on solid data. Stumble no more.

Every learner wants to believe that their teacher is an expert who can give them knowledge they did not know. Realistically, that isn’t enough to keep the learner on task. The world today is full of stimuli that get our attention. Our brains want that same kind of stimulation in a learning setting. This is even truer in eLearning environments. Therefore, eLearning professionals have to find different ways of attracting the eLearner’s attention by varying content delivery, asking challenging questions, giving them new things to think about, and so many other things. Our brains, including the brains of eLearners, are constantly in search of stimulation to catch our focus. They are designed to crave the unexpected. It is that stimulation that will win over the brain’s attention, and if that stimulation isn’t provided, something else off-task will provide it. If there is no stimuli, either from the eLearning content or other outside environmental factors, the learner turns within—and day dreams occur.

When you began to plan your course, you probably never thought of one aspect of eLearning design: the effects of white space. In fact, it’s one of the most overlooked elements in the screen layout of a course. It’s actually a very important component of design. Effective eLearning designs are made by appropiate use of white space, and plenty of it. What Exactly is White Space? It’s sometimes called negative or blank space too. That’s space that appears between elements in any composition. Most of us refer to it as a part of the page or screen that remains blank. It’s space that appears between figures, type or columns. In short, white space is area intentionally left untouched. Its inclusion as part of an effective eLearning design can turn a screen into something very interesting or sophisticated, or both. White space reminds us that simple screen designs can be highly effective and that it’s unnecessary to cram a screen with text and graphics to get a message across. 

Well-design courses are worthless if they can't communicate content effectively to those learning. Truth is, effective communication is actually more challenging to apply especially in designing eLearning .  Optimized eLearning design has the power to motivate students and drive performance. If you are serious about creating effective eLearning courses, it is essential that you follow all four of the following steps to get the right message across to your learners.