What is Instructional Design Software?
If we can build slideshows in PowerPoint and record videos on YouTube, why do we need separate software to create training? Clearly, such programs like Captivate and Articulate when used in conjunction with your LMS offer more than simply the opportunity to generate attractive, engaging lessons. You can also create quizzes and keep track of […]
The Ultimate Cheat Sheet to Build Online Training
Every organization needs to produce employee training that only they have the knowledge to create. This means you can’t find it on the Internet, you can’t license it from a third party, and you can’t ask someone outside your organization to do it for you. Someone inside your company has to do it. What falls […]
How Fast-Growing Companies Leverage Technology to Make Training More Effective
After reading and watching many articles and videos about the disruption in corporate learning and development space, I started thinking, “how do small to medium sized businesses (SMB) make sense of all of this”? Do SMBs really think, “Gee, I really need to understand all of the strategies being discussed by corporate L&D experts before […]
Great Learning Design Leads to Great Performance on the Job
Last week, I attended an intriguing conference at Bloomsburg University in Pennsylvania sponsored by the Instructional Technology department. Before the event, I surveyed the attendees to find out their most pressing problems in training. Vying for the top spot was that training does not result in the desired job performance. Ouch. Programs like the one […]
5 Signs You Should Invest in Instructional Design
Ask anyone who develops or delivers training and they will tell you that training does not solve all your performance problems. Sometimes a performance issue is related to something else like your incentive program, the corporate culture, personal motivation, and corporate leadership style. If you’ve eliminated all these other performance hurdles and have decided that, […]
A Tale of 36 Instructional Designers
Here’s a tale of 36 instructional designers, one instructional design position and what separated the winner from the also-rans. One training design company had a competition for a single instructional design position. It had 36 applicants, all of whom said they had a background in designing corporate training. They had resumes to prove it. The […]
Why Writing Learning Objectives Are Critical to Instructional Design
We all need objectives for our projects. Learning objectives are basically the essence of your course’s goal, as they describe what you want your learners to achieve after completing it. Therefore, when the learning objectives for learning projects are unclear — or worse, generic — so is the purpose of your online course. Your learners will […]
Why You Need to Use Rapid Prototyping in Instructional Design
Though instructional designers follow tried-and-true models and processes to build courses, the complexities of today’s work environment often wreak havoc on the most disciplined approaches. As such, to ensure that all stakeholders get a good idea of how the learning course will turn out right at the outset, instructional designers should consider rapid prototyping. Rapid […]
Is Instructional Design Dead?
Hardly. Instead, instructional design now encompasses more than simply building courses. Organizations struggle to deliver learning. Due to the scale and speed that are needed to skill up their current employees, companies often take the easy way out, usually with informal learning or pre-packaged courses. These practices challenge the implementation of disciplined, academic-based, and proven processes […]
The Importance of a Learning Blueprint Design
Instructional designers often keep to proven, academic-based design principles. But the project management side of design is just as impactful when it comes to the creation of effective learning programs. Many of the pain points and bottlenecks that occur during training design can be traced back to ineffective project management during the front end development […]