When I first started designing and producing continuing and refresher education programs for EMTs and Paramedics I jumped right in by applying knowledge I already had about adult education and PowerPoint design.

Along the way through a lot of trial and error I have steadily improved the instructional design process we use. This process includes understanding user needs, writing a lesson script based on objectives, creating visuals that minimize text, and replacing static content with dynamic and interactive learning objects whenever appropriate. I have also been guided by three excellent books: slide:ology, Presentation Zen, and Becoming a Rapid E-Learning Pro.

Almost all of our elearning projects start as a PowerPoint slide deck that is converted to Flash using Articulate Presenter. Two design books that have helped me improve the quality of our PowerPoint slides are:
1. slide:ology: The Art and Science of Creating Great Presentations
2. Presentation Zen: Simple Ideas on Presentation Design and Delivery (Voices That Matter)

A third outstanding resource is the free ebook you receive after subscribing to the Articulate Rapid eLearning Blog by Tom Kuhlmann. His book and weekly blog posts are must reads for any elearning designer. His principles and tips are applicable to elearning in general and not just to Articulate.

Essential Articulate Studio ‘09 has just been published. It is a how-to guide to the ‘09 version of the Articulate products. I have not read it yet, but it is on my to-read list.

What books have guided you as an elearning designer?

Related posts:

1. Articulate Rapid E-Learning Blog
2. Blogs for E-Learning Educators
3. Tips to Use PowerPoint Master Slide

Tags: Articulate, Book, Rapid Elearning

This entry was posted on Thursday, July 2nd, 2009 at 7:00 am and is filed under Rapid E-Learning How To. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.