Your subject matter expert can be a great training resource. Here’s how to set your SME up for success when delivering training. Do SMEs Make Good Trainers? How many trainers have started out as subject matter experts? Often, recruiting a subject matter expert (SME) to become a trainer is the easiest move a training manager can make. Who would make a better trainer than someone who’s already an expert? Being[…]
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Graphic Designers: Do You Need One on Your Learning Development Team?
The Importance of Having a Graphic Designer on your Learning Development Team Do I need a graphic designer on my learning development team? Yes. Generally, I prefer to weigh the sides of an issue and make a carefully nuanced decision; but when it comes down to it, you need a graphic designer on your team. Of the information transmitted to the brain, 90% is visual. Articles with images get 94%[…]
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Building accessible online courses requires specialized skills—but do all accessible elearning development skills reside in a single role? Manage Accessible Elearning Development by Looking at Processes We talk a lot about making sure that elearning is accessible to all learners. Accessibility, in the context of elearning, means ensuring that people with disabilities (generally related to cognition, mobility, hearing, and vision) experience the course in the same way as those without[…]
READ MORE about Accessibility Expertise: Determining Where It Belongs in Elearning DevelopmentBut What Could *Possibly* Go Wrong? Testing Your Online Course
Testing Your Online Course: How to Evaluate Elearning Functionality before Launching How does testing fit into elearning development? It’s tempting to assume, when an elearning course has been created, that everything will just work. Advancing through the course will perform as expected; when questions are answered, the correct feedback will appear; completion will be properly registered with the user’s account. And yet… Here are some things that I’ve seen go[…]
READ MORE about But What Could *Possibly* Go Wrong? Testing Your Online CourseEmpowering Learning Development Project Managers
Two Types of Power to Move Your Learning Development Project Forward What Does a Project Manager Do, Anyway? We’ve talked about project management quite a bit on our blog, in videos, and in webinars. It’s a topic that contains multitudes. If you’re running a course development team, you need project management to help you develop your course on time, in scope, and within budget. I’d like to take a moment[…]
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The Client Role in Learning Development: How Much Do You Really Need to Be Involved, Anyway? If you engage a learning company to help create training, there’s a temptation to hand off development and then not touch base with the learning company again until the training’s ready to be implemented. Just write the check. What more is needed? Such an approach is…problematic. A client has an essential role—ofttimes several essential[…]
READ MORE about The Indispensable Role of Clients in Learning ProjectsInstructional Designer and Course Developer: One Person or Two?
Why Use Both an Instructional Designer and a Course Developer: Won’t One Person Suffice? Continuing our discussion about roles in a training team, this month we’re looking at the advantages of separating the roles of instructional designer and course developer. It’s pretty common for an elearning development team to have a single person who is responsible for building elearning. They analyze the need for a course, design the course, build the course[…]
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Make Your Course Creation Process Repeatable with Clearly Designated Roles I often say that each person on a learning development team plays a different role. I’ve discussed using a role-based process for creating accessible elearning on our blog; our CEO, Sanjay Nasta, has also described the roles needed in elearning creation. Why Use the Concept of a “Role” When Developing Learning? When creating learning, there are multiple possible roles: one role might[…]
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