In today’s fast-changing environment and fast-paced lifestyle, technology has continually enabled us to keep up. It made our daily activities faster and more efficient; trade and commerce more fluid; and communication easier despite distance, among other things. However, technology’s greatest impact is on knowledge and information sharing, that with just a single click, the Internet can provide you with the data you are looking for. You need to share important documents to someone a hundred miles away in an instant? There’s e-mail. Sending over huge files? Not a problem with Airdrop, or WeTransfer, or Shareit.

As eLearning designers, we must all deal with dull, insipid content that brings out the yawns, both in you and the learners. And then there are those complex, technical topics that leave you and the learners overwhelmed. These are the topics you dread to tackle and your learners, loathe to go through. Yet, the onus is on you to create swashbuckling courses out of such dreary content. You must not only make learners sit through a course with such dull or complex content but also ensure they leave the training room wiser, more knowledgeable, and armed with a new skill.

Digital technologies are making a tremendous impact on the global economy, demanding workers with extremely specialized and high-level skill sets. Such technology is growing and changing so rapidly that colleges, universities and other traditional education systems can no longer meet the demand for such highly qualified staff. The difference between the skills employers need and those offered by job seekers only seems to be growing. As this skills gap continues to expand, employers must look outside of academia for the solutions they need. eLearning, or using electronic media such as the Internet to access educational content outside of a traditional classroom setting, has the potential to transform workplace education. By providing more easily accessible and targeted training on a changing array of in-demand skills, e-learning might be just THE thing your company needs.

Author Ken Poirot once wrote: “Wise people understand the need to consult experts; only fools are confident they know everything.” As wise Instructional Designers, it behooves you to accept the fact that you will not always know everything about the topic that you are about to design and develop a course for. As a result, you’ll likely need to consult Subject Matter Experts (SMEs) on specific topics. While these experts may not be aware of the pedagogical pre-requisites of successful learning content, their inputs can be invaluable in providing you with the actual content for your eLearning courses. However, meetings with SMEs need to be planned and conducted with a defined strategy to meet specific objectives.

"The obvious advantage of the blended learning solution is that learning becomes a process rather than an event" Caroline Gray There are a number of definitions of Blended Learning, but all of them have some common elements. They describe Blended Learning as initiatives that: Include a combination of approaches, technology-driven as well as conventional (face-to-face) Contain a mix of medium – video, audio, in-person lectures, etc. Combine multiple pedagogical approaches, such as behavioral, constructivism and cognitive, to produce desired learning outcomes

To many, the entrepreneurial lifestyle is unendingly alluring. Boasting authority, prestige, and nearly limitless potential, successful entrepreneurs seem to have it all. Yet, before you can decide to become an entrepreneur, you should have an idea of the type of business you will build and manage. Fortunately, we have an awesome business idea for you already: eLearning. Thanks to the convenience and effectiveness of online courses, the eLearning industry has exploded in popularity in recent years. More people than ever are looking to better themselves through online training, so entrepreneurs in this field will find an ever-growing audience of excited and engaged consumers. However, before you jump into eLearning with both feet, you should learn a bit more about the past, present, and future of the industry.

Elearning design is one those jobs that allow working from home. If you have a wifi connection, you’re pretty much good to go. Also, working from home can be an amazing experience that really does allow you to get more done for yourself and your clients or employers. Studies have shown that you can be even more productive working from home. Harvard Business Review’s study on productivity in telecommuting situations reported a more than 13% increase in productivity when workers switched to homeworking. That being said, there are still some mistakes, and pitfalls telecommuting eLearning designers can fall into. To help them make the most of their time from home, we’ve compiled the best advice on what you’ll need to get started working from home along with insider advice on getting stuff done and staying sane (based on our own experience).

An online search for design tools for eLearning will produce more results than you can shake a digital stick at. And while it’s great to have variety, this level of choice can be overwhelming and possibly expensive depending on the tools you try out. To make things easier on eLearning designers, we’ve compiled a list of some of our favorite free and low-cost tools that are worth keeping in your virtual toolbox. Read on for over two dozen tools to make your eLearning courses better, faster and more engaging: