Expanding Knowledge of eLearning design and technology

You may have already seen these. But here's where I'd start:

• Presentation Zen
• Presentation Zen Design
• The Presentation Zen Way DVD
• slide:ology
• Graphics for Learning
• Visual Language for Designers (you can find some great stuff on Connie's site as well)
• Better than Bullet Points

And while not directly related to presentations, Universal Principles of Design is one of my favorites for explaining design principles. It's a bargain book at the moment ($12).

For training, you might want to try getting a half or full-day workshop on a focused topic to kickstart your learning. Then moving to online resources to acquire basic and intermediate skills. In my experience, you'll only get a basic level of exposure from college courses (maybe it's the instructors I've had). These courses aren't terrible, but you might learn far faster on your own.

These are great resources for learning things like Photoshop online. In addition to working through the tasks in Photoshop or another tool, these often expose peripheral behaviors that can help you in situations outside of the tool (a layout / composition decision is a layout / composition decision - in Photoshop, Powerpoint, in a camera lens, on a giant sheet of paper, or whatever tool you might be using):

• Lynda.com
• Net tutes+

There are several magazines available that offer constant streams of enrichment (neat reading and entertaining as well):

• Layers magazine
• Design Today

Steve, got all my book reccommendations, also reccommend the the presentation zen site, and slideshare is a good place to get inspiration from

This is a pretty neat list of resources. 60+ educational resources to teach yourself anything.

I spent a little time digging into these resources and there are some relevant trail heads in that sea of links. A little digging turned up this set of handouts and slides from the University of Edinburgh. A couple of relevant topics (and a few not-so relevant) in that set. This one from University of Notre Dame might also hide some gems in the course materials. This one from MIT Open Courseware as well as this one that focuses on brain and cognitive sciences both look like treasure troves of free goodness. Utah state offers small assortment of Instructional Technology Courses in their open courseware section.

While not completely relevant, I think this is a dynamite way to learn the basics of programming Javascript.

Great thread folks! (as always)

As for suggestions to speed up the curve, I find that need speeds up my own learning curve.  There is so much info out there - tough to digest it all.  I prefer to learn the very basics and then learn specifics as I need them.

That's where screenrs and blogs come in handy.

Hey Katie. It might be a good idea to read this paper on creating presentations with Prezi. It's a great website and it's really easy to use. I'm not that tech savvy either, but I was able to crate some quality presentations really quickly. If that doesn't help and you'd still like to consider taking a class to help, check out my website, adulteducationclasses.org. You might even be able to find an online class that will help. Good luck!