How do I get started in e-learning? I currently have 15 years experience in the network security world as well as 7 years in traditional education and corporate training. My company is giving me the opportunity to get into e-learning/instructional design. What's the best way to start learning about the field? Should I pursue a degree right away? Are there any books I can read to get my feet wet?
Non-Designer's Design book & Robin Williams' Design Workshop (both by Robin Williams)
Art of Voiceacting by Alburger
But really the best way to learn this stuff (I think) is to actually build elearning and post it here. People will give you a look of helpful advice. You might try to create some content about which you are already quite knowledgeable. Then build a mini-course around it, maybe five slides worth and a few learning activities.
Hope this helps a bit. Feel free to post back or private message me, if you have any other questions. --Daniel
I think a degree would be a waste of time, IMHO. With your extensive background in traditional education, much of the pedagogical aspects of e-learning and ID would already be familiar. I think you may need to shift your perspective to take the "e-" part into account, but I suspect you have a lot of the foundations.
I would recommend books by Richard E. Mayer as a good place to start and get the basics, but other than that I think looking around the web at good courses is the best way. Look around the Articulate community (http://www.articulate.com/community/showcase.php) for inspiration and dissect good courses and work out why their successful.
Other topics to research are:
Good writing and storytelling (Strunk & White "Elements of Style"; Roman & Rapeaelson "Writing That Works" are both benchmarks for good prose);
Instructional Design (there's a TON of free, easily accessible resources out there; both popular and academic);
Graphic Design (again, there's loads of good resources out there);
Industry developments (it's a rapidly changing world out there - read: TInCan API, Constructivist ID methodologies - and learning about industry trends would be a good thing!)
I'm sure there's a lot more that could be said about this, and people may disagree with me about the degree thing. But nevertheless, just my 2 cents!
2 Replies
Hi, Doris and welcome to the community:
Books I've found especially helpful:
But really the best way to learn this stuff (I think) is to actually build elearning and post it here. People will give you a look of helpful advice. You might try to create some content about which you are already quite knowledgeable. Then build a mini-course around it, maybe five slides worth and a few learning activities.
Hope this helps a bit. Feel free to post back or private message me, if you have any other questions. --Daniel
I think a degree would be a waste of time, IMHO. With your extensive background in traditional education, much of the pedagogical aspects of e-learning and ID would already be familiar. I think you may need to shift your perspective to take the "e-" part into account, but I suspect you have a lot of the foundations.
I would recommend books by Richard E. Mayer as a good place to start and get the basics, but other than that I think looking around the web at good courses is the best way. Look around the Articulate community (http://www.articulate.com/community/showcase.php) for inspiration and dissect good courses and work out why their successful.
Other topics to research are:
I'm sure there's a lot more that could be said about this, and people may disagree with me about the degree thing. But nevertheless, just my 2 cents!
Best of luck, Rich
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