Dump the Drone available for download
The “Dump the Drone” slideshow presents quick ideas that can perk up your elearning. Some of you have seen the show on my main site, but now I’ve posted it on Slideshare. This means you can easily embed the slideshow in your own site like I’ve done here or download it as a colorful PDF.
Topics:
- What makes online courses boring
- How to create compelling characters and stories
- Ideas for adding “safe” humor
- How to tighten flabby text
- The best uses for readability analysis
You’re free to use the slideshow in your internal training as long as the attribution page (last slide) is included. The slideshow isn’t available for commercial use (for example, don’t charge for it) and it can’t be used to demonstrate vendors’ products.
The slides are from a talk I gave at an eLearning Guild conference. I’ve tacked some navigation options onto the version on my main site, but it’s still a slideshow, not a course. The concepts from Dump the Drone will be expanded and made interactive on the Elearning Blueprints site.
on January 29th, 2008 at 2:24 pm
THANK YOU!!!
on January 30th, 2008 at 3:35 am
hey, Cathy I was sad to see so less people commented even though most of them would have found this beautiful.
Cathy, this was simple and useful. Thumbs up!!
P.S: About me: I am an instructional designer in India. I blog about rather personal and social issues. I have been subscribing to your blog for few months now. I must say, I have been a lurker. Apologies, but I enjoy reading your blog.
on January 30th, 2008 at 10:25 am
Thanks! I have my first meeting on Friday with a review team. They’re going to look at the first few lessons I’ve created for my new course and give me feedback. I might show this to them first so they’ll know what I’m aiming for!
Julie
on February 6th, 2008 at 5:19 pm
Thank you so much for this.
I was re-reading Robert Schank’s “Lessons in Learning, e-Learning and Training”, and I have to say that “Dump the Drone” is a pretty good complement to the ideas that his text evoked in me.
Like Poonam says, this was simple and useful.
on February 7th, 2008 at 3:06 am
Hi Cathy,
This blog is really great! Love this particular post — I’m working right now with a group of courseware and media developers to improve our elearning, and I’m going to share this blog with them.
on May 28th, 2008 at 8:47 pm
[...] see when you check out the preliminary program. I’ll give a half-day workshop on how to Dump the Drone and will participate in the Women’s Blog [...]
on October 7th, 2008 at 5:04 pm
[...] Unfortunately, a lot of elearning ends up in the 40-something “Suits” category thanks to corporate drone. [...]
on October 8th, 2008 at 1:18 am
[...] This is important not just for courses, but for documentation and specifications, too; no one likes to read what Cathy calls “corporate drone.” [...]
on October 15th, 2008 at 10:44 am
[...] today I found a great article by Cathy Moore called Dump the Drone. While the article is based on the production of elearning courses the same principles can be [...]
on January 27th, 2009 at 4:48 am
[...] Moore’s Dump the Drone presentation is a good example of the type of presentation a client might ask you to convert and [...]
on January 28th, 2009 at 1:26 pm
Hi,
I too have been reading your blog for quite some time but never responded. Please forgive me…..The information in your bloggings has been valuable to me. I’m one who does a lot of work in PowerPoint and even did my final project for my Masters in D.E. on best practices in ppt.
Keep up the good work – and I certainly plan to keep reading and applying posted suggestions.
on January 28th, 2009 at 4:46 pm
My best regards.
You don’t know how much I liked those ideas, it’s so true, so fine, so clever, so concise, I just can say “Thanks for what you have done”.
on January 29th, 2009 at 12:27 am
Hi Cathy,
Very good ideas, very useful to users who are bombarded every time with lots of text. Sorry for using “who”!!! This blog is a good lesson for lazy instructional designers. They have to apply mind to make the PPT content into more interesting instead of putting the PPT as it is coming from SME.
on February 1st, 2009 at 1:50 pm
Hi Cathy,
love your suggestions. I think they apply to learning in general, not only e-learning.
Thanks for sharing.
on February 11th, 2009 at 11:04 pm
[...] PowerPoint en un curs d’aprenentatge Em fa molt de goig la presentació de Cathy Moore, Dump the Drone (abandona el “rotllo”). (S’assembla als consells – per – a – periodistes, que llegia en els anys 80s, però [...]
on February 19th, 2009 at 7:41 pm
[...] Unfortunately, a lot of elearning ends up in the 40-something “Suits” category thanks to corporate drone. [...]
on February 26th, 2009 at 9:11 am
Excellent information providing what I needed exactly when I needed it. The seemingly random chain of events that put your slides in front of my face can only be described as “synchronicity gone wild” (Twilight Zone theme plays softly in background.)
Great stuff and amazing timing.
Many thanks.
on August 5th, 2009 at 6:35 pm
[...] Here’s a link on bad powerpoint: Seth Godin http://sethgodin.typepad.com/seths_blog/2007/01/really_bad_powe.html and one on good: http://presentationzen.blogs.com/presentationzen/2005/09/whats_good_powe.html. Another great resource that you can look at is: http://blog.cathy-moore.com/2008/01/dump-the-drone-available-for-download/ [...]
on September 9th, 2009 at 12:00 pm
Hi! I was surfing and found your blog post… nice! I love your blog.
Cheers! Sandra. R.
on November 9th, 2009 at 9:11 pm
Great blog! Sadly, even though we hired an instructional designer to create an e-learning module for us, here I am, 8 at night, looking up helpful hints on creating an engaging module because what we have gotten from her so far has been disappointing.
on November 16th, 2009 at 10:00 pm
[...] keynote speaker and leading Instructional Designer, Cathy Moore, will show you how to ‘Dump the drone’ and create engaging and effective online [...]
on December 14th, 2009 at 8:44 am
Brilliant! Mandatory stuff for anyone using Powerpoint for any purpose. I assess all presentations that pass by my desk using the “Less is Moore” principles.