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This slideshow is an attempt to help people make the best of a limiting design. Regular readers know that I’m no fan of the Next button. (Are you new here? Try Why you really want to be short or Visual menus: Structure with style).

Thanks to Erik Wallen–his comment on Is a course really the answer? inspired this slideshow.

What did I leave out? What are your favorite ways to liven up linear learning?

(You can download a PDF of the slide show here.)

Include social media in your learning: In his short, lively ebook on Learning 2.0, Jeff Cobb explains why we’re moving away from the teacher-centric approach and includes several examples showing how organizations are using social medial like podcasts.

Have your staff create and share mini job aids, says Michele Martin in this blog post. She recommends the use of Jing and similar easy, free screencasting services to create quick, casual aids.

Get inspired by learners’ Post-it® notes: Tom Kuhlmann points out that the job aids learners create for themselves can help you focus your elearning materials. A healthy discussion ensues in the comments.

Photo ©iStockphoto/peepo

Which of the following requests do you hear more often?

1. “Please help us find the best instructional approach.”
2. “Please put this material online and make it look good.”

If you hear B more often than A, you’re not alone. I posed this question to participants in the eLearning Guild’s recent online forum, and most people chose B.

One participant was asked to “put lipstick on the pig” (from the idiom, “You can put lipstick on a pig but it’s still a pig.”).

“Our term is the ‘make it pretty’ people,” another participant said.

Cosmeticians on strike!

Some existing materials can go online and be effective with only some tweaking. Often, however, existing materials need more than cosmetics–they need surgery. How can we convince stakeholders of that?

Here are four ideas, but I’ll need your help to find more solutions.

1. Focus on activities, not information (more…)