Elearning?
December 30, 2010 11:02 AM Subscribe
How can I learn to create elearning products?
More background: I currently write in depth articles for medical education companies about various diseases, and those companies sell the article to pharma companies, which are then used to train sales people. I think this information could be far more interactive (why read a 60+ page article, when you could break it down and have audio, the occasional animation, plus questions after you read a certain amount of content. Or why not carry it around on a smart phone?
So I think that I would like to find a way to make this more interactive, and offer to sell it to pharma companies, hospitals (or whoever will buy it).
My questions are:
1. What are some of the elearning approaches that can do this (audio, interactive questions)? Cost, time, or do I just need to hire someone to do some of these applications? Would a large company really pay for this? Can it look professional if I do this? Perhaps you work for a company and see what they have paid for/will not pay for
2. What about the next step? Dropping it onto a CD? Iphone? Do I need other programs to do this? Is there an easy way to do this? What about across smart phones?
3. Are there other ways to learn about elearning that you would recommend? Books? Podcasts? Other sources?
I can google, and did find an adobe elearning suite, with many programs, and also saw that there are courses on Lynda.com.I do plan to download a trial version and check it out with a lynda training course. However, I’m still not sure as to the best approach or if people have experience with other applications that I have not thought about.
More background: I currently write in depth articles for medical education companies about various diseases, and those companies sell the article to pharma companies, which are then used to train sales people. I think this information could be far more interactive (why read a 60+ page article, when you could break it down and have audio, the occasional animation, plus questions after you read a certain amount of content. Or why not carry it around on a smart phone?
So I think that I would like to find a way to make this more interactive, and offer to sell it to pharma companies, hospitals (or whoever will buy it).
My questions are:
1. What are some of the elearning approaches that can do this (audio, interactive questions)? Cost, time, or do I just need to hire someone to do some of these applications? Would a large company really pay for this? Can it look professional if I do this? Perhaps you work for a company and see what they have paid for/will not pay for
2. What about the next step? Dropping it onto a CD? Iphone? Do I need other programs to do this? Is there an easy way to do this? What about across smart phones?
3. Are there other ways to learn about elearning that you would recommend? Books? Podcasts? Other sources?
I can google, and did find an adobe elearning suite, with many programs, and also saw that there are courses on Lynda.com.I do plan to download a trial version and check it out with a lynda training course. However, I’m still not sure as to the best approach or if people have experience with other applications that I have not thought about.
You're probably going to want to hire a designer of some sort. This is essentially textbook publishing.
posted by thsmchnekllsfascists at 11:57 AM on December 30, 2010
posted by thsmchnekllsfascists at 11:57 AM on December 30, 2010
There's two main spheres, education (certificate or credit), and human resources/training. The e-learning section is relatively new (mainly in the last decade) but there's a whole discipline around this.
Generally speaking the SME (subject matter expert) is the person that writes the content and the instructional designer and multimedia developer are the ones that create the e-learning product.
Each item you describe requires a fair amount of time, though if I were you I might start with Articulate or another program that produces template flash pieces, figure out how to get a podcast produced, a basic PDF with good graphic produced.
Though I'd first research what existing companies are offering.
posted by ejaned8 at 12:38 PM on December 30, 2010
Generally speaking the SME (subject matter expert) is the person that writes the content and the instructional designer and multimedia developer are the ones that create the e-learning product.
Each item you describe requires a fair amount of time, though if I were you I might start with Articulate or another program that produces template flash pieces, figure out how to get a podcast produced, a basic PDF with good graphic produced.
Though I'd first research what existing companies are offering.
posted by ejaned8 at 12:38 PM on December 30, 2010
Best answer: I work in a hospital education department, and we do a lot of elearning. We don't buy a lot of programs, the educators typically create what is needed. If we were to buy programs, we would probably buy them from our LMS vendor, rather than another 3rd party. To answer your questions:
1. You can do a surprising amount with PowerPoint, and even more if you add something like Articulate into the mix. Would anybody buy it? That's harder to say. You might want to nail down your target market more clearly. What a hospital needs is pretty different from what a pharma company needs. Hospitals are most likely to pay for training on regulatory issues. I don't know what pharma companies would buy, but I'm pretty sure it isn't modules on bloodborne pathogens and HIPAA.
With some time, you can produce a professional-looking product. But creating an elearning module will likely be more time-consuming than just writing the documentation.
2. This really depends on what your customer wants. As a hospital, we don't do any elearning on smart phones, and we would really need SCORM-compliant files to work with our LMS. Pharmaceutical reps may use smartphones.
3. My favorite elearning stuff:
The Rapid eLearning Blog from the folks at Articulate. Very informative.
The eLearning Guild. Their online newsletter is interesting and full of great articles from many perspectives on eLearning.
I STRONGLY recommend e-Learning by Design. This is a terrific essential reference that will be particularly helpful for someone new to instructional design.
posted by jeoc at 4:24 PM on December 30, 2010 [4 favorites]
1. You can do a surprising amount with PowerPoint, and even more if you add something like Articulate into the mix. Would anybody buy it? That's harder to say. You might want to nail down your target market more clearly. What a hospital needs is pretty different from what a pharma company needs. Hospitals are most likely to pay for training on regulatory issues. I don't know what pharma companies would buy, but I'm pretty sure it isn't modules on bloodborne pathogens and HIPAA.
With some time, you can produce a professional-looking product. But creating an elearning module will likely be more time-consuming than just writing the documentation.
2. This really depends on what your customer wants. As a hospital, we don't do any elearning on smart phones, and we would really need SCORM-compliant files to work with our LMS. Pharmaceutical reps may use smartphones.
3. My favorite elearning stuff:
The Rapid eLearning Blog from the folks at Articulate. Very informative.
The eLearning Guild. Their online newsletter is interesting and full of great articles from many perspectives on eLearning.
I STRONGLY recommend e-Learning by Design. This is a terrific essential reference that will be particularly helpful for someone new to instructional design.
posted by jeoc at 4:24 PM on December 30, 2010 [4 favorites]
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Once you have that question answered, all the rest will fall into place. You'll know what you need to create, what platform to create it on, and how to sell it.
posted by yeolcoatl at 11:09 AM on December 30, 2010