When you transition from being a traditional trainer for instructor-led sessions to working on e-learning projects you find out quickly there are whole new worlds of knowledge you suddenly need to acquire.

A critical example is the realm of visual design, which can have a huge impact on the learning experience you are creating.

Our clients often need to become instant experts in visual design as they move into using the dominKnow LCMS, especially if they are transitioning from a more traditional training approach. Our creative services team has created a short overview document that highlights some key issues and concepts to help give clients a head start on this transition.

In this post, we'll highlight some important things to consider when using images and animations. Over the next few posts we'll look at typography and font use as well as color theory. We'll also post up a collection of web resources on these topics, to help anyone interested in learning more.

A thought to keep in mind: Rules are meant to be broken and there's an exception to every rule. Okay, that's two thoughts, but they point to the same thing. These are good guidelines to follow, but at some point you may need to ignore or break them. Just make sure whatever you do is in the best interest of your learmers!

Images and Animation Use

General Image Considerations
Ensure that images complement and support the content.

Images should be consistent in style, and should complement each other as well. The mood of the images should be appropriate to the subject and your audience. The image above shows three different visual styles - you'll quickly recognize that they aren't equally appropriate for every learning experience, that they each have their place.

Always create images at their final size. In other words, do not use your course authoring tool settings to resize an image's pixel height or width. Scaling an image to make it appear larger on screen (scaling up) will cause it to look pixilated. The image above shows an example of this effect. Scaling to make an image appear smaller (scaling down) will mean you are using a larger-than-necessary file size, adding unnecessary bulk to your course. You should always try to minimize file size to prevent bandwidth or loading issues for your learners.

You may also reduce the number of colors or quality in your image in order to reduce the file size, thereby decreasing the time the image takes to display in your course. For example, if you save the image as a JPG, you can usually reduce the image quality and still retain an image almost identical to the quality of the original.

Stock Images
If you do not produce your own photographs or images for a course and need to obtain some from an online (or other) source, make sure that you have proper authorization to use them. This may mean purchasing the rights to the image or getting permission from its creator for its use.

You can visit stock image websites to see thousands of images that are usually available for purchase (vector images, photographs, illustrations etc.). Well-known vendors include Jupiter Images, iStockPhoto and Getty Images.

Animations
Animations often play a critical part in illustrating a concept. When adding animations make sure you pay attention to how large the file is, as this can reduce a course's playability.

Any animations used in courseware should require a cue from the learner for startup; be aware that looping animations or videos that play automatically can be distracting to the learner.

Keep all animations and videos in the control of the user, so they can start and stop them as they wish.

Next post: Typography and font use

Chris Van Wingerden is Vice President Learning Solutions at dominknow Learning Systems.

Microsoft PowerPoint is far and away the most popular presentation software tool. In fact, it's really hit that level of status where the product name is synonymous with the generic product category, like Kleenex for facial tissues and Ski-Doo for snow machines.

PowerPoint really is the default, the standard, the go-to tool for almost everyone in the training and education space, and most trainers and training departments have invested a great deal of time and effort in creating PowerPoint slide decks to support instructor-led and face-to-face training.

This week dominKnow is releasing a set of feature enhancements that dramatically improve the process of importing PowerPoint files into the dominKnow LCMS. These enhancements really expand the flexibility of the imported content, making it simple to move from an instructor-led course to an online course – without losing the time, effort and cost you've already invested in your original training material.

The feature enhancements import each slide into the dominKnow LCMS's integrated Authoring Tool as a new page. And once the quick import is complete, the full range of Authoring Tool features is available to help you edit, update and improve every page. Want to add or create engaging and instructionally sound e-learning interactions? No problem. The Authoring Tool's full range of interaction support tools is right there for you.

Need to record narration? No problem. The narration wizard can walk you through that process.

Need to change text? No problem – the text editor is instantly available. Need to add an assessment? No problem. The dominKnow LCMS's test-question wizards let you add test questions in a matter of minutes.

Need your new e-learning course to run in a third-party LMS? No problem. The course is easily exportable as SCORM 1.2 or 2004 compliant, or as AICC and PENS compliant.

What's really impressive is how robust the import process is.

All media files are automatically imported into the Authoring Tool's asset manager. This means all images, all audio files and all video files are instantly available for re-use on other pages or in entirely different courses, with full usage tracking and the ability to assign metadata to help in searching.

All master slides are automatically used to create layout templates that can be used for adding new pages to your course or any other course. And all speaker notes are imported into the Authoring Tool's new developer notes feature as well.

New Ways to Work Together

The feature enhancements also open new ways for development teams to create e-learning. A subject matter expert or instructional designer can now use PowerPoint to create a storyboard for a course, with text in place and placeholders for any images or media files required. The instructional designer can use the speaker notes in PowerPoint to describe what's required on the page, such as outlining how an interaction needs to work.

The storyboard PowerPoint can be quickly imported into the dominKnow LCMS, where other members of the development team can move it forward. One developer might move through the course standardizing the look and feel. A graphic artist can come in and add images as required. A Flash developer can come in and add any required animations or complex interactions. You get the idea – everyone works to their strengths, together in the LCMS.

With PowerPoint having such a wide user base within the world of learning, it's only common sense to be able to take advantage of it when moving to e-learning. And the feature enhancements we're releasing this week really simplify the PowerPoint import process and increase the flexibility of the imported content, creating real advantage for e-learning development teams.

Chris Van Wingerden is Vice President Learning Solutions at dominKnow Learning Systems.

The recent Canadian Society for Training and Development (CSTD) newsletter includes an interesting article on promoting e-learning in the workplace written by Saul Carliner.

Carliner points out that e-learning isn't the Field of Dreams – just because you build doesn't mean they will come.

In Ten Tips for Getting Learners to Take E-Courses, Carliner notes that "Anyone who has experience with classroom courses knows that they require extensive promotion and a bit of arm-twisting to get people to use them, so why should e-learning require any less promotion and arm twisting?"

All too true.

The client lead for one of the earliest e-learning projects I worked on understood this well. The project was a series of online courses covering the features, benefits, etc. of a suite of banking products.

We had great fun on the project, and of course it was a natural assumption that learners would have great fun too – but she recognized several aspects of her corporate culture that might work against e-learning. The client lead planned out an extensive internal marketing campaign, since e-learning was pretty new to this organization.

One of the most interesting parts of the campaign was a special laminated card that read something like, "Sh! E-Learning taking place." Most of her learning audience worked in cubicles that were less than private. Officially, the cards – hung on the outside of the cubicle – were a way for those doing their learning to alert others to be on the quiet side. The cards were also a "covert" e-learning promotional tool – the more cards that were hung up, the greater day-today exposure the e-learning courses would receive. The cards also added a bit of peer pressure, if you will, to the e-learning, sort of a way to leverage the urge to "keep up with the Joneses."

I've always kept this project in mind when we start off working with a new client, making certain I always raise the question of promoting e-learning to ensure its success. It's such a crucial aspect of e-learning, but one that often doesn't get much though put to it – until the day the new course is rolled out.

Ten Tips for Getting Learners to Take E-Courses by Saul Carliner is available here.

Last year marked a turning point of sorts for the airline industry around the world, with the business overall earning $5.6 billion U.S. in profit.

There are a lot of factors adding jet fuel to the industry's growth, but they all up to one thing – tremendous pressure on airlines to find, hire and train staff to meet their growing needs.

Some reports suggest that 17,000 new pilots will be needed to be trained every year. Other reports suggest that 120,000 new pilots will be needed by the year 2017.

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