What I Like About eLearning

I was never really good in art class growing up. I’d immerse myself in the project of the day and be proud of what I’d made, only to look up at the end and discover that everyone else had glued their macaroni or painted their plate just a little better than I.

I particularly liked collages, I think, because they offered the less talented more room for error — mistakes just look like creativity in a collage. Maybe elearning is like a collage. Some text here, a photo there. Some images I cut and paste along the edge.

And then maybe I move everything around and try another lay-out.

I like that. I like strategy and learning by experience. So mapping out a template and building it 14 ways definitely floats my boat. Rapid-prototyping was practically invented for the strategist and activator (StrengthsFinder) in me.

And I like a lot of other things about elearning:

• Having all these programs, and multiple instances of some, open at once: Captivate, Photoshop, PowerPoint, Firefox, Chrome, Safari, Internet Explorer, Word, TweetDeck, Handbrake, Dropbox, Excel, and Project.
• The Rapid eLearning Blog and tips like how to make a PowerPoint template.
• Cathy Moore’s dedication to language.
• That elearning people are into Twitter and Facebook (community from Cali to London to Austrailia).
• Creative elearning people coming up with cool logos like the awesome little Litmos monster and the ninja photo of the eLearning Brothers.
• Cammy Bean.
• The beautiful, sleek, amazing app machine known as the iPad.
• Screenr.
• Saying, “How about a hover over?”
• The writers I’ve read the most: B.J. Schone, Jane Hart, Tom Kuhlmann, and Clive Shepherd.
• Nudging assets on the screen.
• Tahoma, Verdana, and Kristen ITC.
• Articulate — the authoring tools, the company, the blogs, and the online presence.
• Drop shadows.
• PNG files.
• Editing the Captivate files being discussed during the conference call.
• Putting secret doors throughout my elearning modules, mainly so I can jump around quickly, but also the occasional surprise room I hope some learner finds.
• Absorb, the best LMS on earth.

Author: Eric Matas

Eric is the Managing Editor of eLW Mag. He works as an elearning specialist focused on iPad apps and media strategy. He lives in Minneapolis with his wife and their five children.