Did you ever wonder about the difficulties of effectively instructing the tech illiterates on certain how-to-do’s? Even in the case of filling some online forms also, you might have come across people with trouble in grasping the ‘seemingly sophisticated’ procedures and steps. Then what about senior persons who are trying to learn a new thing, say a language? A teacher or a professor has certain limitations in this aspect. Despite of class room teaching, we need some advanced tools to plant ideas into the minds of the aforementioned group of learners. An approach that incorporates technology and creativity equally can do wonders in this new-generation method of learning. This new method of learning may generally be called elearning.
Coming to the terminology, you might have noticed the spelling of the name given to this new learning system. Well, 'elearning' is a neologism, which is nowadays being commonly used by the techies around the globe. The word is derived from ‘electronic learning’, gradually got dropped the length and came to be written as e-learning. Nowadays the hyphen also is being omitted and thus the language gets a new word.
An instructional designer does the job of creating e-learning tutorials for people. On your journey towards a successful elearning pro, you will hear several technical words like SCORM, ADDIE, and many more. You will come into contact with several curious softwares like Captivate, Articulate, Lectora, etc. You will always have the MS PowerPoint at your side for drawing down your creative ideas.
Does an elearning professional (an instructional designer) require a degree? Read here what Tom Kuhlman, a renowned elearning master tells in this aspect.
Also a cartoon, which I picked up from suddenlysmart.com, to warn you about how an e-learning tutorial should not be like...:).
Cartoon Courtesy: http://www.suddenlysmart.com/effective_elearning.htm
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