When creating elearning courses, sometimes it feels like you’re reinventing the wheel. “Certainly,” you say to yourself, “I am not the only one who has ever needed to create a sexual harassment prevention course. There must be hundreds of great courses out there – why am I starting from scratch?”

You’re right. You don’t have to reinvent the wheel. When it comes to widely applicable topics like business skills, compliance training and safety, there are thousands of elearning courses available for sale on OpenSesame, an online marketplace for buying and selling off-the-shelf elearning courses.

OpenSesame launched in late 2010, and in just the last year they’ve developed a catalog of more than 10,000 online training courses. Shopping from OpenSesame is like buying songs on iTunes: You can browse, preview, read reviews, make purchases and use courses instantly.

If you’re a corporate training manager shopping for elearning courses, you can OpenSesame to shop from a library of thousands of courses, compare different options and purchase only the courses you need, in the quantity you need.

If you are an elearning developer and you create excellent elearning courses (perhaps with images from eLearningStock!), you can sell them to new customers on OpenSesame. It’s like an eBay built specifically for elearning courses: You set the price and discount levels and upload your courses for sale in the marketplace. OpenSesame delivers the course to customers, collects payment and takes care of technical support.

We believe www.OpenSesame.com is a long overdue way to simplify the elearning marketplace – by creating a place where developers and customers meet to buy and sell elearning courses instantly.

We recommend you start with an image that already has the background removed, like the knockout photos sold here, but you can still accomplish the same effect using your own images, once you have removed the background.

If you create your own images, shoot them against a solid backdrop and make sure there is good contrast with your subject to make the background removal quick and painless.  When preparing for the shoot don’t worry about colors, messy clothes or lighting, all of that will disappear in your final product.

So now you have created or acquired the images. . .  what’s next?  To create the silhouette effect all you need to do is open the image in your favorite image editor, separate the character from the background and then fill or color the character in black and save.

Important: To keep the background of the image transparent, you will need to save the file as a .png or .gif.  Almost all editors, free and expensive, have this capability.

A character can serve the same function in an eLearning course as a host does in a video or game show. Use the same guidelines in “casting” your character to host your eLearning materials.

Find Your Audience:
Every training program has a target audience or market segment in mind. Even if the content would provide value for anyone and everyone, there are most assuredly characteristics shared by the majority of people who will be learning the material.

Whether that audience is identifiable by salary range, previous education, motivation for learning the material or even “just curious”, it is critical to know who you are trying to engage. Hours upon hours do not get poured into creating the material just to go into a vacuum. The goal is to reach people and change behaviors. The most effective way to do that is to know who those people are.

Define Your Tone:
Picture yourself having a conversation with a member of your target audience. Imagine that conversation taking place whatever area they are most likely taking the course. How would you talk to them? Your language and demeanor would be different for a manager in her office than it would be for someone studying at home after hours or a mid-level new hire in a conference room on his/her first day. Would you approach them with levity? A casual and comfortable demeanor? A professional one?

The content and tone of the course itself should work the same way. “Next Objective”, “Coming Up Next”, “Get Excited About …” are all different ways to say the same thing. Knowing your tone and consistently using it will keep everything flowing smoothly.

Open Casting:
Once you have a feel for the overall tone your course should be using, it’s time to cast your host. If you decide to go with a person ask yourself some questions to determine what kind of person would carry weight or authority with your audience.  Should your host be a professional or more casual? Should they be younger or middle-aged? Form the picture in your head of who would actually be delivering this material effectively in person and then find an avatar to match that look.  There are resources of ready made avatars available from sources like eLearningStock.com.

If you decide to really swing for the fences, you can always use a cartoon character.  Remember, however, the first thing we mentioned. Consider your audience!  Will a cartoon running around the course be received well and will it help to convey your information?  Make sure you know the answer to that question before expending the time and effort involved.

Mix It Up:
Make sure that you have a variety of poses and expressions for your character. Ideally the character will also have different size “shots” (as in a full body, a medium shot and maybe even a close-up). As the audience goes through the materials, the same three pictures or poses over and over again will start getting monotonous. If the viewer starts to ignore the host character, then there was no point in using them to begin with.

Engage The Viewer:
Have the character break the fourth wall. Make sure your host experiences and reflects what you expect the viewer to be going through. Does this section seem complicated at first? Is it serious? Is it casual? Your character needs to have enough variety the ensure the audience can relate.

When you use a well thought out character to help deliver your eLearning content, the user more easily falls into a receptive state. The onus is not just on the audience to sit and read through page after page, they now have a partner in crime to work through it together.

Giving your course some character can help bring your viewer into a conversation and relate to the material easier.  And with an engaged audience, everything is possible!

Use puzzle pieces as icons for bullet points. Then bring all your bullet points together in a single graphic! I took this eLearningStock.com image and let Big Huge Labs create the puzzle for free! Then, I clip the number of pieces I need, clean them up a little, and voila!

Or, make a quick and easy debriefing game with another freebie at flash-gear.com. This one creates a link to a neat little flash movie, where your learners can assemble the puzzle.

Here, give it a shot!

http://two.flash-gear.com/npuz/puz.php?c=v&id=2891376&k=73345804

Follow the provided links to see my source material and try it out for yourself.  When you do, you’re sure to come up with your own creative ideas about how to use puzzle graphics in your eLearning creations.  Send ‘em!  I’d love to hear from you.

A watermark is an impression, usually in grayscale, at various saturation points. And the larger the the list of training materials, the more important it is. Say you’ve got a two-day training program, with Job Aids, Hand-Outs, Learner Workbooks, CBTs, and Instructor-Led PowerPoint slides. Tie all of these materials together, in different software applications, with a watermarked graphic.

•   The more often you use it, the more transparent (or less color saturated) your watermark has to be. And with increased transparency comes increased real estate (meaning you can put text or other learning media on top of the watermark).

•   With permission from your legal beagles, it can be an effective way to display confidentiality, proprietary, and other legal-y messages often required in corporate training.

•   For the contractor or eLearning build shop, what a great way to include your company logo in the materials you create for others.

Watermarking is an oft-missed branding tool, and a superb way to incorporate consistency into larger training packages without beating your learner over the head with the branding stick. How do YOU build vertically? Share with us!

To take advantage of this free offer, simply:

1 – Click on the link below

2 – If you are a member of eLearningStock.com, then sign in.  If not, create an account.  Its fast and free to do so!

3 – Once logged in, add his image to your cart (notice the cost is 0 credits, so its free)

4 – Click on the shopping cart at the bottom of the screen and select “View full shopping cart”

5 – Now checkout and download your free image!

CLICK HERE TO DOWNLOAD

Free eLearning Image

Kick your competition to the curb!  Replicate success, confidence and determination with this powerful royalty free image.  An ideal static graphic for eLearning, student feedback and training collateral, you’re sure to leave a lasting winning impression by incorporating this into your next project.  Take a walk on the uber-professional side – without having to rock the power suit! To take advantage of this free offer, simply:

Click on the download link below.

1 – If you are a member of eLearningStock.com, then sign in.  If not, create an account.  Its fast and free to do so!
2 – Once logged in, add the image to your cart (notice the cost is 0 credits, so its free)
3 – Click on the shopping cart at the bottom of the screen and select “View full shopping cart”
4 – Now checkout and download your free image!

DOWNLOAD IMAGE

Using people pictures that are knocked out or cut out, that is no longer a problem. With each model in these collections being photographed in over 150 different poses, with a variety of emotions and expression, designers now have a new tool in their toolbox! What is especially appealing is that the models have all been hand retouched with the backgrounds meticulously removed.  No edges to be found here!

To the left you can see how we built a quick and easy interaction.  First, we took one of our presorted scenario backgrounds and added a little blur to it, so the characters would stand out.  From there, we selected two knockout people that had complimentary side views and placed them in the scene.  When photos are reduced in size they have a tendency to blur a little, so we applied a little sharpening in photoshop when we made them smaller.

Finally, we selected several additional side facing poses providing a good variety of conversation and reaction shots.  Voila!  You now have a realistic conversation between two characters for about the cost of a Happy Meal!

This probably has a lot to do with the anonymity of network based learning. When a facilitator stands up in front of his/her class, it is easy to asses who is in the classroom, but learning from a distance can present a challenge.

The understanding that eLearning cannot be pumped out in a one-size-fits all model is critical to publishing content that makes a real impact on your organization’s bottom line. So the next time you sit down to design a course, ask yourself some basic questions to help ensure the course meets your learner’s needs.

• What is the demographic breakdown of your learners? Age, ethnicity, sex, geographic location and economic background can all play a role in the type of training deliverable that will be positively received.
• How well versed are your learners in the topic? Do they understand the underlying concepts or should a remedial course also be provided?
• What type of information delivery are your learners comfortable with? For example, younger workers may be open to receiving “learning tips” via twitter, while a set of more senior workers may look more favorably towards email.
• What type of connection, operating system and browsers do your learners have? This will impact not only deployment technologies, but the types of media that should be used within your course. For example, if you have dial-up learners in remote areas, video would probably not be the best choice.
• How much time do your learners have in order to train? Should you segment your course into 5 minute modules or does your audience have the ability to set aside 40 minutes to take a course?

There are many other questions that can be asked and you should also take the time to drill deeper into answers that raise additional questions. Assuming you show due diligence in researching your audience, your courses will become more targeted and effective, improving both your training ROI and your audience’s enjoyment of the learning experience.

My first experience with an avatar was during the training course I took for our school’s new Learning Management System (LMS). This particular LMS had an audio component. The audio was used to make a general announcement about what to expect in each unit.  It was a quick and easy introduction to the topic, and I appreciated the (very) short break from reading.

I had always thought that using something like this in a college course would dilute the quality of the course in some way. It also worried me that adult students would respond negatively. After applying similar techniques in my own summer classes, however, I found that my students responded just as well as I did. As a result, the overall quality of my summer courses was greatly enhanced.

Tips for utilizing avatars and animated characters:

Find your purpose– Decide when and where the avatar would be most useful and limit its use to that one purpose.

Keep it simple– Avoid having the avatar do too much. Use it for reminders or general announcements.  Let it draw the student’s attention to important information.

Choose appropriately – Pick an avatar that will fit the tone of the course and one that will not distract students from the material.

Be understood – If using an avatar that speaks, be sure to choose a voice talentwith a neutral, easy-to-understand accent and provide a transcript of what is being said.

Having just this little bit of interaction reminds students that there is a real person on the other end of the learning engagement. That reminder can have a significant impact on their success in the course.

Bio: Cassandra Neace lives in Houston and teaches college English online. She is always experimenting with ways of making her courses more engaging enjoys trading tips and tricks with other instructors. When she is not teaching, she is a reader and book reviewer.