Many, if not all of you, are familiar with or use Articulate software for eLearning development. In my opinion, their tools are currently unequaled in the industry for rapid creation of top-notch eLearning. For reasons unexplained, my boss is annoyed that Articulate seems to be “the answer to every question” at present, but the reason our customers always ask for Articulate is because the published products are so good. It’s hard to find a more convincing endorsement than that.

I’ve been an enthusiastic Articulate user for several years now. In fact, I was the first in my organization (100,000+ employees) to discover and acquire Articulate – not a painless process. Once people started to see the courses and presentations I was creating with Articulate, word started to get around. Now we have many Articulate users, with more getting on board seemingly every day – not just trainers, but communicators and technical analysts as well. I should be getting a sales commission from the company. But I digress.

Being the de facto “Articulate Guru” for my organization, I frequently field questions from developers in other departments. One of the first questions I’m always asked is “How do I learn this software?” I’ve always pointed them to Articulate’s own documentation, as well as the excellent online community and Tom Kuhlman’s equally-excellent blog.

Some users want (and need) more, and it’s finally arrived: in Patti Shank (a familiar name in eLearning circles) and Jennifer Bircher’s new book, Essential Articulate Studio ‘09. The book is massive at almost 1,000 pages, and those pages are filled with clear, helpful instruction and a huge collection of screenshots. If you’re new to Articulate, or a still-uncomfortable long-time user, this book may be just what you need.

Technical books tend to be either very good or very bad, and I’d rate this one as very good. The layout is logical and the writing style is neither mind-numbingly heavy nor irritatingly light. (I love comedy as much as the next guy, but slapstick technical books just ain’t my thing.) The annotated screenshots are very helpful, as are the clearly-designated tips and notes sprinkled throughout.

The book also comes with a companion CD, which includes trial versions of Articulate software, Articulate’s own documentation and links to the Articulate website. One might ask what’s the point (I certainly do), as you can get all of that information directly from Articulate’s website (and be assured the most recent versions when you do), but the CD is there anyway – for eventual deposit in your local landfill (where it can be discovered by archaeologists 10,000 years from now). The book, however, is a keeper. And at under 30 bucks, a no-brainer.

Buy it from Amazon via my link and I’ll probably get a nickel back or something. If only 10 million of you order it, I can quit my soul-crushing job and start my own eLearning development studio!

So you go ahead and order, and I’ll start packing up my desk and drafting my letter of resignation…

I’ve read a lot of computer training books in my time, most of which I’ve gotten through about a third before giving up. Dry, boring, completely uncompelling (hey, just like most eLearning!). I don’t consider myself particularly dense (perhaps I am, but am too dense to realize it?), but I think I’ve always been more of a “show me, then let me do it” type of learner, not a “read about the whys, hows, and what fors” type of learner.

A couple of years ago I was trying to wrap my head around CSS (Cascading Style Sheets) once and for all. I had tried several books, online tutorials, and lots of websites, but for some reason the concept never really “clicked” for me. Not even Lynda.com’s “show me, then let me do it” approach was working. Which was unusual.

Then I read Head First HTML with CSS & XHTML by Eric and Elisabeth Freeman. It was like a revelation. The teaching style used was unlike any I’d seen in a training book before. CSS finally made sense.

After that experience, I realized I wanted to try to incorporate the Head First approach into my eLearning courses.

Just today I discovered the Creating Passionate Users blog, where they are “passionate about the brain and metacognition, most especially–how the brain works and how to exploit it for better learning and memory.” Wow, I’ve really been missing out. This is a great learning-oriented blog.

Authored by Kathy Sierra (co-creator of the Head First series) and Dan Russell (research scientist at Google), it almost certainly deserves a spot in your RSS feed reader. And it’s going on my blogroll right now.

The post entitled Crash Course in Learning Theory is a great place to start.

Great stuff. Check it out.

UPDATE: in my excitement about the content of this blog, I didn’t even notice that it is no longer active. Kathy stopped the blog after being harassed and threatened by blog commenters. I remember reading about this at the time (it created quite the uproar), but didn’t associate the name (she wasn’t the author of the HTML/CSS book I had read). It’s sad what the anonymity of the Internet compels some idiots to do. So forget signing up for their RSS feed. But their past content is still worth review. Thanks Caspar for pointing this out.

I finally took the time (long overdue) to read Garr Reynolds’ excellent book on presentation design, Presentation Zen. For those of you unfamiliar with Garr Reynolds, he is the proprietor of the like-named (and likewise excellent) blog on presentation design. I’m a great fan of his blog, so it should be no surprise I am also a great fan of his book.

Since my profession is primarily in eLearning design – not sales, marketing, or classroom instruction – I found myself mentally replacing the words “presentation” and “PowerPoint” with “eLearning” as I read the book. And in doing so found that the content remained right on the money.

In fact, if Garr were to do a quick Find & Replace, he could resend his manuscript to the printer, entitle it eLearning Zen, and have another winner on his hands (I’ll take a mere 20% for the concept, Garr).

Sidenote: I could easily have called my own blog eLearning Zen, as my despair about eLearning so closely matches Garr’s despair about presentations. But hey, shameless derivatives just ain’t my style, baby.

The derision, rage, and scorn subtly (and not-so-subtly) directed at PowerPoint presentations throughout this book echo my feelings about the vast majority of eLearning I have encountered. The PowerPoint-induced fuming of millions is beautifully illustrated via some short quotes by some well-known luminaries in the tech world.

Utilizing the aforementioned Find & Replace technique, allow me the liberty of tailoring these quotes to befit the eLearning scourge:

“eLearning could be the most powerful tool on your computer, but it’s not. It’s actually a dismal failure. Almost every eLearning course sucks rotten eggs.” – Seth Godin”Stop your eLearning before it kills again.” – Kathy Sierra”eLearning Is Evil.” – Wired Magazine 

Dr. Michael Allen, at TechKnowledge in San Antonio, actually said (no Find & Replace required here):

“90% of eLearning should be thrown away.” 

90%???

He was being kind.

My own disgust with the pitiful state of eLearning rose to the top of my throat today as I was subjected to yet another horrible iteration. The Powers That Be within my organization have seen fit to bestow me with some meager funds with which to purchase some much-needed software for eLearning development. Things never being as simple as they should be, I’m required to input my request using an unknown internal online ordering system (one that is sure to be hopelessly complex and unintuitive). But before I can do so, I’m required to take an eLearning course that will explain the use of this system.

Yes, alarm bells were already sounding in my head.One hour later, I had managed to navigate my way through possibly the most mind-numbingly inept eLearning course I have ever experienced (and that’s saying a lot). Screen after screen of image-free text explaining the background, history, and, almost as an afterthought, the actual use of the system. All told, 99% of the content was irrelevant to me as a new user trying to input a simple software request.

Were there any screenshots? No. Demos? Uh uh. Simulations? Nope. But hey, it did include a few silly “knowledge checks” thrown in to add a little variety to my misery!

A one-page Word document that could be read in 5 minutes would have been much more effective.

Note: I still don’t know how to use the online ordering system.

The irony of being tortured with horrible eLearning in order to purchase the tools to create good eLearning was not lost on me.

And the banner in the default template used in this course taunted me with the slogan “E-Learning: A new way of learning…”

Sorry, this wasn’t learning. And this definitely wasn’t a “new way.” This was everything bad about teaching wrapped up in a mess of HTML, javascript, duct tape and twine.

Yet again we sabotage our efforts to convert learners to eLearning by dumping a worthless product on them and proclaiming it The Future.

Bah.

But I digress. I’ll speak more on this self-destructive habit (that of talking up bad eLearning) in a future post.

My venting complete, I return now to the topic at hand: Presentation Zen (the book), by Garr Reynolds.

Buy it. Read it. Apply it to your eLearning design.

Please!