I’m a gadget freak. I’ll admit it. And my favorite gadget of all time is my Apple iPhone. Period. Frankly, it’s the device I’ve been waiting for these many years (and through one tragically horrible cell phone or PDA after another (may you rot in Heck, miserable, despised little Sony-Ericsson T610, […]

Posted in Apple, Evangelism, Things I Love, eLearning Design, eLearning Development Tools 4 Comments »

As eLearning developers, most of us are not graphic designers by trade or by training. Many of us have academic or corporate backgrounds. We are, to put it bluntly, visual design noobs. Hacks. Poseurs. We think white socks are perfectly fine with black trousers. And we couldn’t tell the […]

Posted in eLearning Design No Comments »

My organization, like many large organizations (and many if not most eLearning development professionals, for that matter), has bought into the Reusable Learning Object (RLO) concept with reckless abandon, implementing a Learning Content Management System (LCMS) (shudder) which shall remain nameless (but rhymes with Neato HorsePen).
This system is not only a horrifically cumbersome environment in […]

Posted in Rants, eLearning Design 5 Comments »

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 […]

Posted in Books, Rants, eLearning Design No Comments »

Steve Anthony, a professional voiceover artist, left a helpful tip in the comments section of the On Narration and eLearning post from a couple of weeks ago:
I’d also like to offer this tip; if the narration is sounding ‘read,’ (no matter who is doing it, either in-house or out-sourced) try loosening up sentence structure. By […]

Posted in Audio, eLearning Design 1 Comment »

The debate rages among eLearning design professionals about the value of narration in eLearning. How much narration is good? Is it good for all courses? Is it good for any course?
I can’t answer any of those questions conclusively, but I can give you my opinion.
As a learner, I’m a big fan of […]

Posted in Audio, Rants, eLearning Design 8 Comments »

OK, time to lay down some cold, hard truth. Anyone who has used both Apple Keynote and Microsoft PowerPoint for presentation work knows that Keynote absolutely, positively kicks PowerPoint’s trash to the curb when it comes to the quality of its visuals. Yes, PowerPoint has more widgets, gizmos, gadgets, and doodads, yet it […]

Posted in eLearning Design, eLearning Development Tools No Comments »

Tom Kuhlmann has an excellent post on the importance of visual design in eLearning (my personal driving philosophy and the reason for the eQuixotic blog) on his Rapid E-Learning Blog. Tom rightly points out the importance of visual appearance of your materials to your learners - that a visually shoddy course may immediately be […]

Posted in eLearning Design 3 Comments »

eQuixotic is not a blog for or about graphic designers. But it is a blog for eLearning designers who really need to think more like graphic designers.
I’m not a graphic designer by training, nor technically even by profession, though graphic design is what I hope to do in my next life. Design of […]

Posted in eLearning Design 1 Comment »

ASTD TechKnowledge 2008 San Antonio is over. After having had a little time to think and reflect, here’s my overall review of the event.
I don’t know if the crummy facilities last year (the dusty, smelly, doomed Riviera Hotel and Casino in Las Vegas) soured my overall impression of TechKnowledge 2007, but TechKnowledge 2008 seemed […]

Posted in eLearning Design 6 Comments »