• Here’s a Quick Way to Create Your Next E-Learning Template in PowerPoint » The Rapid eLearning Blog – Follow Tom Kuhlmann's tutorial on how to create an elearning template in Powerpoint quickly and using the built in graphics.
• Podcasting 101 Flowchart – From Wesley Fryer, a quick flowchart for creating podcasts with the applications included.
• Hot Gloo – The Online Wireframe App – Create web site wireframes and receive reviewers comments and feedback on the design.

• Here’s How to Be an E-Learning Superstar in 2010 » The Rapid eLearning Blog – Tom Kuhlmann at Articulate prompts a list of avenues for becoming an elearning professional.
• Ask the Expert – Typography Talk with Brian Hoff | Design Informer – An interview with designer Brain Hoff about typography.
• Choosing a typeface timelapse video – Brian Hoff, a graphic design, speeds up time to show us how he selected the typeface for a company logo.
• Example slide effects with instructions – A series of template presentations for Powerpoint using animations and builds. Inside the slide notes give step-by-step instructions on how to create the effects.

Here are some previous posts that you may be interested in:

1. Where does your inspiration for design come from?
2. The landscape of Powerpoint for elearning

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• Download of the Day: iRed Lite (Mac) – Downloads – Lifehacker – Mac OS X only: Freeware app iRed Lite lets you control almost any application using your Apple Remote, such as with Powerpoint (built in).

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• The Rules | Brain Rules | – Brain Rules by John J. Medina is a multimedia project explaining how the brain works. It includes a book, a feature-length documentary film, and a series of interactive tutorials.
• How To Design Custom PowerPoint Templates for E-Learning (Plus 8 Free Templates) » The Rapid eLearning Blog – Tom Kuhlmann offers up more Powerpoint templates and a how to for using a Web site for inspiration.
• 50 Beautiful Free Icon Sets For Your Next Design – Smashing Magazine – Round-ups of beautiful and useful icons are almost legendary here, on Smashing Magazine. While some readers complain about the annoying list -style of some of our…

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1. Icons I love. Fur and feathers.
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• Weebly – Create a free website and a free blog – Weebly has now added an education section. Weebly is perfect for creating classroom websites, student e-portfolios, and websites for assigned projects.
• Free Adobe Dreamweaver Tutorial | CSS Tutorial for Creating Layouts in Dreamweaver | Layers Magazine – This tutorial covers the process of building a CSS-based layout from scratch using Dreamweaver. Great beginner tutorial.
• Free Adobe Dreamweaver Tutorial | CSS Tutorial – Basics of Working with Cascading Style Sheets | Layers Magazine – This tutorial covers the basics of creating CSS in Dreamweaver using the CSS Rule dialog. Great intro.
• Adobe Flash Tutorial | Creating an interactive story in Adobe Flash part 2 – A simple tutorial for moving around Flash CS3. Part 2.
• Adobe Flash Tutorial | Creating an interactive story in Adobe Flash – A simple tutorial in two parts for moving around Flash CS3.
• Flash CS4 |Timeline Animation | Motion Editor | Layers Magazine – With Flash CS4 now has auto-keyframing, a full-featured motion editor, and—most importantly—the ability to animate each property of an object separately from one another.
• Open Access Educational Technology journals – George Veletsianos – One of the resources developed for my students is a listing of open access journals (name, url, and RSS feed) that publish papers on the nexus between technology and education (educational technology, instructional design, e-learning, online distance…
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• Healthcare Napkins wins World’s Best Presentation Contest 2009 | SlideShare Blog – Thousands of presentations are uploaded to SlideShare everyday. But some catch your eye from the moment they get uploaded. Tha's the case with the winning
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The Landscape

Certainly, Powerpoint has a stigma attached to it.  Books like Beyond Bullet Points by Cliff Atkinson have tried to move us away from the mental model that templates and bullet points have forced us into.  Similarly, Edward Tufte’s treatise on “The Cognitive Style of Powerpoint” has emphasized the dilution of facts and thought brought about by using the hierarchy of bullet points. Wired magazine even picked up his point back in 2003.

Most recently, a slew of mainstream motivational speakers, techies, consultants, and corporate pundits have brought evangelized a number of methods to improve lecture-type and keynote presentations.  We’ve got the following:

• Godin – the power of images and big images
• Takahashi – big text only
• Lessig – each key word or phrase is isolated to a single slide
• Kawasaki – 10/20/30 with 10 slides only, 20 minutes max, and 30 point font
• Ignite – 20 slides, 15 seconds per slide

But has much changed?  We see these pockets of innovation, but the mainstream is still bound to bullet points and poor clip art.

Elearning

Does all of these ideas apply to elearning?  For elearning, the uses of Powerpoint fall into two main categories: development and delivery.

Development

For the development of elearning, Powerpoint has a number of uses.  First, numerous instructional designers and developers have told me that they use Powerpoint for storyboarding.  Powerpoint is simple enough that subject matter experts can even input the information (note that’s information not instruction).  The process of moving from design to development quickly through storyboarding offers a lot of promise for quickly presenting a visual product.

I’ve also heard of folks using Powerpoint as a wireframing tool.  This is where they mock up a user interface quickly to test the interactions and the navigation prior to building a prototype system.  By using the hyperlinking and even Action Buttons/Settings, you can quickly put together a system that responds to clicks to use as a model for a more sophisticated prototype inside Flash, Director, or even a web site.

More recently, Powerpoint has come on strong as a rapid development tool.  This is at the crux of Tom Kuhlmann’s blog. With hyperlinking, advanced graphics features, and templating, Powerpoint offers a lot of advantages to developing a unit as opposed to to building from scratch in Flash.  In addition, there are a number of tools, like Articulate (Tom’s company), that offer conversion of Powerpoint files to Flash for distribution, as well as adding in branching and assessments.

Delivery

The other way for using Powerpoint with elearning is to use it as a delivery vehicle for the instruction.  The most obvious method is for a trainer or instructor to present with a Powerpoint presentation.  This is certainly where all of the ideas above about improving presentations would most easily fit. (And yes, I get that this is technically not elearning.)  Powerpoint can also be used as a stand-alone self-paced instructional unit.  By saving as a Powerpoint show file, kiosk mode, and hyperlinking, the learner can control the presentation.  This is pretty common in K-12 schools.  Finally, I’ve been told by a number of instructional designers that they often produce Powerpoint presentations with text heavy slides for distribution.  They said this works well for their salesforce, who are on the go, and they don’t require an Internet connection, so the salesperson can look at it at any time.

You tell me.

Are there other ways Powerpoint is being used with elearning?  Are you and your organization doing other things with Powerpoint for elearning?  Did I miss something altogether?

Do you have examples to share of just how it is getting used?  Are you using it by itself or with another tools, like Articulate or Impactica?  Let me and my students know.  Put your ideas and comments below.

Here are some previous posts that you may be interested in:

1. eLearning and “Scooby-Doo! Where are you?”
2. Skills for elearning professionals
3. If I had all the time and money in the world, my elearning would look like this

• PowerPoint Design in 2009: Six most recommended tips : Speaking about Presenting – But in this project, there was a striking consistency with the advice given. I’ve outlined below the six tips that were recommended most often. I’ve also noted the research that backs up a recommendation – where it exists.
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1. The landscape of Powerpoint for elearning
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• Google Docs – Viewer – Use Google Docs to quickly view documents online without leaving your browser. Enter the document URL and Google will generate the link for it.
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Here are some previous posts that you may be interested in:

1. The landscape of Powerpoint for elearning