By Holly MacDonald

When many of us think of e-learning, we think of self-paced courses.  The ones with the ‘next’ button and you take quizzes to pass the course.  A few years ago, you could either buy a catalogue of these and pay a per-person license or spend $50,000 to custom develop one.  For many organizations, neither seemed appealing.

Today, there are several products that enable you to create these for very low cost.  You purchase the product (under $5000) and can deploy through an intranet, Learning Management System (LMS), internet, mobile device or even CD.  I used to prefer tools that were not specifically for creating e-learning, but sometimes it makes sense to use a rapid development tool.  We trainers like to say that we have a toolbox, so consider them part of your toolbox. (I’d also encourage you to learn wordpress – it’s a cheap way to develop a course that doesn’t have to live behind the firewall.)

I am going to be downloading a demo of several of these products to test and assess them.  I’ll also link you to some interesting resources as I find them, such as this great blog: Penny for your thoughts.

I’ll be looking at Articulate, Captivate, and Rapid Intake.  Maybe others, I haven’t decided.  I will be checking out the ADL guide for some insight, but to save you the time, you can just read the blog!

What would you like to know about them?  What real world “use cases” could I use to test these?

Holly MacDonald is an independent consultant with well over 15 years of experience in the learning & development field.  Holly is a bit of a techno-geek and can often be found playing online.  When she steps away from her computer, she spends time outside: hiking, kayaking, gardening and of course walking the dog.  She lives on Saltspring Island and is a leader in the live/work revolution.