Spoken words carry information far beyond what is found in the words themselves. Written words cannot convey inflection, tone, and true meaning, so it is not surprising that a voice-over recording can sound very different than what scriptwriters originally intended. What if there was a simple way to write scripts for voice narration that increases readability, leading to improved accuracy in delivery and minimizing (even eliminating) time-consuming retake sessions?

The airline industry is highly regulated. As a result, Alaska Airlines’ employees were tasked with completing numerous hours of training each year. With limited resources and time, they needed an innovative method to make this annual training feel fresh to their audience. For the first time in years, they decided that eLearning might not be the answer to the age-old problem of how to make a learning experience truly memorable. Their alternative: comics!

L&D is increasingly using video to address workplace needs, but where should you turn to learn how to make these videos engaging and effective? Hollywood, of course! For more than 100 years, the film industry has mastered the art of engagement, with good films keeping audiences riveted for hours. While not every workplace video needs to be a major production, there are many simple lessons from Hollywood that you can apply in your work to make better videos.

You’ve heard you should be making videos, but the reality is that there are barriers to starting and barriers to improving. What factors will most influence audio? What type of microphone or camera should you use? Can a training professional really use a cellphone to make a video? And what about adding lighting? What are the steps and tools you need to create effective and impactful learning videos?

Screencasting is a great way to deliver software training, but that’s not the only use for this approach to multimedia creation. What about using it to create internal production resources by documenting your own development processes? Or how about leveraging it to create other video resources, like a reusable eLearning asset library? There is a wide range of other uses for screencasting that you may never have thought of, and incorporating these uses can make a real difference in your daily workflow.

Audiences today expect richer multimedia in their online experiences. As a result, it seems like producing videos, podcasts, animation, interactive video, or some other sort of multimedia is on every eLearning team’s mind. However, few are ready to launch into production without first building their knowledge about producing effective multimedia, much less submit a request for video and audio equipment or software without having a good plan in place.

Stories have the power to move people. They allow the storyteller to forge a personal connection with the audience and create a situation where promoting learning and inspiration becomes infinitely easier. At their core, stories create a world where learners are interested, are engaged, and want to learn, which leads to higher retention of information and better understanding of concepts and ideas. But how do you design a good story?

What separates amateur video from professionally shot and edited video presentations? Many in eLearning would be quick to blame small budgets and lack of equipment for less-than-professional video. However, the real problem is that many who shoot, composite, or produce video for learning aren’t visually literate. In other words, they don’t know the basics of visual design and how to apply it to the video medium.

With a direct service delivery (DSD) national workforce that ranges from tenured employees to those just entering the workforce, Farmer Brothers—a national coffee roaster, wholesaler, and distributor—had to identify how to optimize, standardize, and streamline sales training across a diverse, geographically dispersed team. The company addressed how to preserve its legacy of great customer service while simultaneously upskilling employees’ ability to sell additional products.

Many instructional designers and training specialists find themselves in the position of creating print-ready learning materials on short notice and no budget. Depending on available technologies, content knowledge, and access to a graphic designer, this can be a daunting task. Plus, most approaches used to create training-on-the-go are flat and forgettable. What if there’s another option for designing print-ready learning materials in a short amount of time for memorable learning?

Many learning professionals are faced with limited and shrinking budgets, but at the same time, they’re expected to create professional audio and video. So how do you convince your management to let you build a recording studio?

Hands-on exercises and scenario-based training are effective, but they can’t always do the whole job. Storytelling with documentaries can engage learners and give them the context they need in topic areas like policy, leadership approaches, and organizational history.

You design or develop learning content, but you didn’t go to art school and you don’t have a visual design background. Before entering L&D you could barely create a PowerPoint that wasn’t just a bullet list with 800 words, and now you’re asked to create visually complex projects like eLearning, apps, eBooks, and more. You may have learned some basic design principles on your own, but you still know your visuals could use some more polish. So how do you get your visual design work from merely sufficient to great?

Now, more than ever before, L&D professionals struggle to capture the attention and meet the high demands of the modern workplace learner. Technology continues to drive forward engaging and professional digital interactions, raising the expectations of today’s learners. Many training organizations aren’t producing content that meets this ever-increasing benchmark, resulting in dismissive and uninterested users. Luckily, there are many techniques that can aid learning professionals in creating these mesmerizing modules.