Online Course Development: What Does It Cost? -- Campus Technology
Time and cost estimates for online higher ed. The article and research are from 2004, and I expect these ratios have gone down in the last 10 years. The estimates here say it's a 10:1 ratio for faculty time and about $25K per credit hour.
Given the current campus infrastructure, personal knowledge tools, and the availability of digital content such as course cartridges, online cyber problems, and test banks, a recommended planning number today for experienced faculty is 10 hours per hour of instruction.
Timid Instructional Designers Deserve What They Get
When clients ask for crappy e-learning or provide unreasonable deadlines that don't allow for quality development, we need to push back. Being timid doesn't makes us team players, just pushovers. This is one of the benefits of freelance work for me--I can set boundaries and turn down the crappy jobs to focus on more rewarding work.
How to Share Your E-learning Course for Free With Google Drive - E-Learning Heroes
Step by step directions on sharing Articulate courses in Google Drive. This would be great for a portfolio. I haven't tested it, but the directions probably work for Captivate or other tools as well. An alternate (slightly simpler) set of directions for getting the hosting URL are here: https://support.google.com/drive/answer/2881970?hl=en
BranchTrack
Free tool for creating branching scenarios. See a sample course by Cathy Moore here. http://blog.djangolabs.com/scenarios/autoloon-ethics-training/
The Top 20 Most Popular LMS Software Solutions powered by Capterra
Capterra's analysis of top LMSs by customers, users, and social media popularity. Many people only review 2-3 LMSs before making a decision. This list gives people some additional choices to review while still being a manageable list. The explanation of their research is linked below the infographic.
eLearning Guild Research: Gender Issues in Pay, or What You Don't Know Does Hurt You by Patti Shank : Learning Solutions Magazine
Patti Shank on the gender gap in e-learning pay (almost 10% lower on average). Educate yourself and do a better job negotiating your own salary, at least as one way to improve the issue.
The Best Add-Ons for Google Drive
Lifehacker's list of add ons for Google Docs and Sheets. HelloFax lets you fax documents (HelloSign lets you sign them). UberConference adds an audio conference call to a Google Doc so you can talk while collaborating. There's also an option to track changes like in Word
The Manifesto | Serious eLearning Manifesto
Principles for "serious elearning"
<h5>Provide Realistic Practice</h5>
<p>We will provide learners sufficient levels of realistic practice; for example, simulations, scenario-based decision making, case-based evaluations, and authentic exercises.</p>
<h5>Enlist Authentic Contexts</h5>
<p>We will provide learners with sufficient experience in making decisions in authentic contexts.</p>
<h5>Provide Realistic Consequences</h5>
<p>When providing performance feedback during learning, we will provide learners with a sense of the real-world consequences.</p>
