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Subject:Re: Best tools for producing training material? From:"Doc" <Lonestar -at- nesma -dot- net -dot- sa> To:"TECHWR-L" <techwr-l -at- lists -dot- raycomm -dot- com> Date:Fri, 9 Feb 2001 19:09:35 +0300
Ian,
This may be a less gratifyng response to your request than you were hoping
for: Get somebody who knows ISD or a variant, and don't trouble yourself
with "tools". The courseware or training development expert's expertise is
the sole criteria for hiring. In all my years of Instructional Design, I
never once - I'll repeat this - I never once saw a so-called courseware
developer who knew their craft AND was an expert user of the apposite
corporate "tools" other than a currently popular wordprocessing application.
As a consultant, I am often called into a company and paid handsomely to fix
what the "tool users" have created. I have met and know some of the premier
Instructional Designers in the US and abroad [e.g., Sink, Thiagi, or Clarke]
and not one of them is adept at using any tool but Powerpoint, and that's to
give seminars and presentations, and WordPerfect or Word to write.
If your training material MUST go into Framemaker format, for example, get a
Framemaker end-user to take a high-grade quality training design handoff
from a grade A Instructional Designer. In the end, your external or internal
clients will gain from it immeasurably, your costs will go down, and -
whether this makes sense to you now or not - it will take less time.
Doc
p.s. hope I sent correctly - haven't posted in months 8-)
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