Hayley sighs. If only she had an extra hour in her day . . . She’d dedicate that extra hour to designing her own training programme. Hayley is an accountant, has always wanted to write a book or a training course on how to prepare your accounts for year end. Unfortunately she has too many […]
Every trainer who has ever lived has lusted after ideas to make their training engaging. Around the 1980’s we introduced classroom games like icebreakers. Now we are writing for eLearning we need new ideas to engage invisible learners. Where are these ideas, how do I get them, and how do we keep them coming? If […]
What if you could sit down and confidently write for learning? What if your inner critic let you express yourself freely? What if writing training programmes was fun and enjoyable? Do you struggle to get your ideas on screen or paper? Do you put off starting . . . procrastinating? When I first started writing […]
Have you ever felt it was hard to finish a self-paced course? You are not alone. Keeping ourselves accountable might be easy for some, but hard for most of us. Think of your personal feelings in terms of how you write for others. Are you only writing for your own style or the style of […]
What happens when you listen to a passionate speaker? Was their enthusiasm contagious? Passionate speakers use emotion to engage us as listeners. We notice their excitement in their body language. We hear their eagerness, their spirit, their fire in their voice. Passionate communicators are fascinating. They create an intense focus in their words. We go […]
Why do people prefer to use one training programme over another? They choose programmes with impact. Programmes with impact have words that influence and stories that stick in people’s memories. In defining what I believe is a critical element of writing for learning, I’ll make my case by amending the well-known quote from Animal Farm […]
How often do you feel confused when reading instructional content? Do you feel the writer is trying to convince you how smart they are? Are you impressed by their use of big words? Or frustrated because there is too much detail? How often is the answer to these questions yes? Want to be clear without […]
Think Like a Cartoonist to Grab Attention If you tell them about cars, they think of pumpkins If you talk to them about dinner, they think of steering wheels In short, they force-fit thoughts that may have a connection to each other. But what’s a cartoonist got to do with the opening lines of your […]
Last week I wrote about four types of bland words: Chewy and tasteless Stale Doughy Low in nutrition If you didn’t read last week’s article which leads into this one, here’s the link Bland words This week I’ll show you how to add flavour to your words. To spice up your content, remove chewy words […]
You work late at night to finish your Modlette. But in the morning when you read your written passages the writing sounds bland. You can’t send it for approval like this. What happened? Have weak phrases sneaked into your writing? Will your learners be bored and switch off? Weak phrases are very sneaky and can […]
