Developing Training Courses: A Technical Writer's Guide to Instructional Design and Development

The eight-step strategy presented in this book takes the mystery out of writing effective training courses. Practical templates, checklists, assessments, and examples streamline your effort and eliminate writer's block. You'll discover how to make the most of limited time, money, and human resources to:

—Develop training lessons that make a difference.
—Customize off-the-shelf training to meet the needs of your target audience.
—Repurpose existing documentation.
—Globalize your training for culturally diverse learners or tailor lessons to meet specific needs of a limited audience.
—Recognize dead-end paths that can undermine the success of your project.
—Incorporate ready-to-use CGI, Java, and HTML scripts into lessons. Learn when to use them, where to find download sites, and how to tailor them to your training objectives and learners.

This systematic approach has helped thousands of writers like you create training programs that deliver what they promise. In just hours, you can learn techniques and time-savers that others have learned only through hard-won experience and costly mistakes.

Keep this book handy. You'll reach for it often for real-world advice about every phase of your project from initial planning to troubleshooting. Better than a mentor, it's a must-have for every successful training or user-education professional.

Rives Hassell-Corbiell is owner of The Learning Edge, a consulting firm specializing in instructional design and technical writing. The content reflects the author’s 24 years of experience as a corporate educator and technical writing consultant to leading edge corporations and government organizations around the world. An active member of the American Society for Training and Development (ASTD), International Society of Performance Improvement (ISPI), and Society of Technical Communicators (STC), she knows what technical writers need, what effective training requires, and how to incorporate them.