Hello everyone. Welcome to Sandra Speaks, my own personal venue for sharing information about instructional design (ID) and online learning.

I wanted to share with you three eLearning blogs that I have recently discovered. Check them out when you have the opportunity; I believe you will find them informative and fun to read through. Enjoy . . .

The first blog, and my favorite, is Experiencing E-Learning hosted by Christy Tucker. Christy is an instructional designer who has been in the education arena for a number of years. She is definitely a geek and seems sharp, intelligent and very knowledgeable.

Experiencing E-Learning has tons of information about instructional design and e-learning. You will find topics such as Getting into Instructional Design, What Does an Instructional Designer Do, and Technology Skills for Instructional Designers. I have just started a graduate program in this field, but found the information on this blog to be very insightful, quite informative and easy to read. I especially enjoyed the article about Getting into Instructional Design. It is well written and covered a wide range of topics, even including a section on career options! Very nice.

As a student I thoroughly enjoyed browsing through Christy’s blog. Experiencing E-Learning will be a blog that I check out regularly as it contains information that is very valuable to me right now as well as information that I can use as I become more knowledgeable and experienced in ID.

Next check out my second recommended blog, Learning Visions, hosted by Cammy Bean. Cammy is an e-learning Instructional Designer who has been in the business for more than 15 years.

Learning Visions is extremely well-organized and also has tons of information for designers. Within the blog are sections entitled, Best of Learning Visions, Instructional Design Resources, and Browse My Stuff. Interesting articles abound such as Essential Reading for Instructional Designers, The Value of Instructional Designers, Getting an ID Education without Paying Tuition, and Engaging Interactions for eLearning. Additionally Christy includes within her blog an extensive list and review of ID tools, twitter updates and even a Learning Concepts tool. As with my first recommended blog, I’ve found this one to be very helpful to me now. It is also one that I feel I can grow into as Learning Visions includes much more advanced level material.

Lastly, check out Making Change: Ideas for Lively elearning, a highly polished, very professional looking blog. Making Change is hosted by Cathy Moore, a 25-year veteran in the field of education technology.

Making Change is a bit out of my league at this point in my career, but I chose to include it as a recommendation because I found the information and discussions to be intriguing and very lively. The blog does a really good job of informing readers about a wide variety of elearning topics. Want to know if the term elearning is likely to make it over the long haul? Cathy’s written about it. Want to know if more text leads to increased learning? Want to know specific elearning objectives and how to create them? Answers to these questions are found on the Making Change blog. Sure the blog is advanced. Sure it seems to be part of Cathy’s professional website. Sure it’s pretty and polished with perfect graphics. But is it a great blog? Absolutely! Check it out for yourself and let me know what you think about this blog as well as the others.

Experiencing E-Learning: http://christytucker.wordpress.com/

Learning Visions: http://learningvisions.blogspot.com/

Making Change, Ideas for Lively e-learning: http://blog.cathy-moore.com/

Happy blogging!