Are the e-learning development tools worthwhile as an investment?
This is an area which is very important to learn a lot about. There are many e-learning development tools on the market which purport to make it easy to create e-learning courses quickly and cheaply.The good ones do a good job of helping you to create simple courses (these are often called “cookie-cutter courseware”), but it is important that you understand the limitations of the tools. Unfortunately, the vendors will not readily tell you this information (some of them have never built anything with the tools anyway, so they may not know!), and their reference sites are often price-incented to provide happy stories and testimonials (yes, the world can be an awful place). Many of these products are purchased for upwards of $20 – 25,000, and after an initial go by an initial project team, they are placed upon the proverbial shelf.
