A Surprising Treasure Trove of ID Whitepapers

What a week! Craziness just seemed to abound . . . and now we're on to the next one . . .

One of the highlights from the previous week was an hour-long conversation with Ken Thomas, the president and founder of Rocky Mountain Alchemy, an instructional design firm based here in Denver. Having spent 20+ years in the field of instructional design, Ken has an informative and very real perspective on the challenges and opportunities involved with eLearning. You can read more about our interview on my practitioner profile page.

Prior to this conversation, I spent some time on the Rocky Mountain Alchemy website and ran across a treasure trove of whitepapers in Ken's Laboratory. In my search for instructional design ideas, I've spent numerous hours reviewing academic papers, blogs and online communities, but have avoided the consultants' websites. Why? Most of their whitepapers are designed to showcase their services and to sell you on their approach to instructional design.

Ken's collection is a welcome change. He's not trying to sell the reader on anything in particular. Instead, he sees himself not only as an instructional designer, but also as a coach whose role is to mentor fledgling designers. Consequently, his papers are concise, deliberate and readable.

I highly recommend that you check these whitepapers out. They're worth the time!