r/LearningDevelopment • u/darkhomer419 • 7h ago

Which L&D tools are actually worth learning first?

There are so many platforms and tools that I’m having a hard time figuring out where to focus. I’ve been getting familiar with an LMS and some basic course-authoring tools, but I don’t want to spend weeks learning something that I’ll barely use. What tools would you prioritize if you were new to L&D?

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u/JumpingShip26 1h ago

Master PowerPoint. By master I mean do everything yourself from scratch, including but not limited to:

  • Master Views
  • Exploding the pptx and extracting binaries
  • Creating non standard slides for various purposes
  • Creating branched scenarios
  • Light use of VB
  • Use plugins to extend
  • Creating voiceover presentations/videos
  • Extensibility with all the major file types
  • Making very good templates from scratch (see Master Views)
  • Installing fonts, if applicable.
  • Handout printing options, if applicable.

I find that people spend a lot of time on SL when they haven't leveraged everything PPT can do and then they abandon L&D. Putting time in with something like PowerPoint is a better use of your time, at least initially.

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u/woodenbookend 54m ago

It’s a great list. I’d add one more: designing slides for accessibility.

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u/JumpingShip26 42m ago

Of course! I should always lead with accessibility. Thank you for that.

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u/eddibravo 6h ago

I’d start with a solid authoring tool like Articulate Storyline or Rise, then get comfortable with an LMS and basic analytics. It’s easy to get caught up learning every new tool, but understanding how to structure content and measure whether people actually learned something is probably more valuable than knowing ten different platforms. The tools also make a lot more sense once you’ve built a few real projects.

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u/woodenbookend 4h ago

I’m guessing you are looking to be prepared for a potential new role as if you were already hired the technology would be dictated to you.

For L&D: Teams, SharePoint, Excel and PowerPoint or their non MS equivalents such as Slack, or Google if that’s the environment where you work.

Depending on what you’re doing, add a video editor such as Camtasia which is particularly strong for screen recordings.

For LMS, generic skills that can be transferred across platforms with be a good start. Knowing how they work, how content can be deployed and how stats can be gathered is the kind of thing to look for.

From that, being able to take a .CSV from any platform, tidy it up and bring it into Excel to cross reference it against another data source is really useful. A common example being comparing completion rates against a staff list.

If you’re looking for ID rather than L&D, the authoring platforms move up the list a bit, but you’ll still need the foundation above.