I think you will agree that keeping costs down when developing online courses is a key to eLearning business stability and lasting ROI.
Over the years of the JoomLMS company existence we have assisted many clients – small eLearning business owners and startup founders, who couldn’t afford hiring experienced instructional designers and content creators and looked for any possible means to cut the eLearning project costs. To help them we published a bunch of the JoomLMS workarounds to unlock the hidden functionality of the LMS system, shared partner coupons to save on authoring tools and recommended free eLearning resources for eLearning professionals.
But of course, the JoomLMS blog is not the only source of freebies for eLearning course designers and developers. We know dozens of eLearning and EdTech websites where people share resources to create amazing online courses and, what is important, they are completely free!
In this article we will share with you an amazing collection of a variety of places where you can find free eLearning images, free eLearning characters, e-learning website templates, fonts, audio and video files to cut the eLearning development costs.
Enjoy!
designschool.canva.com
When you are about to start with eLearning course design you get overwhelmed with all the design principles, approaches and disciplines out there. To get to know all the basics you will spend years, not weeks. Fortunately for you, there is an amazing design school that helps non-designers to learn the basics without charge and shares amazing design resources such as color combinations, schemes and palettes, fonts, icons and eLearning images to download and much more. We highly recommend checking it out!
https://designschool.canva.com/blog/100-color-combinations/
https://designschool.canva.com/blog/free-stock-photos/
https://designschool.canva.com/blog/free-icons-download/
https://designschool.canva.com/blog/futuristic-fonts/
timslade.com
Tim Slade is an award-winning eLearning designer and the owner of a popular blog where he not only constantly shares eLearning design strategies and approaches but showcases stunning resources to design and develop online courses. Here you will find everything you need to design your next project including icons, high-resolution eLearning images, e-learning website templates and fonts.
https://timslade.com/blog/stock-photos-for-elearning/
https://timslade.com/blog/hero-images-for-elearning/
https://timslade.com/blog/office-images-for-elearning/
https://timslade.com/blog/computer-images-for-elearning/
https://timslade.com/blog/team-photos-for-elearning/
blog.visme.co
The 60 Totally Free Design Resources for Non-Designers, compiled by Vismeo, is another go-to collection for visual content. The blog post features 60 websites with free eLearning images, photos, icons, fonts, free photo and video editing tools.
http://blog.visme.co/free-design-resources/
biancawoods.weebly.com
The collection of design tools and assets by an instructional technologist Bianca Woods is a great source of e-learning freebies to design media-rich course content and polish your design skills.
http://biancawoods.weebly.com/design-tools-and-assets.html
usablelearning.com
If you are looking for game design resources to produce high-quality and interactive eLearning courses, then have a look at the freebies, collected by Julie Dirksen - an independent consultant and instructional designer with more than 15 years of eLearning design experience.
http://usablelearning.com/resources/game-design-for-learning/
teachertoolkit.me
The Teacher Toolkit is a wonderland of free resources for teachers and schools. Here you will find a bunch of resources to use in the classroom, including lesson plans, various assessment types, feedback examples and homework templates. If you are a teacher, you will be definitely spoilt for choice!
http://www.teachertoolkit.me/resources/
elearningart.com
ELearningArt is a leading provider of free eLearning images and website templates for the eLearning industry. The website is aimed at instructional designers and learning developers working on creating interactive and engaging eLearning content. In the eLearning art blog you will find not only over 40 000 eLearning assets but a bunch of interesting articles and interviews with top eLearning and edtech experts.
http://elearningart.com/product-category/elearning/elearning-stock-photos/
https://elearningart.com/blog/category/adobe-captivate/
https://elearningart.com/blog/category/articulate-storyline/
https://elearningart.com/blog/free-medical-images-for-elearning/
https://elearningart.com/product-category/other-cool-stuff/tools/
theelearningcoach.com
The name of Connie Malamed is familiar to almost everyone in the eLearning field. Connie’s blog is a godsend for learning specialists and designers. Besides actionable strategies, expert interviews and practical pieces of advice on designing smarter learning experiences there are a lot of eLearning freebies and resources to bring your eLearning project to the next level.
http://theelearningcoach.com/resources/
http://theelearningcoach.com/elearning2-0/100-elearning-freebies/
http://theelearningcoach.com/resources/icon-collection/
articulate.com
If you are looking for lots of Articulate freebies in one place then the E-Learning Heroes Community is what you need. Every day instructional designers from all over the world submit free resources to help each other build outstanding eLearning courses and get the most from Articulate software. Here you will find e-learning website templates, free eLearning characters, demos, quizzes, eLearning examples and assessments to create a seamless eLearning experience. You can contribute here as well.
https://community.articulate.com/search?tags%5B%5D=Freebies
http://blogs.articulate.com/rapid-elearning/hundreds-free-resources-build-e-learning-courses/
http://blogs.articulate.com/rapid-elearning/a-dozen-free-stock-video-sites/
https://community.articulate.com/articles/free-stock-photo-sites-for-e-learning
http://blogs.articulate.com/rapid-elearning/get-free-templates-e-learning/
elearningindustry.com
It is hard to come by a person who has never visited the eLearning industry website or has never heard of its owner – Christopher Pappas. The website contains articles on the eLearning topics of all sorts, including the collections of free eLearning resources for instructional designers and course creators.
https://elearningindustry.com/13-icon-resources-for-elearning-designers
https://elearningindustry.com/over-1000-free-elearning-resources
https://elearningindustry.com/321-free-tools-for-teachers-free-educational-technology
https://elearningindustry.com/free-elearning-books-the-ultimate-list
info.shiftelearning.com
The Shiftlearning blog authors post a number of articles each week aimed at people working within the eLearning industry. A great place to explore interesting eLearning ideas and find lots of free eLearning resources to produce more results on a budget.
http://info.shiftelearning.com/blog/bid/296752/30-incredibly-useful-tools-resources-for-elearning-professionals
http://info.shiftelearning.com/blog/elearning-design-toolkit-freebies
http://info.shiftelearning.com/blog/free-images-for-your-elearning-courses
http://info.shiftelearning.com/download-free-elearning-icon-collection
elearningbrothers.com
ELearning Brothers don't only produce the largest collection of eLearning website templates and assets for a rapid eLearning development but also give away lots of free stuff for eLearning developers and presenters alike. The fact that the startup was named the Top 20 Learning Library by Training Industry is the most compelling evidence that the website is worth visiting.
http://elearningbrothers.com/category/tips-tricks/freebies/free-storyline-templates/
http://elearningbrothers.com/free-articulate-storyline-2-templates/
http://elearningbrothers.com/free-elearning-assets-improve-elearning/
Learning Solutions Magazine
We have recommended the LearningSolutionsMag as a great eLearning resource more than once. It is worth subscribing to the blog for receiving informative eLearning articles, recent news and experts’ opinions. Another reason to join the subscribers’ list is recommendations of resources for eLearning developers, project managers and instructional designers that will be delivered straight to your inbox.
https://www.learningsolutionsmag.com/articles/1826/five-resources-for-elearning-developers-little-tricks
https://www.learningsolutionsmag.com/articles/1838/five-awesome-resources-for-elearning-designers-developers-and-project-managers-and-a-raffle
jackievannice.com
Jackie Van Nice is an experienced instructional designer who runs her own business on creating custom eLearning. In her blogs she provides a lot of useful advice to help others to succeed in the eLearning field as well as shares free Storyline and PowerPoint templates, free eLearning images in high resolution and resources to help you speed up the eLearning development process.
http://www.jackievannice.com/?page_id=175069460
dashe.com
There are so many websites with free resources that sometimes it gets very difficult to find valuable content your competitors don’t use. Eric Berget, a creative director at Dashe & Thomson, compiled an article featuring free “un-stocky” eLearning resources he uses personally.
http://www.dashe.com/blog/free-training-resources
http://www.dashe.com/blog/learning/free-e-learning-design-resources/
elearningdesigner.co.uk
Another website where you can find free eLearning resources is the blog owned by Joanna Kurpiewska, an out of the box eLearning designer with 7 years of learning design experience. The freebies she shares are free to download and use in your eLearning projects.
http://www.elearningdesigner.co.uk/freebies
jennifervalley.blogspot.com
Jennifer Valley, an instructional designer whom we even interviewed for the JoomLMS blog also has a list of free tools and resources for eLearning she has been collecting over the years. A broad range of animation, audio, biography, collaboration, color, course authoring, documents, eLearning images, icons, infographics and meeting tools to choose from when building your next eLearning project.
http://jennifervalley.blogspot.com/2015/02/free-or-cheaper-tool-and-resources-for.html
elearninglocker.com
The eLearning Locker website says that they help to put the Wow! back in eLearning by designing outstanding eLearning website templates, layouts, designs and graphics. The website offers a variety of media resources to amaze your learners and is worth to be bookmarked.
https://elearninglocker.com/elearning-freebies/
eLearning.net
eLearning.net is one more website where in addition to paid custom eLearning development resources there is a bunch of free stuff to download and get your eLearning development work done within a few clicks.
myelearningworld.com
If you are looking for a collection of websites where you can download free eLearning templates, we recommend checking out the blog post by Scott Winstead, an eLearning designer and technology expert. Here you will find a list of 10 go-to places to find great ready-made templates to make your life as an instructional designer easier.
https://myelearningworld.com/e-learning-templates-sources/
We sincerely hope that the gathered collection of websites and blogs with free eLearning resources will help you design outstanding eLearning courses and engage your learners.
Do you have your own personal favorites? Please tell us about them in the comments section below. And don’t forget to share the post before you get back to course creation!
