A List of 35 Top eLearning Experts

If you want to keep abreast of the latest eLearning trends and news, follow those who make the news and formulate these trends – eLearning experts.

In this article, we’ve collected 35 thought leaders who are experienced professionals in the fields of eLearning, instructional design, and L&D. They regularly post insights on eLearning topics, share job postings, and take part in discussions on trends, issues, and opportunities in their fields. Check out their bios and see why we believe you need to follow them.

Please note: there are many more experts whose work, books, and projects contribute to the industry. Here, we mention only those who are active on social media. If you believe we missed someone, feel free to mention them in the comment section below.

These experts are listed alphabetically.

Alexander Salas

Alexander Salas is an award-winning instructional designer with over 15 years of experience specializing in blending learning technologies and gamification for increased performance outcomes.

Why follow: trends, how-tos, tips, and memes.

Ant Pugh

With a career in learning and development spanning almost twenty years, experience working on several continents, and global clients that include ANZ, Westpac, Link Group, Microsoft, and Carnival, Ant Pugh is passionate about helping other learning designers do the same.

Why follow: witty useful posts on L&D with real-life cases.

Cammy Bean

Having been in the eLearning industry since before it received that name, Cammy Bean has been designing and developing digital learning solutions for over twenty five years. Author of The Accidental Instructional Designer: Learning Design for the Digital Age.

Why follow: trends, ID essentials, announcements.

Cara North

Cara North has been working in L&D for her entire professional career. She’s an “accidental” learning experience designer who has worked in higher education, corporate, and consulting settings.

Why follow: instructional design job opportunities, trends, work experience, tips, and announcements

Cathy Moore

Cathy Moore is on a quest to save the world from irrelevant corporate training. She’s the creator of action mapping, a streamlined, visual way to analyze a performance problem and design practice-rich solutions. Cathy is the author of MAP IT: The Hands-On Guide to Strategic Training Design.

Why follow: discussions, tips, and useful resources.

Christy Tucker

Christy Tucker is a learning experience design consultant who develops engaging eLearning that changes how people do their jobs. She aims to create online learning that uses technology and storytelling in order to draw participants in and empower them to practice new skills in ways that they can apply in the workplace easily.

Why follow: regular lists of useful links for IDs and eLearning specialists, webinars, and podcast announcements.

Clark Aldrich

Clark Aldrich is the world’s most experienced designer of educational simulations, focused on Short Sims for professional and life skills. He is the managing partner of Clark Aldrich Designs LLC, which designs and builds Short Sims and other custom educational simulations.

Why follow: trends, quotes, thoughts on scenarios in training.

Clark Quinn

Clark Quinn is an internationally known consultant, author, and keynote speaker who promotes evidence-based L&D through the Learning & Development Accelerator and serves as Chief Learning Strategist for Upside Learning.

Why follow: links to blog posts and articles on L&D trends and essentials.

Craig Weiss

Craig Weiss is the CEO and Lead Analyst for The Craig Weiss Group. He is also the founder of FindAnLMS, a learning system search engine and the number one site for everything related to learning systems.

Why follow: regular tips and insights related to learning management systems (LMS).

David Kelly

David Kelly is the CEO of The Learning Guild. David has been a learning and performance consultant and training director for over 20 years. He is a leading voice in exploring how technology can be used to enhance training, education, learning, and organizational performance.

Why follow: trends, announcements, useful links for IDs and L&D specialists.

Devlin Peck

Devlin Peck started his freelance eLearning business as a master’s student in 2017. Since then, he’s developed eLearning for dozens of clients and millions of people worldwide. He now spends most of his time creating content for people in the instructional design and eLearning space.

Why follow: trends, how-tos, useful links for instructional designers.

Emily Wood, CPTD, PMP

Emily Wood is an innovative, award-winning, senior-level development manager of learning and education with over 15 years of learning experience design, eLearning, and instructional design. She’s a published author, noted speaker, and trusted thought leader with a track record of implementing learning best practices.

Why follow: trends, recorded webinar sessions, and useful links for instructional designers.

Hadiya Nuriddin, MA, MEd, CPTD

Hadiya Nuriddin is the owner of Duets Learning. She has over 20 years of experience in L&D. Hadiya specializes in instructional design and development for both corporate and academic environments and is the author of the book StoryTraining: Selecting and Shaping Stories That Connect.

Why follow: insights on learning and development, instructional design, and storytelling in eLearning.

Holly Owens, M.Ed.

Holly Owens is a corporate instructional designer at Amazon Pharmacy. She has over 15 years of experience in education in various roles, including instructional technologist, designer, and educator. She has taught online since 2012 and currently teaches with Touro College’s Graduate School of Technology in their Instructional Design/Technology program.

Why follow: insights for instructional designers and transitioning teachers, job postings, useful links, and discussions.

James Gilchrist

James Gilchrist started out as an instructional designer and, as his career trajectory evolved, he learned to adopt strategic and all-inclusive approaches to develop and launch world-class human capital programs that take organizations to the next level. He’s a passionate visionary with extensive experience planning, designing, implementing, and leading impactful employee professional development and customer training programs.

Why follow: trends, useful links for training specialists, announcements, and job postings.

Jeff Blackman, M.Ed.

For over 20 years in the industry, Jeff Blackman has worked in all facets of the learning field, including facilitation, instructional design, eLearning development, LMS administration, project management, and mobile development.

Why follow: practical guides and insights for instructional designers and L&D specialists.

Jonathan Hill, Assoc CIPD

Johnathan Hill is an award-winning learning manager with over ten years of experience designing and delivering training for the financial, voluntary, and further education (FE) sectors. He leads international teams of designers to deliver the digital learning strategies of large multinational organizations.

Why follow: regular demos of various eLearning content types.

Joseph Suarez

Joseph has been described as a “learning and development renaissance man” due to the depth of his skills and experience in adult learning and his use of learning technologies. He brings his passion for effective design and development to crafting a wide variety of user-centered learning solutions. His career spans several industries, including healthcare, manufacturing, IT services, and retail.

Why follow: trends, insights, and links for instructional designers.

Julie Dirksen

Julie Dirksen is a leading expert in instructional design, eLearning, and behavior change. She’s a frequent speaker at industry events, the author of a bestselling book on instructional design, Design for How People Learn, and received the accolade of Guild Master from eLearning Guild.

Why follow: trends and links for instructional designers.

Karl Kapp

Karl Kapp is the founder of the L&D Learning Academy, a LinkedIn Learning author, a co-founder of Enterprise Game Stack, a TEDx speaker, and the author of nine books on the convergence of learning, technology, and business.

Why follow: trends, insights, discussions, job postings, and useful links for IDs interested in gamification.

Kevin Thorn, CLEO, CNH

Kevin Thorn has over 20 years of experience in L&D designing training solutions, with an emphasis on self-paced eLearning. His experience includes instructional design, storyboarding, templates, games, scenario-based learning, interactive comics, and custom interactions. He has more than 5 years of experience as an LMS administrator managing content, users, and groups of sub-administrators.

Why follow: trends, insights, works in progress, and useful links.

Luke Hobson, EdD

Luke Hobson is an experienced instructional designer, program manager, and instructor with a track record of working in the higher education industry. He is skilled in learning sciences, andragogy, learning experience design, universal design for learning (UDL), and relationship management.

Why follow: trends, ID tips and essentials, career advice, and insights on instructional design in higher education.

Melissa Milloway

Melissa Milloway has over 10 years of experience in the field of corporate learning. She currently works in SaaS within customer education.

Why follow: insights into corporate training, job postings, experience sharing.

Mike Taylor

Mike Taylor is a learning consultant who is on a mission to rid the world of boring, ineffectual training. His years as a “boots on the ground” practitioner have taught him how to do just about every job in L&D. But his true superpower is his curiosity for finding a better way to train and empathizing deeply with the learner.

Why follow: trends, insights on instructional design and L&D, useful links.

Patricia Regier, M.Ed.

Patricia Regier is a learning development specialist. She loves working with online facilitators, speakers, and workplace trainers to help them shift their audience into participants. Through her services, she encourages facilitators to design learning experiences that aren’t boring and to connect with a variety of learners.

Why follow: insights into the industry, useful links for instructional designers.

Patti Shank, Ph.D.

Patti Shank is a designer, analyst, author, and facilitator who writes about evidence-based workplace learning. She coaches trainers, instructional designers, instructors, and experts to build valuable instruction. Her latest books are Write and Organize for Deeper Learning and Practice and Feedback for Deeper Learning.

Why follow: evidence-based insights into instructional design, article extracts, announcements, and useful links.

Richard Goring

Richard Goring specializes in creating compelling, clear, and persuasive presentations, training projects, and eLearning through the use of visuals and diagrams — empowering sales, marketing, and L&D experts to communicate more effectively.

Why follow: insights and tips on creating eLearning content with PowerPoint.

Ryan Tracey

Ryan Tracey is an eLearning Manager in the financial services industry, and a council member for the Australian Institute of Training & Development.

Why follow: trends, insights into L&D, job postings, and useful links.

Sabire Akay

Sabire Akay is an accomplished educator and educational technology specialist. She’s passionate about integrating her interests in design and teaching in order to create effective eLearning content. Sabire specializes in localization and translation, as well as script and scenario writing.

Why follow: insights into education, online learning, and instructional design.

Sam Rogers

Sam Rogers creates more effective, efficient, and engaging ways to deliver learning to his clients, which include Google/YouTube, Capital One, Deloitte, and AAA. He also writes, speaks, nad live streams frequently about L&D issues.

Why follow: trends, thoughts on eLearning (and related) news, and tips and insights for L&D specialists.

Shannon Tipton

Shannon Tipton is a skilled learning strategist with over 20 years of leadership experience developing successful learning strategies and infrastructures for training departments in organizations. She’s the owner of Learning Rebels LLC and the author of Disruptive Learning. Shannon was listed in the top 100 eLearning “Movers and Shakers” by eLearning Industry in 2018 and 2019.

Why follow: trends, insights into the industry, and useful links.

Tim Slade

Tim Slade is a speaker, author, award-winning freelance eLearning designer, and creator of The eLearning Designer’s Academy. Having spent the last decade working to help others elevate their eLearning and visual communications content, he has been recognized and awarded in the eLearning industry multiple times for his innovative design aesthetics. He’s also a regular speaker at international eLearning conferences, a recognized Articulate Super Hero, and the author of The eLearning Designer’s Handbook.

Why follow: trends, insights into instructional design skills, career advice, and useful links.

Tom McDowall

Tom McDowall is chief eLearning geek at Evolve Learning Design, Ltd. and chairperson of the Board of Directors at The Learning Network. For the past nine years, he’s worked in a range of industries, focusing on delivering performance improvement through effective learning intervention and organizational development.

Why follow: insights into instructional design, announcements of webinars with top experts, and useful links.

Tracy Parish

Tracy Parish is an education technology specialist for a Regional Health Centre in the Greater Toronto Area. She has a diverse educational background of computer programming, adult educational training, eLearning design and development leading to an instructional design career.

Why follow: insights into the industry and instructional design, experience sharing, useful links and shares.

Zsolt Olah

Zsolt Olah is a senior learning technologist with over 20 years of experience in the intersection of technology, data, learning science, and motivation.

Why follow: insights into the industry, software, and L&D, as well as experience sharing, useful links, and shares.

Endnote

We also encourage you to follow iSpring on LinkedIn and YouTube! We produce many useful resources for instructional designers and L&D specialists, conduct weekly webinars with experts, record how-tos, and write in-depth articles in our blogs. Let’s connect for better eLearning!