 Instruction and learning used to mean a teacher and a student in a classroom. We started with chalk slates, moved to pencils and paper, then to overhead projectors, videos and computers. Today's learning has progressed even further and takes place anywhere on any number of devices. You can learn on your smartphone while you ride the subway, on a tablet in a classroom, or on your laptop at 35,000 feet while you fly from New York to LA. Just as learning methods have progressed, so have learning principles. Techniques that work well in the classroom don't necessarily translate as successfully to computers and tablets. Additionally, as the technology progressed, so did the software to make computerized learning. This meant it was easy for anyone to create their own learning and throw it out to the universe via YouTube, Vimeo or any other video sharing services. While computerized learning was more plentiful, it wasn't necessarily more useful. So what to do? Traditional classroom learning had centuries to develop and create best practices, but something had to be done to standardize and provide best practices for the emerging electronic learning or e-learning industry. Enter Richard E. Mayer. Mayer was at the forefront of educational multimedia and helped to create multimedia learning principles that should guide all good e-learning. Mayer is currently a professor of psychology at the University of California at Santa Barbara and his work in the field of educational psychology continues to provide foundational and guiding principles for all e-learning. In our series of e-learning design modules, we're going to cover a brief overview of Mayer's principles. Our modules will provide you with an introduction, but they will not cover all of the details and nuances involved. For additional information, we recommend reading Multimedia Learning by Richard E. Mayer or e-learning and the Science of Instruction by Ruth Colvin-Clark and Richard E. Mayer. Our e-learning modules have been designed to watch in any order. While some of the principles are enhanced by understanding previous ones, each one can also stand alone. We'd also love to hear from you. If you have comments, questions or additional insights, please share them in the comments section.