Designing eLearning? Here’s a little help from your friends!
It’s been clear for some time now that organisations are moving increasingly towards implementing eLearning to improve efficiency in delivering training. Whether the eLearning they’re considering is the most appropriate or only solution is a whole different story.
However, let’s imagine that you’ve carried out an in-depth analysis looking closely at the needs and experiences of your audience, established the the performance need, made sure there’s clear link to organisational goals and considered all possible options. You’ve come to the conclusion that the type of e-learning appropriate, whether wholly or as part of a blend, is the self-study interactive tutorial.
OK, so now you’re confident in your decision, now you have to decide how this should be done. If you’ve ruled out going externally and buying off the shelf, the alternative is to produce yourself in-house.
But what if you’re new to all this stuff? Well you could go on a course! But what if this isn’t an option – where do you start? There’s so much information and advice out there you can feel overwhelmed so I thought I’d get some useful resources together which might help in your quest for creating the holy grail of eLearning – that which engages and produces effective results.
Firstly, here are just a small selection of my own blog posts to start you thinking:
- You can’t create engaging compliance elearning
- All the world’s a stage: about getting the human touch across
- Cathy Moore’s tips for successful elearning not just for elearning
- What hope is there for eLearning? (it’s more than just text + quiz)
- Rapid authoring tools – they’re just dishwashers really!
The great thing about the eLearning community is everyone loves to share. Here are some excellent resources from some of the greats in the e-learning field (and I mean only some – there are many more but these are good to get you started):
Take a look at Cathy Moore’s blog and particularly her ‘Action Mapping‘. One important way of making elearning more realistic, relevant and engaging is using stories and scenarios. Here’s another post by Cathy Moore on creating mini scenarios.
I’ve often said that PowerPoint is your secret weapon when creating eLearning so my advice is to learn all you can about how to use its graphics as in depth as you can. Oh… and trash the template. By that, I mean, avoid the default, bulleted list style template and create your own from a blank slide. For ideas on how you can be creative with PowerPoint, check out Articulate’s Rapid eLearning Blog. No matter what authoring tool you have, the Rapid eLearning Blog will give you handy tips and ideas.
I’d definitely recommend putting The eLearning Coach on your reading list. Here’s a great post on different ways to provide feedback in your elearning.
Kineo has also got a lot of great resources and free advice too.
You need to balance effective learning with effective visuals when designing eLearning and in the absence of a graphic design qualification here are some good resources. These aren’t eLearning based but some ideas can be applied to eLearning screens:
- Slide:Ology by Nancy Duarte
- The non-designer’s design book by Robin Williams
- Presentation Zen Design by Garr Reynolds
And if you want professional advice backed up by research, get ‘e-Learning and the Science of Instruction‘ by Ruth Clark and Richard Mayer. Here’s my review of this book.
Well, I think that’s enough to get you all starting to think about what makes good eLearning. As I said, there’s so much more out there but these are certainly my favourite and will be more than enough for you at the beginning.
So go on – give it a go. As the saying goes… it’s easier to eat the elephant one bite at a time. Give yourself small, achievable goals and practise. Join and participate in communities like Articulate’s ‘e-Learning Heroes‘ community where you can share some of your ideas and prototypes to get feedback from others in the community. I’d also recommend joining the eLearning Network, a UK organisation ‘run by the eLearning community for the eLearning community’ sharing best practice.
But just to leave you with a thought…. it’s all very well knowing where to go for help and advice but to put some great eLearning out there in your organisations you’ll need backing and support. Not only from your colleagues but from your managers. Clive Shepherd briefly covers this in his post ‘Tools, talent, training and, above all, time‘ and my follow-up post ‘Dream the impossible e-dream‘.
What are your favourite ‘go-to’ resources to help you design eLearning or digital content?
2 Comments
Ryan
December 10, 2020
I love Julie Dirksen’s book, Design For How People Learn. It contains lots of practical ideas. Also, The non-designers design book was recommended reading on my degree over 20 years ago and I now recommend it to anyone looking at building elearning content.
Laura Layton-James
December 14, 2020
Thanks for that excellent suggestion. Yes Julie Dirksen’s book is excellent and based on evidence to help us design effectively.