I love the weekly elearning challenges. They get us to do things we may not often do on our own. We get to practice new techniques and think through different ideas. We also get to see how others approach the same challenge. I always find those a great source of inspiration.

Instructional Design E-Learning Challenge

Sometimes the elearning challenges poke a bit at what we do and not at how we build courses. For example, a recent challenge asked us to describe what elearning designers really do. You can see the recap in this post (scroll down a little). There are some clever descriptions.

Another elearning challenge asked people to share their experiences and thoughts on elearning via a simple podcast.

This Week’s E-Learning Challenge

This week’s elearning challenge asks us to list 10 Things Instructional Designers Don’t Like to Hear.

Already, Tricia Ransom added her ten things in a blog post. Jason Morris created an infographic. And both Nicola Redfearn and Jackie Van Nice created funny little multimedia modules.

• Click here to view Nicola’s demo.
• Click here to view Jackie’s demo.

Are you ready to take up the elearning challenge? What are the ten things you don’t like to hear? Jump into the community and share your thoughts.

Tom’s note:

Last week I noticed that all of the blog emails weren’t delivered. If you haven’t seen it yet, check out the blog post on how to volunteer to help NGOs and non-profit organizations build their courses.

Events

Free E-Learning Resources

Want to learn more? Check out these articles and free resources in the community.	Here’s a great job board for e-learning, instructional design, and training jobs	Participate in the weekly e-learning challenges to sharpen your skills
Get your free PowerPoint templates and free graphics & stock images.	Lots of cool e-learning examples to check out and find inspiration.	Getting Started? This e-learning 101 series and the free e-books will help.

Sometimes the world seems a bit scary as things spiral out of our control. This is definitely the case with the news regarding Ebola. However, just because we’re not doctors and nurses doesn’t mean we can’t use our skills to help in the fight against Ebola.

Examples of Ebola Training

The elearning community’s weekly challenges are designed to be quick ways to build prototypes and practice new skills. Some people put in a lot of work and some build simple projects. The main point is to try something to new.

However, last week’s challenge was a bit different because it tapped into a current crisis. The goal was to build Ebola training based on some publicly available resources. You can see three of the examples below and the rest are in this recap post.

Ebola Training Example #1

The first demo was created by Jeff Kortenbosch of Serious Learning. He based it on an infographic and it’s created in PowerPoint.

Click here to view the elearning example.

Ebola Training Example #2

This demo was created by Jackie Van Nice who always shares how she creates her demos.

Click here to view the elearning example.

Ebola Training Example #3

The next demo was created by Kristin Anthony, instructional designer, lifter and lover of dogs.

Click here to view the demo.

Rapid E-Learning for a Rapid Response

During a crisis getting people up and running quickly is super important, especially since many are volunteers and require orientation. There’s not a lot of time to pull together resources and build training that can be delivered to a lot of people quickly. That’s where rapid authoring tools really show their value. Something simple like a form-based process interaction can be built in minutes and can be media rich using up-to-date images and video from the field.

Click here to view the demo.

I created this demo in a just a few minutes. It’s simple but lets me share the information quickly and it can be delivered to mobile devices. If the field staff had videos and images required for training it wouldn’t take much to add them. Just about anyone could build something like this because the form-based structure means there is absolutely no programming required. That’s something that couldn’t have been done a few years ago.

I recall during the Haiti earthquake a few years ago, some of the elearning course volunteers at LINGOs had to create content on the fly to help some of the relief efforts. It was pretty impressive.

Your Role in a Rapid Response World

Here are a few ways that you can use your skills to help out in a time of need. Currently Ebola’s got all of the press, so if you want to volunteer to help with anything Ebola related Ebola Facts is a good place to start.

• Learn more about Ebola Facts and volunteer.

While Ebola is making the news there are all sorts of other diseases wreaking havoc. For example based on the World Health Organization, in 2012 malaria killed about 600,000 and tuberculosis killed well over 1 million. As you can see, there’s a lot of going on and many ways to support those tasked with stemming the tide.

In addition, not all humanitarian needs are related to medical crisis. If you want to volunteer to help in other capacities here are two good organizations that could use your course authoring skills.

We’ve featured LINGOs before and many of you have taken on the challenge of supporting their mission to provide world-class learning opportunities.

You can volunteer with their Last Mile Learning Initiative or many of their member agencies such as CARE, Habitat for Humanity, International Rescue Committee, Save the Children, as well as any other non-profit agency with a primary focus to improve people’s lives in the developing world.

They also have a yearly Global Giveback competition where your work can be recognized for its success.

Another organization looking for volunteers is DisasterReady.org. They focus on getting aid workers ready for work and they make all of the courses available for free. The good thing for you is that they’re actively looking for volunteers. You can read their blog here and click this link to learn about how to volunteer.

Why Should You Help?

The main reason to help is because it’s a good thing. Our time here is precious and best served helping others. While we may not be medical or emergency staff who can work on the frontline, we do have skills and experiences that are valuable.

Another benefit is b
uilding your professional network and working on highly visible projects that you can add to your portfolio. It’s a win-win!

Events

Free E-Learning Resources

Want to learn more? Check out these articles and free resources in the community.	Here’s a great job board for e-learning, instructional design, and training jobs	Participate in the weekly e-learning challenges to sharpen your skills
Get your free PowerPoint templates and free graphics & stock images.	Lots of cool e-learning examples to check out and find inspiration.	Getting Started? This e-learning 101 series and the free e-books will help.

How do you define interactive elearning?

It’s a question I ask clients when they tell me they want an interactive elearning course. Usually they define interactive elearning with what we normally consider the “bells and whistles.” Often they mention things like fancy buttons that change colors and rollover effects.

Sometimes we laugh those off as superfluous or unnecessary interactions. But they do play an important role in interactive elearning. But they’re only part of the interactive elearning process.

Step 1: Interactive E-Learning Requires Onscreen Actions

One goal of interactive elearning is to craft an immersive experience. The course’s visual design needs to be contextual. It’s something we’ve reviewed before. For example, if you’re doing a course on operating room technology, you want to bring the learner into the operating room. You can do part of this by tapping into your visual voice and crafting a visually immersive screen.

Another way to create an immersive experience is to have the users interact with onscreen elements or “touch the screen.” We discussed this earlier in a blog post on how to touch the screen.

Touching the screen is key. It’s also NOT an either/or option. Regardless of how you design your course’s interactions, the learner is going to interact with it. You’ll either offer options to click, hover, or drag. And since that’s the case, you need to make sure that those onscreen interactions contribute to a high value, interactive experience that pulls the learner into the course.

Step 2: Interactive E-Learning Requires In-brain Actions

Interacting with onscreen elements is an important part of elearning course design. However, the ultimate goal of your course is to meet specific learning objectives. So in that sense, I define interactive elearning as getting the learner to interact with the content. This is more than visual and tactile interactions. It includes them processing what they learn and demonstrating understanding.

Here are a few keys to crafting the right interactive experience:

• Develop clear learning objectives. Why are they taking the course and what do you expect of them when they’re done? Here’s a good starting point to learn more about creating good learning objectives.
• Have the learners prove their understanding. With clear objectives you can develop a means for the learner to demonstrate what they’ve learned and their current level of understanding. This is more than a simple multiple choice quiz. Instead it’s the course’s activities and decision-making scenarios that prove what they know.
• Place their learning in a relevant context. Many elearning courses rely too much on information and not enough on performance. One way to avoid this trap is to frame the content in a context that is real to the learners. And then present the learning experience in a way that mirrors the way they work and the types of decisions they need to make. Here’s a post on how to switch from information to performance-based learning.

Interactive elearning engages the learner. You can engage their senses to craft an immersive experience—make it look great and provide lots of onscreen interactivity. But you can’t stop there. You also need to get them to process the information. Place them in a relevant context and get them to make the types of decisions they’d make in real life.

Combine “touch the screen” interactivity with great decision-making and you’re on your way to building great elearning courses. What do you think?

Events

Free E-Learning Resources

Want to learn more? Check out these articles and free resources in the community.	Here’s a great job board for e-learning, instructional design, and training jobs	Participate in the weekly e-learning challenges to sharpen your skills
Get your free PowerPoint templates and free graphics & stock images.	Lots of cool e-learning examples to check out and find inspiration.	Getting Started? This e-learning 101 series and the free e-books will help.

I was building a demo for a workshop and needed a few safety training images. Fortunately Microsoft has some decent images available on their site.

• Click here to get an image search box. Ignore the “no results” message.
• Search for “Style 401”
• Microsoft’s Services Agreement: I get a lot of questions about whether or not you can use the images. Check out their service agreement to learn more. Section 8.1 discusses use of the media elements.

Here’s the safety training demo I created for the workshop. It’s for a session on how to use the slider feature in Storyline 2.

Click here to view the elearning example.

Below are some of the images from Style 401. I sorted them into general groups to make it easier to see how they could be used. Some of the images are in multiple groups if they feature different safety equipment or procedures.

Safety Training Equipment Images

Head Protection

Eye Protection

Hand Protection

Respiratory Protection

Foot Protection

Hearing Protection

Safety Attire

Safety Training Procedures & Use Cases

Safety Procedures

Lifting Safely

Handling Hazardous Material

I was pleasantly surprised to find an entire clip art style dedicated to safety training. There’s a lot from which to choose and should help when you need to build your own safety training. If you use this style to build something, please share it with the rest of us so we can see what you did.

Events

Free E-Learning Resources

Want to learn more? Check out these articles and free resources in the community.	Here’s a great job board for e-learning, instructional design, and training jobs	Participate in the weekly e-learning challenges to sharpen your skills
Get your free PowerPoint templates and free graphics & stock images.	Lots of cool e-learning examples to check out and find inspiration.	Getting Started? This e-learning 101 series and the free e-books will help.