In a previous post, we discussed visual thinking concepts and where they fit with e-learning design. Now, let’s look at ways to practice sketching your ideas so that you’re able to move past understanding the concepts and actually applying them to your course.

How to Practice Your Visual Thinking Skills

The first step is to get a handle on the basics:

• Learn to capture concepts using Roam’s visual grammar or Gray’s approach to visualizing ideas.
• Become fluent with your visual alphabet and the basic shapes used as building blocks. This helps you see the basic shapes in the objects you want to create.

• Practice using the basic shapes to create specific objects. The more you practice the better you’ll become at seeing the shapes and sketching something that looks like what it’s supposed to be.

Practice Activities for Visual Thinking Skills

Some people have innate skills and sketching isn’t too hard to start. But many don’t have those skills and feel like they can’t do it. But they can. A key point is to feel comfortable sketching.

Remember, this isn’t about becoming a graphics design professional. You want to get a feel for the flow of drawing with your pen, especially if you’re using a computer or tablet. Then develop some fluency and clarity. And that will take a little practice.

Here are some practice activities.

Activity 1: Create basic shapes over and over again.

Work on getting lines straight and completing the desired shape in less strokes. Can you create the shape in one movement and still have it look like it’s supposed to? For example, I notice that if I create a triangle really fast, then the sides start to bow in. However, if I am more deliberate my lines remain straight. The goal is to get straighter lines at a faster speed. A circle should like a circle and not a blob.

Activity 2: Creating common objects.

Look around your office and identify 10 random objects. Break them down by the basic shapes and then create them a few times. For example, here’s a quick sketch of my desk. It’s mostly rectangles and a few circles.

Another thing is to recognize what makes the shape unique and identifiable. For example, an elephant stands out because of the trunk and large ears. By focusing on the essential shapes you can convey the idea of an elephant without having to create the entire thing.

Activity 3: Convey concepts with your objects.

Start to practice sketching whole ideas. Identify three TED videos and capture the core concepts as sketches. It may be easier to just start with three main ideas from each video. Or if that is too much, just focus on a single point. The good thing about video is that you can pause it and rewind. Here are three to help you get started:

• How to Save the World from Bad Meetings
• What We’re Learning About Online Education
• Simple Power of Handwashing

Activity 4: Improve your penmanship.

Sunni Brown has some good advice in her book Doodle Revolution where she says to trace over letters. Find a font type you like and type out the ABCs and save as an image. Then load the image into your drawing app and practice tracing over the letters. Eventually you’ll develop the muscle memory to create nice legible handwriting for your sketches.

When I was a Finance Specialist in the Army we were taught to use block letters so that our writing was more legible. To this day, I still do a lot of printing with block letters and it helps when I write, especially smaller text.

Examples of Visual Thinking Skills in E-Learning

Here are a three examples of people who do a great job sketching their ideas and are part of our industry. They also offer tips via twitter and their blogs.

• Kevin Thorn of NuggetHead Studioz. I ran into Kevin at a Devlearn conference. He showed me his sketch note of the Neil deGrasse Tyson keynote. Obviously we don’t all have Kevin’s innate drawing skills, but if you look past the drawings it’s mostly print and a few basic shapes.

• Blair Rorani of Ever Learning. At a workshop I did in in Australia, Blair live sketched my presentation which I noted in this post on instructional design challenges.

• John Curran of Designed for Learning. I love John’s sketches. Again, they’re not overly complicated to create,
  but they convey good information and the hand drawn style creates enough contrast to engage people visually.

The key in all of this isn’t to become a pro graphic designer. Instead it’s learning to think visually. E-learning is a mostly visual medium and anything we can do to better communicate our ideas will only serve to make the courses we create better.

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Here are two common challenges when building online training courses: knowing what content needs to be in the course and then having the right visuals to support the learning of that content. One way to overcome these challenges is to increase your visual thinking skills. You’ll learn to focus on the right content and then find the right visuals to support what you’re teaching.

What is Visual Thinking?

The essence of visual thinking is to convert your text-based information to images and text that show concepts and the flow of ideas. I like the way Dave Gray describes it as a way to “move beyond the linear world of the written word, lists, and spreadsheets and entering the non-linear world of spatial relationships, networks, maps, and diagrams.”

Dan Roam does a nice job drawing a distinction between our “verbal” and “visual” mind by using a fox and hummingbird analogy.

And this is where visual thinking is relevant to e-learning: most e-learning is on the fox side of things. We’re info-centric and lean on our verbal minds to push out information. Yet, e-learning is a mostly visual medium. So it’s ripe for us to use our visual minds to present information and concepts in a way that’s less dependent on text. This helps us move past bullet point lists.

How to Learn More About Visual Thinking

There are all sorts of great resources on visual thinking. Below are some videos to get you started and a few good book recommendations for those who want to dig deeper.

In the videos below, both presenters share how to get started with basic shapes and a consistent approach to capturing the big ideas and concepts. The videos also complement each other because while they’re similar they do use slightly different approaches.

Of course there’s an investment of time watching the videos, however they’re not too long and you’ll learn quite a bit. Just treat them like a visual thinking workshop that you get to attend for free.

Dan Roam Presents

I like the work Dan Roam does. Here are some free videos that are part of his Napkin Academy. He shows how all drawings start with five simple shapes and also provides a grammar structure that guides what to draw.

• How to Draw Anything (7:55)
• Essential Visual Grammar (5:42)
• Process of Visual Thinking (11:14)

Dave Gray Presents

Here are three good videos by Dave Gray, founder of Xplane. He expands on Roam’s basic shapes using a visual alphabet (glyphs) and explains how to know what to draw and when to do it.

• Visual Thinking Basics (17:11)
• How to Know What to Draw (16:47)
• How to Know When to Draw (12:42)

Good Books on Visual Thinking & Communication

I like videos, but I also like books. There’s something about holding them in my hand and making my own notes in the margin. Here are some good visual communication books to add to your elearning library.

• Any of Dan Roam’s books are good. I haven’t read Show & Tell yet but I’ve heard good things. It’s on my list.
• The Art of Explanation: Making Your Ideas, Products, and Services Easier to Understand. Many of you know Lee Lefever from his popular Common Craft videos. The Common Craft videos are a great transition from sketches to multimedia learning and there’s a lot to be gleaned for us e-learning designers in the way the videos are clear, simple, and entertainingly engaging.
• The Doodle Revolution. Sunni Brown does a great job getting us to think about doodling in a new way. I also love her practical challenge activities to instigate practicing what you learn. Here’s a great presentation that she gave at TED.
• Sketchnote Handbook: Illustrated Guide to Visual Note Taking. Learn more about Mike Rohdes in this podcast and by reviewing some of his sketchnotes. This is one of a Lee Lefever presentation.
• Beyond Words: A Guide to Drawing Out Ideas. I haven’t read this book, but it came highly recommended from a couple of people at a recent workshop.

The links to Amazon books may produce a slight commission.

Your Next Steps…

Learning about visual thinking is one thing. Actually applying it to your course design is another. Here are some suggestions to help you get started:

• Watch the videos above to get a good overview of concepts.
• Practice sketching some basic shapes. For the image above and the header image, I used an iPad and Cosmonaut stylus.
• Convert a bullet point slide in one of your courses from fox to hummingbird.
• Don’t worry about being perfect. You’ll get better the more you do it.

The key point in all of this is to train yourself to think visually. And then apply those skills to the construction of your e-learning courses. Keep in mind, e-learning is mostly a visual medium and unfortunately most courses are heavily text-based with deficient visual consideration. Thus, if you learn to think and communicate visually, you’ll only get better at building your e-learning courses.

Have you applied any visual thinking concepts to your e-learning courses? If so, I’d love to learn more about what you did.

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My hunch is the most e-learning courses are explainer-type content, heavy on content, but light on applied learning. This is fine, especially since most of the learning happens outside the course; however, good e-learning courses should be more than content.

Start with Clear Objectives

Most courses are content-heavy because of compliance requirements. And the main objective is certified exposure to content by December 31. If you’re building courses based on performance expectations, you need to start with clear objectives.

• What are they to do?
• How do you know they can do it?

That gives you objectives and metrics.

What’s the Best Type of Course?

The key focus is performance. Sometimes courses consist of mostly content, and then the performance and practice activities happen outside the course. And sometimes, the course is designed to simulate the real-world expectations with plenty of practice activities in the course.

• What do they need to do?
• Where can they practice it?

It’s not always easy to build viable practice activities in an e-learning course. In those cases, find ways to have them practice in the real-world.

Diversity Changes Expectations

Clients request the types of courses with which they have experience. This means typical e-learning courses with the standard object screen, some bullet points, and a final quiz. It can be a challenge to get them to see courses differently. That’s why it’s important to expose them to diverse learning opportunities.

• Collect examples of diverse types of courses and learning activities. I even like to keep samples of mobile apps. This lets you throw out other ideas to push the envelope a bit.
• Create a demo course with different treatments that vary from typical content-heavy to a bit more interactive and focused on decision-making experiences. This lets them see beyond the content.

Focus on the actions required of the learner and then try to present the course treatment around that rather than the content. The more examples of different learning experiences you can show, the better.

As a course designer, it’s you job to help the client to see past the content.

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I was reviewing some older presentations I found a slide regarding the topic of getting started with e-learning. On the slide I offered three helpful tips when getting started that still hold true today.

An E-Learning Course is Different from a Classroom Session

A challenge a lot of new e-learning developers have is that they start with existing content from classroom training. This is usually in PowerPoint; and it’s easy enough to import a PowerPoint slide into an e-learning application, add a quiz, and call it good.

This is fine for some compliance training or annual refresher content because they tend to be less about “learning” and more about sharing information. But it’s not ideal.

The better strategy is to craft a learning experience that’s different than the classroom experience. Focus on the objectives and activities required to demonstrate understanding. That will help build courses less about a content dump and more about meeting measurable objectives.

Here’s a good book that does a great job walking through a backwards course design where you focus on the learning experience and not just the content.

E-Learning is Mostly a Visual Medium

Accessibility is a primary consideration when building a course, but outside of that, the e-learning course is mostly visual. Make the investment to learn more about how to structure the onscreen content properly and the how to communicate in a visual medium.

Two good books: The Non-Designer’s Design Book to learn more about basic design and Slideology to learn more about visual communication. And while you’re at it, learn to support what you do visually with alt-text and other accessibility considerations.

You’re Only as Good as What You Know About the Software

If all you know is the basics, all you’ll be able to build is basic courses. The truth is that it takes time to learn to use software. You need to make an investment to learn how to really use the tools. Here’s why:

• It speeds up your production as you become more efficient. This saves time and lets you spend your energy elsewhere.
• You’ll learn advanced skills that let you problem solve. The software gives you specific features, but as you gain more advanced skills, you’ll produce unique ways to use the features. But you need to know how the features work to start.
• You’ll design more engaging and effective e-learning. For example, if you don’t know how to use variables, you severely limit what you can do. But once you understand how that feature works, you’ll build all sorts of different courses and interactive experiences.

One of the best ways to learn is to build something. This can be a challenge at work where you may have some project constraints and build the same courses over and over again.

That’s why I highly recommend the weekly e-learning challenges. They’re designed to get you to think about some new idea and how you’d build it. They’re not intended to be fancy or big courses. You can build something simple or something elaborate, that’s up to you. The main thing is you’re spending time in the tools applying your creative juices. And you get to see some cool examples from others in the community.

If you don’t do the challenges, make it a goal to do one per quarter. And at a minimum, check out what others build every week. You’ll get some neat ideas for your own courses.

There you go, three simple tips to help you get moving in the right direction.

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We can put together great courses, but we can’t guarantee a person learns from them. Learning requires some level of interest and motivation from the person taking the course. The good news is there are things we can do to engage people and tap into their motivation. Here are a few ideas.

Add Value to Motivate Learners

Courses need to be relevant to the person. They need to know where the course fits in the scheme of things and how it impacts what they do. And people make that assessment right away. If they think the course has no value they’ll tune out. Compliance training is often a challenge, but if the content is reframed and not just slides of bullets, it can be engaging.

Turn the compliance content into a relevant case study. This reframes the perspective and adds more of a story-like element to the training. It also helps them see how the content is connected to what they do.

A Good Map Motivates People

Above we discussed adding value. When people understand why they’re taking the e-learning course and then know what to do in it, they’ll be more engaged. People like to know what’s expected, where they’re going, and what will happen when they get there.

Remove friction from the course so that things move well. Friction comes from things like lack of clear direction, unmeasurable objectives, poor instructions, novel interactions that don’t add value, and poor course design like mediocre-looking content or overbuilt animations and transitions.

Motivate Learners with a Reward

Find ways to reward people as they go through the course. A straightforward way is to track their progress and then offer some sort of affirmation. You can also encourage them as you affirm their progress.

One of the biggest rewards is assessing what they know and letting them skip ahead or test out. Why waste time and frustrate people with courses when they already know the content? Let them prove it and move on.

We ask people to spend their valuable time in the course, we need to respect that and make sure it’s a valuable experience. And a valuable experience will be more motivating.

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Online training is hot right now. And between video chat services like Zoom and course authoring tools like Articulate 360, there’s a lot of content creation.

Since creating the e-learning content is easy, there’s often an increased demand to create yet more online training. And with that demand is the need to manage resources, which for most training organizations is limited.

Any opportunity to save time (and money) is a good thing. Here are three ideas to help manage your e-learning resources. They help improve development time and decrease the costs to build courses.

Don’t Create an E-Learning Course

Organizations often think that their problems are solved through more training. Need better sales? Create a new training program. Have a new policy? Create a new training program? Want to change the world? Create a new training program.

See how that works?

There’s a cost to build the training and a cost for each person who must take it. If you can prevent the organization from creating training courses, do it.

The truth is training can help meet goals and solve problems. But it’s just one part of the solution. It’s important to help the organization better understand it’s needs and then guide them to the best solution. And sometimes, that means no training is required.

Use Kuhlmann’s E-Learning Hierarchy

I have a simple hierarchy model that that I started using years ago. All of the e-learning gets built with the fastest and easiest tool. And from there any deviation needs to be justified.

It doesn’t mean we don’t do other things. It just means we don’t do other things for the sake of novelty or because we can.

Look at Articulate 360. It comes with Rise 360 and Storyline 360. Rise 360 is formed based and extremely easy to use because most of the heavy lifting is done for you. Most e-learning content is on the explainer side of things. That type of content is easily assembled and delivered in Rise 360. Why spend extra time and resources on custom interactivity in Storyline 360?

There are times where custom interactivity is warranted. In that case, use Rise 360 and add custom interactions from Storyline 360. And then there are times where a form-based solution like Rise 360 isn’t the right tool and Storyline’s freeform authoring is the better choice.

The hierarchy isn’t designed to NOT build good e-learning and avoid complex and custom courses. Instead, it’s designed to help manage the production process and your limited resources. The more you can do quickly for less, the more you have available when it’s really required.

Don’t Repurpose Existing Content

As noted above, most e-learning courses are explainer content and not performance-heavy. This is fine because the course is a lot like a book. You consume the content to get exposed to ideas and information, but the application (or interactivity) happens elsewhere, whether that’s personal reflection or activities in the real world.

Often the explainer content already exists in some other digital format in the organization. And what happens is the instructional designer converts that content into a “course.” Instead of repurposing the content, create a course that teaches how to find and use the information. This helps them learn to use the existing resources they may need, and they’ll always know where to locate them after the training event.

I like to set up mini real-world scenarios where the learner needs to make a decision. And the objective is to learn to locate and use the existing resources. Doing this makes the courses lighter and you don’t need to update them every time the source content is changed or modified.

You have limited resources. Hopefully, the steps above help think through how you’ll manage them.

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A lot of e-learning is compliance-based and often how it has to be delivered is a bit rigid. I’ve heard plenty of examples where some compliance training requires X number of seat hours to certify the completion of the training.

This is ridiculous because the seat hours are completely disconnected from whether the learner demonstrates any semblance of understanding. But, like I said, that’s not going to change. And as an e-learning developer, you’re stuck.

Outside of compliance training, another large chunk is what I like to call regurgitative training. That’s where we repackage content that’s already available in some sort of digital format.

Policy training is a common type. The policies already exist online. We copy and paste the policies over a series of slides. Make the slides pretty. And then add a quiz.

Or, perhaps we need some ergonomics training; so, we copy and paste the ergonomics information that’s already available to the end user. We add some ergonomic pictures. Maybe get one of those cute comic-style animation makers so Susan can tell her cubicle mate Jack about her bad back, and then Terri the ergonomics person can pop in and tell Susan and Jack about ergonomics with almost Disney-like skill.

Maybe it’s time we rethink this approach to training for content that already exists. Here’s one idea:

• The goal is for the person to use the content to make decisions or do things a certain way.
• Instead of copying and pasting content that already exists in one digital format into another, focus on how to find and use the content.
• Provide some instruction on what content is available, where it can be found, and why it exists.
• For the assessment, skip the simple multiple choice quiz questions. Instead, create a series of quick decision-making scenarios that requires the person to locate the appropriate content to make the right decisions.

Some benefits to this type of approach are:

• When content changes you don’t need to update the entire training program because the courses aren’t focused on specific content. Instead, they’re focused on where the content exists.
• You’re teaching people to be resourceful and understand what’s available to help them do their jobs.
• You also don’t need to cover every piece of information (which is a challenge when working with subject matter experts). All that information is freely available at the resource site.

How much of you e-learning courses already exist as content elsewhere? How do you approach these types of “training” requests?

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Like many organizations, we have to take compliance training. And when I heard we had a 3-hour harassment course coming, my first emotional response wasn’t positive. Why do I shudder thinking of taking a 3-hour e-learning course?

We all know why.

I hear all the time that e-learning courses are boring. This isn’t 1995. What’s going on?

We have conferences that teach us how to build better courses. We have an industry full of experts whose whole existence revolves around pointing out boring e-learning and selling their services to de-borify.

I write this blog hoping to combat boring e-learning. We discuss this often in the community and present weekly challenges to instigate thinking about interactive content in different ways. And yet, a lot of e-learning is still boring. Why?

Here are a few observations based on my experience.

Boring E-learning Has Always Existed

Working for a software vendor, I hear all that time that we make boring e-learning possible. The argument is that we’ve equipped too many ignorant people to create “courses.” Apparently, only highly trained instructional designers can build good e-learning. Hog wash! This opinion is both elitist and wrong.

I’ve been in this industry long before the rapid authoring tools were around. E-learning was just as boring then as now. The only difference was that it cost more to make it so there were fewer boring e-learning courses. But trust me, the e-learning courses back then were a lot worse than the ones we have now. And they weren’t created by ignorant people; they were created by instructional designers.

The tools don’t create boring courses, but I will admit that they do make it easier to create a lot of them. But the problem isn’t the authoring tools.

Organizations Get What They Pay For

I’ve been part of hundreds of workshops and talk to people in organization both big and small. And most have a few things in common. The organization buys the software and that’s about it. The developers don’t tend to get much more and must cobble together all sorts of things to build their courses.

But there’s a lot that goes into building great courses.

For many organizations, there’s minimal commitment to ongoing training so that the developers can get more out of the software investment or learn to build better learning experiences. There’s not a lot of commitment to designers who can help craft the right UX designs or graphic designers who can build compelling visuals that support the communication of the content. There’s no multimedia support or access to programmers. Many times, the course developers aren’t even connected to the ones who manage the learning management systems.

Good e-learning requires more than good e-learning software. It requires a commitment to an effective e-learning strategy that helps craft the best learning experiences. I see that many organizations stop at the good software part and let things go from there. And the result is understaffed e-learning developers who operate at the insane speed of business, cranking out content like crazy with little additional support.

That’s a recipe for boring e-learning.

Too Much Focus on Content

When it comes to teaching, we’re very content-centric. Need to know how to change a tire? Go to YouTube. Not sure how to handle this process? Read this PDF. If there’s a need, the gut reaction is to throw more content at it.

Content is fine and obviously part of the learning process. But content isn’t THE learning process. Yet most of the e-learning I see is a lot of content. And it’s often stuff already available in some digital format and then repurposed to look like a course. Add a ten-question quiz and call it good.

Content should be tethered to two things:

• meaningful, relevant context
• performance-based activity

Courses are boring because the content is completely meaningless to the person taking the course (which is the case for a lot of compliance training). Or it’s not framed in a relevant context that helps them understand the content in their real lives.

And then, the course stops at just sharing content with a quiz. There are no supporting activities to practice using it. There’s no opportunity to make real-world decisions and get feedback.

You want your e-learning courses to not be boring? Make an investment in a team that can build good courses, give them the right resources, and focus on learner-centric activities rather than content dumping.

That’s a step in the right direction.

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You built an e-learning course and the client is happy. Now what?

There’s a lot that happens between getting the course uploaded and then delivered to those who need to consume it. And then after that, what happens next?

Here are a few ideas.

Implementation Strategy

Once a course is built, it needs to be rolled out to its intended audience. Often this part of the course construction is out of the hands of the person who builds the course. However, it’s still a major consideration and many clients (especially if they’re internal managers) don’t think through the implementation process. It’s a good thing to have a few questions to ask so that those things are considered as part of the course construction process.

• Where is the course housed? How does it get there?
• Who manages the distribution of the course?
• How do learners know the course is available?
• How do managers know who needs to take the course and when they completed it?
• How do managers discern if the course is required or not?

Ongoing Course Considerations

• How is the effectiveness of the course determined?
• What data needs to be collected to determine if the course is effective?
• Who collects and reports the data? At what frequency?
• Is there feedback on the course? How are adjustments made to it?
• What about ongoing maintenance? Is the course content reviewed quarterly? Annually? Who owns this?

The points above are not exhaustive. There’s a lot more that needs to happen after the completed course is delivered to the client.

What are other considerations you’d add to the list?

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The other day, I had a service technician from Xfinity come by to troubleshoot an issue with my cable connection. While we were waiting for the cable box to reboot, I asked about how he gets trained and what types of training he has to take.

He does most of the same types of compliance training we all do. And then as expected, there’s also a lot of technical training. Part of his training is blended with some face-to-face, peer guidance, and online modules. Much of it is delivered via his mobile phone.

I’m in the e-learning community every day helping people troubleshoot their e-learning courses. Sometimes I help them think through what they need to do to build a certain type of interaction. Often, it’s a matter of troubleshooting how the course is constructed.

In the community, there’s usually some conversation about instructional design. One thing that is often missing (but will easily derail an e-learning project) is not understanding the environment in which a person takes the course. So we invest a lot in building it, but often not as much in how it’s delivered.

Like the Xfinity technician, people take courses on a variety of devices and in various environments. The learning environment needs to be a factor when developing and delivering online training.

How Much Bandwidth is Available?

What are the bandwidth limitations of the learner? We can be tricked into the comfort of our own bandwidth and think the experience may be the same for the end user. Or, all we do is publish on our local machines and never test the course on other networks.

Build a test course that is made up of some videos, audio, and various interactions (with some animations, to boot). An easy way to build one is download all of the slides of a Content Library template, add some large videos, and then publish.

Test the course performance on the client network. How does it perform at different locations or on different devices? This may not be an issue, but what happens if you roll out the course and 10,000 people click the link at the same time?

What About the End User’s Access to Technology?

Years ago, I built a course for a client that wanted a lot of audio narration. It was for an internal training group so I just assumed they had the same computer set up that I had. Well, I was mistaken.

The courses were delivered to a number of remote locations in various production environments (of which I was not made aware). The computers had no speakers or headsets, which made the narration a bit pointless. Also, some sites had one computer for everyone to share. Even if they did have speakers, it didn’t matter because the training environment was too loud.

If you can, meet with the learners and get to know where they work and how they’ll consume the content. Are they on a computer, tablet, or mobile device? Will they be able to hear the audio and watch the video? Are they in a separate room or in a production environment? Are they sitting in a vehicle?

Also, not all devices are created equal. What works on a desktop and laptop computer may not work on a smart phone. Be sure to test those things before building a course.

Same advice as above, create a media heavy test course and test it on multiple devices and in different environments. No one likes sitting around waiting for a course to download. If things in the course bog down, you may want to loosen the load: get rid of some media and make smaller, more digestible courses.

There’s obviously a lot that goes into building a great learning experience. But if the end user has technological or environmental constraints, all of your hard work is for naught.

Test. Test. Test.

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.

Did you know that every two seconds, someone needs blood? And one donation can save up to three lives?

2020 has been a challenging year. And on top of it, the news media seems to focus on all the discord and hardship. Where’s the good news? What can we do to make a difference in our little part of the universe?

How to be an E-Learning Hero

Every week we feature various e-learning challenges. The goal is to use the e-learning tools in different ways. Move past the compliance projects we do at work and do something different.

This helps us gain mastery over the e-learning tools, play around with various interactive prototypes, and get inspiration from seeing what others can do.

If you don’t participate, you should. At a minimum, you should check out the round up that David does every Thursday. There’s always some creative ideas that may inspire something for your next project.

Recently, we did a challenge to promote blood donations. Here’s a link to the round up with a bunch of nice examples.

Here are a few key thoughts:

• There’s more than one way to do things. What I love most about the challenge entries is that it shows there’s a lot of creative ways to do the same thing.
• Keep your design clean and focused. We tend to be info-centric and push a lot of content out. Try to minimize content on the screen and control when and how it’s exposed.
• Where’s the personality? Many of the challenges feature facts and various levels of interactivity. The ones that stood out to me are the ones wrapped around stories and people. What’s the story in your e-learning courses?
• There are a lot of nice examples, my favorite is this one by Przemyslaw Hubisz. I like the simple and clean design; and that the activity is contextually meaningful. It makes me consider the point of the information being presented to me.

Click here to view the e-learning example.

If you want to grow your skills using the e-learning software and building interactions, the challenges are a great way to do that. If you’re a beginner or more advanced, doesn’t matter. The challenges work for where you’re at and it’s not a competition. It’s all about you.

How to be a REAL Hero

Blood and platelets cannot be manufactured. They can only come from volunteer donors. And not everyone can donate, so everyone who can plays an important role.

Can you donate?

I’ll have to admit, it’s not always on my radar. But I was reading an article recently that reminded me how important it is. And while I can’t control a lot of what’s going on in the world today, I can control what I do and how I share what I have. Because of that, I’ve made a commitment to donate blood regularly.

Hopefully it’s something you can to do, too. Find out where you can donate blood today.

Join us in the e-learning challenges to grow your skills. Join us in donating blood to be a hero to someone who needs it.

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.

In a previous post, we looked at how context helps frame the learning experience. It keeps us from just doing an information dump as we add clarity about our learners and the learning objectives.

One way to establish context is by learning what the user already knows. Test their assumptions. This does two things:

• Expose their current level of understanding. This helps them see what they do or don’t know about the subject.
• Demonstrate what level of knowledge/competence is required to meet the learning objectives.

How to Test the Learner’s Assumptions

Generally, you can do one of two things to test the learner’s understanding and assumptions around a given subject.

Create a Pre-Assessment

The easiest thing is to create a pre-assessment. Usually, pre-assessments are used to filter the learner. Pass the assessment, go to the end. Fail the assessment, start the course.

For procedural training, that is step-by-step, the filtering makes sense. You either know the procedures or not. For principle-based training, we want to expose the understanding (or assumptions for experienced people).

In this case, we use the pre-assessment to help them understand where they’re at. We’re not using it to filter them away from the course.

Create a Simple Scenario

I like to throw people in the pool and get them to make real world decisions as soon as possible. So, I recommend some sort of early decision-making interactions. They don’t need to be big elaborate scenarios: just a few interactions that test their understanding and help them see what they currently know about a given situation. And then from there, work through the content.

In most cases, the learners already have existing knowledge and probably a pretty good idea of what the course will teach. With that comes some bias and possibly incorrect understanding. By getting them to make decisions related to the content, you expose to them what they know or possibly don’t know.

The main point in all of this is to get them to think about what they know about the topic before going through the topic. People can easily figure out and compare what they thought versus what they’re presented. But your interaction gets them set up to do so.

In either case, get them to test what they know before giving them the content.

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.