As I was looking at my past posts, I realized I never published any on some of the things to consider (I cannot cover a lot here but I may post more on this in the future) if you are starting in eLearning as an instructor, course developer, instructional designer with little experience in eLearning (hopefully, there are not many of them left out there), learning and development officer, or subject matter expert for an eLearning course.
I did post some thoughts on how to start in eLearning but it was mostly oriented towards executives and training officers for small to medium professional associations. But now I want to organize my thoughts on something more specific: what kind of elements you need to consider in practice to start with eLearning.
If you are not a graphic designer, then you may need to pick up some basic elements of design, otherwise you could be creating eyesores that will turn off future learners. At the beginning, you will need to pick up a few things on graphic design, but don’t panic, I am not telling you to become a graphic designer, only that you need to pick up some skills they use in their daily work.
Engagement is a hard thing to conceptualize but make no mistake: if you cannot engage your learners with your course, you will be wasting everybody’s time. You need to consider that those consumers of your content will not see you, you won’t see them either. If they have a question, you will not see their raised hands or hear them when they ask a question, nor will you be able to answer those questions. So, you need to design with this idea: put yourself in their shoes.
It is important to select the right tool for the job. Some organizations may afford to have multiple tools, for eLearning I recommend having two different technologies so that you can offer solutions to diverse problems. You could be limiting yourself if you have one tool only.
If you don’t have the right content, or if it is of low quality, then you will be doing a disservice to your learners. Always work with subject matter experts (SMEs) in refining the content included in the project. The best way to do this is through a storyboard, where you and the SME can build the scripts, text for screen, images, videos, that you will include on the project. Always check that you have copyrights for those items, especially images, graphics, charts, or videos.
1. Get into the program: learning basics of graphic and digital design
I started designing slide decks to learn about graphic design principles. From building templates to selecting colors and fonts, it is important to follow proven practices (there are a ton of videos and posts on how to select fonts and colors por slide decks). I learned on my own many techniques, but I also reached out to more seasoned professionals. You should do the same. If there is nobody available, hire a consultant to help you in this process, based on their work you could also learn a lot.
For example, when building a template for a slide deck, pick a color or combination of complementary colors, and stick to these colors during the design process. You need to pick a font for reading text, but you may need to pick another for chapter titles, headers, and so on. For the love of God, choose one font color and stick to it (red or yellow rarely work for eLearning), some designers say that two colors are enough. Make sure it contrasts with the colors from the template, you don’t want to make unreadable slides.
It is unavoidable to include video in eLearning projects nowadays, hardly any project I have worked on doesn’t have a video or audio resource. You may sometimes need to edit these media and fortunately, there are tools out there that are easy to use. Of course, if you need to integrate effects or animations, then you will need a more powerful software that may require some training and a learning curve, or you could outsource these services.
2. Can’t see, can’t talk, can’t hear
Before you start doing any eLearning, you need to figure out who your learners are, why they need to take this course, what are they supposed to learn, in which conditions they are supposed to learn the content, and so on. This will help you create a course that addresses those needs. If they are supposed to take the course at work, make it so that it only takes 10-15 min and then they can come back to take the next section. If they are required to practice something while they take the course, add cues that let them pause a video or move away from the course to complete the task and come back. Understand that you need to create engagement, or your learners will leave.
Just remember that you will not be there next to them to tell them what to do, your course is speaking for you and the instructor. You need to add cues, instructions, and elements that guide the learner every step in the course. You can add these elements in an engaging manner, for example, with prominent buttons, audio clips with instructions (don’t be that guy that adds audio, and the written script shows on the screen at the same time as the audio is playing), short videos, or elements that add actions, so the learner interacts with the course.
3. Select eLearning software that works for you
When it comes to eLearning software, there are plenty of options that address different needs, but you need to make your life easier and choose the one that best adapts to your current skills, some will have a steep learning curve. You can go for a system that has an interface similar to other programs you have worked with in the past (for example, if you have worked a lot with Photoshop or Illustrator, maybe Captivate is better for you).
Of course, there are plenty of reviews and recommendations on the web, pay attention to those from seasoned professionals. There are many tutorials and courses that can get you up to speed. Once you develop your first course, you should start seeing possible applications in the future. By all means visit blogs and websites frequented by other professionals, they share tips and techniques that you can use. For example, I am always trolling Elearning Heroes, a blog from Articulate, and let me tell you it has paid off, since I use their tools such as Articulate Storyline and Rise 360.
I really don’t want to make recommendations, but I have used Articulate Storyline, Rise 360 from Articulate, Captivate from Adobe, and Lectora from Trivantis. Each one has its advantages and disadvantages, which I may address in a future post. Each one has a different technology and a level of difficulty so do your research before you commit with one technology.
4. Content is still king
In many cases, you will need to break down the content in many little pieces. Don’t build courses with three hours of videos and reading. Make it into more manageable sections but check that the content provided is high quality and adequate for the audience. Of course, you should have done your homework, and by now you know who your learners are, what level of education they have, and the environment in which they perform most of their activities (this information is recorded when you meet with stakeholders).
The content is usually provided by experts (outside or inside your organization) called subject matter experts, or SMEs for short, and you will need to work with them on developing the content. In my experience, many SMEs don’t have a clue on the kind of course they would like to build for eLearning so you need to do a lot of hand-holding at the beginning. But I was glad to work with some for which this one was not their first rodeo, they are aware of the eLearning environment and what it can do for them so they know exactly what they need.
Conclusions
So, there you have it. These are things to consider while you are entering eLearning as a course developer, instructor, or L&D officer. This is not a comprehensive list by any means, but I will be posting more items in future posts. If I can pick the most important point in this list, I would say stick with creating engaging elements for your learners. It doesn’t matter if it is pretty and that you did it with the latest technology if they don’t learn a thing from your course, then it is a waste of everybody’s time and money. You should lay out the course in such a way learners can understand the subject and even be tested on it.
A concept I quickly learned during my early days as an eLearning instructional designer was that of the screen size of any device being a kind of real estate for content. You have limited space, and you need to lay out the content in a way learners do not get overwhelmed with a screen congested with information, and that the information you present is relevant to the course objetive. There is no reason to add graphics or text that does not belong there, if it is for decoration purposes, get rid of it. Good luck in your new endeavor of becoming an eLearning expert.
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