How to Build Better E-Learning

Are you tired of building the same courses over and over again? Sure you may get to build a hundred courses, but they’re essentially the same course built a hundred times. The result is that many of the courses look the same and they don’t provide the opportunity to expand your course design skills.

Today I’d like to offer a few tips on how you can get out of the hundred course rut.

Many organizations allow their employees to have some free time to hack together ideas or work on other types of projects. I spoke to one elearning manager that lets his employees spend a few days each month on personal projects. His rationale is that it gives them “time to unwind and play around with ideas.”

Most organizations probably won’t make time for you to “mess around with ideas” so you need to find ways to get the time. We often used the team meeting time to brainstorm ideas. For example, one challenge was how to navigate a course if all you could do was drag and drop objects and couldn’t click anywhere on the screen. Another was to come up with 100 analogies we could apply to our training programs: climbing stairs, climbing mountains, going down a road, entering a building’s lobby, etc. We then used some of the ideas as models for our course designs.

The main point in the activity was to think about things in a different way and to prototype ideas. They may not always be used, but they will help develop your skills.

As you know, I am a big fan of the weekly elearning challenges because they do exactly what I’m talking about above. They’re a springboard to playing with ideas. We present simple challenges to help nudge you a bit. They’re not intended to be big courses or even all that elaborate. Some people put together complete ideas and some just build quick prototypes. The main goal is to get you to try something different than what you normally do at work. Through that process you find new ideas and production techniques.

Even if you don’t participate in the weekly challenges, I still encourage you to look at what’s being done. They’re a great source of inspiration. You may pick up some neat ideas that can be applied in your own elearning courses. All of the participants get the same instructions but the results are always different. It’s nice to see the diverse ideas.

All of the Articulate community managers do a great job building courses. However, if I were to look at the demos they build without knowing who built them, odds are that I’d be able to match the course author to the course. And the reason is because we all tend to have our own style.

That means our course screens tend to look similar. The layouts, colors, fonts, and object sizes all tend to be the same. That’s not a bad thing. But build the same type of course a hundred times exactly the same way can cause some creative fatigue.

By stepping away from our own style and attempting to mimic the work of others we become better course designers. I recommend collecting elearning courses, multimedia examples, or visual design ideas that you find inspiring and then setting some time to practice recreating them.

Step 1: Try to replicate what the content creator did. This helps you figure out what they did and how you’d do the same thing with your authoring tools. Don’t worry about copyright or anything like that. This isn’t for public consumption. Instead it’s for your personal development. Step 2: Once you have decent replication, start to iterate. Pretend that a client told you they wanted this project redone. What would you do? From there you’ll be able to transform the idea that inspired you to something that’s uniquely yours. And most likely it’ll look a lot different than what you would have done on your own. I usually look for color themes, font pairings, and visual design ideas like how shapes and lines are used. I’ll create a few different layouts based on the original design.

Here are some of the places I go to find inspiration:

E-Learning Examples: a good collection of all sorts of elearning and interactive multimedia examples that could inspire course design ideas. Articulate demos: the elearning challenges have produced over 1000 different examples. You can find a complete list here. But we also feature a few of the more popular ones and other demos in our examples section. News multimedia: with every major news event there’s usually some multimedia composed to explain it. USA Today and NY Times (links to examples) usually have some good demos. Museums: many of the large museums have interactive tours and demos. Here’s one from the Smithsonian on how to build a sod house and an interactive tour of the Louvre. Design sites: I’m not a graphic artist but I can glean ideas from those who are. I like to look at some of the portfolios on sites like Dribbble and Loviv. I often get ideas on layouts, colors, and UI.

If you don’t want to get stuck building the same course over and over again, challenge yourself to find inspiration in the work of your peers. Make some time to connect with others and if you have time, join one of the weekly challenges. I’d love to see what you do.

How do you find inspiration for your elearning projects? Share your thoughts by clicking on the comments link.

Vancouver & Toronto Workshops: We’re planning a couple of workshops in Toronto & Vancouver. If you’re interested, let us know. Click here for more details. February 10 & 11 (Omaha, NE). Sign up for one day or both:
Day 1: How to Build Interactive E-Learning 
Day 2: Use Articulate Storyline to Build Interactive E-Learning March 25-27 (Orlando, FL). Learning Solutions. Swing by the Articulate booth to say “Hello.” April 15 & 16 (Chicago, IL). Registration page coming soon. 
Day 1: How to Build Interactive E-Learning 
Day 2: Use Articulate Storyline to Build Interactive E-LearningMay 17-20 (Orlando, FL). ATD International Conference & Expo. Swing by the Articulate booth to say “Hello.” June 3 & 4 (San Francisco, CA). Registration page coming soon.
Day 1: Learn to Create Your Own E-Learning Assets
Day 2: Use Storyline to Build Interactive E-Learning Other locations include: Philadelphia, Portland, Atlanta, Vancouver, and Toronto.

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Want to Build Better Courses? Then Do This.

I facilitate a lot of elearning workshops and from my experience most of the people who attend are just getting started. Generally the transition to elearning happens like this. They’re good at explaining things and go from explainer to trainer. Then somewhere in the process the organization says that they’re switching to online learning.

Now the trainer has to make another transition as she goes from creating and facilitating workshops to building elearning courses. And as we know, building an online training course is different than creating a facilitated live session.

So the challenge is: How do I learn and get better at building online training especially when working with limited resources?

If you’re just getting started, don’t worry about being perfect. The first online course I ever built was a mess (as I look back on it today). I was teaching people who had never been online how to navigate this new thing called the “World Wide Web.” What should have been a fun course full of discovery was a long-winded, information-heavy course. I made learning about the Internet about as fun as doing taxes.

But that’s OK. I received some good feedback and the next course was a little bit better. And with each one that followed I tried something new. Over time I learned to build better elearning. You only know what you know. Do the best you can, and then learn from it to get better at what you do.

Essential point: You’ve got to start somewhere. Do something with the expectation that the next time you’ll incorporate what you learned to build it a bit better.

If you want to be good at something, you have to practice. Building courses is a job and we usually only commit to the job what’s required to get our paychecks. That means we work from 9 to 5 and at the end of the day, we’re done. The challenge is that during the 9 to 5 we only work on projects and have little time to practice.

Great athletes start with natural athletic skills. But what makes them great is that they start with their skills and practice, practice, practice to build on where they’re currently at. If they didn’t they’d never be exceptional.

If you want to be good at your craft, you have to practice doing more than building the same type of course over and over again. Build practice activities into your routine as part of your on-the-job development. Tell your boos it’s cheaper than going to school.

Essential point: Take time to practice building something new. Practice new instructional ideas and production techniques you can add to your next course.

This part is a bit harder, but pays off big time. Start a blog or portfolio. The goal isn’t to become a recognized blogger with lots of subscribers (although that could be a goal). Instead it’s your public learning journal and a means to reflect on and share what you’re learning.

This will let you solicit feedback and get ideas to help build better courses. It also helps the person like you who wants to learn more. If we want better elearning, we need fewer blogs from thought leaders who throw out big picture ideas and more from practitioners who share practical tips and tricks.

Essential point: Writing about your learning experience will help you and those like you to become better developers. It’ll also add your voice to the community at large.

Every week, David Anderson posts a simple elearning challenge. The idea is to promote exactly what I referenced above—practice doing something new to help build your skills.

It’s all about fleshing out some ideas, sharing them, and getting feedback. Most people develop simple prototypes but some put in a bit more polish. It doesn’t matter what you do, just do something to push your boundaries a bit. That’s the key.

Essential point: The weekly challenges are happening now and an easy way to get into the habit of trying new things. That saves time trying to come up with different ideas and helps establish a routine of practice.

There are a few who take the challenge one step forward by including a write up of what they did. What I like about these posts is that the participants are at various levels of experience. Some are just getting started and some have quite a wealth of experience. Not only do they share some nice examples, they also often share good production tips and some even share their source files.

Create a Comic Book Inspired Course via Paul Anders

Gamify Your E-Learning via Jackie Van Nice

Typography Challenge: Create a Design Tip Poster via Gemma Henderson

Create a Drag & Drop Interaction via Dan Sweigert

Use Characters in Online Courses via Montse Anderson

Makeover a Quiz Results Slide via Jeff Kortenbosch

Build an Interactive Screenshot via Allison Nederveld

Build an Interactive Screenshot via Michael Hinze

Odds are you’re building the same course over and over again. That won’t do. Want to build better courses? If so, commit the time to learn something new and apply what you learn.

What do you do to improve your skills? Share your thoughts here.

May 20 & 21: Fargo, ND (ASTD). Sign up for one or both days here.
Day 1: PowerPoint for E-Learning
Day 2: Build Interactive E-Learning with Articulate Storyline

June 11 & 12: Lincoln (ASTD). Sign up for one or both days here.
Day 1: PowerPoint’s No Longer a Slideshow Freak
Day 2: Getting Started with Articulate Studio ‘13.

October: Dallas (ASTD). Details coming.

More to follow.

Post written by Tom Kuhlmann

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