Over 800 E-Learning Examples To Inspire Your Course Design

One of the best ways to learn is by looking at the work others have done. We can see different ideas in action which causes us to think about how they were built and explore what we might do different with the same content.

Here’s an example from a recent community challenge. The challenge was to create an interactive slider for elearning. Melissa Milloway created a demo where you dragged a scuba diver down to explore the ocean.

Click here to view the elearning example.

Melissa’s demo had me wondering what I’d do to make the diver look like he was changing position as he was dragged. I also wanted to include some air bubbles for effect. So I took her idea and then played around for a few minutes and created this.

Click here to view the elearning example.

To me, this is the value of routinely looking at elearning examples. Melissa shared her idea and I was able to iterate from it which allowed me to try something new and in turn practice using the elearning software.

One of the challenges is finding good examples because many of the good ones are locked behind corporate firewalls. However. rere are a couple I’ve seen recently.

This one from SpongeUK is a proof-of-concept demo to show a gamified course in Storyline. I like the light graphics and course structure. And to tell you the truth, if I wasn’t told this was created in Storyline, I don’t know if I would have guessed it.

Click here to view the elearning example.

Here’s another one on choosing the appropriate safety attire from 42 Design Square.

Click here to view the elearning example.

I’m also fond of the weekly challenges because they are designed to be mini examples and not big courses. They’re like appetizers, just enough food for thought without being overwhelming. And with new ones every week, there’s plenty of inspiration to be had. I love seeing what the community Plus, there are new ones every week. So there’s always something new to see and inspire ideas.

Did you know that last year there were over 750 elearning examples submitted to the weekly challenge? You can stay on top of the elearning challenges and the recaps here.

In addition, the community has a growing list of different elearning examples. We add to them regularly.

Between some of the examples on this blog, the elearning examples in the community, and the examples posted in the weekly challenge, there’s close to a thousand elearning examples that cover a diverse range of subject matter and interactivity. That should be more than enough to help fuel your imagination.

The key is to replicate the ones you like and then challenge yourself to add something new to it.

Hope you all have a happy holiday and happy new year!

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E-Learning Design Series: Branding Your Course

I probably review at least two hundred elearning courses each year. Most of them are designed by people just getting started so they then to look for feedback that can cover a broad range of topics.

Many of the courses I review have common design issues. Often it’s those little issues that make the difference between a course that looks like it’s built by a beginner and one that’s a bit more polished.

In a previous post I highlighted three common design issues and offered tips to fix them. Today’s tips are based on some things I see quite a bit related to the branding of courses.  

While I don’t necessarily agree with all of the branding that happens in many online training courses, I understand why organizations do it. However, often the branding goes beyond common sense.

Look at the example above, how many times do you need to see the organization’s name or logo? It’s in the title, the logo panel, and on the screen at least three times.

What’s the point of this? Does all of this branding even do anything positive? I can’t imagine that it actually makes people feel better about taking courses or being part of the organization. What’s next, a company tattoo?

With all that said, the copyright is a good idea. Don’t want anyone to steal that design.

If you have to add the branded items to your course then try to limit when you do so. A few simple ideas may be to make the logos smaller or watermark them so they’re less obvious.

Something I’ve done in the past is create an animated splash screen that I can add to the beginning or end of a course. It’s a bit more elegant and consistent with the brand requirements, but it doesn’t interfere with the course content. By moving the branded elements off your content screens you’ll have more room for the important stuff.

If you need to add branding to your course, then do it where it makes sense. Most authoring tools have a place for you to add a logo and you can also add brand colors to the template and player.

Click here to view the elearning example.

In the example above, a course on social media guidelines, Hitachi customized the template (and course colors) to match the branding in the logo. This helps meet the organization’s guidelines and still gives more control over the content on the screen.

I’m sure this will upset some people, but one thing I can’t stand about going to a kid’s play is that the play may only be 45 minutes long, but then after they spend another 30 minutes thanking everyone who helped out. That’s all good and I truly appreciate those who volunteered, but come on! No one came to the play for the credits. Do all of the back patting at a cast party.

The same can be said for elearning courses. Seems like I’m seeing more and more courses that begin with a series of screens like the ones above that are more like commercials and production credits. They have little to do with the course content so it’s probably a good idea to drop them.

If you do need to add all of that information, then take it off of the course screen. A simple solution is to create an “About Me” tab to hold all of that type of information. It’s in the course for those who want it, but it’s not part of the content flow.

Also, here’s a bonus tip. If you create a live action video don’t use the outtakes to create a gag reel. Unless you’re a master comedian like Emo Philips odds are the gag reel isn’t as funny as you think it is.

You don’t need to use all of the features in the player template that comes with your software. Here’s an example: many elearning templates offer a side menu. However, that feature can be turned off if it’s not needed.

In the example below, the only reason the side menu area exists is because the developer inserted the branded logo. Other than that, all of the space below the logo is wasted. It’s also confusing. If the learner is used to a side menu and then sees this example, she may think that something’s broken.

If you’re not using the side menu, a more elegant solution may be to get rid of the logo panel. This gives you a different course profile that doesn’t have a big empty area.

Like it or not, branding requirements exist. The key is to work them into your course design so meeting them makes sense. What do you do to deal with branding requirements that may interfere with your course design?

January 23 & 24: Las Vegas, NV (TechKnowledge): Mike Taylor will host two creation stations on Building Interactive E-Learning with Articulate Studio ‘13. January 29-30: London (Learning Technologies): I’ll be doing a quick presentation on interactive video using the Articulate applications. If you’re at the conference, swing by the Articulate booth. February 4-6: Karlsruhe (LEARNTEC 2014): I’ll be at the conference working in the Articulate booth and would love to meet you. March 11-12: Phoenix, AZ (ASTD). Details coming. March 19: Sydney (iDESIGNX): I’m excited to attend my first conference in Australia. Looking forward to meeting many of the blog readers there. I’m organizing a workshop while in town. Contact me if you’re interested and I’ll send details as soon as we know.Place I’ll be in 2014: Indianapolis, Lincoln, and Dallas. More to follow.

Post written by Tom Kuhlmann

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Homework time… Rapid eLearning Design Text Assignments

Regular readers will be aware that I am currently undertaking an online Rapid eLearning Development programme which is being facilitated by @robhubbard. One of the assignments this week relates to the use of text within elearning and requires a number of assignment to be undertaken and then posted to the blog section of the Ning site that acts as the portal to all the other brilliant content. However, as I have my own blog I prefer to post my assignments here as it:

a) provides more opportunities for wider feedback

b) helps to promote what is a fantastic online learning programme.

There were 3 assignments this week, the first being:

Find some text that is difficult to understand and that contains jargon and or acronyms. Ideally this should be some of the source written content for your final assignment. Alternatively Wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Main_Page is a great source of content written by experts for experts. Click on the ‘Random article’ link on the left-hand side until you find some content that would benefit from rewriting.Follow the Plain English guidelines to rewrite about 200 words of it in Plain English.

Here is my submission for assignment 1:

The original article is below:

Social bookmarking is a method for Internet users to organize, store, manage and search for bookmarks of resources online. Unlike file sharing, the resources themselves aren’t shared, merely bookmarks that reference them.

Descriptions may be added to these bookmarks in the form of metadata, so users may understand the content of the resource without first needing to download it for themselves. Such descriptions may be free text comments, votes in favour of or against its quality, or tags that collectively or collaboratively become a folksonomy. Folksonomy is also called social tagging, “the process by which many users add metadata in the form of keywords to shared content”.[1]

In a social bookmarking system, users save links to web pages that they want to remember and/or share. These bookmarks are usually public, and can be saved privately, shared only with specified people or groups, shared only inside certain networks, or another combination of public and private domains. The allowed people can usually view these bookmarks chronologically, by category or tags, or via a search engine.

Most social bookmark services encourage users to organize their bookmarks with informal tags instead of the traditional browser-based system of folders, although some services feature categories/folders or a combination of folders and tags. They also enable viewing bookmarks associated with a chosen tag, and include information about the number of users who have bookmarked them. Some social bookmarking services also draw inferences from the relationship of tags to create clusters of tags or bookmarks.

Many social bookmarking services provide web feeds for their lists of bookmarks, including lists organized by tags. This allows subscribers to become aware of new bookmarks as they are saved, shared, and tagged by other users.

As these services have matured and grown more popular, they have added extra features such as ratings and comments on bookmarks, the ability to import and export bookmarks from browsers, emailing of bookmarks, web annotation, and groups or other social network features.[2]

My reworked article:

Social bookmarking is a method for you to store, manage and search for bookmarks of online resources. Unlike file sharing, it isn’t the resources themselves that are shared, just the bookmarks that reference them.

You can add descriptions to these bookmarks so that other users can understand the content of the resource without having to download it for themselves. These descriptions could be free text comments, votes in favour of or against its quality, or tags which are words or phrases that generally describe the resource.

i.e. a bookmarked website on ‘implemeting social media policies within Blue-Chip organisations’ would probably be tagged with the following

By adding tags both you and other users can search for different websites, all on the same subject just by selecting a tag of interest.

In a social bookmarking system, you would save links to web pages that you want to remember and/or share with others. You could make these bookmarks open to the public, save them privately, share them with specific people, shared them only inside certain networks, or a combination of public and private areas.

Many social bookmarking sites have added extra features such as being able to import and export bookmarks from directly from a web browsers and the emailing of bookmarks to other.

The 2nd assignment asked us to:

write two SMART learning outcomes for your final assignment.

One of the many elements of the ReD programme that I have found to be quite innovative is the way in which Rob has used the Mindmeister mind-mapping tool to visually portray the learning outcomes, but to also use the linking features of it to link to the various resources that are in place to help achieve that outcome.

So here is my attempt at writing the learning objectives. (quite blatantly borrowing Rob’s idea!)

The 3rd and final assignment required us to:

write two multiple-choice assessment questions based on your learning outcomes

I’m still not sure whether these questions will be pitched as a stand-alone multiple choice assessment (not my preferred option) or as part of a scenario (my preference), but either way they will look a little something like this:

1. Which of the following is the correct web address for the Diigo homepage?

a)     www.diigo.co.uk

b)    www.diigo.net

c)     www.diigo.com

d)    www.diigo.gov.uk

2. What is the user name which you will need to log into the Diigo account?

a)     Tayloring.it

b)    Tailoringit

c)     Tayloringit

d)    Tayloring it

So over to you Dear Reader, what are your thoughts?

Was the reworking on the Wikipedia article clear enough?

Were the objectives SMART enough?

Were the multiple choice questions relevant and challenging?

As always, any and all feedback is greatly appreciated…

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