First, consider why you want an eLearning course. Designing an eLearning course can take longer than creating one in person. Let's look at the reasons why an eLearning course is important.
Why Design an eLearning Course?
Multiple uses of an eLearning course
Consider how many times you will be teaching the course each year. Online courses can be reused (they are not extended). You can also create as many students for the same content as you like, concurrently or sequentially, depending on your needs.
Accessible from Anywhere
Do your students live in the same area? Face-to-face training is not an option if the answer is yes. You will need to transfer students or teachers to be able to teach. Online Training allows you to reach all students simultaneously, from any location, using any device that is connected to the internet. Online courses are a great way to reach students who live far away from each other.
Face-to-Face Sessions
Is it necessary to use machinery or tools in order to train? Face-to-face training is still more lucrative today than ever. However, this does not mean that online courses cannot be created that allow students to practice.
Simulators were first developed around fifteen years ago for driving dangerous machinery and flying. You can now create virtual reality environments that allow you to practice your skills as if you were there. But here's the catch. It's still quite expensive, and not everyone can afford it.
How to Design an eLearning Program
When transferring face-to-face content online, the first temptation is to simply "upload" it. Moodle, a training management system such as Moodle allows you to view PDF and ppt files in your course. It is easy.
What is the problem?
- PowerPoints are often used as support content in face-to-face classes.
- They are difficult to understand without the teacher's speech.
- PDFs are often extracted from manuals.
- There are not all the possibilities that come with having the content on screen.
- Developers are often responsible for the content's organization, structure, and presentation.
Programmers are inclined to seek out the simplest path (course programming) in their field. They also prioritize that everything technically works. The technician will be satisfied if the course does not "pop" when he clicks on the buttons. It seems right, but it is not.
- What if this criterion involves limiting user experience, trimming or removing content, or moving themes around to make it easier to program?
- What would the learning perspective think?
It's as if you were letting the printer write the books. He knows how pages fit together when they're sewn and glued. What is the solution? It's the instructional script.
Instructional Script
A course should not be created without an instructional script. It is better to create a course based on copying and pasting text from a manual. Adding animations and editing videos of face-to-face teachers is a great way to argue with those who haven't seen the "that" of creating an eLearning course.
This is similar to telling a director of a film that the scenes were recorded first, then edited. However, there is no movie script. There are no characters, plots, or plots. It's just the way it happens. It may seem like a curious experiment but, if we are expecting a job well done, this is not the right way to go.
The Instructional script, which is the "map", of the course, contains the following:
- These are the "rules" of the game. They describe how the course work, the methodology it uses, its structure, navigation levels, and the types of didactic elements it contains.
- What happens to each screen? What content elements (text, video, and infographics) are displayed?
- These elements are presented on the screen in three ways: sequentially, animatedly, or statically.
- Interacting with students: When clicking
- This information is vital for programmers, layout designers, and designers as it allows them to understand the course in detail, the resources required to develop it, as well how the work should be distributed to get functional deliverables.
Conclusion
There are important issues to consider when designing an eLearning course or conducting training. Get started now with your eLearning course.