You might go through two or three rounds of rough drafts before you complete and launch your course. The first draft is what you’ve been putting together up to this point; you should have a product that is close to complete. Remember that the development process is iterative. As you continue to add pieces, present …
Visual enhancements give your course that added flair. They break up the content so that your audience doesn’t experience text fatigue; they also cue your audience in to important things to remember, action items, and more. However, be careful not to use visuals just to fill a space or create “eye candy.” Visuals should serve …
All too often, we encounter online courses that are bulleted lists of text highlights coupled with stock graphics. The only engagement the learners experience is clicking to the next page. Or just as often, we force our learners to sit through instructor-led courses that leave their brains largely unstimulated. A stimulated brain is actively working …
Now that you have a working outline, it’s time to get organized! Creating a visual structure for your course can highlight gaps in your design and visualize the entire course before you get too far down the road in development. This is the heavy-hitting part of the design. Some instructional designers will create a design …
Entire books have been written around how to create effective learning objectives. We are going to keep this step somewhat simple. It’s important to create learning objectives that will guide your audience and set expectations for what they will learn by the end of the training. We will use objectives as a springboard for creating …
Now that you have established who you are designing a course for, let’s start thinking about some of the basic building blocks for your course or courses. After you create a title, a purpose for your course, and start thinking about some of the topics that will be included in your course, then it’s time …
Introduction to Audience Assessment and Personas One of the first things you will want to do before putting together your online course, presentation, or workshop is discover who your audience is. Okay—I know you think you know who they are, but stick with me. Nothing is more important than designing materials that meet the needs …
Consistent Look and Feel All too often, people will dive into creating PowerPoints or online courses without first defining a style guide. As the project matures, you may find you have a jumble of colors, fonts, and graphics. You’ll see colors used in different sections to mean different things. You’ll see clip art combined with …
Determine the Training Need Often, people seek training as a solution without careful consideration of the problem. Training may or may not be the best solution—only a thorough analysis of your training needs will uncover the best interventions to pursue. Usually, you will end up with training plus something else. Download the eLearning ID app on …
Step 2: Introduction to Performance Interventions (Training and More) Read More »
Introduction Designing a training program—be it a seminar, online instruction course, or instructor-led workshop—can be a rewarding experience if done systematically. Whether you are a seasoned instructional designer who would like to expand your current toolkit or someone new to course design, it is extremely important to be organized to avoid confusion. Your ultimate goal …
Step 1: Introduction to the Course Design Made Simple Program Read More »
