Instructional Design

I’ve been working on a lot of content scripts lately, and was surprised that I haven’t yet addressed the concept of scripting in one of my Terminology Tuesday posts, so today is the day!

Scripts in E-Learning

When it comes to writing scripts for e-learning, I’m familiar with two main approaches: content scripts, and audio/narration scripts.

Content scripts are essentially content dumps of all client-furnished materials related to the module, course, or topic you’re working on. When I write a content script, it typically includes the learning objectives, any lessons contained within the course and/or module, and any knowledge checks or assessment items located within those lessons. The goal is to have all of this content handy so that it can just be copied/pasted into the authoring tool or storyboard (depending on what milestones exist within your project). Scripting content also familiarizes you with the content, so when you get further down the wormhole of development, you have some ideas when it comes to factors such as interactivity and/or media treatment.

Audio/narration scripts are developed for the voice talent, and include elements such as screen identifier, pronunciation guide, the text requiring narration, and an audio filename. In my process, I tend not to script the audio narration until the client has signed off 100% on the textual content. Revisions to audio are often timely and expensive, so having the client review the textual content ahead of the audio scripting phase is a best practice.

Sure. Scripting is an additional step (or two) in the development process, but it really does help in the long run. It makes all of the subsequent development tasks a lot more smoother, and there is often less revision involved…or the revisions are caught in the scripting phase, leading to fewer revisions in the storyboarding and/or authoring phases. Time is money, so efficiency is always at a premium.

How do you use scripts? Are you using them primarily for content or audio scripting? What elements do you include in your scripts? Let me know in the comments!

I saw some tweets awhile back about showing your work or working aloud, and the concept ties in nicely with my discussions on portfolio building, so I figured it was a good opportunity to create a greater awareness!

Show Your Work

Showing your work and working aloud are really about sharing how you got from point A to point B with an audience. Such sharing serves to enlighten your audience, and while some examples they may have previously encountered, if you continue sharing your work, your audience will undoubtedly learn something and some point.

When I started this blog, I went at it from an Instructional Design professional looking for work perspective. Blog posts were focused on clients, and had less of focus on imparting knowledge to my actual audience. Once I realized that my audience was coming primarily for the instructional design and freelance wisdom, I switched focus to cater to that audience. Initially I thought that I would see a decline in the amount of prospective clients I had, but that wasn’t the case. And, I get to share the small wealth of information I have with a group of individuals who can genuinely benefit from such information.

Ways of Showing Your Work

Now, there are so many ways for you to show your work: participating in forum discussions, creating and sharing infographics, recording screencasts, creating demos, sharing walkthroughs of how you got from point A to point B, creating day-in-the-life posts.

My explanatory posts that accompany my E-Learning Heroes Challenge entries are always very popular, and I like to think that it’s because I provide an explanation of the concept, the method I took in achieving the concept, and finally I show the result, which is typically a full demo of the interaction or free download.

Free downloads are a great way of sharing your work, because they allow users to reverse-engineer your interactions to suit their needs OR use the interaction ‘off-the-shelf’/as-is.

Screencast demos are another crowd-pleaser. These videos get a lot of views from folks looking to solve problems, so when you share your solution, it makes a small pocket of the world that much less problematic!

Of course these are just a small sampling of ways that you can show your work, so get creative!

I’ve been watching a lot of YouTubers lately. It’s one of my favourite ways to take time out and get my head out of work mode. One of my favourite video styles to watch are vlogs, because they give you a glimpse into the lives of others. Now, I know that sounds creepy, but sometimes it’s just refreshing to get out of your own head.

What is a Vlog?

A vlog is a video-blog. Instead of blogging traditionally, as I’m doing now, the user video-blogs or vlogs. These videos are often done in a day-in-the-life style, but can also be optimized for training and development, akin to webinars or screencasts.

Vlogging has a huge presence in the YouTube content creator community for obvious reasons, but there are many Instructional Designers and IDs who are creating similar content. One cool way that I can see a day-in-the-life style working might be to set up your camera behind you while you work to create some cool time-lapse demos.

Another approach could be similar to the beauty gurus you see on YouTube – these content creators often explain how to achieve different beauty looks. You can use this approach as an opportunity to create brief tidbits of instructor-led training.

When thinking about this post, I really just wanted to emphasize the importance of thinking outside of the box with regard to your training, and leveraging approaches that are working well in other contexts!

First off, I have to address something I didn’t pick up on until this morning – last week was one year of Terminology Tuesday posts. Sure, I didn’t hit every single Tuesday as I had intended, but there have been 52 terms discussed (53 today), and that’s just bananas!

This week, I wanted to talk a bit about the concept of reusability in e-learning, and perhaps veer from the traditional concept discussion that’s often related to SCORM.

Reusability in E-Learning

When I think about reusability in e-learning, I think about objects and content that can be reused in a variety of contexts. Developers often run into this when working on large projects or in industries that involve trade-specific courseware development. My first experience with reusable assets was working with clients in the Defence sector. Often times we were working on projects for the same aircraft (although perhaps several years between projects), and it became quickly beneficial. For instance, one client had provided us with a 3D model of the aircraft, whereas another client several years later did not have access to this same model. We were able to reuse the initial model to suit the needs of the new project. Reusability also came in handy when developing component installation courses and then removal courses (we simply had to reverse the interaction, but could use the same objects).

Being mindful of reusability is critical as it can save you time and money in the long run. Reusing previously established assets (for the same client, of course – in the Defence sector example, the end client was the same, whereas the contractor may have been different, so the end client ‘owned’ all of the assets) will reduce the amount of development various departments and/or individuals have to spend.

Best practices for reusability might include creating your own content repository and defining a file naming convention that will make it easy for you to find what you’re looking for. If you’re extra savvy, you can create a coded database, but that might require a lot more effort than you have time for.

If you work in a specific authoring tool, it may save you time on a new project to have a repository of developed themes and/or interactions; this can help shave time off in the initial prototyping phase, and provides you with an arsenal of ideas for what you might be able to do from a design perspective, and can prove invaluable if design is not your forte.