Ashley Chiasson, M.Ed

This week’s term was inspired by the need to streamline and become more efficient. Hopefully it will help open your eyes to one of the many ways in which you can streamline your development process.

Slide Masters?

Slide masters are a view in Microsoft PowerPoint and Articulate Storyline (and possibly other products I’m not considering right now) that allow you to design slide layouts for use in content screens. They allow you to structure slides and add placeholders for text/images/video, etc. They became a thing for me when I began using Microsoft PowerPoint, and to be honest I didn’t really use them much until I started working in Articulate Storyline.

Once I began using slide masters in Storyline, I quickly saw how they could streamline my development process. I liken the process of creating slide masters to an argument organizations often engage in when debating the benefit of training – yeah, there’s a pretty good initial ‘cost’ of development, but the Return on Investment (ROI) will be even greater!

Another benefit – if you’re working on a project with multiple developers, designing slide masters will enhance consistency, especially when it comes to positioning of elements (e.g. title text).

I suppose this isn’t so much a definition as it is a recommendation…so go forth and master the slides!

This week’s term was inspired by an acronym-laden course I had the opportunity to recently review. Oof!

What is a Glossary?

A glossary is a list of acronyms, terms, or phrases used within a certain context. If you’re reading a book, you’ll often find a glossary of terminology in the back pages of the text. If authors feel that it’s necessary to include a glossary for their text, why shouldn’t course developers feel a similar urge?

Why would I want to add a glossary to a course?

Every industry has their phrases and acronyms, and these acronyms might mean something different to different people. Good courses will want to avoid this confusion, and a glossary is a fantastic way for doing just that. One good example of how a glossary can be helpful: the military often uses the same acronyms across divisions (e.g. Air Force/Navy/Army), yet these acronyms change meaning – not always, but often. For individuals who have trained in multiple divisions, this can be extremely confusing, and a glossary will help ensure that the terminology used within the course is clarified, as necessary.

Resources

• 5 Easy Ways to Add a Glossary to Your E-Learning Course by Tom Kuhlmann

 

Content Map

Many people associate content maps with mind maps, but not me. For me, a content map is a defined structure of a course or project based on client-furnished information and overall learning objectives. I would liken it to creating an outline for an essay. Remember how your high school English teacher always made you write out (and usually submit) that damn outline for your essay? It may have been annoying, but it was important. The same way content maps are important.

It’s a lot easier to modify the structure of a course in the design phase, when you’re mapping out your content and the structure of the entire course. Here, feedback can be provided, and you won’t have to go into each and every module to make modifications. Sure. It might seem like an unnecessary step, but in the long run, it will save you time.

A content map will typically include, but is not limited to, the following elements:

• High-level course objectives
• Timing per module
• Module information, including sub-modules and topics
• Assessment information (e.g. type of assessment items to use).

Some folks might call this design documentation, but it’s really just a small portion of the design documentation.

In the Defence sector, it was not uncommon to walk into a room and see a wall full of post-it notes. This industry referred to these walls as ‘Scalars’, which provided overall scaffolding for training programs. At the smaller scale, these scalars are really just enormous content maps.

If you haven’t started using content maps, you should make this documentation part of your development process, even if it’s not a deliverable and even if it’s written on a post-it or napkin. In the end, it’s going to guide you and keep your project structured, which stands to increase the overall effectiveness of the training you’re developing.