Toluu

The Rapid eLearning Blog

Practical, real-world tips for e-learning success.

Here’s an Easy Way to Create Learning ObjectivesToday

All courses begin with an overarching goal.  Assuming that the goal is clear, you build learning objectives to meet the goal.  In today’s post we’ll explore a simple way to create objectives for your course.

It All Starts with Clear Goals

Make sure that when you work with your clients you have very clear goals.  What do they hope the course will accomplish?  From that conversation, you’ll be able to discern what the learning needs are.  This helps you build your objectives.

The main area of focus is to understand where you currently are and where you need to be.  Then map out the activities and learning experience to get from one point to the next.

Create a main objective 

Start by creating your main objective and then use that to drill down to the additional content you need to meet it.  Basically, your objectives are built on three critical questions.

• What needs to be learned?
• Who needs to learn it?
• What do they need to know before they can start?

What needs to be learned?  What you teach should be linked to real performance.  Essentially it’s all about what the learner is going to be able to DO with what they learn from the course

How to Get the Most Out of Your Slide NotesNovember 18

PowerPoint’s notes section can be used as a way to capture knowledge, hold a transcript, or even as a glossary.  In today’s post, I’m going to throw out some ideas to help you get the most out of your notes.

Capture your subject matter expert’s expertise

Here’s a common scenario.  A subject matter expert gives you a PowerPoint that he’s used for classroom training and expects you to use that for your elearning course.  While the content may be good, it’s usually not complete.  Typically, there’s a lot of missing information trapped inside the expert’s brain.

To collect some of that information, I’ll ask the person to review the slides and then add whatever he can to the notes section.  It doesn’t need to be perfect or require a bunch of formatting.  Just review the slide and do a brain dump.  We can sort it out later.

I find this approach works well because the slides serve as a great mental trigger and outline of what they need to share.  The informality of the notes section makes it stress free and doesn’t require that the expert hand in a polished report.  Later I’m able to use that information to pull the course content together.

Create a course transcript

Some

Get to Know Your Learners (And Avoid These Pitfalls)November 11

I once worked on a project for new machine operators who were not able to meet their quotas within 90 days of being hired. I assumed that I would build a standard course that took them through the tasks.  Before starting, I wanted to get to know more about the learner’s environment, so I spent a few days with the machine operators.  Do you know what I discovered?

The new hires didn’t have a problem with the job.  Instead they were all intimidated by the machine.  Every day, they were told, “This is a million dollar machine, don’t break it.”  This created so much pressure to not mess up that it slowed down their work.

It caused me to change my approach to the course.  Most of the course focused on the machine and less on the details of the job.  They learned a lot more about the parts of the machine and how it worked.  We spend the entire first week doing preventive maintenance.  By the time they actually started doing real work, they were very comfortable working on the machine.

Initially, the client scoffed when we pitched our ideas.  They wanted us to focus more on the job tasks.  However, the results were that within the first two weeks,

When It Makes Sense to Pay for Professional NarrationNovember 4

Your rapid elearning software makes it easy to record your narration.  Most of the time that works for you.  However, there are times when recording your own narration doesn’t make sense.  Today we’re going to look at when it makes sense to consider professional narration for some of your elearning courses.

A Good Voice Doesn’t Equal Good Results

“Why pay for professional narration?  Joe and Samantha have good voices.  Let’s get them to do it.”  On the surface, this sounds like a good plan.  But that might not be the case.

• Joe and Samantha have good voices but they aren’t professional narrators.  It takes more than just a good speaking voice to get the inflections and tone right.  Because of this, using Joe and Samantha requires a lot more time and retakes to get it right. 
• Your recording equipment consists of a headset microphone and a less-than-state-of-the-art laptop.  And your “recording studio” is a spare conference room.  There’s a lot of ambient office noise and a really loud air conditioner. 
• Since you’re probably not an audio expert, you are less efficient when you record.  You can’t monitor the audio while you’re recording, so you only record a port

5 Common Quiz Question Mistakes (And How to Avoid Them)October 28

 

Assessing the learner’s progress is important.  How else can we provide the best feedback or certify that the learner’s met a certain level of understanding?  That’s why we need to ask the right questions.  Avoid the following mistakes and you’ll create a more effective learning experience.

Here’s a simple quiz that demonstrates some of the mistakes I discuss below.

Click here to view quiz demo.

The questions are either too easy or downright stupid.

We’ve all seen them.  You take a quiz and there’s one good answer choice and all of the rest are obviously not right (or plain silly).  It’s like the course designer just went through the motions.  This type of quiz question does nothing to measure the learner.  What’s the point of the quiz?  Why’s it even there?  Put