Best Practices For Creating Online Training (eLearning

Best Practices For Creating Online Training (eLearning)
By [http://ezinearticles.com/?expert=Andrew_Scivally]Andrew Scivally

There are many things to think about when creating eLearning. There's no way that I can mention all of them in this article but I'd like to mention a few that come to the top of my mind.

Course Outline / Storyboarding

Know the audience

Find good SMEs

Always create an outline of the course

Storyboarding allows you to structure content flow

Decide what knowledge/skills need to be taught first

SMEs can take a glance at the flow and content

Content creating will go more quickly. (it's faster than creating content and then starting over)
Text

Learners scan, they don't read

Keep it simple

Don't introduce too much information at once (chunks)

Use bullets/lists

Avoid font color

Use bold and italics sparingly

Talk to learners or not (choose a style)

Formal or informal verbiage
Example: Bad

These are challenging times for the financial services industry.

Increased competition, recent uncertainty in the markets, and increasing expectations are just a few of the challenges we face as we seek to strengthen relationships with our clients.

Example: Good

These are challenging times for the financial services industry.

As we seek to strengthen relationships with our clients, we face:



Increased competition

Market uncertainty

Increased expectations
Consistency



Font (Headers, body)

Colors (text, images)

Grammar (tense, spelling, etc.)

Bullets

Image placement

Introduction pages, end of lesson, test launch, evaluation, etc.

Interface and navigation

Job Aids and reference material

Formatting of list of steps

Hyphenated words consistent (i.e. on-line vs. online)
Images



Learners scan text and often look at images first

Can learners understand your page by only looking at the image?

Make them meaningful. (not gratuitous images)

Explain the process visually

Import the.png, jpg, gif into PowerPoint for best quality

Can part of the text on the page be in the image?
Tests/Assessments

Ensure that the questions are answered

Decide an appropriate number of questions based on the needed score to pass

Will you have a pool of questions?

Should the questions be randomized?

Submit after each question vs. submit all at once

Quizzes vs. tests
Quality Review

Always click through the finished course before and after the final upload to the LMS

Have someone outside of your area click through the course

Don't test the course on the same computer that it was created on

I hope that the previous list helps get you thinking while designing online training.

Andrew Scivally

Co-Owner - eLearning Brothers http://www.eLearningBrothers.com

Using games, flash interactions, and challenges to create engaging, interactive, and inspiring eLearning.

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