In the immortal words of Ian Dury, ‘There ain’t half been some clever bastards’. Here I’ve picked five excellent articles I’ve found recently; each takes one of the ‘pain points’ of elearning scenarios and offers practical and instantly usable suggestions. 1. How long should we let learners go down the wrong path? Yes you want … Read more
I’ve written so much on elearning scenarios in this site it’s time I pulled all the resources together for easy reference. I’ll add some of the best places to look outside of the site too. Designing Predicaments – a job aid for scenarios, and a mini-course Predicaments is a job aid you can get from … Read more
I read the blogs of quite a few instructional design gurus. Actually I tend to binge-read them, then go off the whole idea for a while until my interest revives. But that’s another story. One of my favourites is Clark Quinn, for the sharpness of his analytic mind but openness to new ideas. The project In … Read more
These are two elearning scenario examples created by Cathy Moore as demonstrations of how scenarios can be effective, even without high graphics and video budgets. Both are simple text-based scenarios with one background image. The effectiveness relies in the story hooking you in. So they’re not live client work, they’re demonstrations of principle. Learning Zeko … Read more
This elearning scenario example is a first-person video-based one. Like Choose a Different Ending it pretends to be amateur but is very artfully produced. It’s a ‘gamified interactive recruitment experience’, aiming to demonstrate the corporate culture of Deloitte to potential graduate recruits. So it’s aimed at the potential employees rather than employees with a training … Read more
This week’s elearning scenario example is Choose a Different Ending (Knife Crime), which was one of the first interactive videos on YouTube. The idea of interactive video has a long history in the elearning / computer-based training world. We first played them on gigantic, expensive videodisks (think of a CD ROM the size of a … Read more
Haji Kamal is probably one of the most famous elearning scenario examples in the public domain. When designers talk about scenarios this seems to be one of the ones everyone knows. Why is it so good? Connect With Haji Kamal, to give it its full title, was developed for the US Army by Cathy Moore … Read more
The Broken CoWorker is rightly celebrated among instructional designers for its innovative blend of comic strip, video and scenario methodology, delivering a lesson with flair and rigour, but without over-complication. It was created by Anna Sabramowicz and Ryan Martin of ElearnerEngaged.com, and was, I think, created as Storyline demo. Here’s a scene from the introduction, … Read more
You’ve created an elearning scenario. You have a good choice and two not-so-good choices. You’ve designed the feedback screens to show the consequences of the decisions. But maybe you think ‘nobody’s going to choose that bad choice in the elearning – even it probably is what they would do in real life.’ How do you … Read more
This is the final part of Branching Scenario Design Out Loud. Having run through the prototype in Quandary as much as we could (I didn’t have Twine at the time), and making lots of tweaks to the wording, particularly to make it more conversational, it was time to create the Storyline version. Because this wasn’t … Read more