E-Learning Heroes - Advice and ideas from the Articulate Community

Looking for some help brainstorming!

I need to put together some step by step medical procedures as part of my content. For example: How to put on gloves.  Some of the procedures get quite extensive with many steps (15-20). We used to throw still images of each step into an Engage media tour. It wasn't perfect, but was quick and effective. 

Now we're moving to Storyline and I'm wondering if anyone else has thought about how to show a procedure.

I was thinking about using buttons (almost like a tabs interaction), but that could get crazy with too many steps. 

Any other ideas???

Hi Kristin,

You could do something ally interactive... Depending on the graphics you have available, you can create the environment - sink with mirror and hands on the side...from here you can create a drag and drop activity that starts with turning on the sink, washing hands and putting on the gloves.

-Eric Nalian

1. Drag the hand (creepy) to turn on the sink
2. Pick up the soap
3. Wash hands...you can create an on screen countdown for the 30 seconds or so that hands are supposed to be washed for (like an old black and white movie...).
4. Grabbing paper towels
5. Putting on gloves

This should be fairly simple to build

Using still or videos, you could create a process interaction similar to what the Washington Post did here:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/special/health/why-short-guys-can-dunk/

I love the silhouette fades and step graphic approach. The silhouettes show the big picture while the highlighted graphics emphasize a particular step.

That's a great suggestion, David. Awesome example of procedural time-slicing. 

My hesitation with discovery learning exercises for procedural things, it's often more effort than a time-slice or illustration series and may have a detrimental effect on the learning outcome. 

Ruth Clark recently wrote an article for ASTD presenting some evidence surrounding mediation using complex exploration vs. simple linear presentation components. The research cited indicates that simple mediation wins in direct representation of procedural or conceptual conveyance. This article talked about games in particular but I think the principles can be generalized to comparisons of media application.

http://www.astd.org/Publications/Blogs/L-and-D-Blog/2012/04/Why-Games-Dont-Teach.aspx

This isn't always true. Context matters. Games and exploratory learning activities *can* teach. Too often they don't accomplish as much as something simpler might.

Only thing I'd consider changing in the dunk example is moving the callout / label closer to the center of action. Proximity principle. It's convenient and consistent under the navigation controls but the separation pulls on my cognitive tendons.

@Steve - Good point. I also felt "pulled" between captions and steps 3, 4 & 5. My thought was to make the silhouettes rollovers so, rather than clicking each step, users could hover to reveal image and captions.

We need more deconstruction activities

These are all great ideas--Thank you!!  I can see ways in which I can incorporate all of them. (I don't think there's a particular turn-key solution here).

Steve- I agree with what you're saying about the procedures. Our content goes out to a number of community colleges who use it in different ways. Typically the teachers use the procedures as part of review or remediation before students take their exam (much like they would have use a textbook). The content is used in blended classrooms, so ideally the teachers initially teach the procedures in clinical.  

Having done something similar, creating six video modules, teaching parents in how to care for their child who is fitted with a broviac.

For the hand washing and putting on gloves scene, we shot video and added voice over narration using a pro video editing software.

Once you have the clips edited with the  voice over, you can bring them into Storyline. At the time we did not have any Articulate software to use. But now that we do, that could be a logical approach to consider, if we had to do again.

Somewhat off topic, but I think you will appreciate this hand washing simulator. We are entering the age of sensors 

Thanks to MEMS technology, computers are becoming aware of us. Maybe you will draw inspiration from this?

See Surewash.com and explore what I would consider great simulation.