How Ms. Frizzle Can Help You Build Better E-Learning #488

Magic School Bus E-Learning Challenge #488: Challenge | Recap

Happy New Year, E-Learning Heroes! 

“Seatbelts, everyone!”

Ever feel like your e-learning content could use a little more wow and a lot less zzzz? You’re not alone.

The good news? Help is on the way, courtesy of The Magic School Bus. This beloved series didn’t just teach science. It mastered the art of making complex ideas fun, engaging, and effortlessly relatable.

How The Magic School Bus Works

The magic of The Magic School Bus lies in its ability to make learning fun using different perspectives. Its acronym, MSB, also serves as a simple framework for e-learning: Main, Scope, Bridge.

Each story starts with a Main narrative, delivering core knowledge. The Scope adds personality by capturing student thoughts, questions, and humor, making the material relatable. Finally, the Bridge connects knowledge to action with tasks or experiments learners can apply.

The MSB Makeover in Action

Here’s a slide from a standard text-based course on change management. It's functional, but uninspiring.

Using the MSB Model, I reworked the content to include: 

1. Main: The core content is retained and presented clearly, front and center.
2. Scope: A dialogue between two characters reflects learner concerns and adds relatability.
3. Bridge: A sidebar or job aid gives learners a practical tool to apply what they’ve learned.

With this approach, dry content becomes engaging, personal, and actionable.

So, whether you’re tackling change management or any other topic, the MSB Model ensures your learners stay connected, engaged, and ready to apply their knowledge. And that's what this week's challenge is all about!

🏆 Challenge of the Week

This week, your e-learning challenge is to take a piece of dry content (EULA, compliance, etc.) and rework it using the MSB framework. Be sure to include a before-and-after example to show your starting point and the makeover.

🧰 Resources

You don’t need to purchase The Magic School Bus books to ride along with this week's e-learning challenge. A quick Google image search will provide plenty of examples to work with.

If you're interested in picking up one or more of The Magic School Bus books, be sure to check out the original series by Joanna Cole. While the chapter books and TV show adaptations are fun, the originals are where the true storytelling magic comes to life. Here are four of my favorites:

• The Magic School Bus Inside the Earth
• The Magic School Bus Inside the Human Body
• The Magic School Bus Lost in the Solar System
• The Magic School Bus on the Ocean Floor

✨ Share Your E-Learning Work

• Comments: Use the comments section below to link your published example and blog post.
• Forums: Start a new thread and share a link to your published example.
• Personal blog: If you have a blog, please consider writing about your challenges. We'll link to your posts, so your great work gets even more exposure.
• Social media: If you share your demos on Twitter or LinkedIn, try using #ELHChallenge so your tweeps can follow your e-learning coolness.

🙌 Last Week’s Challenge:

Before you buckle up for this year’s inaugural e-learning challenge, check out the ways designers are using Pantone’s 2025 Color of the Year in their e-learning courses:

Pantone 2025 Color of the Year in E-Learning: Challenge | Recap

👋 New to the E-Learning Challenges?

The weekly e-learning challenges are ongoing opportunities to learn, share, and build your e-learning portfolios. You can jump into any or all of the previous challenges anytime you want. I’ll update the recap posts to include your demos.

Learn more about the challenges in this Q&A post and why and how to participate in this helpful article.

🟨 Note: This week's challenge post is a rework of Magical Ideas for Designing Engaging, Text-Based Courses.