Teaching Adults How to Use Applications

Hi Sean,

I have been building a few of these courses recently and have taken to including the show and try in one. Where I use a character to walk them through the process by giving instructions but still have the learner click on the relevant part or key in the required information. Then I will have a more complex task that builds on the initial one, so will tell them what they need to do and put them into the try without the detailed instructions.

I'm also interested in any fresh ideas for this kind of training. We are looking at doing guided videos also.

Cheers

Tristan,

Thanks for the reply. I haven't thought about using a character to walk people through tasks. Do you use a cartoon character or a realistic one? Do you typically show them where to click on the screen during the "show" portion? During the "try" portion, do they get any feedback when they click the wrong options?

We do use guided videos for shorter instruction. They are anywhere from 1-10 minutes in length, some of them even longer. Personally, if it is over 10 minutes, I feel as though an eLearning course would be the better option.

Thanks again,

Sean

Hi Sean,

I have used a realistic character but I don't think either would make any difference. I guess depends on the audience.

I try not to show them unless it's something not obvious. I have the character explain and tell them what to select and then have a help button that highlights the area with a box saying "select x icon" or similar. 

I also introduce the screens and have a number of buttons, one for each function that lets them explore and find out what the functions do first before I get into actually using them.

Given how much information you can get across in a video I would have thought anything over 5mins would benefit from some kind of try function.

I am actually just about to make some guided videos for changing our remote mobile device management software over.  

Cheers

A lot depends on your audience and their familiarity with the application in question. Regarding the walk-throughs you mention, if people are relatively new to the application, I think it's easy to overdo on "field trips" -- "this is the name field, the name goes here; this is the address field, and you put the address here. This is the phone number field..."

Exaggeration for effect, but I would try to identify an outcome that looked like what your audience would see as real work. Using Excel as an example:

• Here's a (paper) report showing sales by region, total sales, and average per sales rep.
• You're going to build a spreadsheet that will provide the same report.
• [Minimal explanation/demonstration necessary to get people to enter and edit text, enter and edit numbers, maybe build a sum by hand {B6 + B7 + B8...}, insert the SUM function, insert the AVERAGE function.]

The spreadsheet they end up with is simple (one formula for total sales, one for average) but takes them through a lot of basics. They could actually go off and do some useful stuff.

And the completed spreadsheet becomes a launchpad for more advanced topics -- new kinds of formulas, formatting, charts, what have you.

I'm working with our LMS systems team at the moment to build an internal 'staff training' module to teach and 'assess' competency in completing tasks within the LMS.

Can I ask how people use Storyline to 'assess' competency for a software process?  We do vocational training for general practitioners so what we do is a little unusual, but we have to 'report' to the government about the type of training they receive.  

For example: the admin staff need to enter or review/confirm that these doctors have attended 'x' course, or completed 'y' webinar.  We use our LMS to do this.  So we want to assess the competency of our admin staff in being able to do these tasks in the LMS.

So I'm thinking of doing the show and do approach as mentioned above, but then how do you assess competency in the 'doing'?

I'm not an instructional designer, and I'm new to SL360 so please pardon me if this is a simple question.

Regards,

Kimberley

Kimberley:

Does "assess competency" simply mean "see if the staffer can [confirm that the doctors completed ABC seminar]?" Or is there some specialized meaning in your organization?

I gather there's a set of these competencies (enter doctors into a course, change registration from session A to session B, process someone's withdrawal, display completes/incompletes/whatevers, and so on).

Is it possible for you to create practice data in your LMS -- fictional doctors, imaginary sessions that are visible only to the people you designate? You might then be able to use a blended approach.

For instance, through elearning you could explain concepts and demostrate tasks by logical groups (courses/session, enrollments/changes, reporting).

Next you could have people practice tasks in the LMS (enroll Dr. Fiction in the DDD seminar; produce a completion list for April in the EEE course) and compare their results to the "book answer" that you provide in the elearning course ("your list should look like this, and Dr. Fiction should be one of the enrollees").

If the learners are your own staff, it's also easy to tell them where to go or whom to see if they run into difficulty with the tasks -- or simply to check in and verify that they can in fact complete the tasks.