High-Context Storyline Course Example

Ray, thank you so much for sharing this course. I can tell you put a lot of work into it. This is a good example of eLearning that was "designed with intent". 

Anusha, thanks for taking the whole course. That is the best way to see what we are attempting to do with respect to keeping information in context and creating meaningful, realistic work-related challenges to help jump-start learner practice. If it gives you ideas, or inspiration to try a similar approach, then my mission was accomplished. :-)

Hi Holly, I think you are spot-on about consequences. The course in its current form doesn't emphasize consequences and most feedback falls into the judgment or explanation categories instead. Focusing more on consequences would improve the realism and impact of the exercises in the course. One problem we face is that the consequences are often very minor--if you don't fill out the label properly, a staff member has to come find you to correct the information. Not too exciting. But your point is still right: realistic consequences make the learning more memorable.

The two-step thing: where we ask a learner to choose an action or answer a question and then follow up by asking the learner to justify that answer is something we've been using for a while. I generally like the approach, especially when the training has some underlying principles because then you can ask learners to justify their answers in terms of those principles (e.g., you identified this as a problem. Which principle does it violate?) This helps learners connect actions with the underlying principles.

I will take a look at the links you provided. Thanks so much!

Ray,

This is great! I am a part of EH&S for a university where lab safety is a big issue. Your presentation gave me so many great ideas on how to make our lab safety training more engaging. I am new to Articulate, so I am still learning all that it can do, but I hope to be able to create something similar in the near future

Thanks for sharing!   -Mary

Ray, I think you did a great job in simulating the actual steps in a very visual way. This is inspiring.

I liked it, kinda puts me smack dab in the middle of that work environment, it has that attention sticking feature built into it, I dig it.

Thanks for the kind words everyone. Paul--yes, putting you in the middle of the work environment is something we consciously tried to do. That's what I mean by "high-context." When we had to present information, we tried to do it always in the context of the job so learners could see how that information was relevant to their work.

Cheers!

    -Ray

Thanks for sharing this course.
Interesting work. The telling or building up to interaction can be challenging and the learn by doing can be equally challenging but since it is e-learning the trial and error or learn from previous decisions methods are harmless as long as they have a time measurement with encouragements / corrective info or tips to handle the exercise to be able to pass it..

The company policies dont allow me to share courses in these types of forums unfortunately. Unless you are signed up as a customer or partner of various levels or given accounts (which we dont do). 

If you still want to take the time and explore courses on your own, successfully or not. (unsupported). As an example, the searches for courses in the LMS called MyLearning, could be for SafeMove 2 basics 2018 or Robotstudio® basics 2018.

Hi Ray. I enjoyed your course and the thoughtful practices and activities. It's solid content with great context - easier said than done!

I would recommend that you spend time looking at the design of the course to increase professionalism and appeal. For example, 

- avoid dated techniques such as the gradient white fade on the title screen, glossy buttons, drop shadows, thick borders around the slides and drag and drop items, using animation when none is needed.

- use consistent UI/UX elements, for example, the start button is glossy. rounded with a shadow but the continue button on the next page is square and flat, and the help button is square and flat at the bottom of the page and other times sideways on the left of the page.

Creating a color and font theme and sticking to consistent use of elements goes a long way in creating visual calmness so the content is truly in focus. Perhaps consider using Adobe XD to prototype design then apply that to a template in Storyline.  : )

Hi Stephanie,

Yeah, the course was kind of a Frankenstein's monster, with newer design elements built over the top of an older Storyline template. The buttons are pretty consistently square and flat except where we re-used elements from our older course template--mainly in the "boilerplate" stuff: the start slide, the slides at the start and end of modules, and some of the front-matter. Once you get into the course proper, things are a bit more consistent. But I take your point: the course would benefit from a careful UI consistency polish.

Like you, we realized we should ditch the border around each slide and have done so on subsequent courses we've developed.

As always, there are a lot of layers to the onion and one has to prioritize sometimes.  As you move to this kind of context-rich, custom interaction style of course, you also end up with the responsibility to create more of the UI. I agree with you that the more consistent the UI is, the less likely it is to distract the learner by inadvertently calling attention to itself.