How can I make content more engaging - medical

Jun 12, 2012

Hi all,

My new role requires me to go through these articles, which ar epages of text and nothing else, very dry and text heavy.

I have to convert these into online courses, have you had similar challenges, how did you manage it. specially people in the medical field? There are articles which are short 6 pages, other 30 pages and some even 60-100 pages.

Anyone who have gone through similar expereicne if you could share your ideas or examples it owuld be great.

9 Replies
Travis Wickesberg

Greetings:

Can you give us a little more detail on your articles? One of my favorite jobs was working for a medical device company. There is so much opportunity for "cool" interactions. My role as a software trainer allowed me the opportunity to build simulations, games, scenarios and more. I have to say I really miss it. The insurance world is not nearly as fun : (

In order to truly understand your situation, I think we would need some more detail on the topics covered in your articles.

Cheers,

Travis

tin C

Travis, these articiles are more on the lines for doctors and nurses taking courses to get CME credits. They are articles on new rules, procedures, safety etc.

I can't really give you the exact description but its not a medical device demonstartion or steps that neeeds to be taken. Its more like definition, FAQ, reading an update to a new fedarl rule implemented kind of stuff.

Natalia Mueller

Hmm, that's tough. If the purpose really is just to share definitions or new info with them that knowcks out a lot of my ideas for how to make it interactive. Are you working with storyline or studio?

What is your stakeholder's position? Does he/she just want an efficient way to share this information online or are they really looking for retention/change in behavior?

One more question- do you also have a SME or just the articles?

If you're working with Storyline, you could include some drag and drop interactions with the new terms and definitions

With either SL or Studio you could use characters/avatars to represent doctors and nurses. Have the learner "help" the characters make choices on the new rules, procedures and safety. Instead of starting off with telling them all of the new rules, etc, start with the characters and ask the learner, "Are you up on the latest ____? Here's the situation, what should character X do?" Then give them feedback with a possible consequence of that choice if it was made in real life and the new rule.

OR

Tell them the situation, have a few characters saying what they would do. The learner picks the one they think is correct - give feedback.

This would definitely take more effort/time than a click and read with lists of new policies and such. That's why I was asking what the stakeholders want as an outcome. They may only want something super basic with all of the new items on a screen, click each to learn the new version, take a test when you've viewed them all...

If the potential consequences of errors are big enough, you may get the buy in for something more engaging - both for the learner and more fun for you to design

tin C

Natalia Spurgin said:

Hmm, that's tough. If the purpose really is just to share definitions or new info with them that knowcks out a lot of my ideas for how to make it interactive. Are you working with storyline or studio?

What is your stakeholder's position? Does he/she just want an efficient way to share this information online or are they really looking for retention/change in behavior?

One more question- do you also have a SME or just the articles?

If you're working with Storyline, you could include some drag and drop interactions with the new terms and definitions

With either SL or Studio you could use characters/avatars to represent doctors and nurses. Have the learner "help" the characters make choices on the new rules, procedures and safety. Instead of starting off with telling them all of the new rules, etc, start with the characters and ask the learner, "Are you up on the latest ____? Here's the situation, what should character X do?" Then give them feedback with a possible consequence of that choice if it was made in real life and the new rule.

OR

Tell them the situation, have a few characters saying what they would do. The learner picks the one they think is correct - give feedback.

This would definitely take more effort/time than a click and read with lists of new policies and such. That's why I was asking what the stakeholders want as an outcome. They may only want something super basic with all of the new items on a screen, click each to learn the new version, take a test when you've viewed them all...

If the potential consequences of errors are big enough, you may get the buy in for something more engaging - both for the learner and more fun for you to design


Natalia, thanks for your response.... I am ne wto this and still figuring out... the stakeholders don't have a clear answer to this, but they do want retention/change in behaviour instead of hjust going thorugh the course and taking an exam at the end.

I just have the articles, no SME :(

I like the idea of what you suggested as to give them as to ask the learners what to do instea do giving them the new rule etc, However, since I don't have access to SME, I am worreid that creating those scenarios would be time consuming, difficult and may not be even right as I am not the expert here with the content.

I will hoever give ita shot with a few and see where it goes.

Do you know of any example where someone has used doctors or nurse as avatars?

Natalia Mueller

Not having a SME does make it really hard to create realistic scenarios. Do the articles include the old rule along with the new? Even if you just had those 2 options I think you could come up with something effective. If you don't know what the real consequence would be - or if it varies too much, it could be enough to say something general in the beginning about how "we all know that simple mistakes can be costly, even deadly in our field. Do YOU know the latest _____ to keep yourself and your patients protected". 

As for avatars, it's been a while since I worked in health care but I do remember making an effort to find characters (especially doctors) not wearing a stethoscope. So many types of docs don't even use them. Besides that, it's pretty much the same as any other avatar scene. 

Do you have Storyline or Studio? If you do choose to work with scenarios/feedback you could save time by making one as a template with hyperlinks/branching or layers and then swap out the text/graphics or triggers for each new question. Here is one Tom K posted a while back for Studio. 

I'm pretty sure the community has a user group for people in health care. Maybe they could help you character resources

Travis Wickesberg

Greetings again:

Sounds like a tough scenario. Your new and your stakeholders aren't much help in identifying clear expectations. You might consider the idea of a "quest" to discover changes to the definitions/process. As previously mentioned you could use avatars or even create mini animation videos using Xtranormal. They have a great medical package and the animations are pretty cool. Its relatively inexpensive and pretty easy to use with no prior experience. Finding medical clip art for free can be challenging. You could try the following:

stock xchange - www.sxc.hu

classroomclipart.com - some cheesy images

hasslefreeclipart.com - some cheesy images

If this is something you'll be doing on a regular basis you might consider creating an account at a fee for graphics site.

Good luck!

Cheers,

Travis

tin C

Natalia and Travis thanks for trying to help.... Well as far as images, I think I can use anything from istock as we have an account with them.

I am using Studio, storyline maybe in next years budget....

The articles don't discuss old vs new rules...nd not having SME is kinda forcing me to work with what I have....Well I will see what I can come up with.

Russ Sawchuk

Sid,

For teaching dull and boring topics we have had good success with using online interactive quizzes. They are relatively easy to make, inexpensive and engaging. Our clients are the same as yours -- mostly nurses (and a few doctors) trying to get PD credits. Our quizzes provide immediate feedback often along with an explanation. With our latest quizzes, we have provided the option to print out the quiz results and a certificate (if they pass with 80%). This way they have documentation that they successfully completed the learning and have demonstrated knowledge of it.

What I would suggest is that you create the quizzes and provide links to the articles or documents. Most will take the quiz, probably do poorly, and thus are motivated to review the content, and then take the quiz again. We also track quiz results, mostly for analysis and research purposes.

Feedback on our site indicates that interactive quizzes are by far the most popular and preferred methods of learning. To get a better idea of how we do it, you can view our quizzes here.

Another very popular component of our website is our newly created nursing learning games. These are simple games were created using templates from elearningbros. Games are not that difficult or time-consuming to make once you have your template set up.

I have purchased StoryLine but have not yet had time to develop some learning games / simulations that I have in mind, e.g., Medication rounds at Heavenly Acres Nursing Home.

Quizzes have certainly worked well for us. If you have any questions, or want more information, PM me or contact me via the Contact form on our LearningNurse.com website. Best of success with your project.

Russ

Kate Niblett

I work in the hospital and health environment as well. It has taken 18 months to have more innovative forms of e-learning accepted by the unit managers. the view was that "this is serious stuff and we need to treat it seriously". Here is what I have tried:

interactive quizzes - I have tried using these at the beginning of courses ie test your knowledge first to see that you do actually need to do the course!

drag and drops seem to be popular - in fact anything that is tactile where they have interactivity seems to work.

revealing information one piece at a time with lots of graphics rather than lots and lots of text.

where you dont have a choice but to have lots and lots of text (some of the course I've been given have 80 pages) chunk it out and make them work for it eg click on it or drag it or some form of interaction

Use local images/videos with local staff - even if the videos and graphics arent the best quality my clients seem to prefer that to professionally produced studio style images

We've done a couple of videos with errors and filmed simulations and left the "out-takes" in.

That also seemed to work.

I'm working on combining a bit of gaming technology with some pretty boring information. So far my test group love it1

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