An Introduction to SAM for Instructional Designers
The ADDIE model is probably the most well-known approach for mapping out the course design process. But it isn’t the only game in town these days. One popular alternative is SAM: the Successive Approximation Model. Created by Allen Interactions, SAM offers an instructional design approach consisting of a few steps that you repeat as many times as necessary. These iterations address common instructional design pain points like meeting timelines, staying on budget, and collaborating with Subject Matter Experts (SMEs). So what is SAM? And how is it different from ADDIE? Is one better than the other? Let’s dig in and uncover some answers to these questions. What’s the difference between ADDIE and SAM? ADDIE and SAM are two different approaches for crafting learning solutions that share some similar language. To better see where they differ, it’s helpful to understand how each of them works. Let’s start with ADDIE. ADDIE ADDIE stands for Analyze, Design, Develop, Implement, and Evaluate. It’s a linear approach—like a production line—with each step depending on the successful completion of the previous one. To borrow some terminology from project managers, ADDIE is a “waterfall approach.” And in a traditional waterfall method, analysis, design, development, implementation, and evaluation are all treated as ordered steps in the overall development process. While this model is preferred in many organizations, some folks say this sequential approach contributes to many of the challenges faced by instructional designers, including: Prolonged development cycles: Have you ever had your project come to a screeching halt in the development phase? It’s not uncommon for new training or technology requirements to emerge in the project development phase, bogging down your productivity with re-work. Communication challenges with SMEs and stakeholders: Even the most thorough explanations and storyboards are still open to interpretation. And with a sequential approach, SMEs and stakeholders typically don’t get to try a hands-on version of the project until well into the development phase. This can mean it’s not until you’re near the end of the project—when you’re out of time and money—that you discover your vision doesn’t match theirs. No time for testing: When projects run out of time or money, what’s the phase of the process we tend to skimp on? In my experience, it’s testing. Shortchanging this step may save you time, but with risky downsides like a training product that doesn’t work—or work effectively—to address a critical performance gap. Successive Approximation Model (SAM) SAM, on the other hand, is considered to be an “agile approach” that can be scaled from basic (SAM1) to extended (SAM2) to suit your needs. Both SAM models use iterative cycles to create the end product right from the start—all while continually analyzing and refining your work as it’s being produced. Proponents of using agile methods for creating e-learning claim that models like SAM can alleviate many of the challenges discussed above—in particular, improving the project team’s visibility into the instructional design process and reducing development time frames. The basic process—SAM1—can be a good fit for smaller projects or teams. This flavor of SAM is a simple model with three iterations of the familiar instructional design steps of evaluation, design, and development. Using this approach, everyone’s ideas and assumptions can be discussed, prototyped, and tested early on, bringing you closer to a usable product more quickly. And what if your project is more complex? That’s where SAM2 comes into play. SAM2 is an extended take on SAM1. It consists of eight iterative instructional design steps spread across three project phases: Preparation, Iterative Design, and Iterative Development. In addition to the incremental cycles, another notable feature of the SAM2 model is the preparation phase. It consists of two steps to help you prepare for your design and development work fast: gathering information and then holding a brainstorming and prototyping meeting known as a “Savvy Start.” Which is better—ADDIE or SAM? When it comes to evaluating which design model is a better fit for you and your team, it really boils down to what you’re trying to achieve and what your work environment will support. When applied in the right situations and fully committed to by everyone involved, SAM’s flexibility can get you to a successful final course fast. Its iterative approach both helps you use prototypes to get stakeholder buy-in quickly and also makes it easy to pivot should your course requirements change. However, many instructional designers work in organizations that have embraced agility in theory but not so much in practice. Applying an agile approach like SAM can be difficult when your environment doesn’t encourage rapid feedback or flexible processes. In those cases, ADDIE’s waterfall model may be a better choice. Because ADDIE is a waterfall method that’s been used for years, it might make clients, stakeholders, and even team members more comfortable. And while it’s still not as flexible as SAM, many people find an adapted version of ADDIE that includes some iterative loops does a good job of splitting the difference between both methods. More Learning Whatever design model you follow—whether it’s ADDIE, SAM, or another one entirely—weighing your options for more thoughtful, responsive development practices can be a great way to build collaboration and grease the wheels for smoother training rollouts. Start by digging into these related articles from the archives. An Introduction to ADDIE for Instructional Designers What’s the PADDIE Model of Instructional Design? Best Practices for Effective E-Learning Project Management How to Manage E-Learning Project Scope Creep What design model is closest to how you really work? What are your thoughts on ADDIE vs. SAM? We love hearing from you, so share your thoughts in a comment. Follow us on Twitter and come back to E-Learning Heroes regularly for more helpful advice on everything related to e-learning.Get to Know The 4 Levels of E-Learning
If you work in e-learning or training, you’ve probably heard people refer to the levels of e-learning before. But what does that mean? In the e-learning industry, there are four generally accepted levels of e-learning that will, in turn, affect the learning experience, cost, and development time of your project. Today, you’ll get a high-level look at all four levels. Once you understand the key components of each level, you’ll be better equipped to estimate the time—and also cost—of future projects. Level 1: Passive Interactivity Level 1 e-learning is a passive experience, where the learner just consumes information. There’s little to no interactivity with the course and the learner mostly reads and moves forward by clicking Next. In fact, some refer to level 1 as the “click next” style of e-learning because of its low level of interactivity. These courses include static text and images, and little to no multimedia. Quizzes in level 1 courses are usually straightforward multiple choice and true-or-false questions. Level 1 e-learning, while simple, does have its place: it can be a quick way to cover simple rules or procedures. Check out these examples to get a better understanding of what level 1 courses look like: View Example View Example Level 2: Limited Interactivity At level 2, e-learning courses start to incorporate some multimedia. Courses at this level can contain audio, some video, basic animations, and a few simple transitions. This level of content is often accompanied by narration and click-and-reveal interactions. Level 2 quizzes start to incorporate drag-and-drop interactions and matching activities. If you’re looking for a nice middle ground with a richer learning experience without too much development time, level 2 e-learning is probably a good fit. Here are some examples of level 2 courses: View Example View Example Level 3: Complex Interactivity With level 3 e-learning courses, the interactions become even more sophisticated. In this level, you can expect to include extensive audio, video, transitions, animations, and more. Quizzing can involve branched, scenario-based questions that allow learners to explore multiple paths and feedback levels. Level 3 e-learning is usually a good fit if you’re looking to teach learners more complex skills, for example, if you’re creating a course for new nurses on patient care. Here are some examples of level 3 e-learning: View Example View Example Level 4: Full Immersion Level 4 e-learning uses all of the components in levels 1, 2, and 3, plus gamification or simulation. These courses may incorporate 360° images, games or complex gamification, scenarios, avatars, or interactive videos. These courses are more immersive than other levels of e-learning. As learners interact with the course, they receive feedback on their choices. And in some cases, their choices might even impact the content they’re presented with next. This makes level 4 e-learning excellent for learners who need to practice real-time decision-making skills. Although these courses take the longest to develop, the learner experience makes it well worth the effort. Take a look at a few examples: View Example View Example Wrap-Up Now that you know about the four levels of e-learning, you’re ready to identify which one a new project falls under! This will help you appropriately estimate the time and assets needed to create the course. Are you looking to learn more about e-learning development? Check out these helpful resources. What You Need to Know to Create Amazing E-Learning 6 Easy Ways to Make More Compelling Interactions for Your Online Courses Here’s How I Transformed This Static E-Learning Content What level of e-learning is your favorite to create? Let me know in the comments below. Follow us on Twitter and come back to E-Learning Heroes regularly for more helpful advice on everything related to e-learning.Post-Course Evaluations for E-Learning: 60+ Questions to Include
If you're designing e-learning, you might want to include a post-course evaluation for learners to complete once they finish the training. The post-course evaluation is a survey-style questionnaire that gauges participants’ reactions to the e-learning they just took. The information and feedback you gather through post-course evaluations will help you improve your course and future training materials, so it's definitely an important step. You might be wondering which questions to include in a post-course evaluation survey. It's a common dilemma for course creators—which is why we’ve compiled a helpful list of over 60 potential questions. You likely won’t use every question but can pick and choose the ones that are most relevant to your project and subject matter. Course Expectations Rate your understanding of course expectations and assignments. Did the course cover the content you were expecting? Why or why not? What topics would you have liked to see addressed that were not covered? Course Structure and Content Rate your understanding of the course structure. Rate the consistency of the course content with the objectives. Rate the relevance of the subject matter or course content. Rate your confidence level for completing the knowledge or skill presented. Rate the amount of material covered. Rate the quality of the examples presented in the e-learning. Rate the availability of the instructor via email or online discussion. Rate your enjoyment of the course. Rate the course workload. What are the strengths and weaknesses of this e-learning course? What part of the e-learning course did you find most useful and interesting? What additional material would you like presented in the course? Was the content arranged in a clear and logical way? Why or why not? Did the content adequately explain the knowledge, skills, and concepts it presented? Quizzing Rate the relevance of assignments, quizzes, and tests. Rate the quality of the questions asked in the quizzes. Rate the variety of the types of quizzes. Was the quiz feedback timely and relevant? Why or why not? Did the quiz feedback present new knowledge? Were the quizzes presented at adequate intervals? Did the quizzes cover and test the material presented in the course? How could the exams be improved? Were the review sections before the quizzes useful? Did the practice questions make good learning tools? Timing How much time did you spend on this e-learning course? How many hours did you spend completing activities related to the course? Was the amount of time it took to complete this course appropriate? Why or why not? E-Learning Pace and Navigation Rate the pace at which the e-learning course advanced. Rate the ease of navigation. Did the e-learning unfold in a clear direction? Did you understand where you had to click to move forward? If not, why not? Rate the e-learning access setup or LMS setup. Visual Design Rate the overall visual design of the course content and materials. Rate the legibility of the text and fonts in this course. Rate the amount of corporate branding (logos, corporate colors) used. Rate the quality of the photography used in the course. Rate the use of animations in the course content. Multimedia Rate the amount of multimedia used in the course. Rate the quality of multimedia used in the course. Rate the amount of photography used in the course. Rate the amount of audio used in the course. Rate the quality of audio used in the course. Rate the amount of narration used in the course. Rate the voice and quality of the narration used in this course. Did the narration add value to this e-learning module? Why or why not? Interactivity Rate the amount of opportunities for interactive learning. Was the interactivity suitable for the content? Why or why not? If you did some group work, did you enjoy working with your group? Did you utilize any links to external websites? Did any of the activities help you gain a clearer understanding of the subject? Did case studies and scenarios help you gain a clearer understanding of the content? Rate your opportunity to interact with other virtual students. Rate how isolated you felt from other students. Rate how much you missed direct, in-person interaction with other students. Overall Experience Rate the technical quality of the course materials. Rate how confident you feel about your knowledge on the subject. Rate the availability of technical support. Identify three important concepts or ideas that you learned in this course. Identify three ways you will change how you do your job based on what you learned in the training. Identify three ways to improve this e-learning course. Make two suggestions to improve understanding of the course content. Would you prefer to take this course online or in the classroom? Why? Based on this experience, would you take another e-learning course? Why or why not? Did you encounter any technical problems during the course? If yes, elaborate. In Sum Obviously, this is just the tip of the iceberg! There are many other questions you might want to ask depending on the subject matter and purpose of your training. Can you think of any big ones we've left out? If so, please feel free to share them in the comments. And if you want to learn more about post-course evaluations, check out these helpful articles: Tips for Creating Effective Post-Course Evaluations Post-Course Evaluations: What E-Learning Designers Need to Know Follow us on Twitter and come back to E-Learning Heroes regularly for more helpful advice on everything related to e-learning. If you have any questions, please share them in the comments.An Introduction to Bloom's Taxonomy for Instructional Designers
Learning objectives are at the very core of the instructional design process, and rightly so. Without them, how would we know what content and activities to include in our courses? Unfortunately, the learning objectives are often poorly defined, making it hard to determine if learners are meeting them. Enter: Bloom’s Taxonomy! Benjamin Bloom, the creator of Bloom’s Taxonomy, specifically designed this classification system to help instructors, and instructional designers, clearly define learning objectives—and, in turn, create courses that meet learners’ needs. Let’s take a closer look at how this instructional design principle applies to e-learning. What Is Bloom’s Taxonomy? In their original work, Bloom and a committee of educators identified three domains of learning: cognitive (mental), affective (emotional), and psychomotor (physical). However, when most people think of Bloom’s Taxonomy, they think only of the cognitive domain. The cognitive domain is divided into six categories, each representing a cognitive skill level. Each category is associated with a set of verbs, or cognitive processes, that describe what learners should be capable of doing: Knowledge: recognize, recall, list, name, memorize, define, locate, identify Comprehension: interpret, illustrate, summarize, explain, match, paraphrase Application: apply, choose, organize, draw, generalize Analysis: analyze, differentiate, classify, categorize, distinguish Synthesis: create, plan, produce, construct Evaluation: evaluate, judge, criticize, compare, appraise Using Bloom’s Taxonomy to Write Learning Objectives Once you know the expected cognitive skill level for learners to achieve and the specific knowledge or skills the course covers, you’re ready to write your learning objective. How? Simply combine the subject (the learner), the verb (what learners must know how to do), and the object (the knowledge they need to acquire). For example, “At the end of this course, learners will recognize the five cognitive skill levels in Bloom’s Taxonomy.” Using Bloom’s Taxonomy to Design Activities As you’re designing your course activities, it’s important to refer back to the learning objectives and let the expected cognitive skill level guide your choices. If your learners need to take the course content and apply it to their jobs, you could build a scenario that allows them to practice doing that. If they simply need to recognize a list of terms, a multiple choice question could be just the thing. Let’s look at the six cognitive skill levels again, this time with an example of a suitable learning activity: Knowledge: a multiple choice question asking learners to identify the correct answer from a list of terms. Comprehension: a free-response question asking learners to explain their understanding of something. Application: a scenario in which learners need to make decisions based on the information they learned. Analysis: a sorting question where learners classify terms or concepts into the appropriate category. Synthesis: a free-response question that asks learners to outline a plan of action. Evaluation: a scenario where learners compare and contrast the options available. As you can see, you can use certain activity types for more than one skill level. It all depends on how you design those activities. And this is only the beginning—there are many more activities that you can design to help your learners achieve each of these cognitive skill levels. Resources Hopefully, this article has you thinking about how you can apply Bloom’s Taxonomy to your instructional design process to create clear, concise learning objectives and design activities to support those objectives. Want more instructional design tips? Check out these articles: An Introduction to Instructional Design Personalization Principle: Speaking to Your Learners Instead of at Them Multimedia Principle: Adding Graphics to Words Improves Learning Contiguity Principle: Keep Graphics and Related Text Together Redundancy Principle: Should You Duplicate Narrated Text on Screen? Coherence Principle: Less Material for Better Learning How to Match Question Types with the Skills You’re Testing How do you use Bloom’s Taxonomy to design e-learning? Share your ideas in a comment below! And remember to subscribe to our newsletter to get the latest e-learning inspiration and insights directly in your inbox. You can also find us on LinkedIn and X (Formerly Twitter).E-Learning Storyboard
Do you need help organizing content and resources into a slide-based e-learning course? Before you start developing, download and customize this Microsoft Word Storyboard template to clearly outline the learning content for your Subject Matter Experts. If you found this document helpful, then check out: Make Working With SMEs a Breeze with These 3 DownloadsHow to Do a Task Analysis Like a Pro
Task analysis is one of the cornerstones of instructional design. But what is it, really? The name says a lot: you analyze a task, step by step, to document how that task is completed. At first glance, this seems like a straightforward thing. But even the easiest tasks can be quite complex. Things you do every day might seem simple when you first think about them. But what happens when you eliminate internalized or assumed knowledge? Take sending an email. Easy, right? Maybe four or five steps? Click the New Mail icon Enter a Recipient Enter a Subject Enter your email text Click Send But what about carbon copy or blind carbon copy recipients? What if you need to attach an invoice or picture? What app do you use to create the email in the first place (or are you sending from Gmail in your browser)? For that matter, from which device are you sending the email? Suddenly that “simple” task is a set of processes, organized by device, operating system, and application, with various subtasks along the way accounting for mailing list complexities and the purpose of your email. As I was writing this I came up with about a dozen different variations, all of which would need to be closely analyzed and broken down precisely. Even the most average task has a lot behind it. This is why understanding how to do a task analysis is so important to becoming a successful instructional designer. When instructional designers create training, they’re teaching the learner how to accomplish something. Task analysis helps you focus on what they’re going to do and how they’ll do it (don’t worry so much about the why; that comes later). The easiest way to illustrate the process is with an example. Let’s say you work at a midsize media company and your boss asks you to complete a task analysis on how the company’s social media manager does her job. They want this documented for training purposes for future hires. That means you’ll need to: Identify the task to analyze Break down the task into subtasks Identify steps in subtasks Let’s take a closer look at each of these steps. Step 1: Identify the Task to Analyze Tasks are the duties carried out by someone on the job. The social media manager carries out a lot of duties, so you need to be able to break them down into broad activities (aka tasks!) and focus on them one at a time. Don’t worry about all the little things that make up the task; we’ll get to that in a second. Here we’re looking to paint with broad strokes. One of the social media manager’s tasks is to add new content to social media sites every morning. Your tasks should describe what a person does on the job and must start with an action verb. So, in this case, the first task to analyze is “Add new content to social media.” Step 2: Break Down the Task into Subtasks Once you identify the task, you need to identify the subtasks, the smaller processes that make up the larger task. Remember in the email example above where I mentioned attachments and carbon-copying recipients? That’s the kind of thing you capture here. These should also be brief and start with an action verb. Continuing the social media manager example, you need to find out the subtasks of adding new content to social media. You can figure this out by talking to or observing the social media manager. Through this process, you discover that the subtasks for adding new content to social media are: Check the editorial calendar Add new content to Twitter You’re making good progress! You can now move on to Step 3. Step 3: Identify Steps in Subtasks Now it’s time to get into the nitty-gritty. You’ve identified the task and broken it down into subtasks. The final step, then, is to identify and list the steps for each subtask. Do this by breaking down all of the subtasks into specific step-by-step, chronological actions. The key here is to use a “Goldilocks” approach to detail: not too much and not too little. Use just the right amount so learners can follow the instructions easily. Again, as with tasks and subtasks, your steps need to start with an action verb. So, putting everything together from steps 1 and 2 and then breaking the subtasks into steps, your final task analysis would look like this; 1. Adding new content to social media 1.1 Check the editorial calendar 1.1.1 Navigate to the calendar webpage 1.1.2 Click today’s date 1.1.3 Click newest article title to open article 1.1.4 Click inside article URL bar 1.1.5 Copy URL for article to clipboard 1.1.6 Highlight title text of article 1.1.7 Copy the title text to clipboard 1.1.8 Close the calendar 1.2 Add new content to Twitter 1.2.1 Navigate to Twitter account 1.2.2 Log in to Twitter account 1.2.3 Click Tweet button 1.2.4 Paste article title from clipboard 1.2.5 Paste article URL from clipboard 1.2.6 Click Tweet button to publish There are several ways to approach task analysis. It’s a fine art deciding how far down the rabbit hole you need to go with detail. Instructional designers can debate for hours whether saying “log in” is enough or if that needs to be broken down further into “enter user name,” “enter password,” and “click the login button.” Again, it all comes down to figuring out how much detail is just right for your audience. Wrapping Up That’s it! As you can see, while creating a task analysis boils down to “just” three steps, there are a lot of nuanced decisions to make along the way. Remember the Goldilocks Rule and always consider your audience and the seriousness of the subject matter when deciding just how nitpicky you need your task analysis to be. After all, there’s a marked difference between how much detail a learner needs when they’re learning how to perform brain surgery versus filling out their timecard. Do you have any do’s and don’ts of your own for completing a successful task analysis? If you do, please leave a comment below. We love to hear your feedback! Follow us on Twitter and come back to E-learning Heroes regularly for more helpful advice on everything related to e-learning.An Introduction to the ADDIE Model for Instructional Designers
If you’ve been around e-learning a little while, you’ve probably heard of ADDIE—the most commonly used instructional design model training designers use when crafting learning experiences. The acronym stands for: Analysis, Design, Development, Implementation, and Evaluation. The five phases of the ADDIE model are designed to help guide you (and your team) through the course design process. Essentially, it’s a roadmap for building training that ensures learners meet specific objectives. New designers have a tendency to want to jump directly into development (I totally get it; that’s the fun part!), but it’s important to understand the bigger picture before making that leap. Let’s take a closer look at what each phase of ADDIE entails. Analyze According to the ADDIE model, the first thing you should do when you’re handed a new training project is a detailed analysis. What do you need to analyze? Three of the most critical analyses carried out by instructional designers are: Training Needs Analysis: This should be the first type of analysis you complete because it identifies whether the training is needed at all. This analysis identifies what performance improvements are expected and how they’ll be measured, which is critical in identifying whether training has been successful. Read more: How to Do an E-Learning Needs Analysis. Audience Analysis: Once you confirm that training is needed, it’s time to analyze your learners. Knowing key demographics and background information about your learners will help you identify the information they need to know and the best way to present it to them. Read more: How to Do an E-Learning Audience Analysis. Task Analysis: Now that you know what your course is about and who will be taking it, it’s time to take a close look at the specific processes and tasks you’ll be training learners on by breaking them down into step-by-step chunks. Read more: How to Do a Task Analysis Like a Pro. Once you’ve completed these analyses, you will have a much better idea of the who, what, where, and why of your e-learning. As a next step, it’s a good idea to compile these findings into your first deliverable: a project plan. Read more: How to Plan E-Learning Courses Like a Pro. Design With the analyses out of the way, you’re ready to start development, right? Wrong! Don’t skip the first “D”! Starting to develop your course without completing the design phase is like building a house without a blueprint. It makes much more sense to start with a clear plan of how everything in the course will be laid out and how the text, multimedia, and navigation will fit together. The deliverable you create depends on your time, budget, resources, and what you’ve outlined in your project plan. Typically, one of two deliverables comes out of the design phase: Storyboard: This document lays out the elements of the course that will appear on each slide. This may include text, imagery, and narration script. Deciding what to include in a storyboard depends on the project. For example, if your project includes audio narration, you’ll need to include a script with your storyboard. If you’re building a storyboard that you’ll hand off to a developer, you’ll need to add detailed notes for them. Read more: Storyboards for E-Learning: What to Include? Prototype: This typically includes sample slides to test and identify whether specific features or concepts work. The prototype lets a stakeholder get a feel for how the course will look and function before developing the entire course and all of its features. Read more: E-Learning: Storyboard vs. Prototype. Once you’ve got your blueprint for your course, you’re ready to jump into the fun part: development! Develop This is the phase where you (finally!) get to build out your e-learning content in an authoring app. The development part of the ADDIE process typically contains two sub-tasks: Content Creation: In this phase, you choose and add the final graphics, multimedia, colors, and fonts to make your course look polished and professional. You’ll also use your authoring app to build out activities, quizzes, interactions, and functional navigation to create an engaging course. Read more: The Basics of E-Learning Course Creation Apps. Testing: Once you’ve created your content, you need to test it. Things that need to be tested and reviewed include spelling, grammar, learning objectives, navigation, and flow. Testing is typically done during the development process instead of after, so the developer can make changes as testers identify problem areas. Read more: Top 4 Tips for E-Learning Quality Assurance (QA) Testing. Implement Once your course is fully developed and thoroughly tested, you’re ready to share it with your learners. Not sure how to do that? Check out this article to find out more about your options: How to Share E-Learning Courses with Learners. Evaluate When you progress to the evaluation phase, you need to go back to the very first phase of the ADDIE process, in which you (hopefully!) completed a training needs analysis. During that phase, you identified specific performance improvements that your training would address, as well as how to measure those improvements. The evaluation phase is where the rubber meets the road: Did your training result in the real, measurable performance improvements you identified in your needs analysis? While the learners’ opinions and feedback about the e-learning matter, it’s critical to ensure your training achieved the goals you set at the start. Want to learn more? Check out these articles: Post-Course Evaluations: What E-Learning Designers Need to Know How to Measure the Satisfaction of Learners Taking Your Online Courses Wrap-Up And there you have it! Those are the five phases of the ADDIE model. Having a solid foundation of each phase will ensure you end up with a high-quality course that meets the needs of your learners. Interested in learning about other instructional design models? Here are a few related articles: An Introduction to SAM for Instructional Designers An Introduction to Bloom’s Taxonomy Measure the Effectiveness of Your E-Learning Course with Kirkpatrick’s 4 Levels of Evaluation The Presentation/Application/Feedback (PAF) Model An Introduction to Instructional Design Follow us on Twitter and come back to E-Learning Heroes regularly for more helpful advice on everything related to e-learning. If you have any questions, please share them in the comments.What is E-Learning?
Have you ever watched a YouTube tutorial or signed up for an online course? If so, then you've experienced e-learning. The term “e-learning” might sound intimidating, but it's just a fancy way of talking about the use of electronic devices (computers, tablets, or phones) for educational purposes. In this article, we'll explore a more detailed definition of what it is, why it’s valuable, and more. Sound good? Read on! How Do We Define E-Learning? Many people would recognize a basic e-learning course as a slide-based online activity that contains simple navigation buttons (such as Next and Back) and incorporates quizzes with true/false or multiple-choice questions. But not all e-learning courses share the same fingerprint. For example, it could be an inherently responsive web-based course that allows learners to have a great learning experience no matter what device they’re using to view their course. Or maybe it’s a software simulation that demonstrates the click-path through an application. Or an interactive course that features role-playing and complex decision-making. In this article we’ll take a deliberately broad view of e-learning, and appreciate its near-infinite and ever-evolving forms. Why Is E-Learning Valuable? E-learning offers many benefits that more traditional training options, such as facilitated sessions or lectures, don’t provide. For example, e-learning ... Can be either an asynchronous or synchronous activity: Traditionally, e-learning has been asynchronous, which means there is no predetermined time for the learning to take place. Everyone can go at their own pace, and take their time to learn what they need to know, when they need to know it. However, more synchronous e-learning is now being offered through web conferencing and chat options. The great thing about e-learning is it gives you the option to do either or both. Has a global reach: E-learning can simply be placed online and easily accessed by people around the world. There is no need for expensive travel or meetings across multiple time zones. Spans multiple devices/mobile: Online courses can work on computers as well as on mobile devices such as smartphones and tablets. This means e-learning courses can literally be in the hands of the people who need them at all times. Is just-in-time/needs-based: E-learning authoring software is so easy to use that anyone can create, publish, and share a course within a few hours, allowing you to provide people with resources and training they can access right when they need it. Is more efficient: With e-learning, you can develop a course that can be distributed electronically to thousands instead of having to organize in-person training sessions whenever people need to be brought up to speed. Reduces costs: All of the abovementioned factors result in a cost savings for organizations that use e-learning courses to replace some of their traditional instructor-led training. Allows for consistent quality and content: When you develop an e-learning course, you can deliver the same message to all learners consistently. In classroom training, the message, equipment, and other conditions can vary widely from one session to the next, which can affect the outcome of the course. And that’s just the beginning! As you can see, e-learning can be an extremely valuable asset to your organization. How Do You Create E-Learning Courses? In the early days, e-learning courses were typically custom creations, coded by programmers and developers using highly specialized apps. In those days, it could easily require an entire team to create a simple, linear e-learning course. E-learning design is now much more accessible. Today’s course development apps, also called authoring tools or authoring apps, are so advanced that anyone can create e-learning courses—without any programming or coding knowledge. There are many different types of authoring apps out there today, each with their own set of capabilities. Some apps, like Rise 360, have been specifically engineered to create e-learning courses that dynamically adapt to any screen size (also known as responsive e-learning courses). Other apps, like Storyline 360, are designed to create highly interactive slide-based courses. And of course there are also PowerPoint add-ons like Studio 360, which make turning PowerPoint presentations into e-learning courses a snap. Each app has a unique feature set, making it particularly well suited for a specific type of project. When you’re trying to decide which authoring app to use, always start by looking at your project requirements and objectives. If you’re having trouble figuring out which app is right for your project, here are a few articles that could help you decide: Overview of E-Learning Authoring Software Top 9 Considerations for Choosing the Right E-Learning Authoring App Why You Need the Apps in Articulate 360 and When to Use Them How Is E-Learning Shared? Once you’ve created an e-learning course, you need to distribute it to learners. There are many ways to do this, and—like everything else related to e-learning—those ways are constantly evolving and improving. Here, I’d like to look at two ways to share content: informal distribution and formal distribution. Informal Distribution Informal distribution of e-learning content typically means users are trusted to view the e-learning course, and their participation isn’t tracked or scored. One way to informally share an e-learning course is to put it on a web server, then send participants the link and have them view the course. You don’t really have a systematic way of knowing whether learners have completed the course, but sometimes that’s not necessary. Formal Distribution Sharing an e-learning course formally means there’s a need to track and record learner results. Most organizations that have a need for formal distribution of e-learning have specific systems and standards in place for this. Tracking is usually done in what is called a Learning Management System (LMS). An LMS allows you to administer, track, report, and document the delivery of your e-learning courses. Get up to speed on LMSs here. Certain standards are in place to report the information to the LMS, including AICC, SCORM, cmi5, and xAPI (Tin Can API). For a short overview of these norms, hop on over to this article. Starting to feel overwhelmed by all the acronyms? Make sure to bookmark the E-Learning ABCs so you can refer back to the definitions of the most commonly used e-learning terms at any time. What Makes an E-Learning Project Successful? Many factors contribute to a successful e-learning program, but the top two are: A production process that uses the right apps Solid instructional design Let’s take a closer look at these two essential elements. Apps Powerful apps let you create the functionality and interactivity that you want for your learners. They help you make e-learning that looks and works great, which goes a long way toward a successful e-learning course. The more user-friendly the app, the less time you’ll spend on technical issues. This frees you up to commit to the instructional design to craft a great learning experience. Instructional Design One way organizations measure the success of an e-learning project is by how much the learner’s knowledge and skills have improved after they’ve taken the course. To provide your learners with the best odds, you should have content that is designed in an instructionally sound manner. Instructional design is all about creating educational experiences that maximize learning and present content in the most effective way. If you’re new to instructional design, I recommend reading up on the basics to help you create instructionally sound courses with solid learning objectives. You can have the most fabulous-looking course in the world, but if the content quality isn’t top-notch, it won’t have the impact you desire. The Bottom Line E-learning course development is constantly evolving. Authoring apps will continue to improve; however, your focus should remain on using those apps to create the best e-learning possible. In its relatively short history, e-learning has come a long way, and offers immeasurable opportunities to help people learn better. I hope this overview of e-learning inspires you to push yourself to create engaging courses that will delight your learners. If you want to learn more, you should check out: An Introduction to Instructional Design Basic Elements of an E-Learning Course 4 Easy Ways to Organize Content for E-Learning This article is part of our E-Learning 101 e-mail course, a series of expertly curated articles that’ll help you get started with e-learning—delivered right to your inbox. You’re only a click away from becoming an e-learning pro! Sign up here to enroll.
