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Personalize E-Learning #134: Challenge | Recap

Give learners a voice: Ditch the one-size-fits-all course design model by giving learners more control and options to personalize their learning experiences

Let users choose an avatar that best represents them

Increase learner engagement by using their name throughout the course

Create adaptive learning paths that meet the unique needs of each learner

Allow learners to choose closed captioning, audio narration, design themes, and other course preferences

Personalize feedback based on quiz scores and on-slide actions

Use gamification techniques to add personalization to courses

Who wants to suffer through boring, impersonal e-learning courses that aren't relevant to their professional lives? Most learners don't like click-next courses that make them feel invisible or fail to address their specific needs.

That's why engagement and motivation are so important.

And an easy way to increase learner engagement is to give learners opportunities to personalize their learning experience.

How to Design Personalized E-Learning Solutions

One way to personalize courses is to refer to the learner by name throughout the course. This is easily achieved with a simple text entry variable that's called each time you want to address the learner by name.

A more advanced solution is to design adaptive learning paths to accommodate different needs of learners.

Whether you attempt a simple or more complex design, your goal should be to move beyond the one-size-fits-all approach that's common to most e-learning courses. How you do that is what this week's challenge is all about!

Challenge of the Week

This week, your challenge is to share an example that demonstrates one or more ways to personalize an e-learning course using gamification techniques. You can use a real-world project you've built or a quick demo you mocked up for the challenge.

Last Week's Challenge:

Before you personalize this week's challenge, check out the button starter kits your fellow community members shared in last week's challenge:

Button Starter Kits #133: Challenge | Recap

Wishing you a personalized week, E-Learning Heroes!

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.

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Personalize Your E-Learning Using Gamification Techniques #134

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This week, your challenge is to share an example that demonstrates one or more ways to personalize an e-learning course using gamification techniques. You can use a real-world project you've built or a quick demo you mocked up for the challenge.

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17 Interaction Design Examples For Adult Learning

Interactivity helps make eLearning courses highly engaging and productive for adult learners. Here, we'll see a few interaction design examples for every level of interactivity in your online courses for adult students, as well as the instructional uses of each type of interaction. Let's begin!

Interaction Design Examples: Level 1 Interactivity

1. Buildup And Rollover

In this type of interaction, an image builds part by part with its relevant text. When the entire image is built, the learner can click on/roll the mouse over any part to know more about it. This explanation could be in the form of text, image, or video.

When Can This interaction Be Used?

Concepts, processes, procedures, products, or elaborate systems can be effectively explained using this type of interaction. Interconnected parts appear and are described in segments, each building one after the other. For example:

Show a diagram of a product being assembled and allow the learner to explore each part by rolling mouse over it.

Present a flowchart in a sequence and let the learner learn more about each step of the chart by clicking on it.

2. Flash Or Flip Cards

These are one of the fast-paced learning templates you can use. They allow learners to quickly revisit information and test knowledge. In this type of interaction, the leaner needs to flip the card(s) to reveal the description, cues, or images on the flip side.

When Can This interaction Be Used?

This type of interaction comes in handy to reinforce core concepts, facts, and vocabulary. You could also use it to test the knowledge of your learners, helping them retain knowledge over the long-term. For example:

Questions appear on one side of the card and the corresponding information or answers appear on the flip side.

Give a clue on the front side and help adult learners recall the information on the back.

3. Steps Or Ladder Depiction

This type of interaction allows you to represent content as sequenced steps, each step having a caption and an accompanying description. The steps appear one after the other and learners can click on each step to know more about it.

When Can This interaction Be Used?

This type of interaction is very useful when information needs to be made available in a sequence such as a task, process, or workflow. For example:

Consumer buying process

Quality assurance process.

4. Pyramid

In this type of interaction, the learner can view a hierarchical representation of a concept. A click or rollover of the mouse on each level will display its description. The pyramid could have more than one face where different subsets of a concept can be explained on each face.

When Can This interaction Be Used?

This interaction model can be used to help learners discover information about hierarchical relationships, concepts, and processes. For example:

To showcase an organizational structure

To explain a particular theory

5. Panning Cards

In this type of interaction, the learner can pan through a series of images in a 3D way. Learners can read more about the image by clicking on it.

When Can This interaction Be Used?

Panning cards can be used to create slideshow type of interactive presentations and can be enriched using a set of images or videos along with supporting description and audio. For example: Key features of a product

Top tourist attractions

Achievements of the organization

Interaction Design Examples: Level 2 Interactivity

6. Tabs

In this type of interaction, a series of tabs are displayed on the screen. This is a great navigation widget for learners to switch between information present on various tabs. When the learner clicks on a tab, information pertaining to that tab is displayed. This interaction lets adult learners explore a group of related items, walk through concepts, or compare objects.

When Can This interaction Be Used?

Tabs are suitable to explain information which need not be read in a sequence and learners can choose the order. You could use it to present a lot of related content chunks or /categories/features in a logical and user-friendly way. For example:

7. Interactive eBook

In this type of interaction, the learning content is presented in the form of a book and learners need to flip the pages to read through. Learners can directly reach a particular topic/ page by clicking the topic in the Table of Contents or by typing the page number in given field. This interaction combines the familiarity of reading books with digital content which could be a combination of text, images, hyperlinks, audio, and video.

When Can This interaction Be Used?

These multimedia 3D eBooks can be used to present information which can be logically divided into sub-topics, in an interactive way. For example:

8. Character Dialog Or Conversation

This type of interaction presents content in a conversational way and engages learners with illustrated characters. It is a great way to illustrate a dialogue between two or more individuals/objects, and unfold the learning content along. The conversation can be presented in the form of only audio, only on-screen text, or both in sync.

When Can This interaction Be Used?

Character Dialog/Conversation can be used to give a human/lively touch to your course and present information in a conversational format. For example:

Customer service call

Job interview

Employee training by manager

Employee induction program

9. Interactive Video

In this type of interaction, the learner is shown a video that pauses at set intervals to reveal either additional information or questions to test knowledge. It actively involves learners during a video and gives them feedback wherever required.

When Can This interaction Be Used?

Interactive video can be used to explain a video or pause for a teaser question to ensure that the learners are paying complete attention. For example:

Explain product lifecycle or product assembly through a video and check knowledge where required.

Explain about the company's core competencies through a video and provide extra information where required.

10. Labeled Images Or Graphics

In this type of interaction, the learner is presented with an image that has a few marked elements. When clicked, elements display additional text, image, and/or video information.

When Can This interaction Be Used?

This type of interaction can be used to draw learners' attention to important parts of an image. It is a great way to elucidate a diagram or a graphic. For example:

Interaction Design Examples: Level 3 Interactivity

11. Scenario Exercise Or Mini Scenario

In this type of interaction, the learner is put in a situation with multiple paths that lead to different endings. The learner is required to analyze the scenario and choose the path of the scenario. A corrective feedback is provided for each of the decisions of the learner.

When Can This interaction Be Used?

This type of interaction can be used to teach learners about how to make a good choice or decision. Learners face realistic challenges and consequences of their decisions. For example:

12. Role Play

This type of interaction places the learner in a story/scenario as a character that must investigate or do research to solve a problem. Essentially, the learner reads about a situation and then proceeds to solve the stated problem.

When Can This interaction Be Used?

This type of interaction can be used to engage adult learners by putting them in a particular role and make them analyze the situation from the role player's perspective. For example:

13. Visual Assessment

In this type of interaction, the learner is first presented with a visual story or scenario and then needs to answer some questions related to it. It is like an open book test where the learner can anytime refer to the visual representation while answering the questions.

When Can This interaction Be Used?

This type of interaction can be used for knowledge reinforcement or quick knowledge check. The use of multimedia elements like audio-visual introductory screen and questions, make the interaction captivating.

For example, explain a complex process, procedure or a model as a graphic and include questions to test understanding.

14. Mind Map

In this type of interaction, the learner can explore a key concept and elements surrounding that concept with the help of a mind map. The learner can click a particular event/element/node to expand and also view additional information which could be in the form of text, images, and videos.

When Can This interaction Be Used?

This powerful graphical technique can be used to break enormous information into simple sets, or to simplify complex concepts and relationships between ideas, in a recallable layout. A mind map can, in fact, be used to explain or expand any concept/subject/theory

15. Classification Or Sorting

This type of interaction model enables you to create a classification exercise of items which can appear in image and text combinations. Learners have to drag and drop items in various category buckets. This interaction could also provide the option to show immediate, delayed, or no feedback.

When Can This interaction Be Used?

This type of interaction can be used to reframe static content into interactive knowledge checks. These exercises invite learners to take actions and make decisions. The goal is to engage and challenge adult learners to apply what they've learned. From simple labeling exercises to sorting, and even filling in the blanks, this interaction can be used in a variety of creative ways. For example,

Interaction Design Examples: Level 4 Interactivity

16. Complex Simulations

Simulations are the imitation of real-world process operations, applications, or systems. They provide learners with an opportunity to learn by doing and bring them close to real life situations. Real-time feedback is provided to learners at each step. There are different types of simulations that can be used in eLearning, such as software simulation, business simulation, procedural simulation, technical simulation and virtual representation of a real environment.

When Can This interaction Be Used?

Simulations can be used for skill development for cases where learners are required to apply the knowledge in their jobs or real-life situations. For example:

Application training

Process training

Equipment operation training

Management skills training

17. Serious Games

Serious games in eLearning allow learners to engage with new skills or subject matter in a fun way. Learners are expected to work towards a stated goal, either individually, or in a group. They need to make choices of actions and face the results of those actions. They are allowed to experiment and make mistakes in a safe environment and get real-time feedback for each of their decisions. Serious games are unlike simple quiz games which aim to only test the learner's understanding through questions.

When Can This interaction Be Used?

Serious games can be used when you want to create an impact on the learners' mind, provide practice for real-life scenarios or impart new skills. Games can address many training requirements such as skills training, compliance training, and product training.

Whereas with serious games, learning gets unfold as the learners apply skills to the virtual world. Game elements such as goals, challenges, rules, barriers, characters, objects, competition, scoreboards, badges, and achievements are used in this interactivity.

Conclusion

The possibilities of building interactivity and creating interactions in eLearning courses are endless. Factors like learning objectives, type of training and content, target audience, and project scope will greatly influence the level of interactivity for your course.

The degree of engagement for adult learners will increase as the level of interactivity increases. However, high levels of interactivity will not always have a great impact, but effective use of lower levels can also give good results.

Choosing the right combination and amount of interactions is the key to effective adult learning. Needless to say, the essence of learning objectives and content must stay at the core for any interactivity level.

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Interactivity In Adult Learning: 17 Interaction Design Examples

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Interactivity helps make eLearning courses highly engaging and productive for adult learners. Here, we'll see a few interaction design examples for every level of interactivity in your online courses for adult students, as well as the instructional uses of each type of interaction. Let's begin! 1.

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How to turn a text wall into an amazing presentation?

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How to turn a text wall into an amazing presentation?

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15 Ways to Turn a Very Text-Heavy, Bullet-Ridden Slide into Amazing! [Presentation Hackathon Part 3]

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Beware if you are still creating slides full of bullet points! Very soon, you will find audiences leave the hall in disgust or hold a placard in protest “No Bullet Points, Please.”

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Branching Scenarios and Story Maps RECAP #325: Challenge | Recap

This week's challenge asked course designers to share branching examples based on the popular Choose Your Own Adventure stories.

Ang CM

Jessie Bernal

Example | Jessie Bernal

Jenna Petroskey

Example | Jenna Petroskey

Ron Katz

Ashi (Neha) Tandon

Laura Coulter

Rustam Keshtkar

Angela Walsh

Jonathan Hill

Jodi Sansone

Nele Segers

Teo Karageorgakis

Dan Strizak

Namitha Mani

Joel Colley

Katie Gibbs

Melissa Santoso

Kimberly Eng

Eric Chamberlin

Example | Eric Chamberlin

New to the E-Learning Challenges?

The weekly 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.

If you have a blog, please consider writing about your challenges. We'll link back to your posts so the great work you're sharing gets even more exposure.

If you share your demos on Twitter, please include #ELHChallenge so your tweeps can track your e-learning coolness.

Share Your E-Learning Adventure Examples!

The choose your own adventure challenge is still open! If you have one or more ideas you'd like to share, please jump over to the original challenge and post your links in the comments section. I'll update this recap page to include your examples.

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19 E-Learning Branching Scenario Examples with Story Maps #325

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Branching Scenarios and Story Maps RECAP #325: Challenge | Recap This week's challenge asked course designers to share branching examples based on the popular Choose Your Own Adventure stories. Example | Jessie Bernal Example | Jenna Petroskey Example | Eric Chamberlin The weekly challenges are ongoing opportunities to learn, share, and build your e-learning portfolios.

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Branching scenarios are a great way to let learners practice skills in realistic situations. By asking them to choose how they'll respond to tough scenarios, they can test out different approaches in a low-risk setting.

And with Storyline, it's really easy to create branching scenarios using variables and layers. Check out these great examples for some inspiration:

See how learners can practice their communication skills in this job interview branching scenario by Nicole Legault. You can also learn how she built this example and get the free download.

Take a look at this attention-grabbing example by Richard Watson that lets learners explore responses to workplace violence.

Give learners practice with assessing tough workplace situations in this example by Melissa Milloway.

This super-cool interaction by Kimberly Bourque assesses your leadership style with a series of branching questions.

Let learners see the consequences of their actions in this scenario by Melissa Milloway.

Learn your leadership style in this amazing branched interaction by Jackie Van Nice.

If you're interested in learning more about creating branched scenarios with Storyline, check out the Storyline tutorials. Also, take a look at this classic post by Tom Kuhlmann, which teaches you the fundamentals of structuring a branched interaction. And there are tons more examples to inspire you in the examples hub.

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6 Sweet Branching Scenario Examples - E-Learning Heroes

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Branching scenarios are a great way to let learners practice skills in realistic situations. By asking them to choose how they'll respond to tough scenarios, they can test out different approaches in a low-risk setting. And with Storyline, it's really easy to create branching scenarios using variables and layers.

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How to Optimize the Navigation in Your E-Learning Courses

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How to Optimize the Navigation in Your E-Learning Courses

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We have previously looked at the importance of spending time to optimise the navigation of your e-learning courses. As a quick recap, optimised navigation improves the learner experience as well as learning outcomes and return on investment.

How do you optimise e-learning course navigation? The following 10 tips will help.

1. Forward and Back Navigation

Give users a single method of navigating forward to the next slide. The same applies to the method for navigating backward. Both these navigational elements should be universal throughout the entire module.

This means the button design and colour for moving forwards and backward should be the same on every slide. The text on the button should be the same as well, or it should follow a similar style.

For example, don't use "Next" on one slide and "Continue" on another when both mean the same thing, i.e. moving forward to the next slide in the module.

However, "Next - Section Title" where "section title" is the title of the next slide can be okay, so long as this style is consistent throughout the entire e-learning course.

2. Maintain a Consistent Location for Navigational Elements

Following on from the above point, the main navigational elements of your course (i.e. the navigational elements that are on every page) should be in the same place throughout. This particularly applies to the forward and back buttons.

3. Keep the Design of Navigational Elements Simple and Non-Distracting

Navigational elements with a complex design will confuse learners, while navigation that is obtrusive will just get in the way. Therefore, keep all navigational features as simple as possible.

They should be easy to spot, of course, but they should not detract from the main content on the slide.

So, avoid things like fancy images and icons.

4. Plan in Advance Elements of Your Course that are Navigationally Complex

Your course may have a structure or individual sections that are navigationally complex. These need to be carefully planned out in advance to make sure the navigation works while also being as simple as it can be.

An example of a course with a structure that is navigationally complex is one that has different audiences. In other words, where there are some sections of the course that apply to all learners and other sections that only apply to certain audience groups.

Usually in this situation, the learner makes a selection at the start of the course to determine the path they will take. Make sure you carefully plot both/all paths before you start designing the course. Then, once the slides are in place, thoroughly test the navigation to ensure it works.

An example of an individual e-learning section that is navigationally complex is a scenario. Branching scenarios are even more complex as each decision leads to a different set of options.

Again, scenarios need to be carefully planned in advance to ensure learners don't end up in a loop or dead-end depending on the decisions they make.

Like before, make sure you test the navigation of scenario features thoroughly.

5. Don't Use Auto-Advance Features

Avoid auto-advance navigation that automatically moves the learner to the next section based on a pre-set factor like time or actions taken. It is much more user-friendly to give users control over forward and back navigation.

6. Add a Tutorial to Explain the Navigation

Consider including a quick tutorial at the beginning of the course explaining how the navigation works.

This tutorial could overlay the slide, highlighting the buttons that navigate forward and back as well as any other navigational elements. You can also use this tutorial to give the learner other information, such as where they can get additional content or how to access help.

Tutorials like this are not always necessary but they can be helpful, particularly when learners are not comfortable using technology.

7. Add a Menu

Depending on your course, it may be beneficial to add a menu in addition to the forward and back buttons. The benefit of this is that it lets learners quickly jump back to a previous section to refresh their memory before continuing.

Additional menus can increase clutter, though, and they can result in the learning flow being broken. So, they need to be used wisely with consideration given to alternatives to menus.

An example of an alternative is to include regular recap sections where you think learners will benefit from them, i.e. before you go on to further explore a topic that includes information covered several slides previously.

8. Give Short and Concise Instructions

Keep navigation instructions short and to the point. For example, "Next" is much better than "Click to move to the next section".

9. Add a Progress Indicator

Include a progress indicator in your e-learning courses so learners can quickly see how much they still must do to complete the course. This enhances the learner experience plus it improves satisfaction levels, completion rates, and more.

10. Maintain a Consistent Design

Finally, keep a consistent navigational design across all your e-learning modules and courses. Maintaining this consistency will ensure familiarity which will improve the learner experience in regard to your overall training strategy.

Optimising E-Learning Navigation

The main objective you should have when designing the navigation of your e-learning course is that, from the perspective of the learner, it should be incidental. In other words, the navigation should just work without the learner having to think about it. The above tips will help you achieve this.

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10 Tips to Optimise the Navigation in Your E-Learning Courses - Capytech

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10 Tips to Optimise the Navigation in Your E-Learning Courses We have previously looked at the importance of spending time to optimise the navigation of your e-learning courses. As a quick recap, optimised navigation improves the learner experience as well as learning outcomes and return on investment.