Blind students are taking Astronomy fully online. The course, written to universal accessibility standards, is full every term. Storytelling, braille, audio, captioned videos and materials from NASA bring the course to life. Astronomy is comprised of mathematical equations that are plotted on tactile maps and sent to students. The uniqueness of the course, in addition to its universal inclusion, results in an interesting and fun class.
1. Thorough Research Analysis
Creation of customized content for academic coursework or corporate training initiatives provides a unique and exciting window of opportunity for reinvention, branding and individuality. Branding gives your content product a positive and unique identity that can scale and align to future eLearning development.
The core of custom eLearning content development begins with a solid body of research on your given course content topic. Leave no research stone unturned: This includes gathering data about your eLearning content, which includes learner feedback, evaluation, and assessments. Data can drive the design of your course material by revealing key topics for additional instruction and identify learning gaps. The core of rich and engaging content is weaving qualitative and quantitative data to design assessment and knowledge retention.
Work in tandem with your Subject Matter Expert to provide content, review and edit. The Subject Matter Expert is a valuable consultant for beta testing prior to a preview release to learners. Librarians are valuable because of their access to specialized inquiries. It is also important to review off-the-shelf and commercial products of your content subject to compare and contrast.
2. Thorough Audience Analysis
Conduct a thorough analysis of your audience; this will drive the course content research and development. Gather past evaluations, assessments and interview your learners, find out what they need and why. Who is the learner or customer you are serving? What specific information do they need? What do you want the learner to do with the information? Will you be teaching this student one time or will they be returning for additional courses?
There are three types of audience analysis:
- Demographic: gender, age range, marital status, race and ethnicity, and socioeconomic status
- Psychographic: values, opinions, attitudes, and beliefs
- Situational: characteristics related to the learning environment
3. Learning Outcomes & Objectives
Clarify the overarching learning outcome into a clear statement that describes the learning goals. Learners need clear instructions. Learning objectives are comprised of three parts:
- Statement of what students will be able to do when they have completed instruction.
- The conditions under which the student will perform the task.
- The criteria for evaluating student performance
It is beneficial to use tools to help write succinct learning outcomes, by referring back to Bloom’s Taxonomy, ADDIE, Wiggins and McTighe, SAM, the Sub Approximation model.
- Knowledge Level: Recognize or recall learned information. Verbs: list, record, define, memorize, recognize
- Comprehension Level: Restate or interpret information in their own words. Verbs: explain, describe, report, and translate
- Application Level: Use or apply the learned information. Verbs: apply, solve, perform, and demonstrate
- Analysis Level: Examine the learned information critically. Verbs: calculate, distinguish, critique, categorize
- Synthesis Level: Create new models using the learned information. Verbs: plan, build, create, and design
- Evaluation Level: Assess or judge the value of learned information. Verbs: review, justify, assess, and defend
4. Creative Writing, Storytelling,Gamification
No one wants to be bored with tedious and uninteresting content. Inspire your learners with creative writing, by weaving storytelling into each learning module and use short videos to emphasize points. Use comedy and humor to make the learning objectives memorable. Research historical and current themes even if you are creating content for safety training, corporate policies or a math course. Build and write several games into the course to keep students motivated and engaged, and provide assessment data. In the gamification 2020 report, Gartner predicts that "gamification, combined with other emerging trends and technologies will have a significant impact on innovation, employee performance design, higher education globalization, customer engagement platforms, personal development".
5. Flexible Content Mobile Learning
Businesses are offering mobile employee training, and universities entereprise Learning Management Systems which can be viewed on mobile. Map out where the eLearning content fits into the larger organizational structure. Keep your content flexible and scaffolded so that it can be outlined and reorganized to reponsive learning. Content will have to be succinct with assessment and evaluation and universal design for accessibility.
In conclusion, conduct a thorough research analysis of your topic and learners. Use creative writing and storytelling to make your course compelling and inspirational. Take a close look at the outcomes and objectives, making sure they are clear and measurable. Have content ready for responsive and mobile learning environments. Take these steps to create a custom and successful eLearning brand.