Getting Started With Elearning Development Process

Are you new to elearning and the process of creating an elearning course looks like a total mystery to you?

Are you concerned about the fact that taking a bunch of raw content and transforming it into an elearning can be too overwhelming?

I will show you 10 simple steps for developing your elearning course whether you are a school teacher or a corporate trainer under three categories;

·        Prepare

·        Develop

·        Assess

PREPARE

1.    Ask why: Do a Need Analysis

The first step to creating an elearning course is to ask why your audience need the training. What exactly do you want to achieve with this training and how do would you know if it has been achieved? What knowledge gap will this elearning course fill?

Needs Analysis helps you define if elearning is the right solution to the problem.

2.    Who are your Audience?

You need to understand your learners and make decisions based on that understanding. How will they access the course? What device are they more exposed to? What do you expect from them.

Do they need support in accessing the course especially if they are school Children and how can they get the support? Can they take the course at home or does it have to be in school or at work?

You need to ask and answer these questions as you go along?

3.    Set measurable goals and Objectives

Be clear on how your elearning course would add value to the learners. Work with the stakeholders (if you are not the only one involved in the project) to determine the goals you will measure in the learning project. These goals and objectives should be about the knowledge, skills, and abilities that you want the learner to have at the end of the course.

DEVELOP

4.    Contact Subject Matter Experts

Identify Subject Matter experts in your organization and encourage them to share their expertise with you. If the elearning project is a team project, work with other stakeholders and subject matter experts to align expectations, help them understand every individual’s roles in the project, and agree on timelines.

5.    Choose your learning Technology

Before you decide on what authoring tools, and learning management systems you should use, check for reviews, features of the technology, costs, and verify whether it is best for your organization. I have an article on how you can choose the most suitable learning technology for your organization, read it here

6.    What is your Instructional Design Strategy?

In this stage, you will decide how the content is going to be developed to engage learners. What learning element can you introduce to the training to make it more meaningful and relevant? There are lots of approaches that elearning designers can take to make a lesson more engaging. They include storytelling, scenario-based learning, gamification, simulations, discovery learning and several others.

7.    Create your Storyboard.

A storyboard is a rough outline that will help you draw out how a text, image, video will look like on a page. This will help you find out if the learning elements fit together before you go on and make your final design. Show the storyboard to other stakeholders for their input, feedback and approval.

8.    Create your Course

You can now start designing the actual course with the learning technology you have chosen. Keep your eyes on the original objectives to make sure your course is geared towards meeting the goals and objectives.

ASSESS

9.    Amend and Publish

Ask your stakeholders or colleagues to review your project and give you feedback. Take the feedback and make necessary adjustments, then publish.

10.                       Collect Data and Evaluate Results

Collect and use feedback from learners to determine how effective your course has been. You can use the data to know what you did right and what you can improve on in the future.