I’ve always felt one of our responsibilities as e-learning designers was to design learning in such a way that learners actually want to take our courses. Keeping our visual designs fresh and a little unpredictable is just one way we can design more enjoyable courses.
Unpredictable? Yes. The more learners know what you’re going to do, say or show, the less incentive they have to actually focus on your course.
1. Use Your Client’s Logo as the Bullet
It doesn’t matter if your client is Fortune 500 or a two-person consulting firm, everyone likes seeing their courses branded.
Bullets are an easy way to customize a course. Just swap out the default bullets with your client’s logo or other branding elements.
Keep in mind many logos don’t scale well at bullet-sized dimensions. In those cases, it’s a good idea to extract the essential design elements from the logo to create a derivative.
For example, let’s look at the Starbucks logo. Try scaling the logo down to 22×22 pixels. It doesn’t look so hot and we’re probably doing more harm than good at this point.
By examining the logo and isolating design elements we can create new designs that still align with the branding.
And now we have one possibility for incorporating branding into our bullets:
But what about companies with specific policies against using their logos in such ways? No problem! Look to the content to influence the design elements.
Consider a driver safety course. A chapter might be on road distractions with a sub-topic on bicycle distractions.
Yellow caution sign + bicycle illustration = custom bullet opportunity!
So, a pretty simple design tip that usually goes over big with clients.
2. Create Custom Objective Screens
One thing I see a lot of new designers do is treat all content screens the same. They’ll use the same slide template for chapter intros, objectives, activities, scenarios and so on.
If you wanted to make a single design enhancement to your courses, take a look at creating custom objectives screens.
Celebrate your bullets by placing them on a content-inspired slide using a different typeface from the other slides. Handwriting fonts are a great choice for objectives. Why? Objectives are the openers, the icebreakers. They should be friendly, approachable and most of all creative.
Here are a few examples of ways you can mix up your presentation style for course and module objectives.
Extra credit: Create your text using uneven paths for even greater authenticity.
3. Animate Bullets with Style!
Flash-based bullets are another way to add more cowbell to your bullets. They’re fun to create and I’ve seen design teams compete for the most creative animated bullets.
Here are a couple examples. Feel free to download the Flash CS3 files to use as you like.
Example 1
Example 2
#4? Animated Hands
While Common Craft’s animated hands are not technically bullets, they’re used similarly to introduce concepts and graphics.
Final Thoughts
I know there are some active conversations around animation and learning. I follow those conversations and agree e-learning designers should understand the research. But I also feel designers should break the rules once in a while and try new approaches.
I found this gem in buried in my archived bookmarks while preparing for last week’s Articulate Live ‘09 session on e-learning design.
This video is at least 4 years old, but it’s still one of my favorite examples of anthropomorphism for learning. Imagine Sesame Street meets Behind the Music.
Anyone looking for a creative approach to e-learning should take a look at the multimedia storytelling approach used in this video.
Techniques used include first person accounts from Cooper Black, interviews with his friends, family and rivals and graphic design highlights showcasing his rise, fall and rise in popularity.
Last week Jane Bozarth and Cammy Bean posted a terrific parody of what Abraham Lincoln’s Facebook page might look like.
While Lincoln’s Facebook page is well-done and humorous, it also serves as a history refresher by including popular, and lesser-known facts, about Lincoln.
For example, are you familiar with all the references in the page:
Did you know Lincoln took on the town bully in a wrestling match and won both the match as well as the respect of the town?
I love this one. It’s a great summary and partly explains why Lee turned down Lincoln’s offer to lead the Union.
I don’t remember learning about Joshua Speed when I went to school, but he’s certainly part of Lincoln history today.
Friends? Really?
And of course this famous quote refers to Lincoln’s unwillingness to emancipate the slaves.
Lincoln’s depression was well documented.
Facebook and Educational Role Playing
Okay, so you get the point. Rather than listing Lincoln’s history in a page or two in a text book, the information is presented using multiple voices, perspectives and formats. It’s more of a conversation than a history book, yet it’s the same information one would expect on a mid-term.
How great would it be for teachers to have similar platforms in their schools to use for educational role play? Teachers could use the pages to engage their students on any subject while using a medium familiar and engaging to students.
Centralized Role Play
Teachers could set up pages for course topics and be the “voice” of the page, while students interact with the teacher through the application.
Using the Lincoln example, the teacher would role play as Lincoln, posting comments, quotes and status updates while students would “wall-to-wall” and interact with the teacher through the page .
This is already done in most online classes using Blackboard where students are required to post two or more replies to other students’ posts. The difference here is the content is presented in a more creative modality than a Blackboard thread.
Decentralized Role Play
In this model, students create and maintain their own page for research topics. The topic could be a historical person, similar to the Lincoln example, or it could anthropomorphize a place or event such as a country, product, economic policy and so on.
Students could also interact with each other’s “pages” and grades could be based on anything from participation to quality of posts.
Offline Workbooks
I get it – most schools won’t have access to their own Facebook technology, or won’t feel comfortable using the live Facebook for classes.
But that doesn’t mean creative teachers couldn’t create generic Facebook activity sheets for students.
I ran the Lincoln example through my Photoshop sanitizer (rectangular marquee and foreground fill) to create an empty shell.
A possible assignment could be to complete the worksheet for a historical event or person using content learned in class or researched on their own.
After a period of time, students could exchange their work with each other and continue the assignment.
What would they include on the blank worksheets?
Students could be asked to provide content from multiple perspectives such as:
- First person updates (what kinds of updates and comments would they make?)
- Second person (who do they interact with? who would post on their page? why?)
- Quotes (from, for, about the person)
- Groups (what groups would they join and why?)
- Links (what links would they share?)
- Friends (who are they?)
- Flamers (who wouldn’t be accepted as a friend and why?)
Or maybe I’m over-thinking all of this and it’s really just a creative parody?
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Facebook for Learning Resources
Educause:
http://www.educause.edu/ir/library/pdf/ELI7025.pdf
Facebook Group:
http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=6726749007
Facebook as a Learning Platform:
http://elearningtech.blogspot.com/2007/10/facebook-as-learning-platform.html
25 Facebook Apps that are Perfect for Online Education:
http://www.collegedegree.com/library/college-life/15-facebook-apps-perfect-for-online-education
Facebook Learning:
http://www.jarche.com/2008/10/facebook-learning/
I’m majoring in Facebook, how about you:
http://money.cnn.com/2007/10/08/magazines/fortune/blakely_facebook.fortune/index.htm
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Update:
A K12 teacher just offered her students a President’s Day extra credit opportunity.
Their task: Create a Facebook page for any American President. Awesome!
She further identifies the learning standards addressed in the assignment:
- Writing
- Research skills
- Making connections and drawing conclusions
- Determining point of view
- Interpreting quotes
- Interacting with technology
Good luck Anna and please feel free to share any experiences you can.
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