HI all.
It has been a little bit since I posted as the work front has been pretty busy. Looking to do more on the community in the next while as I get further settled into a new job.
But this is why I am posting. I work in Higher Ed and we are obviously doing a lot of remote work at the moment. We have received some feedback about the online offering we have as being less than stellar. I think part of it comes down to the engagement factor for an asynchronous delivery.
My question to the group is, as a new member of a team, how do I approach making a recommendation on adding more engaging content using eLearning? I think investing in some software and development time could make a big difference in how content is being served up. But I just do not know if the organization does or not.
Curious to hear your responses. All tips and suggestions are welcomed.
Thanks all.
Wow such detailed and helpful comments. I really think you all should start making some of these as answers so Paul and Lieve get their points too!
I would look at combining some of the features known for creating interactivity with video. For example, Interactive video is a great way to inject some engagement of your learners. Get them doing something instead of watching something. I did a video tutorial earlier this year where I combined interactive video branching to allow learners to make different choices and watching how those choices affected the outcome. My tutorial couldn’t use the original videos for the project as they were proprietary but the tutorial covers the basic idea. I love the idea of incorporating storytelling and possibly people’s emotions as well. It makes for better eLearning than just clicking the next button and progressing to the next slide. https://youtu.be/pS7qobxVJ4M
Thanks Paul. I will be sure to watch. Appreciate the comments.
I don’t know that different or better software is the solution. So often in this industry, we start with the technology and try to figure out ways to incorporate that technology into our learning. This process should be reversed. Instead, we should start with what would be the best way to teach something and then see what we have at our disposal. I call it looking into my eLearning toolbelt. I spend my off time developing my own learning interactions. I revisit them frequently to add improvements or make it do something I hadn’t thought of before. I don’t spend my time writing advanced actions or reinventing how eLearning is supposed to work. I look into my eLearning toolbelt and find the technology to solve learning challenges on a case by case basis.
It’s important to recognize that these tools are merely your canvas. And like a real canvas, it starts blank. It’s up to you to put something on the page. Instead of looking toward people who are really good with one authoring tool or another, I look towards the people recognized within the field for being outstanding eLearning developers. Again, it’s not because they can perform some eLearning gymnastics but because they really understand how people learn and what makes eLearning engaging. Some notable mentions for me would be the following in no particular order:
- Cathy Moore: https://blog.cathy-moore.com/
- Tim Slade: https://timslade.com/
- Melissa Milloway: http://melslearninglab.com/blog/
- Cara North: https://caranorth.com/
- Connie Malamed: http://theelearningcoach.com/about/
- Karl Kapp: http://karlkapp.com
Thanks Paul. I appreciate your comments. In this situation, I believe there is a need from some elearning content instead of simply using documents and videos on an LMS and having a Facilitator available to answer questions and grade assignments. My thinking on this is that if students are feeling less engaged and would like to have something more to hold their attention, then perhaps some eLearning content could be the answer.
I do appreciate you sharing these resources. I am always on the lookout for people to learn from. I have some knowledge and experience, but I am also someone who always wants to get better at what I do. I act as a sponge and whatever I can learn, I want to. So, thank you very much for this.
Totally agree, as you could already read in my first comment. Engaging students is the first goal, in order to get them taking responsibility for their learning. When starting using eLearning assets almost two decades ago in college, I discussed a lot with my students to learn from their experiences. They were getting a Bachelor degree to take responsibility for managing building sites and were very honest. They bluntly told me to throw away all those passive videos and invest my time in interactive courses and opening possibilities for peer teaching. Some lessons I never forgot and will never forgot. Also the reason I appreciate Captivate very much because that app has never restricted my creativity and opened unknown possibilities.
Some very good points. Videos are great in certain places, but what we do as educators with those videos is what is really important. Use the video in the learning, not just ask them to watch it without any engagement. It is always good to remember this regardless of where the learning happens, but especially in an asynchronous environment. Thanks.
Not sure you understood me quite well. My pleading was to use interactive tutorials instead of video, also for asynchronous learning. In college I used that for flipped class and project-based learning as start. Creating activity is what Captivate excels in. Too bad that most think it is just video that will be created.
Have a look at a very basic tutorial about interactivity which I created for a webinar:
http://blog.lilybiri.com/interactivity-in-captivate-back-to-basics
I see. Maybe it registered differently the first time I read it. But what I am talking about in my comment is about still using video, but adding more around it than just the static video that you mentioned. So, perhaps we are saying similar things if we are not exactly aligned. Either way, discussion is always good. I understand your point better with your clarification. I appreciate that. And thanks for the link, I am going to check into that further – any basic tutorials are great for me as I continue to learn more about Captivate. Thanks.
I love discussions, as you probably have seen. Just wondering why you never have reacted to my very first comment on your question. I offered support to you (for free). You have only reacted to Paul’s answer with links to theoretical people, I know some of them personally but not a great fan of ‘theories’ which I have seen so much ‘come and go’ in my academic career. Jus thinking about the (in)famous learning types which some still promote. My personal history with Captivate and with teaching/training is very long. It is very possible that the use of ‘my’ terminology is confusing for that reason. My colleagues considered me to be too different, that I should come back in 20 years.
Oh, didn’t mean to offend. I appreciate the offer. I am not the decision maker on who we bring in, and to be honest, the project I am speaking of is not mine, but the teams. I am merely someone looking to provide some suggestions and recommendations to the team lead. If that gets me on the team to work on some of it, great. If not, then I move on and work on my own projects. It was something fresh in my mind that day and wanted to ask the experts.
If there is ever a need or if I have more questions, I will be sure to reach out. Fair question you ask, and my lack of response was not an indication of disinterest.
OK. No offense at all but it is frustrating that it looks like only one out of 10 answers I post are ever read. Because you did react to a comment, I just was curious. It is like in a classroom, when a student has answers but is ignored completely. You know perfectly well how that feels.
I read them all, but sometimes when I read them I have less time to respond.
Now every professor is doing online courses. But the quality of most courses leaves a lot to be desired. Universities have not made the needed investment to train faculty on how to develop the courses and more importantly it has not understood the need for compensating the faculty for developing the courses.
Yes, online courses need to be engaging and interesting. We cannot simply record a 50 minute lecture and expect students to listen to it. In the best case scenario, the students will listen to it in 2x speed while multitasking.
We need to start using tools like Captivate to develop those lessons but that takes a lot of time and effort. Most faculty will not invest that much time and effort without some compensation. They will rather do research.
I hear you on the lack of investment from the schools, and if instructors are not getting paid to work with the tools, then the work does not get done. It is really too bad really. Covid took us all by surprise, at first. But there was time for the schools and instructors to put courses together. It didn’t happen, and in most places isn’t going to happen. Too bad really. It is an opportunity to make better courses, in my opinion.
Sorry to pop in again. It is always dangerous in an international forum to put comments which apply to some countries.
In Flanders (part of Belgium, but education is very different in the regions here) and probably other countries as well, lot depends on the management of individual institutions, and the individual initiatives of professors and teachers. It is not always lack of budget, but often lack of support for innovative educational methods and also lack of a learning attitude amongst most instructors. Teaching/training is one of the most rewarding jobs in the world if the ‘instructor’ is passionate about learning itself, not if is just a job. That sounds weird, I know, but hiring instructors who like to continue to learn, combined with encouraging management and some budget (more for support than hard-/software as now is the case) can advance education.
Daydreaming of course…
I have been a professor in a university college in the past for decades, and have been head of a department as well. During that period, thanks to the freedom offer by and the trust of my boss, I was able to introduce a lot of innovative pedagogical methods. The creation of eLearning assets (for both blended and distant learning) after my pleading for the acquirement of a LMS were part of it. But when I left saddening, all those initiatives died because it meant ‘too much work’ and engagement.
At the start of the pandemic, with the first lockdown here, I wrote a mail to many educational institutions locally , offering my expertise for FREE, but I didn’t even get one answer. In this eLearning portal I have given some tips to education people from all over the world.
As a specialist in Training and Consultancy for Captivate (and other Adobe applications) I also see that all my jobs suddenly disappeared, because the first budget which is cancelled in this difficult period is L&D. Another sad detail.
Many teachers on all levels all over the world suddenly were expected to offer ‘distant learning’ without any support or without providing at least some help (assets, software, hardware). Same with the learners: providing a refurbished laptop to a (poor) student is not the ultimate solution if the student has never acquired the necessary skills to take advantage and take control of his learning career.
Sorry for this long comment, but I feel so sad and frustrated about all the young people not prepared for this type of situation, and for those teachers/professors who are putting a lot of working hours to make the best of it, but feel they are completely failing.
I am always around here and in the Adobe forums, because those are the channels where I feel to be useful at least for some people. Let me know if I can help you more…
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