Shane is back as a confirmed speaker at Learning Technologies 2022

If you are heading down to Learning Tech on the 4th May (which just happens to be Star Wars Day!), then you may want to leave yourself half an hour between 10.15 and 10.45am free to watch Shane’s talk. After having to attend virtually during COVID, Shane is very much looking forward to getting back in front of a live audience. The topic he will be covering is ‘The Art of Great eLearning’, and whilst we don’t want to give too much away, he will be running through some of the core concepts we use in our eLearning projects at First Media.

Understanding The Basics

The first thing we do with any new client is have a discovery meeting. This enables us to take a deeper dive into the organisation, and establish the reasons for developing a new eLearning course. Once we have this information, we start to break down the target audience.

The more we keep the audience in mind whilst designing the course, the more relevant the content we produce. Not only do we consider the demographics of the audience, we identify what they need to know, and how they need to progress through the course. This allows us to generate a bigger picture of how the eLearning course needs to flow.

Mastering The Foundations

Sometimes clients come to us with old PowerPoint presentations, and expect us to be able to easily transfer this into an eLearning format and instantly drive high completion rates. Unfortunately, that is not the case and lots of work needs to be carried out in order to achieve the overall goals of the eLearning course.

Streamlining the content is one of the first steps, so that only the most essential information is included in the eLearning course. This simple rule means that learners only receive as much material as they can physically absorb. A great example of this is analogies. These can easily become waffle, so we ask ourselves whether it enhances learning or not. If the answer is no, then get rid.

Taking Instructional Design To The Next Level

When choosing to work with an eLearning agency, you should consider one that not only has a solid implementation plan, but also a grasp of eLearning Project Management. It is all good and well having a perfectly designed eLearning course, but without someone overseeing the project then any design or development queries won’t be resolved quickly.

It is essential for eLearning designers to inject stimulation and excitement into their eLearning courses once the foundations are in place. Interactivity, adding games and virtual realities can all help to engage learners. Add these skills into a well-developed implementation plan, and your eLearning project will be on track and on budget (making it commercially viable).

Now, we have dived into the Art of eLearning quite a bit there - but if you want a more light-hearted, engaging insight then you will just have to wait and see what Shane includes in his talk! Don’t forget to visit the First Media stand C58 and say hi to the team too.