Writing for e-learning is quite an art form. There’s all kinds of writing for e-learning because there is all types of e-learning. Most of what we see currently is the client’s interest in getting a web-based (WBT) project done as quickly and as economically as possible. That being the case, most projects consist of a series of ’slides’ representing the basic unit of content – these being arranged in units or modules (arbitrary terms, honestly) that take about 1 hour or less of ‘face time’ from the student. This is followed by a test. Most of what we have done recently is done in something called ‘Articulate’ which is a Flash based tool (www.articulate.com) that generates the slides in question from the slides in a Powerpoint.
That being so, most writing for e-learning consists of building a series of Powerpoint slides. Often the client may think they have that ready for us; the thing they’re not thinking of is that a script is needed also. The script consists of the instructional narration that accompanies each slide.
So, roll that up and you have this writing challenge:
- Come up with a basic list of slides that will cover the subject; you’ll probably need about 2 for every minute of seat time you expect the course to entail
- Start walking through the slide list, building the slides in Powerpoint, which should NOT consist of the standard Powerpoint list of bullets in text. You need some creative way to illustrate the voice instruction. Give each slide a title that will ‘track’ as a kind of thumbnail of the course when seen in the Articulate ‘outline’ view (a list of the slide titles).
- Add animation to the visual elements in the slides….There are dozens of built-in effects such as fading in each line of text. But novices tend to go over the top with these effects. Use parsimoniously if at all. Make sure the effect has an educational justification.
- Write the narrative text, using the Notes panel in Powerpoint.
- Puncuate the sequence of informational/instructional slides with some sort of special activity or reinforcement/practice related to the content being offered. Use some of the built-in Articulate ‘game’ or Engage templates for this. However, often if budget is available, we build custom Flash interactives. This of course goes beyond writing. But the writing aspect of this is to develop a coherent activity that uses the concept of the lesson in some engaging manner. See our discussion of the ‘e-learning transformation’ for more on this aspect.
- Write the test questions. Maybe you already have a test bank from the client. If so, you must be sure that the lesson material and the test questions match up. It’s considered very unfair to include a question on a graded e-learning test whose answer is not given, pretty straightforwardly, in a slide.
- Finally, package up the whole course in a reviewable format for the client.