Asset no. 4

July, 2022

I’ve always loved a good story, as a student, history class was my favorite. What’s not to love! A never-ending story with twists and turns that not even the best storytellers can make up. Along with history, literature class was my happy place, and I kept that love of reading, or listening to a good tale well past my school days.

When it was time for me to teach however, I forgot to use stories until my classes inevitably fell flat. When my students pushed me to be creative, in more ways that I thought possible, I realized a good story always did the trick. My days as a Spanish teacher embedded trust in storytelling for teaching. My experience with storyboards, scripts and templates is limited to that of teaching in the classroom, but I have enjoyed this assignment as I imagine the possibilities in using these for instructional design.

The importance of finding inspiration in models of different e-learning ID tools and examples.

Just like we find our voice in writing through exposure to different topics, books, articles and modalities, our ID voice is being developed as we explore the design world. It is important to find inspiration in a multitude of models so that we can see who we resonate with and what to aspire to.

When we find models and examples that speak to us, it is easier to adapt those and incorporate them to our own style. Also important, if we find examples that we aspire to emulate, even if we don’t have the skills just yet, we encourage ourselves to keep learning, growing.

Exploring different tools will help our creativity. By being proficient or at least familiar with multiple tools, we are not limiting the user’s experience to a specific tool. “It is about design” Trina says, “If you are dropping everything into a tool, you are automatically designing for that tool and not for the learner”.

Analogy - Blueprint for a House and e-Learning Course

Analogy borrowed from “Ask the trainer Trainer”, a conversation between Tim Slade and Kevin Thorn. Image Credit: Cordovez, 2022. CCO

Storyboarding: What is it and what to include?

In the episode Ask a Trainer: Storyboard for E-Learning, Kevin Thorn and Tim Slade start playing with the analogy of storyboards being like a blueprint for building a house. They suggest that you have to paint a clear picture of what you are going to be building. Thorn doesn’t forget the story in storyboarding, and says he uses the story arc as keyframes to map out the concept and visualize the flow in his story board; adding the in-betweens later on. This visual representation of the course helps to avoid bottlenecks and dead ends when we have anything other than a linear design. In their webinar, Adaptive Tools for Storyboarding, Missy Harding says repeatedly that including time estimate and approach to content is very important in this blueprint.

Thorn, Slate, North and other IDs advise against using too many detailed visuals so that feedback is not focused on the minutiae of visual design but rather in subject matter and approach to content. There are other designers who advocate for very detailed visuals, interactions, branching and multimedia. Thorn advocates for a Storyboard Workbook where he includes the blueprint and a visual map (visual storyboard) and companion documents (visuals, media, narration script, video, interactions, menu navigation, etc.) that stakeholders can refer to.

Nothing is perfect…but some are better than others

After looking at so many different templates and reviewing them against the characteristics that make a good storyboard, I found this one in the elearning heroes community as part of the challenge #251

I think this template matches the specifications of allowing the designer to include enough detail without it being overwhelming for the reviewer. The one thing that I would add to this is a time estimate. In other words, I would add how long it will take for the learner to complete this module, learning activity, scenario etc.

I would include a separate section with a visual map of the scenario, similar to what I would do with sticky notes or dry erase markers in a white board. That allows the reviewer to visualize the flow of the course.

References:

Cannon, A. & Harding, M. (2017). Webinar Recap: Adaptive Storyboarding Tools. [Video] Retrieved from

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hU0hpvrEQ80&t=3s

Slade, T. (2018). Why You Should Start with an eLearning Storyboard. [Video]. Retrieved from

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gF-REyym-G

Slade, T. & Thorn, K. (2021), answer questions about Storyboard for elearning. Ask a Trainer video series. ATD. retrieved from https://www.td.org/atd-blog/ask-a-trainer-video-storyboarding-for-e-learning

Kevin Thorn, NuggetHeadzStudios. www.https://nuggethead.net/

Articulate, elearning heroes challenges, retrieved from https://community.articulate.com/articles/share-your-elearning-storyboard-templates

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