I’ve been doing some volunteer work for an organization that offers elearning to people who work for NGOs. I was asked to work on the last module of a project management course. I’m happy to say it is ready to be translated into a variety of languages. It’s been an interesting process because I had all of the content and a template to use. I just had to figure out a way to tell the story so the content was engaging.
Usually when I work on elearning, I’m responsible for coming up with most of the content so it was a breeze in some respects to get the module done well ahead of the deadline. What wasn’t a breeze was getting the story together especially since I wasn’t present for the development of the previous six modules. I could only review those finished pieces and make some assumptions. Does it sound funny that I had to get the story together?
I suppose, without sounding too grandiose, that it is like a sculptor saying, “the form is there, but I just needed to remove all that marble so we could see it”. It is very much like that. Otherwise the course is just too many words on a screen and a back/forward set of buttons. Would you want to be that learner? Not me. If presented with that course, I’d take my chances with passing the final assessment/test by skipping ahead and seeing if I could score a satisfactory percentage.
Back in late June when I was first assigned the training module, the better-half and I were taking a late afternoon dip in the pool. I told him I was working while we were floating around in the water. He laughed, but said he knew I was. I was thinking about how to get all that marble out of my way so the learning could come into being. When I tell people that I get a lot of my work done when I’m not sitting down and banging away on the thing, it’s true. I’d rather let it perk and then let the solution come out all at once.