Elearning writing style: using lively verbs » Making Change
Cathy Moore created this quick practice on using active verbs to liven up e-learning. "It's time for...celebrity verbs!" is a great example of a short learning object that is complete by itself.
In the Middle of the Curve: Deeper Instructional Design
Wendy Wickham's liveblogged notes from Clark Quinn's presentation on Deeper Instructional Design. Lots of ideas in this post--create models that actually help people understand the content and recognize patterns, pay attention to motivation and emotion, give learners the least they need to get them to do what's needed, create learner-centered objectives instead of designer-centered objectives, use stories and active practice.
We can't "create" learning<br>- We can design environments conducive to learning.<br>- We design learning experiences.
Don't design CONTENT, design EXPERIENCES<br>- Design the "Flow".<br>- Start bringing in emotions and the actions they take
Concise writing is best for elearning » Making Change
A concise post pulling a bit of research where the lesson with the fewest words resulted in the most learning. Nice argument for keeping your e-learning short, although look at the original to see what they were actually studying in context (scientific processes with cause and effect, using visuals as well as text to explain).
How to Fix E-Learning Course Content & Graphic Design
Tips for how to clean up e-learning design. This is mostly about visual design including picking images, fonts, color schemes, and using grids. A few tips on cleaning up content are included, but that topic could be a whole series of posts.
Write better elearning scenarios: active or descriptive choices – Learningworld Design
In branching scenarios, descriptive choices "You tell him he is right" feel very different than active choices ""You're right!" I agree with the author that there are no hard and fast rules in branching scenarios; there are times that both can be used effectively.
The most important aspect of branching scenarios and interactive stories are the choices presented to the player/learner. Choices are what make interactive stories different from other creative writing outputs such as novels, plays and movies.
Choices can feel totally different to a player depending on how they are written, even if they seem to have the same outcome.
