organisation
Work smart Scripts, storyboards and subject matter experts Vaughan Waller I
n my last column, I talked about the key role of the subject matter expert (SME) and how using this often scarce resource should be managed. At the start of a new project, it is seldom a good idea to ask the SME to write down (or brain dump) their knowledge of the subject onto a blank sheet of paper. This is a tough prospect for anyone especially if the SME does not know what to write or how to write it. In that case you, the instructional designer, are probably going to be given material that will take a lot of work to design it into something that works. In some cases, you are given material on PowerPoint decks, someone’s hand- written notes or even some PDFs downloaded from websites, you know the picture. Furthermore, if this is a subject completely new to you, then you’ll know that designing a course this way is a tricky process. You might ask therefore if there is a better way of doing this. How many times have you stared at pages of text and wondered how you could ever find the meaning behind it all let alone design learning from it which will produce measurable outcomes? There have been times when I have re-read clauses from Acts of Parliament or regulations dozens of times and still not known what it was all about. This sort of material, typical of technical or compliance subjects, is often written in very particular, careful, pared down language. It cannot be shortened and re-writing it so that everyone can understand it risks losing its real meaning. There is a temptation to just present this sort of stuff on screen and let the learner read it for themselves but the learner may not fare any better than you in understanding it. This is where writing a
How many times have you stared at pages of text and wondered how you could ever find the meaning behind it all let alone design learning from it which will produce measurable outcomes?
script first can make things easier. A script is just the words with almost no ‘design’
in it at all. The intention of this ‘extra’ stage is to get past the point where the SME makes their mark on the material. Passing that point means you can get on with working out how to get it all into the minds of the learners. In a script, you can make really general assumptions about the content and put notes in the margins saying “what does this section mean?” or “could you put this in plain English please?” The SME can then use their expertise primarily on the bits that you find hard, leaving the rest untouched but more importantly, signed off. Hopefully, when the script is returned with their changes, you can then see the content more clearly. This clarity makes your task to design the module and write the storyboard a little less onerous and you will have saved the SME lots of time into the bargain. Some would argue that this just makes more work but although it may seem like it at the time, it makes the design and storyboarding process so much easier. This is because you inevitably design as you go along; not everything of course but you can see how you would treat certain passages in advance and so write them in the script almost exactly how they will appear in the storyboard. My experience is that this shortens the storyboarding process considerably.
Another useful feature of doing a script first is designing into the content the learning objectives or outcomes. Particularly where these are important to the rationale behind the project, it is vital to start at the earliest opportunity working out how to do this. Objectives in a classroom course are easily revisited and tested but it is not so easy in e-learning and it makes a mess of the storyboard if you try and add them in afterwards. Yes, you can add check-your-understanding questions here and there but these are not usually marked and they are therefore an assumption on the part of the ID, that they have contributed to the objectives being met. So at the script stage you can think around ways of addressing the learning objectives by parcelling together sections of material. Again, doing some of the design ‘on the fly’ you can visualise where to put interactions directly addressing the objectives and write the material accordingly. If this is left to the storyboarding stage you will almost certainly need extra material which means going back to the SME and you might not feel quite as welcome as you were the first time.
This clarity makes your task to design the module and write the storyboard a little less onerous and you will have saved the SME lots of time into the bargain.
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There are loads of ways that you can shape and mould the content that forms the majority of the course. I am not suggesting that this approach is better than any other and you may think writing a script sounds like more hard work but in my experience writing a script first will save a lot of hassle later in the project.
Vaughan Waller is a regular contributor to e.learning age
e.learning age april 2016
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