We’ve recently started a new process for making our eLearning courses, adding in more focus on the planning and editing stages, instead of just development of content. This comes after buying some new software- Articulate, to increase our level of professionalism and give us some new options for interactivity within our courses.

It’s been a learning curve to get the software, and us, working how we need it to; and we won’t stay the same but at the moment it’s a flow (not only are we life long learners, always changing; but we’ll most likely have to expland soon).

There are three of us in Development, and each of us take on one of these roles (this is after the material for the course has been written by the trainer). I do the planning, Cody the development, and Luke the editing. Of course, before that is some group brainstorming with the three of us, and our new office structure means that we can easily collaborate the entire time we’re working on a project.

It’s working pretty well, and the fact that everything is seen three times (sometimes more if the boss reviews the ‘final product’ as well), by different eyes, means that there are less of the bugs and mistakes that inevitable sneak through due to human error.

I’m loving storyboards as a tool for planning at the moment. They’re pretty simple to whip up (you can download a template here), give a good whole picture of what’s happening, and can be used to write notes in later stages of development so that as the plans gets passed through the development chain, everyone knows what’s happening. The thing I REALLY like about storyboarding by hand is that I can do it on the go. The other week I had to go see my Nanna during the week, when she got home from hospital, and as I was waiting for her I could storyboard. I didn’t need my laptop, or any fancy equipment. All I needed was some paper, a pen and my mind.

Once I’ve drawn the storyboards up we blow them up to A3 size so that they can be easily seen by everyone in our department, and any details/notes can be written clearly- not on extra paper, or in text too small to read!

I’m interested to know what editing processes other people have within their organisations- not just with eLearning, but with other delivery too. Do others use storyboards, edit the material once it’s been developed. Do you do more editing then this, or field test it before the product is released to students?