Trainers Talk Tech

This past week I finished up my last ASTD Essentials Webinar Series and again had a "virtual" room full of highly engaged, highly interested learners. It was interesting hearing from this group: they are all going to be the eLearning Obmudsmen I commented on in an earlier post. As I was going through the software examples and demos, I started getting some really good questions about process. I have a standard routine that I use when building my eLearning project from scratch, and I thought that it might be of benefit to my reading audience.

After meeting with a client and getting my first installment check (!), we start the following process:

1) Instructional Design Phase

Some of my clients have at least an outline of the content to the site, some have complete storyboards, but most are somewhere in between. Its my team's responsibility to take what they have and build out a storyboard for their review. We use a PPT based storyboard to document screens, activities and simulations in a way that makes it easy for the client to see how their program will function and flow.

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While conducting the ASTD Essentials webinar this week, I encountered a bit of a shock. Well, perhaps shock is too strong a word, but I definitely got rattled a bit. Let me tell you what got under my skin.

Part of my first day of training is a big session on my idea of an eLearning development "Dream Team":

• Project Manager: The project manager is responsible for ensuring that benchmarks are hit and that everyone is working together to create a fantastic finished project. This person should create a project plan to make sure that time lines and responsibilities are visible to all and that everything runs smoothly.
• Instructional Designer: The ID is the person who is a training professional and has taken the time and energy to follow an instructional design process to come up with the training program. This person creates the templates, storyboards and diagrams necessary to facilitate training through the electronic medium.
• Graphic Designer: The graphic designer is the person who creates all the graphical elements of the eLearning program. This person makes the buttons, the background pictures, and anything else that isn’t explicitly textual.
• Multimedia Designer: Sometimes called the “New Media” designer, the multimedia designer is the person who is responsible for creating and editing digital movies, programming Flash movies, or working with 3-dimensional animation software to create simulations and other effects. Many times, the Graphic Designer and the Multimedia Designer are the same person.
• Developer: This person receives the information and training program information from the instructional designer, the graphics from the graphic designer and the multimedia from the multimedia designer and programs the training.

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