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SUMMARY

As an eLearning enthusiast, I've come to realize the pivotal role storyboards play in shaping the landscape of online courses. These visual blueprints not only outline the course content, structure, and flow but also serve as a creative canvas for instructional designers like myself to experiment with engaging and motivating learning experiences.

In my recent video tutorial, I delved into the intricacies of storyboarding, emphasizing its significance in determining the media that breathes life into your courses. Interactive content emerged as the focal point, offering a myriad of techniques and media options to enhance the overall learning experience.

One key takeaway is the treasure trove of pre-existing content that can be repurposed for your course—ranging from user manuals to presentations. However, a crucial caveat is ensuring that these materials align seamlessly with instructional support, fostering a cohesive learning journey.

To demystify the art of storyboarding, I introduced a comprehensive checklist, available for free download. This checklist serves as a guide, helping educators organize their online course content efficiently. To provide a real-world application, I walked through a sample storyboard I personally crafted, offering viewers a visual representation of a well-structured storyboard.

The checklist covers fundamental elements such as project and page titles, text, graphics, video media, audio transcripts, navigation information, and more. Each page within an eLearning course deserves its own storyboard, a principle I emphasized to ensure meticulous planning and execution.

A crucial reminder throughout the tutorial was the importance of keeping the course goal in mind. With three to four objectives per module, learners progress steadily, avoiding feelings of stagnation. Creating assessment criteria within the storyboard was also stressed, aligning evaluation seamlessly with the course content.

Selecting the right authoring tool and learning management system was highlighted, with popular choices like Canvas, D2L, Moodle, and Google Classroom taking center stage. The tutorial advocated for diversity in interactive content, suggesting three to five forms on each storyboard for an enriched learning experience.

Content sequencing within lessons was addressed, promoting a logical progression from learning objectives to introduction, content delivery, and concluding with a summary screen. Techniques like storytelling, scenario-based approaches, and demonstration practice methods were recommended to maintain student engagement.

Language style emerged as a critical consideration, urging creators to communicate directly, simply, and clearly. Attention to inclusivity, avoiding jargon, and utilizing personal pronouns were emphasized, along with the strategic use of white space for enhanced readability.

Graphics, audio, and video components were explored, with an emphasis on their functions and the need for synchronization. The importance of short, complementary audio and the inclusion of comments with videos were underscored to enhance the overall learning experience.

In closing, the tutorial painted a holistic picture of storyboarding, underscoring its role as a quick and efficient tool for instructional designers to map out their vision. The journey through the world of eLearning is undoubtedly nuanced, but armed with a well-crafted storyboard, educators can confidently navigate the landscape, ensuring a seamless and effective learning experience for their students.

INSPIRATIONAL QUOTES

TRANSCRIPT

Hello, and welcome to the eLearning and Instructional Design for Beginners podcast, where new and aspiring instructional designers start, grow, and advance their careers in instructional design and online learning development. I'm your host, Crystal Harper. I'm a former school teacher who transitioned to instructional design, all while working full time as a single mom. Would you like to become a successful instructional designer without the burden of earning another degree? Well, then let's get started.

Storyboards plot out eLearning course content, structure, and overall flow of the course. Building a storyboard is great practice when determining what media to utilize in your course, as it gives you the opportunity to think about how and where elements will fit into the course.

It will also help you with determining whether you have considered all the necessary content to include in your course. In order for content to be presented effectively, it's essential for it to be accurately prepared. Instructional techniques need to be developed creatively through an engaging and motivating learning experience.

Content can consist of many different elements ranging from documents and presentations to interactive simulations and job aids. This video will mainly focus on the development of interactive courses. which is the most common form of developing e learning content. Interactive content allows for teachers to use a variety of techniques and media.

It's very likely that most of the content for your course you are creating is already available. Some examples of already made content may include user manuals, classroom course handouts, lectures, slideshow presentations, documented case studies, training materials, reference materials, and illustrative materials such as photographs, images, graphs, and tables.

It's important to note that already made materials must be carefully designed and structured in alignment with instructional support in order to determine how learners. can function throughout the course. So today what we're going to be doing is we're going to be going over a storyboarding checklist that I created.

The storyboarding checklist that I will provide you is a guide. Depending on the online course that you're creating, some of the topics might not be applicable for your course. But the storyboarding checklist will be really helpful for you in organizing all the content for your online course. And then I will also be going over a sample storyboard that I created myself so that you can see a real visual representation of what a storyboard actually looks like.

Okay, so let's begin. Okay, so here we go. Right here is a storyboarding checklist that you can also download. If you look in the description of this video, I will give you access to download this. checklist for free. Also, these are some sample storyboards that I created myself that will go along as we go through this checklist so you can get a better visual representation of what a storyboard actually looks like.

Okay, so first are the basic elements. You need a project title and individual page title. So that goes right here, project title and the lesson title. And right here is the actual page title. You also need to have the text that will be presented on a page to display. So right here under script is all of the text that will be on the page.

I also want to mention this too, that every single page that you will be putting onto your core, into your course, is going to have an individual storyboard. So every page is going to have an outline just like this. Next is the graphics, such as images that will be utilized, any background image, and the overall layout of the content.

So right here is where you list the graphics. You also need to include video media or a description of a link to the source of the video. So right here are some YouTube videos that are going to be included in this course. Next is the audio transcript, such as voiceover narration. And there is no audio transcript for this page, so it is not applicable.

And next is navigation information, such as links that will be included in the page being described and where they will take the learner. And right here is where you include the links. Each page or slide of planned eLearning content is represented in the storyboard. I mentioned that before. Okay. You also might want to consider including a syllabus link on the storyboard so that your students can easily refer back to the syllabus at any moment.

This is just a reminder saying to know your course goal. Always keep that in mind as you're creating your storyboard. It's a good idea to keep about three to four objectives per module. Actually, for example, in this module there is only one terminal objective, but two enabling objectives. This is a good thing to keep in mind because When students are going through an online course, if one module takes them forever to get through, they feel like they're not really accomplishing anything.

So it's just a good idea to keep in mind to only have about like one lesson per module. Kind of like each module they should be able to get through in about a week. So they feel like they're actually progressing through the course. Some of these are also just some reminders, create assessment criteria that needs to be included in the storyboard that you write, that you create for your assessment.

The storyboard is also where you're going to be showing your design elements.

It's also important that you've already selected your authoring tool, your learning management system. The more popular ones I would say are Canvas, D2L, or Moodle, and I know a lot of teachers right now are using Google Classroom. It's also important to keep in mind to use a variety, at least three to five forms of interactive content.

or media on each storyboard that you're creating. But there's also exceptions, of course. Also determine the lesson's content sequence. Content within lessons are structured into a sequence of slides corresponding to the screens of the final interactive lesson. So this is a great and very common way to lay out your pages.

The first page will be learning objectives. And then the next two to three screens will be the introduction. And the content can go anywhere from four to twenty five screens. Twenty five is kind of a lot. But the content usually is, I would say, closer maybe to four to ten pages, depending. And then the last page will be your summary screen.

Okay, so you need to use at least two different techniques to present content. This includes storytelling, scenario based approaches, a toolkit approach, and demonstration practice method. So just be sure to keep that in mind when you're creating your modules. that you include some of these techniques as you're going through the course.

These techniques really help with keeping your students engaged, so it's super important. Also be sure to include examples in each of the lessons, both inductively and deductively. It's also a good idea to integrate different media to present the examples as well. Also be sure to use diagrams, graphics, and flowcharts when possible.

Use lists or tables. These are all, remember, just suggestions, but great ways to help engage your learners. Next is language style. Be sure that the content within each module is written directly, simply, and clearly. Avoid jargon and also be sure to be sensitive to your students that are not native English speakers.

Use personal pronouns and be gender inclusive. Use bulleted lists when possible and an active voice. This just really helps with the flow of the course. I don't think it's mentioned in here, but white space is really important in an online course. When there's so much content all mashed together, it kind of overwhelms the students.

So it's really good to space out. I honestly space sentences one to two every sentence. I'll make a space. It just helps, um, it helps your students read the text easier. Next is graphics. Graphics include illustrations, pictures, diagrams, and icons. So the graphics include a variety of different communication functions, including decorative, representational, mnemonic, organizational, relational, transformational, and interpretive.

Be sure to avoid graphics that may not have real function in complementing the information in your text. And when using narration, present corresponding graphics and spoken words at the same time. Use digitized photographs too when creating a realistic context. So ensure that diagrams, graphics, and screenshots correspond to their descriptions as well.

Now, next is audio. Be sure to keep your audio short. And use audio to complement the visual elements. Avoid redundant audio. And also avoid adding extraneous audio such as background music and sounds. It's just unnecessary and distracting. Lastly is video. Be sure that your videos are always accompanied by comments.

And also avoid using videos that only show a teacher speaking. Okay, so that's it. I hope you now have a better understanding on how to storyboard your online course. So, be sure to download the storyboard checklist so that you can reference it whenever you need to. Thank you. I hope you enjoyed this Tuesday 10 minute free training.

Have a great day. Storyboards are a quick and efficient way for an instructional designer to present a clear idea of how they intend to present course content. A storyboard includes descriptions or samples of audio. Visual media and text elements that the instructional designer intends to include in their online learning modules or courses.

Storyboards are crucial to planning and providing a roadmap for your vision of your content. This provides not just a preview of the content that will be presented, but also a preliminary idea of the structure and flow of the course. Building a storyboard is also an opportunity to organize content according to when it will be encountered by learners.

Including a flowchart allows the instructional designer to give a visual depiction of the progression of content, pages, or slides in a course. In addition to a flowchart, An overview of course objectives and an overarching outline of course content helps to showcase both the purpose and scope of the course.

Storyboards have been used in the video and movie industry for many years and the creators actually have to pitch their storyboards before the films are made. Storyboards are a kind of prototype, something we create to bring our idea to life and cheaply. Interestingly enough, The first documented use of storyboards like we know today were used by the team at Disney working on the animated Three Little Pigs movie.

Depending on the course you are creating, you may wish to design a course blueprint. A course blueprint consists of four elements which include the course description, general course goals, performance objectives, and learning outcomes. Each page or slide of the planned e learning content should be represented in the storyboard.

Most storyboards contain the following information. The project title and individual page title. Text that will be presented on a page or display. Graphics, such as images that will be utilized, any background image, and the overall layout of the content. Video media or a description or a link to the source of the video helps plan your direction.

Many storyboards are created by one person, but handed to someone to create the content and or media of the entire course. So the more detail, the better. Audio transcript, such as voiceover narration. Navigation information, such as links that will be included in the page being described and where they will take the learner.

Here is an example of a storyboard created by an e learning student using the template that has been discussed throughout this presentation. This is another student example of a storyboard that was designed a little bit differently from the previous examples. This is a great reference for alternative ways to create your storyboard.

There is no right way to visually create a storyboard. The most important thing is that you understand the flow and that all of the necessary content is included. If you would like to view this storyboard in more detail, there is also an attachment in the content of this module. Once complete, an instructional designer may present their storyboard to team members or shareholders involved in the instruction.

Requesting feedback to ensure that all necessary content is included and being conveyed appropriately and efficiently. Having the course mapped out and getting a consensus prior to developing the course further can save the instructional designer time from having to redo a project from scratch because their hard work didn't meet the expectations of their clients.

Storyboards are a quick and efficient way for an instructional designer to present a clear roadmap of how they intend to present course content.