Live elearning

Back in 2004 I worked with Business Administration teachers on reviewing their learner guides. These guides are provided to flexible or self-paced learners for each unit (or subject) they undertake, and the current offerings varied between units and across different regions. The teachers decided there would be many benefits in reviewing the approach to learner guides – as some qualifications or units where changing anyhow, there was a need to review them in any case.

I’ve been clearing out some materials from my office and came across the butcher’s paper notes, and decided to document the process for future reference.

Session Outline
Here’s the session plan we used. (click for larger image)

We started out by taking a step back from the learner guides as such and explored the client groups from a number of angles. One technique I used was to source a range of images that related to business administration roles, and then the group selected those that fitted their client groups and those that didn’t. This lead to some interesting discussions about learner motivations and needs. Some of which could be addressed through the learner guide, many more that needed to be addressed through active facilitation and support from the teachers.

Client Group Profiling

(again click for larger image) This shows some of the artefacts from the workshop. You can make out some of the particular needs of different groups. On the one hand you could say this is stereotyping, on the other hand it gives a common language to refer back to – we could go back to these client group profiles and ensure we were not excluding any particular group based on design decisions that were made.

One part that was not captured in the artefacts was going through a whole bunch of learner guides – both those in use by the teachers, others from within our organisation and elsewhere. We collated a master list of all the types of ‘sections’ that were included in the learner guides. From this, and our profiling exercise, we then constructed a framework of what was to be included, and where in the learner guide.

The final design

(again click for complete, larger image)
as you can see it is all about what is contained in the learner guides – format and presentation came later. From memory, the stars meant the sections were mandatory, others could be optional, but that is not 100% certain.

PS: that was so much more satisfying than just tossing the notes – there’s a reason why I kept them at the time, it’s nice to get it archived and shared properly.

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