C2 Workshop's E-Learning Blog

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E-Learning: SCORM

“The course is SCORM complaint, right? Awright… Let’s release it.”

I’ve been exposed to this question for quite a while now. It’s almost a routine that I’ve almost got used to. But, then… that cannot be, I told myself in one of those self-candid moments.

Need to know – or, learn, should I say?? - how the whole thing works... more so, when this happens to be a critical factor in influencing an e-learning experience.
 
And, this is what I learnt.

As an instructional designer, I go about creating an e-learning course by plugging in all the necessary ingredients... ID models, graphic components, voiceovers, knowledge checks. I am told this is a SCO. A sharable content object. The content that could be shared with so many people, at the same time. Wonderful! Awright.

Cut to the scene of a group of learners in various corners of the world, looking at the material, on their respective Learning Management Systems (LMSs). A natural progression! 

Now, the question is... how do they get to see the content as a course, with all those navigation features enabled, get feedback on their knowledge check attempts, get their score, and even get their certification? What happens in between my creating the course and their getting their experience out of it?

There should be a common standard that ensures the SCO and the LMS work with each other. It’s like my purchasing an audio CD and playing it in my music system. What makes both these compatible with each other? The audio CD is designed for the same standard which the music system is also made for. So, there is a synergy.

Something similar to this – though not exactly the same – is what happens with my SCO and the LMS. And, the standard is SCORM. Sharable Content Object Reference Model. Great!

It is called a Reference Model, because they say, it only references on various standards that have been floating around in the industry and tells developers how to make best use of them. 
 
But, the truth is, SCORM is, for all practices, a standard by itself.

In addition to all that it has been doing so far, it has come up with a brand new version of itself... Tin Can API.

Something that will keep the ID in me, hooked for a long, long time to come.

(Nirmal Ranganathan, Instructional Designer, C2 Workshop)

Images FOR e-Learning!

One of those things to have gate-crashed into the super-fast evolutionary track is photography.

Having been into professional photography myself for almost seven years, I’ve seen it metamorphosing from being a conventional film technology into a digital avatar, almost overnight. Suddenly gone were the days when one had to ‘process’ a film into a negative that would, in turn, get processed into polaroids. 

These days, the images are counted in megapixels and get transported as files. Quite a transformation indeed!

And, what a rub-off it has had on a seemingly far-off subject like e-learning! I’m amazed at the speed with which visuals could get plugged into courses, thanks to the proliferation of stock-images!

But, as they say, there is no capping the ‘eternal’ needs. Some of them are perfectly justifiable, as in the case of e-learning. What if I have a story to tell, with the same characters having to appear frame after frame, with different expressions? Where do I source such images from? The usual stock-image websites are nowhere close to fulfilling this need of mine.

This dire strait, therefore, mothers sites like elearningArt that give me sequential images for different contexts. Perfect! Not just that, they give me templates for various platforms like Powerpoint, Captivate, etc. The pampering gets complete, with them giving me background templates that I could use, to create relevant backdrops for my courses. Sounds out-of-the-world, really!

Now, what is waiting to be tapped into, is the creative take on the whole thing... arresting e-learning courses that learners could lap up!

That nudges the ball back into my court. Voila!     

(Nirmal Ranganathan, Instructional Designer, C2 Workshop)

E-Learning: Social Conversational Partner!

This term Social Conversational Partner jumped at me in one of my casual ‘flip-throughs’ on the net. Nudged by curiosity, I sat up and took notice of its implications. Interesting!

Would I take to someone whose voice is laced with a pompous tone? Would I yack with a dude who sounds so official in a weekend party? Could a dim character evoke an active interest in me?

All these questions would have answers unanimously resonating in the negative. Simple! No ‘subjective’ contexts here!

Now, coming back to the Social Conversational Partner! Clark and Mayor state that ‘personalisation induces learners to engage with the computer as a social conversational partner’.

The e-learning course we produce, ‘speaks’ to the learner, and is supposed to hold the attention, say, for 60 minutes. Should not the tone of the voice be just right, to keep the learner hooked? Anything other than this – belonging to any of the territories we discussed above – is sure to have the learner cringe away from the course... forever.

Now, if done right, the whole thing becomes a holistic deal, complemented by the right style of writing, visuals, and even the font(s).

It would be like raising the toast to the learner, basically!

(Nirmal Ranganathan, Instructional Designer, C2 Workshop)

Happy Onam!!!

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Eid Mubarak from Team C2!!!

 

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Who Could Be An Instructional Designer?

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