Effective online training isn't as simple as creating great online resources. It's about creating a full learning loop that increases your learner's engagement, encourages their behavioral change over time improving one’s performance and results. Review the following eight ingredients to ensure your next online learning experience is a recipe for success.
Ingredient One: Needs Assessment
A needs assessment is a crucial component of your online training recipe. Conducting a needs assessment helps you to identify and understand the problem that your training is trying to solve, which is often influenced by underlying issues. Consider sprinkling these qualifying questions into your next needs assessment:
What is the problem you are trying to solve?
How do you want your team to think or perform differently?
Explain what is happening currently?
What is your ROI?
How will you sustain the learning?
Who do you believe needs training? Why?
Ingredient Two: Platform
If your organization is planning to provide online training, it will need a platform on which to host the training. It can be hosted internally on an intranet or externally through a learning management system. To determine which platform is best for your organization, ask yourself the following questions:
Who is my learner?
What kind of time does my learner have?
What is our budget?
Who will be developing the training?
Ingredient Three: A Dash of Design Document
A design document is a general outline that allows the designer to map out what is going to be included in the course. The design document should include some of the following elements:
The goals of the training
The objectives of the training
Assessments and evaluations of the training
What learning activities you might use for each section
Ingredient Four: Storyboard
Storyboards are a detailed description of your training and the activities. A storyboard, depending on the type of platform you are using, can be very visual in nature or more written in format. The idea of the storyboard is to capture the content that you intend to design in your platform. The storyboard gives stakeholders a chance to review information prior to build out, which makes it easy to make changes to content before time is spent building it out on your platform.
Ingredient Five: Build Out your Content
This is all about the creative process and gives you the opportunity to build out your content using the ingredients outlined in your storyboard. This is where your training comes to life!
Ingredient Six: A Dash of Beta Testing
Blind spots. Yes, we all have them and it is ok. Before launching an online course, beta test the course with a diverse group of people who have the ability to see beyond your blind spots.. Those individuals can give us the relevant feedback that we need.
Ingredient Seven: Ladle in the Launch
Congratulations! It’s time to launch your course! This is still a great opportunity to garner feedback from your participants and improve your course.
Ingredient Eight: Constant Evaluation
Regularly update course information so that it remains up to date. Additionally, constantly update activities and make improvements to ensure that the course stays up-to-date, relevant, and engaging for all of those who experience it.
Hopefully, this article has provided some new insights into the process of creating simple and efficient online courses.