Confessions of an ID: disruptive learning designers use Articulate, Captivate and Lectora

In most businesses, cutting out the middle man means more profits. In e-learning, our middle man is the multimedia developer, and profits aren't just in terms of $$$ but in higher quality educational experiences. Traditional e-learning sees the instructional designer writing a text-based script/graphical storyboard that goes through several review cycles, and once signed-off gets handed to the multimedia developer to interpret and build a module in flash (or something equally sophisticated). 

The traditional approach is dogged by concerns, the learning intentions are commonly missed and my experience has shown that may be focus;

• Top of mind for the Developer is multimedia experience
• Top of mind for the Designer is learning experience

In traditional development, often learning goals are not met, and in a world where CGI, THX, HD and 3D are served on a platter, all too often learning experience is traded for the 'cooler' stuff. 

In the last five years this landscape has changed dramatically, and (accidentally) disruptive technologies such as Articulate, Captivate and Lectora are leading this brave new world. But, I use disrupt in a positive way here, they have put efficacious power into the learning designer's hands, by providing software that can produce very similar results that clients have been used to for their bespoke e-learning products, with the added benefits of reduced timelines, smaller costs and most importantly 'responsive learning design' or 'Agile learning design'. 

So, what does this 'agile' approach to learning design look like, now that we have reduced dependencies? It looks quite nice. While working with a number of clients over this time, and in collaboration with client project managers and SMEs, we synthesised a process that really ended up being a hybrid between traditional and rapid development, with a sizeable shake of agile development thrown in... Let's take a look!

The format shown in the infographic above uses a cross-functional approach, with the clear connection to ADDIE, to illustrate what needs to happen and when. At this point I need to acknowledge an incredible mind in instructional design in Australia, from whom I was first introduced to the cross-functional approach to mapping traditional ISD, @Naomi Waldron. The depicted Agile Learning Design flowchart, clearly highlights how the weight of design and development, using disruptive technologies, lies largely with the instructional designer, to an extent not previously seen in traditional development using Flash or similar development tool with a reliance on scripting or programming.

I then use this as the basis for my project task lists and milestones, in TeamworkPM (discussed in an earlier post 'Confessions of an ID: secrets of project management for learning design') because it provides a good set of foundation tasks and dependencies.

So how do you do 'Agile Learning Design'? Have you found the same benefits through this move from tradition ISD for e-learning? Or, have you found the opposite? 

I'd also like to acknowledge @Lee Evans, Graphic Designer, who worked with me on this infographic. It's a team effort.

All the best with your e-learning projects, Kim. :-)