It can be hard to find really good examples of video training you can use as a model for your own courses. A lot of the video training online was created by people who have no experience in course design or what motivates adults.
This week I’ve been taking a free course from the University of Pennsylvania at Coursera.org. These type of courses are called MOOCs (which stands for massive Open Online Course). The particular course I’m taking is“Gamification” which is a hot topic these days in the elearning world. It means adding game-like elements to training to make it more fun and motivational.
Here are some features of the course that make it a good model for those of you who are doing mutlilesson video training.
1. The video of the instructor is nice to have on the screen often because he has a decent background and lighting and he is interesting, passionate about the subject and keeps my attention.
2. The topics are short and have random “knowledge checks” built in for interactivity.
3. It has a variety of ways to interact with the teacher and students via a forum, a WIKI and peer graded assignments.
4. It uses lots of stories and case studies to make the information relevant.
5. The teacher uses a tablet and pen to write on the slides. This serves the purpose of making the training feel more “real-time”, allows the profession to elaborate on the material and directs my attention to the most important parts of the screen.
6. The video lectures are released at one Module per week so I don’t get overwhelmed. But there is motivation to complete the videos because of the homework and quizzes. You just don’t want to get too far behind.
7. The teacher communicates with us once or twice per week to keep us motivated and on track.
8. There are links to supplementary reading material that allows those of us who want to dig more deeply into the subject to do so.
9. It has quizzes and assignments to test my knowledge. Therefore, I really have to pay close attention to the material. Completing all of these correctly provides me with a certification that I can put on my Linked In profile and resume.
All the courses at Coursera.org are free and are great models of how you can structure and organize the content of your multilesson online course.
