This is a course I created using the rapid e-learning tool, Articulate Rise. 

Planning and Development

This e-learning course started out as a PowerPoint presentation. I was inspired to create the original presentation to provide new staff members with an overview of the Practice Labs product suite. When I first started, there was only one product, and it was reasonably easy to understand. However, the business now has three products, and they are more complicated to explain. There is a lot of terminology to understand, and it can be daunting for new members of staff. At the time of writing, the business had never employed sales and marketing staff before, and it was important that these members of staff quickly familiarise themselves with all the products.

Rather than go through the presentation every time a new staff member joined, I decided to create a repeatable e-learning course that could be accessed whenever and wherever. I chose to develop this in Articulate Rise as it can create responsive content which can be accessed quickly and easily on mobile devices. Another reason I decided to use Rise, was because I didn’t want to overhaul the content too dramatically. I also wanted to create something very quickly. In the original PowerPoint, I had included screenshots of the Practice Labs platform, and I knew that I could quickly and easily add some cool interactive markers to make these more interactive.

Techniques

I started by writing the PowerPoint presentation; luckily I already knew what I wanted to include. I decided there should be a dedication section to each of the three products, a terminology section, resources section and an area where the Getting Started video could be accessed.

Once the content was written, I liaised with the in-house graphic designer and obtained a copy of the company logo and brand images as well as the brand guidelines. I also downloaded and embedded the Getting Started video into the content. This video provides a useful overview of the lab product, and it is recommended that all new staff watch this as part of their induction.
I created a new Rise project and applied a custom theme. I used the brand guidelines to identify the primary brand colour, blue, and I downloaded and imported the company fonts from Font Squirrel. I uploaded these into Rise and proceeded to add content to the project.

I created a set of learning outcomes for the course and placed these on the front page. I then broke the content down into chunks which were organised by topic and copied the pasted the relevant information from PowerPoint into Rise. I then created the “interactive” sections by taking a large set of screenshots and adding markers to the different areas. I decided that rather than listing the names of the buttons and the definitions, it would be much better to show the learner the platform and actual location of the icons. I placed a marker on the relevant images. When these markers are clicked on a callout appears that provides the learner with further information.

I decided to apply bold styling to keywords and colour them orange (one of the Practice Labs brand colours) to add emphasis. I also added useful images and infographics throughout. Lastly, I added a resource section and included a set of useful external links. I then published the course.

Summary

Overall feedback I received was extremely positive.

I would have liked to reduce some of the white space around the e-learning course, unfortunately, this is built into Rise and to do this I would have had to change the core HTML code and I didn’t really want to do that.

Skills Demonstrated

• Instructional design
• Elearning design
• Technical writing

Tools Used

• Microsoft PowerPoint 2016
• Articulate Rise
• Font Squirrel website

You can access the final version of the e-learning course here.