It’s no secret that interruptions abound for the online learner. Instructional designers find themselves creating content that must compete with texts, telephone calls, meetings, and watching kittens doing cute things on YouTube. A conference participant described this as “continuous partial attention.” So more than ever designers must find ways to capture and retain their learners’ attention through the duration of eLearning. Interactions are a common tool to accomplish this, but perhaps easier and less expensive is multimedia in the form of videos, animations, and even static-image slideshows set to narration. The appeal of excellent graphics and sound is apparent from the popularity of video games, but multimedia is a powerful tool that we must wield with caution so that it does not itself become a distraction.

Participants in this session will discover best practices for applying multimedia to boost learning without either detracting or distracting from the learning experience. Because the appropriate use of multimedia is the essence of this session, you’ll learn about various multimedia tools and get usage examples from actual course-development projects. You can use all of these tools, Sparkol VideoScribe, GoAnimate, and Plotagon, in course development without technical-graphical-design or audio-production knowledge.

In this session, you will learn:

  • Why multimedia “breaks” in content are effective training tools
  • How to identify when multimedia usage is appropriate
  • The basics of using Sparkol VideoScribe, GoAnimate, and Plotagon
  • Examples of when to use each of these tools

Audience:
Instructional designers, instructional developers, marketing professionals, and others interested in effectively using multimedia online. Basic instructional-design knowledge, experience working with a web-based development tool, and experience creating animations based on a timeline will be helpful.

Handout(s)

Recording