You want to create engaging online content for your learners. You’ve heard of these “branching scenarios” instructional designers keep talking about. Maybe you’ve even played one. You think they’re a good educational solution for your learners, but you have no idea how to make one. You: (A) conclude that they’re too complicated and never bother, or (B) attend this session and leave with the skills necessary to make your own.

Spoiler alert: Picking B takes you down the path of learning how to design a good educational tool. In this session, you’ll learn design principles and writing techniques for branching scenarios. Although this session will focus primarily on design, you will also learn the pedagogical principles that support the design decisions. You will practice interviewing subject matter experts by working with a partner and designing a scenario in this workshop based on a common problem they encounter in the workplace. You’ll leave this session knowing the basic tools, pedagogy, and design principles necessary to create your own branching scenarios.

In this session, you will learn:

• About the basic design principles behind branching scenarios
• About the pedagogy behind branching scenarios
• About the advantages and disadvantages of using various tools to create branching scenarios
• Which questions to ask subject matter experts in order to write your content 

Audience:

Novice to intermediate designers. Familiarity with branching scenarios is a plus, but it’s not required; you’ll pick up on what they are fairly quickly.

Technology discussed in this session:

BranchTrack, Articulate Storyline, and Twine.

Participant technology requirements:

Participants need a laptop with an internet connection, running either Storyline, BranchTrack (trial or subscription), or Twine, which is open source and therefore free.