Wood Carpentry Course
Tools: Storyline, Photoshop, Illustrator
Audience: Entry Level Carpenter Apprentices
Problem: What Do I need to Know about this Primary Resource?
In this concept project, prospective carpenters are challenged to learn about the basic aspects of wood, it’s production and uses. Read on to learn about the process of creating this course or jump right into the full course.
Style Guide
Knowing the primary audience played an important part in the selection of the appropriate fonts, colors, layouts, and graphics for the success of this project.
Clean fonts, colors that are suggestive of nature, and consistent, easy to follow layouts were important to elevate learner engagement while avoiding cognitive overload.
Process and Production
A carpentry apprenticeship workbook was the information resource for this project. Although most of the material was logically arranged, some material had to be filtered out and rearranged to result in a better flow for an on-line course.
Acting as the project’s SME and designer allowed me to create a concise outline, along with storyboards to show slide progression, interactivity, and graphic ideas.
Determining Objectives
Converting print material to an interactive resource created a necessary challenge of determining which information was “need to know” vs. “nice to know”.
Since this was a subject that I knew very little about, the material had to be carefully studied in order to properly parse out the important information, while still keeping the course cohesive and thorough.
Creating Graphics
The importance of interesting and accurate graphics cannot be understated in any on-line course, even more so in a subject area that is highly concrete and visual.
Often appropriate graphics must be customized from scratch or pieced together from available material. Creatively manipulating existing graphics, while not reinventing the wheel is an integral part of this process.
Implementing Interactivity
Restyling from a print to a digital course is so much more than creating slides with bullet points. Learners must be actively involved with the course in order to enhance engagement, retain material, and build knowledge into transferrable skills.
Allowing learners choices, and opportunities to explore, via reveals, dials, sliders, etc., respectfully gives adult learners ownership and control over their learning paths.
Assessing the Learner
Knowledge checks throughout a course, via interactive activities, are formative assessments that enable learners to safely gauge their progress without the pressure of a “quiz” or “test”. Final summative assessments are often necessary for compliance and can be made low stress by allowing navigational control and retakes when needed.