Giving Learners Options Through Navigation

During the “How to Design an e-Learning Program” course from the University of Toronto’s Continuing Education, I used an e-learning project that I’m presently creating at work to apply the various concepts I learned. The course I’m designing is for employees who need to learn to post information on our corporate intranet using Umbraco.

I was able to think through the e-learning course that I’m designing in order to teach to two very distinct types of learners. I call these the Tech-Savvy Learners, those who are comfortable learning new programs; and the Nervous Learners, those who are intimidated by technology and are sure that this will be difficult to learn.

I didn’t want to create two distinct courses and I was hoping that it wasn’t necessary. I learned that giving learners options for how they wish to go through the course is often a matter of navigation. I haven’t had the chance to test my navigation with learners yet, so I hope that it’ll work out.

Essentially the Tech-Savvy learners can read the introduction and instruction pages and then go directly to the intranet test site to practice what they’ve learned. Anyone who wants more information, or who is more visual, can choose to watch a demonstration. They can re-watch the demonstration or re-read the instructions. When they are ready, they can go practice what they learned.

The Tricks and Tips section is highly recommended but a learner can always use the Table of Contents to skip whatever they want.

Here are some good links on using navigation in e-learning. 

More Than a Dozen Ways to Navigate an E-Learning Course

6 Tips To Improve eLearning Course Navigation 

Here are previous posts related to my course:

Instructional Design Principles

Using Storyboards in Elearning Design

Graphics in Elearning 

Why E-Learning? Why Not?