Last Friday I completed and submitted my first ever e-learning package.
To be honest, this is not an easy job and it’s really hard-earned money. I estimated that I spent easily one full week on it, worked till 3am on two nights and probably sprouted some grey hair too. The learning curve was very steep.

Why did I take on this job?

1. Lecturing assignments in polytechnic is harder to come by. I need an alternative.
2. I wrote three books in prints with EPH and Marshall Cavendish, and I have heard about how interactive e-learning material engages students much better these days. I want to see it for myself.
3. There is a trend and a demand in generating e-learning material. It’s driven by demand and supply. Schools and institutions love the cost savings, in using e-learning lessons to take over some part of lesson delivery. Bad news to teachers who only read slides. I want to prepare for this inevitable future, and not get swept away by it. This is part of what I advocate – future-readiness.

What did I learn from this journey of making e-learning package?

1. Aesthetics is very important. To make visually appealing slides, is at least as important as making great content. We might forgive a plain looking textbook, but a poorly formatted and boring looking e-learning package is likely to put off the learner.
2. Think interactive. Traditional way of writing books is inadequate. As e-learning designers, I can animate graphs, use hotspots (something new I learnt, and it is not your mobile phone hotspot!), insert quizzes, and do many more things that printed books are not capable of.
3. Machine speaks quite well, really. I used a lot of text-to-speech conversion to narrate the slides. It takes some practice, and machines never sounds as natural as human, but they can do quite a decent job most of the time!
4. Careless mistakes is inevitable. Even after I have gone through the material times and times again, there were still careless mistakes, like misalignment of text, mismatch of narration to text, etc. Thankfully I worked with a very patient supervisor, who can help me to point out the mistakes.
5. Things can always be better. A few times I thought my work can be done in 2 hours. Then it stretched to 4 hours, then it lasted till the last minute before the deadline. The more I looked, the more I thought about it, the more things I discovered can be done better. Having a deadline becomes a good thing in that light.

What’s next for me? I’ll continue to explore e-learning packages and to expand my skillset as an e-learning designer, as I believe that this is a future-ready skill for learning designer.

As I become more skilful, this skill set will bring me more opportunities and profitability.

Thanks for reading till the end. I hope you have something to takeaway. So, in that light, I would like the permission to pose you a few questions:

I’d love to hear from you! Leave me a comment or email me at jason@lovetolearnsg.com.