Storyboarding the eLearning Project
When it comes to eLearning, the worst thing you can do is make it up as you go along. A lot of planning should go into the project, and the most important and time-consuming step in the process is the creation of the storyboard.The storyboard includes the text, media (sound, images, and video), and interactive elements that support the project's learning outcomes and objectives. As well, the storyboard serves to keep you focused on both the audience and design consistency.There are as many approaches to storyboard creation as there are developers. The approaches range from a pencil and a sheet of paper to, in the case of extremely complex or technical projects, commercial software designed for this purpose.If you are like most developers, the odds are you already have software that can be used for building a storyboard on your computer. For example, Macromedia Freehand MX and Fireworks MX 2004, which are bundled with the MX 2004 Studio, are great tools. Storyboards created in these applications can be printed as well as output in a Web format and posted to a staging site for client review. Page-layout applications such as Adobe InDesign CS, Illustrator CS, and Photoshop CS can also be used, as can the common applications Microsoft PowerPoint and even Microsoft Word.At this stage of the process, you don't need a Fine Arts degree. What you are developing is a plan that communicates what happens on the screen and where it happens on the screen. You should also create a content inventory that lists all of the media elements. This will give you a good overview of what you need to acquire and/or create.