Design Challenge Week 2: Design Document and Storyboards

A year and a half ago I took an Eduflow course about instructional design as I was contemplating a shift into the field. Well, after the last week of digging into Tim Slade's design challenge, I am truly grateful for that course.

The first thing I did this week was complete the Design Document which forced me to distill my idea for the learning experience down to one page that included clear objectives, assessments and activities that will guide my learners to accomplishing these objectives, and a high level outline of the course.

You may notice that the first objective is slightly different than the original post. Once I sat down and really started planning out the assessment of learning, I realized I needed to offer my learners a choice between a to-do list app and a good old fashioned paper system. After all, learner choice is one of the key drivers for maintaining engagement in learning.

Once my design document was complete, I jumped into storyboarding. Whew! I forgot how intense and time consuming that process can be. But I always do it because it really helps me focus on building the interactions when the time comes. I’m not distracted by changing the content at the same time.

I’m excited to finish this up and jump into the actual Storyline build! (That’s the most fun and challenging part for me.) Final storyboard and videos of me cheering when I get Storyline to do the thing I want it to do coming next week!

Until then, here is my question for you all. Do you complete a design document and storyboard? Do you have another process for planning before the build? Share your process below! And if you’ve got feedback on my ideas, please let me know!

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