Let’s go over again why a good PowerPoint® presentation does not a good eLearning course make. This topic is important because some SCORM authoring suites, especially Captivate and Articulate, are designed to import .ppt-file format slides. These imported slides are treated like a “page” of eLearning content. The corporate manager’s comprehension of the workflow is that this import, and perhaps the addition of audio narration, is all that is necessary to convert a PowerPoint® presentation from a live training session into an eLearning course.
This is especially not true if the PowerPoint® presentation is well-written as a PowerPoint® presentation. The reason being that presentation slides are not supposed to contain all of the information necessary for the learner. PowerPoint® presentation bullet points are intended to serve as prompts for a speaker, or (if the learners are lucky) for an occasional interactive class discussion. Well-written PowerPoint® presentation bullet points are by their nature incomplete.
Some people assume that it is reasonable to simply supplement this deficit with voiceover, as you would in a synchronous, live presentation. But many learners have a hard time reading and listening at the same time. If we assume that all learners should be forced to listen to voiceover in order to get the full content of the course, we ignore the learning type of some of our most adept (and normally most dedicated) learners, those who learn by reading.
I, for example, learn best in silence. I am ideally suited to online learning because I learn extremely well from reading. I am annoyed and distracted by listening to audio voiceover while reading course content, because the voiceover rarely can keep up with my own reading speed. The ideal eLearning content, for my learning style, would be a course with all content represented visially, in text and diagrams.
If we think about it, that is the foundation from which an eLearning course should start anyway. Because a learner could be caught without the media filters to play the audio, or without the bandwidth to stream the audio, or might be learning on an alternative technology such as a text reader or a handheld device, there should always be an option to only read the text and view images.
Ideally, if there must be voiceover, the voiceover is the same as the visible text. Ideally, the learner is not required to listen to the audio before moving on to the next page. Since listening to 2 minutes of voiceover, or, letting 2 minutes of voiceover play in the background while you catch up on your email, is not an accurate means of assessment. Only assessment is an accurate means of assessment.
Unfortunately, some governmental organizations these days requre some of these flawed practices (Ahem). Others practices are proliferated under a misguided corporate belief in cost-effectiveness or savings, a misguided faith in eLearning authoring suite technologies, a faith in fancy Flash interfaces and clever navigation and page transitions, instead of an emphasis on clear, consistent, accessible content. This is a disservice to the well-documented diversity of learning styles, and in eventuality a waste of money. I do my best to lead our customers away from these practices. In some cases, they acquiesce.