Course Development Process

After over 20 years as a teacher of children, teens, and adults, there are a few things I know for sure. One of them is this: teachers and trainers would LOVE to keep their earning courses updated and cutting-edge if only they had the time. In other words, for them, the course development process just takes too long.

Most educators and trainers know WHAT they want to teach or practice with their learners. It’s the HOW that slows them down. For example, you would like to improve the way your supervisors create and manage tasks. You have all the information, strategies, methods, tools, and more. You just aren’t sure how to deliver the material in the best way. And just thinking about it is a headache, bringing to mind hours and hours of work. End result? Nothing gets done, and the training material stays as is.

LMS to the ‘rescue’

A top-tier learning management system (LMS) such as SC Training (formerly EdApp) has built-in, cloud-based authoring tools to create courses or customization on existing ones. How do you know if your LMS is top-tier? Read more about the LMS requirements checklist here.

The first item on the checklist is course authoring. LMS content creator tools mean that the course development process can take minutes, instead of days or even hours. Let’s dive deeper.

An LMS platform offers a variety of elearning authoring tools that solve your HOW. Basically, you plug in your content, click SAVE, and your course is ready. Sometimes it can get a bit complicated, but compared to non-LMS course preparation, it’s a snap. 

What’s in an LMS authoring package?

Each LMS is different, so let’s consider an in-depth example by looking at SC Training (formerly EdApp).

SCORM Authoring Tool

In case you don’t yet know what SCORM means, don’t worry – you’re not alone. SCORM is an acronym that stands for Sharable Content Object Reference Model. 

According to Scorm.com, “SCORM is a set of technical standards for eLearning products.” When courses are written to SCORM standards, they can “play well” with each other even if they were created on different eLearning platforms. Check out more about SCORM here. 

How does the LMS SCORM tool help you?

As a SCORM compliant tool, SC Training (formerly EdApp) can export your elearning courses in SCORM format. This makes it compatible with the SCORM platform you’re already using. Since the LMS “worries” about SCORM standards, you don’t have to. All you need to do is use the other LMS rapid creator tools to keep your course development process as quick and easy as possible. Just take note that transforming your materials into SCORM format will remove gamification elements from it.

Template Library

The core of an excellent LMS, such as SC Training (formerly EdApp), is its responsive design template library. Think of templates like “complete the form”. Everything is already organized for you. All you have to do is put your training information into the “blanks”.

How does the Template Library help you?

This is a HUGE timesaver! SC Training (formerly EdApp) has already researched the most effective online training activities. They’ve created formats that are especially perfect for mobile learning. Plugging in the content you already have is the easy part (as we all know).

The SC Training (formerly EdApp) template gallery boasts close to 80 intuitively designed microlearning templates that are suited for interactive elearning. To make it easy to locate the templates you need, they’re organized by the following categories:

• Surveys
• Games
• Relationships
• Numberse
• Multiple choice questions
• Content
• Concepts

Within each category are a variety of activity types. For example, in the ‘Relationships’ category, training task possibilities include matching two columns of information; choosing the correct item in a pair of up to four pairs; reordering words to create a timeline or series of events; and selecting images in the correct order. Check out this webpage to see the activities in the ‘Content’ category.

Canva Integration

If you have not experienced Canva yet, you’re in for a treat! Canva enables you to produce professional-looking graphics without knowing much about designing them. The secret is in Canva’s template library. 

How does the Canva integration help you?

Want to make an infographic about marketing trends? Search Canva, choose the free template you prefer, remove the existing text and data and paste it with your own. Looking for a presentation about do’s and don’ts of customer service? Chances are Canva has a free one for you to start with. Once again: choose, remove, paste, save.

You can use the templates as is or customize them. For example, you can redo the color scheme to match your company colors, replace a logo with your organization’s logo, and choose the font and font size. This way, you can further boost the visual learning experiences of your team. 

If you want to learn more about SC Training (formerly EdApp)’s Canva integration, then here’s their support page on the integration. 

What about Powerpoint?

I use both Canva and Powerpoint depending on my goal. When I want a high attention-grabbing product, I tend to go to Canva. I prefer Powerpoint for presenting statistics and tables. No doubt you’ll come to your own conclusions once you experience both.

Powerpoint Converter

Since Powerpoint (PPT) came WAY before Canva or other such apps, many of us have lots of training material in this format. SC Training (formerly EdApp) gives you the opportunity to modernize your existing PPT presentations, converting them into mobile-suitable content which is not only more engaging but also trackable.

How does the Powerpoint converter help you?

Much of your content is still relevant. The problem is the format. It was made to be used by a trainer in a physical classroom. 

While trainers and classrooms are still in use today, that’s not where the majority of training is today. It’s online, accessible by your trainees’ digital devices. Digitizing “old school format” material is an efficient way of updating your courses quickly.

During the conversion process, you can use the SC Training (formerly EdApp) easy-to-use creator tool to polish your content. This is important because not everything that suited the big screen is well seen on the smaller mobile ones. Check out this webpage to learn more about SC Training (formerly EdApp)’s PPT converter. 

So, what’s your excuse now?

At this point, you’ve probably realized that there is no longer any excuse for not updating and modernizing your training material. Since the course development process has been reduced to the minimum (and you don’t need any special knowledge or experience to use an LMS), there is really nothing holding you back. 

Join SC Training (formerly EdApp) for free and start shortening your course development process today.