In this webinar, our three experts covered:
- The importance of storytelling as part of your training strategy
- How to create branching path games with video to immerse your learners in the training
- How to easily create engaging videos to make your story come to life
Rich Vass, Vice President of Learning Solutions at eLearning Brothers, covered the instructional design process and how to ensure the story construct and script aligns with your learning objectives.
Nick Liebman, Head of Content at Powtoon, a web-based animation and video creation software, demo-ed how to translate a boring training manual into a fun and engaging video.
Stephen Baer, Chief Creative Officer at The Game Agency, explained how to add those videos to enhance a branching path game that allows players to immediately learn from the negative and positive consequences of their decisions.
Why Use Storytelling in Training?
Stories are engaging, emotional, and memorable. By creating relatable scenarios, settings, characters, and challenges, you can excite, motivate, and develop people more effectively.
Classic movies are an excellent example of good storytelling. Films like Star Wars, Rocky, and Lord of the Rings showcase a time-tested tale of the hero’s journey. What you need to remember is that in eLearning, your learner is the hero of the story, and you’re taking them on this journey.
For more tips on incorporating stories into your training projects, check out these resources:
Using Video to Tell Your Story
Once you know what your learner’s journey should be, there are a few considerations to keep in mind.
- Story Arc - A good, engaging story typically contains an inciting incident, obstacles to overcome during which the tension rises, a midpoint, and a climax. You also want to include choices with real consequences. A branching scenario is a great way to immerse your learners in the story.
- Relevant Choices - When providing your learner with choices and different branches, make sure they’re realistic and related to the training need. Obvious wrong answers don’t help anyone improve critical thinking skills or gain new knowledge.
- # of Choices - Ever launch Netflix, only to realize 20 minutes later that all you’ve been doing is browsing through the options instead of picking something? When there are too many choices, it’s hard to make a decision. Limit your learners’ options.
- Realistic Voice - If you want your learners to be genuinely immersed in your story, your characters should be realistic. Know your learner demographics and their customer demographics so you can come up with realistic dialogue and examples.
- Useful Feedback - Don’t just tell your learner their answer or choice was wrong. Show the consequences of a wrong decision and provide feedback on what they should have done.
- Visuals - Like any good movie set or theater stage, you need to set the scene. The right stock images or background videos can go a long way to creating an immersive learning experience.
In the webinar recording below, you’ll see how easy it is to use Powtoon to create professional-looking, customized videos that you can embed in your eLearning courses or games.
Videos work well inside our Scenarios game, part of The Training Arcade®. Try it yourself with a free trial of The Training Arcade.