Hands-On: Creating Branching Scenarios

[David Anderson]

Creating Branching E-learning Scenarios

Here's a basic introduction to using branching, hyperlinking, slide masters and customizing player templates to create multi-path learning paths within a Presenter course.

The idea behind the project was to simulate loading unique content based on learner selection. Navigation icons are included for learners to return to start screen or jump over to another learning path at any time.

This is a start-to-finish series. Parts 4 and 5 are navigation- and branching-specific so jump ahead if you're comfortable with slide masters and hyperlinking.

Also included is a small, visual map in top right corner. It's not something you'd include in a final project. I included it to visually communicate how and where the learner is at any given time in the project. This is mostly a linear course but the course navigation buttons provide non-linear branching to each job role start slide.

Preview: final project
Download source files: PPT2007 | PPT2003

Screencast:

• Part 1: Introduction
• Part 2: Slide Masters
• Part 3: Content slides and placeholders
• Part 4: Slide navigation and hyperlinking
• Part 5: Slide Properties and Branching
• Part 6: Player Customization

Anyway, hope you find this useful.

As always, we'd love to see what you come up with so please share questions as well as samples!

[Guy_in_london]

This is fantastic - Very useful !!! Its given me so many ideas to play around with.

I have a request - Is it possible to also include a *.ppt file in your download zip file (for those of us who still Microsoft Office 2003) ?

[David Anderson]

Hi - I just updated the links to include both 2007 and 2003 versions.

Thanks for the feedback and I'm glad it helps.I love putting these together so let me know if you run into any issues or want to take things in a different direction.

David

[Guy_in_london]

I just downloaded these and they work great - Big thanks.

I assume this will still work fine with Engage intereactions instead of slides as the content for each role?

[David Anderson]

That's right. You can use Engage, Quizmaker, or any combination of slides. This model is based on the design assumption learners will only view/take a single path.

In that case, the most important functionality is how you set up Slide Properties. You'll want the player controls to branch to the Conclusion slide (final OR shared path slide) at the end of each learning path (see screenshot).

It's very likely a course could have:

1 - shared start/opening slide
2 - 3 separate learning paths
3 - shared conclusion or additional slides

David

[mnkIDELearnGal]

WOW, this is a great tutorial, and it really highlights your thinking and approach to the branching! I love this!!

[cstephenson]

i love this - thanks for sharing!

question: how do you end up tracking completion in your lms for courses using branching scenarios like this?

it seems confusing for me. for example, if there are 4 slides in one scenario and you set the completion to 4/total, but they end up jumping around, it could potentially record it as completed before they truly are.

am i making this too complicated than it should be? this could potentially open a can of worms as to whether tracking is even necessary...

[beeneeb]

Originally Posted by cstephenson

i love this - thanks for sharing!

question: how do you end up tracking completion in your lms for courses using branching scenarios like this?

it seems confusing for me. for example, if there are 4 slides in one scenario and you set the completion to 4/total, but they end up jumping around, it could potentially record it as completed before they truly are.

am i making this too complicated than it should be? this could potentially open a can of worms as to whether tracking is even necessary...

Hi cstephenson,

In regards to the tracking, one thing you could do is put a generic quiz at the very end of the presentation and then set the content to track by the quiz. If the end-user gets beyond the quiz, the course will be set to complete.

[BrucUK]

How would this be most easily, sensibly and LOGICALLY adapted so that they could look at each one of the three streams, looping back to the start, then exit the branching and move on with the course when they had looked at each one?
This could be used to demonstrate "options", where people should really get the branching to ensure they looked at/understood each option before continuuing.

Thanks
Bruce

[David Anderson]

Hey Bruce -

In this example, branching is only used to let the learner choose which of the 3 paths they'l take. Branching was included to allow learners to jump back to the home slide (attached image). The way the original user posted the question, we probably wouldn't include links back to other job role learning paths.

Are you asking how a user could:

1. select a path
2. complete the path
3. at completion of chosen path be presented with two new options: continue forward, review learning paths for unviewed paths?

If that's what you're thinking, you could include a link that opens up the learner path into a new window so they can view only that path.

You could link the back to the start of the learning path (as we did in this example).

The one condition you included that wasn't present was the optino of a "continue" button visible at any time during the review of the other learning paths. That's a level of logic we don't have in PowerPoint where the course would know that, once a learning path was taken, the other learning paths would show a link to continue the course and skip over their content.

That's why I like the idea of loading a learning path, as a review, into a new window. This could either be a job aid or a duplicate of the learning path slides.

Hope that helps but let me know if I totally missed your question.

David