Remaster eLearning content to give it new life
Matt Archer
July 22, 2021
Reduce, Reuse, Remaster
It’s inevitable that your eLearning content (no matter how well produced it is, and how much you try to account for scalability and future proofing) is eventually going to become outdated. This can happen due to unforeseen changes in your industry, rapid improvements in technology, shifts in design trends and more.
Some companies may continue to cycle learners through that outdated content for years without updating it. This can become messy and confusing for both learners and trainers alike. But it doesn’t have to be that way.
Remember the saying reduce, reuse, recycle? This motto can be applied to eLearning content as well, through the process of remastering (aka revamping). To remaster eLearning is to take the core of what’s already there and bring it up to modern standards of content and design.
Remaster eLearning Content
Reviewing old content and updating it seems like a simple thing to do, in theory, but it can often take longer than expected due to how so many aspects interconnect with each other like one giant spider web.
However, the benefits of updating the content can save you time and money in the future from having learners finish their training feeling very confused due to conflicts between what they were taught and how things are actually being done. It also reduces the need to continuously publish supplementary material to account for updates being made that would better fit inside the core training.
During the update process, it’s also a good time to consider adding new material to the training that may not have existed in the old training in order to bridge the gap of relevancy between old and current content.
Remaster eLearning Design
While updating content might be a more straightforward process, remastering your design can have a large impact on your final product as well. Below are some design elements you may want to consider remastering.
Aspect ratio
Are your old presentations still using 4:3 aspect ratio? Considering resizing your content to 16:9 in order to remove letterboxing when displaying it on modern TV and computer screens. Depending on how your slide decks and content are situated, this might be a significant time investment. You gain substantial horizontal space, but do sacrifice vertical space in making this switch.
Colors and designs
Color and design are subjective, but it’s hard to deny that certain modern design trends are held in higher regard and stand the test of time.
One of the dominant trends focuses on a more minimalistic approach. Reducing the amount of textual content, and increasing the amount of pictures or artistic content is encouraged with this style. This trend also recommends having a lot of white space on your slides to help people focus their attention on the other parts of the presentation. This is far cry from the bullet point-heavy, content-saturated presentations of the early 2000s.
Content Size
eLearning has gradually shifted away from large, bulky presentations with hours of content. Companies are finding ways to deliver the most relevant content in smaller, bite-sized packages to learners so they spend less time training and more time doing. If your content is on the larger side, there are ways to pare that content down into the most important aspects and streamline your training process.
Mobile optimization
Focus has also shifted greatly towards optimizing content for viewing on mobile devices. Depending on when you created some of your eLearning, mobile optimization may not have been a consideration. However, with so much of the world working remotely and a general desire from many workers to continue doing so, it’s important to find a way to deliver your training content to them. Mobile optimized eLearning content is one such way.
Interactive elements
Interactivity can help learners be able to better grasp and retain content. While it has become a staple of modern eLearning, it may not have been a consideration when your content was originally created. Adding interactivity to content can help learners become more engaged with the content rather than just passively watching it.
Final Thoughts
Positive Results™ is a training development and cloud services company that helps organizations by analyzing their business process and providing solutions for any gaps that we find.
We believe in the power of revamping your old, outdated eLearning content to breathe new life into it. Not only can it save you time and money in the development process, but when done correctly it can help new and existing learners get more out of the content.
If you have additional questions or need support, contact us at:
Positive Results™ Custom Business Solutions
440.499.4944
Sources:
https://elearningindustry.com/ways-to-revamp-outdated-elearning-content-in-2021
