Effective Communication of a Digital Learning Designer

Effective communication of a Digital Learning Designer

 

In this blog post I am going to be discussing communication within digital learning design.

There are many ways that we can communicate within the workplace, speaking, messages, emails and skype. Used correctly, these methods can be used with great efficiency and help create a strong working team. When used incorrectly however, there is now way a team can function properly causing major issues with work quality.

The main points of communicating with effectiveness can be found in the seven C’s Clear, Concise, Concrete, Correct, Coherent, Complete and Courteous.

Clear

By following this you will become clear in making sure your target person/audience can hear you with no potential misunderstanding, this is both in writing and in speech.

Concise

You stick to one point and make a strong point for that one rather than lots of different ones at one time, this will make it easier for your audience to listen to and not confuse them with different areas to wonder off in to.

Concrete

Use words and phrases that are easy to understand so that your audience completely understands what you are talking about and that are relevant to the subject. Remember you want the audience to visualise what you are saying.

Correct

Be sure to be saying the correct words with no grammatical errors, factual words with evidence are correct. If something is not factual and an opinion this okay but be sure to make it clear that it is an opinion.

Coherent

Be sure that what you are getting across makes sense to the audience and flows to avoid confusion.

Complete

When giving the information it is crucial you give the necessary points and information.

Courteous

The way you put this information across so the use of body language and your tone of voice/writing needs to make the audience feel comfortable, if they aren’t they are less likely to give a reaction.

One of the main issues is miscommunication or no communication at all, if there is no communication no one knows what they are doing. This can be made even more complicated when working on projects together, by not knowing who’s doing what, there can be creative clashes and conflicts in to who’s doing a certain part of the project.

Confidence is also a major factor when taking communication in to account as you can put your point across with better conviction, this will also help the listener by reassuring them that you know what you are talking about. It is important when communicating to think about your body language, making yourself approachable and movement can sometimes convey conversation. 

In design and eLearning, communication is not just physical face to face, you also communicate through your work, this ties in with access as you can use speech in your packages. You can do this for example by having a speech over in your package, using a clear loud voice, those with visual impairments. Another factor is language; you could be speaking a completely different language than the audience speaks.

Another way that communication can be affected is by the audience itself. You could be talking to an audience that has no interest in what you are saying and this can cause an issue when you want audience participation. The audience may also hold a different opinion than your own, whilst this may benefit communication in some cases, this can be an issue when audience participation is not needed.

To combat a lot of this you need to take logical steps before the communication begins; if you have the information about your audience before hand you can cater the way you communicate. For instance; for the hard of hearing you could try and find someone to give your information in sign language, this would also work for the language barrier but instead of sign language use someone who is a linguistic translator.

When conveying information through text, when possible it is best to chunk your text so it’s clear and concise so the audience can easily read and digest the information.

Elephant Learning Designs

Here at Elephant Learning Designs we work to an excellent standard, we do this by following the ELD Quality and Standards Document. In this document is information about various sectors of our job role and how to achieve the best quality for them, the document is split up in to 4 sections; Standards, DLD Processes, Roles and Responsibilities & Practices for Ensuring Quality.

By following this document, all the correct sizes, company images, way we go about creating various teaching resources. This also includes design and Moodle, the VLE for the college.

The apprentices in the department are split up in to two levels, the Level 3 Apprentices and the Level 4 Apprentices. The level 3 apprentices create eLearning Packages that are assigned to them by the Level 4 apprentices, this means that the project manager for these is the Level 4 and the Level 3 is the designer. This does not mean that the Level 3’s do not lead on any aspect of the work in the office; this is just the standard way an ELP is given to the department. The Level 4’s are responsible for the Level 3’s work in the way that they test this and oversee how they are getting on with this and it’s the Level 3’s role to design innovative new eLearning materials and assist teachers with technology.

The level 4 Apprentices also give training to the Level 3’s in a variety of areas from how to use Photoshop to how to plan a lesson, it is their job to attend these and put them in to practice. This also falls in to the standard of work that the department produces, as these training sessions are integral to make sure we know every aspect of our roles. If we did not know these then we would be letting the learners and teachers down by not being able to provide the best work possible for them.