Waters of Rest

Overview

Waters of Rest is an Articulate Rise course that I created for a friend who has a Boundary Waters Wilderness Experience ministry.

The goal is to prepare first-time campers for the wilderness experience where they will study the Bible, rely on teamwork, enjoy quiet times, live simply, and appreciate the absence of all technology.

Audience: Adults who are new to camping and want to experience restoration and healing by spending time in God's creation.

Responsibility: Instructional Design, eLearning Development, Graphic Design

Tools used: Articulate Rise 360, Articulate Storyline 360, TechSmith Camtasia, TechSmith Snagit, Audacity

Problem and Solution

The client expressed the difficulty of properly preparing campers for the wilderness experience. The campers come from geographically disparate areas making in-person training unrealistic due to time and travel costs. Campers who are not prepared will be frustrated and likely have a poor experience. They may also be a safety hazard to themselves, others, or the group.

I proposed an Articulate Rise course that would be informative and engaging. The course includes video, embedded Storyline interactivities, and a journal feature so that campers can capture their thoughts before the trip and print them out. They can also email their journal to the instructor at the end of the course. The journal entries are persistent so that the campers can log back in after the trip and compare their earlier thoughts to their actual experience. The journal entries also provide the instructor with insights into any issues that campers may be experiencing with the training.

The course is tracked in an LMS so that the instructor knows each camper has completed the course.

Process

I worked closely with the SME (business owner) to identify what a first-time camper needed in order to be prepared for their wilderness experience. I did not have direct access to potential campers but was able to get feedback from a focus group of previous campers. Once I had an overview of the content I began to design the course. I outlined the flow of the training and used placeholders directly in Rise for the various text, video, and Storyline interactions to be added later. This was a very iterative process with the SME to ensure that the content was correct, but that it also had the look and feel that she wanted. I also planned to add a journaling feature to the course.

Development was also iterative. The SME provided videos that I edited in Camtasia. I created various interactions in Storyline and embedded them into the Rise course. The journaling feature was created by adding a .JS and .CSS file to the published course.

Once the course was developed, the focus group tested the course and provided feedback. Final updates were made.

Outcome

The course was uploaded to an LMS and the SME received the links to share with her registered campers. The SME is very happy with the results.