It seems as though every time you turn on the news, a new form of cryptocurrency is mentioned. For those who are unfamiliar with this world it can seem wholly intimidating and unwelcoming. This course aims to teach newcomers how the basics of the cryptocurrency world so they can feel comfortable in making an initial investment.

Below, the RLO for Module 1 introduces the learners to common phrases and terminology from the crypto world.

This course greatly pushed my growth as an Instructional Designer. I developed my CBT development skills and am excited to implement my new knowledge moving forward. For this course I decided to tackle a topic that I have recently become very interested in – cryptocurrency. I decided to create an introductory course to crypto for beginners.

While I was developing my RLO and what instructional strategies I considered my target audience. In the development of my RLO, I considered the audience of my course. The audience was widely intended to be people with little to no familiarity with this subject matter. For this reason I wanted to gradually introduce new information and provide many low-stakes options for practice. I achieved this with the initial presentation of what cryptocurrency is and presentation of common terminology, followed by several activities for practice.

While I was working on the design I received a helpful suggestion from my instructor to include an additional opportunity for practice with real life scenarios pulled from online message boards about crypto. Including this was a key decision in my final design! It provided a great opportunity for additional real-life style practice and helped tie everything together. This allowed for the assessment throughout the RLO to be easily integrated. There are two opportunities for practice and feedback: the multiple choice scenarios and the drag and drop definition activity. As this is not a formal course required for any organization, the assessments are designed to be unintimidating. I want the learners to feel comfortable going back to review any concepts they did not master, as evidenced by their assessments.

As for accessibility I wanted to include voiceovers that enhanced the text, but where not necessary for conceptual understanding. I also included images that enhanced the relatively abstract concept of cryptocurrency.

When considering the design of the interface and how the RLO would look I wanted to utilize bold colors that drew the viewer in. I also wanted to find complementary fonts that were readable. I used Canva to create the initial design/style guide for the course and made modifications on Articulate Storyline.

The usability test was very helpful. It affirmed many of the decisions I made throughout the design process, and also gave me clear places to make changes. Some of the key changes I made were: removing the next/previous buttons, increasing volume of voiceovers, having voiceovers be optional on each page, bolding key terms in definitions. These changes helped to enhance and clean up my RLO.

I currently am a classroom teacher, but I am hoping to begin working in a freelance capacity on some CBT for clients. The competencies I learned in this course will be incredibly valuable towards any freelance work that I do. I’ve learned how to clearly storyboard and navigate Storyline – two things that I consistently see future employers asking for. These were definitely the most valuable concepts that I gained during this course. However, setting up a usability test and providing feedback for my peers was also a highly valuable part of this course. It helped me to look more critically at my practice.

More so than concerns, I have areas in this course that I am excited to grow in and continue my learning and development as an Instructional Designer. These areas include storyboarding, understanding the intricacies of Storyline, and reading more about graphic design principles.  For any freelance work that I do in the future I want to be able to complete as much of the project by myself as possible, rather than hiring outside designers, so I want to grow in that area. I plan to spend some time this summer doing research online for these subjects. I also would like to work on creating branching scenarios, so that will be something I want to experiment on Storyline more this summer.

Overall, I am very proud of the work I completed during this course! I grew as an Instructional Designer, and I believe it is evident in my work.