Creating courses
A good course does not start with slides but with the question of what learners should be able to do afterwards. Outline, content, exercises and assessment all follow from the answer.
The articles in this section take you step by step through course creation: writing learning objectives, using existing material, writing narration scripts, producing learning videos, adding interactive elements and writing fair exam questions. They also include short introductions to proven design models such as ADDIE and SAM.
AI can speed up many of these steps. The articles show where it helps and where people must decide.
How to create an e-learning course, step by step
You create an e-learning course in nine steps: define the audience and learning objectives, gather material, outline short modules, write content and narration, choose visuals and media, add exercises, set up an assessment, test with real learners and publish. Modern tools generate a first draft from existing material, which subject experts then check and improve.
ReadCreating a course from existing material
A course is built from existing material by reviewing presentations, documents, handbooks or videos, reorganising them around learning objectives, turning them into short modules with narration and adding exercises and questions. AI tools can read material, identify topics and propose an outline; subject experts check and decide what is adopted.
ReadMicrolearning: using short learning units well
Microlearning means short, self-contained learning units, usually a few minutes long, each pursuing a single objective. It is particularly suited to refreshers, knowledge at the point of need and spaced review; complex relationships, by contrast, still need longer units that build on one another.
ReadWriting learning objectives with Bloom’s taxonomy
Good learning objectives describe in observable terms what learners can do after the course, using an action verb, an object and ideally a condition or standard. Bloom’s taxonomy sorts such objectives into six levels from remembering through understanding, applying, analysing and evaluating to creating, and helps you choose the level of a course and its assessment deliberately.
ReadWriting exam questions: multiple choice and open-ended
Good exam questions measure exactly the learning objective at its stated level, are unambiguous and cannot be solved by guessing or linguistic clues. Multiple-choice questions need a clear stem and plausible wrong answers; open questions need a marking rubric with fixed criteria, and AI can supply drafts that subject experts check and take responsibility for.
ReadProducing learning videos: planning, recording, editing
Effective learning videos are short, pursue one objective, combine spoken explanation with matching visuals and have clear, easily understood sound. They are made in three steps: planning with a script or narration, recording or generating, and editing with captions; today learning videos can also be generated directly from slides and narration with a synthetic narrator.
ReadWriting narration scripts that sound good
A good narration script is written for the ear, not the eye: short sentences, active verbs, one idea per sentence and direct address. It complements the slide rather than reading it out, and it is read aloud before recording so that rhythm, emphasis and the pronunciation of technical terms are right.
ReadInteractive e-learning elements that actually work
Interactive elements work when they make people think: comprehension questions, decisions in scenarios, conversation practice, explaining back in your own words and review with flashcards. Pure clicking, dragging or expanding merely keeps people busy if it demands no mental effort.
ReadADDIE and SAM: instructional design models compared
ADDIE is an instructional design model with five sequential phases: analysis, design, development, implementation and evaluation. SAM (Successive Approximation Model), by contrast, relies on short cycles with early prototypes and continuous feedback; ADDIE suits stable, well-plannable projects, SAM suits projects with unclear requirements or tight deadlines.
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