There are lots of articles out there about elearning development that suggest “you should do _____” or “it’s so simple to _____”. While maybe you should do whatever the article is talking about, and maybe it is simple for the author, sometimes it’s not so easy for the reader.
In today’s post, my colleagues Hannah Radant and Lindsay Garcia go beyond the “you should’s” and “it’s so easy’s”, and just point you in the direction of an actual tool that can really make things simple for you. If you need to develop a self-guided, asynchronous elearning module, Hannah and Lindsay offer you five good reasons that isEazy is a tool you’ll want to check out. You may have heard of Articulate’s Rise authoring tool. isEazy is similar in the way you can quickly develop slick-looking elearning modules, and it seems to offer more templated layouts than you’ll find in Rise.
Don’t get us wrong, we love Articulate products like Rise, but for those who are searching for a tool or an alternative, isEazy is a pretty nice option.
As elearning course developers, we are always exploring different tools that may help to author courses in more efficient, professional, and creative ways. When we saw that Alex Salas from LXDLaunch was offering an opportunity to check out isEazy through one of his live cohorts, we jumped at the chance to explore it. What we discovered is an authoring tool that allows a developer to quickly develop a professional-looking course by using what is available within the platform. However, the sky is really the limit due to the range of unique customization options within isEazy.
1. Course Theme Customization
Sometimes setting up a course can be time consuming or something that you don’t have a lot of bandwidth to figure out. Upon initial setup of your course, personalizing the background, theme colors, title, and font are just a few clicks away on the configuration tab. If you are looking to dive deeper, you can always customize your images and select your own theme colors with a custom palette.
On the other hand, if you are looking for a “quick and easy button”, so to speak, using one of isEazy’s sleek templates could be the way to go. isEazy provides a handful of templates with preset fonts, colors, and images that allow for visualization of ideas, learner profiles, and content information. While starting with one of these templates makes developing your course simple, there are endless ways to customize and make the design your own after you get started.
2. Describing Steps or Describing a Process
One ideal way to use isEazy is when you need to quickly create a learning experience that describes the steps in a process. After customizing your design, isEazy provides multiple options to visually showcase the steps or the process you are demonstrating. It is as simple as selecting your layout and inserting the number of steps you need to show. In order to optimize your design, there are several ways to display your information and break it down for your learner. This platform offers the ability to display information sequentially, in a gallery, in pyramid form, and in a circular graphic These all have click and reveal options to display more information when accessed, but without clogging up the screen or overwhelming the learner.
While you can leave the preset design for each of these infographic elements, you are also able to customize the design by adjusting the margins, slide background, colors, and icons within it. This provides many ways to emphasize information and allows for exploration within the content as well.
3. Putting Visuals to Numbers
Displaying data in a variety of visual ways can be challenging, especially if you are working on an infographic or wanting to show data in unique ways. isEazy provides customized shapes to display percentages and also engages learners visually in the way they fill up and populate onto the screen when they are going through the course. Aside from the shape, as a course designer, you are able to customize the main color and background color if you want. But with the templates that isEazy provides, it already has a professional quality of visual design.
4. Interacting with Content in Unique Ways
isEazy categorizes its elements into sections so that you can easily add to what you are building and understand whether you are developing something more simple (text elements, flip cards, gallery views) or more complex (hot spots, infographics, interactive video, etc). There are exercises that allow for interactive knowledge checks throughout the course such as sorting, matching and filling in the blanks. Because of the way you can set up your slides, it is simple to seamlessly provide a scenario or direction prior to engaging the learner in these activities.
5. Gamifying your Learning!
Gamification of learning focuses on elements of game design in order to motivate learners and capture their interest in the content. When elements of content are “gamified” they should always add to the purpose of learning (as opposed to just sticking a game-like activity into the learning experience so that you can claim that it’s interactive). isEazy provides a handful of games that can have content enmeshed and the variety allows for connection to learning objectives as well.
Do you want the learner to make a decision between two options? isEazy offers a swipe game for that.
Do you want learners to become more familiar with key words or concepts? isEazy has an alphabet game or a Wordle inspired game for that.
Do you want your learners to memorize key information for quick recall on the job? Trivia and Memory are also options within the platform with game configuration options to add a timer and points, depending on your audience.
As you can see, this rapid authoring tool can be as simple or as complex as you need. Though elements of isEazy are still being developed with thought towards accessibility, further customization options, and even more interactions, it is already a robust tool worth checking out! We’d love to hear about your experience with isEazy and how you’ve incorporated it in your training or elearning.
To check out a few isEazy samples, take a look at Lindsay’s infographic about suicide prevention awareness and/or Hannah’s interactive “bee aware” infographic.
Need some help putting together an elearning module and don’t have the time (or the skillset) to do it yourself? Drop us a line and let’s chat! Maybe we can brainstorm some ideas together. Maybe you’d like to work together. Any way you look at it, it’s always helpful to bounce ideas around with other folks!
