If you need to create training for complex skills where there isn’t always a clear right or wrong answer, typical eLearning may not provide relevant practice opportunities. Isolated, abstract, multiple-choice questions aren’t enough to help learners build decision-making, communication, or strategic skills. You need to build eLearning that provides richer practice activities that reflect the complexities of work. Using branching scenarios is one way to do this.

In this workshop, you’ll design and develop a short branching scenario practice activity in just one day. You may use either a topic from your own work or a hypothetical case study that we will provide. You’ll start by identifying objectives and the skills learners need to practice. Next, you’ll follow a framework document to plan the characters, context, challenges, and a rough outline of your scenario, making sure the scenario aligns with your objectives.

Using the open-source program Twine, you’ll map out the structure of your branching scenario, creating decision points and consequences for different choices. As you build the structure, you’ll flesh out the text or dialogue in your scenario. Next, you’ll play through a prototype of your scenario and see examples from other participants. Finally, you’ll work on the visual design for your scenario using formatting options within Twine. We’ll also review the options and tips for migrating the content from Twine to another authoring tool such as Storyline. You’ll leave with a short but functional branching scenario that provides a realistic practice activity for a complex skill. You’ll also have hands-on experience with Twine, as well as resources for scenario planning for the future.

In this session, you will learn:

• How to align a branching scenario to learning objectives
• Tips for creating relevant context, characters, challenges, and consequences in a branching scenario
• Why Twine is an effective tool for creating branching scenarios quickly
• How to create a branching scenario structure in Twine
• How to test a branching scenario prototype

Technology discussed:

Twine, Storyline

Participant technology requirements:

A laptop with Microsoft Word or access to Google Docs. It’s helpful to install the free program Twine prior to the session, but the browser-based version at https://twinery.org/ can be used instead.