Creating a Storyboard

Storyboards plot out the course content, structure, and overall flow of an online course. Building a storyboard is a great practice when determining what media to utilize in your course as it gives you the opportunity to think about how and where elements will fit into the course. It will also allow you to determine if you have considered all necessary content to include in your course.

Watch the following video for a brief overview of storyboarding.

Storyboard Video.mp4

For a more comprehensive look into storyboards you may want to review Daniel Brigham's series of videos on Lynda.com:

Instructional Design Essentials: Storyboarding (Note: You will need a subscription to Lynda.com to access this content)

Storyboarding Interactive Project and Online Courses

Before you start creating Web sites, online courses, and interactive projects, one of the keys is planning, planning, and more planning. Why use Storyboards? The purpose of the storyboard is to visually plan a project, Web site, movie, and more. Storyboards have been used for many years in the movie industry to stage out a story, outlining the plot, characters, and backgrounds; however, storyboards are excellent planning tools for any project. Storyboards are a series of illustrations that represent a process, such as the steps of interacting with a computer, Web site, or online course.

In your final project for this course you will be required to provide a storyboard of your entire online course, modules, etc. Review the Web sites below to become familiar with Storyboarding:

• Online Courses as Learning Scripts: Using Storyboards in Online Course Design – Created by the University of Illinois to assist in course development, this PDFprovides an excellent storyboard template.
• Storyboarding to Organize Your Online Course - Provided by NC State University, this pdf was used at a workshop which focused on assessing needs, matching tools to the task, organizing materials, and building a storyboard.
• 12 Tips for To Create Effective eLearning Storyboards – Super tips for developing online course storyboards.
• How to Storyboard Your Web Site – Sponsored by eHow.com, this site walks you through laying out a Web site using a storyboard.
• Storyboard Depot – Provided by eLearning Coach, this site includes downloadable storyboard templates in various formats.
• 5 Things You Should Always Include in an eLearning Storyboard - An instructional designer gives brief overview of how you should start the design process by drafting you're storyboard.
• eLearning Storyboards - The eLearning Industry provides a variety of resources related to storyboarding.
• Storyboarding for eLearning - This article gives some great tips on why it is important to storyboard and what you should include.
• 10 Challenges in Storyboarding - Based on a survey from hundreds of instructional designers, this infographic outlines the top challenges often faced in storyboarding.
  
  

Example Storyboards

The following examples and templates may help you in creating your storyboard:

Example Storyboard

Sample Course Template

15+ eLearning Storyboard Templates

References

Brigham, D. (2014, April 30). Instructional Design Essentials: Storyboarding [Lynda.com online course]. Retrieved from https://www.lynda.com/PowerPoint-tutorials/Welcom/160064/171576-4.html?org=ucf.edu

Malamed, C. (2019, January 17). Storyboards for eLearning. Retrieved June 22, 2019, from http://theelearningcoach.com/elearning_design/storyboards-for-elearning/