Monday Oct 17, 2011
You don’t have to be perfect when building a course
You don't have to be perfect. In fact, it might be better if you weren't.
That’s right. And the same goes for your content.
Now, don’t get us wrong here. Your courses need to be organized, cohesive, and follow a clear line of thought. But as you seek to engage your learners and offer courses that will not put your end-users to sleep, you may not need to start your screencasts over every time you take a big breath in the middle of your course or say filler words such as “um” or “like.”
While your learners want to know that you have taken the time to create this course that will efficiently solve their needs, they are also more engaged if they understand that there is a real person on the other end of the recording. Often these little imperfections help keep the learner engaged and give a more personal experience.
How many times have you answered the phone and heard an automated message on the other end? How many times did you hang up after hearing that message? Probably pretty often.. When we hear perfection and automation, it can be easy to tune it out. If there is a live person on the other end, even if it is the same message as the perfected automation, we are more likely to listen.
This does not mean your courses need to be live, but they should feel live. This should be a relief to you. Yes, you still need to prepare and know what you are teaching in your course, but you can say “you know” once or twice without starting over. Obviously, if you say “um” 20 times in a 3 minute recording, you may want to edit it or re-do it, but if it happens once, let it go. It just means you are real.
So take a breather, and complete that course that you have been over-analyzing and re-recording to meet utter perfection in presentation. The biggest mistake you can make is to keep waiting for the perfect course and never release your content.
