Amalgamation of e-learning and Visual Communication

This is my first post on this blog and therefore I will try and keep this as simple and short as possible. After 10 years of experience in e-learning and multimedia, finally my journey has begun to learn & discover the underlying truths of e-learning and communication. I joined PG in Communication Studies at an Auckland University 3 weeks ago. As a part of the curriculum, we have a paper on Visual Communication in one of the semesters.

The study on visual communications involves details on how colors, signs, typography, illustrations, drawings, and even graphic designs can be used to communicate. My interest lies in identifying the enormous possibility of using these visual aids along with text to educate and communicate to larger audience.

I know, you would now be thinking that this is very much what we do in our e-learning courses. But, I would differ with you all on this. For most of the SMEs or Instructional Designers or Course Developers or those who create courses, foundation course or good understanding of visual communication is not mandatory. Lack of such understanding often leads to developing learning solutions with more text content and lesser visual content explaining the text content. Such learning materials or courses developed might not be good learning aids for larger audience and different kinds of learners, such as visual learners and kinesthetic learners.

So, I am here in Auckland studying Communication Studies and trying to understand better ways to develop powerful learning solutions by amalgamating visual communication, interactive media, animation, and instructions.

While studying PG, I am also working on identifying a possible solution for my fellow Instructional Designers to bridge this gap.

If this interests you, do not forget to come back to this page every week on Tuesday for new posts of my learning to enhance learning solutions with meaningful and powerful fusion of varied communication methods and instructions.

Have a good learning week ahead.