Is your organization offering “online courses” that are merely PowerPoint presentations, with or without audio? Are they slow to download? Do they lack interactivity? Veterans Affairs’ National Center for Posttraumatic Stress Disorder had such a series, called PTSD 101, offering web-based refresher training for clinicians. However, the courses were PowerPoints with audio that were extremely slow to download, and lacked interactivity and visual interest.

Rather than simply revise the PowerPoints as the government’s solicitation requested, we proposed to develop all courses in a Section 508-compliant Flash-based player that allows download of audio on a slide-by-slide basis for near instant playback from any point in the presentation. An interactive table of contents allows the user to watch straight through or click to a section of interest so that material can be reviewed at any time. The unified series now has a visually appealing interface as well, and interactive exercises to provide checks on learning and enhance the learning experience.

The PTSD 101 series is a great example of how easily clunky legacy training can be reformatted to provide just-in-time learning to an organization’s customers or stakeholders. See one of the courses here.