Developing interactive scenarios: The value of good planning, whiteboards and table based schemas

Centre for Academic Development and E-LearningMassey UniversityFictional or fact-based interactive scenarios (or cases), where students are able to explore aproblem, event or issue, can assists with student problem-solving, decision making andinterpretation of data or observations in a real-world context. Software exists to assist withauthoring and delivery of these types of learning objects, but one of the hardest tasks is theplanning and storyboarding of the scenario itself. Interactive scenarios are context-based,often include elements of drama, and may be required to follow a script of sorts. They mustalso link back to the learning objectives of the lesson. In goal-based scenarios in particular,where students are required to form hypotheses and test them in order to get to the root of aproblem, the scope (and limits) of what they can do within the scenario must be carefullythought about. This paper reports on the initial questions which need to be answered beforecommencing work, and outlines simple techniques such a whiteboard brainstorming andtable-based schemas for developing scenario structure and content. Along with theirfunction as planning aids, these techniques can also be useful in communicating thestructure and content to other team members during development. Thirdly, they allowarchiving of scenarios in an easy-to-access format, so content can be used in differentauthoring tools than the one they were originally designed for, and for other modes ofdelivery, such as face-to-face tutorials and scenario walkthroughs.Keywords: interactive scenarios, goal-based scenarios, scenario-based learning, lessonplanning, schemas, whiteboards