10 Ways to Turn Your

Learners into Zombies

October 2013

Your zombie host today...

Cammy “Brains” Bean VP of Learning Design

Kineo US

Meet Alexandra.

Ten ways you can turn your learners into a

zombie army!

1. Make the front door very, very scary.

Enter the LMS house of horrors...no

personality, no branding, and a devious maze

of...stuff.

Or, act like a zombie hunter...

A front door worth opening.

So good you could eat it up.

2. Kill their feelings.

..and numb them with learning objectives.

At the end of this course, you will be able to: •blah •blah •blah •blah •blah •and more blah....

Or, act like a zombie hunter...

Get their attention with stories of intrigue and

risk.

Grab them with gossip.

Ask them questions.

Set up a mystery. That’ll confuse their zombie

brains!

3. Make the content lifeless.

Dump information on them to ensure their eyes stay glazed

and their lips stay drooling.

Or, act like a zombie hunter...

The Video Wall of Life.

Immersive, interactive video.

Immersive, interactive video.

Immersive, interactive video.

4. Talk like a zombie.

Drone.

• If seeking to build a zombie army, it is critical

that the general follows important steps to

zombify those individuals seeking to escape

the general’s domain by hunting them down

with boring instructional design speak,

copious amounts of corporate jargon, while

also numbing their brains with fact after fact

of repetitious blather that will go in one ear

like a worm only to consume the individual’s

brain and thus, successfully, turn him or her

into a zombie. Mmmm....brains. Brains!

Or, act like a zombie hunter...

Talk to them. Like human beings.

Make it personal.

Zombies can’t have fun, so make it fun.

5. Force them to endure mindless clicking.

Disconnect the challenge from any context.

This confuses them.

Or, act like a zombie hunter...

Give them relevant activities.

Get them thinking on their own experiences.

Give them opportunities to reflect.

Put the challenge in context.

6. Serve them (brain) cheesy stock

photography and clipart.

Or, act like a zombie hunter...

Make the visuals on brand and matter.

7. Don’t tax their undead brains with choice.

Give them one path to go and lock them into

it.

Or, act like a zombie hunter...

Or, act like a zombie hunter...

Give them meaningful choices.

Let them pick and choose.

Lots of choices.

Try Thiagi’s Four Door Model.

Let them browse.

Let ‘em try it out.

Let them decide: Learn or apply?

8. Give them no hope of survival.

Don’t give them false hope for the future and DON’T provide

any motivation, support, or encouragement.

You have completed this course.

There is nothing more until

the next course.

THERE IS NO EXIT.

Or, act like a zombie hunter...

Or, act like a zombie hunter...

Give them a call to action.

Get them doing stuff. In the real world of

humans.

Have them create their own action plan.

9. Make them lonely. Make sure they connect

with nobody else.

Or, act like a zombie hunter...

Have them upload assignments for peer

review.

Get them talking. To each other.

What did you think?

How did you do it?

Here’s what I did that really worked.

Here’s what I did that

really didn’t work.

10. Be sure to forget to double-tap.

Make sure it’s just a single learning event.

• 1. One time. That’s all you get. One single

event and you better have learned it. Or else.

Or, act like a zombie hunter...

Or, act like a zombie hunter...

Create a learning campaign--spaced events over

time across multiple channels.

The zombie hunter’s rule book:

Or, act like a zombie hunter...

1. Make a really nice front door (your LMS). 2. Get their attention and make it emotional. 3. Avoid the info dump. Give it life through stories. 4. Talk to human beings. 5. Make the activity relevant and reflective. 6. Make the visuals matter and avoid the cheesy stock art. 7. Give them choices and let them explore. 8. Provide a call to action and hope for the future. 9. Help them connect with each other and collaborate. 10. Create a learning campaign.

And lest we leave you without truly horrifying you...some

elearning Halloween puns....

• Children of the SCORM

• The Nextorcist

• JAWS (Accessible horror that’s even 508-

compliant!)

• Ghoul-based scenarios

Visit our Free Resources Section for more

eLearning Design Tips: www.kineo.com

Join the conversation and fight the zombie

army!

LinkedIn: Kineo eLearning Professionals

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