The Challenge:

The town participates in the Meals on Wheels program, which delivers meals to homebound seniors daily throughout town, with the assistance of about 50 volunteer drivers, who give a few hours once or twice per month to deliver the meals with their own vehicles. These drivers join the volunteer pool at various times throughout the year, and no annual training was currently in place. Instead, each individual had to be trained prior to them starting their first shift, a time consuming task for the program.

This learning module came about because I saw a need for it while working for the Town of South Windsor. I became aware that some volunteer drivers would leave the meals on the doorstep if they did not find the person at home.

The purpose of the Meals on Wheels program is not only to provide food for homebound seniors, but also to provide a daily welfare check on them. Leaving the food on the doorstep could not only mean that the food was wasted, it also prevented a daily check-in with each senior. The daily check-in has saved lives because it has allowed someone to get help for a senior when they needed it. We needed volunteers to understand the critical importance of making a daily contact.

My Process:

Meeting with the Subject Matter Experts:

I approached Andrea CoFrancesco, the Director of Human Services for the Town of South Windsor, and suggested that I could create this learning module to allow them to train all volunteers with the same information, and it could be available for use as needed throughout the year. She readily agreed and became my subject matter expert. We met to discuss the types of scenarios drivers typically encounter, and training concerns that she had. I also met with Sharon, the Meals on Wheels coordinator and discussed further questions with her.

Creating Animations:

With my script approved, I used Vyond Studios to create animations and voiceovers for each scene. I animated each character with a text to speech voiceover, selecting a voice which I felt would be representative of the age and gender of each animated character. One of the challenges I faced was the lack of realistic computer generated voice overs within Vyond Studios. To supplement what the software had available natively, I added narration from WellSaidLabs.com for a couple of the voices. Since some of the voices played naturally louder than others, I had to adjust the volume individually so that the overall sound effect would be uniform. I also added several sound effects (such as birds singing, cars squealing, and doors shutting) to make the whole experience more realistic and immersive. The volume of the sound effects was routinely too loud, so they had to be individually adjusted as well to prevent the speech from being overpowered by the extra sound effects.

Here are still images from the animated scenes I created:

Designing Question Slides:

Following each animation, a question slide presents possible choices for the volunteer. I iterated several different designs for the question slides, and got feedback from several beta testers about the designs. Ultimately I decided to darken the ending screenshot of each video and center the question layers in the middle of the screen, as it allowed the learner to still feel the continuity and contextual clues of the video they had just watched while not distracting them from the question.

Here are some of the iterations I tried prior to deciding on the last one:

Designing Feedback Slides:

Each question slide has several layers, one for each incorrect answer, and one for those who clicked the help button. The feedback is given by Jenny as a speech bubble. To assist learners in following the flow, particularly if they ended up with multiple feedback layers for the same question, I color-coded each type of feedback layer: blue border for help feedback, red border for incorrect answer, and green border for correct answer with additional information to reinforce the learning.

Additionally I created 3 custom colored "X" icons which allowed each layer to close and either return to the base layer, or in the case of a correct answer, move to the next slide or animation. These icons also had to have an invisible hotspot added below them, as icons alone would not function correctly as buttons, because when the user clicked between the X and the circle surrounding the X, the button would not be operable. Adding the invisible hotspot and grouping the icon and the hotspot together solved this problem.

Here are some examples of the final feedback layers:

Beta Testing:

Once the module was completely assembled, I solicited feedback from the subject matter expert, and several beta testers, including fellow IDOL academy members and coaches, as well as family members and friends. Based on their feedback, I fixed several minor alignment issues and inconsistencies in the animation.

For example, one tester noticed that the police car has a "911" on it that is backwards. I had purposely mirrored the image of the police car so that it could enter from the left instead of the right, but in the process the text came out reversed. To remedy this situation, I changed the animation to only allow the police car to drive partway into the scene so that the "911" would not come into the canvas.

Another tester noticed that the ambulance driver who loaded the stretcher shows his head above the ambulance at the very end of the scene. Because of the motion path of the driver and the stretcher, the only way to prevent this was to create a white box and sandwich it between the layer of the ambulance and the driver, thus obscuring his head when he did move into view.

Two testers noted that the options for the first senior (Susan) were confusing, since the volunteer tried calling her, then talked to her on the phone, then found her at home. To reduce the confusion, I added an additional senior character who the volunteer would find at home, and rearranged the order in which the options for Susan were presented. This seems to have solved the confusion.

Several testers noted that the sound effects were too loud in relation to the conversation and narration. I reduced the volume of all sound effects throughout the video and re-rendered and re-uploaded each animation.

One final edit I made was to include the logo from the South Windsor Human Services in both the menu of the module as well as in the closing scene from the Vyond animation. This effectively brands the module to the town and will prevent other groups from using it without permission.

Completion and Delivery:

After completing the necessary adjustments, I published the final copy, and uploaded it to my Google Cloud account. I then provided the link to the South Windsor Director of Human Services so that she could use it to train her volunteers. Because the town does not have a learning management system, they could not house it themselves. So the module will continue to be housed on my account for their use. They were also provided with the module on a CD which could be used in-house for training if volunteers do not have internet access.

Experience It Yourself:

I would love to have you experience the learning module by clicking here.