McKINNEY – VENTO TRAINING

Homeless Liaison Training Module

McKINNEY – VENTO TRAINING

Homeless Liaison Training Module

Nebraska Department of Education partnered with California Dingo Media in the development of eLearning modules aimed at training staff on the state requirements regarding homeless children and youth in school districts throughout Nebraska. State educational agencies (SEAs) and Local educational agencies (LEAs) must ensure that homeless children and youth have equal access to the same free, appropriate public education, including a public preschool education, as other children and youth. 

Audience: This course is designed to be used by Nebraska K -12 educators and district employees. 

Responsibilities: Animation, Motion Graphics, eLearning Development, Script Editing, Narration

Tools Used: Adobe Creative Suite, Pro Tools Audio, Adobe Captivate

PROBLEM AND SOLUTION

The McKinney-Vento Homeless Liaison training course in Nebraska has transitioned from an in-person format using PowerPoint slides to an eLearning platform. This change addresses educators’ requests for online access to resources and reduces the time and cost associated with dispatching trainers, particularly for new hires in districts where training had already taken place.

The new eLearning format includes all resources available to educators in Nebraska, presented in an easy-to-find manner. It incorporates interactive elements to emphasize key aspects of the McKinney-Vento Homeless Liaison requirements, assessments, and progress tracking to ensure effective learning. Additionally, video scenarios are used to connect the course content with real-life classroom situations faced by district employees.

This self-contained certification course is designed for educators to progress at their own pace using Nebraska’s Learning Management System (LMS). Each year, at least one district employee is required to successfully complete this training to maintain compliance with the McKinney-Vento Act requirements.

PROCESS

Throughout this project, Calfornia Dingo Media worked closely with the Subject Matter Experts (SMEs) at NDE to translate the in-person training into an online eLearning environment. The process began with the SMEs providing an overview of the course material via a course outline.  A script for the individual modules that would make up the entire course, was developed jointly by the SME and California Dingo Media by working via Google Docs to share ideas. Edits to the script were made to ensure the content was simplified and concise. Notes to visual cues were also added to the scripts prior to developing storyboards to ensure visual content related to narration. 

Using the approved script, instructional designer, David Schlotterback, developed storyboards showing the sequencing of events in the video scenarios. Due to the large amount of sequencing required for this course, we opted for quickly hand-drawing key frames.

We developed and acquired the assets to create the video sequencing and motion utilizing Adobe Creative Suite and Shutterstock. Video and motion graphics were developed using Adobe After Effects and Premiere Pro.

Once the assets were finished, all assets were assembled into Adobe After Effects and motion graphics were developed for each scene, all the while engagement with the SME from NDE continuted on a bi-weekly basis. These assets were then exported into Adobe Captivate where interactive assessments and knowledge checks were developed and placed within each sequence or video scenario. SCORM files were exported  and provided to NDE to place into their LMS of choice.

REFLECTION

This eLearning project allowed David to leverage his background as a multimedia artist and establish a collaborative solution for the SME at NDE in creating these modules. Recognizing the specific needs of the learners and tailoring the course accordingly was a key success factor. Working closely together with NDE, we were able to accurately pinpoint performance gaps and mitigate these concerns by utilizing interactive engagement on the part of the user and delivering the content in easy-to-digest video scenarios.

We successfully translated the learning event for online use and crafted engaging activities and assessments that ultimately lead to an engaging learning event which will equip district employees for years to come.

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