Scriptwriting for Instructional Designers: Process, Techniques, Options

Anyone who’s asked to develop an instructional multimedia piece faces the same questions. What's the best way to present the material?  What will my audience expect to see and hear? How can I use this as an opportunity to stretch my design skills, exercise my creativity?  Rather than addressing the applications or technologies we use to create our learning products, this brief talk will focus instead on your most valuable tool – your imagination.

If you’re directly involved in creating instructional multimedia, you’ll get some tips on a universal approach to developing scripts for multimedia pieces of all kinds – from simple slide shows to full-motion videos. If your role has more to do with recommending or hiring instructional scriptwriters, you’ll find the evening gives you an overview of what professional scriptwriting practice involves, and a basis for evaluating the skills of instructional scriptwriters. Along the way, we’ll view examples and explore principles and creative options to apply in most multimedia scriptwriting situations, regardless of educational or training development context.

When we’re done, you’ll be able to:

1. State the four main steps of the scriptwriting process, and the defining activities of each step.
2. Describe some of the defining features of three major presentational forms – demonstrations, documentaries, and dramatizations – and their production possibilities.
3. Explain how to develop a narrative outline, and address production details central to writing an effective script treatment.
4. Express the Three Principles of Effective (Script) Writing, and how applying them will make your scripts compelling, instructionally sound, and cost-effective.