Objective 2: Creating Professional Tutorials
Learning to create a tutorial is easy if you break it down into steps. Choose your words and create your steps carefully. Assume that everyone reading your tutorial will take everything literally.
Let’s start with a simple task: How to make a peanut butter and jelly sandwich.
Use whatever tool you’re comfortable with to write down the steps to create a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. You can write it by hand, create a document or spreadsheet, or a presentation. Use what you prefer.
Find a friend or family member to make a PB&J while you read them your directions. It's important that they do exactly what you’ve written down.
When you’re done, watch the video example below to see how you did. How did you do compared to the kids in the video? Did you note all the right steps? Did you forget any? Did you describe all the steps clearly? Were they in the best order?
Note: There may be a short ad before the video starts
Note to Teachers/Coordinators
If you are a leader and can do this in person with students, it works like a charm. All you need to do is provide bread, peanut butter, jelly, and a knife.
- Give students a note card or piece of paper and ask them to write down the directions for how to create a peanut butter and jelly sandwich.
- Sit down in a chair facing the group and call on one student to stand behind the chair.
- The student standing behind the chair reads his/her card step-by-step.
- The instructor “literally” does everything the student says
- Let each student try their directions.
- Show the video after you go through that exercise