The Creative Brief


The Creative Brief

Background & Rationale

The Creative Brief is the first interactive phase of Web-and-Flow and helps you conduct a quick, but effective, "Front End Analysis." Most instructional design models begin with an "FEA," the purpose of which is to clarify, up front, such things as your goals, the needs of the learners, and special resources or constraints related to the project.

Other Web-page tools such as Filamentality or HTML editors never address this key aspect of curriculum design. They're great for quickly making Web pages, but only Web-and-Flow prompts you to reflect on FEA issues, then uses the information to suggest the most appropriate links to gather and, through the expert system, recommends customized designs based on your goals. What's more, the information is then used to generate a teacher's guide to help others when you publish your activity.

The Creative Brief is designed to achieve a few key things quickly.

Like all Flow experiences, generating a Creative Brief need not be a linear process. Feel free to jump around as you like. For instance, sometimes we want to analyze Learning Gaps before we ever choose a topic. Maybe we want to promote an ability like effective interpersonal skills or problem solving. In cases like this, the topic can be secondary to the learning goal. Similarly, perhaps a new resource (like access to a lab with a T-1 connection or a new ISDN-based videoconferencing unit) has prompted you to develop this activity. Here it makes sense to start with the What-If Inventory. So, we get back to the only imperative: Go with the Flow.


© 1999 - 2008 Web-and-Flow and Tom March