Images: AI Magic for Enhancing Your E-Learning Visual Materials

Learn how to use generative AI to generate breathtaking visual content for your courses.

Picture a world where e-learning is a text-only maze, leaving learners lost in complexity and boredom. Visual content is the key ingredient, using images, diagrams, and charts as magical tools to craft exceptional course materials. A single image speaks volumes, transforming a concise course into an engaging, multilingual experience. It’s clear why we embrace beautiful visuals, enriching the learning journey.

However, before AI entered the scene, IDs and educators often had to face several challenges when searching for the right images:

Time-Consuming

Scouring the internet or stock photo libraries for the right image could take hours or even days, delaying course development.

Quality Concerns

Finding high-quality, copyright-compliant images that fit the context of the content was often challenging.

Limited Customization

Pre-existing images might not always align perfectly with the specific learning objectives and branding of the course.

With all that being said, it’s only fitting that we explore how AI has emerged as a powerful ally in addressing these long-standing challenges.

AI Tools That Bring Your Ideas to Life

In this year particularly, AI has revolutionized this daunting task by introducing image generation, where you can create an image, just how you want it.
Let’s take a closer look at some handy tools that generate images for you.

Click on the tabs below to view the tools.

Midjourney

Generates high quality images based on text in various art styles.
Has an active community on Discord where users can share their creations.
Starts at USD$10/month.

Leonardo.ai

Web-based platform with a neat and intuitive interface.
Includes pre-trained models with a range of styles.
Starts at USD$15.99/month.

Adobe Fireflies

Offers a full early-access program that allows users to access new features.
Allows users to create custom data sets and models bu uploading their own photos.
Free

DALL-E 2

Integrates ChatGPT as a brainstorming partner, enriching the prompting experience.
Generates high-quality images based on simple text with nuance.
Free

In this blog, we will be using the popular tool Midjourney to generate images for your short course.

1. Midjourney’s Vast Library

Assuming the look and feel you desire for your content, you can customize the prompt to match your preferred aesthetic. Here’s a list of style prompts you can use, from steampunk to minimalist, allowing you to get as creative as you like.

a) Minimalistic

Here are some images we generated using AI, to create a header for this blog post.
For a more minimalist look, we prompted the following:

[desired image], White space, simple shapes, minimalistc style, muted colors, [style preferences], [size]

This is the prompt we used to generate a response.

an image depicting Managing Work-Related Stress & Burnout, white space, simple shapes, minimalistic style, with photorealistic influence, muted colors --ar 3:2

This is what Midjourney generated.

b) Realistic

For a more realistic image for another course, we prompted the following:

[desired image], realistic style, [size]

This is the prompt we used.

a man waiting in a long bus queue, realistic style

This is what Midjourney generated.

c) Impressionism

And finally, for another course, we prompted the following to acquire a more impressionism styled photo.

Impressionism, in the style of the art of Claude Monet, [desired picture scene]

This is the prompt we used to generate a response.

impressionism, in the style of the art of Claude Monet, futuristic city with monorails, green city

This is what Midjourney generated.

Wasn’t that fun? You can do so much more with Midjourney. The possibilities are truly endless. Now let’s move on to the case study.

2. Case Study

Let’s continue with the series of blogs and develop a course on managing work-related stress and burnout. For this, you have to generate a few images based on the content as visual assets.

Let’s make the following images.

Bustling Office
Scattered Work Desk
Boss‘ Office
The characters: employee and boss

You could think about the story in chronological order and come up with the visuals you want in text format. Having a list always makes it easy to figure out what you need.

For this video, we will be going for a ‘Comic Book” Style.

In our case, we generated a list of pictures using ChatGPT. We storyboarded the case study. Click on the image to view the picturebook.

a) Bustling office

To generate a background, you usually start with the following flow.

[desired background], [style], [size]

To generate the bustling office background, we prompted this:

busy office, comic book style, --ar 3:2

This is what Midjourney generated.

b) Scattered work desk

Using the same prompt flow above, we prompted the following and got this result:

office work desk, comic book style, --ar 3:2

This is what Midjourney generated.

c) Bosses office

Similarly, we prompted the following and got this result:

bosses office, comic book style --ar 3:2

This is what Midjourney generated.

d) The characters

Moving on, we generated the characters. When generating characters, you usually begin with the following flow:

[character description], [action], [style], [desired background], [size]

Tip: To be able to generate a picture in a specific artists’ style, you can add their name to the prompt itself. For our case, we wanted to mimic the style of Frank Quietly, who had previously worked on the Superman comic book series.

d.1) The employee

This is the prompt we used to generate a response.

Young businessman, stressed, full body, white background, Frank Quitely comic book style

This is what Midjourney generated.

d.2) The boss

Then, we removed the artists’ name and viewed what Midjourney could come up with without a specific artists’ style.

older man, a boss of a company, full body, white background, comic book style

This is what Midjourney generated.

After all that, you now have characters and backgrounds to go with them to be able to create your content.

Points to Remember when Using AI for Image Generation

While AI brings undeniable benefits to this field, there are still some areas where human guidance is vital, for example:

Quality Assurance

AI-generated images often require additional editing to align with your expectations, ensuring a perfect final result.

Lack of Creativity

AI is still evolving, and it may struggle with highly creative or abstract image requests, so it may not be 100% to your liking.

Prompt Precision

At times, AI can misinterpret requests, so it's important to fine-tune your prompts. You might find that a few tries are needed.

Check out some other amazing AI apps you can try here to make your image-creating experience better.

Let us help.

AI in e-learning revolutionizes image creation, making it faster, more cost-effective, and flexible. However, it’s crucial to blend AI with human creativity for the best results.

At Learnmonade, we aim to showcase the possibilities of AI and help you tap into the potential of AI for education.

If you’re curious about how we can assist you, don’t hesitate to contact us at [email protected]

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