Learn. Show. Repeat.

Category: Instructional Design

  • Response from an eLearning Creator

    Dear Engaged Learner,

    Thank-you for your letter and my apologies for the delay in replying. I receive so many from engaged learners like you that it takes me a little while to respond but it always warms the cockles of my heart to read them.

    I’m so pleased to read that you were engaged during the course but I honestly can’t take all the credit. You see, my colleagues and I usually receive a request for some training when there’s a real or imagined issue or when the legal or safety teams say it needs to be done. We don’t dig to deeply to find out more because it’s always a knowledge gap and creating courses full of information is always the most effective solution. Plus, it’s what we’re known for! Our motto here in the creation team is “if we build it, they will learn”.

    When I develop a course, I work with people who have expertise in the field called subject matter experts (or SME for short and is pronounced smee). But they are so much more than that as they are usually experienced writers, graphic designers, assessors and learning theorists. Even though I have many years of experience, multiple degrees and diplomas in Adult Education and Multimedia and Educational Psychology, write for numerous online publications and actively participate in the eLearning community I still don’t know as much as they do about online learning. They’re so amazing! The SME’s also like to change their minds a lot and they always want to add just a little more content to the course which is quite ok with me because they know best and it always makes the courses better.

    The Communications and Marketing area also deserve a pat on the back for supplying us with the 153-page branding guideline document that spells out the exact colours and fonts to be used as well as the layout and crucial logo information (size, position and inclusion throughout). These things make such a significant contribution to learning but more importantly, it makes the courses look like everything else that’s produced by every other department in the organisation. This will ensure we don’t cause panic among people who won’t know where they are or who produced the course and also keeps them engaged.

    Even though most people use computers and the internet for work and at home and have done for many years without instruction they may not know how to navigate through our courses. Which is why we include the navigation help in every course (even if they are the same). Also, having people think for themselves in online learning is dangerous so it’s much easier if they are always controlled which is why I don’t let people skip anything. As you mentioned, you didn’t want to miss anything which is great because you need to read all of it to learn.

    I’m happy that you liked how I jazzed up the course as the content was dull so it seems like I was able to engage you and at the same time show you how clever I am. There is some well-known and much-loved “science” behind it though. The use of audio to read screen text, images on every screen and lots of clicking, dragging and hovering is because I’m catering for different learning styles, such as seers and listeners and touchies. There’s over 70 learning style models that we use and we manage to have something in there for all of them! This helps people to learn much more effectively and guides many creators here and around the world to produce engaging learning experiences.

    I’m so glad that you enjoyed the game show knowledge check! For the next module (and please keep this a secret) you’ll be a knight that goes on a quest. Along the way you’ll come across a series of dragons who’ll ask you questions and if you choose the right answer you’ll slay the dragon! It’s going to be so much fun and so engaging. You’ll be able to print a certificate for this one to add to your collection. I often look fondly on the ones I’ve accumulated over the years.

    Well, while I may never meet you, I’m easy to find. Just look for the tower made from the finest ivory and that’s where I’ll be along with the rest of the learning and development team working on our next engaging course so that people will know more stuff.

    Signed,
    The Senior Head Specialist Consulting Advisor in Instructional Learning Architecture Design and Creator of Engaging Knowledge Development Solutions for Organisational Capability.

    Image source: morgueFile.com

  • Letter to an eLearning Creator

    Dear eLearning Creator,

    I don’t normally do this but after what was one of the greatest hours of my life, I felt that I must. I’ve just completed a wonderful eLearning course that you created and I wanted to personally let you know how much I enjoyed it and that I was so engaged from start to finish.

    Day-to-day I’m quite busy in my role, however when I received the notification that I needed to complete my module I was happy to stop what I was doing, set my phone to voicemail and get started. Actually, a quiet hush fell over the entire office when they found out that another course was ready as everyone was hungry to consume more content.

    I love PowerPoint! I often see it in meetings so right from the beginning of the course there was a cosy familiarity about it. Even though I was sitting at my desk at work, using my company computer and sipping from my company branded coffee cup, I was delighted to see that our logo was visible throughout the entire course to remind me of where it came from. Not only that, you applied the our branding guidelines consistently and faultlessly throughout – the fonts, the colours and even the distance of the logo from the top right-hand corner of the screen – which really added to the experience.

    I was thankful for the navigation instructions you provided up front. I use computers and the internet a lot here and at home, and I did have to log into our learning area and click on a link to open the course, but I was pleased to find out that clicking on a ‘Next’ button would take me forward, ‘Back’ would take me backwards and ‘Takeaways’ would have some extra information. The progress area came in handy too as it was useful to see how many of the 143 slides I’d completed.

    I must admit that I was a little unsure about what I’d get out of completing the course but to my relief you let me know on the objectives slide what I’d be able to do by the end. I don’t quite remember what they were (they were some good verbs though) but if you say that I can do those things then I believe you!

    Having the audio narration read everything on the screen for me was delightful! It allowed my senses to really soak up the material and it was clever that I couldn’t skip ahead until the audio had finished (meaning that I wouldn’t miss out on anything). I found the pictures in the course made the text less dull and the characters used reflected the happy and diverse mix of people working here. The animations you used certainly jazzed up the information and my right hand got a good workout from all that clicking, dragging and hovering!

    You saved the best part until last – the knowledge check! (by the way, this sounds so much nicer than quiz or test). I thought that presenting the questions in a game show format was so fun! How did you know that true and false questions are my favourite? Multiple choice questions are a bit trickier but luckily I could have as many tries until, by process of elimination, I finally picked the right answer. I appreciated that I wasn’t just right or wrong but that I was Correct! or Incorrect! Funnily enough, that’s just how my boss says it when I answer one of his questions.

    It was a bittersweet moment when I completed the course. I was sad that it was over however the gazillion points I received plus five gold stars did cheer me up as did the ability to print out a certificate to keep and treasure (which incidentally now hangs proudly on a wall in my home).

    Well, that’s all I wanted to say and even though I will probably never meet you, keep those information courses coming – more often and longer would be great. I speak on behalf of my all colleagues when I say THANK-YOU!!

    Signed,
    The Engaged Learner.

    Image source: JPPI on morgueFile.com

  • Working with Images in eLearning (part 2)

    In my last post, I covered some terminology associated with images and different image file types. For part 2, I’m going to share 10 tips when using images in Articulate Storyline and for some you’ll need to click on the image and go to the Format tab under Picture Tools.

    Tip #1

    Break the text-on-one-side-and-image-on-the-other habit! Go full screen with your images and overlay the text. There’s lots of way to do this, here’s some ideas that I wrote in another post along with links to even more ideas.

    Tip #2

    When you want to resize an image (larger or smaller), drag it from the corner to keep it in proportion. Dragging from a mid-point can make the image look stretched.

    Tip #3

    Remove parts of the image you don’t need by using the Crop tool which is on the right-hand side of the Format ribbon. Unlike Storyline, you can crop an image to a shape in PowerPoint (it could then be saved and inserted into your Storyline project).

    Tip #4

    If you have a few images on a slide, you create even spacing between them. Select all the images and click on Align. There’s a few options but I generally use Distribute Vertically or Distribute Horizontally. This also works for other objects such as shapes or buttons.

    Tip #5

    You can move images around on your slides using the arrows on the keyboard. If you want to move your image 1 pixel at a time, hold down the Ctrl key while you press the arrow keys. Again, this works for other objects too.

    Tip #6

    If you want to have different images in the same positon across a few slides, start by placing the first image where you want it to be. Then you’ll need to find out its position on the slide, so right-click and select Size and Position. Next, click on the Position tab and take note of the horizontal and vertical position. Go to each of your other images, follow the same steps and when you get to the Position tab, type in the position information from your first image.

    Tip #7

    If you insert a picture but then decide you want to change rather than deleting it and reinserting another, there’s an option on the left-hand side of the Format ribbon called Change Picture. When clicked on you’ll be able to choose another image and it will replace the current one.

    Tip #8

    Some people use Ctrl C (to copy) and Ctrl V (to paste) but I still use the mouse! If you want to maintain the alignment of images when you copy and paste, hold down the Shift key and Control key and then move your mouse to the edge of the image. When you see a + sign and dotted rectangle, left-click and drag your mouse. This also works for other objects on the slide.

    Tip #9

    Sometimes you don’t want your images to sit squarely on the slide and while you can rotate them manually, the Format tab has some built-in options in Rotate. I find the Flip Vertical and Flip Horizontal options useful to create a mirror reverse of the original image and if you click on More Rotation Options and the Size tab, you can set the degree of rotation.

    Tip #10

    Storyline does have some basic image editing options on the left-hand side of the Format ribbon. You can adjust the brightness, contrast and recolour. I’ve also used these options when creating additional image states to make the new states look different to the original.

     

    So, there’s a few tips for working with images in Storyline that will help improve the look of your eLearning modules. If you have any other tips, please share them in the comments area.

    I’ve also created a short video that demonstrates how to do many of the above tips, click on the image below to watch.

    Tips when working with images video

  • Working with Images in eLearning (part 1)

    As eLearning developers we regularly work with images in our projects and while we aren’t all graphic designers, it helps to have a basic knowledge of the terminology around image properties and file types which is what this post is about.

    A ‘pixel’ is the unit of measurement used for digital images and when you see the size of an image, let’s say 450 x 300, the first number is always the width and the second is the height:

    width then height

    The resolution of an image is different and is usually expressed as pixels per inch (ppi) or dots per inch (dpi) and this describes how many pixels there are in a liner inch. When sourcing images from a photo website I look for a high ppi or dpi number:

    In this example I’d choose the medium (or maybe the large) over the small as it would be a higher quality and better for resizing.

    There’s two main categories of images – Bitmap and Vector – and here’s the difference between the two:

    Bitmap images are made up of pixels of different colours, they often have large file sizes and when you resize a bitmap graphic larger than the original, it tends to lose quality and become grainy or pixelated.

    Vector images use mathematical expressions to represent the image, they tend to have small file sizes and are scalable so when you resize them larger, which means that they don’t lose quality. However, vector images typically require software to create and edit. You may be able to edit the vector image in PowerPoint as Tom Kuhlmann describes here.

    It’s also handy to know the differences between the most common image file formats so that you’ll be able to use the right type depending on your purpose.

    Types of bitmap image formats:

    JPEG or JPG (stands for Joint Photographic Experts Group) – supports millions of colours and are used for displaying digital photos in a compressed format. You can’t have a transparent background with a JPEG and they tend to lose quality the more times you edit and save them.

    PNG (Portable Network Graphics) – an alternative to GIF images and can support millions of colours as well as transparent backgrounds.

    GIF (Graphics Interchange Format) – only supports 256 colours but they can have a transparent background (one colour can be transparent) and can also be used for creating simple animations.

    TIFF (Tagged Image File Format) – great for when you want to display high quality images for printed documents.

    Types of vector image formats:

    EPS (stands for Encapsulated PostScript) – this format supports both bitmap and vector images and are created with drawing programs like Photoshop.

    WMF (Windows Metafile) – also supports bitmap and vector images and was used for Microsoft Clip Art. These files can be edited in PowerPoint.

    SVG (Scalable Vector Graphics) – this is a newer format for web graphics that support interactivity on newer web browsers and is also good for animations.

    So that’s a brief overview of image terminology and file formats. If you’re interested in learning more about image formats as well as visual design, Connie Malamed has a great book called ‘Visual Design Solutions’ which I referred to in putting this post together. In part 2 of working with images, I’ll share some tips (and a video) that I’ve found useful when working with images in Storyline.

  • 10 Blogs Every eLearning Professional Should Read

    Recently my friend Ryan Tracey posted a list of 10 journals every e-learning professional should read in response to my list of 5 Books Every eLearning Professional Should Read which was in response to his 5 papers every learning professional should read (this feeling like the blogging equivalent to a game of tennis).

    So I’m returning the ball with a list of blogs that are worth checking out if you are an eLearning professional and you are looking to improve your craft as each blog is written by someone working in the field. They’re a mixture of writing styles and content – sharing practical tips, showing their work and lessons learned, looking towards the future of online learning and some offer reflections on their own personal learning. Many of these folks can also be found on Twitter and LinkedIn.

    The one thing that each blog has in common is that the author is making a positive contribution to the wider eLearning field (IMHO).

    Here’s each of the blog authors listed in alphabetical order (click on a name to go to their site):

    Kristin Anthony – Kristin also has a podcast series called ‘Dear ID’ where she interviews instructional designers

    Helen Blunden – Activate Learning Solutions

    Donald Clark – Plan B

    Tom Kuhlmann – The Rapid E-Learning blog

    Melissa Milloway Mel’s Learning Lab (Mel also writes articles via LinkedIn)

    Cathy Moore – Saving the world from boring training

    Clark Quinn – Learnlets

    Mike Taylor – Ask. Learn. Share

    Will Thalheimer – Will at Work Learning

    Christy Tucker – Experiencing E-Learning

    I’m also adding Ryan Tracey himself whose blog I came across a few years ago and s one of the first I started to read on a regular basis.

    Feel free to add to this list via the comments below.

    tennis court

    Image from Morguefile.