Learn. Show. Repeat.

Tag: eLearning

Looking Behind the Facade
Since I was young I’ve always enjoyed stopping whenever I come across a construction site. I’m interested in how buildings, from houses to skyscrapers, are put together. It really doesn’t matter what stage of construction the building is at either for me to pause to take a look. I like to see things like the depth of the footings or the size of the columns and supporting beams or the length of the cantilevered balconies or how the wall framework will divide an empty space or how the roof structure will finish off the building.

Image source:Shutterstock

While completed structures often look impressive, I find there’s more value in knowing how it all fits together (but that could be just me!). I think that’s why the practices of working out loud and showing your work appeal to me and I learn more from seeing how something was created as opposed to trying to figure it out when looking at the finished product.

Working in the eLearning space I often see people sharing some great samples of work and many times I wonder:
- How did they do that?
- Where did their ideas come from?
- How long did that take to create?
- Why did they do it that way?
I figure that I can’t be the only one who wonders these things and when someone shares this information, it’s like looking at their construction site and I’m happy to stop and take a look.

I’ve shared the ‘how’ behind some of the demos I’ve created, some examples are here and here and here. I don’t do it all the time and on reflection, it’s because I can be so caught up doing the work that I forget about sharing the work at different stages. So, it’s a habit I need to develop to make it part of the work.

From my experience, some ideas for showing your work are:
- Start with something small; share a part of a project or a tip or a discovery you’ve made.
- Find a method of documenting that works for you; it could be via blog post or a video or a photo or a tweet or a combination of these.
- Don’t worry about what other people think; the aim is to make your tacit knowledge visible.
- There’s no right or wrong way; I’m just making it up as I go but I do get ideas from what others do.
If we make time to document our planning and construction phases and then make this information public, there’d be many more opportunities for others to learn from our experiences. It might just encourage them to share what they know too.

After all, the best type of learning is when we learn from each other.

Like this:
Like Loading…
September 2, 2015
Making Videos Interactive

Often when we talk about our work, we talk in terms of ‘what’ we did. The Showing My Work series of posts aim to also capture the ‘how’ something was done.

E-Learning Heroes Challenge #94 – Interactive Video: Visual Interviews in Online Training. The brief: This week your challenge is to create an interactive video interview.

Every so often David Anderson posts a weekly challenge that I know I want to participate in (even if it’s not in the current week) and this was one of those challenges. I haven’t done a whole lot with shooting my own videos (apart from the Smartphone Video challenge) so I wanted to have a go and complete this one at some point. I noticed that for some reason, there weren’t as many entries for this challenge and I wondered if folks thought that it would take too long or that they didn’t have the right equipment. My demo was put together fairly quickly (using myself as the victim, I mean subject, also saved some time) and my equipment was not high tech. While the result was a simple looking entry it still does the job and here’s how I did it.

On a recent plane trip for work, I mapped out my ideas on paper (as I usually like to do):

I didn’t want to create anything too big or too complex, so my idea was to use four questions and I would be in the centre of the screen with the questions around me. When you click on a question, the video answer would play. I also had an idea to add an ‘introduction’ clip which give some instruction as to what to do – so I’d need five clips altogether.

Over the past few weeks, I seen David and other Community members who had used video make them look more interesting by placing a cover over the video so that it didn’t have the standard rectangular video on a slide look. I really liked the idea and I wanted to try to do something similar. Here’s the slide with the video sitting on it:

and the same slide after the cover is put on:

I used PowerPoint to create my cover and the first thing I did was to set up my PPT slide in the same aspect ratio as my Storyline project (4:3). Then I inserted a rectangle the same size as the slide and then inserted a circle shape (with no fill) and positioned it in the centre of the rectangle. Then by selecting both shapes, I was able to use PowerPoint’s ‘Merge Shapes’ feature and ‘Combine’ to create a rectangle with a circular hole in the middle.

I filled the shape with my chosen blue colour and saved it as a picture that I was able to then insert into my Storyline project. I now had a cover!

In Storyline, the video intro sits on the slide itself (also known as the base layer) and each of the video answers sit on their own layer, so I also put my cover image on each layer too so that the demo would look the same as each layer is shown. I kept my questions simple and in keeping with the circle theme, I added four circles with a question in each. The triggers would be a simple ‘Show Layer’ when a question was clicked.

Now the framework of the demo was set and all I needed to do was record the video introduction along with the answers to each question. I don’t have a proper video camera or equipment, so I used Storyline’s ‘Record Webcam’ from the insert video options and recorded each of my answers using my laptop. As you can see my set up was very basic:

Yes, that’s our spare room which has all our clean washing that we need to put away (everyone has a room like that don’t they?) and my laptop is sitting on the clothes dryer to get the right height but you can’t tell from the clips although the sound quality could be better.

It took a few takes to get my eyes looking straight ahead and for me not to make a mistake with my answers, so it probably took about half an hour all up to record.

As I was putting the demo together, I had an idea that instead of separate video clips, I could include a GIF image of myself that would create the effect of me waiting for the next question. For this it sliced a five second clip of myself from one of my questions and went to a website called http://makeagif.com/ where I uploaded the clip and it created a looping GIF image for me that I could add into my demo.

Unfortunately this idea didn’t turn out as good as I would have liked for a couple of reasons, one was that the quality of the GIF wasn’t the same as the clips so it looked different and secondly I really needed to start and end each clip with the same pose and expression, which I tried to do but it didn’t quite work.

Because of this extra clip, I needed to add an extra layer to my project and the triggers became show the ‘GIF Layer’ after the introduction and then for each layer, it was show the ‘GIF Layer’ when the media completes (i.e. after each video on the layer had finished). So essentially the demo jumps from an answer layer to the GIF layer.

When I placed my videos on the slide and each layer, all I had to do was make sure the cover sat in from to the video file and adjust the position of the video so that my face is roughly in the middle of the circle.

After some testing and adding some animations I was ready to go. All up it took about four hours to put together and while it’s a simple demo, I think it works but you can see for yourself by clicking on the image below to launch the demo:

Let me know what you think and you can see all of my ELH Challenge entries on My Portfolio page.

Like this:
Like Loading…

August 25, 2015
Spinning Around with Storyline 2

A few years ago, before I was working with Articulate Storyline, I saw this cool interaction where you could spin a group of on screen images around in a circle. I later found out that this was referred to as a ‘carousel’.

While I liked the carousel when I first saw it, I haven’t see it around much – the closest I’ve come is where the images scroll from side to side. So I thought I’d try and build a circular carousel in Storyline 2. In my head, the way I saw the interaction working was by using a slider and as you move the slider along the images would rotate in a circle.

I was on the train on my way into work the other day and I started to sketch out my idea on paper. I always like to start this way no matter if it’s for a client project or a simple demo like this was going to be. I find that I can jot down ideas quickly and play with them on paper as I try to arrange and re-arrange my thoughts. So this is how it started:

Then once I have a bit of a clearer idea of where I’m going (it’s never usually finished or fully formed at this point) then I’ll start playing in the tool however I’m still experimenting at this point and I don’t actually know if my idea will work!

To start with I inserted a slider and four coloured rectangles onto a new slide just to get an idea of the layout. To help with the look of the interaction, I made the two rectangles behind the front one slightly smaller and the back one slightly smaller again to give the look of perspective – as the objects move around the carousel they’ll appear to move closer and then further away.

Initially, I thought I’d use a change of state and what would happen is that as you move the slider along, each rectangle would change its state and the new state would be the rectangle in the next position. I started with just two different coloured rectangles (so that I could keep track of which was which). Plus if I started with two and could get it to work, then I could add the other two. It turned out to be a good plan because using states proved to be unsuccessful.

The first two moves worked just fine:

But the next two didn’t:

The problem was that objects on a slide sit at different ‘levels’ depending on where they are in the timeline and in this case the blue rectangle is always going to be above the red one:

So it was back to the drawing board.

This time I thought I’d try it again but using separate layers for each position of the rectangle. That way I could control how the rectangles were arranged as each layer is shown. Thankfully, this way worked much better. Each time the slider moved a position, a different layer would show and because the rectangles are in a new position on each layer it gives the effect that they are moving in a circle:

The next step was to replace the shapes with images and see how it looks. I also decided to add a couple of extra pictures – meaning two extra layers. I wanted to make the front picture stand out so I increased the brightness of the front image and changed the back images to black and white and decreased their brightness. I did this on one image and then used format painter to apply the changes to the other images. I also adjusted the layout and sizing of the images slightly and in the end it turned out like this:

Click the image to view the working demo.

While it isn’t exactly how I envisaged it originally (in my head I wanted the movement from position to position to be much smoother but would be much more complex to create given the objects change size as they move) this method does give a revolving effect and I was happy with the end result. Maybe I could try using motion paths next time…

I reckon the slide could be used for images or videos or even as a different type of menu where you could click on the front image and jump to a topic. You can download the source file from here.

Note: I also want to develop more of a habit of working out loud so I tweeted my progress as I went. It’s the first time I’ve done that as I went along and not just at the end. It’s my habit in progress.

Like this:
Like Loading…

July 19, 2015
Evolution
It has been a while since my last blog post. In fact, it’s been so long that I had to have my password reset so I could login. I’ve had an exciting start to this year and a lot has been going on. But I’ll get to that.

A little over a year ago I had a stable job that was close to home and one that if I kept my head down and did what I was told, I could have been there for life. However, it wasn’t particularly challenging, the leadership was uninspiring and I wasn’t feeling satisfied with what I was doing. The thing that kept me going was the big wide world of people I’d discovered who existed beyond the confines of my organisation, thanks to social media. There were (and still are) big thinkers, idea challengers, problem solvers, self-promoters, experience sharers, community creators, industry leaders and what some have become – virtual friends.

Around this time I also scribbled down a few career goals as I needed to do something if I was going change my circumstances. I’d never been much of a goal setter, definitely not in a write-it-down-and-draw-up-an-action-plan kind of way. But I wrote them down and here they are (keep in mind that they’re eLearning related):
- Get a job with an eLearning company
- Do more ELH Challenges
- Become an Articulate Community Super Hero!
- Create a stronger eLearning community in Australia (this is a work in progress).
In terms of a plan, all I really did was jump in, join in twitter chats, read other people’s blogs, comment from time-to-time, share what I found interesting, connect and follow others, look at what others who’d been around for while did and copy them and start my own blog (which itself has evolved into this site). What did that do for me? Apart from learning lots, it got me noticed. In a good way. I wasn’t particularly special but I was visible and that was an advantage I had of most others in the learning field.

By the end of last year I had achieved three of my four goals (the top three) just by being involved and getting noticed. Doors and opportunities opened up that wouldn’t have been possible if I didn’t change my career trajectory. In my new eLearning role at a great company, I’m able work from home with one day a week in the office. I’m back into eLearning development which has (and continues to) sharpen my skills. I now get to travel to different parts of Australia to teach others how to use Articulate Storyline and I also now look after our Master eLearning Course helping others to learn how to create great eLearning. I’m also encouraged, yes encouraged, to be active on social media and in various communities both physical and online.

Due to these changes I’ve been busy, hence the lack of blogging (I do have a notebook that contains many half-baked ideas). My perspective of others working in the eLearning industry has evolved because while I’m working in one organisation, I’m interacting with people working at the coal-face. I now hear about the challenges people face within their own organisations and have a better understanding for where they need to build their skills. Generally speaking, the focus needs to shift from ‘This is what you should be doing’ to ‘This is how you do this’.

For myself, new skill sets are emerging – public speaking, webinar delivery, resource creation and curation. I guess these will become my new goals. Finding time can be hard but I need to make time and be more disciplined with using my time effectively.

So, as my career has evolved so too has my thinking. I know this will continue. I have many ideas planned I just need to make them happen. I’ll probably need you to be involved too…..

Image source: shutterstock.com

Like this:
Like Loading…
July 5, 2015
Showing My Work #11

Often when we talk about our work, we talk in terms of ‘what’ we did. The Showing My Work series of posts aim to also capture the ‘how’ something was done.

E-Learning Heroes Challenge #18 – Using Characters in E-Learning. The brief: This week your challenge is to show us how to use characters in e-learning. You can create static slides that show character-based ideas, or build something more dynamic to show the interaction between characters.

This challenge is all about using characters and my inspiration came from a similar interaction I’d seen a few years ago, although it was laid out differently and used video.

It’s essentially a question and answer style interaction where users can ‘ask’ a question and see the response from each person within a group. The whole interaction is built on one slide.

I started by inserting a square for my characters then duplicated it three times, so I had four squares. Then I used the ‘Align’ function to evenly space the squares across the slide. I use align a lot because it takes care of evenly arranging objects. You can align object to the slide or select several objects together and it will space them evenly between the first and last object:

I used the illustrated characters for this demo but you could the use photographic ones or add your own images. I put one in each square then used the ‘Group’ feature so that it became one image (and not a square and a character).

Then I added a title (Ask the Team), some instructions, three question boxes and a large rectangle where the responses would be displayed. As there’s a few objects on the slide, naming them in the timeline is helpful to avoid confusion and it’s a good habit to get into.

This interaction uses 12 layers (3 questions x 4 people) to show responses to the questions. I set the layout on the first layer, then duplicated it using the ‘Duplicate Selected Layer’ button in the Slide Layers panel:

Then I was able to change the character every fourth layer. Again, naming the layers is important so to not get the layers confused. I went with P1, A1 (Person 1, Answer 1); P1, A2; P1, A3; P2, A1 and so on.

Now that everything was laid out, I needed to make it work. Firstly, I used a cool Storyline 2 feature called ‘Button Sets’ which make objects work like a button and only allow one object at a time to be selected. To create a button set, select the objects, right-click your mouse and then click on Button Sets. I created two button sets – one called Questions and another called People.

Secondly, I needed some triggers to make the whole interaction work. I created a trigger to show a layer when the state of a question and a person is selected:

For the layer P1, A1 to display, both Question 1 and Person 1 need to be selected. I then copied and pasted this trigger 11 more times and adjusted it for the three questions for each person.

While this demo is a template and uses text-based responses, you could use audio or video responses.

Click on the image below to view the demo:

If you’d like to use the source file to customise and use in your projects, you can download it here.

Let me know what you think and you can see all of my ELH Challenge entries on My Portfolio page.

Like this:
Like Loading…

April 18, 2015