Learn. Show. Repeat.

Tag: YouTube

  • A Little Help from Your Friends

    I’m an advocate for continual skill development especially for people working in eLearning. Thankfully there’s lots of folks in this field who generously share their knowledge and expertise through blog posts or YouTube videos or articles or podcasts or books and make it available to everyone. While I do read widely and watch online tutorials, it’s through deliberate practice that we become better at whatever it is that we do. But lately I haven’t been making the time for practice and trying out these ideas and techniques myself.

    A few weeks ago, I decided to create some new Storyline demos (which you can see in the Samples tab or click on the images below). They are inspired by folks from the eLearning community through them sharing some of what they know. While there are many people who benefit from the expertise shared by others, I’ve noticed that the number who acknowledge this or thank them is much, much lower and at times I’m also guilty of this. So, I want to change that and show my appreciation to the people who have helped me create my new demos.I’m an advocate for continual skill development especially for people working in the eLearning field.

    [vc_row][vc_column width=”1/3″][vc_single_image image=”4826″ img_size=”medium” alignment=”center” onclick=”custom_link” img_link_target=”_blank” link=”https://www.mattguyan.com/portfolio/onboarding/story.html” css=”.vc_custom_1511848183290{padding-right: 5px !important;padding-left: 5px !important;}”][/vc_column][vc_column width=”2/3″][vc_column_text css=”.vc_custom_1511862868993{padding-right: 5px !important;padding-left: 5px !important;}”]A little while ago, Ryan Martin, of Broken Co-Worker fame, shared a blog post about how he sets up his modules in Articulate Storyline and how he created an introduction piece to a module he referred to as ‘Onboarding’. It was simple yet effective and I combined this with some tips I picked up in an Articulate Live webinar about animations, delivered by Tom Kuhlmann to create my own intro piece.[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column width=”1/3″][vc_single_image image=”4827″ img_size=”medium” alignment=”center” onclick=”custom_link” img_link_target=”_blank” css=”.vc_custom_1511848588034{padding-right: 5px !important;padding-left: 5px !important;}” link=”https://www.mattguyan.com/portfolio/pristyle/story.html”][/vc_column][vc_column width=”2/3″][vc_column_text css=”.vc_custom_1511849937665{padding-right: 5px !important;padding-left: 5px !important;}”]In the same post Ryan, referred to creating a quiz based on the app Google Primer. I already had this app and I recreated a similar style in this sample about Beer and Food Matching.[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column width=”1/3″][vc_single_image image=”4828″ img_size=”medium” alignment=”center” onclick=”custom_link” img_link_target=”_blank” link=”https://www.mattguyan.com/portfolio/quiz/story.html” css=”.vc_custom_1511849466927{padding-right: 5px !important;padding-left: 5px !important;}”][/vc_column][vc_column width=”2/3″][vc_column_text css=”.vc_custom_1511850056600{padding-right: 5px !important;padding-left: 5px !important;}”]I find that many eLearning quizzes look the same, so I wanted to create something different. For this, I used the Free-Form question slide in Storyline. I also wanted to create a custom result slide that had elements of data visualisation. I had seen a YouTube clip from Alexander Salas that showed the percentage score count up to the result. The content for this demo came from an old blog post by Cathy Moore that’s all about multiple choice questions.[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column width=”1/3″][vc_single_image image=”4847″ img_size=”medium” alignment=”center” onclick=”custom_link” img_link_target=”_blank” link=”https://www.mattguyan.com/portfolio/typography/story.html” css=”.vc_custom_1511849478174{padding-right: 5px !important;padding-left: 5px !important;}”][/vc_column][vc_column width=”2/3″][vc_column_text css=”.vc_custom_1511850641862{padding-right: 5px !important;padding-left: 5px !important;}”]If you haven’t seen any of the YouTube clips from David Charney, you should check them out. He shared one that showed how to create an expanding panel in Storyline that I thought was cool the first time I saw it. I finally gave it a try in this sample, the difference being that placed interactions on the expanded panels.[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]While it’s good to read (and watch) widely, you learn so much more by jumping in and trying things for yourself. There are lots of people who ‘Show their Work’ and if you come across a helpful blog post or video – like it, share it, leave a comment or even better drop the author a note to let them know it was helpful.

    A big thank-you to Ryan, Tom, Alexander, Cathy and David for sharing what you know with the world![/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row]

    friends

    Photo by rawpixel.com on Unsplash

  • Valuing all Sources of Learning

    Each year I meet quite a few people who work in the eLearning field, usually they’re developers or eLearning creation is part of their L&D role. Most are newbies to eLearning and we come together in a classroom setting to get them started on their eLearning development journey. At the beginning of each session I like to find out a little about each person – such as their background, their experience – and while most people are brand new to eLearning authoring usually there’s at least one or two who have been experimenting with the tool or they’ve watched some ‘how-to’ videos on YouTube or they’ve read some articles on websites/blogs or they’ve asked questions in (or visited) the eLearning communities.

    However, there’s one thing that these people do have in common, and that is they all finish their introduction with:

    “but I haven’t had any training”

    These people still learn from the sessions but they can do a lot more than they give themselves credit for. The classroom setting for learning (at least in this case) is still valuable especially for novices and even those who have basic experience learn a few things they didn’t know prior. Plus, they can ask questions specific to their context, get answers straight away as well as being able to interact with and learn from other people in the room. But, there’s two things I find troubling about the above statement.

    Firstly, they seem to put a much higher value on formal training events for learning as opposed to learning something via other more informal means. It’s like they don’t quite trust the information that comes from a blog post, a website or a YouTube video. They seem to need the security of an “expert” in a room to tell them. I’ll let you in on a secret, I’ve had no formal training in creating a WordPress site or in blog writing and yet here I am…

    The second, and more concerning aspect of this situation, is that these same people who “haven’t had any training” are working in the learning area within their organisations. This leads me to believe that a reason why the default response for many L&D folks to always create a course is because they themselves only see courses as a way to truly learn something. There’s also another (perhaps bigger) issue – if they only see formal, instructor-led learning as a necessary requirement for their own learning, then they’re probably less likely to embrace blogs, videos, just-in-time resources, curation, communities and working out loud/ showing your work to either supplement, support or perhaps replace some formal learning ‘events’ within their organisations.

    The course mentality that is so prevalent in L&D won’t change until the very people charged with improving workplace performance get past the ‘formal learning is the only way to learn’ mindset and start to see the value in and embrace other options. Perhaps if they put a higher value on other sources of learning for themselves they’d be more likely to introduce other methods into their workplaces and create conditions from which it can flourish.

    While I do believe that formal, instructor-led courses have their place to improve performance there are many other options available to L&D practitioners. We’ve been conditioned throughout our lives that real learning only comes from structured learning events so we tend to stick with what we’re comfortable with. The problem is that one-off events take people away from their work but people need to learn and have tools and resources available to them in the flow of their work – at the point of need.

    So, if we are to move forward, things need to change starting with our own how to learn something mindset…

    Informal learning

    Image source: Shutterstock

  • Learning About Screencasting

    A few months ago David Anderson started a new type of E-Learning Hero Challenge – creating screencasts (which are short ‘how-to’ video clips). I mentioned in an earlier blog post that one of the areas I wanted to build knowledge and skills in was screencasting so these new challenges would be a great opportunity to get started.

    Another reason why these challenges appealed to me is that most of my role at B Online Learning is about teaching others – how to use Storyline 2 and the process of creating an eLearning module – so the challenges also seemed like a good fit in that regard just a different way of teaching and sharing what I know and a way to help develop my communication skills.

    Creating these short how-to videos is something new for me so these early ones were a bit rough but I figure they’ll get better over time. Anyway, here’s a few of things I’ve learned so far when creating my screencasts:

    Planning

    I’ve found that the recording works better if you plan what you’re going to record and have a run through to make sure that things work the way you want them to and you know where you want to click. I don’t have a word for word script but I like to think through what I’m going to say as I do the practice. I tried off-the-cuff but it didn’t work for me.

    Sound quality

    I record my screencasts in my office at home and I shut the door and window to reduce any background noise. Initially I found the audio still wasn’t that great but I was using an old headset with a mic. I do have a USB microphone (Audio Technica) but when I tried it, it seemed to pick up ambient noise. So, I went to JB Hi-Fi and I found a Skype Headset (it has a USB connection and a noise cancelling microphone) and I’m much happier with the quality.

    Recording Window Size

    I use Articulate Replay to record my screencasts as it came with my SL2 licence and meant that I didn’t have to buy another program. It’s easy to use and I’m happy with the output. When you open up Replay you can set the size of the recording window to whatever size you need and initially I was recording at about 1000 x 700 but I found that when I looked at the recording on a larger monitor that it became a bit blurry and I think it was because the recording was being enlarged to fit on a bigger screen? Anyway, I asked my friend Veronica (another regular screencaster) what size she used and she said was using around 1430 x 860. Hers looked cleaner so I increased the recording size and it seems to have helped in the latest recording – ‘Using Master Slides’. So I’ll keep experimenting.

    Click on the image below to see my most recent screencast and you can see all the recording that I’ve created in the Videos section of this site. Let me know what you think.

    Screencasting

    If you’re wondering about the circle animation that you see in my recordings, it’s a setting on your computer. Go to the Control Panel > Mouse > Pointer Options tab > select Show location of pointer when I press the CTRL key > Ok. That’s it!

    To see all of the screencast challenge topics, click here.

    If you’ve done any screen recording before please share any tips you have in the comments below.