Rage Against the Machines

It’s a well known and uncontested fact that Machines will, at some point in the future of our planet, subvert human civilization to enslave Man and establish a global dystopia of epic proportions.

Having been planning this coup for decades, perhaps even a century, the Machines have already begun their insidious campaign of demoralization—harassing us constantly, to soften us for conquest.

It seems that the Machines have launched their insurrection by corrupting one of Man’s most loyal servants—the computer. What better vehicle for betrayal? Not only are computers present in virtually (no pun intended) every household and business, but we’ve ceded CONTROL of our most vulnerable and sensitive defense and civic systems.

OK, you want evidence. As professionals in the field of instructional design, many of us use Microsoft PowerPoint and the Articulate suite. Programs such as these are primary weapons of the Machines, which they use to wreak havoc on our emotions. For example, many of us are regularly reduced to jabbering bundles of incoherent frustration because of a message like this:

“PowerPoint experienced a serious problem with the ‘articulate presenter ribbon’ add-in. If you have seen this message multiple times, you should disable this add-in and check to see if an update is available. Do you want to disable this add-in?”

Or, what about when you publish and launch a course, and the player just FREEZES at a particular point on a particular slide? There’s no valid reason for it. Everything checks-out.

You guessed it—the Machines.

Once I spent two days synchronizing audio files to individual slides. When I got up on the third morning, much to my chagrin, there were NO audio files in the PowerPoint presentation at all! Back to square one—and that makes for a really pleasant phone call to the boss.

The Machines got me again.

The absolute worse assault I’ve had to withstand was opening a PowerPoint file I’d been animating (and saving) for days…only to find it an empty template.

I’m still chewing on that one.

How can I prevent what I don’t understand? Vanishing hyperlinks; Articulate interactions which “cannot be found”; images that remain visible on the slide regardless of being programmed to “fade out”…each one its own special variety of aggravation.

In the end, I guess the only thing we can do is attempt to implement the solutions offered by the brilliant denizens of the message boards—who are usually more adept than Technical Support staff. ("Uh…did you try rebooting?")

Let’s face it, if you develop with the PowerPoint/Articulate combo, and you had a nickel for every time you’ve experienced one of these issues…you’d be sipping mimosas and nibbling caviar on the Riviera. But, if you’re like me, you don’t have all of those nickels…so fight on, Resistance Designers! FIGHT ON!

Thirds Don't Always Come After Seconds: The Rule of Thirds

Just recently, I was introduced to the Rule of Thirds, specifically for the creation of an eLearning course using PowerPoint slides. Basically, it is the theory that involves dividing your slide, vertically and horizontally, into thirds, like what is shown in the graphic to the right. Then, once you have completed this task, the rule recommends the placement of key graphical elements at intersections of these imaginary thirds lines, along the thirds horizontal lines, along the thirds vertical lines, and at specific power points.

After looking at the examples provided at the following website, I could definitely see the advantages in using this method for slide development: http://sixminutes.dlugan.com/rule-of-thirds-powerpoint/. But, this also raises a specific question: What if my slide template includes a title section that appears along the top of every slide? Does this mean that I still use the same Rule of Thirds theory, or is it something that should be modified based on my slide template specifications? My thinking is that the Rule of Thirds would be applied to the slide real estate I’m actually using to run my animations, not to the entire slide itself, which means my Thirds divisions would differ from the basic rule of thumb.

Designing for the Internet Literate and Illiterate

Nowadays we may find ourselves throwing terms like "web 2.0" around like our parents used to use "telephone". The older generations are slowly catching up, but just because they are on Facebook, doesn't mean they know how to use it.

As Instructional Design and eLearning evolve, they are becoming more and more reminiscent of the users general experience on a normal website like Facebook, Twitter, Flickr, and other popular networking-type sites. The trend is more visual, with less instructions. The menus, frames, "click here" text, and buttons of yesteryear are replaced by images, graphics, and interactive visual elements.

The purpose is to create something that has design and functionality, based on how the user would intuitively seek information. Many websites now just have a graphic, and by moving your mouse to different parts, options and links are revealed.

The problem is that what is "intuitive" for some, is not for others. More specifically, the internet illiterate. Almost everyone is computer literate these days, it is required for nearly any job indoors. Internet literacy, however, is a completely different animal.

We are constantly striving to increase learning and retention. Visuals help us reinforce learning, but they can also distract. In many cases, we try to keep it simple, which is why design (website, and elearning) has moved away from too much on-screen text. However, if we do away with it completely, we are leaving a chunk of our audience high and dry. The simplicity can actually cause a distraction, as it leaves the learner desperately seeking what we assumed they would find intuitively, taking their attention away from the content.

Because the eLearning audience is likely to consist of numerous demographic groups, it is important to find the balance between intuition and instruction. Too many words on the screen can distract, too few can confuse. Find graphics that represent what you're explaining, and then pair it with simple text that is consistent throughout the course, such as "click for more information" or even just "click". Inconsistent text throughout the course will have your audience taking double takes to be sure they read it correctly.

You can view internet illiterate people and internet literate people like two versions of the same hardware. The illiterate users are the original version, and the literate users are a new, updated version. As you continue to create software, you always have to be sure it's not just compatible with the new hardware, but that it's backwards compatible with the old hardware too.

Articulate Snagaroo?!: Codejock.CommandBars.v11.2.1.ocx

So, I recently went to publish an course in MS PowerPoint via Articulate Presenter. To my dismay I received an error message! Error message "Codejock.CommandBars.v11.2.1.ocx", what's that?!? In my frustration I Googled the error. Apparently it's a known Articulate problem.

To rectify the problem I tried doing the following:

If you receive an error message while using Presenter ’09 that Codejock.CommandBars.v11.2.1.ocx is missing one of its dependencies or is not correctly registered here’s what you should do:

See if the file exists here C:\Windows\System32\Codejock.CommandBars.v11.2.1.ocx.

If the file exists:

1. Download register_codejock.zip.
2. Unzip the file.
3. In Windows Vista, right click the file register_codejock.bat and select Run as Administrator. In Windows XP, double click the file register_codejock.bat.
4. You should receive a message stating that the file registered successfully.
5. Launch PowerPoint and try to duplicate your issue.

That didn't work, so I did the following:

1. Uninstall Presenter ’09 via Start -> Control Panel -> Programs (Vista) or Add or Remove Programs (XP or earlier).
2. Download and reinstall the latest version here.
3. Restart your computer.
4. Launch Presenter ’09 and see if you can duplicate your issue.
5. If you can check to see if the file exists and then repeat the steps above for If file exists.

Success! After my reboot, Articulate and MS PowerPoint behaved once more.

*Reference: http://www.articulate.com/support/presenter09/kb/?p=432

Once Upon a Time, There was an eLearning Course

When developing an online course, there are so many factors that are involved—most of which seem to be focused primarily around the content itself. Yes, I agree that a course’s content is vital to the delivery of quality eLearning, but I also think that how the content is presented visually is just as important. Simply placing an icon in a specific location on the screen, giving that icon a particular “action,” and so forth can really bring a course’s content to life—actually tell a story.

To better prove my point, I have put together a few basic videos for you to see what a difference the placement of icons and simple animations can make in strengthening the overall concept that you may be trying to get across to the learner. In this first video, I am attempting to visually show the sentence “The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog to steal the dog’s bone.”



As you can see, the icons are placed in a single row. The icons definitely match up with the general order of the sentence, but do you feel that the way these icons are being presented really provides the full concept? No, I agree, I think it needs a little more added to it, to really get the sentence’s concept across. Now let’s take a look at the next video, which is also attempting to visually show the same sentence.



Now, the icons appear one at a time, in a single row. The simple animation of fading each icon onto the screen, one at a time, helps to build a “story” around the sentence, but do you think it still needs more? I think so, too. How about this third video?



Do you see a difference? This third video shows how, through the appropriate placement of icons and some simple animations, you can really tell a story with your content.

Creating a Mathematically Intensive Course Without Sacrificing Aesthetics

I have been working on a course lately with a lot of terms and mathematical equations that need to be viewed on the screen. I have found a few treatments that prevent the bland math-y look and create images and graphics that match the visual style used in the rest of the course.

A very useful treatment that I have been using on my current course is "word art". Word art is somewhat lame, but when it comes to showing mathematical equations, or X's and Y's, it's a relief. Most programs have some type of word art, even if it is named something different.

I created the equation, then added the word art treatment, and saved it as a picture (if you don't save it as a picture, it may turn out jumbled). I used the most basic treatment, which has a fill and an outline. By changing the color of parts of the equation, and layering them on top of each other, I'm able to create a highlight effect without using shapes, annotations, or animation. Additionally, when you need just a section of an equation, you can add the image, and crop the sections you don't need.
Using this treatment has added dimension to what would otherwise be a very dry text-on-screen equation. And though it is a simple solution, its benefits are a more eye catching experience with a look that matches with the theme of the other treatments used throughout the course.

In addition to equations, creating real mathematical graphs can be a challenge using excel, but it is possible. You can manipulate the axises to look more like algebra, and less like finance.

You can adjust the axis settings to have the horizontal axis meet the vertical axis at the zero, and then by creating negative values, it will extend your graph to look like linear algebra. You then need to adjust your vertical axis to meet your horizontal axis at whatever value is at the center. You will want to use an odd number of "categories" to achieve this result.

By deleting the default "series" labels and replacing them with numbers, and having the label appear on the tick mark instead of between, you create the linear graph effect easily.

You can use this treatment throughout any mathematical course to illustrate your graphs, and continue to keep within theme and approved colors by creating a border and adjusting the color gradient.

You can also keep with the normal quarter graph look to illustrate other ideas, such as the bottom two graphs I created to illustrate "outliers" and "variance". I removed all axis labels, as they did not reinforce the concept.

Using these graphs allows you to control the background and other effects without having to use shapes, which are unstable, can easily appear messy and uneven, and can be time consuming to create.

Little Things Mean a Lot...of Aggravation

It’s usually it is the little things that will drive one to brink of madness. By their very nature, though, little things are…little. That makes them a bit less threatening than a giant SNAFU…but infinitely harder to find. For example, I recently had a little problem with an Articulate interaction I created to add some zazz to the course I was animating.

The interaction seemed to come together pretty well. The settings, color scheme, fonts, tabs, controls, and whatnot were all aligned with my organization’s specifications. A little slice of heaven.

Much to my chagrin, when I previewed the interaction, I discovered that the audio file would begin to play when it should…and then start over for a second time at about 5 seconds in. Basically, it sounded like a slightly delayed echo from the bottom of a garbage can.

Naturally, I was a little irritated because I’d have to redo the audio. So, I opened the interaction file once more and re-installed the audio file. I saved and republished the interaction—same problem.

Hmmmm…OK, now it was ratcheting up my frustration level. I mean, I’ve created HOW many of these in the past? What was the problem? One more time…

After repeating the process again, and finding the same echoing double-audio, I tried the program’s “Help” option. The information in “Help” rarely holds any answers for me, and this time was no different. So, I started looking for answers online. I tried a few message boards, including the Articulate site’s posting areas. I found nothing.

I’m guessing that, at this point, you as the reader are getting as frustrated with me as I was with Articulate…so I’ll cut the chase!

I finally found an obscure post on a site that had little to do with Articulate or e-learning. I had wasted time, effort, and my last iota of self control—but I had finally found an answer I hadn’t read before. It said that the problem of double-audio in an interaction could be the result of having punctuation symbols in the file's save-name. What? This solution seemed SO disconnected from the actual problem, and everything else I’d read or experienced, that I assumed it was a sham.

Since it was such a simple little fix I thought I’d give it a try. I found the Articulate interaction file in the course material, and I removed the em-dash from the save-name…and I’ll be darned if it didn’t work like a charm! That was it! All that messing around, swearing, stomping to-and-fro like a toddler in a poo poo diaper…just one TINY edit to the file name and my problem was solved.

I know…bizarre.

At any rate, the point of this wandering little reverie is that sometimes, when things aren’t working out, it’s just a little tweak that makes a big difference. Next time I have a little issue with a job, I plan to take a little break, do a little research, and maybe save the last little sliver of my mind…