Instructional designers (IDs) are, by necessity, a creative breed. As a result, like many other folks of an artistic nature--we often have our idiosyncrasies. My personal curse is an obsession with consistency.
My background is in school district public relations, and the district I worked for was a leader in the field. One major factor of our success was very strict adherence to the department's style guide. Documents were checked and double-checked before publication and distribution, to ensure that they conformed to the guide; a veritable tome containing the carious rules and regulations that governed the creation of district communications.
Evidently, old habits really do die hard.
I've found it difficult, but critical, to accept that in the field of instructional design, it is often necessary to modify my stringency regarding consistency. Oh, don't get me wrong--the organization I work for has a style guide, and we do follow it. We use standardized templates for our courses; there are required formats for the various components that go into a course, and we use established color schemes and so on.
For me the challenge comes not so much from those mechanical issues, but from the fact that I'm creating material for a global audience, and no longer for a local one. The subject matter experts who write our courses come from all corners of the Earth--from Holland to England to the Middle East. As such, it is the practice of our organization to preserve the geographical flavor of each writer's background. This means that, one week, I'm spelling "organization" with an "s", and the next week with a "z". It means that one day "financials" is visually represented with a dollar sign, and the next day with the euro. In some cases we even mix these in a single course. Occasionally, regarding topics such as sustainability, I find myself touting the merits of a socialistic United Nations program; where the day before I was waving Old Glory for American industrial achievements and trusty capitalism.
Variety, though, is the spice of life. So, instead of choking myself on the cayenne pepper of inconsistency in my courses; I relish the saffron goodness that is the freedom I have to creatively help people learn to succeed in their chosen professions.
One idiosyncrasy down...10,000 to go...
Friday, May 21, 2010
Using Social Media to Enhance ELearning
Whoah?... We can use social media to enhance elearning?!
Yep. We can, and here's why:
- Social Media can create a more collaborative experience for students
- Social Media can help make content more engaging
- Social Media can allow your company to reap massive benefits
Most of us know how to facebook, myspace, tweet, and so on, but how do we use these social media outlets to make our online courses better? Let’s take a look at how we can use social media to be the best we can be.
Social Media can create a more collaborative experience for students
Social media can create a more collaborative experience for students because most students have varied expectations about elearning. Social media helps you engage students and develop better presentations.
Media use is on the rise and Multi-tasking has increased. Employees seem to push their work roles outside of the workplace by means of quick communications. Today's students want to take control of their learning and access information through convenient forms of media, such as their mobile. Social Media can help here by providing quick exchanges of information through various media formats.
Students also prefer different types of media interactions. So the more media interaction types you offer, the more ways you have of interacting with students before, during, and after they have taken a course.
You can use social media to allocate information, feedback, and networking in order to get the info and stats that you need, and when you need them. Social media outlets also offer tools such as polls and quizzes that can help you improve course content and delivery.
Social Media can make content more engaging
More robust and engaging content, that incorporates stories or examples, will increase student satisfaction, result in more constructive course feedback, and will potentially result in more recommendations for you company.
By creating an account, like twitter or facebook, and building it up, you can become a marketing powerhouse. These social media tools allow for real time information sharing and short updates that link students and companies to your company and its courseware.
In using sites like YouTube or Blogger, you can share information that can make your company more visible. For example, you can develop a series of videos or blogs that show teasers of courseware or what your company has to offer. Post them out there on the World Wide Web. Make sure to link them back to your site so that you can collect feedback and potential new students. If people like what they see in these posts, they may even share them with colleagues and friends through integrated social media channels.
Put an occasional tweet out there on your corporate account or share a snippet of new courseware with your facebook or myspace fans. Continued and open conversations keeps the info flowing and instigates responses from followers and students.
Social Media can allow your company to reap massive benefits
Social Media allows potential students to discover what past students have said about particular courses, to preview new courses, chat with present students, and network with current or potential students.
By utilizing social media sites that potential students frequent, you'll increase your audience, which in turn will increase the number of potential students or clients you can obtain.
Social Media offers opportunities for your company to promote its courseware. Use social media marketing by gaining followers, like on twitter. Then market to those followers with a specialized recruitment initiative.
Use social media for your own surveys, and to find new surveys by others. Social sites are a great place to ask questions in order to get new and better data related to your market. Additionally, followers of your social media accounts can have the ability to promote your surveys and share industry info with you. This constructive feedback helps foster the building of better content.
Social Media helps you stay attuned to trends, competitors, and market developments. So now, get out there and become a social media superstar!
Reference: 2010 Quantum Leap Marketing, Inc. GoToTraining_QLM_Social Media_in_Learning.pdf
Thursday, May 20, 2010
Selection and Visibility in PowerPoint
One of the more frustrating aspects of working with a large number of objects on a single PowerPoint slide is simply selecting and identifying them. If you have numerous objects and images stacked upon each other, chances are you have probably found yourself at some point clicking away and endlessly moving objects front/back in order to select the correct item. That’s where the PowerPoint selection and visibility pane comes into play.
To open the Selection and Visibility pane click on the Home tab, under the Editing group, click Select, and Selection Pane.
You’ll notice the PowerPoint layout now includes a pane containing an organized list of all the objects. You can click directly on the object name in the list and it will become selected on the slide. This is great for picking out an object buried beneath the pile and moving it around without the need bring anything forward, or move objects backward. You can also click the eye icon to the right of any item to disappear it from the slide altogether. This feature is also great for giving custom labels to items and groups for easier selection and identification.
To open the Selection and Visibility pane click on the Home tab, under the Editing group, click Select, and Selection Pane.
You’ll notice the PowerPoint layout now includes a pane containing an organized list of all the objects. You can click directly on the object name in the list and it will become selected on the slide. This is great for picking out an object buried beneath the pile and moving it around without the need bring anything forward, or move objects backward. You can also click the eye icon to the right of any item to disappear it from the slide altogether. This feature is also great for giving custom labels to items and groups for easier selection and identification.
Friday, May 7, 2010
Does Audio-Animation Syncing Got You Down?
Do you have crazy-sick hand-eye coordination that can be attributed to playing Mario Bros. for years? Can you click fast enough to properly sync every one of your animations correctly the first time around? If you have synced all your animations appropriately, except for 1 in the middle, are you okay with leaving it as is (hoping no one will notice it)?
If you have answered No to any of the preceding questions, maybe this syncing tip will help you! Sync your animations the best you can the first time around (or maybe even the second time around). Then go into Articulate Presenter’s Audio Editor, navigate to the slide that you are syncing, and click-drag the animation lines (the vertical lines that are topped with small circles) to the exact location where you want the animation to start while listening to the audio playback.
This manual dragging of the animation lines will inevitably make your syncing much more precise, and it will undoubtedly be a huge time saver. Happy Syncing to You All!
Thursday, April 29, 2010
Designing E-Learning Courses Using Web Design Elements
Being new to Instructional Design, I have noticed a number of parallels between designing e-learning courses, and designing a functioning and user friendly website.
There are elements of a web page that are important to keep the attention of your audience, help them find what they are looking for, draw their eye to certain areas, and assist them in navigating the site. When a reader first lands on your website, you want the color scheme to be easy on the eye. Instead of using flashing graphics, bright colors contrasting on dark colors, and other techniques that make images or text "stand out", use a color scheme that blends together well. This will not "shock" the reader, overwhelm them, or confuse them, allowing them to look around the page freely.
The same holds true for an e-learning course. It is extremely valuable to use a color scheme that causes the elements of each slide to compliment each other, and provide consistency across the course. Just like on a website, once a color scheme is decided upon, those colors can be used for the different elements including accent boxes, links, imagery, borders, and shapes. Additionally, the course navigation/container should also adhere to this color scheme, not only to match, but to reinforce.
Aside from colors on a website, layout and composition are extremely important. The placement of the navigation, images, text, etc will determine how you reader absorbs the information, and how they will navigate the site. The text should be a size that fits well on the page, but is not too large or small. It should be easy to read, but not too large that it distorts the overall view. Any use of images on the site should also be done in good taste. Use images that are easy to distinguish, do not have colors that clash with the rest of the page, or are too large to fit in an appropriate location.
In e-learning, we need to utilize the limited space we have by creating imagery and text that enhances and accentuates the content. By finding the right balance between images, text and white space, you can draw the eye towards certain elements that in turn allow the ear to pick out and retain information. Having too many images on the screen can confuse and muddle, while having too little can cause the audience to get lost in the audio.
The most important element to design is consistency. On a website, consistency between pages is critical. If the layout is completely different on each page of a site, it will take the reader extra time to navigate back or forward from where they are. That time could cause them to lose their interest. Personally, a website that is poorly laid out and disorganized will quickly have me looking elsewhere for the information. A well designed website will have a consistent color scheme between pages, a navigation bar that remains in the same location on each page (can be a row of links, or images), and a somewhat consistent content layout.
The same is true for an e-learning course. Consistency between slides is critical, even small details such as the location of a text box. If it is a pixel off from the slide prior, it will appear to have "jumped", inadvertently grabbing the attention of the audience. The location of titles, the size and color of the text, and the way objects transition onto the screen are all elements that create consistency for your course, or when used poorly, create distractions.
One of the greatest benefits of having the internet so widely used and accepted in today's world, is the universal acceptance of certain standards. Anyone that uses a computer is familiar with a link, how to click on it, and what will likely happen when they do. This one small detail has allowed for innovative uses of links for many non-web based documents. People now know how to identify links, even if they are not the standard blue color (allowing us to integrate our color scheme). This can be used in any e-learning course that requires supporting documentation be included as an attachment. The Instructional Designer can use this format, and know that the audience will be familiar with it, and know what to do. We are now much more efficient and effective than we were in the days of "refer to appendix A".
Being new to Instructional Design, I have taken what I have learned in web design and applied it directly to designing e-learning courses. The audience is also able to take what they have learned from the internet, and use those same skills to navigate through the course. In a way, a language barrier has been jumped, as we are able to view one or the other with the same elements and in the same way. These elements that create a well-designed and functioning website can thus be used to create an e-learning course that increases comprehension and improves retention.
There are elements of a web page that are important to keep the attention of your audience, help them find what they are looking for, draw their eye to certain areas, and assist them in navigating the site. When a reader first lands on your website, you want the color scheme to be easy on the eye. Instead of using flashing graphics, bright colors contrasting on dark colors, and other techniques that make images or text "stand out", use a color scheme that blends together well. This will not "shock" the reader, overwhelm them, or confuse them, allowing them to look around the page freely.
The same holds true for an e-learning course. It is extremely valuable to use a color scheme that causes the elements of each slide to compliment each other, and provide consistency across the course. Just like on a website, once a color scheme is decided upon, those colors can be used for the different elements including accent boxes, links, imagery, borders, and shapes. Additionally, the course navigation/container should also adhere to this color scheme, not only to match, but to reinforce.
Aside from colors on a website, layout and composition are extremely important. The placement of the navigation, images, text, etc will determine how you reader absorbs the information, and how they will navigate the site. The text should be a size that fits well on the page, but is not too large or small. It should be easy to read, but not too large that it distorts the overall view. Any use of images on the site should also be done in good taste. Use images that are easy to distinguish, do not have colors that clash with the rest of the page, or are too large to fit in an appropriate location.
In e-learning, we need to utilize the limited space we have by creating imagery and text that enhances and accentuates the content. By finding the right balance between images, text and white space, you can draw the eye towards certain elements that in turn allow the ear to pick out and retain information. Having too many images on the screen can confuse and muddle, while having too little can cause the audience to get lost in the audio.
The most important element to design is consistency. On a website, consistency between pages is critical. If the layout is completely different on each page of a site, it will take the reader extra time to navigate back or forward from where they are. That time could cause them to lose their interest. Personally, a website that is poorly laid out and disorganized will quickly have me looking elsewhere for the information. A well designed website will have a consistent color scheme between pages, a navigation bar that remains in the same location on each page (can be a row of links, or images), and a somewhat consistent content layout.
The same is true for an e-learning course. Consistency between slides is critical, even small details such as the location of a text box. If it is a pixel off from the slide prior, it will appear to have "jumped", inadvertently grabbing the attention of the audience. The location of titles, the size and color of the text, and the way objects transition onto the screen are all elements that create consistency for your course, or when used poorly, create distractions.
One of the greatest benefits of having the internet so widely used and accepted in today's world, is the universal acceptance of certain standards. Anyone that uses a computer is familiar with a link, how to click on it, and what will likely happen when they do. This one small detail has allowed for innovative uses of links for many non-web based documents. People now know how to identify links, even if they are not the standard blue color (allowing us to integrate our color scheme). This can be used in any e-learning course that requires supporting documentation be included as an attachment. The Instructional Designer can use this format, and know that the audience will be familiar with it, and know what to do. We are now much more efficient and effective than we were in the days of "refer to appendix A".
Being new to Instructional Design, I have taken what I have learned in web design and applied it directly to designing e-learning courses. The audience is also able to take what they have learned from the internet, and use those same skills to navigate through the course. In a way, a language barrier has been jumped, as we are able to view one or the other with the same elements and in the same way. These elements that create a well-designed and functioning website can thus be used to create an e-learning course that increases comprehension and improves retention.
Tuesday, April 13, 2010
The ID and SME Team Makes for Smooth e-learning Design
Have you ever began storyboarding an e-learning course, looked at a particular topic and thought, "how on Earth an I going to accomplish this?"
Either there's so much jargon that it might as well be a foreign language, or the subject matter expert (SME) is assuming you can create a three-dimensional hologram to illustrate the script. To make matters worse--getting rewrites authorized and accomplished at this stage of development can be a real hassle.
In order to avoid these pitfalls, it's critical that the instructional designer (ID) be familiar with the subject matter. It's not as if you can master every subject area; so the sensible thing to do is involve yourself in the planning process at the earliest point possible, and participate in conversations between your project manager (PM) and the SME. There are advantages to taking this approach to course development.
First, it's much easier to keep informed regarding the project schedule; and any snags or delays that might be heading your way. More importantly, you'll be able to help minimize delays by providing insight from the ID point of view.
Second, you'll become more familiar with the subject matter as you interact more with the SME during the planning process. For example, you'll have a better understanding of the field's acronyms and jargon. You'll also have a better idea, in a conceptual sense, of the material you have to animate.
Finally, helping the PM and SME plan the course from the very start gives you an opportunity to help shape the script itself. The advantage here is you'll avoid any unpleasant surprises because you've collaborated with the SME to design elements that have the potential to be real problem-children; such as diagrams, charts, graphs, and interactions.
Depending on where you work, it's sometimes the case that the PM is the only person to communicate with the SME; once the course is ready for animation, the ID sees it for the first time. If you find yourself in this situation, have a conversation with management to explain how your early participation could streamline the process.
By getting involved early in the design process, you, as an ID, can kiss goodbye that "how on Earth" moment.
Either there's so much jargon that it might as well be a foreign language, or the subject matter expert (SME) is assuming you can create a three-dimensional hologram to illustrate the script. To make matters worse--getting rewrites authorized and accomplished at this stage of development can be a real hassle.
In order to avoid these pitfalls, it's critical that the instructional designer (ID) be familiar with the subject matter. It's not as if you can master every subject area; so the sensible thing to do is involve yourself in the planning process at the earliest point possible, and participate in conversations between your project manager (PM) and the SME. There are advantages to taking this approach to course development.
First, it's much easier to keep informed regarding the project schedule; and any snags or delays that might be heading your way. More importantly, you'll be able to help minimize delays by providing insight from the ID point of view.
Second, you'll become more familiar with the subject matter as you interact more with the SME during the planning process. For example, you'll have a better understanding of the field's acronyms and jargon. You'll also have a better idea, in a conceptual sense, of the material you have to animate.
Finally, helping the PM and SME plan the course from the very start gives you an opportunity to help shape the script itself. The advantage here is you'll avoid any unpleasant surprises because you've collaborated with the SME to design elements that have the potential to be real problem-children; such as diagrams, charts, graphs, and interactions.
Depending on where you work, it's sometimes the case that the PM is the only person to communicate with the SME; once the course is ready for animation, the ID sees it for the first time. If you find yourself in this situation, have a conversation with management to explain how your early participation could streamline the process.
By getting involved early in the design process, you, as an ID, can kiss goodbye that "how on Earth" moment.
Friday, April 9, 2010
How to Overcome Not-So-Common Articulate Snag-a-roos
So, you’ve developed a killer course. Now all you have to do is publish the sucker and put it out there for the masses, right? Most of the time it’s simple to just publish, review, and get it out there. However, sometimes you encounter fabulous technical problems —you’ll just find yourself yelling at your PC with your arms flailing in the air.
Although we all love articulate as an elearning tool, technical snag-a-roos just happen from time to time, as they do with any software. As you sit their continuing to yell at your PC, think about whether one of following snag-a-roos could be causing you to flail your hands in the air:
1. Attachment Icon Hyperlinks Go Bust
2. Slide Titles Aren’t Showing in the Navigation Panel
3. Publish Process Crashes When a Certain Slide is Reached
4. PowerPoint experienced a serious problem with the ‘articulate presenter ribbon’ add-in.
So now that you’ve looked at these snag-a-roos you nod in agreement and say to yourself: “Ah-ha! Ok, so now what?...” Well, let’s take a closer look at these 4 not-so-common articulate snag-a roos and how to overcome them.
1. Attachment Icon Hyperlinks Go Bust
So you’ve created cool icons that link to PDF attachments for your course. All of your links are working swimmingly. So go ahead and publish your course. Then you review it and find that you need to make a couple of modifications to a few slides. So you go back into your course MS Power Point file, make the changes, and re-publish.
You re-review your course and find that the PDF attachment icon links aren’t working.
You ask yourself: “What’s the deal?!” Well, if you go back into your course MS Power Point, and edit one of the PDF attachment link icons, you’ll see that the slashes of your link have gone from back slash to forward slash. The reversal of these slashes breaks the link from your icon to your designated PDF attachment.
So why’s this happening?...
After you’ve entered and saved your URL
So what’s the best way around this snag-aroo?
1. Just deal with it. Manually change the links as needed each time you re-open and re-save the file.
2. Don’t make your hyperlink a relative link. Make it an absolute link instead.
Example:
http://www.mediafire.com/myfiles.php/data/downloads/myfile.pdf
When opening and closing your project, MS Power Point maintains absolute links.
As much as we hate the workaround options, hopefully this flaw will be corrected in future renditions of MS Power Point, or articulate will figure out a way for Presenter to work with MS Power Point’s snag-a-roo, correcting the issue behind the scene.
* For even more info about this snag-a-roo, check out this articulate Forum Post.
2. Slide Titles Aren’t Showing in the Navigation Panel
While reviewing your course you notice that some slide titles aren’t displaying in your left hand-navigation panel. “Hmmmm… what could be causing this?...”
First things first, go back into your MS Power Point course file and check your articulate slide settings. Ensure that your slide isn’t set to hidden. If the effected slide titles are set to hidden, unhide them, save your properties and your course file, and re-publish. Now you’re slides should display without fail.
If they don’t, go back into your MS Power Point course file and check your articulate slide settings for potential tiering problems for hidden slides. A visible slide won't display if it is after a hidden slide that’s set to a higher level than it is. To correct this, make all of your slides visible, reset your slide levels, and then hide any necessary slides that you don’t want to appear in the navigation panel. When doing this, ensure that the slides you are hiding are a subset of a visible slide (the visible slide is set to a higher tier).
Example:
Slide 1: Visible: Level 1
Slide 2: Hidden: Level 2
* For even more info about this snag-a-roo, check out these articulate instructions.
3. Publish Process Crashes When a Certain Slide is Reached
Your publish process freezes up when you get to a certain slide. Everything crashes and you get error messages. You go back into your course MS Power Point and republish. It happens again. You’re thinking: “now what?!...”
Here’s the scoop on this one, if you have too many animations or animated shapes within a given sequence, the publish process can freeze up and crash. As your course is publishing, the publish processes the present slide, retains all the previously processed slides, and looks forward to the slides yet to be processed. If there are too many animations within a 3 slide sequence, then this crash will happen. In other words, it crashes because the slide that’s presently being processed is too robust – it’s working hard to not only to process this present slide and the rest of the slides, but it also needs to retain all of the previous slides that have already been processed.
So what constitutes as too many animations or animated shapes? Generally speaking, using 1-10 images per slide, and keeping the animations for these images to about 40 animation steps or less, seems to do the trick. However, many of us have 15 plus images per slide and lots of animation steps for those images.
Here’s what can be done to get around this snag-a-oo. For the slide that’s getting stuck on the publish process, and sometimes the slide immediately before it and after it, try to:
1. Simplify your animations.
Minimize the number of images on your slide, including the number of animation steps used.
2. Break apart animations into several slides.
If you want to keep your stellar robust animations, try breaking them up into 2 or more slides. some of the slides into two or more slides to even out the load.
3. Or try to Convert grouped images in to 1 single image file.
If you have a lot of group shapes or images, right-click and save your groupings as one image file (typically as a JPG or PNG file). Then try to replace your original grouping with the new single image file.
Taking any of these actions will help distribute the load for the flash player playback and should allow you to publish successfully.
* For even more info about this snag-a-roo, check out this articulate forum post.
4. PowerPoint experienced a serious problem with the ‘articulate presenter ribbon’ add-in.
You’re working happily along creating your course in your MS Power Point file. Then you receive a message that PowerPoint had a very bad problem with your Articulate ribbon add-in, and your project crashes.
“Uh-oh. What to do?...”
Usually this indicates that there was a technical issue with the latest installation or update of articulate on your PC.
To fix this problem you could just click “no” in the error message and proceed with what you were doing. But to keep it from happening again:
1. On your PC, Go to Start > Control Panel > Add or Remove Programs.
2. Double click Articulate Studio '09.
3. Select Reinstall. This will attempt to repair the installation.
After you have repaired the installation, you should be golden.
*For further information about this snag-a-roo check out this articulate forum post and resolution.
Hopefully the tips and tricks shared here will help you overcome some not-so-common Articulate snag-a-roos.
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