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E-Learning Challenges
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Use Audio, Music, and Sound Effects in E-Learning #242

DavidAnderson's avatar
6 years ago

Using Audio and Sound Effects in E-Learning  #242: Challenge | Recap

E-learning audio is more than voice-over narration. Audio includes audio interviews, ambient sounds, natural sound effects, and background music. Used effectively, these can help draw in learners, focus their attention, and fuel their imaginations. And that's what this week's challenge is all about!

Gamification Using Ambient Sounds

Here's a good use of ambient sound effects to pull learners into a dark, mysterious cave.

View the project | Learn more | Jonathan Hill

Background Music

This example uses background music combined with button effects and audience “oohs” and “aahs” help simulate a game show quiz.

View the project | Montse Anderson

Challenge of the Week

This week, your challenge is to share an example that uses ambient sounds or background music in e-learning. 

Last Week’s Challenge:

Before you turn up the volume on this week's challenge, check out the interactive soccer examples your fellow challengers shared over the past week:

Soccer Interactive Graphics #241: Challenge | Recap

Wishing you a great week, E-Learning Heroes!

New to the E-Learning Challenges?

The weekly e-learning challenges are ongoing opportunities to learn, share, and build your e-learning portfolios. You can jump into any or all of the previous challenges anytime you want. I’ll update the recap posts to include your demos.

Published 6 years ago
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  • Hi all. I have prepared an experiment that maybe someone can further develop. It is a memory game that aims to prove that context for learning is very important. It would be great to compare how many words can user memorize when learning with a storm sound in the background and without or with some other sound. Moreover, it would be nice to check if words describing stormy weather (Wind, Rain) are memorized and recalled better then neutral (Hat) or opposite (Sunshine). Hope that I manage to explain it correctly. So without further ado here is a link:

    Demo:
    https://slchallenges.s3.eu-west-1.amazonaws.com/Challenge242/story_html5.html

    Source:
    https://slchallenges.s3.eu-west-1.amazonaws.com/Challenge242/Challenge242.story
    • DanSweigert's avatar
      DanSweigert
      Community Member
      Przemysław, interesting concept. It kind of reminds me of a visual test scientists would do where they'd show people the names of colors, but the names themselves would be in a different font color, to see if people would say the right name.
    • Samuel's avatar
      Samuel
      Community Member
      Great idea. Thanks for sharing!
    • JeffreyRiley's avatar
      JeffreyRiley
      Community Member
      Interesting idea I will have to play with this more. I once had a test like this but was asked to use the words in a sentence and there were 10 words. About 45 minutes later I was asked to give as many of the words as I could. I did 8. It would be interesting to see if sound would add to or detract from something like that so your post may help.
  • AmberPrice's avatar
    AmberPrice
    Community Member
    Hey! Here is my sample: https://360.articulate.com/review/content/121d7988-85c4-4393-b3ae-f134834ef838/review

    I have played around with different ways to add background music. My sample includes a tip based on the link I'll post here at the end, but I also included audio on each slide after breaking it up using Audacity, every 15 seconds. One thing I have learned (and maybe I am wrong) is that background music only works in IE based on this tip: https://community.articulate.com/discussions/articulate-storyline/background-audio-cool-trick.
    • DanSweigert's avatar
      DanSweigert
      Community Member
      Nicely done Amber, I liked the smoke animation behind the poses.
    • JodiSansone's avatar
      JodiSansone
      Community Member
      Hi Amber, I have read this thread many times and can't get this audio to work across slides. I keep hoping an Articualte update will address it someday. Thanks for explaining that it only works in IE...
    • JeffreyRiley's avatar
      JeffreyRiley
      Community Member
      I did not know about the trick to have music play all the way through the project. I have to try it. IE is a frustrating browser on lots of things. Thanks for adding this to your post.
  • I am submitting two ideas on this one. I had been working on a battle ship game idea from Allison LaMotte and turned it into Star Trek. This is a short example http://jeffrfiles.s3.amazonaws.com/ArticulatePosts/ELH%20Challenge%20242%20Sound%20Effects%20Star%20Trek/story.html.

    If you want to play a game of Star Trek Trivia, try this link http://jeffrfiles.s3.amazonaws.com/ArticulatePosts/Battle%20Ship%20Examples/Star%20Trek%20Space%20Battle%20-%20Storyline%20output/story_html5.html

    I have also been working on a mystery approach. Once they complete the introduction, there are scenarios the player would have to answer. This example only includes the intro where I use the music and sounds. http://jeffrfiles.s3.amazonaws.com/ArticulatePosts/ELH%20Challenge%20242%20Sound%20Effects%20Mystery/story.html
    • DanSweigert's avatar
      DanSweigert
      Community Member
      Nice work Jeffrey, I liked your use of mood music, images and animations on the second example. The Star Trek themed game was fun. I though the little moving viewfinder above the space image was a nice effect.
      • JeffreyRiley's avatar
        JeffreyRiley
        Community Member
        Thanks Daniel. I don't often use sounds, music, etc, but this challenge is getting me to change my mind.
  • Well done and I liked the rapid fire of three questions in a row and three bottles. I'm glad you did not use hard questions! :)
    • DanSweigert's avatar
      DanSweigert
      Community Member
      Well done Bonnie, it was simple, but instructive. I liked your font selection and the fact it actually conveyed useful information.
    • JodiSansone's avatar
      JodiSansone
      Community Member
      I really liked your drag and drop to reveal the safety tips--very creative and I wish I would remember to use that technique more. If I were to make one small suggestion it would be to choose a longer piece of audio for the crashing waves because I spent some time dragging and dropping and the repetition of the wave and gulls started to stress me :)....maybe a 15-20 second piece of audio would work a little better? Keep posting!
    • JeffreyRiley-9e's avatar
      JeffreyRiley-9e
      Community Member
      Well done I liked the crashing waves and the gulls. Good use of drag n drop as well.
    • JeffreyRiley-9e's avatar
      JeffreyRiley-9e
      Community Member
      Good idea and it seems simple. The learner should be familiar with this type of action. I can also attest that blended with some in person and others online is not that easy to do. Good example.
      • DanSweigert's avatar
        DanSweigert
        Community Member
        Thanks Jeffrey, I like using background music at low levels during key places in the lesson; on the intro and conclusion slides, on the beginning and ending of scenarios like I did here, and when introducing a quiz. I also have used it in the background of videos especially when the narration drops off while they watch a procedure, so that they know to keep paying attention to the video.
  • JodiSansone's avatar
    JodiSansone
    Community Member
    Backyard Bird Songs
    Demo: https://bit.ly/2y60FqZ
    Download: https://bit.ly/2YflnDI

    This demo is inspired by my backyard and features the birds I see every day on my fence. I use a lot of audio for fun, but in this one I tried to use audio that was essential to the learning objective of identifying the different bird songs. And I used cutouts from a couple challenges ago. Have a good week!
    • DanSweigert's avatar
      DanSweigert
      Community Member
      Jodi, That was fun. My cat makes an interesting noise when he sees a bird nearby, it sounds like "ack yack".
    • JeffreyRiley-9e's avatar
      JeffreyRiley-9e
      Community Member
      Jodi you have been using sounds, songs, and ambient noises in many of your posts. I liked the white around the birds on hover and nice effect to show the information and sounds.
    • JeffreyRiley-9e's avatar
      JeffreyRiley-9e
      Community Member
      You always do amazing things with Plotagon. Was the voice text to speech? It had that down home accent and not just a person speaking. Really great.
      • TracyCarroll's avatar
        TracyCarroll
        Community Member
        Thank you, Jeffrey! Yes, it's a Plotagon text-to-speech voice. They have voices with various accents, so I decided to try a US southern accent this time. :)
    • Jonathan_Hill's avatar
      Jonathan_Hill
      Super Hero
      Very nicely done Tracy. I'd like to show this to my boss as evidence of what can be achieved with Plotagon. Hopefully get the budget signed off for a subscription. Been inspired by your use of this software.
      • TeoKar's avatar
        TeoKar
        Community Member
        Plotagon is indeed awesome and works good with articulate storyline. Used both on "who wants 2 be a billionare" with outstanding results. <3 PLOTAGON
  • Thrilled to see my work featured as an example for this week's challenge! Thanks David.

    For those interested I've written an article about ambient sounds and the thought process behind ESCAPE FROM RED RACKHAM'S CAVES here:

    https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/using-ambient-sounds-e-learning-jonathan-hill-assoc-cipd

    And as a bonus entry, here's AN INTRODUCTION TO TOURING CARAVAN, a game show where you can win a caravan. (Not really.)

    https://360.articulate.com/review/content/45c015a5-b8d3-442b-8c34-353f47b74b9c/review


    • DanSweigert's avatar
      DanSweigert
      Community Member
      Wow Jonathan, That was really impressive! I love all the work you put into the animations and the sounds. Your goofy sound effects, especially the crowd reactions were priceless. I also appreciate you took the time to provide meaningful content which would be used in an actual industry (in this case, personal auto insurance) in a challenge. Did you create this for a client or just for this challenge?
      • Jonathan_Hill's avatar
        Jonathan_Hill
        Super Hero
        Thanks Daniel! This course was created to educate the customers of the company that I work for about the benefits of a product we offer, Touring Caravan insurance. I always planned to approach the topic this way, as here in the UK winning a caravan or a speedboat on a gameshow has become a bit of a cliche. The sound effects were almost an after thought, but were very easy to source under a credit-free CC0 license and really add to the overall effect.

        (Infact, I spent more time on the mechanism that hands the question over to your opponent if you answer it incorrectly, than I did on the SFX!)