Week 1 Discussion

1. Which AI Assistant feature felt most intuitive or useful to you during the practice activities? 

For me the convert a block feature was the most useful because it gives me the flexibility to make changes to blocks very quickly and change the look and feel of a course.

2. What surprised you about how AI handled text or media generation?

I was surprised about how easy it was to generate text and media. Especially the text to speech feature was really easy to use.

Which AI Assistant feature felt most intuitive or useful to you during the practice activities?
One of the features I really enjoyed using was the Text-to-Voice capability. When I record narration myself, it usually takes several attempts before I’m satisfied with the final version. Having AI generate the narration saves a lot of time and removes that extra step. I also appreciated the variety of voice tones available, which makes it easier to choose a style that fits the tone of the training content and the intended audience.

What surprised you about how AI handled text or media generation?
I was pleasantly surprised by how well AI could summarize text and generate knowledge check questions, answers, and even feedback based on the content. As an instructional designer, this is incredibly helpful. It can speed up the process of creating reinforcement activities and assessments while still keeping them aligned with the learning material. I can see this becoming a big time saver when developing training content.

Which editing tools (rewrite, shorten, change tone, etc.) did you find most valuable, and why?
The editing tool I found most valuable was the Instant Convert feature. It quickly provides multiple ways to present or restructure content, which is very useful when adapting information for different formats or learning experiences. Being able to see several options at once makes it easier to refine the content and saves a lot of time during development. The Change Tone tool is also extremely useful because it allows me to easily adjust content depending on the audience; whether I need something more conversational, more formal, or simplified for learners.

What challenges did you face when trying to get AI to produce the results you wanted?
The biggest challenge I ran into was using the AI image generator. It can be tricky to get it to spell words correctly within the images. However, I found that I got better results when I clearly asked for the text to be spelled correctly and included the exact wording in quotation marks. Once I started doing that, the results improved quite a bit.

Two AI Assistant features that felt most intuitive to me during the practice activities are:

• The "Instant convert" feature for blocks in Rise. This is a feature I've wished was possible many times before the AI Assistant was released! It has been implemented in a way that feels well-integrated with my workflow. I enjoyed playing with it and seeing the ease with which you can try out different block layouts for a chunk of content.
• The alt text generator in Storyline's Accessibility Checker. What a time-saver! I have been bringing my images into an external ChatGPT interface to generate alt text, then manually copying those text descriptions back into Storyline. This is a great feature I will definitely make good use of.

A few features and tips related to AI image generation surprised me:

• I love the tip about using your slide text to generate an AI image prompt, as well as the idea that you can create a Custom style prompt to use to generate images throughout your course for consistency. I hadn't thought to try using the text of one of the existing style prompts as my base description, and adding something like a custom accent color specification.
• One of the challenges I've had using external AI image generation tools like Adobe Firefly to create a collection of images for courses is variable consistency in style, so this is definitely something I'm looking forward to implementing!

Which AI Assistant feature felt most intuitive or useful to you during the practice activities? Instant convert, text edit, text to speech audio. 

What challenges did you face when trying to get AI to produce the results you wanted? I have been using the AI features for a while now; however, today the image creation did not work as it normally does. When the window appeared, it was solid white.

I chose the following questions:

1. Which AI Assistant feature felt most intuitive or useful to you during the practice activities? - Editing text was easy and intuitive.  I appreciated the options for making text longer or shorter, as well the ease in which we are able to edit the tone.
2. What challenges did you face when trying to get AI to produce the results you wanted?  The challenges I faced were with my unfamiliarity with Rise and Storyline as I am new to the tool.  The AI Assistant allows for an ease in making changes to content.

When we finish with our file, do we need to publish the file? Not sure how I get it submitted for review.

1. Which AI Assistant feature felt most intuitive or useful to you during the practice activities?

Overall, the AI Assistant features felt very intuitive and user friendly. Both Articulate Storyline and Rise did a great job guiding me through the steps, to the point where I feel confident I could still navigate the tools even without watching the videos or completing the practice activities first. That built‑in guidance is especially valuable, knowing it will be there if I need support or a refresher in the future.

Since I am much more of a Storyline user than a Rise user, the feature I see myself using most is the AI Assistant in Articulate Storyline, specifically for creating animations and eventually assisting with trigger creation. I see a lot of potential here to significantly speed up development while still producing a polished, high-quality result. The efficiency gains alone make this feature feel like a game changer for content development.

2. Which editing tools (rewrite, shorten, change tone, etc.) did you find most valuable, and why?

I tend to be a bit long winded, especially when drafting storyboards or scripts. Because of that, I frequently ask tools like Copilot to shorten text during the drafting process. What I really appreciated here was the ability to simply click a “Shorten” button instead of having to write a prompt every time. That small convenience makes a big difference in workflow efficiency.

I was also impressed by how many text editing options are available right out of the box, including rewrite, shorten, and change tone, without requiring any prompting at all. It makes the editing process feel faster, more accessible, and more intuitive.

As a side note, I also really appreciated how quickly results were generated. In some tools, you are left waiting while the system loads, but here the responses were almost immediate, which made the overall experience feel smooth and frustration free.

Instant convert felt the most useful, especially creating a sorting activity or knowledge check based on block content for a quick review. 

The text to speech feature was a nice surprise, and I'm already incorporating it into my work. However, when making edits I sometimes forget to press the insert button after generating and then lose my progress. 

1. What surprised you       I was pleasantly surprised at how good it was at pulling detailed info from simple instructio. How a simple prompt with basic instruction could give detailed breakdown of information. 
2. Which editing tools   change tone was the big one for me.  I create content for multiple lines of business and different levels of leadership so to be able to take the same starting content and use Changing tone to quickly edit my messaging based on audience is a nice win for me 

What challenges did you face when trying to get AI to produce the results you wanted?

One of my biggest challenges has been getting AI to generate assessment questions that go beyond simple recall. For example, when using the AI quiz generators in Rise or Storyline, the output is generally fine for basic knowledge-check questions, but I’ve struggled to get meaningful scenario-based or application-level questions.

In the technical courses I design, learners need to demonstrate application, analysis, and decision-making in context—specifically, how they would apply concepts to realistic, job-relevant scenarios. Despite experimenting with different prompts, I’ve had limited success guiding the AI to consistently produce scenario-based or application-level questions that support knowledge transfer. I would appreciate recommendations or prompt strategies that help shift AI-generated assessments from recall-focused to application- and transfer-focused outcomes.

What surprised you about how AI handled text or media generation?

One thing that’s really surprised me is how good the AI-generated narration has become. The overall quality is much higher than I expected, and the voices sound far more natural now than they did even a short time ago. I also appreciate the range of voice options—it makes it easier to find something that fits the tone of the course.

I do wish there were more built-in controls for things like acronym pronunciation, especially for technical content. That said, I’ve been able to find some workable solutions, so it hasn’t been a dealbreaker. Overall, the improvements in AI narration have been a pleasant surprise and have made it a much more viable option for my courses.

Which AI Assistant feature felt most intuitive or useful to you during the practice activities?

Most of them felt pretty intuitive except Modify Flashcards with AI and Create AI Audio 

Which editing tools (rewrite, shorten, change tone, etc.) did you find most valuable, and why?

Rewrite and shorten.  

What challenges did you face when trying to get AI to produce the results you wanted?

I struggled a little with modifying the flashcards with images. It definitely helped when I choose a style. Leaving it on "None" did not get very good results. And I kept forgetting to choose square for my aspect ratio.

I also struggled with Audio. I had initially chosen a women's voice. Inserted it and then decided to change it to Niraj, a male's voice. I regenerated it and kept clicking preview, but it kept playing the women's voice. I finally deleted the script, reentered it and then clicked generate again and it finally switched to the male's voice. I don't know if I was doing something wrong.

Also, I initially struggled to find the right voice I wanted. I used the filter feature but I wanted more options and then realized I could use the search field to get more specific, such as American or British accent.  But I still found myself just clicking on each voice one by one to listen and find one that I liked which was a little tedious. But I love the favorite features. Once I find ones I like, I'll defiantly be using that.