Week 1 Discussion

Hey all, I do not see the reply I posted yesterday - apologies for any duplications....

Here are my 2 Q &A’s:

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

Instant Convert: I really like the “instant convert” functionality. However, I do not like that the content within the block is changed as well. For example, I’ve seen simple lists rewritten into detailed sentences when that level of revision isn’t necessary. It would be helpful to have a “change content toggle” that allows users to have a choice - retain the original text while only converting the block,  or convert both. 

A significant part of my content development workflow involves transitioning PowerPoints (faculty or publisher) into Rise presentations. In courses such as dental hygiene or pharmaceuticals, lists of medications or vocabulary terms must remain exactly as written. It becomes counterproductive to convert a block and then have to paste the original content back in. For instance, I might convert a list into an accordion because faculty requested illustrations to accompany the text. In those cases, the format should change, but the written content should remain intact.

Images: With all due respect, there are image generators that more closely mirror prompts and handle embedded text with greater accuracy. For this exercise, I selected “vector blues” as the style for the website security flashcards. Even after refining my prompt, the tool continued to introduce additional colors beyond that palette. I was impressed with the watercolor style and will definitely continue experimenting with it.

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

Text-to-Voice: The text-to-voice feature is very impressive. The voices are far more realistic than they were even a couple of years ago, and several of the female voices I tested demonstrated “natural” inflection and pacing. There is a good variety of male and female voices across different “ages,” which is helpful from an instructional design perspective. For example, if I were developing a narrated presentation for FSW students, I could select a more youthful voice to better align with that demographic.

Love the rewrite, shorten, and change tone text features!  This will be useful immediately as I'm currently working refining narration for a complex training guide development. 

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

   I had never used AI to create images or generate audio content for my course before. I was curious to try it and was really surprised by how easy it was🥳. I also discovered the Magic Text Import feature (through the training video), which replaces a lot of copy-and-paste work and is a great help 👏.

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

   All of these editing tools are great! I am definitely using the 'rewrite' and 'shorten' functions, but I also use the 'continue writing' function because sometimes I struggle to find the words to continue.

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

        The amount of editing tools at your fingertips makes editing so much faster than what the status quo is today.  Being able to create an AI prompt or shorten or lengthen an AI text makes it so quick and easy to edit. 

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

        The text-to-speech AI assistant feature is the most useful for what I do on a day-to-day basis. It makes it so easy to have a standard voiceover that can be so easily edited or updated by anyone on my team using Articulate products. 

Which AI Assistant feature felt most intuitive or useful to you during the practice activities? We used AI text to speech features a lot. it saved a lot of time and especially convenient when we need to edit the audio later.

What challenges - my editing seems all gone! I didn't find any save button. I thought it was auto save. but when i logged in I found all my editing from yesterday was gone. 

Q1: Which AI Assistant feature felt most intuitive or useful to you during the practice activities? 

The AI Assistant feature that felt most useful to me during the practice activities was the Generate AI Summary feature. I really appreciated the flexibility of being able to adjust the summary to be longer or shorter. This was especially helpful because I sometimes struggle with expanding course summaries without becoming repetitive. Having that flexibility made the process feel smoother and more efficient. 

Q2: Which editing tools (rewrite, shorten, change tone, etc.) did you find most valuable, and why? 

The editing tool I found most valuable was the Rewrite feature, as it helped bring better clarity and flow to my work. It allowed me to refine my ideas without losing my original meaning. Additionally, I found the AI image generator to be extremely useful for adding clear and engaging visuals. I especially loved that there is no limit to how many images you can generate, which makes it easy to experiment and find visuals that best support the content.

Personally, my favorite AI feature was the ability to use a block of text content to generate an AI image prompt. I tend to struggle with finding a relevant image that ties in with the topic and adds value.

I liked the options for the different AI image styles, but I would love to find some additional resources on how to describe/identify a particular style I'm trying to achieve when using the Custom Style option. Sometimes I like the way a particular image from a different website looks, but I don't know how to explain it to AI (I know I can probably upload that image to use as a reference, but I don't want to have to go find a reference image every time). I thought the vintage National Parks poster style was so cool in the Storyline tutorial video for this week!

Which editing tools (rewrite, shorten, change tone, etc.) did you find most valuable, and why? All. I find all helpful depending on what I am trying to do. For existing text, rewrite was helpful and shorten. Creating new text for something as an introduction was helpful as well. It allowed me to rework the items and/or fill gaps of information that including more context or making it clearer to better suite stakeholders. Changing the tone helps add some more engaging elements. 

What challenges did you face when trying to get AI to produce the results you wanted? With the exercise and creating an image that represented cookies for the browser but with no actual cookies. That was a challenge. I even tried different terms. I think knowing the right terms and options available and ways to describe without certain phrases or other terms is necessary depending on how you want to achieve. 

For Question 1, the feature I found most useful was the ability to regenerate content after making changes to the outline or source documents. I initially assumed that once the AI generated a draft, that version was essentially locked in unless I manually edited it myself. I didn’t realize I could adjust the outline, refine the source material, and have the AI repopulate the content based on those updates. That flexibility makes the tool feel much more iterative and aligned with how I naturally design and revise projects. It supports a true draft–feedback–refine workflow rather than a one-and-done output.

For Question 2, I was genuinely surprised by how much image generation has improved. The enhancements in quality, detail, and responsiveness to prompts were very noticeable. The AI was able to interpret stylistic direction and context much better than I expected. It feels far more usable for professional applications now, especially when trying to quickly visualize concepts or create supporting visuals for presentations or learning materials.

Overall, both features reinforced for me that AI works best as a collaborative tool. The more you refine your inputs and iterate, the stronger and more tailored the outputs become.

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

The Create an AI image feature will be extremely useful to me for customizing courses and creating a consistent theme throughout.  I'm looking forward to experimenting more with the custom style option to make things truly unique and standardized.

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

I was surprised at how effective the Improve writing tool helped in more clearly getting my point across. I also find the Make shorter and Change tone extremely beneficial. I tend to get longwinded and am not as skilled in writing in a more casual tone so these will help me out a great deal.

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

I was quite pleased with the AI image generation of the character "Saanvi" the AI feature instinctively created an East-Indian looking female (based on the name: Saanvi). I thought I would have to redo the prompt with specific instructions on the ethnicity of the character once the images were generated. Turns out, I didn't need to refine the prompt. 

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

I've run into this several times when using the AI TTS feature. Some iterations have the "voice" correctly pronounce words; but then, if I need to change phrasing or add more context, the generative voice will now mis-pronounce the word that was previously pronounced correctly! Also, when using acronyms, in some instances the voice will pronounce the acronym as a word (which is what I want), other times it will read out each individual letter. I came across one instance (in my own project) where I needed the AI generated voice to read "MIPS" as a word. I tried several different methods to have it pronounced as "mips", but it just would not comply! Are there any hints, tips etc. for fine tuning pronunciations? Is there a way to copy/paste phonetic spellings into the text box to guide the pronunciation?
However, the CC generation capabilities are fantastic! So much time is saved by not having to import a separate .srt, .vtt etc. file to generate CC!