Need some creative ideas for a fun project

Feb 05, 2014

Hello wonderful community,

I actually get to step away from the world of technical training I usually live in and do something fun for kids.

I'm doing a demonstration to show 3-5th graders how PowerPoint can be can be converted to eLearning (using Storyline). My plan is to have it finished minus a few graphic elements they can choose.

The content I have is in a PPT deck and includes an animal from each continent. There are facts about each animal, along with pictures and a map showing where on the globe they live. I'd like to use drag and drop in some fashion. I also only have 15 minutes so simplicity is important. That's been my dilemma so far. I keep going a little too grand.

I have to go spend the next few hours developing project plans so I thought I'd turn it over to the forum in the meantime. I'll attach the PowerPoint if that helps generate some ideas.

Thanks in advance!!

Natalia

animals.pptx

13 Replies

Sam Lincoln

10 years ago02/05/14 at 11:20 am (UTC)

Hi Natalia,

How about your opening slide showing the world with one of each of the animals scattered around the edge. Each animal can be dragged to a transparent drop area over the relevant part of the map.

If the correct destination is selected it could trigger a lightbox slide showing the full slide and explanation (with/without audio).

Hope that is helpful .... good luck. Let us see the result!

Nick n/a

10 years ago02/05/14 at 1:04 pm (UTC)

@Natalia,

Would children then be using Storyline?

Nicholas

Natalia Mueller
Author

10 years ago02/05/14 at 1:15 pm (UTC)

@Sam - love that idea! Thanks!

@Nicholas - They won't be working in the tool themselves. I'm going to have it open with everything built and let them choose some of the graphics. Then they will get to explore the published output. That's not to say they aren't capable. My 8 year old daughter loves playing with Quizmaker. They use PowerPoint so much in school now that the Articulate products are pretty intuitive to them too. I just showed her a couple things then turned her loose to create quizzes about her favorite Skylanders.

Michael Hinze

10 years ago02/05/14 at 1:39 pm (UTC)

Hi Natalia, here is just a very quick example I threw together with your slides: http://dev.keypointlearn.com/xcl71_SL/Animals/V1/story.html There is a bit of animation and a 'menu' that shows the pics. Clicking on a pic show the content page. As an example, for the elephant content page, I added a YouTube video. Once all pics have been clicked you could branch to a quiz, which could be drag-and-drop. Something like 'Which of these animals live in Africa...'.

If it helps at all, let me know and I post the source file.

Natalia Mueller
Author

10 years ago02/06/14 at 5:30 am (UTC)

I love that, Michael. Thank you so much for taking the time to make an example!

I still have some time left if there are any more suggestions. I'll post the finished product once I have it.

Julie S

10 years ago02/07/14 at 2:29 pm (UTC)

Inspired! Love how people are creative brainstormers within this forum!

El Burgaluva

10 years ago02/11/14 at 2:05 am (UTC)

Natalia,

Sounds like fun. Haven't looked at the PPT yet; don't know if your deadline has passed.

I'm unclear about what the objective is...

Is it to teach the kids about the animals in some way? (If so, what are the goals?)

Or is it about showing kids how to create interactive elearning? It sounds like the latter, but I'm not sure of the purpose of such a demo given that kids a school probably don't have access to rapid authoring tools.

I'm sure I'm overlooking something elementary here...

Would love to help, but confused =(

Natalia Mueller
Author

10 years ago02/11/14 at 7:45 am (UTC)

I'm sorry for the confusion. I should have explained a little better. It was actually career day at my daughter's school. Instead of just talking about what I do, I wanted to have them help me finish converting a ppt into elearning. The animal content was just for example purposes. Some of the kids were more interested in the animals then the elearning though. I even got interrupted with the classic enthusiastic hand wave that I thought was going to be a great question only to get asked if he could go to the bathroom. It was awesome. Overall it went over really well though, and we had a lot of fun. Each class ended up with its own story.file since they all chose different graphics. I'm publishing them today to send the links to the teachers. I'll post one of the finished versions and source file here for you all to see how it turned out.

Many thanks for the great ideas!!

Natalia Mueller
Author

10 years ago02/11/14 at 12:09 pm (UTC)

As promised, here is one of the completed story files the kids helped me create and a temporary link if you just want to see the published version.

Animals Around the World

career+day+-+elearning.story

Nick n/a

10 years ago02/11/14 at 12:55 pm (UTC)

Thanks for this Natalia.

It's nice to see the completed version. Was this from your daughters class?

Nicholas

Laura M

10 years ago02/12/14 at 6:06 am (UTC)

This is great! What a fun idea and the concept has so much potential for other uses. I'm envisioning it as a nice way to showcase key staff and departments for a new hire program.

Arturo Aguilera

10 years ago02/12/14 at 1:21 pm (UTC)

Hi Natalia,

How about to make it a game in which the children can participate. May be a map with a drag-and-drop interaction followed by a matching games. Children would be a great audience for games. Just a thought.