✨ Friday Fun Prompt: What’s Your “Dream Build”?

I’ll go first!

I’d love to create an interactive globe where you could zoom in and meet community members around the world. Each spot on the map could open up a little story about how they’re using the tools, what they’re building, and maybe even their own “dream project.”

You could filter by tool or project type. And to make it more playful, you’d unlock badges as you explore different regions or design approaches. Most importantly, every stop would be a chance to learn about the member behind the project and connect with them through their ELH profile. 🌎🌟

Ekaterina_V DavidTait​ KartikKuttan​ Jonathan_Hill​ SuperSuze​ - I feel like you all might have some fun ideas 👀

OK, I'll share. This was an off the cuff idea from several years ago resulting from some casual ID discussion. I used to work in academic Forestry, teaching a field forest measurements lab. Labs are remote, long, and often difficult to fully experience the full gamut of possibilities. I thought about the design of a field lab simulator in Storyline where I could create a predetermined a set of tree cases, scattered across a 3D landscape. I would then generate random filler trees at a density appropriate for the overall forest. The learners would then traverse the landscape, locate the identified trees, set up a measurement plot, conduct measurements, record data, and then process this as normal into a lab report. The learners would have to contend with specific issues related to tree form, environmental factors, tool limitations, and plot designs. The landscape could be roughly modeled from local map elevation data. It could be done as VR, but I'm not really into that.  

I've identified the various (free) tools and libraries to make it happen in SL, though it would be significant work but not unmanageable. What is the holdup? Time, my own high standards at odds with my limited skillset in 3D modeling, and the fact that I don't work in that area any more. The exercise would be more academic than anything else, and while that's fine and often the case for my side projects it lessens the overall motivation.    

I work in construction currently and we tend to treat Health and Safety Training on Critical Risks as a once off event whether in Toolboxes initially and then in eLearning for both new people joining the organisation who might have missed the initial launch event, or to refresh two years after as a revalidation. But eLearns are static, and the pressure to complete them as a compliance event turns it into a tick box exercise to get it over and done with so reports look good for leaders doesn't seem to keep to work. It still doesn't stick. And the number of near misses are still increasing. 

I always thought it would be great to create a Critical Risk app like Duolingo so teams could compete against each other while still reaching the lone workers out in the field to continuously return to the learning and safety conversations daily. Less of a push, but rather a pull towards learning. 

What's holding my back? While I can build most of the features in SL, I don't yet have the app capability, or an LMS with leaderboards to build it fully, plus the time to dedicate myself to it.

Another cool idea I had when I was working in rail was a 2D/or even 3D build of a track route to simulate scenarios for Hi Rail Trucks. All of our rail simulators were designed for trains, and I thought it would be easy (time permitting) to build a simulated version of the drivers controls of a truck for learners to "drive" through levelled scenarios they face to help apply rules based driving, i.e. reducing speed as they approached a rail crossing, using the horn, checking the road crossing was clear before driving at reduced speed across the crossing.

What makes it simple from a control point of view, is learners don't need to "steer", its more about decision making and controlling speed which I thought they could apply with simulated pedals. What would take it up a level would be to use actual pedals like the ones you hook into gaming consoles, though how to connect them into StoryLine I wouldn't have the knowledge of. Similar scenarios for travelling around curves and then communication requirements to contact Train Control at appropriate points to confirm their location.

Simulation really helps convert rules based content to applied learning opportunities. I lacked the time and resources to work this out. 

Here's my aspirational eLearning build. I’m imagining this as Sales Training aid, or a Job Interview training aseet.

It would be cool if we could build an eLearning module that behaves like a living mentor, dynamically changing its voice, visuals, and even storyline based on the learner’s emotional state, choices, and subconscious preferences.

Storyline content adapts in real time not just to quiz results, but to subtle inputs like:

• Webcam eye-tracking (to see what draws attention).
• Voice tone analysis during “practice” responses.
• Keystroke rhythm and pause times (to sense hesitation, confidence, frustration).

Based on these cues, the course could reshape itself, branching infinitely, creating unique content that’s never the same twice.

My own skill set would hold me back here and I’d need to partner with people far clever than me to even begin to scope this out!

I have a couple ideas I've been noodling on as ways to expand my SL & Rise skills. They are both super ambitious but doable 😅

One is an interactive garden planner. Every year me (and everyone I know who gardens!) fights with spreadsheets or other planning tools to put together garden plans that account for things like correct planting times, plant placement for companion planting, and spacing. I would love to use SL to build a tool that has a visualization of a garden bed and the available spaces in it, and a library of drag & drop planting options that the tool would be able to tell you yes or no whether you could place them next to each other. I think this would work similar to a logic puzzle game, and I have a feeling someone in here has tackled something similar before I could build off of. 

The second idea is making an animated music video using storyline. I'm always inspired by how far folks are able to get with animations in storyline. I'm not sure if anyone here has seen the movie Flow, but I'm also super inspired by how the director Gints Zilbalodis basically learned to do animation on his own for this feature using the open-source animation software Blender. I'm a musician myself and since I work here at Articulate I've always thought it would be fun to try to make a music video for one of my songs using SL animations. 

For my current level of SL skill, both of these ideas feel super intimidating to me, but maybe with enough community cheerleading (ahem: social pressure 😅) one of them has legs?!