Coming Soon: Articulate AI (With Video!)
Exciting news: We’re working on some AI features that’ll help amplify your creativity and accelerate course creation. Check out this short video for a quick preview of what’s in store: We hope you’re as excited as we are about these upcoming features! Subscribe to our newsletter to get the latest product updates directly in your inbox. If you have questions, please share them in the comments.Why & How To Participate in the Weekly Challenges on E-Learning Heroes
Did you know that every week here on E-Learning Heroes our very own David Anderson challenges community members to build mini-projects around a different theme? Well, if you didn’t—now you do! Keep reading to find out why and how to participate. Why participate? There are so many great reasons to participate in the E-Learning Challenges. Here are a few: Grow your skills. Whether you’re new to e-learning or a seasoned professional, it’s important to continuously grow your skills to stay up-to-date with current practices and trends. Participating in the weekly challenges not only allows you to build projects that might be outside your comfort zone and get feedback from others, but it also gives you a chance to see their work and glean inspiration from it. Build your portfolio. Even if you’re not currently looking for work, it’s important to create and maintain a portfolio. After all, you never know when an exciting opportunity might pop up! One challenge with e-learning portfolios is that often the e-learning courses you create for work are confidential and therefore can’t be included. The challenges give you an opportunity to create a variety of projects you can show prospective clients and employers to showcase your skill set. Expand your network. While some people participate in the challenges more sporadically, many of the participants are the same from week to week. Joining in the challenges is a great way to get to know other e-learning professionals and build relationships with people who can help you grow your skills and advance your career. Boost your visibility. When organizations are searching for e-learning designers, the internet is the first place they’ll look, so establishing an online presence is key. Participating in the challenges regularly is one way to boost your visibility and increase the chances that your name will come up in search results. Have fun. When you’re building courses for clients, you can’t always do things exactly the way you’d like to. The challenges are a great place to let your creativity run wild and have a little fun. How to participate Now that you know why you should participate, you might be wondering how to join in. It’s supereasy! Just follow the steps below: 1. Check out the challenge article Hover over the Learn tab in the navigation bar and scroll down to E-Learning Challenges. This will take you to the E-Learning Challenges hub, where you can click on the current week’s challenge—which is always featured at the top of the page: And if you’d like to participate in a previous week’s challenge, you can do that too! Just open the full list of challenges and click on one that interests you. 2. Read the challenge description Take a minute to read through the challenge and get a feel for what it’s about. Often there are a couple of examples to get your creative juices flowing. 3. Create your project Once you’ve got a handle on the challenge, it’s time to start working on your project. You can spend as much or as little time as you want on it—so no need to create a full-fledged course or stay up all hours of the night getting it done. Just sit down and see what you can bang out in the time you have—whether that’s 30 minutes, an hour, or half a day! 4. Add a comment When you’re done, simply add a link to your project in the comments section of the challenge article. Easy-peasy! Not sure how to generate a link to your project? If you’re using Articulate 360, simply publish your course to Review 360 and paste the share link in the comments box. Otherwise, you can also publish your course for the web, upload it to a web server, and share that link. It’s up to you! Here are some resources to help you generate a link to your project: Rise 360: Publishing a Course to Review 360 Storyline 360: Publishing a Course to Review 360 How to Get an E-Learning Course Online That’s all there is to it! From there, you can check out other people’s challenge entries and leave feedback if you’d like. But once again—there’s no obligation! And if you want to increase the visibility of your entry, you can start a new thread in the discussion forums, write about it on your blog, or share a post on social media with the dedicated hashtag: #ELHChallenge. 5. Check out the recap (optional) About a week after David posts a challenge, he rounds up all the entries in a separate article to highlight all the projects people have shared—to give them maximum visibility. If you didn’t have time to check out the other entries, the recap is a fast and easy way to do that. To access the recap, you have two options: Go back to the challenge article and click on the recap link he’s added below the article illustration. Go to the E-Learning Challenges hub and click on the recap article directly. It’ll appear below the featured article with the same illustration as the challenge, but with a restart icon instead of a trophy icon: Challenge Recap Wrap-Up So what are you waiting for? Head over to the E-Learning Challenges hub and join in on this week’s challenge. You’ll be glad you did! And remember to follow us on Twitter and come back to E-Learning Heroes regularly for more helpful advice on everything related to e-learning. If you have any questions, please share them in the comments. This article is part of our E-Learning 101 e-mail course, a series of expertly curated articles that’ll help you get started with e-learning—delivered right to your inbox. You’re only a click away from becoming an e-learning pro!Sign up here to enroll.What’s a Subject Matter Expert (SME)?
What’s the first thing that popped into your mind when someone told you to find the “ess, em, ee” to get the course content you need? Did your rookie self grasp at straws and think something along the lines of “small- or medium-size enterprise"? Or maybe your potential client actually said “smee,” which really threw you for a loop. In the e-learning world, the acronym stands for subject matter expert. SME is really just a fancy way of describing someone who is an expert in his or her field. It’s the person in an organization who has the most knowledge or skill in a specific topic. But don’t go looking for the SME department; there isn’t one. An SME might be an HR staff member, an engineer, a researcher, a product manager, a sales manager, or a finance person. Pretty much every department or business unit has a resident expert. The SME has tons of content, experience, and insights that are essential to creating fantastic courses that your learners need in order to ramp up on a new skill quickly or improve their existing skills. And when you’re developing an e-learning course, the SME can be your best friend. Your SME can help you define learning objectives, craft content, and give valuable feedback as you’re developing the course. In short, you can’t develop effective e-learning without an SME. And if you’re an e-learning developer, your job is to partner with the SME to get the information, strategies, and content you’ll need to build an effective course. So, you need to build a collaborative partnership that’s focused on productive communication. Effective communication is especially important during the course review process. Otherwise, you could find yourself in a (seemingly) never-ending cycle of iterations. But don’t worry, that’s why we created Review 360: a simple web app that makes collaborating with SMEs (and other stakeholders) super easy. And we didn’t stop there! We even created this great course to help you explain the review process to your stakeholders, so you can be sure everyone is on the same page. And we’ve got tons of other resources to help you figure out the best ways to work with SMEs to create amazing e-learning: Learn more about engaging productively with SMEs by downloading our free e-book, “The Essential Guide to Working with Subject Matter Experts.” Read this articlefor some quick tips on working with SMEs. Discover the secret to turning a reluctant SME into an engaged team memberin this article. Check out the top discussions and forum threads in our “Working with Subject Matter Experts” forums compilation in E-Learning Heroes. We’d love to hear your questions and comments about working with SMEs in the comments below! Remember to follow us on Twitter and come back to E-Learning Heroes regularly for more helpful advice on everything related to e-learning.Upcoming Articulate 360 Training Webinars
Stay ahead of the curve with our free Articulate 360 Training webinars. These weekly sessions are designed to help busy course creators like you enhance your e-learning skills without investing too much time. As an Articulate 360 subscriber, you can grow your expertise through targeted training on the latest techniques and best practices – all at no additional cost. And if you want to view some on-demand training to view at your own time, visit the Articulate 360 training site to see what's available. Check out our upcoming webinars and level up your e-learning game. If you can't attend, that's OK. We record all of the sessions, so just sign up and you'll get a recording emailed to you. Date Title December 17, 2024 ✨ Overview of AI Assistant in Storyline December 17, 2024 ✨ AI Assistant & Rise: Smart Strategies for Efficient E-Learning December 17, 2024 Using Dials to Create Menu Navigation in Storyline 360 December 17, 2024 How to Build Compliance Training in Rise 360 Not yet an Articulate 360 subscriber? Sign up for a 30-day free trial and check out as many as you’d like. And if the live webinar time doesn’t work for you, no worries! Simply sign up anyway and you’ll receive the recording in your inbox so you can watch it whenever you have time. Hope to see you at one of our upcoming webinars!3 Steps for Creating Your First Rise 360 Course
Everything you need to create modern, engaging e-learning is at your fingertips with Rise 360. Not sure where to start? This handy guide will help you create your very first microlearning or full-length course in three easy steps. Let’s get started! 1. Choose the type of learning experience you want to create: microlearning or a full-length course Start by choosing whether you want microlearning or a full-length course. Your choice will depend on the content you want to share with learners. Microlearning courses aren’t just short courses. They’re bite-size pieces of content focused on a single learning objective. They’re approachable, bingeable, and easy for users to review and apply. Microlearning courses are also great for learners on the go because they’re easy to consume on phones or tablets. Full-length courses give you the opportunity to go in-depth on a certain topic. Made up of multiple lessons and knowledge checks, courses may include multiple learning objectives and, as a result, take longer for the learner to experience. Learners almost always use a computer to access full-length courses. So how do you know which format to use for your course? When choosing between the two, ask yourself: How many learning objectives do I have? If you only have one, a microlearning course is the clear option. If you have more than one, could each one stand alone or are they interdependent? If they could be split up, you could create a series of microlearning courses. If they’re interdependent, then a full-length course is the best option. Once you’ve made your decision, go to your Rise 360 dashboard. Click Create New and choose Course or Microlearning. 2. Search for a template or start from scratch It's always a good idea to look at templates and see if there’s already material you can use or adapt to your learning objectives. Articulate offers two types of templates: placeholder and real content: Placeholder templates include guidance and ideas to help you create a fully customized course. Real content templates have pre-written content you can adapt to fit your learning objectives. After choosing the type of e-learning you’d like to develop, you’ll see all available templates. Select Preview to explore a template before you choose it. You can use the search bar to find templates by keyword. And for full-length courses, you can use the left-hand panel to explore templates by category. When you’re ready to use a template, click Select This Course. If you don’t find exactly what you need, don’t worry: You can always customize a template or even start from scratch. Just click +Blank Course/Microlearning to begin. 3. Add your content Once you’ve chosen a template or started from scratch, you can add in your content using blocks. Blocks give you different ways of formatting your content in a lesson or microlesson. There are many types of blocks: text blocks, image blocks, interactive blocks, knowledge check blocks, and more. You can use different block types to make your content unique and engaging. Clicking All Blocks or the + sign in your lesson or microlesson will open a list of block types in a left-hand panel. If you change your mind about the type of block, you can easily choose a different block from the same category by clicking the dropdown menu in the top-left corner of the block. For example, the paragraph block gives you the option of reformatting your content into different types of paragraphs, headings, statements, and a note. Not sure how to pick the right block? Think about what your learner needs. For example, if you have a lot of content that may be overwhelming as a text block, consider using a tabs block to break up the text. Or, if you want learners to compare and contrast different chunks of information, consider using an accordion or flashcard block. As the course author, this is your opportunity to get creative! Here are some articles for inspiration: 6 Rise 360 Blocks to Use Instead of Bullet Points 7 Creative Ways to Use Images in Rise 360 Courses 6 Rise 360 Block Types to Use to Compare and Contrast Concepts 5 Different Ways to Create Scenarios in Rise 360 3 Creative Ways to Incorporate Your Logo into a Rise 360 Course More Resources Creating microlearning or full-length courses in Rise 360 is superfast and easy. In just three steps, you’ve already started putting together an elegant course customized for your learners. And when you’re done drafting your course, you can share and review your content with stakeholders easily thanks to Review 360. Here’s more information on how to use Review 360: Getting Started with Review 360 Rise 360: Publish Content to Review 360 Your Most Asked Review 360 Questions Once they’ve been approved, you can easily publish from your Articulate 360 dashboard. Here are some guides to get you started: Rise 360: Share Content with Learners How to Share E-Learning Courses with Learners Want to try creating your first course in Rise 360, but don’t have Articulate 360? Start a free 30-day trial. And subscribe to our newsletter to stay up-to-date on the latest e-learning examples.Reach 360: A Quick and Easy Way to Deliver Training
Do you need a way to train contractors, partners, franchises, or other learners who can’t access your LMS? Or maybe your LMS doesn’t work well on mobile devices, and the people you need to train don’t have access to computers.Whatever the reason for needing another way to reach learners, Reach 360 can help. What is Reach 360, you ask? It’s our fast, flexible, frictionless LMS that allows you to: Publish and share your Storyline 360, Rise 360, or third-party training with learners in minutes. Track and analyze learner activity with easy-to-read, exportable reports. Manage variable training needs with flexible pricing based on the number of active learners. Watch this video to learn more: Want to dig even deeper? Check out these articles: How to Share & Track E-Learning with Reach 360 4 Times to Share Your Course with Reach 360 4 Reasons Your Learners Will Love Taking Training Hosted on Reach 360 7 Ways to Enroll Learners in Online Training with Reach 360 If you’re already an Articulate 360 subscriber and want to try Reach 360 for yourself, ask your account admin to activate it for you. And if you’re new to both Articulate 360 and Reach 360 and are looking for an easy way to create and deliver training, start a free trial.An Introduction to xAPI
When you’re getting started with e-learning, getting to know some of the basic terminology can be confusing, particularly the arena of e-learning standards. Standards are critical to understand, but they sure aren’t sexy. E-learning uses standards such as SCORM andxAPIto ensure that different kinds of online learning content can be tracked and reported to a learning management platform. SCORM was designed to make sure that online learning courses could pass basic info, such as score and completion status to a learning management system (LMS).xAPI was developed on the same basic concept but takes it a step further. To help folks get comfortable with e-learning standards, we wrote this handy introduction to SCORM, and pretty quickly we heard requests to do an explainer on xAPI. At E-Learning Heroes, your wish is our command! Here’s what you need to know. What is xAPI? xAPI is an application programming interface (hence API) that allows different types of learning activities to be tracked in a central location. Let’s first define “application programming interface.” An API is a protocol that lets different software programs communicate and share information with each other. For example, when you set up Twitter to automatically update your Facebook account each time you post a tweet, Twitter is sending info to Facebook via its API. While SCORM is specifically a set of standards that allows e-learning courses and LMSs to communicate, xAPI is an API that allows other software to track many different types of learning activities. xAPI still allows you to use uniform standards for e-learning to communicate information from e-learning courses to LMSs. But it also enables you to store different types of learning experiences in what’s called a learning record store (LRS). This broader definition of e-learning standards makes room for innovation in what kinds of learning activities can be tracked. For example, an LMS could employ xAPI to create a browser extension that allows learners to track what articles, videos, or other content they’ve consumed through their browser. That means you can report learning that occurs outside of the LMS back to the LMS. Cool, right? How Do ArticulateApps Work with xAPI? So I bet you’re wondering, how do I know if I can or should publish to xAPI? You can publish toxAPI if your LMS supports it. And if your LMS supports xAPI, we do recommend publishing to that standard. We generally find that course authors get the best results by publishing to the most current standard supported by their LMS. If you’re creating e-learning with Articulate authoring apps, it’s a cinch to create xAPI–compliant content. Learn more here: Implementing xAPI to Support Articulate Content Publishing Storyline 360 Content for xAPI More Resources Dying to learn more about the xAPI? The xAPI website has tons of great resources. We’d recommend getting started with these: What Is xAPI? What Does xAPI Let You Do?Tips for Using Sound Effects in E-Learning
As e-learning developers, we’re always looking for new ways to liven up our content and engage learners. Sound effects can be a great way to do this: they bring content to life and make learners feel like they are part of an experience. Not to mention, it’s never been easier to find free, high-quality sound effects that you can use in your projects. Let’s talk about a few tips to make sure you’re using sound effects wisely and effectively. Proper Rights and Attribution First of all, it’s important to make sure you have the proper rights for the audio clips you’re using. You also need to check that you’re using proper attribution, if required. When you download an audio clip from the Internet, look for the associated Terms of Use (usually there’s a link) and read them carefully. The Terms of Use will indicate if and how you can use the audio clip in question. Consider the Learner Experience You may want to let the learner know on the starting slide that audio is included in the course in case they have their volume turned off. After all, you don’t want them to miss important info and have to restart the course! You may also want to give learners the ability to control the volume of the sound effects and to mute them if they choose. Know Your Audience Should you include funny, whimsical sound effects in a serious e-learning module for accounting professionals? Probably not. That would work better in a gamified course you’re building for new employees that is more playful in nature and casual in tone. Know your audience and topic, and make sure you select sound effects that work well with both. Use Sound Effects Sparingly Once you find sound effects that work well with your material, you might be tempted to add a sound effect to each slide and for each mouse click. That can get annoying really fast…so use them sparingly to make sure they remain effective for the learner. Be Consistent This applies to the type of sound effects you’re using, and also to the quality. Certain sounds work well together, and you should consider the quality and volume of sound effects to ensure they’re all consistent with each other. Keep these tips in mind when you’re adding sound effects to your next course and it’s sure to add that extra oomph your learners will love. If you're looking for sources for free audio, try this roundupby Tom Kuhlmann. Got any tips of your own for using sound effects? Let me know in the comments below. You can always sign up for a fully functional, free 30-day trial of Articulate 360. And don’t forget to post your questions and comments in the forums! We’re here to help. For more e-learning tips, examples, and downloads, follow us on Twitter.
