Storyboard Templates for E-Learning #48
Storyboard Templates for E-Learning #48: Challenge | Recap Challenge of the week This week your challenge is to share an example of your preferred e-learning storyboard, blueprint, or scripting template. We want to see what you use and learn how you use it! Tools You can use Articulate Storyline, Articulate Studio, or PowerPoint to create your e-learning storyboard examples. Resources Here are a few resources to get you thinking about storyboards. Storyboard templates: Check out the free templates in our downloads gallery Blog posts: Elearning Storyboarding 101 6 Tips for Managing & Developing Your E-Learning Projects Forum discussions: Storyboarding vs. rapid prototyping e-learning projects Storyboarding e-learning courses in Storyline E-Learning Storyboards and Examples Time-Lapse Demo: A Very Basic Storyboard Template Word vs. PowerPoint: Which do you use to storyboard your courses? Storyboarding a serious comic Using Storyline to storyboard projects Estimating storyboard development times Tips for working with e-learning storyboards Share your e-learning work Comments: Use the comments section below to share a link to your e-learning storyboard and blog post. Forums: Create your own thread in our E-Learning Heroes forums and share a link to your e-learning storyboard. Personal blog: If you have a blog, please consider writing about your e-learning storyboard process. We’ll link back to your posts so the great work you’re sharing gets even more exposure. Twitter: If you share your e-learning storyboards on Twitter, try using #ELHChallenge so your tweeps can track your e-learning coolness. Facebook: Reply to this Facebook post with a screenshot of your e-learning storyboard and a link to your template or blog post. Last week’s challenge Before you storyboard this week’s challenge, take a moment to check out the e-learning call center demos your fellow community members shared in last week’s challenge: E-Learning Challenge #47: Call Center Training in Online Learning More about the e-learning challenges: The weekly challenges are ongoing opportunities to learn, share, and build your e-learning portfolios. You can jump into any or all of the previous challenges anytime you want. I’ll update the recap posts to include your demos. Even if you’re using a trial version of Studio ’13 or Storyline, you can absolutely publish your challenge files. Just sign up for a fully functional, free 30-day trial, and have at it. And remember to post your questions and comments in the forums; we're here to help.Create a Simple E-Learning Game #24
E-Learning Games #24: Challenge | Recap I know there are a lot of folks in the community who are looking to build games in Storyline, or who just want to know more about using games in e-learning. If either sounds like you, then you’ll love this week’s challenge. This week we’re going to look at transforming a quiz into a simple e-learning game. View the E-Learning Game | Download | Video Tutorials In reality, these types of games are more like glorified progress meters than high-production games. But they’re fun for learners to take, and just as much for course designers to build. Choose a Gamified Theme What type of game do you want? One option for game themes is to align the game to the rest of your course content. Think of a new hire course where the objective is to collect important documents from different departments. Maybe you browse the aisles of your company “store” and fill your cart with your departmental items. Another option is to choose something more off-the-wall like an adventure game or a treasure hunting scenario. Backgrounds Create Context Once you’ve found a theme, the next step is to head over to your favorite stock photo site for some background graphics that match your theme. Because the background graphic is the largest slide object, it sets the context for your e-learning game. Select the Style of Game How do you want your learners to move through the game? Two common ways include: Linear: Learners follow a path of challenge questions. Each time the learner answers correctly, the learner moves forward along the path. Markers along the path are updated visually to indicate correct and incorrect choices. Non-linear: Learners move through the game by choosing one of the markers or buttons placed around the game board. Clicking a marker loads a new challenge question. After answering the question, the learner is returned to the game board and the marker is updated visually to reflect a correct or incorrect answer. Building the Quiz As with most interactions in Storyline, you have multiple options for how you structure your game. Depending on your goals, you’ll find one method fits better than the other. You essentially have two ways to build your file: Single Slide Everything is built on a single slide. This is an efficient way to structure your file because it enables you to easily share your final game template. Because all quiz questions are built on slide layers, Storyline’s built-in quiz results options won’t be available to track and report the game scores. Separate Slides The other option is to build your questions as separate slides. Using your game board as your home slide, each marker loads a quiz question either as a lightbox slide or jumps the learner to the new slide. After completing the question, the learner is returned to the home slide where the marker is updated to reflect the learner’s correct or incorrect answer. This Week’s Challenge This week your challenge is to build a simple e-learning game. Tools You can use Articulate Storyline or Articulate Quizmaker to create your e-learning game. To get you started, take a look at this e-learning game from our downloads gallery. Last Week’s E-Learning Challenge To help you find a game plan for this week’s challenge, take a look at the highlights from last week’s branching scenarios challenge: Jackie Van Nice kicked off this week’s challenge with an elegant example of smooth animations and creative type design. Be sure to check out Jackie’s blog post to learn more about her design process. Awesome demo, Jackie! Kimberly Bourque followed up with a creative example that asks learners to guess their leadership style before beginning the simulation. Well done, Kimberly! Gemma Henderson put together an illustrated example that features a creative rollovers for the question choices. Amazing example, Gem! El Burgaluva shared a creative, character-driven example that features photo characters and chat boxes for each scenario. Great demo, Leslie! How to Build a Simple E-Learning Game Learn how to build an e-learning game in this video tutorial series. New to the E-Learning Challenges? The weekly e-learning challenges are ongoing opportunities to learn, share, and build your e-learning portfolios. You can jump into any or all of the previous challenges anytime you want. I’ll update the recap posts to include your demos.Showing Meaningful Comparisons in E-Learning #1
E-Learning Challenge #1: Challenge | Recap This week I worked with an Articulate Storyline user who needed to build some interactive feature comparisons for their products. The interactions needed to simplify product data (specs, costs) and show meaningful comparisons between their products and their competitors’ products (size, weight, proportion). It made me aware that you can also apply comparisons beyond technical training. For example, you can feature comparisons between behavior (legal vs. illegal), decision-making (ethical vs. unethical), choices (good vs. poor), and more. You could build comparisons on almost anything. The key is to show them, so they’re meaningful to learners. And that's what this week's challenge is all about. Challenge of the Week This week, your challenge is to use the provided source files to create an interactive demo to compare the different sizes of aircraft. Objective: Design an interactive graphic to show relative sizes for a series of airplanes. Check out this Wikipedia entry on giant aircraft for inspiration. Assets: Download the airplane graphics. They’re available in .png (transparent) and .pptx (PowerPoint) formats. Tools: You can use Storyline, Articulate Studio, or PowerPoint to create your interaction or infographic. Share Your E-Learning Challenge Demos This is a great way to practice your visual communication skills while building your e-learning portfolio. To share your files, do one of the following: Comments: Use the comments section below to share a link to your published project. The comments section allows links but not attachments. You should use the forums if you have a question or want to share your source files. Forums: Create a new thread in the forums and share a link to your published source file. You can also attach your project files if you want help or feedback. Personal blog: Post your published example on your blog or website. Examples Here are a few examples to get you started: Scale of the Universe Powers of Ten Planet size comparison What You Can Do in 25 Square Meters Cell Size and Scale The Size of Our World Kingdom of the Blue Whale Great whales Tapuiassauro, the new dinosaur from Brazil What are the E-Learning Challenges? The weekly e-learning challenges are ongoing opportunities to learn, share, and build your e-learning portfolios. You can jump into any or all of the previous challenges anytime you want. I’ll update the recap posts to include your demos. Learn more about the challenges in this Q&A post and why and how to participate in this helpful article.Show Us Your Best Folder Tabs Interactions #2
E-Learning Challenge #2: Challenge | Recap Tabs interactions Working with a lot of related content on a single slide can be challenging. Our instinct directs us to space content across multiple slides to avoid overloading our learners with too much information. Tabs interactions are a great way to chunk content into meaningful sections—or tabs—so learners can remain focused in the moment without jumping out to new slides. Challenge of the Week Tabs interactions come in all shapes and sizes. Show and share your best, out-of-the-box ideas for an innovative tabs interaction: Objective: Design a 5-tab interaction. Tabs should be on the left or the right and need to be persistent over slides or layers. PowerPoint and Storyline users should take a look at using slide layouts to maintain tab states over multiple slides. Storyline users have a few more design tools including states, slide layers, and variables. Tools: You can use Storyline or PowerPoint to create your interaction or infographic. And no, using the pre-built Engage tabs interaction doesn’t count <grin>. Resources: Check out Tom’s inspirational post this week. He shared a bunch of free tabs templates in both Storyline and PowerPoint. We also have some free templates for Storyline and PowerPoint in the downloads section. Common E-Learning Interactions: Tabs Navigation (2018) #199 Share your tabs interaction examples in our current challenge.How Are Course Designers Using Characters in E-Learning? #18
Characters in E-Learning #18: Challenge | Recap One of the most active topics in our community is around using characters in online courses. Whether they’re photographic, illustrated, or animated, and whether you call them avatars, talking heads, on-screen coaches, or pedagogical agents, instructional characters can help connect your learners to the content. Examples of characters in e-learning Presenter character A popular way to use characters in courses is as a virtual host or presenter that guides your learners through the e-learning course. View the character host example Interactive Characters Using interactive markers and labels you can introduce your learners to a cast of real or fictitious characters. View the interactive character example Challenge of the week This week your challenge is to show us how to use characters in e-learning. You can create static slides that show character-based ideas, or build something more dynamic to show the interaction between characters. Tools You can use Articulate Storyline, Articulate Studio ’09, Articulate Studio ’13, or PowerPoint to show your character-inspired interactions. Resources You May Already Own the Tools to Create Simple E-Learning Avatars 7 Tips for Better E-Learning Scenarios Forum discussions Using photos of real company people in your courses Advantages of using characters in e-learning courses What do you think of animated avatars in e-learning? Customized characters with movements and expressions Changing a character's expression on a timeline How to choose your course avatar Case study using avatars Fun with avatars Is it possible to have characters talk? Getting characters to change state along the timeline Building characters with cartoons Tutorials Using custom states to bundle your most-used character poses How to create character packs with your own photos and illustrations Create your own characters and sets using the PowerPoint drawing tools Change state of character in Storyline when dragged over another shape How to use the Storyline characters & triggers to build interactive elearning & feedback Additional resources Jeff Goldman has a helpful character chart Last week’s e-learning job aids challenge You guys sure dragged out some amazing examples for our last weekly challenge. One of the things I love about these challenges is the way you all bring your own individual touch to each one. To help stay in character this week, check out the inspirational examples your fellow community members shared in the last challenge: David Lindenberg shared a great example of giving learners a choice between taking the formal course or getting the facts from a job aid. Ari Avivi shared a blended example that demonstrates one way to incorporate handouts with the online course. Nice work, Ari. Joseph Ramanui shared an elegant language training example that features course-based activities and quick reference guides. Jenise Cook demonstrated how job aids and resources can support online new hire orientation training with organization charts, office maps, and security policies. Great ideas, Jenise! Jeff Kortenbosch created an interactive demo for software training. This is also a great example of how you can mock up ideas for these challenges without having to build out the entire demo. Be sure to download Jeff’s source file that he shared. Using Characters in E-Learning #247 Share your charcter examples in our current challenge.Call Center Training in Online Learning #47
E-Learning Challenge #47: Challenge | Recap One of our most popular interactions is the call center scenario that ships with Storyline. It’s not popular because it’s the world’s best-looking interaction—it isn't. It’s a popular template because call center training is a popular topic. Almost every company has some degree of customer support training and this template is the go-to template for call center training. As the saying goes, if the only call center template you have is the built-in Two-Person Scenario, then that's the one you use. Hopefully not after this week's challenge! Challenge of the week This week your challenge is to design a call center interaction. You can choose any area of call center training you like. Don’t worry about scripting out a detailed or authentic storyboard. Prototypes, unfinished interactions, and even sketches are perfectly acceptable. Do you design call center training? That's great. Feel free to share examples you’ve already built. This week's challenge is all about sharing creative ideas and we'd love to see what you've created. Need some ideas to get you started? Feel free to use use placeholder content for your interaction. The topics below are only ideas to guide your use of placeholder content. Call center training for broadcast & internet companies Anatomy of a call center Reducing wait times Dealing with angry customers Rebuild Storyline's two-person scenario interaction Tools You can use Articulate Storyline, Articulate Studio, or PowerPoint to design your call center interaction. Resources Here are a few resources to help kickstart your creative juices: Create an interactive scenario How Your Visual Voice Helps Build Better E-Learning Design Better Quizzes Using Custom Background Images Design Mapping Share your e-learning work Comments: Use the comments section below to share a link to your published project and blog post. Forums: Create your own thread in our E-Learning Heroes forums and share a link to your published demo. Personal blog: If you have a blog, please consider writing about your challenges. We’ll link back to your posts so the great work you’re sharing gets even more exposure. Twitter: If you share your demos on Twitter, try using #ELHChallenge so your tweeps can track your e-learning coolness. Facebook: Reply to this Facebook post with a screenshot of your project and a link to your demo. Last week’s challenge Before you dial into this week’s challenge, take a break to check out the e-learning portfolios your fellow community members shared in last week’s challenge: E-Learning Challenge #46: Show Us Your E-Learning Portfolio More about the e-learning challenges: The weekly challenges are ongoing opportunities to learn, share, and build your e-learning portfolios. You can jump into any or all of the previous challenges anytime you want. I’ll update the recap posts to include your demos. Even if you’re using a trial version of Studio ’13 or Storyline, you can absolutely publish your challenge files. Just sign up for a fully functional, free 30-day trial, and have at it. And remember to post your questions and comments in the forums; we're here to help.Education Podcasts in Online Training #39
Education Podcasts in E-Learning (#39): Challenge | Recap I've always been a big fan of audio podcasts for everything from learning to entertainment. One of my favorite audio projects comes from StoryCorps. Specializing in capturing oral history, StoryCorps travels around the country setting up MobileBooths—recording studios housed in Airstream trailers. They invite pairs of people to interview each other for 40 minutes about the most important moments in their lives. StoryCorps keeps a copy and provides participants a CD copy of the interview. They even offer a free Do-It-Yourself Instruction Guide for capturing and recording your own interviews. While their focus is on storytelling and oral history, there’s plenty of interviewing techniques course designers can apply to their own training projects. So I thought it’d be interesting in our challenge this week to switch gears from a visual focus, and instead play with our audio sense to design a podcast. Challenge of the week This week your challenge is to record your answers to the following 10 interview questions: E-Learning Podcast Interview Questions: Tell us a little about yourself and the types of e-learning projects you most enjoy. How did you become an e-learning or instructional designer? What are the essentials of good e-learning design? Tell me about your most successful e-learning project. What are the most important criteria in evaluating e-learning? What are some common mistakes new course designers make and how can they avoid them? How is designing mobile learning different than designing for the desktop? How do you evaluate whether your course was effective? How do you keep up your skills and stay current in the industry? What is the future of e-learning? Save each audio clip as its own file. Use a naming convention that makes it easy to identify each audio file to the corresponding question. You can use numbers (1-10) or any format that works best for you. In the comments section or on your own blog, link to each of your 10 audio clips. I’ll compile each of your questions into an interactive audio project. Tools You can use Articulate Storyline, Articulate Studio, Audacity, or any other audio recording program to record your podcast. Last week’s challenge Before you sound off in this week’s challenge, check out the amazing game templates your fellow community members shared in last week’s template challenge: Melissa Milloway joined the weekly challenges with a creative menu-themed game board. Melissa later jumped into the challenge with a gamified tribute to Game of Thrones. Terrific examples, Melissa! Jackie Van Nice adapted her game template for a sales training project with a tropical theme and Mai Tai progress meter. You can read all about Jackie’s project over at her blog. Jackie also shared a PowerPoint version of her game template. Mary Cropp shared a really awesome demo that takes learners on a hospital tour to learn about potential donors while restoring sight to blind people. Great concept, Mary! Richard Watson took learners on a culture quest with his creative adaptation of the template. Thanks, Richard! Scott Truelove hit a homerun in his baseball-themed game that puts learners in the championship game with the option to choose type of pitch. Great concept, Scott! Nick Russell shared another creative demo with this corporate game that takes learners on an ethical journey while trapping demons in a cookie jar. You heard me. Check out the demo and the Storyline template he shared. Awesome, Nick! Dan Sweigert rocked out with this e-learning hit that teaches learners what it takes to break into the music business. You can read more about Dan’s rock star project over at his blog. Great job, Dan! Julia B joined the community with her first e-learning challenge that teaches learners all about good dog training. Lots of treats in this demo, Julia! Dana Dutiel shared a bellissimo game idea that teaches the science of baking. Mark aced his demo with this above par sales game. Great demo, Mark! Daniel Brigham asked learners to help Johnny overcome his fear of writing research papers in this hand-drawn game template. Nicely done, Daniel! Share Your E-Learning Podcast Interview! View the current podcast challenge and share your own answers to the interview questions.Steal This E-Learning Template #38
E-Learning Challenge #38: Challenge | Recap E-learning Conundrum: Modifying Templates You’ve Googled, Bing’d, and even asked Jeeves, but still haven’t found the right template for your project. It’s not like there aren’t enough options. If only this game weren’t a western theme. This one might work if the menu were on the left. I like this one but the colors aren’t in season. Pfft, this one is too outdated for my learners. And who creates pirate training? We hear this all the time and it’s totally valid. I mean, it’s not like you open a template and press the Convert Template to Match My Course Design button and voilà, your template is ready to go. Basic customizations like changing the template’s colors and swapping placeholder graphics are easy. For most course designers, the real challenge is seeing the template for more than its intended purpose. A Quest for the Perfect E-Learning Template A few weeks ago, community member Jackie Van Nice shared a really fun game template for Storyline. The template was based on a custom project Jackie created for an earlier e-learning challenge. What’s really helpful is to compare the before-after (or is it after-before?) examples: You can read all about both projects on Jackie’s blog. She even recorded some video tutorials to help you get started with the template. Seeing both the template and custom versions reminded me of the importance of leveraging existing course assets for one's own e-learning projects. And that's what this week's challenge is all about! Challenge of the Week This week your challenge is to repurpose the Create Your Own Quest template into something of your own. “Wait! The Quest template is only available in Storyline so I guess I can’t participate this week. Thanks a lot, David.” You can totally participate! In fact, not having the same software is exactly the type of constraint this challenge is all about. The objective here is to leverage the essence of the template into something for your own needs. Update: Jackie shared a PowerPoint version of her template in a recent discussion. Tools You can use Articulate Storyline, Articulate Studio, or PowerPoint to create your template makeover. Resources Here are some articles that will help you think through your template design. If you get stuck on ideas, just ask in the comments below and we’ll share some more ideas. How to Create an E-Learning Template That Works Here’s How to Build an E-Learning Template That Will Rock Your World Here’s How to Create Your Own E-Learning Template in PowerPoint Design Better Quizzes Using Custom Background Images More about the e-learning challenges: The weekly challenges are ongoing opportunities to learn, share, and build your e-learning portfolios. You can jump into any or all of the previous challenges anytime you want. We’ll feature your work and provide feedback if you request it. Wishing you a customized week, E-Learning Heroes! Even if you’re using a trial version of Studio ’13 or Storyline, you can absolutely publish your challenge files. Just sign up for a fully functional, free trial, and have at it. And remember 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.Interactive Org Charts in Online Training #43
E-Learning Challenge #43: Challenge | Recap Challenge of the Week This week, your challenge is to design an interactive graphic to introduce an organization’s team members or key players. Tools You can use Articulate Storyline, Articulate Studio, or PowerPoint to build your interactive who’s who or org chart. Resources Here are a few resources to get you started. If you know of any good interactions that would support this week's challenge, please include them in the comments section. Blog posts: Interactive Scenarios: Snapshot Focus Effect Here’s a Simple Way to Convert Your Course to an Interactive Story Horsing Around with Articulate Storyline Templates: Interactive Story (PowerPoint) Tabs Interaction: Meet the Team (Storyline) Customizable Drag-and-Drop (Storyline) Interactive Images: Snapshot Focus Version 1 | Version 2 (Storyline) Last Week’s Challenge Before you introduce yourself in this week’s meet-and-greet, take a look at the smartphone videos your fellow community members shared in last week’s challenge. Share Your Org Chart Examples! We have a new org chart challenge for 2019. Head over to the current challenge to share your work.Show Us Your E-Learning Portfolio #46
Share Your E-Learning Portfolio (#46): Challenge | Recap Challenge of the week This week’s challenge is all about your e-learning portfolios. We already know you do awesome work, and we want to help others find your awesome work. Last week’s e-learning challenge E-Learning Audio Tips & Tricks Share Your E-Learning Portfolios This challenge is closed, but you can share your e-learning portfolios in the following challenges: Audio Interviews: Share Your Tips for Creating Effective E-Learning Portfolios #138 Share Your E-Learning Portfolios with Rise 360 #254 Share Your E-Learning and Instructional Design Portfolios #333
