2025: The Year AI Landed
If you're hearing this message, the machines have won, and Instructional Design is dead as we know it... Hello! For this week's #ELearningChallenge I've created an interactive video portfolio to highlight four projects I built this year with the help of artificial intelligence. Despite the apocalyptic tone, I'm excited about the creative possibilities of generative AI. I certainly couldn't have made this last year. Videos created using Powtoon's AI Text to Video feature and edited with Camtasia. And just like my recent coffee-making demo, this is also fully accessible from the keyboard. Anywhere you see an underlined letter in a button, that key will perform its function. If you're wondering how I changed the colour of the captions from white to black, and back again, to improve legibility during the intro... Code to change captions to white // Stop any existing observer first if (window.captionObserver) { window.captionObserver.disconnect(); } // Monitor for caption changes and force white color window.captionObserver = new MutationObserver(function() { var allCaptionElements = document.querySelectorAll('[class*="caption"], [class*="acc-"]'); allCaptionElements.forEach(function(element) { element.style.setProperty('color', 'white', 'important'); var children = element.querySelectorAll('*'); children.forEach(function(child) { child.style.setProperty('color', 'white', 'important'); }); }); }); window.captionObserver.observe(document.body, { childList: true, subtree: true, attributes: true }); Code to change captions back to black // Stop the white observer if (window.captionObserver) { window.captionObserver.disconnect(); } // Apply black once var allCaptionElements = document.querySelectorAll('[class*="caption"], [class*="acc-"]'); allCaptionElements.forEach(function(element) { element.style.setProperty('color', 'black', 'important'); var children = element.querySelectorAll('*'); children.forEach(function(child) { child.style.setProperty('color', 'black', 'important'); }); }); And yes, AI helped me do this! Sift through the wreckage of my career here: https://bit.ly/elhc534 Oh, and shout out to any fans of SILO.
Learning Science Update
Challenge Submission – Minimal, Review-Friendly AI-Assisted Animation For this challenge, two slides from the Opportunity theme in the content library were selected as a focused demonstration of AI-assisted animation approaches. This submission explores how AI-assisted JavaScript prompting can be used to create effective motion design while remaining easy to review, understand, and reuse across projects. Slide 1 intentionally uses the first AI-suggested JavaScript animation without modification. The goal was to evaluate the quality of a default AI-generated timeline. From prompt to result, the animation was implemented in approximately two minutes, demonstrating how AI can quickly establish a clean, professional entrance sequence with minimal effort. Slide 2 introduces a hybrid animation approach, designed with readability and adaptability in mind: A simple JavaScript entrance animation handles the vertical timeline dots. Text boxes rely on lightweight opacity transitions. Manual time-shifting aligns text entrances with dot interactions. Instead of one complex JavaScript timeline controlling everything, the interaction logic is distributed: Motion is broken into small, understandable pieces. Timing relationships remain visible and adjustable. Reviewers can easily trace how each interaction affects the UI. The resulting experience still feels animated, but the perceived motion comes largely from: Delays and offsets Layer changes Consistent spatial relationships between dots and text This makes the approach easier to follow during review and simpler to apply to similar projects, especially compared to a single, tightly coupled JavaScript animation. The design demonstrates how thoughtful timing and minimal motion can deliver clarity, responsiveness, and polish—without increasing implementation complexity. View project here: #533_AI_Animations.storyNew Tutorial! Build Dynamic Animated Bar Charts In Storyline Using JavaScript
Hi Heroes, I’m excited to share the latest episode of my Storyline Magic Series with you all! In this episode, I'll be showing you how to create dynamic animated bar charts in Articulate Storyline 360, using standard Storyline shapes, variables, and a touch of JavaScript magic. 📊✨ One of the highlights of this technique is that your chart animations are controlled using Storyline number variables, and bar shapes will adjust their height beautifully across all screen sizes, ensuring consistent results for all users. By the end of the tutorial, you’ll have a reusable template that you can apply to any bar chart designs you want to bring to life in Storyline! Check out the full tutorial below, along with a link to all previous episodes in the series: Watch the full series here - https://lnkd.in/dNvyD7wv --- My name's Chris Hodgson, an eLearning developer and software trainer based in the UK. I enjoy creating fun, unique, and engaging online experiences using Articulate software! Connect with me on LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/chrishodgson44/
Rise notes utility
I added a global utility bar to my Rise course to add a simple 'notes' piece, data is kept in the browser's local storage and it will not write to SCORM. Because of the global nature of this addon, it can be a handy way to make the functionality, and even some branding, always available to users across your entire course.
(loading) speed of Storyline 360 slides
Hi all, Does anyone know what influences the loading time of storyline 360 slides? We are creating educational games with storyline, and are trying to figure out how we can decrease the amount of loading (with the three loading dots) between slides. I have a few ideas on what impacts the slide loading time, for example: Amount of layers on a slide Amount of objects on a slide Amount of images in a slide The length of javascript functions The amount of audio files The size of audio files The amount of video files And maybe other that I haven't thought of yet.. And a few questions: Does it matter if you put objects / images / video / audio on timeline start, or after let's say 1 second? How does Storyline internal "pre-load" slide work? I have read somewhere it makes an educated guess which slide comes next, and preloads it. But, as we make a slide selection based on variables, that won't work. Is there any way we can feed storyline information about the upcoming slide, so it can preload it already? I'm very curious to your insights. I will also do some research myself the next few months, and share the outcome, but it will help to gather some input and thoughts from other users before diving in further!Simple Tabs
That’s probably the most accurate way to describe this submission, possibly the most boring interaction I’ve ever produced for an eLearning challenge. Ironically, it’s built around tabs, which can be pretty useful when done right (keep them simple, clean, and don’t overthink it). But here’s the twist: If you manage to stick around for 2 whole minutes, you’ll unlock a reward, a downloadable Storyline file. Because if you’ve got the stamina to survive two minutes of my "creativity," you deserve something. Inside: 🕒 A global timer built with JavaScript 🎞️ Image transitions powered by the Web Animation API 🎁 And who knows, maybe a surprise or two. LaunchAlways on top
I just set myself the challenge of having elements that are "always on top". I've worked on a handful of courses in the past, that had an irregular shaped header graphic (sometimes with drop shadow), where it would have been great to be able to set some elements in the Master Template to appears always on top of other elements within the module. For those courses, I had to create a slice of the header (the irregular shaped part) and paste on each slide, where the header appeared over another element on the slide. I have had some success, and of course it is a JavaScript implementation. This is very much an ALPHA release. Here's the implementation if interested in having a play with it or extending it. I'm sure there will be some elements, that I haven't played with, that may need some extra logic in the JS. For each element you would like to appear always on top, add the string "{AOT}" in the "Alternative text" field. If the element is decorative, you can just add "{AOT}". This will be taken care of during processing (removed, and set to aria-hidden=true). If the element is non-decorative, for example an exit button, you would just add "{AOT}Exit" to the alternative text. This would also be process, and "{AOT}" removed and "Exit" retained in the ALT text. Add the following script to the "timeline starts" on the SLIDE MASTER. This ensures that the script will process on every slide. const init = () => { // inititial value for z-index let z = 999; // get all elements with data-acc-text attribute starting with "{AOT}" const elements = document.querySelectorAll('[data-acc-text^="{AOT}"]'); // loop through each element elements.forEach(element => { // get the modelId and accText from the element's dataset const { modelId, accText } = element.dataset; // get the root element with the same modelId const rootElement = document.querySelector(`[data-model-id="${modelId}"]`); // set the z-index of the root element (incrementing by 1 each time) rootElement.style.zIndex = z++; // get the alternative text by removing "{AOT}" from accText and trimming the result const alt = String(accText).replace('{AOT}', '').trim(); // get the alt element with the id "acc-${modelId}" const altElement = document.getElementById(`acc-${modelId}`); // set the alternative text to the element's dataset element.dataset.accText = alt; // re-write the inner text of the alt element altElement.innerText = alt; // if the alternative text is empty (decorative), set the aria-hidden attribute to true and the z-index to -1 if (!alt) { altElement.setAttribute('aria-hidden', 'true'); altElement.style.zIndex = '-1'; } else { if (altElement.hasAttribute('aria-label')) altElement.setAttribute('aria-label', alt); } }); }; requestAnimationFrame(() => { init(); }); I've also including a very simple example file. This just demonstrates that the designated "Always on top" elements will appear over the image on the slide.
